Atlas Shrugged

Written by Jonathan Jacobs

Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged provided the literary foundation for modern conservatism. Rush Limbaugh is incredibly well-informed, Sean Hannity is effective albeit partisan, and Michael Savage is brilliant albeit high-pitched. These three conservatives rely on the premises established by the eminent author, lecturer, doctrinist, and philosopher Ayn Rand. Having lived under its tentacles as a child in Russia, Rand loathed communism and socialism. She believed that true happiness and success could only be achieved through man's own initiative and not from a regulating bureaucratic entity. For her, government represented the ultimate invasive evil.

The original time frame and premise of Atlas Shrugged has been altered to appear contemporary. The railroad industry is no longer the Leviathan it once had been. To accommodate what to some might appear a flimsy situation, the screenwriter (John Aglialoro) has invented a chaotic oil shortage and the year is 2016 (where trains as a primary mode of transportation would be anachronistic under ordinary circumstances) and the Middle Eastern political eruptions have impacted the entire world's energy supply. A full tank of gasoline would cost a staggering $800-$1,000. This has crippled the airline and the automotive industries and has left Taggart Transcontinental as the largest and the most important method of transportation in the entire country. The Taggart rail line may be the nation's biggest and most omnipresent but it is also in disrepair in key sectors and it has legitimate competition in the Southwest from Dan Conway's Phoenix Durango Line. This reminds me of New York’s Acela train and of California and Florida’s inability to build even one single track of rail lines due to incompetency.

Taggart is co-run by two executives, both heirs to their parents' fortune, Dagny (Taylor Schilling) and James Taggart (Matthew Marsden). Dagny is a brilliant, uncompromising, sexy, powerful woman able to bear any burden and to pay any price for the success of her rail line. James is a spoiled brat that whines at every turn, has an idiotic social vantage point, and instead of relying on innovation and ingenuity for success, he curries politic favor as a means to a vicious end.

As the film heats up, Taggart is in danger of losing billions from an investment in Francisco D'Anconia's (Jsu Garcia) copper mines in Mexico. D'Anconia and Dagny were once childhood best friends and lovers. Lately however, the press has scandalized D'Anconia, portraying him as an international playboy possessing no moral scruples whatsoever. In retaliation for this, and for piggy-backers such as James Taggart replying on someone else's efforts to generate a profit, D'Anconia has elected to lure investors into giving billions to funding what is essentially a black hole in the Earth. Normally, Frisco is capable of choosing the correct mines and of extracting obscene profits. In the case of the Mexican mine, he has deliberately chosen to bankrupt all investors and has further stained his reputation as a worthless, carefree playboy. The Mexican Government nationalizes the mines for the good of the people and Taggart (among other contributors) is in financial distress. The irony is they claim to support the poor and when their landholdings are confiscated by those they allegedly want to uplift, they cry bloody murder. Got the Occupy Wall Street Movement anyone?

James' response is to further bribe his political friends including Orren Boyle (a steel magnate albeit an unsuccessful one with antiquated technology at his disposal), Wesley Mouch (furtively working against his employer Hank Rearden while in Washington), and his media hitman Bertram Scudder (he develops flowery phrases and meaningless sentences to explain the inexplicable liberal urges being felt across the country, not unlike Thomas Friedman and Paul Krugman of The New York Times). Together, they plot to use government as a roadblock to stifle Dan Conway's Phoenix Durango line. Their primary target is the very man Dagny has employed to furnish new rail lines, switches and bridges for Taggart's dilapidated and hazardously split Arizona tracks. This would seem a paradox in terms but the bureaucratic elite do not believe anyone will ever revolt against their machinations, and thus feel they have the upper hand. This goes hand in hand with the Government-Media Complex poisoning people's minds against entrepreneurialism and capitalism as a whole. Profit is deemed evil and exploitative.

Dagny is opposed at every turn and is blamed for any mishap by her dumbfounded and bitter brother. She is striving to use the latest metal technology created by Hank Rearden (played by Grant Bowler) to secure Taggart's future in the American Southwest for a hundred years. Rearden metal has unlimited applications. It can help airlines weigh less and fly faster with a more powerful metal formulation (reminds me of the Boeing Dreamliner). It can be the stuff of dreams for new bridges and most importantly, it can allow for high speed rail travel at a time for the country when it is so desperately needed. Throughout their business relationship, Dagny and the betrothed Rearden develop a steamy love affair. She proudly wears Hank's metal bracelet because to her it is a priceless symbol of his triumph. Their affair is not based on sexual attraction, it is derived from their mutual strength, courage and admiration. Rearden's wife is a socialist swine that scoffs at his innovations, laughs at his desire to make money (while she herself is a sinister and avaricious woman), and has no love for him as a man. This is Ayn Rand's glowing example of the jealous underachievers feeling seething hatred and contempt for those that produce and succeed.

With all of the political dabbling and machinations happening in Washington, as the government seizes control of industries and forces out monopolies (Got General Motors anyone?), something wonderful is happening. Dagny and Hank are actually building the rails for their biggest client, Ellis Wyatt (Graham Beckel). Skeptical at first, Ellis sees Dagny at work and is more than impressed, he is hopelessly optimistic. In the middle of all of this success two major developments threaten to cause further collapse around the country.

The most ingenious industrialists, inventors, and the best and smartest workers on the planet are disappearing. This is hurting the world as fewer competent people are available to keep society moving. A mysterious man (Director Paul Johansson as John Galt) is sweeping in an collecting the brightest minds to live in a place called Atlantis (paradoxical, but I will explain in my next Atlas review). Galt believes that man should work for himself, not for his unknown incompetent neighbor. Inventions are not mean to be shared as happens in communistic states. The inventors own the intellectual property rights. There is too much government interference punishing successful men simply for being able to succeed. They are taking everything away from those who can and redistributing it to those who cannot. The doers are being assaulted socially, politically, and economically by the looters (liberal socialists). This is plain Obama versus Limbaugh stuff folks, although far more articulate. Galt's efforts leave the last remaining bastions against total societal collapse (Dagny for example) without the means to move forward. At their bleakest of moments Dagny and Hank find a motor. This is not an ordinary engine. It is from the Twentieth Century Motor Company and it can produce unlimited energy without requiring natural resources. It is clean, renewable energy and it can save everybody and everything. Unfortunately, the inventor and his friends in Atlantic do not want anyone to utilize it until society is turned upside down and government has changed or disappeared entirely. The film ends on a cliffhanger as Ellis Wyatt disappears and becomes a casualty of the war between the haves and the malingering have nots.

Deep breaths people, and sorry for being long-winded. Atlas Shrugged is thrilling, and not in the traditional meaning of the word. It is intellectually stimulating and it serves as a major deterrent to any argument President Obama or droopy Harry Reid can conjure. If left untouched business owners can expand, have more money to hire new people, and benefit the entire country. Instead, businesses are "greedy" and "must pay their fair share". According to Obama, business exists to employ people. That is a Marxist perversion of the free-market economic principle/concept/notion. A man does not begin a business venture so he can provide health care benefits, retirement benefits, and a salary to strangers. He begins the business for his own profit and edification. The truth is people benefit when entrepreneurs succeed because jobs and opportunities follow. Instead of helping businesses, Obama has chosen to portray them as evil monoliths that rely on greed and hatred of the lesser fortunate. Businesses pay in most cases over 35% in taxes, not counting Medicare and FICA taxes or payroll taxes or sales tax, and if they own the building, property taxes. What if instead of paying exorbitant taxes that make profit margins razor thin (unless you are like GE and donate to the President's election campaigns) businesses could hire more people and expand? More people would be employed and families would prosper. How about if the antithesis were true? What if businesses were taxed more as a punishment for success? Many would go bankrupt and nobody would be employed. Or if they remain open, salaries would be cut and the employees' standard of living would fall. Taxes are monies given to the government for the benefit of someone else, or some other country. Taxpayers have so little control over how much they give and to whom it is given. Do you like paying welfare taxes, or social security that you will likely never see a nickel of? Why should you work so some faceless person can reap the rewards of your labor? There is something broken about our bloated bureaucracy. Ayn Rand predicted this modern crossroads/crisis with such pinpointed accuracy that it is scary. Her book was the bible for conservative ideas. And now, Atlas Shrugged the movie, with superb actors, a brilliant director, and grandiloquent cinematography, is an intellectual film devoted to stopping liberal intrusion in our lives, every aspect of our lives. Bravo all around!

On a side note, my favorite among her various works is "The Virtue of Selfishness", a literal manual for how an individual can achieve their wildest dreams. In doing so, they must live only for themselves and promulgate their self-interest. The antithesis, or communal outreach and self-sacrifice would result in misery and a ruinous lack of production and achievement. Being selfish is the natural state of man, according to Rand, and only through acting in one's self-interest will others be able to reap the rewards. Government regulation and intrusion spoils everything. When someone extraordinary is able to construct a massive business they do so to make a profit. Their objective is not to employ strangers, or to create prosperity among random people, it is to build something with their incredible mental gifts, and to earn as much money as is humanly possible. The government's position is that those who are capable of generating hefty incomes, of creating businesses, of inventing new technologies, have an obligation to give back to their fellow man. As our, and please forgive this slanderous characterization folks, moron communist dimwitted nanny state-minded President Obama has stated, the rich need to pay their fair share because regular folks are hurting. Ayn Rand did more to turn back the rising currents of communism and socialism in America than anyone save the Goldwaters and the Reagans and the Limbaughs of the world. Atlas Shrugged the movie may appear to be hollow when contrasted with the 1200 plus page novel it is based on, but it is ten times smarter, more effective, and is vastly more exciting than any other political thriller of the modern era. Maybe that is because Rand's work was equal parts socio-economic, political, scientific, and mythopoeia. Atlas Shrugged Part I may not ever equal the legendary greatness of the novel, but it is truly refreshing and efficacious nonetheless. Thanks for indulging my barbed political commentary folks!