The Continued Relevance of Rand's
Villains
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
by J.
Patrick Rhamey Jr.
On Saturday, my parents called to report they had driven an hour into
Reno, Nevada, to see Paul Johansson's adaptation of Atlas Shrugged.
Despite the film's strongly
negative
reviews, the theater was full. Curiously, this scene was true across
the nation this weekend, as the film brought in more than 1.6 million
despite only opening in 300 theaters: an average of $5,600 per theater,
leaving it behind only the heavily advertised films Rio and Scream
4.
Unfortunately, the quality of this adaptation is representative of its
low budget and brief production time. The film meticulously retains the
original plot of Rand's opus, going so far as to lift much of the
dialogue directly out of the novel. However, due to the large amount of
material being covered, the result leaps through the original plot line
in a somewhat disjointed portrayal, which can be difficult to follow.
While Johansson is to be commended for finally bringing Atlas
Shrugged to cinema after almost 40 years of negotiations, delays, and
difficulties, it is disappointing that the end result is not more
impressive.
Despite the film's mediocre quality, its end was met by a surprising
response in Reno on Saturday. As the main character,
Dagny Taggart, climbs a flame-engulfed hill to be confronted with the
destruction of petroleum magnate
Ellis Wyatt's oil fields -- the lifeblood of what little remained of
the American economy -- she screams in terror. The camera pulls away,
revealing Wyatt's parting farewell: "I am leaving it as I found it.
Take over. It's yours."
The crowded theater began to applaud.
While some people of all ideological persuasions, including libertarians,
find Ayn Rand's rather idiosyncratic beliefs and obscure moral code
distasteful, the theater's reaction captures the hidden resonance of her
greatest work on grounds she would not have completely anticipated.
Indeed, many of the film's difficulties are less the fault of the
director, and more of Rand herself. The primary protagonists of the book
are emotionless industrialists, stilted and one-dimensional in their
behaviors, thinking only of metal, railroads, and factories.
Atlas Shrugged is compelling, not for its heroes, but for its
villains. Published in 1957, Rand's description of politicians and
lobbyists in a time of economic crisis is almost prophetic. These
Washington insiders scheme behind closed doors to retain and expand their
power. In elaborate press conferences, they attempt to convince the
unsuspecting populace of their legislation's necessity by vilifying
productive companies and portraying their own destructive, self-serving
designs as being in the interests of the advancement of equality,
stability, and progress.
For instance, in Atlas Shrugged, the lobbyist
Wesley Mouch decries the capitalist
Hank
Rearden's invention of a wonderful alloy that is stronger than steel.
And last week, in the real world, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. took to the
house floor to
declare that Steve Jobs's iPad was killing jobs. Congress must,
according to Jackson, recognize that Apple is driving companies such as
Barnes & Noble and Borders out of business, and the company should be
stopped in the interests of fairness.
Jackson decried Congress for failing to foster "protection for jobs
here in America to ensure that the American people are being put to
work." It's as if he wanted us to believe the printing press was
harmful to the economy because it decreased the demand for scribes. Such
a condemnation of a successful business and a demand for protection of
failing industries could easily have been lifted directly from Rand's
novel.
However, the similarities are not restricted to a lone Democratic
congressman. Similar absurd arguments were bountiful on both sides of the
aisle in debates about policies ranging from Obamacare to the bailouts.
Americans are directed to believe that if they would just allow the
federal government to act in order to prevent further change in the
economy, then stability could be restored.
It is this paltry masquerade of politicians feigning action and granting
themselves greater power in the name of equality and economic stability
that leads Americans to Rand's story. Indeed, Republicans and Democrats
both put on a charade of activity last week, claiming to remedy our
nation's budget woes. Both parties threatened to shut down the government
over a series of austerity measures amounting to a final savings of $352
million this fiscal year. That's $352 million out of budget deficit of
approximately $1.6 trillion, or .02 percent of what would be required to
actually balance the budget. Politicians bickered over funding for
relatively low-cost line items like NPR and Planned Parenthood, all the
while ignoring the harsh reality that our public debt is on track to
surpass our GDP.
In other words, Republicans and Democrats have managed to mortgage the
entire household worth of the United States. Their remedy for this
self-imposed tragedy? Grant themselves greater power through increased
regulations and rising taxes.
With each repeated failure of federal action to remedy our economic
situation, politicians reveal themselves more fully to the American
people as nothing but self-serving villains. Their strategy relies on the
appearance of action coupled with soaring rhetoric to convince Americans
of their good deeds. Meanwhile, these politicians are gambling with our
lives and prosperity, risking the well-being of hard-working individuals
in thoughtless policies designed merely to secure reelection.
It is due to her apt depiction of these self-serving villains that Ayn
Rand's novel has climbed to number four on the top-sellers list on Amazon
and that the film is likely to do far better than its mediocre quality
would merit. Americans are growing tired of politicians gambling away
their prosperity to preserve their own power. The crowd in Reno applauded
as Ellis Wyatt walked away, not because he was some great hero, but
because they understood the pain of working tirelessly while a reckless
and unproductive government needlessly spends away the results of your
labor and rewards your hard work with mounting regulations.
The idea of walking away has become attractive and indeed, Americans
are increasingly leaving the United States for opportunities
abroad, with record numbers emigrating to
Australia and
East Asia.
So long as Ayn Rand's villains continue to resemble the reality in
Washington, the story of Atlas Shrugged will remain popular. The
average American may not be a powerful railroad executive or steel
magnate, but most believe they are entitled to the fruits of their labor.
Many are beginning to realize that their future is being gambled away by
politicians whose only risk is losing the votes of the individuals who
have lost everything.
J. Patrick Rhamey was a summer fellow at LvMI in 2007 and 2008. He's
currently a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona.
http://mises.org/daily/5218/The-Continued-Relevance-of-Rands-Villains
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