The Randian Economist

Let me say a little bit about why I appreciate Atlas Shrugged, the most important point I took away from it, and why so many people really hate the book.

First things first. I appreciate Atlas Shrugged because it was the only book that even approached in any way the situation of facing a group of people who are convinced they are somehow doing good, and following "the principles of being good", but overall to you come across as having a bad effect and actually not being very good at all. This isn't a terribly uncommon situation, but there are no other books in my mind that in any way raises this issue. If it's good for people to read books they can somewhat identify with, then that is the only book that provides this type of good.

The other situation the book portrays is when people who seem to be not very deserving and don't behave terribly well try to guilt-trip you into things. Again, I don't know any other book that specifically discusses guilt-tripping on behalf of "claimed good but not perceived good" as a phenomenon. If you know of any then please tell me. (Edit: I guess the other one that springs to mind is Thus Spake Zarathustra, a rare gem as well).

Aside from this imagery, the only real 'moral point' the book seems to make in my view is that charity deserves thanks. The only scene that really had an impact was the guilt-tripping one - and in no way was it ever said by anyone that charity, or giving, or being helpful, in any way is evil or shouldn't be done. It simply said, A) charity is optional, B) charity deserves thanks. The people who didn't receive charity in the book never asked politely, never implied any kind of gratefulness, never gave any obligation of 'I'll try to do better'.

Lastly, there's a lot of reasons people hate it, but my feeling if you dive deep into the fundamental undercurrents of leftist thought is that the preceding point is really THE problem, ten times more than any other. Marxism and leftist thought generally is very preoccupied with "thinking the right way" (right according to us), and this thinking includes that you essentially only exist as part of a collective and you have an eternal unerasable debt to all other humans. The strong shall carry more, the weak shall be carried etc, without even a single thought that makes this seem unwanted. The meme "charity deserves thanks" is like a stake through the heart of this, a fucking funeral pyre. Accept the phrase "charity deserves thanks" and you have made the entirety of Marxist vision unobtainable. And taxes in this context, beyond the 'paying for fundamental services' objection, would be defined as charity.

I don't think taxes should be optional, I just think that people who pay taxes deserve thanks. Like every taxpayer deserves a "you know what, it's not like I owe you a favour for this, but actually, I really appreciate the money you paid in this month". This is why I can never be "progressive", "communal" or what the hell they want to call it.

Naturally there were a lot of things that weren't great in the book, like it was far too long (I skipped parts) and more. But these are pretty excusable if you get something good from a book. I mean, you can criticize books that don't have illustrations, or the ones that have (presumably either) but if any of these books gives you something valuable then who the hell cares. And naturally I feel that a lot of the plain hatred and despise for the book, although put under the guise of 'literary criticism' is a bit of a case of "the lady doth protest too much".