[lbo-talk] Happy 50th, 'Atlas Shrugged'!

joanna 123hop at comcast.net
Sat Sep 15 00:46:57 PDT 2007


Carl Remick wrote:


>[A tribute to Ayn Rand, who ranks with Barbara Cartland and Elinor
>Glyn as one of the most successful romance novelists of all time.
>(Fav quote here, from Rand devotee Alan Greenspan: "Parasites who
>persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.") ]
>
Here's the plot to Atlas Shrugged: The world is falling to pieces because it is riddled with parasites -- people who want a free ride and who present themselves as victims in order to obligate those who are strong or more skilled to dothe heavy lifting. Parasitism is not a systemic fact in Rand (they can be drawn from every class); it's a psychological trait. People are born or conditioned to be that way.

A bunch of creative doers, artists, and thinkers (from all classes) have had enough of this so they decide they are going to go on strike (Atlas shruggs and walks away). They run away to some protected spot in Colorado (?) where they have conveniently discovered an infinite source of energy (so the issue of heavy lifting kinda disappears), and here they riff off eachother while waiting for the world of the parasites to crumble so that the they can eventually step back in and run the world as they like.

It's an interesting fantasy. The labouring class disappears (reduced to that mysterious "free energy"), while the artists and the intelligentia and the uberbusinessmen take over. It's kind of like a soft-porn version of Nietzche with a dab of Stakhanov. What makes it interesting to me is the notion of a strike by the intelligentia. (Has that ever happened?)

Rand loved Dostoevsky and loathed Tolstoy. This seems a little odd since Dostoevsky is full of snivelling parasites. But maybe that's what she learned from him.

Joanna



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