Walter Block Its Ayn Rand Bashing Time

  Tabular array of Contents

Championship Folio

Copyright Page

Dedication

Introduction

Part I - NON-CONTRADICTION

CHAPTER I - THE THEME

CHAPTER II - THE Chain

CHAPTER Three - THE TOP AND THE BOTTOM

Chapter Iv - THE IMMOVABLE MOVERS

Chapter V - THE CLIMAX OF THE D'ANCONIAS

CHAPTER VI - THE Non-COMMERCIAL

CHAPTER VII - THE EXPLOITERS AND THE EXPLOITED

Chapter Viii - THE JOHN GALT LINE

CHAPTER IX - THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE

CHAPTER X - WYATT'S TORCH

Office Ii - EITHER-OR

Affiliate I - THE MAN WHO BELONGED ON Globe

CHAPTER Ii - THE Aristocracy OF PULL

Chapter Three - WHITE BLACKMAIL

CHAPTER IV - THE SANCTION OF THE VICTIM

Chapter Five - Business relationship OVERDRAWN

Affiliate VI - Phenomenon METAL

Affiliate Seven - THE MORATORIUM ON BRAINS

Affiliate 8 - By OUR LOVE

Chapter IX - THE FACE WITHOUT Pain OR FEAR OR GUILT

Affiliate X - THE SIGN OF THE DOLLAR

Part III - A IS A

CHAPTER I - ATLANTIS

CHAPTER II - THE UTOPIA OF GREED

CHAPTER III - ANTI-GREED

CHAPTER Four - ANTI-LIFE

Affiliate 5 - THEIR BROTHERS' KEEPERS

CHAPTER VI - THE CONCERTO OF DELIVERANCE

Chapter Vii - "THIS IS JOHN GALT SPEAKING"

Affiliate Eight - THE EGOIST

CHAPTER IX - THE GENERATOR

CHAPTER X - IN THE NAME OF THE BEST Inside US

Well-nigh THE Writer

BY THE Same Author

Nosotros the Living

Canticle

The Fountainhead

Atlas Shrugged

For the New Intellectual

The Virtue of Selfishness

Capitalism: the Unknown Platonic

The New Left: the Anti-Industrial Revolution

The Romantic Manifesto

Night of Jan 16th

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology

Philosophy: Who Needs Information technology.

DUTTON

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Offset Dutton printing, March 1992

Beginning Dutton printing (Centennial Edition), May 2005

Copyright (c) Ayn Rand, 1957. Copyright renewed 1985 by Eugene Winick, Paul Gitlin and Leonard Peikoff Introduction copyright (c) 1992 past Leonard Peikoff All rights reserved.

Rand, Ayn.

Atlas shrugged / Ayn Rand.

p. cm.

With new introd.

eISBN : 978-ane-10113719-two

I. Title.

PS3535.A547A94 1992

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TO FRANK O'CONNOR

INTRODUCTION TO THE 35th ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Ayn Rand held that art is a "re-creation of reality according to an creative person's metaphysical value-judgments." By its nature, therefore, a novel (like a statue or a symphony) does non require or tolerate an explanatory preface; it is a self-contained universe, aristocratic from commentary, beckoning the reader to enter, perceive, respond.

Ayn Rand would never have approved of a didactic (or laudatory) introduction to her volume, and I have no intention of flouting her wishes. Instead, I am going to give her the flooring. I am going to permit y'all in on some of the thinking she did as she was preparing to write Atlas Shrugged.

Before starting a novel, Ayn Rand wrote voluminously in her journals about its theme, plot, and characters. She wrote not for any audition, simply strictly for herself--that is, for the clarity of her own agreement. The journals dealing with Atlas Shrugged are powerful examples of her mind in activity, confident even when groping, purposeful even when stymied, luminously eloquent even though wholly unedited. These journals are too a fascinating tape of the step-past-step birth of an immortal work of fine art.

In due course, all of Ayn Rand'southward writings will be published. For this 35th anniversary edition of Atlas Shrugged, nevertheless, I have selected, every bit a kind of advance bonus for her fans, four typical journal entries. Permit me warn new readers that the passages reveal the plot and will spoil the volume for anyone who reads them before knowing the story.

As I recall, "Atlas Shrugged" did not become the novel's title until Miss Rand'southward hubby fabricated the suggestion in 1956. The working title throughout the writing was "The Strike."

The earliest of Miss Rand'southward notes for "The Strike" are dated Jan one, 1945, almost a year after the publication of The Fountainhead. Naturally enough, the subject on her mind was how to differentiate the nowadays novel from its predecessor.

Theme: What happens to the earth when the Prime Movers become on strike.

This means--a picture of the world with its motor cut off. Show: what, how, why. The specific steps and incidents--in terms of persons, their spirits, motives, psychology and deportment--and, secondarily proceeding from persons, in terms of history, society and the earth.

The theme requires: to testify who are the prime movers and why, how they role. Who are their enemies and why, what are the motives behind the hatred for and the enslavement of the prime movers; the nature of the obstacles placed in their way, and the reasons for it.

This last paragraph is contained entirely in The Fountainhead. Roark and Toohey are the complete statement of it. Therefore, this is non the direct theme of The Strike--just it is part of the theme and must be kept in heed, stated again (though briefly) to have the theme clear and consummate.

Start question to decide is on whom the emphasis must be placed--on the prime movers, the parasites or the world. The answer is: The earth. The story must be primarily a flick of the whole.

In this sense, The Strike

is to be much more a "social" novel than The Fountainhead. The Fountainhead was about "individualism and collectivism within man'southward soul"; information technology showed the nature and function of the creator and the second-hander. The main concern at that place was with Roark and Toohey--showing what they are. The rest of the characters were variations of the theme of the relation of the ego to others--mixtures of the two extremes, the two poles: Roark and Toohey. The primary concern of the story was the characters, the people as such--their natures. Their relations to each other--which is order, men in relation to men--were secondary, an unavoidable, direct effect of Roark gear up against Toohey. But it was non the theme.

Now, it is this relation that must be the theme. Therefore, the personal becomes secondary. That is, the personal is necessary only to the extent needed to make the relationships articulate. In The Fountainhead I showed that Roark moves the worid--that the Keatings feed upon him and hate him for it, while the Tooheys are out consciously to destroy him. Only the theme was Roark--not Roark's relation to the earth. Now it will be the relation.

In other words, I must prove in what concrete, specific way the world is moved by the creators. Exactly how do the second-handers live on the creators. Both in spiritual matters--and (about particularly) in concrete physical events. (Concentrate on the physical, physical events--but don't forget to keep in mind at all times how the physical proceeds from the spiritual.) ...

However, for the purpose of this story, I practise not outset by showing how the second-handers live on the prime movers in actual, everyday reality--nor do I start by showing a normal world. (That comes in only in necessary retrospect, or flashback, or past implication in the events themselves.) I start with the fantastic premise of the prime movers going on strike. This is the bodily heart and centre of the novel. A distinction carefully to be observed here: I do non prepare out to glorify the prime mover (that was The Fountainhead). I set out to bear witness how badly the world needs prime movers, and how viciously information technology treats them. And I show information technology on a hypothetical case--what happens to the world without them.

In The Fountainhead I did not show how badly the world needed Roark--except by implication. I did show how viciously the world treated him, and why. I showed mainly what he is. It was Roark'southward story. This must be the earth's story--in relation to its prime number movers. (Near--the story of a trunk in relation to its heart--a body dying of anemia.)

I don't testify directly what the prime movers practice--that'due south shown only past implication. I show what happens when they don't do information technology. (Through that, you see the picture of what they exercise, their place and their role.) (This is an important guide for the construction of the story.)

In social club to piece of work out the story, Ayn Rand had to empathise fully why the prime number movers immune the 2d handers to live on them--why the creators had not gone on strike throughout history--what errors even the best of them made that kept them in thrall to the worst. Part of the respond is dramatized in the grapheme of Dagny Taggart, the railroad heiress who declares war on the strikers. Here is a notation on her psychology, dated April 18, 1946:

Her mistake--and the cause of her refusal to join the strike--is over-optimism and over-confidence (particularly this terminal).

Over-optimism--in that she thinks men are meliorate than they are, she doesn't really empathize them and is generous about information technology.

Over-confidence-in that she thinks she can exercise more than an individual actually can. She thinks she can run a railroad (or the world) single-handed, she tin can make people do what she wants or needs, what is right, by the sheer force of her ain talent; not by forcing them, of course, non by enslaving them and giving orders--but by the sheer over-abundance of her own energy; she volition testify them how, she tin teach them and persuade them, she is so able that they'll catch it from her. (This is still faith in their rationality, in the omnipotence of reason. The fault? Reason is not automated. Those who deny information technology cannot be conquered by information technology. Do non count on them. Go out them alone.)

On these two points, Dagny is committing an important (but excusable and understandable) error in thinking, the kind of fault individualists and creators frequently make. Information technology is an error proceeding from the all-time in their nature and from a proper principle, just this principle is misapplied. . . .

The error is this: it is proper for a creator to be optimistic, in the deepest, most basic sense, since the creator believes in a benevolent universe and functions on that premise. Only it is an error to extend that optimism to other specific men. First, it'south non necessary, the creator's life and the nature of the universe practise not crave information technology, his life does not depend on others. 2nd, man is a being with free will; therefore, each human is potentially adept or evil, and it's up to him and only to him (through his reasoning mind) to determine which he wants to exist. The determination will affect just him; it is non (and cannot and should not be) the principal concern of any other human beingness.

Therefore, while a creator does and must worship Man (which ways his ain highest potentiality; which is his natural cocky-reverence), he must non brand the fault of thinking that this ways the necessity to worship Flesh (as a collective). These are two entirely unlike conceptions, with entirety--(immensely and diametrically opposed)--different consequences.

Man, at his highest potentiality, is realized and fulfilled within each creator himself.... Whether the creator is alone, or finds only a handful of others like him, or is amid the majority of mankind, is of no importance or outcome whatever; numbers have nothing to do with it. He alone or he and a few others like him are mankind, in the proper sense of being the proof of what man actually is, man at his best, the essential human being, man at his highest possibility. (The rational being, who acts according to his nature.)

It should not matter to a creator whether anyone or a million or all the men around him autumn short of the platonic of Man; let him live upwards to that platonic himself; this is all the "optimism" near Homo that he needs. Just this is a difficult and subtle thing to realize--and information technology would exist natural for Dagny always to make the fault of believing others are better than they really are (or will become better, or she will teach them to become ameliorate or, actually, she so desperately wants them to be amend)-and to be tied to the world by that hope.

Information technology is proper for a creator to take an unlimited confidence in himself and his ability, to experience certain that he can become anything he wishes out of life, that he can accomplish annihilation he decides to accomplish, and that it'southward up to him to do it. (He feels it because he is a man of reason ...) [But] here is what he must go on clearly in listen: it is true that a creator can accomplish anything he wishes--if he functions co-ordinate to the nature of man, the universe and his own proper morality, that is, if he does not place his wish primarily within others and does not try or want anything that is of a commonage nature, annihilation that concerns others primarily or requires primarily the exercise of the will of others. (This would be an immoral desire or attempt, contrary to his nature as a creator.) If he attempts that, he is out of a creator's province and in that of the collectivist and the 2d-hander.

Therefore, he must never feel confident that he tin practice annihilation whatever to, past or through others. (He tin't--and he shouldn't even wish to try it--and the mere try is improper.) He must not call up that he tin can ... somehow transfer his energy and his intelligence to them and make them fit for his purposes in that manner. He must face other men as they are, recognizing them equally essentially independent entities, past nature, and beyond his master influence; [he must] deal with them only on his own, independent terms, deal with such every bit he judges tin can fit his purpose or live up to his standards (past themselves and of their ain will, independently of him)--and expect zero from the others....

At present, in Dagny's example, her drastic desire is to run Taggart Transcontinental. She sees that there are no men suited to her purpose effectually her, no men of power, independence and competence. She thinks she tin can run information technology with others, with the incompetent and the parasites, either by training them or just past treating them equally robots who will take her orders and function without personal initiative or responsibility; with herself, in eff

ect, existence the spark of initiative, the bearer of responsibility for a whole commonage. This tin can't be done. This is her crucial error. This is where she fails.

Ayn Rand's bones purpose as a novelist was to nowadays not villains or fifty-fifty heroes with errors, only the platonic human being--the consistent, the fully integrated, the perfect. In Atlas Shrugged, this is John Galt, the towering figure who moves the globe and the novel, notwithstanding does not appear onstage until Office Three. By his nature (and that of the story) Galt is necessarily cardinal to the lives of all the characters. In i annotation, "Galt'south relation to the others," dated June 27, 1946, Miss Rand defines succinctly what Galt represents to each of them:

For Dagny--the platonic. The respond to her 2 quests: the homo of genius and the man she loves. The outset quest is expressed in her search for the inventor of the engine. The second--her growing conviction that she will never be in love ...

For Rearden--the friend. The kind of agreement and appreciation he has always wanted and did non know he wanted (or he thought he had information technology--he tried to find it in those around him, to go it from his wife, his mother, blood brother and sis).

For Francisco d'Anconia--the aristocrat. The only homo who represents a claiming and a stimulant--about the "proper kind" of audience, worthy of stunning for the sheer joy and color of life.

For Danneskjold--the ballast. The only man who represents state and roots to a restless, reckless wanderer, like the goal of a struggle, the port at the end of a fierce sea-voyage--the merely man he can respect.

For the Composer--the inspiration and the perfect audience.

For the Philosopher--the embodiment of his abstractions.

For Male parent Amadeus--the source of his conflict. The uneasy realization that Galt is the cease of his endeavors, the man of virtue, the perfect man--and that his means practice non fit this end (and that he is destroying this, his ideal, for the sake of those who are evil).

To James Taggart--the eternal threat. The hugger-mugger dread. The reproach. The guilt (his own guilt). He has no specific necktie-in with Galt--simply he has that constant, causeless, unnamed, hysterical fright. And he recognizes it when he hears Galt'south broadcast and when he sees Galt in person for the first time.

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