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Atlas Shrugged and the financial crisis

March 19, 2009 by Jeff Scialabba

I’d like to direct you to an excellent blogpost by Dr. Greg Salmieri (visiting assistant professor of philosophy at UNC Chapel Hill) on the attention that Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged have been receiving of late. Much of the hype, he observes, is missing the point.

Most of the recent discussion of Atlas has focused on its political themes, creating the impression that the novel is essentially a condemnation of government intervention in the economy. However, its scope, its relevance to the current crisis, and the reasons for its enduring appeal go much wider and much deeper than this. Galt goes on strike not simply against high taxes and unjust regulations, but against the morality of altruism, which Rand identifies as the cause of such measures, and against the world-view of which this moral code is an expression-a philosophy that denies the efficacy of reason and the absolutism of reality.

If you’re intrigued by Dr. Salmieri’s comment, you’ll be able to read more in an upcoming new book: Essays on Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”. See the table of contents here. (Dr. Salmieri is one of the contributors to that forthcoming collection of essays.) This is the latest and final volume in Dr. Robert Mayhew’s Essays series, which focuses on each of Ayn Rand’s major works of fiction. If you’re interested, you can check out the others in the Ayn Rand Bookstore.

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