Having read this novel some time ago I can not help but marvel at the uncanny way Rand has captured the idiocy of government leadership. If you listen to the most recent announcements by the Fed and Treasury it is like they are characters in the novel. The verbage they use is almost identical. It is really amazing. I have never looked at the news the same since reading Atlas Shrugged.
I prefer The Fountainhead and We The Living myself. It is very interesting, though, how similar the pronouncements of today’s ruling class resemble the dialogue of the statist businessmen and bureaucrats in the novel. Whatever anyone may think of Rand, she did that quite well.
I just checked with my local bookstore, they have a few copies, so tomorrow I will go buy 3. One for me, one for a family member and one for the next person I come across that reads but has not read it yet.
It is a great book. However, it’s written in kind of a florid tone and has some really awful, clunky, contrived plot devices. Lots of great vignettes in it though and the economics and sociology are teriffic.
I just won an essay contest held by the Ayn Rand Institute on her novel the Fountainhead. I recieved a prize and copy of Atlas Shrugged and Anthem. I have not had a chance to read Atlas Shrugged yet, but I am going to soon. I did read Antem though, which is much shorter than the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. It was excellent. I would reccommend it to anyone who is interested in Ayn Rand’s novels or just looking for a short but very deep book…
I wrote a review of Atlas Shrugged for Amazon. Also, if you’d like to discuss Ayn Rand’s books in detail, I recommend the Ayn Rand Book Club forum.
Atlas Shrugged is very popular, so I have to wonder how non-Objectivist or non-libertarians feel about it. I assume that it’d be perhaps too extreme for most people, but I haven’t read it yet. And I never asked a “regular” person whose read the book how he or she feels about it, especially the philosophical aspect of it. Whatever.
I used to be a “regular” person, but I haven’t read Atlas Shrugged. I thought The Fountainhead was pretty kewl though.
Atlas Shrugged is a book that I think needs to be read at a certain point in someone’s life to be truly appreciated. I read it as an undergrad after having read “The Virtue of Selfishness”. When I began the novel I was a “G. Gordon Liddy show” listening conservative. When I finished the novel I was a “G. Gordon Liddy Show” listening Objectivist. My favorite character was Ragnar Danneskjöld, the pirate. My one disagreement with the novel at the time was her apparent misunderstanding of the story of Robin Hood. Robin Hood is a hero in my opinion. He stole from THE GOVERNMENT. The Rich, in the Robin Hood story, are not productive entrepreneurs but are in fact looters, the government.
Just got back with 3 copies of Atlas Shrugged and one of The Fountainhead. The girl at the checkout said, “These can’t all be for you”, and I said “Nope”. Then I told her to check out Atlas Shrugged. [:)]
Ayn Rand didn’t misunderstand Robin Hood. She pointed out in Danneskjold’s speech that it wasn’t the actual story of Robin Hood that was the problem, but the cultural myth as it has come down through the ages
The first half of AS is a great read, the second half gets slow (the first half feels like a build up to a great plunge as the sense of inevitable dread of a social-economic collapse grows), but it’s still worth the read if you don’t mind the slowness. Especially, if you’re a Tolkien fan, Rand’s writing will not be a problem as she’s more focused on ideas in the similar fashion as Tolkien was focused on language and history (and peoples).
I liked the general theme of the book (being an anarcho-capistalist), but it’s very bad literature in my opinion, way too long. It could have been such a great piece if it was half as short.
Also, while the political economy is awesome, the economics is kinda bad.
Things like “intrinsic value”, and the idea of a town with only entrepreneurs, it totally ignores the great lession of the law of comparative advantage: There’s a mutually beneficial place for everyone in the market economy.
Who swipes the floors in their retreat? The investment banker? What a waste of his abilities.
Ayn Rand was very explicit that there is no such thing as intrinsic value.
Galt’s Gulch is not proposed as a model economy - the absurdity of great entrepreneurs doing menial labor serves to advance one of the key points of the book: even though their unefficiency leaves them in comparable poverty, everything they earn is theirs to keep, unlike the outside world.
Rand was quite against the concept of intrinsic value, as in value that does not refer to human beings. She did hold that value was objective. However, that is not incompatable with the Austrian subjective theory of value, as they are referring to different aspects of “value”. To be more clear, value is objective in one sense and subjective in another. “Agent-relative” is, in my opinion, a better term to describe value than objective or subjective. The last chapter of Roderick Long’s Wittgenstein, Austrian Economics, and the Logic of Action has more information on this topic, if you are interested.
I love “Atlas Shrugged”, one of the best books ive read (even though a certain speech towards the end is a little too long)… it change my life 
I was a “regular” person when I read it and it totally converted me into a free market thinker. Of course I work for an environmental management consultant firm and I see first hand the destructive nature of interventionist government. Before that book and job I was somewhat of an environmentalist but it is amazing how a little philosophy and real world experience can change your whole outlook.
I became a libertarian by reading Rand’s non-fiction, not her fiction. When I did get around to reading Atlas Shrugged, I was rather impressed by some parts of it, but not by others. And while its overall theme was one of those impressive parts of it, I don’t think it’s a very good source for Objectivist philosophy, because it just doesn’t get into that kind of detail.
I’ve known a few non-libs who have read it, and their impressions tally with mine. While they liked it, they don’t seem to get the full implications of Objectivism from the book, or what Rand was trying to say with it.
Thus, like much great literature, there’s room for interpretation. Personally, the image of Eddie Willers trying to push a broken-down train near the end is the one that sticks with me the most.
Speaking purely in terms of the book and not objectivism in general. I found it a very good libertarian epic and following the collapse of civilisation as the producers go on strike made me not want to put the book down. The characters were unbeleivable as human beings in my opinion being either flawless heroes or depraved sniveling villains.
Im in a similar position, i got a bachelors degree in Environmental Science, but i havent worked in that field yet…