Ajit Jaokar is the founder of the London based publishing and research company futuretext (
Atlas Shrugged – fifty years on.
Ayn Rand’s classic Atlas Shrugged is fifty years this week. Like many people worldwide, especially
Business people, Rand has had a deep influence on my thinking since reading Atlas and
Fountainhead at age 19 in India.
NY times has a great article HERE
In a nutshell .. Atlas Shrugged (and Ayn Rand’s writings in general) are a moral defence of capitalism.
Many of the thoughts from the NY times article resonate well with me .. Especially
Rand said she “set out to show how desperately the world needs prime movers and how viciously it treats them” and to portray “what happens to a world without them.”
And also ..
Influence on ideals, business and values
But the book attracted a coterie of fans, some of them top corporate executives, who dared not speak of its impact except in private. When they read the book, often as college students, they now say, it gave form and substance to their inchoate thoughts, showing there is no conflict between private ambition and public benefit.
I know from talking to a lot of Fortune 500 C.E.O.’s that ‘Atlas Shrugged’ has had a significant effect on their business decisions, even if they don’t agree with all of Ayn Rand’s ideas,” said John A. Allison, the chief executive of BB&T, one of the largest banks in the United States.
“It offers something other books don’t: the principles that apply to business and to life in general. I would call it complete,” he said.
Distinction from both conservatives and the left(i.e. Ayn Rand’s principles lean to the right of the political spectrum – but are not conservative)
The book was released to terrible reviews. Critics faulted its length, its philosophy and its literary ambitions. Both conservatives and liberals were unstinting in disparaging the book; the right saw promotion of godlessness, and the left saw a message of “greed is good.”
Rand as a person had flaws ..
“She wasn’t a nice person, ” said Darla Moore, vice president of the private investment firm Rainwater Inc. “But what a gift she’s given us.”
Rand as an inspiration
Ms. Moore, a benefactor of the University of South Carolina, spoke of her debt to Rand in 1998, when the business school at the university was named in Ms. Moore’s honor. “As a woman and a Southerner,” she said, “I thrived on Rand’s message that only quality work counted, not who you are.”
Rand’s idea of “the virtue of selfishness,” Ms. Moore said, “is a harsh phrase for the Buddhist idea that you have to take care of yourself.”
Some business leaders might be unsettled by the idea that the only thing members of the leadership class have in common is their success. James M. Kilts, who led turnarounds at Gillette, Nabisco and Kraft, said he encountered “Atlas” at “a time in college life when everybody was a nihilist, anti-establishment, and a collectivist.” He found her writing reassuring because it made success seem rational.
“Rand believed that there is right and wrong,” he said, “that excellence should be your goal.”
Many thanks for my good friend Judy Breck for pointing this article to me!
