Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand Celebrates Capitalism
Masterpiece of Objectivism, Intellectualism, and Free Enterprise
Jul 20, 2009
Ayn Rand was born Alissa Rosenbaum in 1905 in Russia. She saw first-hand the horrors of the Russian Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, and life under a socialist regime. These early experiences led her to fall in love with the ideals and freedoms of America while she was still in high school.
In college, she began writing essays about Hollywood, and these writings became her ticket out of Russia. She left under the guise of traveling to California to further her studies of Hollywood. Once she arrived in the United States, she never returned to her homeland.
Ayn Rand immediately began writing screenplays, books, and essays. Her first novel, We the Living, published by MacMillan in 1936, was a manifesto against socialism. This theme stayed with Rand through her entire life and body of works.
Theme and Plot of Atlas Shrugged
Atlas Shrugged begins with the introduction of Dagny Taggart, a woman who is intelligent, powerful, and driven to improve technology and thereby improve human existence. She and her colleague Hank Reardon, in the railroad and mining industries, are thwarted from successful and efficient production and operations by too much government legislation.
The novel unfolds with the government benefiting from the hard work and achievements of the most intellectual minds. By legislating the intellectuals’ activities, it hopes to harness their abilities. As the government grows in power, it squashes anything that doesn’t benefit its interests and workers unions, creating increasingly larger problems.
The core of the problems are revealed when Dagny discovers a rusting hulk of an engine buried in the ruins of the collapsed Twentieth Century Motor Company. It is so advanced it can pull electricity from the air to operate machinery, but it was never developed. It was abandoned because of repressive government policies.This motor is a symbol of what happens to the drive for human achievement when freedom is repressed.
The story deepens as the intellectuals and leading industrialists and entrepreneurs begin disappearing. The government continues to gain more control, and increases legislation designed to benefit workers, but destroy the entrepreneurs. The economy and businesses fail, transportation lines go to ruin, and famine arises. Yet the government still doesn’t change its ways.
Resurgence of Interest in Atlas Shrugged
Recently, Atlas Shrugged has seen a tremendous increase in sales. With the economy sputtering, and people looking for a solution, the theme of Ayn Rand’s signature work resonates with them. She expounds upon her fervent belief that people should work for their own advancement in a capitalist system with this eminent novel.
One of the most famous quotes from the novel is, “Who is John Galt?” It is, in essence, a question asking “What is the answer to society’s problems?” Rand voices her views in the following words of the character Francisco D’Anconia.
“To the glory of mankind, there was…a country of money…for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man’s mind and money were set free…and there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being – the self made man.” Page 414.
“Every desire is driven by the same motor – by our love for a single value, for the highest potentiality of our own existence – and every achievement is an expression of it.” Page 768
The book describes a successful economic model based on efficiency, improving technology, and intellectual resources. It reveals what Ayn Rand pictures happening to the free market system when there is too much government and union interference. In light of the current events and the world economy, people are returning to this classic and its seemingly prophetic message.
Ayn Rand was a Fervent Supporter of Objectivism and Intellectualism
Objectivists believe that people are responsible for gaining knowledge through reason and using that knowledge to create better realities. Therefore, it is people’s moral responsibility to strive for their own happiness through their best achievements. Rand avers that society benefits from intellectual and technological advancement only when people have complete freedom to act upon their ideas under a laissez-faire government.
Her culminating work is a scathing denouncement of socialist systems. In Atlas Shrugged, everyone that does not follow his or her individual ideals comes to a state of destitution, both physically and morally. Those who exercise their freedoms and rights to pursue their dreams are shown to be able to create whatever life they desire.
Keeping Ayn Rand’s philosophy and legacy alive is the mission of the Ayn Rand Institute. It has donated over 1.4 million copies of Rand’s novels to 30,000 teachers in the United States and Canada for use in high school classrooms. Each year since 1986, it has sponsored the Atlas Shrugged Essay Contest in honor of Rand’s philosophical views.
Ayn Rand’s masterwork has been in print for over 50 years. People return to its message on the human condition again and again. Its timeless qualities ensure that it will be read and reviewed for years to come.
Rand, Ayn, Atlas Shrugged, Penguin Group, 1992, copyright 1957
ISBN: 978-0-452-01187-8 Paperback, wth an introduction by Leonard Peikoff
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