FSB Author Article
The Significance of Ayn Rand's Novel Atlas
Shrugged
From The Ayn Rand Institute
'I refuse to apologize for my ability -- I
refuse to apologize for my success -- I refuse to apologize for my
money."
The
U.S. economy is in shambles, with every nightly newscast bringing word
of new government interventions. Americans are alarmed and desperate
for answers: How did we get here? How will we recover? That might sound
like a description of today's world, but in fact it's also a sketch of
the world Ayn Rand created in her classic novel Atlas Shrugged.
The
tea parties testify to the outrage that many Americans feel toward
Washington's explosive growth in the past few decades -- especially
under
Presidents Bush and Obama. Atlas Shrugged not only
gives voice
to this outrage, it provides both a profound explanation of the cause
of today's crisis -- and a positive, radical solution to it.
Why
is it that every problem seems to call for increased government
intervention at the expense of freedom? Why is it that businessmen
inevitably take the blame for any crisis? Why are the most competent,
most successful Americans smeared as greedy and selfish? To these
questions and many others, Atlas Shrugged gives
answers unlike anything you've ever heard.
"Until
and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for
your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men
deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips
and guns -- or dollars. Take your choice -- there is no
other -- and your time is running out."
* * *
"If we who were the movers, the providers, the benefactors of mankind, were
willing to let the brand of evil be stamped upon us, and silently to
bear punishment for our virtues -- what sort of 'good' did we
expect to triumph in the world?"
* * *
'Yes, this is an age of moral crisis.
You are bearing
punishment for your evil. But it is not man who is now on trial and it
is not human nature that will now take the blame. It is your moral code
that's through, this time. Your moral code has reached its climax, the
blind alley at the end of its course. And if you wish to go on living,
what you now need is not to return to morality . . .
but to discover it."
Learn the meaning of these quotes -- and the revolutionary ideas
behind
them -- by picking up Atlas Shrugged.
Discover why Ayn Rand held that nothing less than a total separation
between state and economics can save this country. Discover Ayn Rand's
defense of the individual's moral right to pursue his
own happiness -- the indispensable precondition of his political right
to pursue his own happiness. Discover a gripping novel that challenges
today's intellectual mainstream and provides an alternative to the
anti-freedom ideas that are undermining American liberty.
Discover Atlas Shrugged.
©2009 The Ayn Rand Institute
Author Bio
The
Ayn Rand Institute
(ARI), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in Irvine,
California, works to introduce young people to Ayn Rand's novels,
to
support scholarship and research based on her ideas, and to promote the
principles of reason, rational self-interest, individual rights and
laissez-faire capitalism to the widest possible audience. The Institute
is named for novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982), who is
best
known for her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged. ARI has a distinguished Board
of Directors and a staff of
about 35 employees.
For more information about ARI, please visit http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=index
Ayn Rand's first novel, We the Living, was
published in
1936, followed by Anthem. With the publication of The
Fountainhead in 1943, she achieved a spectacular and enduring
success. Rand's unique philosophy, Objectivism, has gained a worldwide
audience. The fundamentals of her philosophy are set forth in such
books as Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, The Virtue of
Selfishness, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, and The Romantic
Manifesto. Ayn Rand died in 1982.