Watched Atlas Shrugged Part II. What a horrible, horrible book.
Sadly, the actors weren’t bad for the most part. I’m assuming that they just needed the paycheck – we’ve all done way too much for a paycheck. The directing wasn’t horrible either, in fact the scriptwriting wasn’t bad. So, as a movie adaptation; it wasn’t bad. It was actually pretty okay.
Which means all the sins have to be left at the doorstep of the source material.
You know, at first, I thought Ayn Rand was just another academic – but a glance at her wikipage shows she actually worked in industry for a living. Admittedly, and perhaps it’s because she worked in Hollywood – her book doesn’t work.
Sorry – the idea that removing a few thousand people (captains of industry, entrepreneurs, the ‘smart’ people) would destroy the economy kind of misses the point of business. Even at the size of my company, we’ve got processes in place so that if we lose someone, anyone, we can go on.
People are replaceable. Oh sure, there are geniuses but if you think every genius sits at the top of the heap right now, you really don’t know how the world works. There are a ton of great, smart people at lower levels who do their job and maybe, if these ‘geniuses’ went away, might even step up. Or stay where they are – because that’s where they are happy to be.
Worst, she holds these ‘great men’ and women to be some superstars. People who have no flaws, who are more important than everyone else. Setting them up to be this elite class – an elite class of intellectuals.
Which says I guess more of what she wants than anything else. Wanting a world of intellectuals, of people who are all ‘super rational’ (and god, let’s not discuss rationality – after all, mathematicians can prove 0 isn’t nothing; so what the hell people) and who thus ‘run’ those poor us.
It’s also a show/book that is out of touch with how the world worked back then, and even more now. The idea that money is good because it shows value, because the people who have money created value. Ignoring inheritance laws, trust funds, stock market manipulation and all that other malfeasance. And while government intervention might have been the underlying cause of the housing bubble, it surely was not hindered by unabashed capitalism (derivatives, etc.)
Don’t get me wrong, some of her ideas / concepts are fine. There’s a lot to like there, but as always it’s taken to the extreme. You know, the middle ground is there for a reason people.
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