Atlas Shrugged

[Rocketboy1313]

I read "Anthem". The only thing Rand ever wrote that could be considered breezily short.

Her position is heavily dependent on strawmen, the idea that systems exists to purposely handicap people so that they do not channel their energies into upsetting the established order. The main character re-discovers electricity after the fall of mankind, and the ruling council has him lashed for working outside of the communal slot he was assigned, and complains that switching over to the new light source would be too much of a hassle, that they had already retrained all the torch makers into candle makers and they just didn't want to bother.

Cause you know how ruling elites hate utilizing technology to make their serfs more efficient. That is a thing.

[phantom000]

I read "Anthem". The only thing Rand ever wrote that could be considered breezily short.

Her position is heavily dependent on strawmen, the idea that systems exists to purposely handicap people so that they do not channel their energies into upsetting the established order. The main character re-discovers electricity after the fall of mankind, and the ruling council has him lashed for working outside of the communal slot he was assigned, and complains that switching over to the new light source would be too much of a hassle, that they had already retrained all the torch makers into candle makers and they just didn't want to bother.

Cause you know how ruling elites hate utilizing technology to make their serfs more efficient. That is a thing.

If you look at the last hundred years or so it was usually the corporations that tried to block new technology. Rockefeller did all he could to stop electricity because he knew it would reduce demand for kerosene. Newspapers lobbied for a law that said radio stations could not transmit the news. Henry Ford's biggest obstacle was the other automobile companies that owned the patents and only won his case because the trust-busters had taken over in Washington.

[ScreamingDoom]

If you look at the last hundred years or so it was usually the corporations that tried to block new technology.

Indeed, and it's also the case that large corporations spend a lot of effort expanding government regulation over things. It always flummoxed me that people insist that government regulation will somehow curtail the rising aristocracy of monied corporations, when the exact opposite happens.

Large, government bureaucratic interference in the economy raises the barrier of entry for smaller, more agile companies with disruptive technologies or techniques. Large, ossified corporations can afford to waste millions of dollars a year on a department that cowtows to the regs and makes sure all of them are followed to the letter; smaller business simply can't. As an added bonus (from those ossified corporations point of view), they can select for regulations that benefit them (or, at least, greater inconvenience any competition) through lobbyists and campaign contributions.

[Rocketboy1313]

If you look at the last hundred years or so it was usually the corporations that tried to block new technology. Rockefeller did all he could to stop electricity because he knew it would reduce demand for kerosene. Newspapers lobbied for a law that said radio stations could not transmit the news. Henry Ford's biggest obstacle was the other automobile companies that owned the patents and only won his case because the trust-busters had taken over in Washington.

Copyright protections are not really brought up in the book. You are suggesting a world that is far more interesting and full of intrigue. Like a Clive Cussler novel in which Floor 7 in Manhattan was making all the real decisions in the US. Rand does not have that.

"Anthem" is just about a ruling council intentionally assigning people work that does not use their talents in order to keep societal stability. The character runs off in the night and does experiments in secret to rediscover electricity. There are no corporations, there is no money, and there is no merit based social mobility.

The message of the book is, "don't do what you are told because all authority figures are just keeping you down so we can just live in perpetual 'meh'." Which I guess would be an interesting message if you lived in a society that would give you a job if you needed one and couldn't find one, but they only offered shit work.
It doesn't really work in the here and now because people are begrudgingly stuck doing work that does not make use of their educations and you have a hard time finding work other than that. If anything we live in opposite world, in which inventions are now giving us so much of a surplus that we could all work 20 hours a week and still have more than enough to go around, but we keep working 40-60 hours a week because... people still think we are living in the 60'? I guess.

Rand's work is lazy political cartoons without nuance or twist. It is blunt and without allusion.

Maybe the bluntness is the appeal? The people who buy her books just like that her message requires no thought to understand, and everyone just assumes that they are some perfect snowflake being kept down by the system? An ego trip for stupid people?

[rickgriffin]

If you look at the last hundred years or so it was usually the corporations that tried to block new technology.

Indeed, and it's also the case that large corporations spend a lot of effort expanding government regulation over things. It always flummoxed me that people insist that government regulation will somehow curtail the rising aristocracy of monied corporations, when the exact opposite happens.

Large, government bureaucratic interference in the economy raises the barrier of entry for smaller, more agile companies with disruptive technologies or techniques. Large, ossified corporations can afford to waste millions of dollars a year on a department that cowtows to the regs and makes sure all of them are followed to the letter; smaller business simply can't. As an added bonus (from those ossified corporations point of view), they can select for regulations that benefit them (or, at least, greater inconvenience any competition) through lobbyists and campaign contributions.

This is all true, and the main thing that Atlas Shrugged seems to get confused is that it thinks that government regulations are working against the interests of "successful" corporations, in favor of "handouts". But that's also why it's so politically insidious.

In order to accomplish this, LITERALLY EVERYONE who receives "handouts" must therefore be unable to create anything of value. Absolutely everyone who receives aid from someone outside themselves without brokering a contract correctly is causing society to suffer! Naturally, in order to paper over this, you are not allowed any shades of gray, else you might see someone take a handout and use it to start their own business because they had no other way to get the capital. Nope! Anything touched by handout money is tainted and doomed to fail, because the moment you receive anything you didn't "earn" instantly turns you slovenly. Promoting the wrong person to a job will tank your company.

Because there's only two kinds of people: good people who work hard and inevitably succeed, and bad people who do not work hard and stymie the success of the good people. You have to take that on faith this is all how it works out in the end, simply because the book imagines a world in which all these little things must be true.

The book is blatantly black-and-white in its morality, it just SEEMS like it has diversity of opinion (beyond John Galt literally being Greed Jesus) simply because what it's black-and-white about is different from the usual good-evil dichotomy.

[FaxModem1]

I've seen the films, have not had the courage to read the book.

Frankly, it's weird how much the movies want us to be happy people are abandoning their fellow man, and to feel the plight of the rich and successful when the country is in a depression and millions are struggling to survive. In fact, it seems that they want us to root for the mediocre to die or get out of the way the 'great people'.

It's also weird how no 'great' person decides, "No, I don't want millions of people's lives on my conscience, I'm staying and helping out." Aside from Dagny, and it seems more of "It's my company, I want it to do well." than "People will die if I don't do something."

Sebastian D'Anaconia seems to be one of the most evil person I've ever seen in a film. "People are making money off me? Well kill them all through 'accidents' or watch them turn destitute and die in this resource starved world. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
And it's weird, it seems like the films want us to support him. Is that the case they're really trying to spin here? If people don't play the way I want them to, I take my ball and go home? Only in this case, the ball are things key to people being able to survive and live.

The entire work has the flawed premise that no one can be altruistic for the simple purpose of wanting to help people, or to make the world better. Instead, it is viewed as a weakness of character, only done for nebulous ends and to make yourself look good. The concept of a conscience is a foreign idea to this world, and being able to be the stronger person who can affect the outcome of others is viewed as a noble trait, especially if it's to screw them over.

Another thing that seems to bug me is, yes, they are taking 'exceptional people', such as scientists, artists, pianists, etc. People who have talent and are able to achieve great things for humanity. But what makes the CEOs with all the resources so exceptional? Are they all self-made men, or did they get lucky and build up from there? Is the ability to make a profit the same as writing a symphony, or inventing a wondrous machine, or discovering some new wonder in the cosmos?

[rickgriffin]

Another thing that seems to bug me is, yes, they are taking 'exceptional people', such as scientists, artists, pianists, etc. People who have talent and are able to achieve great things for humanity. But what makes the CEOs with all the resources so exceptional? Are they all self-made men, or did they get lucky and build up from there? Is the ability to make a profit the same as writing a symphony, or inventing a wondrous machine, or discovering some new wonder in the cosmos?

This is the real comedy of Rand's Objectivism: it frames the heroes as not only self-made people, but also inventors. Guess what kind of person is severely underrepresented in objectivist circles? Actual inventors. Turns out, inventors DO largely get into the business of invention for the sake of helping people, and far less for making a profit for themselves. People who make profit from inventions far more often are managers and marketers.

I can easily imagine John Galt being mad at his supervising company for burying his free energy device. What seems ridiculous is his subsequent plan is NOT "be subversive and publish the plans anonymously", which would spark an energy revolution at the cost of risking his own personal safety and legal security. No, it's "I should have gotten paid a LOT more for this. Time to destroy the earth."

[Rocketboy1313]

Some quick examples of people who changed the world with great inventions and then did not patent them, off the top of my head.
Ben Franklin's Lightning Rod
Alexander Fleming's penicillin
The Xerox think take that invented the computer mouse, desktop icons, email, and the internet.

[TGLS]

The Xerox think take that invented the computer mouse, desktop icons, email, and the internet.

I think your giving Xerox a bit too much credit here. They didn't invent the internet, email as we understand it dates back to RFC 561 (And even older systems on time sharing computers), and Douglas Englebart invented the first mouse. I'll give you GUI.

and then did not patent them

You see though, the thing is that the mouse was patented (See under popularity), as was Ethernet (Developed as part of the Alto Project). Given that Xerox was apparently bought off with stock options to let Apple merely look at the Alto, it is likely that they had patents on everything new (i.e. the GUI).

[Rocketboy1313]

Alright, I am giving them too much credit.