Who is John Galt?

like the movie? buy the book.

If you're here because of Atlas Shrugged, Part I, then you've only gotten part of the story.

If you believe in the rewards of hard work and individual achievement; if you believe that you should be the judge of what's best for you; if you believe that every man is given reason as the tool for providing for himself; if you believe that providing for yourself and your own is not only not a "sin," but both noble and beneficial to society as a whole; if you believe that you've already "paid" society, with work, for every dollar you've earned -- if you believe all of this, then don't stop at one movie.  Buy and read Atlas Shrugged -- a book that could change your life.  Don't think of it as a big book -- think of it as a small investment in yourself.

And for what it's worth -- the larger printings have larger print, and are much easier to read.  The printing on the pocket editions is ridiculously small.

welcome!

Folks, I'm writing this post because the movie is generating a lot of traffic.  (Saturday, April 16: Today is shaping up to be this site's biggest day ever.) 

The blog hasn't been active in quite some time, but there are plenty of informative posts featured in the left margin.  If you like what you see, please post a comment, or send a link to a friend.

 

She was looking up at the face of a man who knelt by her side, and she knew that in all the years behind her, this was what she would have given her life to see: a face that bore no mark of pain or fear or guilt.

                                       --Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Who is John Galt? The answer is here.

If you want a taste of what John Galt believes, try this.

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?..."

Want more?  Go here.

fred barnes likes atlas shrugged

From The Weekly Standard:

The villains in movies and television shows are often businessmen or anyone involved in making money. It’s a giveaway when these folks appear on screen. You know right away who the bad guy is. The role reversal in Atlas Shrugged may shock viewers. Unless they’ve read the book, they won’t be expecting a businessman and a businesswoman whose for-profit endeavors benefit society. In movies and TV, that role is usually played by the altruist, the liberal, the government employee, the inspector, the high-minded professor--the do-gooder, as we used to refer to them.

In Atlas Shrugged, those folks are the villains. They regulate. Rather than generate wealth, they redistribute it. They’re the crony capitalists, corrupt scientists, well-connected lobbyists, and union officials who seek special privileges while demanding “fairness.” How often have you seen such a group of characters cast as this in a movie or television show? Probably never. But we see them in real life. And in that sense, Atlas Shrugged is realistic. It’s closer to the way the world works than almost any movie you might see. 

understanding class warfare

When we think of class warfare, we think of a political effort to pit the poor against the rich.  The premise is that someone who has more than you is your enemy, which I suppose would be correct if you intend to satisfy your own needs by means of "might makes right" -- by taking from them through force or coercion.

But, assuming that both you and he are capable of producing, free trade holds that someone who has more than you should be your friend.  They say that you can't get a job from a poor person, and it's hard to imagine a better relationship with a rich person than one which makes both of you richer.  It's certainly more productive than a relationship which seeks to make you richer by making him poorer.

An interviewer once asked Ayn Rand if it was okay for some men to have caviar while other men want for bread.  (For some reason, such questions seem more valid with a Russian flavor.)  If we know that caviar costs a hundred times as much as bread, then we can imagine that a hundred poorer men could buy bread with the money a single rich man might spend on caviar.

But money, bread, caviar -- even men -- do not really work this way.  A price is a balancing point between supply and demand.  While bread and caviar have their own balancing points -- prices -- which can be compared to each other, there is no direct translation between bread and caviar themselves. 

I am so looking forward to this.

Scheduled for four screens within a reasonable driving distance of my home. How about your town?

atlas shrugged, the movie

Facebook page for movie adaptation currently in post-production, with a 2011 release date.  You can see production stills at this link.

This is shoestring budget stuff here, and they're only making the first of three parts (so far).

Looks like they're going with a contemporary setting to cut costs.  IMDb has details and a full cast list.  Post-production implies that principal photography is complete.  They're likely adding a lot of backgrounds and effects with computers to save money.

No previous adaptation has ever come this close.  They've actually shot the scripted footage.  This could really happen.

who is john galt? the answer is "you."

Finding John Galt.

fill in the blank

An opportunity for our friends on the left to win some converts:

Liberalism sets people free from ______________________.

And "capitalism" -- the notion of free markets and the idea that private property can be accumulated and put to use as the means of production -- is not something people can be liberated from.  You'd have to be more specific.

cloward and piven, meet ayn rand

From The American Thinker:

So, irrespective of the Cloward-Piven Strategy's ultimate goal, its intermediate goal is undeniably to bring down the current system. And needless to say, "Treason!" "Hang 'em!" or some polite-society equivalent is the instinctive reaction from conservatives. But if they could restrain themselves and think for a moment, conservatives might realize that Cloward and Piven have some interesting company.

Cloward and Piven, meet Ayn Rand.

I have no idea whether Richard Cloward or Frances Piven has read Atlas Shrugged. But if they didn't, they should, because though no one could differ more than Cloward-Piven and Rand on ends, they are astonishingly in total agreement on means. Recall the basic plot of Atlas Shrugged: John Galt, a disgruntled inventor whose work is appropriated for "the common good," decides to "stop the motor of the world" by convincing the world's innovators, inventors, and producers to stop innovating, inventing, and producing. Galt's theory is that, deprived of these people's intellect and industry, the state would be forced to supply the wealth that Galt and his ilk do not. As the state has no means to do this, the system would break down, force government to "get out of the way," and herald the advent of pure capitalism.

Of course, Atlas Shrugged holds a place of honor on most conservatives' must-read lists. So let's be honest: A lot of us would like to bring down the current system, too. So if we do in fact share, at least temporarily, Cloward-Piven's intermediate goal, should we not at least consider working with, rather than against, them? Why not a Cloward-Piven-Rand Strategy whereby, simultaneously, we convince the innovators, inventors, and producers to stop innovating, inventing, and producing -- and they convince every eligible American to apply for every available social program and lobby for government at all levels to create even more? Would our combined efforts not bring down the current system -- a goal we both share -- even faster?

reason on rand

H/T to ConservativeLibertine.  Reason magazine's Brian Doherty on Ayn Rand's banner year:

According to Kara Welsh of Rand’s imprint, New American Library, the company shipped 25 percent more copies of Atlas Shrugged in the first half of 2009 than it did for all of 2008, for a total so far this year of more than 300,000. That means that only around 40 new novels in 2009 sold more total copies, according to Publishers Weekly sales figures on 2009 bestsellers. Even the hardcover of Atlas Shrugged has sold nearly 20,000 copies this year, a number that would make it reasonably successful as a new hardcover novel, let alone one that’s been available for half a century.

Doherty discusses the subject of my own post here, "Luck":

This year in The New Republic, Jonathan Chait slammed Rand as the fountainhead of the idea that the rich deserve their wealth. This caused him to turn what was supposed to be a review of two serious new books about Rand into a disquisition on the theme that sometimes luck rather than accomplishment earns people wealth in the modern world, which is not a point that Rand would dispute. Neither is it at all relevant to her belief that people deserve whatever they earn, so long as they are not robbing others.