Atlas Shrugged

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Harold Leiendecker

INTRODUCTION

I was – shocked! – at the results of a 1998 Random House survey of literature experts, which named James Joyce’s Ulysses as the greatest English-language novel of the twentieth century. Meanwhile, Rosemary Yaco was reading the same news item; and she was – shocked! – that a concurrent Random House on-line poll of ordinary readers ranked Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged as the greatest novel of the century.

That on-line poll was flawed. It involved a self-selected sample of people who had been alerted to it, and voted. However, a legitimate survey, conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club, in 1991, had asked what book had most affected readers’ personal lives. Atlas Shrugged placed second only to the Bible.

ATLAS AND ME

I first read Atlas Shrugged about 1961, on the recommendation of a friend. I was fascinated by the way it agreed so much with what I had begun to conclude about life, by my late 20s.

I was a left/right mixture. I had had one foot in the liberal camp, in that I had worked at TVA as an engineering student, was a participant in the civil rights movement, and had become a religious skeptic. I had chaired the Unitarian Board of Trustees in Baton Rouge. At the same time, I had become a huge believer in free markets, individual freedom, and industrial heroes, having worked seven years for Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey.

Ayn Rand’s magnum opus on reason and individual freedom explicated, and thus seemed to validate my evolving philosophy. It was a coherent integration of my views.

I have read the book twice, and listened to it on tape three times. But in true-believer circles, that leaves me still a piker.

AYN RAND

Ayn Rand was born in Russia in 1905, named Alyssa Rosenbaum. (Legend has it that she took her pen name Ayn from a Finnish philosopher, and the name Rand from the brand of her typewriter. But recently it has been suggested that Ayn Rand may be a derivative from the Cyrillic spelling of her original name.)

Her father was a pharmacist. She was an eyewitness to the Russian revolutions, and did not like them. She was in her father’s drugstore when the Bolsheviks broke in and confiscated it.

She majored in history and minored in philosophy at the University of Leningrad. She was enamored of America and Hollywood, aspiring to become a screenwriter.

In 1926, using the subterfuge that she was going on a visit, she escaped to Chicago, and lived there with relatives for six months. It is reported that they were not unhappy to see her depart for California.

In storybook fashion, she met Cecil B. DeMille at the studio gate, and got a job as an extra. She met and married another extra on the set of King of Kings, Frank O’Connor. He had a very aristocratic appearance, but was nowhere near her equal in intellect. She kept tight control over him, but loved him very deeply – in her own way - and had a dependency on his presence.

She worked as a waitress and junior screenwriter at first, and at one time headed RKO’s wardrobe department, a job she disliked.

The anticommunist views in her writing in the 1930s made her about as popular with publishers, and Hollywood critics and film-makers, as the Hollywood leftists would become, in turn, with the House Un-American Activities Committee, in the 1950s. Because of this, her first publishing success was in Europe, rather than here.

The first of her two blockbuster novels, The Fountainhead, had been rejected by twelve publishers, and was not accorded respect by critics; but two years after its debut, it worked itself to the top of the best-seller lists. It is still known as the greatest word-of-mouth book ever published. (My personal opinion is that the hero of The Fountainhead is a pig-headed vandal, and violates Rand’s own philosophy at several points.)

Rand acquired a coterie of young admirers who formed her salon. Nathaniel Branden, and his girlfriend Barbara, who became his wife, were the closest to Rand. Ayn and Frank served as matron of honor and best man at the Brandens’ wedding.

Nathaniel called Rand "Mrs. Logic." He became her designated intellectual heir.

Rand was often a difficult person, even as she was almost universally admired and respected, and sometimes loved, by those who knew her. The New York Times once called her one of the most impossible women of all time.

In her most infamous activity, Rand one day declared that she and Nathaniel were to become lovers, and persuaded her husband and Barbara to go along with the arrangement. But it was a disaster in the end. Nathaniel found a younger woman, and finally told Ayn. Hell hath no fury like her reaction. She denounced Nathaniel, and broke completely with him. Barbara divorced him. Rand’s emotional crash, because of the change in feelings toward her by Nathaniel, was totally at odds with her philosophy. She had always doggedly championed an individualism which would never let your happiness depend on the behavior of someone else.

She and some of her protégés were known for "purging" members of her salon who deviated from her pronouncements. But the purged continue to spread her thought, albeit in slightly different paths. Both Brandens have written respectful biographies of Rand.

Ayn continued with Frank for a 50-year marriage. He died in 1979; she, in 1982. Most of her family, back in Leningrad, died during the World War II siege.

RAND’S PHILOSOPHY

Now, to her philosophy. Ayn Rand aspired to write a great novel about noble humanity. She thought that to write that novel, she would have to think through a comprehensive, coherent philosophy, as the grounding. Her philosophy is called Objectivism. Its formalization and promulgation came only after Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957. In 1962, she wrote a summary of that philosophy, part of which says:

"My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:

Reality exists as an objective absolute — facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes, or fears.

Reason is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.

Man — every man — is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others, nor sacrificing others to himself. My need does not give me an automatic claim to your wealth.

The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange, to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. There should be a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church."

THE PUBLISHING

Now, the publishing story: Because of the success, in the end, of The Fountainhead, the publishing rights for Atlas were pursued vigorously. Rand awarded the book to Random House, because owners Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer seemed to understand the book, and other publishers did not. Rand proudly told the story, that at their first meeting, before reading the book, Klopfer had asked: "If it is a moral defense of capitalism, wouldn’t it have to clash with the entire tradition of Judaeo-Christian ethics?" She knew that he understood! Later, while reading it, Cerf reportedly ran out of his office and down the hall, waving the manuscript, shouting: "It’s magnificent!"

While they did not completely agree with her philosophy, Cerf and Klopfer loved to show Rand off, to friends who sneered at them for publishing her. Clifton Fadiman and George Axelrod were two of these, who were charmed by her, and spent hours talking with her at their respective first meetings. Axelrod said: "She knows me better after five hours than my analyst does after five years."

On the other side of the balance, when Random House threw a surprise publication party for her at The Plaza, she spent most of the evening bitching about how she did not like surprises.

CONTENT

Let’s get to the book. I read the novel on three levels. On the macro level, it is about the importance of reason and productivity, and how those characteristics have such a bad press, relative to hope and inadequacy. The book succeeds stupendously on this level. At the micro level, the behavior and dialog are brilliant reflections of the way many people speak and interact. I admit, though, that there is an intermediate level of actions in the plot, that are downright hokey. For example, the State Science Institute develops a torture machine that is used to try to force the free-marketeer hero to become dictator over the national economy. Another incredible feature: There is an opportunist official who runs for the U.S. Senate, from a state in which he has never even lived before!

THE PLOT

Atlas has many layers and sub-plots. Rand has written on the art of fiction, saying it needs such multiple perspectives - and that they must be coherent. The bit about coherence differentiates her from a lot of writers.

The overarching story is that the men of the mind, who like Atlas, carry the world on their shoulders, gradually get fed up with being exploited, and abused, and given no respect. They retire from the world, shrugging the burden, in effect. Rand’s working title was On Strike. Her husband’s suggestion that the title be changed to Atlas Shrugged was a valuable contribution. (It reminds me of another great title change, when Viktor Frankl’s book From Death Camp to Existentialism was re-named Man’s Search for Meaning.)

Atlas can be read as a mystery story, as science fiction, as a feminist tale, or an Arthurian quest and romance, as well as a novel of philosophy, politics, and economics.

As a mystery, there is the question of why the world is running down, and where the productive and talented people are disappearing to. There is a classic quest, to find this out, and to locate the man responsible. Also, there is a search for the secret of a marvelous motor, and its vanished inventor.

The novel’s opening words are the immortal query: "Who is John Galt?" This is a mysterious expression which no one seems to know the derivation or exact meaning of. But it is widely used by the public, not as a serious question, but as a statement of apprehension, uncertainty, and/or hopelessness. John Galt turns out to be the key to all the mysteries; this becomes clear only at about page 650, although on second reading, you can identify many subtle clues along the way. That makes the second reading a richer one.

Nathaniel Branden called the book "a mystery story, not about the murder of a man’s body, but about the murder – and rebirth – of man’s spirit."

As to science fiction, there is the marvelous motor I mentioned, which runs on static electricity out of the air. A new alloy, called Rearden Metal, which outshines steel in every respect, is featured. The State Science Institute develops a weapon of mass destruction which uses sound waves. And there is a protective ray shield hiding Galt’s Gulch, aka Atlantis, the retreat of the men whose minds are shown to have been the motors of the world. (It is generally agreed that Ouray, Colorado, is at the location of their hideout implied by the book.)

While the book seems to have been set a few years in the future from the 1957 publication date, there are only those few technological advances. The key industry involved is the railroads, which had already passed their prime. There are political changes. All countries except the United States are called the People’s State of Norway, the People’s State of Mexico, etc. In the U.S., the "Head of the State" is always referred to as "Mr. Thompson." All this gives an ominous tone to some of us. It has been said that the novel opens about 1980, and ends in the Orwellian year, 1984.

Ayn Rand was a huge fan of skyscrapers and motors, and industry in general, even though she was not technically active personally. She never learned to drive, and did not take a plane ride until 1962. She said she did not trust "the modern psycho-epistemology of the mechanics and pilots." But heroine Dagny Taggart flies her own plane a good deal. Ms. Rand did take over the throttle of the Twentieth Century Limited locomotive, on one of her trips to learn about railroads, mines, steel mills, and factories, as background for writing Atlas.

Feminists have been paying attention to Dagny Taggart lately. She is one of the strongest women in literature. She is an outstanding engineer, and everyone knows that she really runs the family railroad, Taggart Transcontinental, as vice president of operations, even though her no-good leach of a brother is president. She is a super-professional, who is very attractive to heroic men. Three of the four male titans of the book, one of whom is married, have successive high-minded love affairs with Dagny. They still admire her after she progresses to another man. She likes rough sex, as does The Fountainhead’s heroine - which of course invites speculation about Rand.

There are many themes overlaid on the general plot. In one extended speech, it is argued that money is the product of virtue. Rand says that people who have earned money respect it. Those who obtain it by mooching or by force or by luck, can easily disdain it. But only fools believe that money can directly buy happiness. It is productive virtue that earns money, in fair, mutually-beneficial trade with others. That productivity gives self-respect – and personal happiness.

In supply/demand economics, Rand would be the ultimate supply-sider. Producing supply is hard.

Rand makes much of the sign of the dollar, and another bit of hokum occurs in the ending, when John Galt traces the sign of the dollar in the air as he tells the strikers it is time to go back to the world. Even I choke on that. She took the dollar-sign symbol, always drawn on capitalist pigs in cartoons, and turned conventional wisdom upside down, to make a point. She always wore a large gold dollar-sign pin on her dress. At her funeral, a six-foot floral dollar-sign was placed by the casket.

Many of Rand’s didactic statements, taken out of full context, provoke controversy. She titled a book of her essays, "The Virtue of Selfishness." That title is far more provocative than the content, and she admitted to using it to discomfort people. There is no meanness in that book, even though most would expect it, from her title. She admired Salvador Dali, and I suspect was imitating some of his flair for outrageousness, to attract attention to her work.

Rand continually derides altruism. Her main gripe with altruism is that it pressures many producers to stifle themselves. She regards what some consider desirable mercy, as harmful injustice - the granting of unearned and undeserved rewards. These can sap the initiative of both the giver and the receiver.

She attacks some people’s hypocritical use of arguments that request others to sacrifice, in order to gain a benefit for themselves. A prime example could be the Andreas family, of Archer-Daniels-Midland. They adopt an air of nobility, as they plea for use of ethanol as the savior of the environment, family farmers, and our American way of life. They are really lining their pockets with subsidies from taxpayers, part of which they pass back to politicians. Rand writes mostly about such grand theft, in the form of corporate welfare. Her villains are people like Lee Iacocca and Armand Hammer.

Rand addresses personal welfare issues much less. She favors helping others only when the donor values the recipients. Self-reliance, autonomy, and reciprocity are endorsed. Paternalism and dependence are eschewed. Here is a quote from John Galt, about charity: "If you choose to help a man who suffers, do it only on the ground of his virtues, of his fight to recover, of his rational record, or of the fact that he suffers unjustly; then your action is still a trade, and his virtue is the payment for your help. But to help a man who has no virtues, to help him on the ground of his suffering as such, to accept his faults, his need, as a claim – is to accept the mortgage of a zero on your values." Not exactly in favor of random acts of kindness; but not as bad as Rand is sometimes portrayed, either.

Throughout, Rand champions individualism over collectivism. Several collective measures in the book illustrate the inherent difficulties with them. The Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog rule adopted by the railroad association, to soften what is viewed as destructive competition, debilitates all of them. The Equalization of Opportunity Bill requires divestiture for everyone who owns more than one business. This puts many firms in the hands of well-connected, but incompetent and corrupt persons, who fail miserably. The Bill limits sales of any one book to 10,000 copies, so as to spread opportunity among authors.

National Directive 10-289 attempts to halt the economic decline, by freezing all activity at its current level, much like the New Deal’s N.R.A. It also requires patents and copyrights to be turned over to the state. This directive brings the final ruin of the transportation system, and all the industries dependent on it, including agriculture.

One of my favorite sections of the book is the story of the Twentieth Century Motor Company. Its founder had built the best automobile company around. But his heirs decide to run it on the basis of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Rand’s hatred for what she saw in her native Russia boils over here.

The rewarding of need motivates many employees to become victims and beggars. Those who used to celebrate births in the community, come to hate them. They become hostile toward those who become sick, and many feign incompetence in order to avoid the extra assignments that accrue to good workers. The new generation of family owners receives many public humanitarian awards, and admiration for their new, selfless administration. But one sister in the family becomes the czar of judging needs, and enjoys that power, to a fault. One brother makes himself more equal than others, and becomes dissolute. The company rots away. And we learn that the first of the productive workers to leave, was a young physicist named: John Galt - who had invented, but abandoned, the new, marvelous motor, in the decaying factory.

Another Rand theme is the unity of mind and body. She denies the traditional religious dichotomy - that the spirit is good, and the flesh is evil. Randian individuals are integrated, and do not treat some aspects of their lives as lofty, and others as shameful.

There are comments on philosophy throughout the book. A favorite passage of mine is at a cocktail party, when the head of the Philosophy Department at Patrick Henry University postulates, in line with post-modernism, that nothing is anything. Another guest then contrasts that, with the belief that everything is something. That was the teaching of good old Aristotelian philosopher Hugh Akston, when he was the department head, until he disappeared along with so many other talented folks.

I love that summation of the two philosophies: "Nothing is anything," vs. "Everything is something."

Rand uses extended speeches in her two best-selling novels, to preach her major lessons. The longest and most famous is Galt’s speech, which runs for over 60 pages. But the three-hour speech is delivered in another hokie situation: He broadcasts it by surreptitiously taking over the national radio system, blocking out a talk to the nation about the national malaise, scheduled by Mr. Thompson.

Galt’s speech carefully reasons out Rand’s philosophy, beginning with the question of existence. Humans exist conditionally, dependent upon choice; and valid choice requires exercise of reason.

Galt says your life belongs neither to God nor to your neighbors. It belongs to you. He decries self-sacrifice, for either spirits in heaven, or for incompetents on earth. Reason is a personal, individual thing. You must judge what is true, based on your own senses and experience. You will not be infallible, but you should not let other people’s opinions override your own judgments.

Galt calls for a general strike by all producers. Then the looters and moochers will be defeated, and the nation will be rebuilt on a system of voluntary trade.

The cockamamie result of the speech is that everyone from Mr. Thompson on down, immediately begs John Galt to come out of hiding, and show the way to return to prosperity. They capture him, and through torture, try to force him to become the economic dictator, as I mentioned.

CHARACTERS

The unequivocal natures of characters in Atlas are the basis for much of the literary criticism of it. Immediately upon introducing anyone, Rand telegraphs his/her nature. Nathaniel Branden said Rand made her characterizations with a chisel, like a sculptor – not like a photographer, with a camera.

The good folks are well-built, honest, and talented. She clearly stated her intent to draw these characters as ideal humans might be. She said that Dagny had all of her own good qualities, with none of her faults. Rand believed that only romantic literature is art. She categorized realistic fiction as journalism - not art. Rand was sometimes berated for her hero worship. But she contrasted that with what she called Communists’ "zero worship."

Her villains are ugly, and offensive. Nevertheless, I find the words they speak, very true to life. She has her moochers and looters down pat. But I admit that the speech of her heroes is sometimes stilted.

Some of the villains’ names connote their character. Wesley Mouch, is a conniving, traitorous lobbyist. Floyd Ferris is a ferret at weaseling political support for nefarious projects of the State Science Institute. Executive Orren Boyle needs lancing. Claude Slagenhop is a pseudo-altruist moocher, president of Friends of Global Progress. I’ll leave Tinky Holloway to your imagination.

Hank Rearden is a persecuted industrialist. At first, he accepts the guilt heaped on him by the looters and moochers in government, industry, and his family. This harnessing of the productive, by the weak, requires acceptance of guilt by the producers. Conceding moral validity to their critics, they willingly bear injustices in the name of the supposed virtue of self-sacrifice. Rand says this sanction of the victim, is what permits the looters and moochers to exploit the producers.

The strikers in Galt’s Gulch are withdrawing that sanction, refusing to work for nothing but the condemnation and robbery which society has inflicted on the productive. Rearden and Dagny, at first, fight to keep those who make the world work, from dropping out. But Rearden comes to realize that it is his own sense of rectitude that makes it possible for the moochers and looters to accuse him of depravity, and thus shame him into taking care of them. And finally, Dagny sees that the strikers are right, and that her attempts to put off the decay of the economy are wrongheaded. People must learn, through the hardships produced by the strike, who are the prime movers, before they will get smart and allow the men and women of the mind to do their work.

The variety of residents on strike in the idyllic valley include a composer, judge, coal mine owner, doctor, truck driver, physicist, railroad brakeman, and an actress.

A favorite striker of mine is Hugh Akston, that Aristoteleian who had been chairman of the philosophy department at Patrick Henry University, where Galt and his two brilliant buddies – now co-leaders of the strike – went to school.

Akston had been one of two professors who were rivals for influence over these three students. The other professor competing for their following was the physics department chairman, Dr. Robert Stadler, a scientific genius who becomes head of the State Science Institute, and allows himself to become a puppet of his politically-attuned assistant, Dr. Floyd Ferris.

Patrick Henry U. was respected as the finest educational institution in the world. Rand didn’t locate it in a Berkeley or Cambridge – but rather, in industrial Cleveland.

Ragnar Danneskjold, a striker who was one of the two college buddies of Galt, is a Randian Robin Hood. He robs from "society," and gives back to the producers, from whom the wealth had been taken. His pirate ships seize cargo moving among the various People’s States on the high seas. He sells the booty for gold, and returns that to the achievers. Fortunately, no one ever gets killed in these encounters.

REVIEWS

And now – the reviews. Barbara Branden said, "The reviews of We the Living had been bad. The reviews of The Fountainhead had been worse. The reviews of Atlas Shrugged were savage."

Granville Hicks, of the New York Times, and a spokesman for the New York Communist Party, said Atlas was "written out of hate." The New Yorker, describing a scene in which a farm plow is pulled by men, said sarcastically, "Even the horse, it appears, cannot survive when liberals flourish." Kirsch, in the L.A. Times, said, "It would be hard to find such a display of grotesque eccentricity outside an asylum. Galt is really arguing for a dictatorship."

Gore Vidal called it "perfect in its immorality." "Longer than life and twice as preposterous" was another opinion. One reviewer said that Atlas’ philosophy "makes well-poisoning seem like one of the kindlier arts." Another likened it to Mein Kampf.

Some attacks from the right were the most severe. In his National Review assessment, Whittaker Chambers said that the implicit message was, "To a gas chamber – go!"

Many of these comments are about a million degrees out of orientation to the philosophy of individual freedom extolled in the actual book. I believe these reviewers understood the book’s actual themes. But they figured they could conduct a more effective hatchet job, by misrepresenting its nature. I also suspect some were reacting to the authoritarian streak in Rand’s personality, rather than to what was printed on the paper.

At any rate, because of such commentary, there are still terribly mistaken impressions about Atlas among its non-readers. There is a widespread misperception of Ayn Rand’s philosophy as one of "self-interest uber alles." Actually, her prime value is reason. And from that she derives reasoned, enlightened, self-interest as a supporting value.

Among the few favorable reviews of Atlas Shrugged, was one by John Chamberlain in the New York Herald Tribune. He compared it to a Dostoevsky philosophical detective story. The Daily Mirror said "Rand is destined to rank in history as the outstanding novelist and profound philosopher of the twentieth century." Other critics praised her striking narrative power, and "breathtaking suspense which carries the reader headlong."

LEGACY OF RAND

As to her legacy: Ayn Rand may not get much respect from literature professors. But she has spawned a philosophical school, and a political party and movement. The impact of Atlas has been compared to that of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

More than five million copies of Atlas Shrugged have been sold. Rand’s total book sales have been about 25 million, and they continue at over 400,000 per year.

A large proportion of libertarians say that Ayn Rand influenced them greatly. They have a book, titled It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand. However, Rand herself called libertarians "the hippies of the right."

Atlas is read in some courses on feminism, for the sake of Dagny Taggart, its singular heroine. Mimi Gladstein was a homemaker mother of three children when Rand’s books inspired her to further her education, and become a professor, teaching courses in feminism. She has found students very responsive to the example of Dagny. In her words: "The manipulated or exploited female continues to be the mainstay of American fiction." But she describes Dagny Taggart as a woman who is active, assertive, and successful. She finds her students excited by Atlas Shrugged, after reading the standards of feminism. Gladstein has written two books on Rand, and co-edited another. When she wrote Ayn to tell about her admiration, and her intent to write the first one, Rand wrote back, obtusely threatening to sue her.

Billie Jean King has said that Atlas Shrugged turned her around, when she was going through a bad period in tennis, and considered quitting.

Anne Wortham was a Peace Corps worker in Uganda in the sixties, when she bought a used copy of Atlas. As a result of reading it, she underwent what she called "a heartrending psycho-intellectual transformation." She went on to teach at the Kennedy School at Harvard, and wrote The Other Side of Racism, which denounced coercive egalitarianism. In Bill Moyers’ TV series and book: A World of Ideas, she was featured as a black intellectual who "stands apart in criticizing the rights movement for promoting reverse discrimination and the welfare state."

Writer Robert Hunt has said that "Ayn Rand is a prophet whose time has come, gone, and come again." The movie Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, was nominated for an Academy Award in 1998. The cable-TV movie of Barbara Branden’s book, The Passion of Ayn Rand, won a best-actress award for Helen Mirren in 1999. The Postal Service issued an Ayn Rand stamp in 1998. 

An episode of the Simpsons TV cartoon program involved an Ayn Rand School for Tots - the only day care center in Springfield not under government investigation. Bart Simpson’s baby sister starts a strike by the kids.

There are two primary organizations of Objectivists. The Ayn Rand Institute is a hard-nosed group, that is more Objectivist than Rand herself. There is a kinder, gentler, more tolerant organization, the Objectivist Center, headed by philosopher David Kelley. Kelley has written a book, Unrugged Individualism, describing the prudence of benevolence – good will without net self-sacrifice.

There is now a section of the American Philosophical Society called the Ayn Rand Society, which deals with her philosophy on a professional academic level. The Chronicle of Higher Education, academia's newspaper of record, recently said, "Ayn Rand has finally caught the attention of scholars." Academia's newsmagazine, Lingua Franca, followed that with a respectful eleven-page article about the Objectivist movement.

A 6-hour, two-part TV film of Atlas will be aired this fall. The producer is Al Ruddy, of Godfather fame.

Ruddy originally talked with Rand about a film of Atlas in 1972. Everything was pretty well worked out orally, and they even had a party at "21" to announce it. But in writing the contract, she demanded the right to review the final script and cuts. He refused, telling her he would wait until she dropped dead, if he had to. She replied that she would put it in her will, that he would be the only person forbidden from ever doing it. However, at her death, she left notes favorable to his producing the film. There will be an Atlas Society formed as part of the publicity for the film. I will have membership applications available for you at that time.

Rand has written extensively about the creative process in the arts. Neil Peart, a popular drummer in a rock group called "Rush," has written several songs which he says were inspired by Rand. Here is one called The Trees:

There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the Maples want more sunlight
And the Oaks ignore their pleas

The trouble with the Maples
(And they're quite convinced they're right)
They say the Oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light

But the Oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made
And they wonder why the Maples
Can't be happy in their shade?

There is trouble in the Forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the Maples scream "Oppression!"
And the Oaks, just shake their heads

So the Maples formed a Union
And demanded equal rights
"These oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light"

Now there's no more Oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet,
Axe,
And saw ...

That sounds harsh. But I think it is apt for what is done by some of our laws. I would like to quote from an economics paper [[NABE]] written by Alan Greenspan in 1961, on our antitrust laws. You are probably aware that Greenspan is the most prominent of the inner-circle of Rand’s salon. (Rand called Greenspan "the undertaker.")

Greenspan’s paper includes this quotation from the opinion of Judge Learned Hand, in the 1945 case in which ALCOA was found guilty of violating the Sherman Act.

"It was not inevitable that it should always anticipate increases in demand for the ingot and be prepared to supply them. Nothing compelled it to keep doubling and redoubling its capacity before others entered the field. It insists that it never excluded competitors; but we can think of no more effective exclusion than progressively to embrace each new opportunity as it opened, and to face every newcomer with new capacity already geared into a great organization, having the advantage of experience, trade connections and the elite of personnel."

[End of the quote of Judge Learned Hand. Now to Greenspan’s comment on Hand’s opinion.]

"ALCOA is being condemned for being too successful, too efficient, and too good a competitor. Whatever damages the antitrust laws may have done to our economy, whatever distortions of the structure of the nation’s capital they may have created, these are less disastrous than the fact that the effective purpose, the hidden intent, and the actual practice of the antitrust laws in the United States have led to the condemnation of the productive and efficient members of our society because they are productive and efficient."

[End of Greenspan 1961 quote; part of the legacy of Ayn Rand.]

Recently, the government has pursued Bill Gates for selling his products at too low a price; and it’s now trying to saw Microsoft in two, because it grew into a mighty oak!

CLOSING

In closing, I regret that I have but one hour to give to this book!

Comments or questions can be addressed to leiendhf@eckerd.edu