Atlas Shrugged

As I have mentioned before - when I am weaving or spinning, I frequently have an audio book downloaded from the library onto my tablet. While the books that I chose are seldom noteworthy or sometimes even that interesting, it is nice to have someone read to me during the long winter afternoons. I can adjust the read back speed to one and a half times faster than normal and if, after the first thirty minutes,  the book is not interesting - I just delete it and go onto the next one. A week or so ago, on an weird impulse I downloaded Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, a book I last read perhaps 45 or so years ago.

I remember, after I finished reading it, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. Uncomfortable because while I was perhaps just evolving into the first beginnings of socialist thought, I was also firmly locked into a belief that people should take responsibility for their own actions and that we should not (at least automatically) assume that someone else would solve our problems. Rand, through the voices of John Galt and his compatriots  preached a philosophy that suggests that the capitalist should be rewarded for their expertise and that anyone who takes from the system is a "looter". It is a seductive bit of sophistry. It is seductive because it promises that if one works hard - one will get a head in the world. Rand paints the alternatives (socialist thought) as dangerous and will cause people to become almost mindless selfish beings. As an example she paints much of Europe as a wasteland of unproductive people who are dependent upon the USA for support.

But such operational philosophies have a fundamental flaw. When I first read Atlas Shrugged I could not reconcile that flaw with my upbringing and somewhat firmly entrenched beliefs that hard work will make things better. I was uncomfortable because there was a profound disconnect between my upbringing  and my newly emerging philosophical, sociological and economic thinking, a disconnect that I could not resolve. Quite simply, there is no room in Rand's world for the state to support people who have needs beyond their capacity to provide for.  While it is true that in Rand's  world the skilled get richer, there is no explanation what happens to the sick, the old or the infirm.

This time around, I didn't manage to finish it. The endless pages of rants as to how unfair the present system is to capitalists, how wrong it is to have any sort of system that tries to manage some sort of equality of access, and the absolute disaster that is socialist thought just became too tiresome (it is much harder to skip pages on an audio book). I suspect that the book could have been cut by a third, and still have been just as interesting. There however, were two things about the narrative that either I had missed the first time or just been to overwhelmed to recognize, and that this time surprised me. One was the amount of partially suppressed but articulated sexual violence. Specifically during both

Henry Rearden's and Dagny Taggart's (male and female protagonists) private thoughts there are frequent suggestions as to sexual domination , and subjection through physical force. I suppose that in 1957 when it was written, such thoughts were deemed to be acceptable.

The second thing that surprised me, and one that I should have seen the first time around was that the collapse of the economic system only happened because  John Galt and his compatriots knowing and actively worked to destroy the system.  It is in fact a very clear example of absolute selfishness where the rich and powerful are prepared to destroy a system so that they can recreate a world that fits their needs, a world according to their singular definition of what is right. Atlas Shrugged provides a blueprint for how to disrupt  our economic system. Quite simply - make it work so poorly and inefficient through underfunding that it falls apart. Make sure that aid packages are misdirected, make sure that the rich and powerful make all of the decision (and then criticize them when they take more than their share) and ensure that working people know that there is no hope. In fact, Ayn Rand's world looks very much like a world's collapse designed by neoliberals. Her promise of a new world is a false promise - one that cannot ever exists even in the most optimistic visions of utopia.

I am no longer uncomfortable about the book, there is no disconnect. While I still clearly believe that we are all responsible for doing what is right and for working and contributing as much as one can, none of those ideals are contrary to the fundamental belief that we can and must take care of everyone.