April 7, 2007
THOSE WITH RELIGION DON'T NEED HER:
Religion of the dollar: John Sutherland on the novel that became the US conservatives' bible (John Sutherland, 02 April 2007, New Statesman)
Atlas Shrugged propagandises for a ferocious free-enterprise doctrine that would become a main supporting girder in Thatcherism and Reagonomics. Greenspan's appointment as head of the Federal Reserve in the 1990s cemented the connection. No novelist has been as influential on American government policy as Rand.For those unwilling to devote tedious hours to it, Atlas Shrugged has a simple plot. Tired of the "looters" (the proletariat and their corrupt political leaders), the leaders of American industry, commerce, art, medicine and learning, go on strike. Their shoulders, like Atlas's, have been holding up the world; now they choose to "shrug". They retreat, en masse, to "Galt's Gulch", a valley in Colorado protected by a ray-shield. Meanwhile, the outside world falls to pieces.
Finally, on the eve of total global meltdown, Galt broadcasts a long statement extolling the virtues of the dollar and laissez-faire "rationalism". He is arrested and tortured with electric shocks. When the generator breaks down (like all the other machinery in the country), Galt calmly instructs his torturers how to mend it "speaking in the brusque competent tone of an engineer".
The looters admit defeat. The novel ends with the messianic hero making the holy sign of the dollar. Rand did not live to see the downfall of the evil empire - from whose collectivist horror she escaped as a child refugee.
But her ghostly hammer was there on 9 November 1989. And, should George W Bush ever succeed in his scheme to privatise social security, a spectral Rand will be making the holy sign of the dollar behind him. No free lunches, America. Just lots and lots of dosh for Mr Atlas.
Mr. Sutherland has confused libertarianism with conservatism, the latter exceeds him in its contempt for Randism, as recall Whittaker Chambers' great review of Atlas Shrugged: "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: "To a gas chamber -- go!""
Indeed, the far Right hates George W. Bush not least for ideas like SS Reform which are premised on making government stronger.
Thanks for the link to the Chambers review. Quite informative. Glad I never wasted time reading Rand.
Posted by: jdkelly at April 7, 2007 3:44 PMWhat struck me in Chambers' review was how much Rand sounds like a typical modern leftist: That "we" (the elite) should run everything, that the other side is Evil, that children are irksome, that material things are the only things, that there is no God, and that any act - no matter how immoral - is justified if it moves society closer to creating the future utopia.
Posted by: Gideon at April 7, 2007 4:31 PMAlmost as childish and the fantasies of the libertines is the error of calling the Rand types, "Conservatives."
They are not more nor less than a different strain of apostate and culture-traitor.
Conservatives have allied with them from time to time to overcome statists--we had allied with Stalin once.
Here is the distinction: conservatives favor markets as a means, the libertines deify competition as a virtue, an end in itself. Whittaker Chambers was quite right about this; the Randians are very close to the Nazis in their heart of hearts.
Posted by: Lou Gots at April 7, 2007 6:06 PMNot "we" but "I."
Posted by: oj at April 7, 2007 10:15 PM