Don't read that steaming pile of crap, the Cliff Notes version will take you about 5 minutes and tell you everything you need to know.

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/Atlas-Shrugged-Book-Summary.id-7,pageNum-1.html

In her imaginary play world, everyone except a few men and women are parasites, government is always not only evil, but stupid, all capitalists are geniuses and have absolutely impeccable morals and want nothing more than to create their product while paying fair wages and treating workers like gold.....WTF?

The really sad part of this is that some people read this sci-fi abomination and believe in it. I read it for the first time in my teens and thought it was powerful and interesting and made some good points. Then I grew up and when I read it again in my 30's I was mature enough to see how one dimensional and stereotypical all her characters were and how her belief that capitalism is always good and everything else is always bad....was not only illogical and wrong, it is moronic.

"What I saw instead was advancements toward communism far ahead of a modern American liberal's hottest wet dream that were being put in place NOT in the "public interest" but merely by people promoting their own self-interests but using the government as a tool to do so, with the thin disguise of being in the public interest."


Hate to break this, but this describes CA union thuggery to a 'T'.

 

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While this is all true, it's sort of understandable as she grew up in communist Russia. She didn't have examples of bad capitalists, since capitalists didn't exist there.

And compared to Russia, US was paradise, and the 'greedy' rich capitalists were the most stark and visible difference between the two worlds.

Ayn Rand wasn't dumb, she just came from a different time and a different world. Her followers just make her look bad by reading her propaganda and becoming closed off to contrary views.

No matter how intelligent a writer might be, they can still be constrained by their own background and life experiences.

 

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Why not read the book? If you are waiting for someone to tell you what to think, take your pick of the posts here. But understand that doing so would go counter to the ideas presented in the book.

 

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Heh, Very true.

Rho

 

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The invisible hand is greed, a force of evil.

 

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Is it true that 2/3 of the book is basically one, extremely long-winded speech? Guessing that is exaggerated but I heard it was LOOOOONG(imagine the mother of all wall-of texts, long).

That's not true, it's only maybe 30-40 pages, but it is extremely long-winded.

She makes her point in like the first 2 pages and the rest is redundant.

 

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That's a bit of an exaggeration. There's a lot of speechifying and she writes the same 10-15 page diatribe half a dozen times throughout the book (okay, one of them is probably 30-35 pages). Each time it's the same exact point, but it comes up from a different character or different plot point. Each time it happens you get this "Haven't I heard this speech already?" feeling along with a "Okay, OKAY, you don't need a DOZEN PAGES TO TELL ME THIS AGAIN" reaction.

There's a lot of plot, as well, but the book could have been easily made half the size with ANY editing, at all; probably a third if it were edited well.

Rho

 

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The problem with a book is that you can write everything to act in a way that supports your ideas. You control everything that happens in a book.

The problem with real life is that you do not control anything, which is why Political and Economic Sciences are always right for a while and then wrong for a while and then right again.

Atlas Shrugged has some good ideas but ultimately, it is a fantasy novel. Yes, some people toss it up as "proof" that her view of society can exist but it isn't proof in any way.

It is like the United States which was supposed to be "protected" by a constitution, which we know was never perfect and over the years, has slowly been usurped. Great in theory, not so great in practice.

 

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