A Review of I Am John Galt (book review)

Whiskey and Gunpowder ^ | 7-15-11 | Gary Gibson

[dynachrome]

A favorite game among comic book geeks is to imagine–and argue about–which contemporary actors would play which superheroes and villains. Now with his new book I Am John Galt Donald Luskin has brought the game to Ayn Rand’s two towering works of fiction: The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. And it makes for a splendid read indeed.

Capitalists, libertarians and of course Objectivists, all those who believe in liberty and the power of free markets can all rejoice. There is plenty here for those sorts of people to agree on and enjoy. Here is a book that reveals Ayn Rand’s philosophical vision in the flesh of the real world.

The cast of characters looks like this:

Steve Jobs — Howard Roark Paul Krugman — Ellsworth Toohey John Allison — John Galt Angelo Mozilo — James Taggart Bill Gates — Henry Rearden Barney Frank — Wesley Mouch T. J. Rodgers — Francisco d’Anconia Alan Greenspan — Robert Stadler Milton Friedman — Hugh Akston

As you might expect, some of the comparisons fit a bit better than the others. Don’t get me wrong; they all fit. But a few of them seem supernatural in their exactness, an almost eerie case of life imitating art.

Anyone familiar with the Randian source material and who has also been paying attention to the world past few years may find themselves thinking as they read this book: You know, I always did think of that guy as that Rand character.

[dynachrome]

Bill Gates as Rearden? BS.

[dynachrome]

ping. May be of interest to your list.

[Paladin2]

That Blue Screen of Death seemed to be pretty strong stuff.

[dynachrome]

Comes up fine for me. Try reboot and go again.

[dynachrome]

“This was not Gordon Gekko proclaiming that “greed is good.” It was classic Friedman”

[Pan_Yan]

A major flaw of Rand’s story in today’s reality is that very few of the creative geniuses who invent the products run their company past the initial phase. There are very few of the industrial giants on Rand’s fiction in the United States today. They are all corporate ladder climbers who work in the system, and they have no reason to go Galt.

And they believe in profit (just not on the books, GE), unlike Rand’s buffoons.

[bicyclerepair]

Microsoft was in top 5 donors to Øbama.

[Chode]

Jobs??? feh...

[balls]

Bill Gates is no Rearden. He’s a “I got mine” type of evil liberal like Readen’s mother.

[FreeKeys]

Here’s an excerpt from the Friedman chapter I posted at http://freedomkeys.com/depression.htm#8 after I got my signed autographed copy in May:

“During the Great Depression, economics had been taken by storm by the British savant John Maynard Keynes. He diagnosed the Depression as a failure of “aggregate demand,” and prescribed massive government spending to stimulate it back to life. This became the dominant paradigm that guided the New Deal and captured the economics profession for decades after. For economics, this was a plunge into what amounts to a dark age. It was as though crisis had erased a century and a half of the economics of reason guided by the enlightened thinking of great minds like Adam Smith. [Dr. Milton] Friedman’s greatest contribution would be a monumental empirical investigation that would prove — not just argue, but prove — that the Keynesian diagnosis of, and prescription for, the Depression was in error.”
— Donald Luskin and Andrew Greta in “The Economist of Liberty”: Chapter 9 of I Am John Galt

[StonyBurk]

Never made it through Rands’ books - sort of like watching that movie that begins with a monkey tossing a rib bone in the air—and the slab of stone. ... and the futuristic space
station and all that. Fell asleep trying to watch that movie three or four times -twice at the movie theater.) Guess I ain’t intellectual enough. But I do like the comic book character Captain America— before he was reencarnated for this latest anti-American rant. And the real life man known once as “Captain America “ — Judge Roy S. Moore —in his early legal opinions was intellect enough.Still have not found any that could refute anything he said in his opine barring homosexual parenting in his State. Best they could do is say it was homophobic.Or that it made them uncomfortable.

[Publius]

Ping.

[Still Thinking]

Yeah, Gates isn’t fit to carry Reardon’s briefcase. And it’s an insult to Greenspan to compare him to Stadler. Bernanke maybe. I love Rodgers and Friedman as d’Anconia and Akston, though.

[MarkL]

A major flaw of Rand’s story in today’s reality is that very few of the creative geniuses who invent the products run their company past the initial phase. There are very few of the industrial giants on Rand’s fiction in the United States today. They are all corporate ladder climbers who work in the system, and they have no reason to go Galt.

Good point... Nearly every successful major company that I can think of has either lost or kicked out their founders, certainly after they go public. Examples include Apple (though Jobs did eventually come back and save the company), Novell, Sun, and Cisco.

Mark

[Misterioso]

Brilliant post.

[C. Edmund Wright]

.....Good point... Nearly every successful major company that I can think of has either lost or kicked out their founders, certainly after they go public. Examples include Apple (though Jobs did eventually come back and save the company), Novell, Sun, and Cisco.........

I think today’s “Galts” are not the titans like Rearden or Dagny Taggart - but the under the radar entrepreneur who built something up and has now downsized or halted his/her operation and more or less gone on strike to hope and ride out this socialist storm. Big time corporations have become so intwined with government that it’s hard to tell them apart. But the spirit of Galt lives in the successful start up guy - maybe not in an industry that can do global - maybe in the more mundane industries...

[PGalt]

Thanks for the ping/link.

[ExGeeEye]

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