Atlas Shrugged has been, for many, a revelation. Its story utilizes the ideas of liberty that underpin the American Constitution to vividly articulate the philosophy of Free Enterprise that the United States has spent the last two centuries spreading to the world. In doing so, it encapsulates the problems that have plagued every political theory (Socialism, communism, etc.,) that characterizes itself by the forced redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. But while it makes an impassioned and compelling case for the rights of every person to own their own efforts and achievements, and to direct their results wherever they damn well please, it is, at the same time, alarmist, pompous and hopelessly Hollywood.
First published in 1957 by one of the United States' most influential 20th century philosophers, Ms. Rand's 1,300 page classic chronicles the deterioration of an alternate-history America which has swapped out a president and a congress for a head of state and a national legislature, both of which open up the door to the socialism Ms. Rand wants to criticize. The story, divided into three major parts, follows the efforts of two, powerful industrialists, Dagny Tagart and Hank Rearden, to practice Free Enterprise in a country which has responded to an economic downturn by burdening the upper classes with ever-increasing regulation. Dagny, who runs her family's transcontinental railroad, finds herself embattled when her foolish brother James, the notional head of the company, kowtows to his government friends by interfering with and screwing up her beloved railroad. She's not alone. All across the country, powerful industrialists like her, inventors driven by ambition and profit, are being stifled and mooched on by an increasingly desperate government and an ever-more entitled working class. At her wits end, Dagny resigns from Tagart Transcontinental to establish her own railroad line, free of her brother's meddling. But to prove its worth, she'll need to rely upon a new and remarkable steel invented by Hank Rearden, friend and confidante, to underpin her line.
Though it's clear that Dagny has invested herself in her John Galt Line to prove to the world that greatness, genius, and hard work should be allowed to flourish, free of government imposts, it becomes increasingly clear that not even her masterpiece of engineering will reverse the tide of national sentiment for socialism. Dagny and Rearden battle to maintain what they have, but their fellow industrialists are disappearing by the day, removing themselves from a game rigged against them. Sinking deeper into despair, Dagny seems at a loss to mend the situation when hope arrives in the form of a man who may just have the will and the message to properly communicate to the people what must be done to restore America to justice. Dagny is about to find out who is John Galt.
Atlas Shrugged has one of the most powerful first halves of any book I've ever read. Dagny's feverish attempts to singlehandedly convince the world of its folly by creating an industrial symbol for the power of Free Enterprise is inspiring. Her despair in the face of hers and Rearden's failure to make the world see what socialism is doing to them, and doing to the country, is moving. But its her fear and anger at the disappearances of her fellow industrialists -- she believes them murdered by a Destroyer's hand -- that is truly gripping. There's martyrdom here, sure, but there's also the kind of passion and fidelity that causes captains to go down with their ships. Dagny's sense of betrayal which slowly gives way to her understanding of John Galt and his movement, fuels this part of the book with an abundance of spirit and emotion.
But for all of the excellence of the first 700 pages, the latter half of Atlas Shrugged is an unmitigated failure. Ms. Rand ruins her meticulous setup in the first half in an orgy of Hollywood tropes. She tries to argue that society only functions because of the handful of special intellects who prop it up with their ideas. This is nonsense. Society functions because it affords intellects opportunities to succeed. If those specific intellects did not exist, others would replace them. Ms. Rand is effectively arguing, here, that there would have never been an operating system for PCs if Bill Gates had refused to go into IT. Of course there would've been operating systems! If not Windows, someone else's creation would have taken its place. If society was as fragile, as subject to intellectual blackouts, as Ms. Rand contends, it would have never modernized in the first place. No, Ms. Rand abandons logic and rationality in order to make her caped crusaders here, her rebels for freedom, seem all the more put upon and heroic. If Atlas Shrugged were just some random piece of fiction, fine, but it's not. It has pretensions of being a philosophical argument. Therefore, it fails.
Ultimately, Atlas Shrugged is an incredible piece of literature which asks the reader to contemplate the end-game consequences of socialism. But instead of discussing socialism and its flaws rationally, Ms. Rand demonizes the former by blowing-up the latter to mammoth proportions just so she can make a point about Free Enterprise. It's a cheap, alarmist ploy and it ought to be beneath any political theorist interested in a discussion on the virtues and sins of various ideologies. But it's clear that Ms. Rand is not interested in engaging the reader in a debate. She wants to rant at the reader until he capitulates under the relentless weight of her 1,300 pages. A marvelous beginning, an awful ending, and not a placid page between. Is a book with a five-star start and a one-star conclusion three stars? I suppose so. (3/5 Stars)
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