Movie Trailer

The movie Atlas Shrugged is based on the landmark book by the same name written by author, philosopher and “radical capitalist” Ayn Rand more than 50 years ago. Rand’s moral economic message in Atlas is still as fresh, vibrant and dangerous to today’s out-of-control congressional squanderers as it was to their predecessors in 1957. Dangerous because if  Rand’s philosophical ideas are adopted by today’s Main Street Americans it will destroy the rotting corpse of congressional institutional corruption that has brought free-market capitalism and the American Dream to its knees.

The key moral question raised by Rand in Atlas is simple to verbalize but not amenable to the shallow sound-bite analysis so prevalent in our Twitter-FaceBook culture. It is a question that goes to the heart of why the United States of America is teetering on the brink of a financial Armageddon that will economically enslave our children and grandchildren for generations to come.

What is the question? It is this: “Do some men and women have the moral economic right to make sacrificial animals out of other men and women?”  Putting the question another way in which it more specifically addresses the pending economic disaster of our generation would be: “Do some men and women in US society (whether they are a majority or a minority of the people) have the moral right to take, at the point of a gun, that which other men and women have produced or earned and give it to someone else?"

Since the United States of America was founded “of, by and for” the people of our great country, it is fitting that it is the people that must determine the answer to this moral question. Atlas Shrugged gives one answer. The people of the United States, including you, will ultimately have to give their answer.

You will get the most out of the movie and Rand’s moral economic themes if you read the following books in order: The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism the Unknown Ideal, and, Atlas Shrugged. Why those books in that order?—because the first two books preview most of the philosophical themes expressed by the characters and events in Atlas.

One last note on reading Rand for those born to the Twitter-FaceBook  generation: Rand is not a quick read. To properly absorb her philosophy, whether you choose to agree with her or not, requires some thoughtful consideration on your part. I found that reading a page or two of Rand’s books and then cogitating a minute, sometimes an hour, on what I just read was my personal key for unlocking Rand’s philosophical logic. I discovered that she challenged and inspired me to consider and reevaluate my own philosophical principles and world view. My hope is that she, her great book,  and the movie will similarly inspire you.