Atlas Shrugged was released recently...

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Imagine a world, if you will, where rich and powerful people go to sleep, and when they wake up, 50 miles of railroad track have been magically laid, caused by nothing other than the dreaming of such angels.

The worst thing about Ayn Rand is not her philosophy (if it can be called that). The worst part about Ayn Rand is the childish mimicry of business-acumen that passes for serious commentary. Her characters are business men, but Ayn Rand hadn't the faintest relation to titans of industry. She imagined the business world much like a child plays at "being important" in the mimicry of their parents. They pick up the phone and jabber about important-sounding things. As children, we shuffled papers and drew charts and pretended to be in charge.

In Atlas Shrugged, this is exactly what you get. For a story so intimately involved with the harsh realities of business, there doesn't seem to be any cognizance of the lifeblood of any business: customers. Imagine a business ran by Ayn Rand for a moment. Yeah, it doesn't get very far, does it? Because you can't have rich people without a market to pay for it.

In the movie, you get more of it. People sipping drinks and having meetings and looking very important. It's all a very impressive presentation of childish fantasy. Ignorant, wildly implausible, laughably deaf fantasy about how business people do business. Here's a hint: desperately running after the market and begging for people to spend money for your product. The imperial, dismissive and derogatory airs these characters put off would land them in the unemployment line in a heartbeat. Their companies would kick them to the curb faster than you can ask, "Who is John Galt?" The market would avoid them like the plague, and these childish avatars of Rand's would be left flipping burgers, mumbling about how they got a raw deal.

The important lesson here is not how stupid or immoral Ayn Rand's heartless philosophy is. I mean, after all, the only mention paying customers get in her book is when they all die, justifiably she might add, in a horrible train crash; but that doesn't matter, they were all scum-sucking parasites anyway. Yes, that's right, a pean to capitalism and business basically called customers a bunch of goddamn parasites. Crazy, I know.

The important lesson here is to not mistake Ayn Rand's childish fantasies about business as some kind of accurate portrayal of capitalist titans. Sure, there are problems. Massive, big, huge problems. But if you want to know who John Galt is, he is nothing like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet.

Comments

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

So I take it you didn't like the movie... ;)

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it in the way you enjoy Evil Spock, or if you sit upside down in the theater. Up is down! Black is white! It's crazy bizarro opposite world! AAAHHHH!

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

In the organizations that I have worked for, imperial, dismissive and derogatory airs are pretty much the norm for managers and executives, and widespread among rank and file employees as well.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

In the organizations that I have worked for, people who couldn't navigate the personal politics of the executive staff were quickly jettisoned as individualist weights not dedicated to team performance and the life of the company.

I noticed exactly that...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... about Larry Ellison's people. That is one of the reasons I do not want to do business with them.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Mirror Universe Spock mocks the illogical fuckwittery involved in making this film in the first place. Also, trains!

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Do you know how hard it is to make a movie? To devote one's life to the painstaking training involved in achieving such skill? Do you know what would happen if I just quit? This whole thing would come crashing down, that's what. I am the only competent director. If I leave, the whole goddamn movie industry will collapse in on itself. I'm the only one who knows how to make movies, and I will leave now if I have to. I will leave this movie like I found it: a flaming piece of turd.

Empty trains

[lai-choi-san.livejournal.com]

In Atlas Shrugged, this is exactly what you get. For a story so intimately involved with the harsh realities of business, there doesn't seem to be any cognizance of the lifeblood of any business: customers. Imagine a business ran by Ayn Rand for a moment. Yeah, it doesn't get very far, does it? Because you can't have rich people without a market to pay for it.

Is John Galt a member of the Communist Party of China ?
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china/chinas-high-speed-rail-under-fire-53169.html

Re: Empty trains

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I actually think that Rand was a Soviet agent sent to insinuate herself into American society, make a parody of capitalism, and provide all the fodder the USSR ever needed for propaganda against capitalism.

She succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

This:



If put into practice, rapidly followed by this:

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Rand wrote the screenplay for the movie version of "The Fountainhead". Years ago, I watched it with some fellow architecture students. We howled when the lead character's dying mentor gasped "Remember. Form must always follow function!" That's like having a dying kindergarten teacher say: "Remember. A is for... gurgle, choke... Apple!"

Ayn Rand knew even less about architecture than she did about business.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Horribly written book with morally bankrupt philosophy makes for horribly produced movie with ham fisted and incoherent thematic center.

I fail to be shocked.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Fiction that is used solely as a delivery mechanism for ideological agenda is found lacking, film at eleven.

[blorky.livejournal.com]

So as paeans to misguided, self-indulgent philosophies of the 20th century, which is worse - "Battlefield Earth" or "Atlas Shrugged"?

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

I was thinking something along those lines....I guess Rand never did write anything like Dianetics however.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Honestly, Rand strikes me as representing nothing but hypocrisy in her own life, much less in the complete clusterfuck that Objectivism would be put into the real world. She herself depended on the Bolshies to get educated and bailed before the Soviet Union started getting really, really horrible....to become a welfare bum who turned John Galt into a hero based on a serial killer.

I believe the biggest failure of Objectivism is the same as in communism: both alike assume the human race has a completely different nature of existence than it actually does, that a small Vanguard can completely short-circuit history, the theories explain all things, and both have the same ruthless inability to compromise anything to mundane, banal reality that will make an Objectivist state as lethal as Communism was. Instead of Virgin Lands because crops are revolutionary, Virgin Lands because Corn can be taught the self-interest of survival without consistent watering or checking on the crops.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

I believe the biggest failure of Objectivism is the same as in communism

In 1911, a Communist had the luxury of looking at the industrialized world that had been made possible by capital, critiquing some of its abuses and postulating a world without Capitalists that would somehow continue to create wealth, innovation and opporunity without the very tools that had increased them exponentially. Sounded great, especially since no Communist had ever been burdened with governing more than a coffee house.

In 2011, an Objectivist has the luxury of looking at a developed world with physical and intellectual infrastructure, environmental and workplace safety regulations and varying degrees of social safety net systems to provide secure retirements for the elderly, stability for the infirm and assistance to those with temporary setbacks, critque its excesses and postulate a world where services that the market is unable to provide to all will magically be available in ways that no society in history has ever managed -- all without the coercive power of the state. Sounds great, especially since no Objectivist has ever been burdened with the responsibility of running more than an internet chat room.

Let's hope they don't end up killing 150 million people before we realize that they're as wrong as the Communists.

[jlc20thmaine.livejournal.com]

It's as fanciful as having a social agitator become president and then tells us he knows how to create jobs.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Indeed, but what else do you dislike about Ronald Reagan?

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Is "Randism" really a bigger threat to 'society as we know it'(tm) than Scientology? (since someone brought up Battleship Earth) I mean, seriously, in RL I have had any number of Scientologists try to convince me; but if it wasn't for the cyber world I would have no idea about Randism.....or is it actually some kind of secret society like the masons? (hmm, would this make a good Friday post?)

[capthek.livejournal.com]

Yes, there are far more Objectivists and Libertarians and they spend a great deal of their efforts making our government policy in their image.

[capthek.livejournal.com]

This is well written, did you get this from some place else or did you do it?

Yes, Rand liked the image of the capitalist, of the rich industrial fascist, with no understanding of the real world functioning of either.

She practices one of the biggest examples of Orwelian doublethink in that an Objectivist should act completely selfishly because in the end that is what truly benefits every one in society. So your aim is not to benefit society and only yourself, because it benefits society??? So the goal is to benefit society, but not to benefit society. Why not cut out the middle man and just try to benefit society? And there are uncountable examples of how acting selfishly does not in fact benefit society.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

The people who came up with enlightened self-interest, I believe made the unfortunate assumption that people realized that a strong community is vital for a strong individual, and that people would actually do the help others part in order to help themselves, not be little short-sighted children who cut their nose off in spite of their face.

Wreckers of the world...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

An acquaintance recently asked me what Libertarians favor. He said that he had never heard them advocate for anything. I pointed out that they worship plutocrats.

Wreckers of the world, untie! You have nothing to lose but your golf handicap.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Why do Objectivists hate safety regulations?
[Error: unknown template 'video']

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Why?

Faith in government politicians trumps the market? Hardly.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

It is true that Rand lost a lot of details in putting together the novel. Funny though, how she is the writer most often singled out for chastizement for such slights, while everyone else writing gets a pass or the benefit of the doubt, even when their own economic ideas are complete quackery. Pick almost any mainstream writer, in almost any genre for a read that is chock full of economic voo-doo superstitions. One thing she didn't miss though, was the importance, not of "the businessman" per se, but of the entrepreneur. The understanding of the importance of entrepreneurship in an economy put Rand ahead of most schools of "serious" economics. Very few of them have much to say on the topic, let alone a theory of entrepreneurial function in a free market. It was the Austrians who documented the work of the entrepreneur in making the economy work. Lack of understanding on this matter is responsible for the implosion of Marxist economies.

I'll say one thing about Rand's ideas compared to the economic fantasies of the average person. She at least had the sense to recognize the function of ideas and entrepreneurial decision-making in the role of production and prosperity. Her book is quite a bit less simplistic and foolish than the messianic fantasies about politicians and political organizations full of people who have never ever had an entrepreneurial idea in their lives, never ever met a payroll, or started their own business. For whatever thing people are unwilling to believe can be accomplished by cooperation, the view that politics and force are more efficatious at accomplishing it is a much more naive belief.

Rand really didn't have a lot of detailed information about how business gets done, despite having done quite a bit of research. It is sadly a subject of which far too few have any experience these days. What she did have personal experience of though, having grown up in the Soviet Union, was what goes wrong when people begin to believe that bread and circuses are their birthright and that theft is virtue. Her book is a virtual taxonmy of the failure mechanisms and consequences of collectivist philosophy.

Re: Faith in government politicians trumps the market? Hardly.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Who said anything about government?

... and payroll checks magically deposit to the bank!

[russj.livejournal.com]

Hey, I live in a world where payroll checks magically deposit in my bank!

It's possible many of your points are valid ... but then I also don't have relation to titans of industry. Do you? At least Rand did support herself by working in Hollywood, and through sales of her writings. I suppose that she had to have to serve a lot of customers to accomplish that.

P.S. Try reading the book sometime. Then you'd know ... those parasitic customers did not die in a train crash--but by asphyxiation from engine fumes in a long tunnel.

Re: ... and payroll checks magically deposit to the bank!

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I suppose that she had to have to serve a lot of customers to accomplish that.
So what? Does this make her special? Does this make her an innovator? Or does it make her like a million other people? That's the greatest part, people carrying on as if they're indispensable.

Hey, I live in a world where payroll checks magically deposit in my bank!
Do you know where money comes from? It comes from the natural activity of markets. And then we put money in banks, and the banks use that money. We provide he capital for investment, by the natural and ongoing activity of the market. Perhaps you have some magic system wherein money just happens to appear in large amounts in single accounts?

[ccr1138.livejournal.com]

Putting Rand and this particular snooze-fest of a film aside, don't you find that ALL movies are guilty of the same naive portrayal of business? I can't think of a single film, other than documentaries, where CEOs aren't pictured shuffling paper, making bombastic speeches, taking phone calls on the golf course, etc.

I think this is where Obama learned his understanding of how to lead. That's why he plays golf so often whenever there's a crisis.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Putting Rand and this particular snooze-fest of a film aside, don't you find that ALL movies are guilty of the same naive portrayal of business?
Nope.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Fiction aside, it seems that we are regularly watching the results of the Objectivist Death Cult (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/raimondo1.html)