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Your Learning Zone - Atlas Shrugged
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List Price: $24.00
Our Price: $11.63
Your Save: $ 12.37 ( 52% )
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Manufacturer: Plume
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780452011878
ISBN: 0452011876
Label: Plume
Manufacturer: Plume
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 1200
Publication Date: 1999-08-01
Publisher: Plume
Studio: Plume
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Worth Reading to Understand Rand's Philosophy
Comment: For those who have never read Ayn Rand, this is a rather meaty way to get her philosophy in a work of fiction.
No, she isn't going down in history as one of the literary "greats", but her views on what makes the world work have inspired many of the greatest inovators of our generation and will probably be a lasting legacy for her.
This book is well worth reading if you truly believe in the value of objectivism. If you don't believe then it is well worth reading to find out why others so strongly defend Rand.
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Summary: But wasn't the real Atlas--from Greek mythology--he who held the SKY, not the Earth?
Comment: ATLAS SHRUGGED is Ayn Rand's 1000+ page story of an ideological struggle between socialists and extreme libertarians. The goal of both sides is the attainment of a noble life, or lives. That's a key point: these folks don't merely want a satisfactory economy; they want honor. For both sides, an economic system is a means to that end, not an end in itself.
The socialists believe in government control of the economy, so businesses can pursue objectives other than maximizing profit, disregarding externalities, and optimizing production. On the other hand, the extreme libertarians want unfettered capitalism, so businesses can pursue no objectives OTHER than maximizing profit, disregarding externalities, and optimizing production!
The libertarians' premise is that the fruits of profit-seeking industrial productivity--material goods--are fundamentally valuable for both their physical usefulness and their imagined spiritual content. As libertarian industrialist Dagny Taggart says, she and her colleagues are "those who make steel, railroads, and happiness."
Well, the libertarians' ideology prevails in the end; and rightly so (even if taken to an extreme, libertarianism is better than socialism, I concede). Nonetheless, I feel its victory is incomplete because ATLAS SHRUGGED never explores how it might fare in comparison to an ideology espoused by mystics, shamans, etc. That is: people who allegedly pursue noble lives so earnestly that they're unconcerned with mechanisms of commerce and productivity...that is: people who do not acknowledge the pertinence of economics to the development of a noble life, or lives...that is: people who are so holy that they have little interest in material goods...that is: people who have no fear of economic outcomes; not even self-destructive ones...
ATLAS SHRUGGED's primary flaw is that it omits this highly relevant, alternate, spiritual/mystical point of view. Therefore, I think the book's conclusions, about the attainment of honor and happiness, are just tentative. Unlike shamans, no socialist characters in the novel--not even Jim Taggart--ever doubt that material comfort is fundamentally desirable while self-destruction is not (some college professors doubt it; but only one, Simon Pritchett, is directly presented, and only for a page and a half).
A total of three paragraphs do present "evangelists" who teach that "love" is "the key to the mystic secrets ... ." But those paragraphs imply that the evangelists have a rigid concept of love. That doesn't make sense; only a fluid, flexible--not rigid--concept could possibly point toward mystical secrets. Therefore, Rand's evangelists seem to be made of straw. They don't seem to represent the point of view I'm curious about. Or else, Rand shouldn't have dedicated merely a few paragraphs to them, in her 1000+ page book.
As further evidence that Rand's spiritual leaders are straw men, she often lets characters use the words "spiritual" and "intellectual" interchangeably (for instance, a bureaucrat, Eugene Lawson, nonsensically says, "I'm worried about taking over the copyrights. That's going to antagonize the intellectuals. It's dangerous. It's a spiritual issue."). But why? These two words--"intellectual" and "spiritual"--mean utterly different things. It should have been obvious, to Rand, that an intellectual mindset is unlike a spiritual mindset.
Notably, the libertarians' leader, John Galt, offers his own appraisal of "'mystics.'" Soon after his initial appearance in the story, John Galt accuses mystics of always exploiting industrialists like himself, saying, "They will dispose of our energy, because they have none to offer, and of our product, because they can't produce." This motivates him to lead a kind of strike against "'the mystics and the kings'" by, incredibly, persuading the country's best businesses to abandon their profit-seeking market penetrations. Of course, by assuming mystics actually care about material goods in the first place, John Galt critically misunderstands them (not counting the straw men mentioned above). This dubious premise erodes the credibility of John Galt's philosophical lectures; at least until his final, climactic 56-page radio address. In that major speech, he occasionally, surprisingly revokes his premise in order to decouple mystics from kings, to make certain specific points. However, in those instances, Rand was simply further suggesting that her critique was really aimed at socialists, not mystics.
All in all, John Galt effectively skewers the morality of social-minded evangelists and intellectuals--often, but not always, wrongly lumping them together with real mystics of spirit. Yet he never disproves that "'THE GOOD, [AS] SAY THE MYSTICS OF SPIRIT, IS GOD, A BEING WHOSE ONLY DEFINITION IS THAT HE IS BEYOND MAN'S POWER TO CONCEIVE ... .'"
Thus, I wish at least one true spiritual/mystical character had directly appeared in the novel, to expound upon God and maybe reinforce Rand's economic conclusions, somehow. John Galt apparently cannot do it, by himself. He's too specious in his assessment of the economic implications of mystical concepts. He relies on too many unwarranted postulates, e.g.: "'every mystic is a potential dictator'", "'[e]very mystic had always longed for slaves'", and so on. Furthermore, John Galt's arguments stem from his faith in determinism and epistemological consistency, both of which were overturned by early-twentieth-century advances in science and logic. Did Rand sadly miss those developments, although she wrote during the 1950's?
Though ATLAS SHRUGGED's conclusions are only tentative, it's still the most audacious, impressive, sweeping defense of libertarianism that I know. I like Rand's grit and philosophical ambition, if not the strength of her analysis. I'll give four stars, but just barely.
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Summary: Written in the 50s and is coming true today.
Comment: I am a fan of Ayn Rand and enjoy all her writings, so I am biased towards her works. With that said...
Atlas Shrugged tells the story of the producers versus the takers. Through 1168 pages of small print, Rand gives example after example why the industrialists should be praised and not vilified. Rand also explains that all workers have value, if they are doing the best they can, at the jobs they can do.
Atlas Shrugged also explains the mind set of the people that vilify the successful, the inventors, the creators.
If you look at the U.S.A. right now, with the government bailing out companies, the new administration's desire to tax the rich and give to the rest, Atlas Shrugged discusses what happens when the producers are forced to shoulder more of the world.
Atlas Shrugged is an amazing fictional story, based on a philosophy of reaching for greatness and being self-reliant, instead of looking to others for your well being.
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Summary: One of the worst books I've ever read
Comment: This book is just flat-out terrible. There's no other way that I can put it. You would think that in a book over 1,000 pages long you'd have characters that show certain degrees of subtlety, nuance, and growth. Not so with this book. Absolutely everything is in black and white terms, and the result is something closer to a religious text than a novel probing into the mind of man. I came away from this book hating every single character in it. The "dialog" is the flattest I've ever read...it's nothing more than Rand spewing her philosophy out of characters that might as well be wearing white hats and black hats as in an old Western film, in case the good/bad distinction wasn't made clearly enough for you. There are some decent parts, such as the first run on the John Galt line, but nearly everything is ruined by Rand's literary version of stamping her feet and screaming "if you don't agree with me, then I'm going to take all my toys and go home!" It's a great endurance test, and I do take a certain snobbish pleasure in saying that I finished one of the longest books ever written, but overall this book was a huge waste of time.
I would like to state one last thing: I happen to agree with certain parts of Rand's philosophy, and I've read Anthem and The Fountainhead. Someone responded to a review I wrote of Anthem stating that a historical perspective was important. Yes, it is important, but all the historical perspective in the world isn't going to make this a good book. You don't need historical perspective to enjoy Don Quixote, or Candide, or the works of Shakespeare. You don't even need to like the characters to enjoy a book: Lolita is a great book, but I disliked everyone in it. I also know Rand's background, how her knowledge of Socialism was a lot deeper than most other writers at the time. I can understand why she would feel the way she felt and why she would write the way she wrote. Still, taking everything into consideration, Rand was still a lousy writer, and Atlas Shrugged is still one of the biggest loads of garbage I've ever wasted my time reading.
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Summary: Now more than ever...
Comment: ...Atlas Shrugged is revealed to be a relevant and prescient work by an uncommon mind. One cannot read the daily news, consider the recent election, or follow the current economic crisis without being astounded by the parallels to Rand's magnum opus. To anybody who finds themselves discouraged, disenfranchised, and downtrodden, I offer you proof that there are people who think like you do. Ability and intelligence will make a come back, they always do. That this book as enjoyed such massive circulation across four decades is proof.
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Editorial Reviews:
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At last, Ayn Rand's masterpiece is available to her millions of loyal readers in trade paperback.
With this acclaimed work and its immortal query, "Who is John Galt?", Ayn Rand found the perfect artistic form to express her vision of existence. Atlas Shrugged made Rand not only one of the most popular novelists of the century, but one of its most influential thinkers.
Atlas Shrugged is the astounding story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world--and did. Tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged stretches the boundaries further than any book you have ever read. It is a mystery, not about the murder of a man's body, but about the murder--and rebirth--of man's spirit.
* Atlas Shrugged is the "second most influential book for Americans today" after the Bible, according to a joint survey conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club
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