The people of the world of Atlas Shrugged is split in four. The creative, successful early 1900’s era tycoons; the self-destructive, anti-creative, intelligency and unsuccessful tycoons (moochers); the political, self-interested animals (looters); and the non-descript faceless workers.
The assumption is made that a tycoon is born from one process. That of working, though not born to, the lowest jobs and migrating up the ladder of an organization and becoming the leader or starting his/her own similar organization.
A tycoon is devoted to the quality and the value of his/her product. Making money from cheating their customers is antathetical.
A tycoon might maintain a presence in Washington, but not depend or rely upon government regulations and grants to secure the future of their company. Except for patents and secret processes like how to produce a better steel, which are by definition government grants of exclusivity.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is out. Greed is non-existent. Achievement, work, and success are the measure by which all tycoons devote themselves. Sex, clothes, food, peers mean nothing. Though successul tycoons enjoy each other’s company more than anyone else’s.
Confusion and delusion are out. The tycoon knows why he acts and proceeds logically therefrom.
Ego is out. No one achieves money just to accumulate money for the pure satisfaction of their ego.
Characters are clean. There is no mix of moocher, looter, and tycoon within one individual. For instance, someone who believes in a welfare system for the poor or old and who has made vast quantities of money some of it with the help of government regulations.
Selflessness is evil. Action for others and not for the self has only one source – peer pressure. A person acting from their inner voice (she would never use this terminology) could never act for the good of others at the deprivation of oneself.
Such a tycoon would have no problem starting over again. After having their life’s work destroyed they would rebuild it. Age and infirmity are not an issue. These people exist for the joy of producing and customers flock to them automatically. A tycoon who follows this cold, steely passion can’t but help to be successful.
If this is meant to be an illustration of how Russia came to be under a communist dictatorship it fails on a couple of points. Americans aren’t Russians. The spirit of invention, self-reliance, and problem-solving is pervasive and not rare. She fails to threaten industrialist with personal injury or their family. Almost none of them have close family anyway. Perhaps, she did not want to admit the millions who left to die in Siberian prisons. Her heroes are capable of building a hideaway and continue their inventions unnoticed. This is probably possible in Russia, but the difficulty in keeping such a secret and the limited resources available make it unlikely.
They tycoon can conduct all actions within the business equally well; inventor, accountant, filing clerk, CEO,.. The tycoon is the ultimate generalist. There is not even one sentence to the effect that a hero can perform action X, but another hero or another person can do it better. That for the best performance the hero should not perform action X himself.
Many aspects feel likely, though it’s hard to dismiss the unrealistic characters and that calls into question those aspects. Many processes are interest to explore: the conversion of democracy into tyranny of the minority (looters) in the name of the faceless populous; the breaking down of “greed is good” viewpoint; the dissolution of the industrial structures around the country; the corruption of government to benefit certain companies at the detriment to other and the arguements against competition are very familiar today; an emergency that becomes permanent; and the shift of the path of success for a company from the relationship between consumer/product to bribes/committees.
I like the idea of the Sanction of the Victim. The victims allow themselves to be taken advantage of and abused by the tyranny of the minority. This has the ring of truth. Why does America have higher wages and benefits than most companies? Because we have collectively agreed to a higher standard of compensation. When you think about it; it’s rather ghastly that the individuals who enjoy the fruits of labor unions routinely seek to find workers who have not collectively agreed to a higher standard and that they do this ostensibly in the name of providing cheaper products and services to themselves and other members of the better paid society.
The story is based on the idea that all the creative energies are contained within a relatively small portion of society and if those members went on strike and left quietly that society would slowly dissolve behind the efforts of the incompetent, political know-nothings. In order to accept this idea, you have to believe that very few people are creative and that such unique people are good at all aspects of their work. I find this highly implausible.
The end of the book is utter bullshit. The last of the tycoons pull out to a hidden, isolated, unknown valley in Colorado and wait out the complete destruction of civilization so that they can emerge and rebuild it “from scratch”.
One thing very valuable to take away from Ayn Rand’s style is are very lengthy descriptions. This lady can spend three long paragraphs describe the half second glance between two characters. The detail can be heavily over done when you know what’s coming and just want the plot to move along. Still it give a very clear idea. However, I’ve taken note of her style and will attempt to use it more often.