Ayn Rand and the Prophesy of Atlas Shrugged

I recently had the privilege of seeing Ayn Rand and the Prophesy of Atlas Shrugged in theaters a few days ago.  It is a full length documentary that discusses the "prophesy" of the novel; the prophesy being that government regulators and crony capitalists will destroy the United States.  The film likens todays society with its floundering bureaucracy and uncontrollable debt to the dystopia presented in Rand's masterpiece; the resemblance is uncanny.

If you have read Atlas Shrugged before this movie is a must see.  If you have not read it; go pick up a copy, read it, then go see the film.  The movie is not called "objectivism for dummies" so familiarizing yourself with Rand's themes before hand comes in really handy, and to be honest, no film is better than its paper counterpart.  Don't let the staggering 1,250 pages intimidate you either.  Yeah it is really long... but you will thank me when you're done reading it, I promise.

So how does the prophesy of Atlas Shrugged tie into this blog?  Foreign policy is only briefly discussed by Rand; however, the one foreign policy item she talks about in detail -foreign aid- is incredibly important.  As Mary Beth Sheridan noted last year in the Washington Post:

"President Obama's 2012 budget proposal says that funding for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) would increase only 1 percent over 2010 levels, to $47 billion. But that's not the whole picture.

The document would move funding for Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan into a separate account, for "Overseas Contingency Operations," following the practice of the Department of Defense. Taken together, the two accounts would represent an 8 percent increase for the State Department and USAID over the 2010 budget--or total spending of nearly $58 billion.

$58 billion of our money; our taxes.  In harsh economic times we should not be handing out cash like candy on halloween.  The goals of USAID sound so great: combating HIV/AIDS, feeding the hungry, clean water, etc... but why is the government doing it? Aren't there some fantastic NGO's already doing the same thing? (Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, the International Red Cross, etc...) These NGO's only receive funding out of the kindness of people's hearts, and they do not give the support with conditions (like Anti-Terrorist Certification).

I've often heard the argument that "we're the wealthiest nation in the world, so we can afford to give to others." But there is a tremendous flaw within that statement: we are not the wealthiest nation in the world; we just have the wealthiest citizens.  There is nothing wealthy about -$15,000,000,000,000 of national debt.  Take the $58 billion spent annually on USAID and use it to fix problems here!  The infrastructure of our country is rotting (currently we have a D on our infrastructure report card).  This has led to problems like bridge and levee failures, and the problem will only get worse.  Though it may sound counter-intuitive to encourage more spending after I just criticized our national debt, an initial investment in infrastructure secures our future for years to come.  It will make more citizens wealthy, it will create jobs, and it will allow people to donate to organizations that promote humanitarianism for the sake of humanity, not politics and influence.

We [to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher] are succumbing to the common socialist dilemma: we are running out of everyone's money.  The last thing I will leave you with is a quote from Atlas Shrugged.  It is the theme of the novel, and it is the prophesy Rand made for our nation:

"The great oak tree had stood on a hill over the Hudson, in a lonely spot on the Taggart estate. Eddie Willers, age seven, liked to come and look at that tree. It had stood there for hundreds of years, and he thought it would always stand there.  It's roots clutched the hill like a fist with fingers sunk into the soil, and he thought that if a giant were to seize it by the top, he would not be able to uproot it, but would swing the hill and the whole earth with it, like a ball at the end of a string. He felt safe in the oak tree's presence; it was a thing that nothing could change or threaten; it was his greatest symbol of strength. 


One night, lightning struck the oak tree. Eddie saw it the next morning. It lay broken in half, and he looked into its trunk as into the mouth of a black tunnel. The trunk was only an empty shell; its heart had rotted away long ago; there was nothing inside -- just a thin gray dust that was being dispersed by the whim of the faintest wind. The living power had gone, and the shape it left had not been able to stand without it."