Atlas Shrugged - Allegorical Philosophy

I am currently reading Atlas Shrugged, one of two major novels by Ayn Rand.(She wrote a couple of more – We the Living and Anthem are less read). I first encountered Rand at the University of the Pacific. I think I first read the Fountainhead. Both of her major novels (this and the Fountainhead) are long and involved. That is a lot like her philosophy – which meant it was perfect for an 18 year old looking for ideas. I had read Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind and this was a natural next step. It was the year of Goldwater so there was a lot of that going around. I was the San Joaquin youth chair for Goldwater – so my first year in college was filled with a lot of philosophical debates and explorations. A lot of people first read Rand in college.

Rand endorsed Goldwater in the campaign - she said in part "If a candidate evades, equivocates and hides his stand under a junk-heap of random concretes, we must add up those concretes and judge him accordingly. If his stand is mixed, we must evaluate it by asking: Will he protect freedom or destroy the last of it? Will he accelerate, delay or stop the march toward statism?" and "If, between now and nomination or election time, Senator Goldwater should change his stand, or adopt some major form of "me-too'ing" compromise, or tie his candidacy to some doctrine of a mystical nature -- we will, of course, be free not to vote for him. At present, he is the best candidate in the field." The comments were like a lot of Rand's writing. She took herself almost too seriously. Later in the campaign she criticized Goldwater as a waffler "I must mention, parenthetically and regretfully, that Sen. Goldwater is helping his enemies whenever he softens his stand. Vagueness lends plausibility to smears. While nothing can justify the misrepresentations on the part of the press, it is unfortunate that Sen. Goldwater has made their job easier by occasional lapses in the precision and consistency of his own statements -- as, for instance, in his speech at Madison Square Garden on May 12. Let us hope that the pressure of his enemies will not tempt him to compromise (in regard to the party platform, for instance) and thus to commit political suicide." Or later she commented
"As of this writing, Senator Goldwater's campaign has been conducted so badly that unless he changes his methods, he is moving toward defeat. Those who are active in the campaign should urge him to raise some essential issues, instead of the secondary matters and vague generalities he has been discussing. He has not presented a case for capitalism; he has not demonstrated the statist-socialist trend of his opponents."

After the election she expressed disappointment that Goldwater was not pure enough - "There was no discussion of capitalism. There was no discussion of statism. There was no discussion of the blatantly vulnerable record of the government's policies in the last thirty years. There was no discussion. There were no issues. In psychological, if not existential, fact, the campaign ended in mid-October, when Senator Goldwater chose to concede his defeat in one of the least attractive forms possible. It was the form of a truly shameful switch: the attempt to substitute the question of personal "morals" for all the crucial questions of our age, and offer it as the cardinal issue of the campaign." Rand in this instance represented a lot of the ideologues that populated the campaign. But she seemed almost incapable of understanding the mix of American politics - that is reflected in her writings too.

The book is an interesting mix. On the one hand it is dated, although the timing of the novel (when it takes place) is uncertain. The story concerns, in part, a family of the largest railroad in the country – so it seems to be before the advent of major air transportation. But it still works as an allegory. Like the Fountainhead – it is a long exposition of ideas done in a tense writing style.

Rand was an odd combination of intellectual energy and base instincts. She created something called Objectivism – which is akin to libertarianism but which when the two were compared she disavowed the latter (libertarianism). She finished university in Russia majoring in philosophy and history although she went on to a stint learning script writing in another school. She emigrated from Russia (by saying she was going to visit relatives in the US) and quickly became a script writer in Hollywood. She worked for both Cecil B. DeMille (including surprisingly on King of Kings) and Hal Wallis. None of that would likely happen in today’s studio culture. Her novels have an element of Fritz Lang in them. They have the feel of that kind of thirties modernism. The Fountainhead, which was made into a movie, looks like that. They also have very clearly defined characters.

In Atlas Shrugged there are basically three types of characters – the corrupt mercantilists (James Taggart is a good example), the independent capitalists (Dagny Taggart, Hank Reardon and in a strange sense Francisco d’Anconia) and the poseurs (basically all of the hangers on in the novel which includes most of the writers, professors and others). Each of the character types is both dated and contemporary.

For example, the mercantilists are constantly getting together to ask for favors from the government to accept limitations to improve competition. There is a strong bias against what Adam Smith called the “bull headed brewer” or individual determination in these characters. James Taggart, unlike his sister, wants to be a part of the group so he fails to think about the long term interests of his company. He is living off the accumulated energy of the generations before him that built the company. Rand makes a point of giving that history to illustrate the trend. He accepts his buddies delaying shipments of vital materials which are causing him to destroy his business and agrees to an anti-competitive measure by the railroad association that will put one of his competitors out of business. Surprisingly, the competitor agrees to submit to this restraint of trade. At one point Taggart comments, in Sam Rayburn-esque style - "When everybody agrees, when people are unanimous, how does one man dare to dissent?" For this group of business people – business is about being in the club. They do not understand or care why business is less vigorous than in the past. A lot of what is written about these characters roles in the political process could have been written this year.

The poseurs are also quite current. The professors and writers have no interest, indeed are opposed, to anything which involves competition. Indeed, at the extended party scene at Hank Reardon’s anniversary party professors and writers go on in a way that could be contemporary on many campuses today. For example, a philosophy professor comments - "I am in favor of a free economy. A free economy cannot exist without competition. Therefore, men must be forced to compete. Therefore, we must control men in order to force them to be free." Competition, at least unfettered competition, is inherently evil. There is a humorous reference by another author (whose books have never sold more than 3000 copies) that it would be a good idea to limit publication of books to 10,000 – to assure that writers would not be able to publish trashy novels and books that are “popular.” They are also quite nihilistic. They also reflect the current fashion of the day – their philosophy is built on immediacy and personal interest rather than any objective standard.

The capitalists are the most interesting to me. Dagny Taggart, unlike her brother, is immersed in the details of running her family’s railroad. Rand may have produced this character as a woman because she could assume a role her brother could not. She is obsessed about making her family railroad better. Hank Reardon is consumed with making metals better – and is so excited when he concocts a new metal he forges it into a bracelet for his wife. At one point, Hank’s brother asks for a contribution to his current “civic” effort but asks for it in cash because money from Reardon would be looked down upon. Francisco d’Aconia is a swindler but one who preys on the people like James Taggart. He encourages Taggart and his friends to invest in a mine in Mexico which is worthless (that comes out when the government of Mexico expropriates the mine and the railroad only to find it has no copper reserves in it). Taggart relies on friendship rather than analysis, which d’Anconia relies on, and thus never investigates the potential value of the investment.

Rand always had strong roles for women and yet at the same time she was not a feminist. Her female leads seem to submit to their male counterparts, especially in the sexual understory, in ways that today seem dated.

The philosophical part of Rand is explained in stark terms. She resisted the idea of being a libertarian – yet a good deal of her underpinnings are libertarian. She believed in an objective reality ("there exists an objective reality that is independent of mind and that is capable of being known.") and yet eschewed a lot of conventional moral standards. She disliked charity, especially compulsory charity. She also disputed the idea of scarcity – she had an inherent faith that human ingenuity, rightly applied, could eliminate problems of scarcity. i.e. If people were given the chance to create new things they would. Reason trumps problems. In this sense an economist like Julian Simon would be a successor to her ideas.

The relationship of Alan Greenspan to Rand has been written about a lot – many liberals have clucked about the relationship, which began when a friend introduced them. Greenspan was then a graduate student at Columbia but maintained a relationship with Rand or with her projects for quite a long time. Ralph Nader, for example, yabbered that Greenspan and Rand were two peas in a pod. Other prominent liberals like Robert Kuttner have also written about the supposed insidious influence of Greenspan/Rand. I am not sure whether that is an important or unimportant footnote. Greenspan, during his tenure at the Fed, talked a lot about individual responsibility and the risks of going with the crowd. But was that Randian? Who knows?

Atlas Shrugged is a massive work.(Almost 500 pages) In many senses it is a mix of philosophy and novel – and in that sense it does not work. At times Rand is too preachy and too obvious. But like many other novels of its type (As I was reading it I immediately thought of McTeague by Frank Norris which uses similar stylized characters) the message is an important one. I like a lot of what Rand espouses in this book - the role of business in relation to government - which was first written about by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations - is an important concept. The inwardly pointed roles of the intelligensia is also an important idea. But the self importance of her writing style is a bit off putting (most writers in this genre suffer the same malady). On the whole, reading this 40 years after I first encountered Rand, suggests that she still has something to say. On the other hand, some social critics, like Dickens, say it a whole lot more elegantly.