Ayn Rand & the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged

If you have ever read Ayn Rand's grueling 1168-page novel "Atlas Shrugged" (from 1957), then, you are most certain to have formed either a positive or a negative opinion about its philosophy (where selfishness is praised as being a virtue).

Through dozens of interviews - This 90-minute documentary (from 2011) tries its best to substantiate the overall relevance of Rand's words in the realm of present-day society.

Anyway - I certainly encourage one and all to view this presentation as its clearly biased viewpoints need to be heard, first-hand, to be believed.

Most reviewers focus on the so-called "battle" between altruism and selfishness as Rand saw it. Methinks, that both Rand and most reviewers tried to hard to stake out a mutually exclusive territory and defend it. For me, I think that the state should not be compelling via taxation or any other means at their disposal, the populace to be their brother's keeper. Where I part ways with Atlas Shrugged, is selfishness is not a virtue. If those who would like to see an end to gov't sponsored socialism, would realise that individuals then become responsible like the Good Samaritan, for helping the less fortunate, in such a way as to not create dependency on hand outs, then possibly the edifice of state sponsored "charity" ie taxes to "aid" the less fortunate, could be eliminated. Even the Bible says we are to help without encouraging dependency and indolence.

My comments here are not on specific content or delivery, like some critics my pose. I simply want to express my fascination with the overall content and that this documentary kept me transfixed on the screen for the entire time. I couldn't look away and my mind raced for hours after watching it. Thinking about what all I had just learned and opened my thoughts in new ways to view society. Ayn Rand's life is discussed so you can understand why she wrote the book and how her early life gave her the philosophy she presented in her books. The discussions about how critics hated her book and called her vile names, including comments that it was an ill-spirited book and gave the impression that she was mean and soulless gave an additional perspective to the way literary elites viewed the world in the 1950s. Definitely worth the time.

This film is a must-see for any Rand fan and/or anyone who's ever been affected by her novels. Also recommended for anyone who has not read Rand but wondered what all the fuss was about. In an age where your 'best sellers' are selling 50,000 books, Atlas Shrugged - over half a century old - has been selling nearly ten times that number. Three million sold in last five years alone. This documentary does a good job of explaining why. It includes the genesis of the ideas that permeate Rand's novels and her struggle to complete Atlas. Also shows how the scenario of Atlas is being played out in America today. Highly recommended.

A documentary that appeals to insouciant libertarians, neophytes in economics, and everything in between. The filmmakers have succeeded in amassing an impressive range of political hacks and starry-eyed apostles that are more than willing to espouse their unbridled adulation of Rand. Viewers are richly rewarded with both a flattering homage to the person Ayn Rand as well as receiving a treat of mental masturbation to her philosophical ideas.

The two interviewees with more substantive understanding are Jennifer Burns and Anne C. Heller, which both have written purportedly comprehensive books on the topic. All in all the documentary briefly touches upon Rands privileged childhood in Russia, semi-forced escape to the US in the mid-1920s, to the harsh criticism in the media after the publication of Atlas Shrugged. Objectivism and her magnum opus are slightly expanded upon, while all critical viewpoints are conspicuously absent. Moreover, what is further lacking is any discussion of the character flaws and hypocrisy Rand displayed in her personal life.

The main problem with the implied prophesy of the novel - and the most crucial piece that Rand got completely backwards - was the expected cronyism of the "big government". In reality the problem in US was always an exceptionally strong and overpowering private sector, which has been able to water down regulations and any attempts to rein in its power. This has concerned everything from a lax oversight of Wall Street, to curbing polluting industries, to ensuring America has became inundated with guns and fire arms, to an ever-mushrooming military-industrial complex... At the core the problem was never the naive and idiotic fantasy of secretive government churning out Soylent Green, but an unhinged private sector that won every battle against ordinary people by a cadre of K-Street lobbyists, bought republican politicians, and well-funded media campaigns propagating misinformation.

In fact, after the global meltdown of financial markets in 2008 even the ex-fed chairman Alan Greenspan, the early disciple Ayn Rand ever since the 1950s, had to admit that the outcome of a free, unregulated market was complete financial disaster.

Finally, what clearly detracts from the documentary is having an entire conveyor belt of asinine opinions and mind-boggling ignorance regurgitated by a series of ever dumber pea-brained minions.