Nothing to Shrug About
Some of us remember our first reading of Atlas Shrugged like our first time behind the wheel of a car: intoxicating but inexplicably discomforting in spots. The 1,000-plus pages of Ayn Rand’s magnum opus positively pulse with the sorts of stuff that those of us in the freedom camp embrace: heroic capitalists, a strident anti-collectivist cant, and the unapologetic championing of individual rights.
Bereft of the clichéd working-class heroes popularized by the likes of Steinbeck, Atlas Shrugged is a sort of anti-Grapes of Wrath, and its protagonist, corporate titan Dagny Taggart, the very antithesis of the downtrodden Tom Joad types so beloved of fashionably leftist literati. Taggart, along with other super-capitalists featured in the novel, is driven, intelligent, and courageous, committed to expanding her business (in this case, a transcontinental railroad corporation) against any odds.
The novel has overtones of science fiction: The world of Atlas Shrugged is a sort of parallel universe where the American Congress and President have been replaced with a National Legislature and Head of State, and the People’s State of England is substituted for Great Britain. The industrial setting is curiously anachronistic, with factories organized along late-19th-century lines in a world whose technology is reminiscent of the early 1950s.
JBS Member or ShopJBS.org Customer?
Sign in with your ShopJBS.org account username and password or use that login to subscribe.
Subscribe Now
- 24 Issues Per Year
- Digital Edition Access
- Exclusive Subscriber Content
- Audio provided for all articles
- Unlimited access to past issues
- Cancel anytime.
- Renews automatically
Subscribe Now
- 24 Issues Per Year
- Print edition delivery (USA)
*Available Outside USA - Digital Edition Access
- Exclusive Subscriber Content
- Audio provided for all articles
- Unlimited access to past issues
- Cancel anytime.
- Renews automatically