About the Site
Why does this site exist?
This web site hosts a detailed critique of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" that was written in 2003. I wrote this essay in response to a friend who had become a huge Ayn Rand fan and had pestered me to read her books. I was then an entrepreneur who had recently started a software company, and he insisted that Rand's stories would "speak" to me. He gave me a copy of "Atlas Shrugged" before I went on a long vacation, and I promised to read it and send him my thoughts.
I quickly discovered that Atlas Shrugged is a truly awful book. Not only is it badly-written, but its underlying messages are both appalling and childishly simplistic. Worst of all, the worldview espoused by the book can have a strong impact on particularly impressionable people (mostly teenagers), many of whom go through a phase of unparalleled selfishness as a result. For most of us, her work is boring; for others, it has the same effect as cult brainwashing. It has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
And yet, this trashy tome returned to popular culture in 2008 as the global economy unraveled and national governments stepped in to stem the crisis. Suddenly there were new books about Rand being published, and particularly clueless people were rabidly promoting the idea that real life is imitating the events of "Atlas": that meddling Big Government was destroying the private sector and squashing the "producers" for the benefit of the "moochers". This ridiculous reading of those events, as well as the resurgence of popularity of the book, led me to share my work from years earlier.
How is this site different?
There are tons of articles, blogs, and chats on the web that criticize Ayn Rand and her books. But most of them tend to target her verbose writing style and the melodrama of her dialogue (a style argument) and don't address the underlying logical fallacies in her reasoning (the substance), which is what you'll find here. Young people fall for her "philosophy" because they lack the experience to ask critical questions, like:
Why are there no children in Rand's books?
Why did she choose 19th century industries and character archetypes as the focus of Atlas Shrugged?
Why did she portray corporations and management structures so inaccurately?
Isn't Rand's attack on altruism really an attack on Christianity and Christian values?
How can repeated invocations of "A is A" be logical constructions when they are used simply to give opinions?
How can financial success be incompatible with charity and altruism, when America's greatest industrialists have also been its greatest philanthropists?
When you dig into Rand's logic and argument construction, her errors become immediately obvious. So instead of just telling your unfortunate Rand-loving friends that her books are terrible and boring, get them to think about her arguments; they don't hold up to even minimal scrutiny. Read the full essay and you'll know what I mean.