Our First FReeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged

A Publius Essay | 15 January 2009 | Publius

[Publius]

Over the past few weeks, Ayn Rand’s classic, Atlas Shrugged, has been mentioned in articles in the Wall Street Journal and among conservative and libertarian bloggers. Two questions are being debated by those who have read the book.

1. Are we living in a time line that follows the book?
2. What chapter are we in?

Besides those who have read the book, there are FReepers with little awareness of Rand and her work. Some are turned off by the length of her works of fiction. Some of a more religious bent have problems with Rand’s atheism. Some wish she had left the few sex scenes out. Some just think she’s a bad writer.

I would like to propose our first FReeper Book Club effort: A chance for a group of us to read Atlas Shrugged together, both old hands and newcomers to the book. Once this effort settles in, I or others might want to start FReeper Book Clubs dedicated to Forrest McDonald’s States’ Rights and the Union, or Alexis de Toqueville’s Democracy in America. I like the idea of an interleaved reading of both the “Federalist Papers” and “Anti-Federalist Papers” together in strict chronological order so as to see the point and counterpoint of the debate over the Constitution. I’ve picked Atlas Shrugged for starters because it’s a hot topic and it’s fun. Once we get into the habit of reading and discussing together, we can tackle the heavier stuff.

The book is divided into 30 chapters. I propose to post a thread on one chapter every Saturday, which would make 30 threads over a period of 30 weeks to cover the entire book. I’ll provide a short synopsis of the chapter, expound on certain themes and raise questions to stimulate debate. If FReeper Book Club members feel that a faster pace is better, we can settle on one.

Atlas and Me

I came to Atlas Shrugged via the usual method: I read it in high school. The bully who sat behind me and enjoyed pounding me at the Catholic prep school I attended in New Jersey exposed me to the book by hitting me on the head with it. Its weight made an immediate impression. Our sophomore English teacher was not teaching the book, and he suggested that the bully pound me with something of lesser weight, such as The Red Badge of Courage.

The English teacher panned the book, stating that it was the kind of book an immature person might enjoy, but a mature adult with experience of the world could not take Rand seriously. The solutions proposed by Atlas Shrugged were not realistic.

The vice principal, a priest from Brooklyn who believed in FDR, JFK, LBJ and God, in that order, excoriated Rand for writing “an anti-Christian epic” and broadly hinted that the bully was sinning by reading it. Better to hit someone over the head with it. The solutions proposed by Atlas Shrugged were evil.

I read the book anyway.

The Strange World of Atlas Shrugged

Rand’s book was written between 1945 and 1956 and published in 1957. During the postwar years, America saw massive changes in society and technology, and the shape of world politics shifted mightily. None of this is reflected in the book. Some of the differences between Rand’s world and our own are rather egregious and require comment.

• There was no Cold War. Nation after nation accepted some form of socialism without argument and took the title of “People’s State”. America drifted more slowly into socialism, and the book can be viewed as the story of how two brave entrepreneurs fought the final plunge into the abyss.
• America was frozen in time with respect to culture and technology. Television did not replace radio. Live classical music was still played on network radio.
• The Interstate Highway System, proposed by Eisenhower in 1956, was never built. This was the largest and greatest accomplishment of American socialism on our time line, but Rand didn’t see it coming. In the book, America was connected by a network of decaying two-lane roads.
• Commercial air travel did not take off. There is a hint that airlines were operating their own separate airports just as railroads operated their own separate stations before the concept of “union” stations came along in the Twenties. An executive who needed to fly got a pilot’s license and flew his own private plane.
• Railroads were still the main form of transportation, and passenger rail was thriving! Rand never thought of nationalizing passenger trains by creating Amtrak. The conversion from steam to diesel locomotives, a major event in railroading in the Fifties on our time line, went much more slowly in the book. Coal- and even wood-fired steam locomotives still plied the rails. Radio was not used in communication, instead relying on the older technology of telegraphs and phone boxes.
• Outside the cities, it was hard to find a place to make a long distance telephone call.
• American heavy industry did not flee the country to escape high labor costs because the rest of the world had preceded us into communism.
• Good industrialists branded their companies with their own names, such as Wyatt Oil, Rearden Steel, d’Anconia Copper and Mulligan Bank. Bad industrialists hid behind corporate names such as Associated Steel.
• Congress was now called the National Legislature, and the President was now called the Head of State. The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment was even less operative than in our own time. Great violence had obviously been done to the Constitution. All power was vested in bureaucrats
• The can-do spirit of America was crushed. The ubiquitous cry of frustration was, “Who is John Galt?” In other words, “How can anyone hope to make anything better?” A key difference between America and the Third World has always been that when something breaks in America, it gets fixed expeditiously. Maintenance is understood and valued. In the Third World, it either never gets fixed, or it’s fixed when somebody damn well pleases. In the book, America was Third World.

The easiest way to explain these anomalies is to say that Rand lacked the scientific background to project technological change and simply dealt with the technology of her era while projecting political change. But then how did she project the use of ultrasound for Project Xylophone and the holographic projection that protected Galt’s Gulch? There is a strange mix of the old and the new. What marks a total departure from our reality is the change in politics and in the American character.

One can accept all this as artist’s license, but I tried to come up with my own logic for how Rand’s America came to this pass.

Alternative History: Trying the Harry Turtledove Approach

If one wanted to create an alternative history for the universe of Atlas Shrugged, one could start with the 4-way election of 1948. In this alternative history, Henry Wallace won the race, defeating Truman, Dewey and Thurmond, establishing a Labor government on the British model in America. The warning voices of Martin Dies, John Bricker, Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon were stilled.

Wallace wanted no cold war with the Soviets, and with the quick withdrawal of American forces from Europe, Germany was reunified under a communist People’s State government. The Soviet Union, now the People’s State of Russia, never geared up for war, settling instead for passive mediocrity. Britain never rejected Clement Atlee, and with the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a written constitution on the German model, the People’s State of England replaced the United Kingdom. In France, De Gaulle never came to power, and the Fourth Republic morphed into the People’s State of France.

In the Western Hemisphere, figures similar to Fidel Castro established the People’s State of Mexico and other communist countries in Central and South America.

America did not go all the way to People’s State status, however, although intellectuals worked hard toward that end. Instead, America became a gray, downtrodden country accepting an atmosphere of sad decay, much like England today. Americans accepted that things were hopeless and that nothing could be done. Feelings replaced facts. The very nature of reality was questioned.

It took only a decade of economic stasis, misguided politics and cultural pollution to create the hell described by Rand.

Some Thoughts on the Movie

A scriptwriter would have a hard time shrinking the story to fill a two or three hour time slot even if all the long speeches were eliminated. A miniseries for television would have served the book better.

This effort would be a production designer’s dream. I would point to John Vallone, who handled production design for Walter Hill’s 1984 classic, “Streets of Fire”. Vallone created a fascinating mix of Fifties and Eighties that had no parallel in real time. Something in the same vein would make the movie memorable, rather than setting it in the present or a future that looks like the present.

Let’s Get Started

I will build a ping list for our FReeper Book Club, so sign in on this thread. I’ll use the keyword “freeperbookclub” to mark these threads as they are posted.

Welcome to our first effort. Prepare to read and discuss.

[MonicaG]

P-Diddy? Ludacris? Kanye? R-Kelley? Ice-Cube? Hard to say...

[MonicaG]

Antonio - would be perfect. Gary Sinise as Galt?

[buschbaby]

Sign me up please! I’m 2/3rd of the way through the book for the first time and am loving it. I asked for Atlas Shrugged for Christmas and must say it’s the best present I got.

[citizen]

When I moved from the house to the condo, I purged paperbacks from 18 cases (11x17) down to 6...I must have put AS in the Goodwill group. So I have ordered a used copy from Barnes & Noble.

[KingNo155]

the fountainhead via youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxSSMl8pAE4

[Vor Lady]

Ping for you.

[The Louiswu]

..."Television and more recently, the internet being such powerful tools; useful to influence, train and motivate the 2 minutes hate Orwell wrote of (but didn’t envision internet-led 24/7/365 hate of President Bush, apparently)."

There have always been weak minded people who will easily come under the influence of any strong authority. The alphabet networks and the internet just reach those people quicker, spread the hate and lies faster, it still takes a weak mind to fall under the spell of those that spew the hate and lies.

[melissa_in_ga]

Better late than never. Can you add me to the book club ping list? I had Atlas Shrugged on my bookshelf for years, and finally picked it up last week. At about 200 pages in, I’m amazed at the parallels between Rand’s world then, and our world today. I’d like to be in on the discussion.

Thanks!

[firebrand]

I haven't read the entire thread, but I don't see any mention of the fact that Objectivism (Rand's philosophy of selfishness) is 180 degrees away from Christianity.

Maybe this will come up in your discussions.

I read Rand when I was fifteen and sixteen years old and felt justified afterward in taking an eleven-year vacation from my faith.

Just saying.

[NJJ]

Please add me to your ping list. I will have to find my old copy or buy a new one.

I first read it in the 60’s, then again about 20 years ago. So it's now about time.

Two things I've always wondered about:

1)Two of Ayn Rand's male heros from Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead were Howard Roark and Hank Reardon; both of their initials being H.R.??

2)I've always wanted to see it as a movie, or better, a TV Miniseries and I've always wondered if it should be updated to modern technology. After much thought I'm convinced it has to be just as it was written: railroads and high tech steel. Anything else would be too distracting. As written, it would be more abstract but applicable to the essence of reality.

Thanks, Norm

[Mugwumps]

Please add me to the ping list for this book club. Great idea, btw!

[Nowhere Man]

I think there are times that Rand sometimes made her side too perfect, but they are people who are flawed like the rest of us. Still, I think she has a good grasp on the metaphor where if people are taxed too much to the point to where their money is going down a rathole, yet they are still demonized. If they object to it, they are demonized and resented more. Basically, the people who produce feel so upset and angry, they pull an Eric Cartman and say “screw you guys, I’m going home” and denying society and the marketplace their labor and expertise. There are times I can be a critic of Ayn Rand, but with the election of BO, I would have to say that it is time for Atlas to Shrug so we can stop this slide to socialism.

[Democrat_media]

Atlas Shrugged was awesome!

My other favorite book is “Free to Choose” by Milton Friedman.

[Tired of Taxes]

Please put me on your ping list. Thank you! I just started reading the book, and then I noticed this thread tonight.

Unfortunately, I read a spoiler somewhere, so now I have an idea where the story is going... But I just started the first chapter.

[Joya]

When I first saw this, I thought, “Naw, I don’t have enough time.”

Now, I’ve changed my mind. Please add me to your ping list.

Looking forward to it, and thanks,
Joya

[woodnboats]

Please count me in on your “Atlas Shrugged” discussion group.
Guess I’ll have to put P. J. O’Rourke’s book on “Wealth of Nations” aside, for now, and read AS for about the 10th time since 1957, when I was 14. I’d been planning to do so anyway, ever since mid September, last year. It restoreth my soul.

[Cottonbay]

Just finished it last month...amazing to see it becoming reality.

Please add me to the list

[Knight Templar]

Yes! I’m in.

[Roccus]

Yeah Pub, I’d like on the list. Happened on Chapt. III today and am in the process of catching up.

This could be very interesting.

[Brad’s Gramma]

Bump again....