To fully understand Atlas Shrugged, you have to know a little bit about the book's author, Ayn Rand. Rand was born in 1905 in Czarist Russia. As a young girl, she witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution which brought the Communists to power. Her father was a shop owner, so she saw firsthand what happens when an economy becomes centrally-controlled.
Rand went to college in the new Soviet Union, an experience that left her with a deep distrust of academia. The universities were run by uneducated Bolsheviks who expelled all the real educators in favor of people who taught courses full of Marxist-Leninist ideology. Rand received permission to visit some relatives in New York in 1926. She never returned to the Soviet Union.
With that in mind, let's look at this book. Atlas Shrugged is, on the surface, a very simple story. The main character is Dagny Taggart, a fiercely independent woman who is the Vice President of Taggart Transcontinental, the largest railroad in the United States. In this world (set in Rand's future; that is, ten years in the future from 1957, when the book was published.), most of the nations on the planet have turned to socialism, including the title "People's State of" in their name. The United States, the only remaining capitalist republic, is in a slow, depression-like economic decline. But there are bright spots of hope, industries run and managed by people with an "old-style" work ethic. Taggart Transcontinental is just such a company, despite the efforts of Dagny's brother, the man who runs the railroad. He is inflicted with what I call wealth guilt; he is a socialist with millions.
As the economy worsens, the "enlightened" people in education and government begin to sponsor legislation intended to give everyone a "fair" shot at business success. At first, these laws are essentially unenforceable and easily worked around; later, they become more and more specific, eventually targeting individual industries and, seemingly, individuals. As these laws make running a legitimate business more and more difficult, something extraordinary begins to happen: the people of vision and hard work begin to disappear.
I won't delve into that last point much because to tell you any more would ruin the ending of the novel. Suffice it to say that these disappearances play a central role in explaining the point of the book. And what, you may ask, is the point? Objectivism. Objectivism is the word Rand used to describe her philosophy. It is the belief that greed has been misunderstood in modern society; to her, trying to acheive as much as possible (money, property, etc.) actually helps society. Anything that stands in the way of human beings working and acheiving to their greatest potential should be eliminated. These roadblocks (according to the book) include personal income taxes, any sort of regulation on business, and no federal government services beyond those intended to maintain interstate infrastructure and the defense of the nation.
I'll speak more about my thoughts concerning Objectivism and the book in the second part of my review. I know you can hardly wait ;-)
Posted by Matthew at June 30, 2004 10:18 AM
Objectivism is not addressing the misunderstanding of greed in society, because objectivism proports that any notion of society as it exists now is completely flawed. Instead objectivism is a compass by which human potential is realized through guidance and careful consideration of ones own ability. At no point in Atlas Shrugged does Ayn Rand propose the elimination of income taxing by a JUST government, nor does she limit governmental spending to two polarized candidates.
Posted by: at July 7, 2004 01:28 AMGood points, especially about income taxes. I had not stopped to consider that the taxes railed against in the book were collected by a government bent on socialism.
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