Heroes of Corporations

joanna bujes joanna.bujes at ebay.sun.com
Tue Oct 1 10:25:12 PDT 2002


At 12:58 AM 10/01/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>Executive headhunter Jeffrey Christian says many of his
>clients are re-reading the 1,075-page novel to remind
>themselves that self-interest is not only the right thing
>to do from an economic standpoint but is moral, as well.

Let me summarize the plot of Atlas Shrugged: all the creative people of the world (entrepreneurial millionaires, inventors, intellectuals) go on strike. That is, they refuse to work for the uncreative/parasitical masses. They create their own statelet in Colorado (or...I forget exactly where...somewhere in the west). There, as a result of having discovered a mysterious but infinite source of energy, they are able to live comfortably and creatively while the rest of the world falls apart around them. They plan to take over the world when it has exhausted itself.

In other words, Atlas Shrugged is the ultimate fairy tale of capitalism. It suggests that you can have capitalism without workers -- assuming you can get your hands on that mysterious source of infinite energy. I think there's a dissertation in there somewhere about how Rand was a distorted product of stakhanovite Stalinist thinking....allbeit shifted to those who do mental work. ALL Rand good characters live for their work. Every once in a while they have really hot, aggressive, extra-marital, ego-expanding sex.

I read all of Ayn Rand when I was eleven. I do think Atlas Shrugged is a classic nut piece, worth a good giggle.

Joanna



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