50 Years of Atlas Shrugged

Do I have to even ask if you know what "Atlas Shrugged" is? Ayn Rand's prolific novel introduced a culture of raw capitalism unbridled in its depiction of greed, and the argument that greed is good. You also remember Gordon Gecko in the Wall Street. Today I read an article commemorating this book and its influence in the capitalistic ideas. In addition to founding her own philosophical system, objectivism, Rand is honored as the modern fountainhead of laissez-faire capitalism, and as an impassioned, uncompromising, and unapologetic proponent of reason, liberty, individualism, and rational self-interest. We all remember the phrase Who is John Galt? This phrase has been quoted time and again in other books. Heck! Even Calvin and Hobbes made a parody of the phrase (not in its entirety) in one Calvin's diatribe against restrictive policies in his home (meaning being forced to go to school or gulag as he calls it, being made to eat greens and food and not able to meet the national average of TV viewing by being forced to go to bed by 9 PM).

I first read Ayn Rand when I was 14. It was not because I was into reading "heavy" books. Mostly there was nothing else to read and I found this in my father's book shelf and I read it. When I started I nearly cried. Not because I felt the impact of the book. It was more to do with the fact that I thought I had the most boring and heavy duty book and I could not believe I was reading it. And my head nearly exploded and was quite close to shedding tears of frustration. It took a few more years to venture back to read the book. Growing up in a socialist and closed world (India opened its economy only in 1990's), it was fascinating to read the idea of a society bereft of its genius and the downward spiral of civilization. Well, we do now know we are going to hell in a handcart considering all we now know are wars, famine, strife and global warming. Its time to start looking for a new planet to destroy.

For those who have heard of Warcraft III (a million copy selling game), the cheat code to speed up research technologies is WhoisJohnGalt.