Posted on 03/06/2007 2:42:33 PM PST by RWR8189
When Ayn Rand finished writing "Atlas Shrugged" 50 years ago this month, she set off an intellectual shock wave that is still felt today. It's credited for helping to halt the communist tide and ushering in the currents of capitalism. Many readers say it transformed their lives. A 1991 poll rated it the second-most influential book (after the Bible) for Americans.
At one level, "Atlas Shrugged" is a steamy soap opera fused into a page- turning political thriller. At nearly 1,200 pages, it has to be. But the epic account of capitalist heroes versus collectivist villains is merely the vehicle for Ms. Rand's philosophical ideal: "man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
In addition to founding her own philosophical system, objectivism, Rand is honored as the modern fountainhead of laissez-faire capitalism, and as an impassioned, uncompromising, and unapologetic proponent of reason, liberty, individualism, and rational self-interest.
There is much to commend, and much to condemn, in "Atlas Shrugged." Its object – to restore man to his rightful place in a free society – is wholesome. But its ethical basis – an inversion of the Christian values that predicate authentic capitalism – poisons its teachings.
Mixed lessons from Rand's heroes
Rand articulates like no other writer the evils of totalitarianism, interventionism, corporate welfarism, and the socialist mindset. "Atlas Shrugged" describes in wretched detail how collective "we" thinking and middle-of-the-road interventionism leads a nation down a road to serfdom. No one has written more persuasively about property rights, honest money (a gold-backed dollar), and the right of an individual to safeguard his wealth and property from the agents of coercion ("taxation is theft"). And long before Gordon Gekko, icon
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Did you know that Ronald Reagan called libertarianism the "heart and soul of conservatism"?
"The decline of Christianity in the West has led to excessive materialism, homosexuality, pornography, abortion, and other evils"
What's wrong with porn?
Oftentimes, "barriers to entry" are a government creation.
I wonder what Ann would think of todays substitution of "globalism" for "capitalism".
I think she testified at the McCarthy hearings but I would have to check to be certain. Her major contribution was her philosophy which was a catalyst for the anti communist movement.
Altruism is commendable for the individual, but not for a business
I hope you aren't attributing that thought to Ayn Rand. That's about 180 degrees out from her philosophy which dealt with the individual. The corporation or business was no more than an extension of the individuals right to live his life free of the demands for self sacrifice.
flag for later
From Wikipedia: In 1947, during the Second Red Scare, Rand testified as a "friendly witness" before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Her testimony regarded the disparity between her personal experiences in the Soviet Union and the fanciful portrayal of it in the 1943 film Song of Russia. Rand argued that the film grossly misrepresented the socioeconomic conditions in the Soviet Union and portrayed life in the USSR as being much better than it actually was. Furthermore, she believed that even if a temporary alliance with the USSR was necessary to defeat the Nazis, the case for this should not have been made by portraying what she believed were falsely positive images of Soviet life: "If we had good reason, if that is what you believe, all right, then why not tell the truth? Say it is a dictatorship, but we want to be associated with it. Say it is worthwhile being associated with the devil, as Churchill said, in order to defeat another evil which is Hitler. There might be some good argument made for that. But why pretend that Russia was not what it was?"
Don't. Even the sex scene between Hank Reardon and Dagny Taggart is boring.
Too much of Rand was written in opposition to the Communists, to the point that she almost comes off as a photographic negative of their beliefs--excepting of course the secular atheism.
No, I couldn't finish the book--and as proof of my endurance, I even managed to make it to the end of Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Years..
Cheers!
Thanks for your comments. It seems a lot of people rush to distinguish what they dont want to believe or be told when it is pointed out to them that Rand made a significant and original contribution, actually a towering contribution, to literature and philosophy.
Many are intimidated by her seeming confrontation with religion. Whatever value faith may have to humans and for humans, Rand, in essence only said it was not a source of knowledge nor likely to be a reliable guide to action. Where religion may at times be a useful guide to action it is not because of faith but because in some aspect the evolution of the particular religious doctrine was thought through by someone in a way that advanced civilisation. She did seem to say that throughout history religion has been used as a tool by tyrants to dominate and control. She did say that people who look to religion to give them knowledge and make decisions are abandoning their own power of reason, and unlikely to be happy with the outcome.
Others are uncomfortable, apparently, with her thinking through the superficial excuses most people operate on and going to root causes where altruism and human progress are fundamentally in conflict. Adam Smith did not say that CEO's should consider the effects of their action on their "stakeholders", which is a thinly disguised marxist perversion promoted by academics. Adam Smith pointed out that the net effect of 1000 greedy bastard business owner's, however much their personal motives were selfish, competing relatively freely in the marketplace, was to advance the human condition as a consequence of how economic behavior occurs if people are free to contract and own property.
Mostly though, as I predicted, any of these discussions of Rands work degenerates into posts by people who didnt want to do the work of really understanding the progression of her work, from an original but simplistic phase to the achievment and importance of AS which attempts to and comes close to explaining with precision the significance and meaning of all of the main aspects of her philosophy, which like Smith, offers a roadmap to significantly better civilisation. Interstingly, many dont want to be confronted with their resistence to the hard work of thinking. I am more impressed by critiscm of Rand by those who demonstrate they actually understand what she was saying and its significance, as opposed to those who skipped over Galts speech and never went back to see what he said and think about why Rand might have thought it important to include it.
ping.
Or what Barbra Streisand did to Pat Conroy's 'The Prince of Tides'. She mangled it.
Excellent review.
>>these collectivists and not so distant cousins of the 1930's German national socialists,
On that note, I encourage all to see the third quote on my FR profile page, the two-paragraph one by Hayek.
Bump for later.
In 1966, while driving through Houston, I spied a billboard asking, "Who is John Galt?". I had no idea and assumed it was a local politician.
No, you go elsewhere and get a different job. You are not compelled by force to stay.
You completely missed my point. Something that is "mandated" can only be enforced by guns. Have you ever heard of company towns that force workers to stay at the point of a gun ?
You need to do some reading on the subject. I suggest you start with the book "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell.
Explain what religion was practiced, and I mean actively promoted, by Pol Pot, Mao, Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler.
The answer: the state or the race as god
Christian/Jew is a moral order based on rules and basic rights directly from the Creator to man. Think ten Commandments, Golden Rule, Declaration of Independence.
It's only when humans believe "rights" are assigned" by the government that inhumanity arises. That describes communism and other totalitarian regimes, and predicts its results.
Good quotes.
OK, now I have enough of your great input! I'm very impressed with your posts, impressed enough that I might have to start stalking you on FR!
Thanks for your insight.
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