It took me a record
number of weeks to finish this monumental piece of work, which is a dense tome
of 1070 pages. In the middle of the book I faced a 67-pages long diatribe of a speech by the lead
character, which challenged my patience and made me pause for several weeks. When
I eventually finished it, I was at loss of words how to describe it. Is it one
of the best or the worst books I ever read? Is there a way it could be both? I
knew that if I totally dismiss it, it would be at my own cost since the book
clearly comes from an inspired writer who knows what she is talking about. But
if I accept the book, I would not remain myself any longer since some of its
core principles are the total opposites of my (or any
human’s) values. There is no doubt Atlas Shrugged is a divisive text. In this
review I will try to see the source of these contradictions.
Atlas Shrugged is too
big to summarize, so I will touch upon its themes rather than reviewing its
plot. In this book, Ayn Rand sets out to defend capitalism, which perhaps makes
her one of the most vocal guardians of the system. It tells a story of an
America that is slowly degenerating, bedeviled by the plague of communism. The
government, full of corrupt ‘looters’, draws the blood out of the economy
through its intricate web of regulations and nepotism. Exasperated, rational
and freedom-loving industrialists under the leadership of John Galt go to exile
to form their own free system, thus letting the national economy fall into
pieces. By way of a fictitious story, the book delivers strong arguments about
the merits of free-markets, the inefficiency of government, the ideals of
reasoning individuals, and the rewards of work. It essentially lays out Ayn
Rand’s Objectivist thinking, a full-fledged philosophy of how a man and the
world should be.
Perhaps one of the
best qualities of the author is her fierceness and the precision of her
language. Of course her fiery spirit makes her extremely radical and divisive,
but it gives her language a power you do not see elsewhere. She attacks Communism
and Religion, which she calls ‘the two mystics - the mystics of spirit, and the
mystics of muscle’- with a consistent and dramatized tenacity. Ayn Rand’s unmistakably
polemical writing style is both her biggest and worst quality[1].
If Atlas Shrugged were
a mere work of fiction, I would pass it by having learned many things, but
ignoring the rest as harmless fantasy. However, Objectivism is presented as a serious
thought system, forcing me to articulate where my views differ. The biggest problem of the book is that it is a caricature of a human story. The protagonists
(who are Objectivist heroes) are ridiculously ‘good,’ and the antagonists, especially
the communists but also the broad masses, are depicted as sniveling and impotent
savages. Objectivism by definition allows no degree of freedom for individual opinions,
making it very suffocating and dogmatic[2].
Objectivism and Its Competitors
Objectivism offers an
alternative view of a just system that competes with established views such as Religion (Christianity), Communism, and Utilitarianism. In a layman’s words, the
difference between Objectivism and these three can be described as follows.
Objectivism: A just system is based on the truth. For example, it is
not just for the government to impose income tax to subsidize the poor since in
truth all income belongs to the
person who earned it.
Religion: A just system is based on the good. For example, individuals
are urged to give alms to the poor because being good is a virtue rewarded by
God.
Utilitarianism: A just system is that which maximizes the
total utility (happiness) of the relevant group of people. Justice is
thus evaluated by its consequences, not by its truthfulness or goodness. For
example, it is just to impose income tax and subsidize the poor if doing so
increases aggregate welfare (security, happiness).
Communism: A just system is that which gives everyone equal
opportunities i.e. “satisfying work, and fair share of the product.” All resources that determine production
(land, labor, capital) should thus be commonly owned.
Objectivism contrasts
with Christianity, Utilitarianism and Communism due to its staunch emphasis on
individual freedom[3].
Since reality is objectively experienced by the individual, it has no aggregate
equivalent at societal level. Thus Objectivism sees no place for a government with
authority to enact and enforce a law on behalf of the community. Utilitarianism,
in contrast, assumes that individual utilities can be summed up at societal
level so that a government working for society also maximizes individual
utilities. Communism is similar to utilitarianism except for its emphasis on communal
ownership of resources.
Modern Western practice
of politics and political economy is based on the Utilitarian theory that seeks
to maximize welfare of the population of the country. Politically,
utilitarianism is the underpinning of democracy, “a government of the people by
the people for the people.” Economically, it calls for consumption maximizing
policies at country level (and hence the GDP fetish).
The Good vs. the True
If you look closer,
the abovementioned definitions of justice are partly based on what constitutes
reality (i.e. is it God-given, or self-experienced? Is it individual or
communal?) Equally importantly, however, they are also based on certain
underlying assumptions of human behavior.
In broad terms,
Christianity is based on the assumption that humans are essentially spiritual
beings whose purpose is to be divine like their creator. Since the creator is
said to be benevolent, a very important goal of human existence is to develop
the virtue of being good. Objectivism, on the other hand, states that man is a
being “with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive
achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.” Objectivism
thus contends that maximizing happiness is a man’s purpose. In this aspect,
Objectivism is similar to Communism and Utilitarianism.
What is a noble man?
In Christianity he is the good man, the saint. In Objectivism, he is the most
productive citizen[4].
In a way, it does not appear that the two are mutually exclusive. Why can it
not be that a noble man is both good and productive? It can even be said that
these two are indivisible elements of a human being, which are often described
as feminine and masculine (or yin and yang) aspects of man. A human being has
the motherly nature of being caring and gentle, and the fatherly nature of
being purposeful and productive. The motherly side sees man’s potential to
achieve before it is actualized, and nurtures him towards it; the fatherly
aspect oversees the realization of the potential, rewarding its achievement and
penalizing its failure. These two can be seen as two halves of the circle that
make a human being.
In valuing only
achievement, Ayn Rand takes only half of what makes a human being, and
stretches it painfully to make an unseeming full circle. As much as her theory beautifully
elucidates one half of human nature, our ability to achieve, it not
only ignores our softer side, but also misinterprets, and caricatures it. As a
result, the book reads as a work of a genius, but one whose mind is somehow awkwardly
skewed.
The Opposite of Communism
It is unmistakable
that Ayn Rand envisioned her theory of Objectivism as the antithesis of Communism,
from which she suffered firsthand growing up in Russia. The two social theories
advocate opposite views of social organization; Communism is based on collectivization
whereas Objectivism strongly rejects the notion of a collective will[5].
In calling for
collective ownership of production factors, Marx was envisioning to eliminate
class division which he considered to be unnatural and alienating. He argued
that humans are more collaborators than competitors, so that collective
production is both natural and more efficient. Communism was supposed to eliminate
classes thus totally undoing the source of class struggle and exploitation.
The underlying principle was “to each according to his needs, from each
according to his ability.” In contrast, Objectivism saw individual achievements
as the final expression of freedom of action and thought. The most just system
is one totally based on market-based relationship – i.e. laissez faire
capitalism with virtually no government role[6].
In truth, both
Communism and Objectivism are based on behavioral assumptions about certain
groups of people. Communism seeks to empower the proletariat because it
considers the bourgeoisie exploitative. Behind
the elaborate façade that tries to give a different impression, Objectivism
basically makes the opposite assumption. Capitalists are pictured as principled
and knowledgeable of the value of their life, whereas the masses are parasitic,
irresponsible and irrational[7].
Similarly politicians are depicted as opportunistic, so that any organized
government would be rotten from top to bottom. The only acceptable form
organization is through trade in the market, as exemplified by her idealized
state of Atlantis.
Atlas Shrugged lacks
the nuanced reasoning you expect from a philosophic text. It also fails to
capture the complexity of the human spirit, and the subjectivity of human
experience, something you would expect from a work of fiction. As a result, it reads
more like a religious document than a work of philosophy or fiction[8].
The Romantic Realist
Ayn Rand describes
herself as a romantic realist, and in fact her book has many romantic elements.
It is fitting to conclude by citing one of the most beautiful parts of the book, a recital about love by Dagny Taggart, Vice-President of the Taggart Intercontinental Railways.
---
---
You, whom I have always loved and never found
You, whom I expected to see
At the end of the rails beyond the horizon
You, whose presence I had always felt
In the streets of the city
And whose world I had wanted to build
It is my love for you that had kept me moving
My love and my hope to reach you
And my wish to be worthy of you
On the day when I would stand before you
Face to face
But, what is left of my life will still be yours
And, I will go on in your name
Even though it is a name I'm never to pronounce
I will go on serving you
Even though I am never to win
I will go on, to be worthy of you
On the day when I would have met you,
Even though I won't
I will fight for it, even if I have to fight against you
Even if you damn me as a traitor
Even if I am never to see you again.
~ Atlas Shrugged (style is edited)
[1] Note the following polarized
remark by the main protagonist, John Galt: "There are two sides to every
issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.
The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting
the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks
out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist... In any
compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any
compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.”
[2] This makes Objectivism a very static
philosophy. Philosopher Leonard Peikoff, himself a pioneer of Objectivism, has
described objectivism as a "closed system" that is not subject to
change (see Peikoff, Leonard. "Fact and Value").
[3] In addition, Objectivism
contrasts with Christianity due to its assertion that reality is objectively
experienced, and is not God-given (an underlying basis of the US constitution).
[4] Francisco d’Anconia, one of the Objectivist
heroes in Atlas Shrugged, speaks thus: “There's nothing of any importance in
life - except how well you do your work. Nothing. Only that. Whatever else you
are, will come from that. It's the only measure of human value. All the codes
of ethics they'll try to ram down your throat are just so much paper money put
out by swindlers to fleece people of their virtues. The code of competence is
the only system of morality that's on a gold standard.”
[5] The most sacred oath of Objectivists in Atlas
Shrugged is “I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for
the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
[6] The outcome would be an extremely class-based
society which Marx set out to eliminate. Even in the book’s fictional world, super-genius
oligarchies dominate all aspects of life. This rightfully gives the impression
that Rand is an elitist. Perhaps to compensate for this, the book starts with
the story of Eddie Willers who is more of a normal person although he is soon
overshadowed by the super-heroine Dagny Tagaart.
[7] In a sense, it is based on the real failed
experience of Communism in Eastern Europe. The negative portrayal of the masses, for example, is
to underscore why revolution-based Marxism would be irrational. But as a
consequence, Ayn Rand also appears to view democracy, a government by the
people, unacceptable because ‘the people’ in her view can be ignorant. At some
point in her text, for example, she describes the masses as half-savage: "We [i.e. Galt and other heroes of the
book] are the men who reach that day [i.e. that level of understanding]; you
[the audience, or the masses] are the men who choose to reach it partly; a
savage is a man who never does.” In his speech Galt also ridicules the
masses for assuming the role of a king maker: "you [the masses] are incompetent to run your own life, … but
able to judge politicians and to vote them into jobs of total power over arts
you have never seen, over sciences you have never studied, over achievements of
which you have no knowledge….”
[8] The storyline of Atlas Shrugged has a parallel with a religion, complete
with its God (capitalism), Devil (Communism), caring angels (Dagne), Fighting
Angels (Ragnar Danneskjöld), Heaven (Atlantis), Hell (Earth). Dagne’s crash
landing in Atlantis is very similar with the life after death religions preach.
She of course confronts death and prevails over it, reminding us of Jesus.
