'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years

by Stephen Moore - January 9th, 2009 - Wall Street Journal (Opinion Journal)

Ultimately, "Atlas Shrugged" is a celebration of the entrepreneur, the risk taker and the cultivator of wealth through human intellect. Critics dismissed the novel as simple-minded, and even some of Rand's political admirers complained that she lacked compassion. Yet one pertinent warning resounds throughout the book: When profits and wealth and creativity are denigrated in society, they start to disappear -- leaving everyone the poorer.

[snip]

David Kelley, the president of the Atlas Society, which is dedicated to promoting Rand's ideas, explains that "the older the book gets, the more timely its message." He tells me that there are plans to make "Atlas Shrugged" into a major motion picture -- it is the only classic novel of recent decades that was never made into a movie. "We don't need to make a movie out of the book," Mr. Kelley jokes. "We are living it right now."

Great article about a great book. Certainly the immediate future of our nation is an attempt to live out the last days before communism took over a great nation. Ayn Rand lived through the consequences of communism taking over Russia. Her book was a warning about what would happen in America if we did not learn those lessons.

At least one reason America did not learn the lessons is that our news reporters, the press, never believed in free enterprise and still do not. There has to be some irony in related articles like this one talking about the NY Times going bust. For an industry that did not read "Atlas Shrugged", and would never have believed its lessons even if they did, bankruptcy seems so appropriate.

Unfortunately, it appears clear whatever the reasons, America did not learn them either.