Well, no. That didn't happen in the book. One of our objectives in the FReeper Book Club's study of this beast is to attempt to figure out exactly what she did expect to happen. I'm not ruling that prediction out, in fact I think it entirely possible, but it didn't happen within the confines of the novel.
One difficulty with the thing is that Atlas doesn't actually shrug within it, he only begins to. Rand gives us one hopeful image at the end, covered wagons, but it is entirely unclear how, precisely, she expects a new society to coalesce around the precepts of Galt. A lot of utopian fiction - I include Karl Marx - suffers from that difficulty. There is a finely planned and executed sequence of destruction and fall, and then poof! - magic. Voila! The State withers away. Abracadabra! Laissez faire capitalism spreads throughout the land. Maybe so, maybe no, but I haven't seen either one yet.
The pertinence of Atlas Shrugged to the moment is, at least for me, in the mechanism of that decay and fall. In that I think she's disturbingly accurate. Why that is so is another question we'll be taking up. Anyone who wishes to discuss these things, please join us. Publius is keeping the ping list.
>> Well, no. That didn’t happen in the book. One of our objectives in the FReeper Book Club’s study of this beast is to attempt to figure out exactly what she did expect to happen. I’m not ruling that prediction out, in fact I think it entirely possible, but it didn’t happen within the confines of the novel. <<
Actually, while we don’t know for certain that America experienced such massive deaths, we do know that India and China were experiencing deaths by the hundreds of millions by starvation and plague.
>> One difficulty with the thing is that Atlas doesn’t actually shrug within it, he only begins to. <<
Actually, that’s why some of the OTHER defenders that have written to me are nonsense: Atlas is already shrugging throughout the book. The capitalists withdraw, the economy collapses and the socialists take more power. The more the economy goes down, the more people rely on socialism. That’s part of what works in the book.
>> The pertinence of Atlas Shrugged to the moment is, at least for me, in the mechanism of that decay and fall. In that I think she’s disturbingly accurate. <<
Yes, I’ll agree that her criticism of socialism and do-gooderism is withering and accurate.