The Philosophy
Atlas Shrugged is perhaps one of the most compelling
books I have ever read. I read it, just
on a whim, when I was in high school, and since then it has stuck with me almost
more than any other book. The power of
it lies in the characters, the world, the writing itself, and above all in Rand’s
radical theory that being selfish is the only way to be moral. She believed that, ultimately, doing what’s
best for yourself is the best thing you can do, both for yourself and everyone
around you. She was the ultimate
rationalist and the ultimate meritocrat. She envisioned a society in which the most
productive and the most talented always end up on top, simply because they
produce what is most useful to society. Altruism
is unnecessary because if people know that they will only receive good things
by being a good, productive member of society, then they will shape up and
begin making themselves useful to other people—because it is in their own self-interest. If, on the other hand, they can expect
welfare, charity, or any other hand-outs that they did not earn, she believed that society would disintegrate into one where the
many take advantage of these hand-outs, while the few noble people continue to
work hard because their inner moral strength allows them no other option. This is the dystopic world that she presents
in Atlas Shrugged.
The Novel
Atlas Shrugged is a beast of a novel—over 1,000 pages
long—and it is relentless in its lionizing of the enterprising individual, its
paeans to rationalism, and its message that money is the only fair arbiter of
the world, and that any government attempt to redistribute money in the name of
making things more “fair” is doomed to failure.
As insane as it sounds when I describe it like that, this book
completely captivated me from beginning to end.
For well over the first half I was truly fascinated by her ideas, her
story, her dystopic world. It was only
as I got towards the end, that a creeping discomfort with her philosophy grew
larger and larger in my mind. By the
time I turned the last page, I had figured out why.
