Reflections on Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

I have been interested in reading Rand for a while now, primarily because she is so frequently mentioned as a source of inspirational ideology… most commonly by modern libertarians and other people whose views I mostly oppose. So I wanted to read her work myself in order to understand her philosophy and then completely pick it apart. I was expecting to be angry at several points during the read, which I was. I was certainly not expecting to be impressed or inspired in any way, which surprisingly, I also was. I expected to come away from reading this book feeling justified in my mostly ignorant dislike of Rand, but the more predominant feeling was a severe dislike of those who I believe have grossly misinterpreted her ideas. Despite this, for all the effort Rand went to legitimize her philosophy as a solution for personal and social governance, I have nonetheless concluded, like many others before, that even though some of it is slightly interesting, her philosophy is riddled with shortcomings and oversimplifications of reality leaving it completely devoid of application to modern policy and governance. Here is a summary of my findings and reactions from the read:

Brief Plot Summary in My Own Condescending Words

Due to a rise of government corruption and communist ideas about redistribution of resources and labor, a group of principled stunning over-achievers, led by John Galt, who consider themselves to be the “motor” of the world decide to abandon their roles as society’s innovators and job creators, to avoid having their abilities exploited and the fruits of their labor redistributed to the lazy and thoughtless, bringing society to a grinding halt.

The Virtue of Human Achievement

I’ll start with the good. My main positive takeaway was Rand’s belief in the virtue of human achievement which holds human accomplishment as the primary (and possibly the only) purpose of human life. That on its own I can’t really argue against. The only alternatives I might propose are: to serve god, help others/make the world better, and to find happiness/nirvana/ecstasy. And I can’t definitively say that any of those are better than Rand’s. Drive and desire to achieve great feats is what made her protagonists tick to the extent that it would literally get them off. They were inspired, passionate, inventive, tireless, and fearless in attacking the status quo and pushing humanity forward in its capabilities, all of which are things I strive (mostly unsuccessfully) toward in my personal life. In much the same way James Bond inspires guys all over the planet to want to be great at all things guns, cars, and women, these characters made we want to work harder and to live every day with great purpose.

I especially appreciated that Rand makes the point that the virtue of human achievement is not limited to the field of business. There were great musical composers, engineers, philosophers, actors, etc. Someone could be virtuous even if capitalism and industrialism wasn’t their specialty. So long as a character was pursuing their interests, utilizing their talent and skill, and on the forefront of human innovation, the field of pursuit didn’t matter. They were, however, required to make money from their pursuits and to hate paying taxes.

Feminism

I would hardly call Rand a feminist because she seemed so completely enthralled by a man’s capabilities, most notably through drawn out descriptions of the living perfection possessed by the characters she created of Francisco D’Anconia, Hank Reardon, and John Galt which went way past admiration into psychotic obsession. But Dagny Taggart, the central character in book, is a badass female businesswoman who gives no regard to gender roles. Obviously Rand was a woman so this may not seem surprising, but a female lead character beating men at a man’s game with ability, intelligence, and determination alone should be inspiring to women. Or maybe I still have no understanding of women and what inspires them. Of course, that Dagny had a sexual relationship with all three of the male characters mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph may be a step away from feminism as she definitely took a submissive role. Then again, maybe not, since it did seem enabled by her personal desires... To be honest, I found most depictions of sex in this book a bit disturbing, so I’m really not sure what to make of it all.

Related: When Dagny and Reardon’s affair is discovered by their political enemies they attempted to use it as blackmail to coerce her to joining them. The plan backfires, however, as Dagny seemed to have no difficulty or shame in admitting the affair publicly which conveyed the notion that it is OK for a woman to have sexual interests and to act on them. I think this might have had more to do with Rand’s feeling that you shouldn’t let others make you ashamed of your passions, interests and abilities, usually in reference to shamelessly achieving financial profit, but in this case it extended to female sexuality which I presume was considered rather progressive in 1957.

Now onto the criticisms…

Industrial Heroes

The heroes of Atlas Shrugged are idealized industrialists who are diligent to no end. They are also unrealistic and lived in a simplified black and white world. They all share a code about the principles and fairness of business. They never ask anyone to give them something for nothing and they would never take anything unless they paid fairly for it. Perhaps this level of honesty and dedication to principles over profit was actually held by business people in Rand's time (though I have serious doubts), but it doesn't exists on any sort of grand scale today. This suggestion of honest businessmen seems like that same naive dreaming of a perfect past that never really existed we often hear from conservatives.

I am uncertain as to whether Rand was attempting to defend historical American industrialists with these characters or simply convey her philosophy, but many actions of historical American industrialists do not line up with Rand’s principles. The real transcontinental railroad was funded by massive government loans as opposed to private capital which Rand’s protagonists would never support. Railroad tycoons (with the help of the government) stole lands from the indigenous tribes to build their lines because the sentiment was that these natives didn’t have rights, or at least didn’t assert them, by partaking in capitalist economics or registering their holdings at the Land Titles Office. Taking things from natives is an action Rand has supported outside of Atlas Shrugged, but I find it completely contradicts her idea of always paying a fair price. Colonialist exploitation of indigenous peoples is not an achievement or something earned, it is a reckless disregard for human rights.

These fictional industrialists lived for competition, they would prefer to beat a business adversary by working harder than them rather than with the help of the government. Real-life businesses seem to prefer to avoid competition at all costs. Andrew Carnegie’s vertical integration (the purchasing of his steel company’s suppliers) or John D Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust (combining controlling interests of competitors into one organization) are both good historical examples of the real life industrialists choosing collusion, buy-outs, and monopolies over competition. So to view Atlas Shrugged as a defense of historical industrialists disregards the principles supported in the book.

Modern Business Applications

Rand’s industrialists were never about power, they were about principle and substance. But that is not what we see in today’s quarterly earnings report race where profit it king. Yes, Rand proclaims profit as the best way to measure success, but there were principles along the way which could not be violated. Modern capitalists have just taken the profit and less regulation parts of Rand’s philosophy, and dropped all of the principles that are conditions of virtuously earning that profit.

An example: AT&T has created an amazing communications network which can allow people to take phones with them everywhere and talk to any other person in the world with a phone instantly. I have no issue calling their network a fantastic achievement in the history of humanity. But what about their team of lawyers who draft deceptive contracts with hidden fees? That is not an achievement. That's exploitation. That's taking advantage of the fact that AT&T is a large corporation that can hire lawyers who understand how to skirt the finer points of consumer law and know that a vast majority of the customers will not know what to do about it and won't have the time to deal with it and will end up paying extra fees which will make AT&T notably more profitable. AT&T does not gain this additional profit because it is pushing humanity forward, it is more profitable because it is deceptive. And if the government steps in to create a law that phone companies have to disclose their fees and pricing more honestly, the "pro-business" community will say that government is overstepping its power and weighing down private enterprise with regulation and red tape, and shouldn't interfere with business. By Rand’s standard making profits from hidden fees is looting. That is systematically taking other people’s money that they have worked for while providing no benefit or compensation. And yet the “pro-business” community will invoke Rand’s philosophy to say that government shouldn’t interfere.

Herein lies the greatest misinterpretation of her work: Rand’s specifically notes that not all industrialists and business are inherently virtuous. There were just as many corrupt lazy businessmen, media hacks, and lobbyists in bed with the politicians and despised by the industrialist heroes as there were heroes themselves. Taggart Transcontinental became the corporate tragic figure as its operations were run partially by a hero industrialist (Dagny) and partially by a corrupt lazy communism supporter (James Taggart) and was ultimately doomed by that dichotomy. However, we never see Rand’s fictional US government do things which will actually increase competition or fix broken markets (which is possible, trust me). We never see that because she makes government the villain in this story, but the existence of any good government policy (there are some, trust me) works against Rand’s ideas on minimalist government. So the actual takeaways should be that a business run under her code of virtue is superior to other businesses and that government corruption is bad, and I fully agree with both of those things.

I don’t see the modern CEOs of massive established global companies like AT&T, Goldman Sachs, or Exxon Mobile as a real-life Rand hero industrialist. The real life example I think best fits her mold is Elon Musk. Musk (from what I’ve read) is a tireless worker, a true innovator, and also happens to be very wealthy from running businesses and engineering new technology which pushes industries forward and provides humanity with something it has never had before. I loved Rand’s astonishingly accurate portrayal of industry reaction to the new technology that is the superior (and fictional) Reardon Metal, because I found it to be nearly identical the industry reaction to Musk’s Tesla Motors which for the most part consisted of smear campaigns (e.g. are these cars and batteries really safe?, range anxiety fear mongering), black balling (making sales of Teslas direct to consumers illegal in Texas and other states), and resentment. Utility companies hate that Tesla is trying to enable houses to move off the grid with the Powerwall. When these disruptive technologies come in to challenge the established businesses, we see them react just like Rand’s looters. They do not want to compete with new technology, they want to retain their control through politics, misinformation, lobbying, and coercion which slows down human and societal achievement.

So I end up noting how Republican voting Libertarians claim Rand’s views, but support a political party whose policy’s all seem to support the rich and established. I note how modern capitalism has become so intertwined with politics and thoroughly corrupt with company and industry lobbyists hired to wield political power because that is more important than human achievement. Libertarians who somehow praise both Rand and Ronald Reagan are daft to put it nicely. Rand hated Reagan's policies and would be absolutely dismayed with today’s Republican party!

This intertwining of business and politics leads us to a state where the modern left is disenchanted with corporate private enterprise, and the right is fed up with the government trying to control things, both failing to see that there is a clear common ground between them. The Libertarians and Tea Party types and the progressive left (and Rand too) are both against activity by which the government overreaches from its ‘ideal’ capacity resulting in unfair or biased or selective treatment to its citizenry, aka corruption. The difference, and the reason more solutions have not yet been achieved, is that the first group (Libertarians and Tea Party types) believes these issues stem from a poor limitation of government powers, whereas the progressive left believes the issues stem from poor regulation of the private sector.

I side with the progressive left because overall the private sector and established businesses and financial interests seem to benefit the most from our current system (they have the means, motive, and opportunity) as well as the fact that a majority of politicians we elect for office have been successful individuals from the private sector. There aren’t too many academics and civilians getting elected these days turning into ego-tripping government overlords with dictatorial aspirations. I also feel it is impractical to remove government from many areas of society and to expect that problems will go away when in nearly every case there was some problem which resulted in government intervention in the first place. Taking steps to prevent or combat government corruption is the best thing you can do to enhance private enterprise. It will limit government meddling in areas where it shouldn’t, it will make protection of rights easier and it will give businesses and consumers alike confidence to partake and invest in the economy.

I think I got a little off topic though…

Communism is the real enemy here

Atlas Shrugged at its truest is more of a shallow look of the failings of communism than it is a poignant identifier of the reasons to support capitalism. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”, a phrase popularized by Karl Marx, features prominently in the text as the most corrupting idea the heroes have encountered, which is a completely reasonable topic for a book published in 1957. However, since the fall of the Soviet Union and China’s semi-embrace of capitalist economic policies this book attacks an enemy that has since deceased and thus it should be viewed as having very little application to modern government policy.

In fairness, Rand does a wonderful job of making communism and complete government control of resources look like a really bad idea. But her philosophy of almost no government and complete private ownership with no wealth redistribution is the other extreme and will lead to tragedy just as quickly. I believe there is a happy medium involving private ownership of most resources (because that fuels competition which is the key ingredient in a functioning economy) as well as a redistribution of wealth to the extent that everyone is provided with food, shelter, health care and education. The purpose of the redistribution is not to help those worse than you out of obligation or guilt as Rand suggests, but to help them because their success or failure is inevitably tied back to you.

Money = Value?

The book features a long rant (like freaking 12 pages) spoken by Francisco D’Anconia on money being the true barometer of value. I think the viewpoint is useful, but only to a degree. Yes, when working correctly, a marketplace is wonderful at determining value. It will tell you if your stuff, your work, or your talent is or is not worth a damn. And money is indeed the tool to measure that. In an idealistic sense the rant holds water, and people who make more money often earn it through hard work and innovation. But realistically, markets and value are too complex to be summed up so easily. And much more importantly, markets have frequent imperfections. As long as those imperfections exist the results of the market activities can no longer be considered a true measurement.

For example, is the work of a thief to be rewarded? Good thievery does require work, skill and talent, and in the end the thief has money to show for their work. So is the work of thievery valuable simply based on the money it has amassed? I think most will agree not, and primarily because the transaction (the theft) was not consented by the original owner of the money and it is highly doubtful that any consideration was received in exchange, both important tenets of capitalistic transactions. So the use of money as a measure of value breaks down in that case. What about the case of inherited money? Is it a measure of great value to have wealthy parents? Or to win a lottery? I think most would not disagree that in those cases it is a measure of luck. There is a massive grey area of contemporary transactions which might be considered legal thievery or deception but which earn huge amounts of money: legal monopolies, corruption, organized crime, information advantages, false advertising, contract fine print, legal bullshit, anything falling into the designation of misleading or deceptive conduct (a pillar of Australian consumer law which I greatly admire), etc. So it becomes very important to distinguish how honestly money was made, and not just how much of it one person has. It becomes rather dangerous to society to assign value to money or its owners without acknowledging how it was acquired. If we blindly praise the person who acquired money illegitimately, we praise and encourage the illegitimate activity.

Shortcomings 

Rand really fails to address differences in opportunity. If everyone in the world was like Rand’s amazing industrial heroes: smart, educated, principled, passionate and motivated the world really shouldn’t have many troubles. She depicts poverty in the novel, though I am uncertain as to whether she believes that the poverty stricken are lazy (and thus deserving of their fate and not deserving of sympathy) or just victims of soul-draining communist ideas, but either way she doesn't address or propose any solution. Her attitude seems to be ‘some people are born with amazing gifts to achieve and society shouldn’t hold them back, but if you are born anything less than amazing, fuck off and die. Or do whatever you want, so long as you don’t hold back society’s best.’ I think this undermines that many poor people, once thought of as less-capable (probably in part due to the assumption that only people with money have value) are capable of wonderful achievements if they have the opportunities provided by a life free from a struggle to find food, shelter, health care and education.

If we set up society as Rand desires, meaning we completely step out of the way to let the best and brightest with the most opportunity do what they do, then everything will be OK? Sure the people of high ability will prosper but the rest is unexplained. I’m not sure where people of inferior ability would end up, most likely cast away and left for dead. I just cannot get behind that idea, and I think we’ve seen in the rare cases that it has ever happened in human society that if you provide resources like education and health care to the poor it empowers them. They end up achieving as much as anyone else and are perfectly capable of ascending to the innovator roles and making the economy move.

"We’re The Ones That Built This Place, We’re the Ones That Make This Country Great"

This is not a quote from Rand, but encapsulates my assessment of Galt’s arrogance about his importance in society. Ultimately it ends up feeding the egos of those in power and doesn’t acknowledge the contributions of the lower classes. The pre-revolutionary and antebellum US didn’t import slave labor from West Africa because it was fun to do, it did it because the economy required a labor class and that was a cheap option. No matter how much money you have, or how many guns you have, or how ambitious your plan is, you won’t be able to achieve industrial success without labor. This is why I can’t feel good about Galt’s decision to let the world be destroyed by removing the "motor". I actually think it’s very cool as a book plot especially watching the corrupters and looters fumble as their now shitty empire falls in on them, but taking action you know will lead to mass starvation doesn’t sit right as morally superior.

Nor does the assumption that Western business ambitions are more virtuous than other human achievements. American Indians weren't struggling with poverty before Europeans colonized the continent. They weren't hopeless and destitute waiting for someone to build a railroad. To these people, the colonists and industrialist that built the modern America are not heroes at all. They are the looters that stole their land, and destroyed their culture and livelihood. I am fine with Rand's view that human achievement to the highest ability is virtuous. But what a person chooses to achieve is entirely up to them. If American Indians wanted to live harmoniously with the earth and celebrate their culture (and whatever other white misconceptions I hold about their lifestyle) that is their form of achievement. They were and are living breathing people who invent, who utilize their natural abilities and mental faculties. And if Ayn Rand thinks Americans Indians don't have value because she doesn’t recognize their culture or what achievement means to them, she is projecting her definition of achievement on them and is a hypocrite of the highest degree because that is a violation of John Galts first commandment, asking others to live their life for you. As long as they are pursuing fulfilling lives and striving to do great things, it is not up to any other person to judge what those great things should be, whether it is the creation of fantastic innovative inspiring art, or industrial advancement, or philosophy, or even just raw mental or physical ability from athletics, to academics, to meditation. What kills me is that Rand does make a point of this as I have previously commended, but then somehow still writes off an entire race of people.

When your achievement comes at the expense of others Rand's philosophy falls apart, because that is asking others to live for you. If you steal land, or coerce the sale of land, so that you can build a profitable railroad for yourself, that is asking others, the previous land owner to live for you. If you run a predatory lending bank which generates dollars upon dollars of profit for yourself, but is only possible because you are taking advantage of other's lack of understanding of the consequences of taking loans and results in the systematic poverty and stealing from the poor, that is not a virtuous human achievement. That is fraud. That is looting. 

Does Wealth Redistribution Cause Laziness?

What remains a bit uncertain to me is whether Rand believes that government handouts will make someone lazy and feel entitled. It is something that gets associated with objectivism. However, nothing in Atlas Shrugged gave me indication that is how she feels. It was merely that there were evil, useless people who possessed these traits but there was no indication of what caused it to develop, which I think is very important. I could interpret from her writing that it has nothing to do with where you start in life, it is something that is inherent when you are born, as shown by the contrast between James and Dagny Taggart, siblings from the same means but with very different approaches and work ethics. To me Rand seemed to emphasize more that it was the taxing (Ha!) effects on the do-gooders that was the problem. So this could be another case of idea misappropriation.

Overall Review and Conclusion

Written as something of a mystery novel I was eager to see the full and engaging story play out. However, it took about 300-500 pages too many to develop (like this post, really) and was filled with many cold and unimaginative descriptions. She seemed particularly obsessed with character’s mouths, angular faces, vacant eyes and an excessive and unnecessary use of the adjective “naked”. The conclusion ultimately left me unsatisfied. As the story moved closer and closer toward national disaster my depraved side wanted all the gory details, but we got only a few more minor disasters compared to my hopes. There was also no real indication about what was going to happen to society next as the heroes just flew off into the sunset, something they could have just done before Galt got himself captured unnecessarily.

So overall I wouldn’t recommend reading it unless you read really quickly or have a lot of free time. There are obviously many problems I have with Rand’s philosophy as well as many more problems with people who misinterpret her philosophy. I can see why people would find this work inspiring, especially in the idealized and completely unrealistic way it is presented, but when her ideas are really examined they don’t appear to be well-thought-out. I feel a little bad that so many of her ideas have been used to justify things I doubt she would agree with and that she isn’t around to defend them from both other’s hijackings and my criticisms. So to end this in a conciliatory way, I will just list the positive takeaways and the points where I think we agree:

1. It is OK, like Mark Cuban, to say you are inspired by Ayn Rand.

2. Human achievement may be just as virtuous as anything else philosophy or religion has come up with date.

3. Women can be just as capable as men.

4. Corruption is bad and is a primary culprit of societal and government dysfunction.

5. Communism is bad.

6. Private businesses run with strong principles of fair value, competition, hard work, innovation and supreme achievement can do a lot of good.

7. It’s not OK to corrupt Rand’s ideas and misappropriate them, like Ted Cruz, and Mark Cuban have done.