‘Atlas Shrugged’: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years

Many of us who know [Atlas Shrugged author Ayn] Rand’s work have noticed that with each passing week, and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that “Atlas Shrugged” parodied in 1957, when this 1,000-page novel was first published and became an instant hit.

Rand, who had come to America from Soviet Russia with striking insights into totalitarianism and the destructiveness of socialism, was already a celebrity. The left, naturally, hated her. But as recently as 1991, a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club found that readers rated “Atlas” as the second-most influential book in their lives, behind only the Bible.

For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises — that in most cases they themselves created — by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.

Atlas Shrugged says a whole lot more than that…and there’s a whole lot more it says, that is also coming true. One of the other points it makes that for people living in such a wretched society, there is a pronounced phenomenon in which all but the most capable minds are dragged into such an addled state that they cannot see the evidence before their own eyes.

The first thing to go is the ability to look at someone else better off financially, without seeing skulduggery. Lickety-split, they round that fifth step on the way to complete insanity: How many dollars do you want in your bank account? Subtract the number of dollars that are really there, and you’re left with the number of reasons to believe someone’s out to getcha. It must be true! You’re such a good person, you deserve to have so much more! Someone’s ripping you off, no need to wait for real evidence. And anyone with a fatter wallet must be in on this evil, insidious plot.

The excellent is confused with the mediocre. It is the mediocre, after all, that is testament to numbers of people united in a common condition, in common interests, or in common patterns of behavior. Excellent is something that has something to do with individuality, and who needs individuals? No, there is only one useful brand left of excellence: That would be the ability to communicate ideas and make them sound appealing when they really don’t help anyone. Only that can unite large numbers of mediocre people, and send them rushing off in a common direction. Commonality, that’s the ticket. People sense a great need to “come together” to do…they don’t know what. The content of an idea is unimportant. The sales-appeal of an idea, and how many people are already doing it, are the only things that matter.

The phrase “In Times Like These” is repeated over and over and over again. Invariably, it’s placed in front of a proposal that, in another setting, would make no sense at all. And still doesn’t. It’s only discussed in vague, highly generalized terms…right after that magical phrase, “In Times Like These.” We have to “stick together,” “in times like these.”

I have personal knowledge of certain large company. Within this company’s private intranet, there is a blog in which one of the executives has put together a set of New Year’s resolutions for how that company should face this challenging, challenging year. Then he opened up the floor for possible additions to his list. Two of the comments that followed really stuck out, to me.

One guy announced his intention to spend the year flying under the radar, staying low on the trouble-meter so that he’d keep his job. That was his goal. There we go…do something exceptional, you might get squished, so it’s better not to try. The confusion between mediocrity and excellence — whoomp, there it is. Heh. Call this a depression, recession, stagflation, whatever you want…does it hurt or help our chances for pulling out of it, if people are afraid of doing exceptional things?

The other fellow went on a rambling tirade about “greed.” I say rambling because he never did define what exactly greed is; where the line is drawn. He nevertheless made a compelling, damning case against “corporate greed,” talking of such notorious trademarks as Enron, Lehman Brothers, et al. When the dust had settled, it was undeniable these corporate rascals were all to blame for this miserable condition that confronted all of us, their fellow country men, who would never even meet them. The only thing missing from the indictment was the definition of the crime. How do you define greed? For all I know he might have been talking about the candid but less-than-satisfying entry found in the House of Eratosthenes Glossary —

Greedy (adj.):

An undefined word. If it does have a meaning at all, the closest one we’ve been able to extrapolate from the pattern of the word’s actual usage, is: Someone who manifests a desire to keep his property when someone else comes along wanting to take it away. A wealthy person who wants to stay that way (but you’d better click on the word “wealthy” to find out what it really means).

And when you click the word “wealthy,” you get —

Wealthy (adj.):

An undefined word. It doesn’t refer to a high net worth, because it’s frequently used to refer to people who lack this; it doesn’t refer to a high personal or household income, because it’s often used to refer to people who lack that.

Extrapolating a meaning from the common usage of the word — if I call you “wealthy,” it usually means you have some material property that I want to take away from you. Liberal politicians often use this word to describe private citizens who own small businesses, and are supported by incomes substantially less than what supports the liberal politicians, owning portfolios of private wealth that are insignificant compared to the vast fortunes controlled by those liberal politicians. And so the word “wealthy” is deprived of all meaningful definitions possible, save one: A designated target of legalized theft. A snake-oil salesman uses the word “mark”; a liberal politician uses the term “wealthy person.”

That’s Atlas Shrugged come to life, right there. We’re facing down a financially difficult year, for everybody. What instincts bubble to the surface of the human-emotion stewpot? A determination to be mediocre rather than excellent, to keep the bulls-eye off one’s own back. And, a sensibility that there is something inherently nefarious about material success.

So we are supposed to be humdrum, and we are not supposed to succeed.

That’ll get us out of this fix?

Trust me on this. If a man appeared to me this time last year, and told me Atlas Shrugged was going to come true, as vividly as I see it unfolding before me now…I’d pick up the phone straight-away, and have him committed. Or at least recommend to his relatives that this be done, toot-sweet.

And here we are.

As I type this, Amazon reports the book at $16.32, 56 New & Used from $9.50. This price has skyrocketed from the six-or-eight bucks I paid just a few years ago…which I find quite interesting. Evidently, there is something about “times like these” that make people think this is a book worth reading. If you’re not already acting on this yourself, you’re missing out. Click, order, read, and be amazed.

H/T: Ryskind Sketchbook, via Wheat & Weeds, via Gerard.

We’ve been flirting with it, and acting upon it, for much longer than you might think.

The personal income tax, the federal government’s main source of revenue, is collected overwhelmingly from a relative handful of Americans. Indeed, the most recent IRS data shows that the top 1 percent of filers paid nearly 40 percent of all income taxes. That means the top 1 percent paid about the same as the bottom 95 percent, according to the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan research group. The bottom 50 percent paid just 3 percent.

Given that poorer citizens always outnumber the rich, political philosophers have long worried that government based on majority rule could lead to organized theft from the wealthy by the democratic masses. “If the majority distributes among itself the things of a minority, it is evident that it will destroy the city,” Aristotle warned.

The Founders of the United States shared Aristotle’s worry. Up through their time, history had shown all known democracies to be, as James Madison put it, “incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.” Madison and others therefore made it a “first object of government” to protect personal property from unjust confiscation.

There follows a fascinating walk-through of American history, and within it, our various misadventures with the various cul de sacs of frenzied, frothy populist rage injected into our tax code. Behind the link above.

So what’re you still doing here?

Hat tip to Red Planet Cartoons, which also gets credit for the graphic.