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.

Regulatory Capture and Cognitive Capture

I was familiar with the concept of regulatory capture, the idea that an industry can persuade the government, or another entrusted regulator, to not do their job of regulating. This is usually done through the vast amounts of influence the business carries in the money it generates and it can be practically done through several means including lobbying, financial contributions (legal bribery), bribery (the illegal kind), insider appointment, blackmail, and situational/political leverage. This leads to a very favorable climate for the industry, allowing it to go on doing whatever it was planning on doing without interruption, and over time can even lead to opportunities to push the boundaries of its operations further since it can go on without any real consequences. This creates situations where lobbyists paid by the industry actually write legislation with built in loop holes so both the industry and the politician can come out winners. The industry gets the rules in place, or lack thereof, that it wants while the politician will boost their reputation claiming they are regulating or fixing something with their Swiss cheese legislation. This is the relationship we have in the United States between our corporate world and our politicians. It’s essentially the same relationship as bribery and corruption and it has existed for just about as long as both industry and regulation have. However, I was never acutely aware of the specific term regulatory capture, and I feel better now that I know it and can quickly refer to the concept by recalling this term.

There is a related term called cognitive capture, which I recently came across and it describes quite well what I’ve been feeling about US society on an even large scale, and really global society as well, for some time but didn’t quite have the vocabulary to say. The term is borrowed from the psychological condition where the mind cannot perceive even important things in its field of senses because it is too distracted with other things in that field. In its borrowed definition is means that nearly everyone who is connected to society is too mesmerized by the modern capitalist world, and in some sense bribed by it, that they can’t see the injustice and plutocracy of it. And even worse, the mind can’t realize the distractions are systematic, intentional, and yes, even logical.