Relevance: Progressives will hate it; Libertarians will love it
Tags: Bailouts, Banks, Rereading Atlas
Bruce Webster at the New Ledger has a lengthy post explaining how “Atlas Shrugged” relates to the current economic situation. Admittedly, as I reread the novel, there are constant situations in Ayn Rand’s work that seem as if they could be playing out today. From Webster:
For a work written half a century ago, Atlas Shrugged remains surprisingly timely. In an eerie echo of today, many (if not most) critical economic and political decisions are made not by the President or Congress, but by a host of civilian advisors who spend as much time jockeying amongst themselves for position and influence as they do trying to solve the country’s problems. In the novel itself, the focus on trains, mining, steel, and manufacturing, especially within the United States, all seem very quaint and archaic in our digital/silicon/networked/globalized civilization, but every few pages, Rand will have a passage that is not only relevant but often prescient.
Webster goes on to recount many examples of the novel playing in real life today, from TARP to Tim Geithner to Detroit bailouts to the subprime mortgage mess (caution reading, there’s some spoilers).
He does admit that the novel speaks to a certain shade of the political spectrum:
Still, whatever its flaws, anachronisms, and idiosyncrasies, Atlas Shrugged remains as relevant today as it was 50 years ago and perhaps more so than in recent years. If your inclinations are towards the liberal/progressive side of the political spectrum, you will likely hate the novel and will not get through it; you of conservative or libertarian bent will likely enjoy it, though you may have trouble getting through the last 400 pages (which should have been about 40 pages instead).
