hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr0621.txt

Episode: 621
Title: HPR0621: Dann and CafeNinja Book Review:  Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0621/hpr0621.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 00:00:53

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All right. This is Dan and Cafe Ninja coming at you with a hacker public radio episode a book review and discussion of Atlas Shrugged.
Say hello to our audience there Cafe Ninja. Hello audience. Yes. And for those who who do not know Atlas Shrugged,
this is Ian Rand's opus for her, her, her, uh, peace day resistance of objectivism. And, uh, it's, uh, it is an interesting read.
It is a very long read and I would categorize it as philosophical, uh, fiction, nonfiction, or not philosophical science fiction slash mystery.
I don't know if you agree with that. And it has the elements of those. I wouldn't disagree.
And just to give a little synopsis of the, do you want to give a little synopsis of the book or should I?
Oh, you go ahead, you go ahead. Okay. Well, let me ask you a question before we get too far into it. When did you read the book?
I read the book, uh, in early 2010. So about eight months ago.
Oh, so we're not too far away from when we read this because I, I had read it. I started a year ago and I finished it like,
I think it was like at the early 2010 myself. I don't exactly remember the date. I could look it up. But so we both, it's pretty fresh in our minds.
It's not far away. So, okay. Anyway, Alice Rogue tells a tale of a, of a railroad, quote, railroad tycoon. We can call her a railroad company.
The main character, her name is Dabney Taggart. She's the vice president of Taggart Transcontinental Railroad. And it describes her life up to becoming the vice president and mostly in flashbacks.
And then the issues that she faces in trying to maintain and expand the railroad in a political and economic environment that is completely against,
I and Rand's philosophy of objectiveism that there's a lot of collectivism and statism involved in the reflection of the economy and the trials that she has to go through to try and transcend the economy in the political environment and struggle against this to achieve her goals that she would like to achieve.
That's kind of like a really high level kind of looking down at it and doesn't really make the book sound to a feeling.
No, it's interesting. No, that was kind of dry. Let me try again there. It is Dabney Taggart, the main character. And she's the vice president of Taggart Transcontinental Railroad.
And she embodies the character of what I and Rand would be someone transitioning into her philosophy of objectiveism and the realization that she has in trying to take her life's work which is the railroad and trying to do the best that she can.
And the trials that she faces along the way, the ultimate successes and failures that she has. And at the same time, there's other people in the story that are going through the same process, some succeed and some fail.
Throughout the story, there's one character that's upheld as the true ideal. And you probably heard this repeated in popular culture, the phrase, who is John Gault?
And John Gault is like the epitome of objectiveism and the hero of the novel, so to speak.
And the mystery surrounding John Gault and his group of people is revealed in this book. And what it means to Dabney, to Hank Reardon, who is her love interest also, you know, a very prominent main character in the book, who also embodies the character in transition to objectiveism.
And how they work together to build their, for lack of a better word, I don't want to say necessarily empire is an empire, but it's their life's work and to achieve the pinnacle in life without having to sacrifice their individuality or their dreams.
You know, why don't you give your little synopsis in the book yourself?
Well, actually, okay, the synopsis you gave was accurate. And it is, I'm not going to lie, a dry read, however, and it is profound. There is huge character development. There is major plot turns.
I wouldn't say twists is not that kind of rollercoaster sort of ride. However, there are bends and curves to the entire plot that change like bends in the Mississippi River. They're mammoths and they're huge, but there are many levels on which this book is having a discussion, political, economic.
I try to put it in the context of the time it was written and by whom. So we're talking about a lady was born in the early 1900s in Russia, which then became Soviet Russia, which she left.
And we're talking about her public making this publication in 57. So around the same time as the Orwells and the Asimovs were writing about their political commentaries about also political states in the world, for example, Soviet Russia and Socialists Europe and things of this nature.
So there's a lot of capitalism going through the book. There's a lot of, she really hits on, I don't want to say business centric, it hovers around because Dabney is so engrossed in her work, which is her family's company.
And she's passionate about it and she's driven by it. A lot of the tangents of the conversation arrived to Dabney, from my perspective, via the mechanism of the business.
Yes, so there's many different things that transition through the business, but become obviously a multi-level conversation. And while it's a slow, long read, I can say it moved me. At the end, I actually came away feeling something that which a lot of books don't really move me to either reinforce a firm.
Or deny something I felt before I read the book, but this one did and it's a very powerful read.
I agree completely with you. I don't see how you could read this book and not come away seriously shaken at the very least, probably changed in some respects for how you view the world.
Because when you were talking about the twists and turns, I mean, there were points in this book where it was just like, the way that she explained what was going on and you see, they're going in one direction and all of a sudden, it's just like brick wall out of nowhere.
And it just elicits such a strong emotional response, in me at least, to say, man, it was just so frustrating to actually feel that, you know, here are fictional characters yet, these roadblocks that come up are extremely frustrating.
And there's stuff that you can see that was going on in that time period and still going on today.
Absolutely.
You can see things like that happening and see how it is extremely frustrating.
And with regards to it being tied to their business, to their work, I mean, that's one of the tenants of her philosophy of objectivism is, you know, being a productive person.
That that is what life is, one of the main tenants of life is producing.
That if you are not producing something, then you're not living up to your potential in life.
Now, to give Anne Rand also her credit and her dues, she wrote this as the launching piece, mouthpiece of objectivism, her philosophy.
And I wasn't aware of it when I read the book.
As the book had gotten some recent press and stir, I just decided to get it and read it.
I wasn't fully aware of how it had become then her philosophical launch pad from which many other works and she had the whole series of speeches and everything else that she did after.
I had no idea about that until after and I can obviously, going back, I can definitely say it was there.
It was clearly there. But what I took away from it when I was reading the book, it really felt like, and that could be my personal experience I'm bringing to the book, of course, it felt like a very powerful statement of capitalism versus socialism versus communism at the time.
Yeah, no, I agree with you.
And I thought it also, it really challenged me in regards to looking at how I look at my life and my relationships with people and what I see going on in society, locally, at a state level, at a country level,
at a global level, and looking at the points that she makes regarding capitalism and socialism and welfare and altruism and helping people and how that actually plays out not only in one's personal life but on a grand scheme on a global scale.
And I found that extremely challenging to my personal beliefs because I had grown up in an environment where my parents took in kids from, you know, horrible backgrounds and those kids, those kids parents, you know,
were securing aid from the state, obviously, you know, the state, the city, the state was involved in their home environments to take them out, put them in foster homes, and to work with parents, try and get them at a level off of drug addiction, you know, in some kind of economic stability, which was most likely welfare, whatever it is, so that the kids can go back and they can live in a family life.
That transition and, you know, helping those same kids in a counseling type position of families later on in life and the frustration that you see with that and, you know, when you read a book like this and her idea is basically, you know, you need to do it yourself.
But it comes down to you are in control of yourself, you are responsible for yourself and becoming a producer and taking care of yourself.
Don't depend on the state, the state should not help you out. Don't depend on the altruism of other people, you know, from in the book itself, one of the things that keeps coming around, that is one of the roadblocks to the main characters moving forward with their production,
is the fact that they say stuff like, you know, what comes down, the state passes laws and restrictions that say, okay, we're going to regulate how much you can produce, so this company over here can catch up.
Well, this company that you read in the book is a bunch of slackards and are just, you know, twiddling their thumbs and they got some guy on the board over there, some lobbyists, saying to the politicians, hey, you know, cut us some slack.
If we go down, we're taking all these people with us. Why, you know, limit what this guy is doing over here, one of the heroes of the story, put the shackles on him so we can catch up.
You know, stuff like that. And it kind of, it really, it really challenged me to say, because I usually fall down on a more altruistic side and say that, you know, for me, I need to do the best that I can do.
But yet, at the same time, I understand that there's people out there that are struggling and they might need help.
But I and Rand would say, well, don't do that.
Well, there's a difference between you using your extra energy to help that person, or you just, you know, if you charge too far ahead, the whole pack looks bad.
That's where you're, that's the distinction between being altruistic and then maybe not, not satisfying your potential.
And she addresses that in the book as well. But I mean, she describes situations that blew me away.
She basically, in 1957, this lady who came from Russia described the too big defail, a situation with which we've seen in 2009, 2010.
She described that exact balancing of production between market industries.
My father-in-law was retired at a very young age because they closed the steel plant here in Italy where, because Germany said Italy was making too much steel.
So in response, instead of taking all the factories in Italy and reducing their output by 20%, they closed 20% of the factories. Boom, gone.
And because it was a socialized state, they were retired.
So my father-in-law from a very young age in his early 40s has been retired.
And how does that has an impact on him? I mean, does that...
Well, actually not him so much. I mean, the entire southern part of Italy is more or less an economic nightmare.
I mean, compared to Northern Italy, which maintained the industrial sector that remained after changes like that through the, mostly through the 70s, left such a massive footprint and hole in the economy of the southern part of Italy that they've never really recovered.
I mean, to the point where there is a very small political party in Northern Italy, he wants to separate and make a different country.
And you see that time and again in the novel. Exactly. Exactly.
And it always ends the same way. I mean, every region that they stick their fingers into like that, it ends in the same way.
Horribly. Yeah, it does. Horribly.
And it is. I'm not going to go all the way out and say I agree 100% with objectiveism.
It makes a compelling observation and an argument for a lot of these things.
Well, what I really liked is that she moderated it. She put it, she didn't just flak him out and say capitalism is the best and only way.
But what she said was capitalism with morality, a balanced one for one.
No, no one lopsighting the scales just because scales can be lopsided.
You know, if you perceive something, I produce a value of one.
And I perceive something, you know, I don't want to say barter system, but pretty close.
When we can say that the thing the other has has a value of one, we can trade that.
That's something we can trade on an honest, fair scale.
No trickery, no, haha, I got you. If you read the fine print, it says 2 to 1.
None of that. Just kind of, I keep thinking of it's almost in my head.
She left Mayberry. So Mayberry USA is exactly where she would have preferred, I think it be.
Yeah, that's, you know, when you bring up that whole concept of morality, fairness, justice, honesty, integrity, pride.
I mean, those are some of the highest standards, you know, what they regard as objective as regard as high standards.
One of the things that people would say to me when they found out that I was reading Rand and Atlas Shroud, was there was people who have some idea of her philosophy,
turned their nose up at it. And what I kept hearing time and again was the idea of what she calls rational self-interest, selfishism.
They took that as a negative connotation, being selfish and living only for one self, screw everybody else, everybody be damned.
And as I read the book, and I had that in the back of my mind that people had, you know, said that it's selfish in a negative light,
what I read which she actually said in the book about selfishism is not in a negative connotation.
It is, you know, living and achieving one's own goals and being, you know, focusing on oneself, but yet in a way that you maintain being moral and just and with integrity,
that it's not hedonism, it's not just going out and doing whatever the hell you want to do, because that's what you want to do.
It's selfish, being selfish like that, but it's putting yourself first and not acting in a manner that is contrary to preserving yourself and stepping on anybody else.
It is exercising your free will and your liberty and your right to pursue of liberty, of happiness and production, but not at the expense of anybody else.
True, I think not a true objective.
Exactly. Well, when I reflect on the book and the selfish portion that I'm sure most people refer to is a very specific incident in the book, which is slightly callous, slightly cold, slightly harsh.
And that is between two brothers, one who is an industry pioneer, another who is a lead to the brother who doesn't have a job, has no useful skills or talents.
And he basically is asking for handouts. Give me a job. Why? Because I'm your brother. No. What can you do? Nothing. Then no job.
So while that is, when you look at it under a microscope, it's very callous, it's very mean, it's very, it would describe a situation where any form of social welfare programs could be.
But I don't think that's really what she was intending, what she was intending was if you're a person of flashback where the entrepreneur had made himself important and productive and pertinent to the work.
He was discussing his brother to step up and do the same. Provide me a skill. Can you type? I'll give you a job. No. Okay. I'm not giving you a job. I mean, it's just no handout is really what he was talking about.
And I can honestly say that I don't think that she would ever say that, for example, a welfare program like what we have in the States is something that shouldn't have.
I have heard lots of stories about welfare situations in the States where it was used exactly the way it was supposed to.
I had a distant aunt who had had lost her husband, had no insurance, had a heart condition. She went on welfare, which covered the intervention to take care of her heart.
And once she recovered and she got a job, she got off welfare. That's what it was ever designed to be.
So I would say that it's not really the program. It's the fact that, and it describes also people who abuse those kind of programs in her book.
And the troubles that the troubled road that travels. So you can see a lot of examples. I mean, it also depends on how far you drill down into each situation in the book and how far you drill out.
And take it as a philosophical example or try to interpret more or less meaning in the interaction she describes.
But I have to confess through the entire book, it is guided by reason.
While there are a few actions that are really, you know, emotionally purely emotional, emotionally driven.
Most of the characters could be Vulcan, I mean, to a fault. There's a lot of reason. A lot of rationale, a lot of very clear thinking.
You could tell that the lady who wrote this book was a very rational thinker. She was not probably prone to flight to fancy.
No, not at all. And that example that you were given about the callousness that could be perceived as being very callous.
I can see that, but I also had a hard time, you know, disagreeing with the reaction because, yeah, you can look at it as being callous.
You know, here's this guy who has made his millions, you know, a millionaire has worked his ass off to build this company.
And he did it all on his own on his own merits. This is what he produced. And here's his family that are just sitting back, drinking, smoking, throwing parties, having a good time, and having their hand out, you know, we're in this family.
We supported you in some way, be it emotionally or family or familial, to be able to do whatever this is you did, but they really didn't. And here they are, you know, give me a job.
He doesn't really want a job. He just wants money.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I mean, and, you know, to take him and put him an unproductive person in a position, in a job, in the company, would take away that position from somebody else who would work and be productive.
And I definitely, I don't want to ask the audience if any of them have ever seen any people who were incompetent, placed it, keep positions in their company just to watch it create havoc in situations where it did not need to be.
No, yeah. So it did, it listed a very powerful emotion at that point that I can agree with you that it could be seen as callous, but yet at the same time I had a hard, very hard time disagreeing with decisions that were made in saying, you know, that is the right thing to do.
Or that was the right one. Well, you should look, it's all judgmental, right? But I think it was, I think it was a very good book. I think some, the, the core economic and political points that she was trying to make with this book, I think, were sound of them, and they are sound even today.
And if anybody has the time resources or, you know, want to kill four small trees, grab the book. It is a monster. You can kill somebody if you threw it at them.
You know what? There are some dry parts in here, but yet there are some really, I thought there's, it kept me coming back. I will admit that I did not, I started the book. I didn't stop, take break from it or, you know, go off and read something else. I stuck with the book.
And I mean, the speech that is made that takes up a huge, a quarter of the book, we'll just call it the speech so that we don't give any speech.
I mean, which is like, it is the meat of the book. That might have been like, to me, a little bit, it was, it was a very compelling speech, a little bit on the dry side compared to some of the other storytelling elements.
But I mean, the mystery involved in here, some of the science fiction type stuff with that weapon that they create was really good, the engine, all that stuff.
The engine, that's fascinating. That was, I love that.
That was very well imagined for considering the time that she wrote that book. And the fact that if such a discovery were made today, it would still be, you know, the priceless object that it was even in the story.
Oh, yeah. What it is, what also I found kind of interesting is like, she's a railroad type. She's, I don't know if you want to call her railroad type, but she's just like, Taggart Transcontinental is so important to the entire nation's welfare and economy.
And yet, you know, today, when we look at society, not, I don't think a lot of people consider railroads as important anymore.
I agree. I think maybe the, obviously, as a, as a vehicle or mechanism for telling the story, she had to pick something. And in her day, the railroad was the bomb. It was this is not. And so I mean, she picked with what she was familiar with what she could find common material over. I'm sure.
I don't think there was a booming airline industry yet.
So I don't think you, exactly. Although I would think trucking would be far more boring than, than real ways, even.
Yeah. That would be, you know, it was the perfect thing now.
I, it was, I would definitely say it's not quite as, as timeless as some others. But again, when, when you look at our banks and the recent, you know, too big to fail and bailing out and government regulation and interjection of funds and that whole little, I don't want to call us circle of life because it's anything.
But she, she foretold it all back then.
Yeah. And I, I wonder if we're going to actually learn from this or we're going to, you know, probably repeat itself over and over again.
Well, truth, what I don't know is if maybe some of this was fall, some of her insight to how some of these, because she, like I said, she, in the books, she does cover political and economic forces and where they intersect, which in America today, you can see it all over the place.
And so she did a very good job of using, of, it was insightful how, how the nuances were, the impacts, the, the dominoes that happen when these are set up and they fall, in fact.
And I wonder how much of that might have been, for example, fallout from having been in the States at and just after the Great Depression.
I wonder if she saw some of these kind of the regulatory things that had to come into place that did or did not get removed, that affected industry in this way or that way.
I don't know, but I'm, it's the only way I can imagine her having seen the end of a, the very bad, horrible end of one of these economic cycles where suddenly a whole bunch of legislation is made.
So I wonder if that gave her unique insight into what to write, which again we, we can see in the bailout and the bubbles of the last decade.
Yeah, that plus I also think, yeah, there's no doubt in my mind that the whole, you know, her whole growing up through the Russian Revolution and the rise of the Bolshevik Party and everything and, you know, what that did to her family and her status in Russian having to leave Russia because of all that and everything.
I'm sure that that had an impact to help, help see things in that light, which she saw going on there and saw some of that going on through the Depression and some of the programs and similarities between what they were talking about and some of the methods that they adopted.
I'm wondering if that was probably a huge impact on her philosophy, too.
It is, you're right, it is, it is timely, you know, it is, I think it's an important read. It should not be dismissed at all.
No, okay, whether you agree or not, I don't think it should be dismissed.
Right, and I know that one of the things that her, she was shunned from academic philosophers, academic philosophers for a long time after she had written her work.
I don't know, maybe you can call me out on it, but honestly, I feel like I enjoy reading a lot of Isaac Asimov and he had a very distinct way of writing, which is I consider very, it was popularized in that era of writers, yeah, so very dragnet, yeah.
And very, I don't want to say wordy, but they used language incredibly well and different.
You know, it's one of those moments where when you read it, you tilt your head and you go, people don't talk like that anymore, which is a shame.
But it was, it's written in that same way and I find that just the way that Asimov and Rand Wright are inherently, they're easy to read, while they're long and sometimes they get dry, they paint a wonderful picture.
They really use the words like an artist and not one syllable is wasted.
No, I agree with you. I see you exactly what you're saying, you are correct.
Well, I know we touched on this right before, we were talking about this right before we started, but apparently next year the movie's coming out.
And I had, I had it in my head that the movie existed and when I read this book and I think of a movie, I'm, I always think of like an old black and white film from right after the depression that this, you know, this would be, have been made into a film.
And with that kind of style, you think of the African queen or Casablanca?
Yeah, something like that, that, that like, that's what I see in my mind when I think of this.
Not, not like something coming out next year. I don't know why, I just, I just get that feeling.
Oh God, it'll be in 3D with trains.
Yeah, you know what, they're probably going to make it in 3D and that's going to, I don't know.
To be fair to anyone listening to this one, it's not going to be any good storytelling unless they break it up into at least 3 movies.
I can see it.
Yeah, you are right.
The book is terribly long, just, I mean, for a warning, I really want everybody who listens to this to go grab the book and, and, and read it, but it is terribly long.
And, or it's a book and there's no way like gone with the wind.
Okay, how long was that?
Four and a half hours, something like that?
Yeah, I can tell you in just a long.
Does it have a running time, just please?
Because if you, if you re-gun with the wind and you watch the movie, you can still see where things were cut out, left out, and hit the director's cutting room floor.
On something like this, you'd have to break it up into at least 3 films, to which I would say, wait until the end, wait until the trilogy is over, and then that gives you time to read the book before you watch it because I promise you, I promise you.
As much as some movies like A Harry Potter movie are disappointments compared to the original book, there is no way this is going to be done well.
Especially not in one shot, no way.
Yeah, gone with the wind, 238 minutes, just under 4 hours, but I agree with you.
If you are at all interested, or, you know, your curiosity is peaked by this, and you have an inkling to see the movie, read the book first.
Definitely read the book.
If they go back, because they're going to probably change the writing, they're going to change the vocabulary of the conversation.
If it's a modern adaptation, then it would just be horrific, because the language won't even be used correctly, because the power of this book is the way the words are written.
The speech, the speech, is incredibly powerful because of the words chosen, and if they change any of that, or if they presented in anything short of the situation presented in the book, it's going to be a mockery, it's going to be a joke.
Read the book. Read the book, kid. Read the book.
It's only, wait, it's only a thousand, 69 pages.
That's not much. That's not much.
It means a little more than being in nothingness. What's foreign piece? How many pages?
How many pages is that? I don't know. I know the last Harry Potter book was like 500 and something.
Okay, but let's be honest about something. Harry Potter had a lot larger type than this book.
Okay, to put it the other way, the audiobook is, I think, 40 hours, 50 hours, something like this. It's terribly long as well.
Most audiobooks are between 6 and 8, and this was four parts of 10 hours each.
That's interesting. Roughly 10 hours.
I'm curious to see how this compares size-wise with the Elysses, because I know that on James Joyce's birthday, they have a reading of Elysses every year, and people just go in and start reading out loud.
I don't know how long they read for, but you just have a bunch of people coming in and just continuing the reading process for the entire day, and they all read through Elysses.
Which is another fairly large book, long book, great book.
Jeregielessies?
Oh, back in school.
You know, read the book, read the book, Atlas Ruggs.
Here we go. Atlas Rugg, Unembridge, audiobook, 63 hours.
Is it the same person reading?
I'm sorry?
Is it the same person reading?
Oh, read the whole book. Yes.
That must have been a hell of a lot of work.
Yes. That one should have paid overtime.
Definitely.
Well, anything else you want to say about the book?
Anything else you want to say about the book?
No, but I definitely want to give a shout out to AtlasRugg.com, which is very well organized and synced, and it has all the details and links to go by the book.
And apparently the book has a Facebook page.
Yeah. You can follow them on Twitter. You can follow them on Twitter.
We'll shout out to you endlessly to go get a job.
I and Rand Institute.
You can follow them on Twitter.
I don't know.
I don't know if it's worth following on a social network, but it's definitely worth reading.
Yes. Yeah. Read it. Check out the website. That's pretty cool.
And if you're out of, you know, you get head over to, I'll include my notes in, of course, with the show, but if you're, you want more information on Objectivism, Wikipedia has, of course, great write-ups on it.
You can get the full skinny there.
That's all I have to say about it.
That's, that should do it well.
It is a good book.
I thank you, Kathy and Andrew.
Oh.
Dan, it was my pleasure.
We'll have to do another one. Another book review.
Oh, guys, are we going to start having like a tilt book of the month club or something?
Yeah, the book of the month club.
Let's open this one.
Okay.
No, stop.
No, stop.
You know what? The over the book of the month?
No, the over the book of the month.
I don't know.
I'll tell you what.
If we make Damon and, and freedom TM, the, the next two books, then we're good.
Which one?
What is it?
Did you stop recording?
No, not yet.
Great.
Okay, so the two books that I've read recently, they've gotten me as pumped as Atlas Ruggs, were both by Daniel Suarez.
The first one is called Damon, like a computer Damon D-A-E-M-O-N.
And the second is SQL is Freedom TM trademark.
Okay, it's really weird because I actually went over to the overbook club website.
And right on the front cover, is she's holding up a book called Freedom a Novel.
And I thought that you actually meant that book.
Oh, no, I don't know.
Oh, guys, I hope, I mean, I hope.
Daniel Suarez is a very good job book.
Jonathan, friends, and Daniel Suarez.
Daniel Suarez, and I can, I can say that the audio books are actually minor productions.
They are done very well.
They don't have a full cast or anything, but it's more than one voice, and it's, it's very well produced.
Ah, if we look into that, maybe I'll pick it up.
Start reading it.
You say it's really good?
It's really good.
Especially for if for anybody who's into computers.
Come on, the book's name is Damon.
What do you think?
I don't know.
I'm going to read that.
Probably the book that most profoundly affected me after I read Atlas Shrugged,
because I finally got around the readings in the art of motorcycle maintenance.
That, that, that, that, that may have me think pretty much.
I read that.
I'm pretty sure I read that right after Atlas Shrugged.
Good book.
Or did I read that before Atlas Shrugged?
Anyway, I better stop the recording.
Okay.
So I can get his HPR.
I thank you, man.
Thank you.
My pleasure.
My pleasure.
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