Capitalists, libertarians and of course Objectivists, all those who believe in liberty and the power of free markets can all rejoice. There is plenty here for those sorts of people to agree on and enjoy. Here is a book that reveals Ayn Rand’s philosophical vision in the flesh of the real world.

The cast of characters looks like this:

Steve Jobs — Howard Roark
Paul Krugman — Ellsworth Toohey
John Allison — John Galt
Angelo Mozilo — James Taggart
Bill Gates — Henry Rearden
Barney Frank — Wesley Mouch
T. J. Rodgers — Francisco d’Anconia
Alan Greenspan — Robert Stadler
Milton Friedman — Hugh Akston

As you might expect, some of the comparisons fit a bit better than the others. Don’t get me wrong; they all fit. But a few of them seem supernatural in their exactness, an almost eerie case of life imitating art.

Anyone familiar with the Randian source material and who has also been paying attention to the world past few years may find themselves thinking as they read this book: You know, I always did think of that guy as that Rand character.

For this reviewer that was the especially the case with Paul Krugman as Ellsworth Toohey.

Mr. Luskin has an personal beef with Paul Krugman that I found a little distracting, but one with which I could definitely sympathize. Luskin and Krugman had crossed swords for years–because Luskin refused to let Krugman get away with significant inaccuracies in print–and it had gotten personal. To be fair, that’s because Krugman made it personal.

That comes shining through in the book and not necessarily to the book’s benefit. But that sort of thing is likely unavoidable and can be forgiven, especially when it leads to passages like this:

I was gripped with horror. I’d spent months debunking and defanging Krugman; but until I saw that cheering audience, I’d never really grasped the vastness of the force I was dealing with. It wasn’t just Krugman; it was the millions of people who adore him, who already believe the kinds of things to which he merely gives voice, and who made him possible in the first place. I just wanted to get out and go back to my hotel and take a shower.

Luskin brings that immediacy and that intimacy to all his characterizations. There is definite bias to those deemed heroes and against those deemed villains, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone who picks up a book whose first paragraphs tells you it will be casting people as heroes and villains.

What does surprise is how honest and raw and real he makes all these figures seem, even when comparing them to the fictional counterparts he’s assigned to them. It’s an effective weaving.

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is one of those life-changing works. Many people count that book as the one that got them thinking about the world rationally. A certain moral philosophy rooted in laissez faire capitalism always attends that. (In fact as Luskin reminds us, when Rand was asked for one word that summed up her philosophy she replied: “capitalism”).

Those who love Atlas Shrugged also tend to notice how sadly prophetic it’s proven to be. The world is unfortunately coming to resemble Ayn Rand’s fiction (though not nearly enough people are adopting her philosophy), which itself was a warning about the nationally and globally destructive power of creeping collectivism.

I Am John Galt is thrilling because it nails down the parallels–the implications are a bit frightening because of those disturbing parallels–but the book is fulfilling because it tells the complete stories of these people. Luskin must be given credit for his research and attention to detail, as well as how digestible he made all of it.

He never veers into textbook dryness even as he conveys all the biographical information and tidbits. I felt instead that I’d grown up with all these men and had a thorough understanding of what made them what they are today. Perhaps it’s  a bit trite to say, but I found myself caring about the characters, even when I wasn’t rooting for them or outright booing them.

Obviously there is nothing but admiration for men like tireless men of talent and ethics like John Allision and T. J. Rodgers, but I even found myself feeling a little sorry for even the worst villains.

That last part was another Randian outlook that suffuses this book: Evil is ultimately “small and impotent, and best simply ignored.”

Then there is Luskin’s take on Allen Greenspan, a complex figure if ever there was one. Luskin makes a compelling case that the man accused of selling out his libertarian convictions migh have actually been acting as a double agent. (Luskin presents data that suggests Greenspan was initially trying to follow a de facto gold standard.)

It would have been easy to continue the mistreatment that Greenspan has often suffered at the hands of libertarians and Randians. But Luskin avoids that and gives a picture of Greenspan that is balanced and tragic and that a reader is likely to feel is very accurate.

Luskin’s treatment of Milton Friedman is also of special note and the perfect coda for this parade of characters. There is a tendency for those in the Austrian camp to take a few cheap shots at the monetarists in the Chicago school, but Luskin’s narrative at the end would make even the hardest hearted Austrian cheer for Milton, the Capitalist Champion. As Luskin writes of Friedman’s eloquent defense of capitalism on Phil Donahue’s show:

This was not Gordon Gekko proclaiming that “greed is good.” It was classic Friedman. He made his point with supreme effectiveness, but there was not a hint of rancor in it, nor a trace of self-aggrandizement. It was all delivered with good cheer and an impish smile. Here was Rand’s Hugh Akston come to life, delivering not a deathblow in a debate, but more of a prayer–what Akston described as “a full, confident, affirming self-dedication to my love of the right, to the certainty that the right would win.”

There is a lot here to love. And after the breathtaking presentation of the real life versions of Rand’s heroes and villains, there waits for the reader a brief tutorial on how to make these lessons reality in his own life.

In the end it’s not just about ability, Luskin reminds us, for villains can be people of great ability too. It’s about how you choose to live.

A Review of I Am John Galt was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

Unfortunately, the quality of this adaptation is representative of its low budget and brief production time. The film meticulously retains the original plot of Rand’s opus, going so far as to lift much of the dialogue directly out of the novel. However, due to the large amount of material being covered, the result leaps through the original plot line in a somewhat disjointed portrayal, which can be difficult to follow. While Johansson is to be commended for finally bringing Atlas Shrugged to cinema after almost 40 years of negotiations, delays, and difficulties, it is disappointing that the end result is not more impressive.

Despite the film’s mediocre quality, its end was met by a surprising response in Reno on Saturday. As the main character, Dagny Taggart, climbs a flame-engulfed hill to be confronted with the destruction of petroleum magnate Ellis Wyatt’s oil fields — the lifeblood of what little remained of the American economy — she screams in terror. The camera pulls away, revealing Wyatt’s parting farewell: “I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It’s yours.”

The crowded theater began to applaud.

While some people of all ideological persuasions, including libertarians, find Ayn Rand’s rather idiosyncratic beliefs and obscure moral code distasteful, the theater’s reaction captures the hidden resonance of her greatest work on grounds she would not have completely anticipated. Indeed, many of the film’s difficulties are less the fault of the director, and more of Rand herself. The primary protagonists of the book are emotionless industrialists, stilted and one-dimensional in their behaviors, thinking only of metal, railroads, and factories.

Atlas Shrugged is compelling, not for its heroes, but for its villains. Published in 1957, Rand’s description of politicians and lobbyists in a time of economic crisis is almost prophetic. These Washington insiders scheme behind closed doors to retain and expand their power. In elaborate press conferences, they attempt to convince the unsuspecting populace of their legislation’s necessity by vilifying productive companies and portraying their own destructive, self-serving designs as being in the interests of the advancement of equality, stability, and progress.

For instance, in Atlas Shrugged, the lobbyist Wesley Mouch decries the capitalist Hank Rearden’s invention of a wonderful alloy that is stronger than steel. And last week, in the real world, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. took to the house floor to declare that Steve Jobs’s iPad was killing jobs. Congress must, according to Jackson, recognize that Apple is driving companies such as Barnes & Noble and Borders out of business, and the company should be stopped in the interests of fairness.

Jackson decried Congress for failing to foster “protection for jobs here in America to ensure that the American people are being put to work.” It’s as if he wanted us to believe the printing press was harmful to the economy because it decreased the demand for scribes. Such a condemnation of a successful business and a demand for protection of failing industries could easily have been lifted directly from Rand’s novel.

However, the similarities are not restricted to a lone Democratic congressman. Similar absurd arguments were bountiful on both sides of the aisle in debates about policies ranging from Obamacare to the bailouts. Americans are directed to believe that if they would just allow the federal government to act in order to prevent further change in the economy, then stability could be restored.

It is this paltry masquerade of politicians feigning action and granting themselves greater power in the name of equality and economic stability that leads Americans to Rand’s story. Indeed, Republicans and Democrats both put on a charade of activity last week, claiming to remedy our nation’s budget woes. Both parties threatened to shut down the government over a series of austerity measures amounting to a final savings of $352 million this fiscal year. That’s $352 million out of budget deficit of approximately $1.6 trillion, or .02 percent of what would be required to actually balance the budget. Politicians bickered over funding for relatively low-cost line items like NPR and Planned Parenthood, all the while ignoring the harsh reality that our public debt is on track to surpass our GDP.

In other words, Republicans and Democrats have managed to mortgage the entire household worth of the United States. Their remedy for this self-imposed tragedy? Grant themselves greater power through increased regulations and rising taxes.

With each repeated failure of federal action to remedy our economic situation, politicians reveal themselves more fully to the American people as nothing but self-serving villains. Their strategy relies on the appearance of action coupled with soaring rhetoric to convince Americans of their good deeds. Meanwhile, these politicians are gambling with our lives and prosperity, risking the well-being of hard-working individuals in thoughtless policies designed merely to secure reelection.

It is due to her apt depiction of these self-serving villains that Ayn Rand’s novel has climbed to number four on the top-sellers list on Amazon and that the film is likely to do far better than its mediocre quality would merit. Americans are growing tired of politicians gambling away their prosperity to preserve their own power. The crowd in Reno applauded as Ellis Wyatt walked away, not because he was some great hero, but because they understood the pain of working tirelessly while a reckless and unproductive government needlessly spends away the results of your labor and rewards your hard work with mounting regulations.

The idea of walking away has become attractive — and indeed, Americans are increasingly leaving the United States for opportunities abroad, with record numbers emigrating to Australia and East Asia.

So long as Ayn Rand’s villains continue to resemble the reality in Washington, the story of Atlas Shrugged will remain popular. The average American may not be a powerful railroad executive or steel magnate, but most believe they are entitled to the fruits of their labor. Many are beginning to realize that their future is being gambled away by politicians whose only risk is losing the votes of the individuals who have lost everything.

Regards,
J. Patrick Rhamey, Jr.
Whiskey & Gunpowder

April 22, 2011

The Continued Relevance of Ayn Rand’s Villains was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

At one level, Atlas Shrugged is a steamy soap opera fused into a page-turning political thriller. At nearly 1,200 pages, it has to be. But the epic account of capitalist heroes versus collectivist villains is merely the vehicle for Ms. Rand’s philosophical ideal: "man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

In addition to founding her own philosophical system, objectivism, Rand is honored as the modern fountainhead of laissez-faire capitalism, and as an impassioned, uncompromising, and unapologetic proponent of reason, liberty, individualism, and rational self-interest.

There is much to commend, and much to condemn, in Atlas Shrugged. Its object — to restore man to his rightful place in a free society — is wholesome. But its ethical basis — an inversion of the Christian values that predicate authentic capitalism — poisons its teachings.

Mixed Lessons from Rand’s Heroes

Rand articulates like no other writer the evils of totalitarianism, interventionism, corporate welfarism, and the socialist mindset. Atlas Shrugged describes in wretched detail how collective "we" thinking and middle-of-the-road interventionism leads a nation down a road to serfdom. No one has written more persuasively about property rights, honest money (a gold-backed dollar), and the right of an individual to safeguard his wealth and property from the agents of coercion ("taxation is theft"). And long before Gordon Gekko, icon of the movie Wall Street, she made greed seem good.

I applaud her effort to counter the negative image of big business as robber barons. Her entrepreneurs are high-minded, principled achievers who relish the competitive edge and have the creative genius to invent exciting new products, manage businesses efficiently, and produce great symphonies without cutting corners. Such actions are often highly risky and financially dangerous and are often met with derision at first. Rand rightly points out that these enterprising leaders are a major cause of economic progress. History is full of examples of "men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision." In the novel, protagonist Hank Reardon defends his philosophy before a court: "I refuse to apologize for my ability — I refuse to apologize for my success — I refuse to apologize for my money."

But there’s a dark side to Rand’s teachings. Her defense of greed and selfishness, her diatribes against religion and charitable sacrificing for others who are less fortunate, and her criticism of the Judeo-Christian virtues under the guise of rational Objectivism have tarnished her advocacy of unfettered capitalism. Still, Rand’s extreme canard is a brilliant invention that serves as an essential counterpoint in the battle of ideas.

The Atlas characters are exceptionally memorable. They are the unabashed "immovable movers" of the world who think of nothing but their own business and making money. "…I want to be prepared to claim the greatest virtue of them all — that I was a man who made money," says copper titan Francisco d’Anconia. But these men are regarded as ruthless, greedy, single-minded individualists. They are men (except for Dagny Taggart, who could be confused for a man) who always talk shop and give scant attention to their family. In fact, no children appear in Rand’s magnum opus.

Her chief protagonist, John Galt, is an uncompromising superman. He is the proverbial Atlas who holds the world on his shoulders. He has invented a fantastic motor, yet is so frustrated with state authority that he withdraws his talents — hence the title, Atlas Shrugged — and spends the next dozen years working as a manual laborer for Taggart International.

Mr. Galt somehow succeeds in getting the world’s top capitalists to go on strike and, in many cases, strike back at an increasingly oppressive collectivist government. Rand’s plot violates a key tenet of business existence, which is to constantly work within the system to find ways to make money. Real-world entrepreneurs are compromisers and dealmakers, not true believers. They wouldn’t give a hoot for Galt.

Rand, of course, knows this. And that’s OK, because Atlas Shrugged is about philosophy, not business. In her world, there are two kinds of people: those who serve and satisfy themselves only and those who believe that they should strive to serve and satisfy others. She calls the latter "altruists."

Rand is truly revolutionary because she makes the first serious attempt to protest against altruism. She rejects the heart over the mind and faith beyond reason. Indeed, she denies the existence of any god or higher being, or any other authority over one’s own mind. For her, the highest form of happiness is fulfilling one’s own dreams, not someone else’s – or the public’s.

Galt crystallizes the Randian mott "I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man nor ask another man to live for mine." No sacrifice, no altruism, no feelings, just pure egotistical selfishness, which Rand declares to be supreme logic and reason.

This philosophy transcends politics and economics into romance. The novel’s sex scenes are narcissistic, mechanical, and violent. Are the lessons of her book any way to run a marriage, a family, a business, a charity, or a community?

To be sure, Rand makes a key point about altruism. A philosophy of sacrificing for others can lead to a political system that mandates sacrificing for others. That, Rand shows with frightening clarity, leads to a dysfunctional society of deadbeats and bleeding-heart do-gooders (Rand calls them "looters") who are corrupted by benefits and unearned income, and constantly tax the productive citizens to pay for their pet philanthropic missions. According to Rand, they are "anti-life."

But is the only alternative to embrace the opposite, Rand’s philosophy of extreme self-centeredness? Must we accept her materialist metaphysics in which, as Whittaker Chambers wrote in 1957, "Randian Man, like Marxian Man, is made the center of a godless world"?

No, there is another choice. If society is to survive and prosper, citizens must find a balance between the two extremes of self-interest and public interest.

Adam Smith, the founder of modern economics, may have found that Aristotelian mean in his "system of natural liberty." Mr. Smith and Rand agree on the universal benefits of a free, capitalistic society. But Smith rejects Rand’s vision of selfish independence. He asserts two driving forces behind man’s actions.

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments , he identifies the first as "sympathy" or "benevolence" toward others in society. In his later work, The Wealth of Nations , he focuses on the second — self-interest — which he defines as the right to pursue one’s own business. Both, he argues, are essential to achieve "universal opulence."

Smith’s self-interest never reaches the Randian selfishness that ignores the interest of others. In Smith’s mind, an individual’s goals cannot be fully achieved in business unless he appeals to the needs of others. This insight was beautifully stated two centuries later by free-market champion Ludwig von Mises. In his book, The Anti-Capitalist Mentality , he writes: "Wealth can be acquired only by serving the consumers."

Golden Rule Anchors True Capitalism

Smith’s theme echoes his Christian heritage, particularly the Golden rule, "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them" (Matt. 7:12). Perhaps a true capitalist spirit can best be summed up in the commandment, "Love thy neighbour as thyself" (Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:39). Smith and Mr. von Mises would undoubtedly agree with this creed, but the heroes of Atlas Shrugged — and their creator — would agree with only half.

Today’s most successful libertarian CEOs, such as John Mackey of Whole Foods Markets and Charles Koch of Koch Industries, have adopted the authentic spirit of capitalism that is more in keeping with Smith than Rand.

Theirs is a "stakeholder" philosophy that works within the system to fulfill the needs of customers, employees, shareholders, the community, and themselves. Their balanced business model of self- interest and public interest shows how the marketplace can grow globally in harmony with the interests of workers, capitalists, and the community – and can even displace bad government.

The golden rule is the correct solution in business and life. But would we have recognized this Aristotelian mean without sampling Rand’s anthem, or for that matter, the other extreme of Marxism-Leninism? As Benjamin Franklin said, "By the collision of different sentiments, sparks of truth are struck out, and political light is obtained."

John Galt – it’s time to come home and go to work.

Regards – AEIOU
Mark Skousen

March 8, 2007

‘Atlas Shrugged’ – 50 Years Later was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.