While this may be a fun creative exercise to cast characters in perfection, it certainly fuels the fire of an aristocratic ideal. One glaring example of Rand working too hard to create a perfect character is describing Nathaniel Taggart, patriarch of Taggart Transcontinental, as, “a penniless adventurer who had come from somewhere in New England and built a railroad across a continent, in the days of the first steel mills." Perhaps the most ridiculous moment of this superhero-making occurs at the end of Part Three when Dagny suddenly becomes an airplane pilot. The common people, the average workers, Eddie Willers for the best example, are to be the blind and faithful followers. They, and other god-like minor characters like them, are to be the leaders of the Randian utopia. Her main characters read like she was trying to carve them into Michelangelo statues with Francisco d’Anconia, Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, and John Galt being completely devoid of blemishes or faults. The key here is that the freedom must be extended to all human beings, regardless of social standing, gifts or talents, and familial lineage. The philosophy espoused by the likes of John Paul Sartre and John Stuart Mill lays out the intrinsic value of freedom and liberty for all individuals the political movement, largely new to the past few decades, argues against the power given to a State and for the opportunity for people to control their own lives. Libertarianism has two threads, philosophical and political, that string together rather tightly. But it’s standing in libertarian circles is wholly unearned. It is a page-turner in the Stephen King vein. That author is Ken Kesey and the true Great Libertarian Novel should be regarded as his epic novel, Sometimes a Great Notion.Īyn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is not a terrible book by any stretch. Not only do these observations on the actualities of Rand’s life and work deserve consideration, but so too does a book and an author that actually encapsulates the libertarian ideals of individual human freedom and liberty. What Rand argues for in Atlas Shrugged is an aristocratic utopia what Rand vehemently fights for in the practice of Objectivism, her own created philosophy, is totalitarianism. It programs less thoughtful readers to consider it as a libertarian-themed novel from the start, which may, in turn, lead their attention away from a philosophy based upon freedom and liberty for all. Unfortunately, neither the author nor the book, are actually libertarian. Common knowledge seems to dictate that Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged, is the Great Libertarian Novel.
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