# Alternatives to "Atlas Shrugged" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [May 28, 2021, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107 "2021-05-28T18:18:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/41 "2021-05-30T03:05:50Z")
On the Karl Marx hijack: Bradford DeLong’s [wideranging and very helpful overview of Marx](https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/05/understanding-karl-marx-hoisted-from-the-archives-from-four-years-ago-may-day-weblogging.html) disects his theory of value, a framework mostly tossed aside by Western leftie radicals for the past 50 years. First he dispenses with its substance: > [@Bradford DeLong](#): > > Things have value not because of the abstraction that socially-necessary labor time is needed to produce them but because of the concretion that somebody somewhere wants to use it and has something ese that others find useful to trade in turn. What Marx calls the mysterious and bizarre dual character of commodities is nothing mysterious or bizarre: it is simply the fact that I am not the only person in the world, and that things very useful to me may be less useful to others, and vice versa. > > Moreover, capitalist production has nothing to do with what Marx describes as this mysterious dual character of commodities. … Then he speculates on where Marx went wrong: > [@Bradford DeLong](#): > > In my view, Marx has trapped himself. He has been primed to expect a deeper layer of real reality underneath mere appearances. And he has chosen the wrong model of the underlying real reality–the labor theory of value, which is simply not a very good model of the averages around which prices fluctuate. Socially-necessary labor power usually serves as an upper bound to value–if something sells for more, then a lot of people are going to start making more of them, and the prices at which it trades are going to fall. But lots of things sell for much less than the prices corresponding to their socially-necessary labor power lots of the time. And so Marx vanishes into the swamp which is the attempt to reconcile the labor theory of value with economic reality, and never comes out. > > This matters because one conclusion Marx reaches is that markets and their prices are a source of oppression–that they aren’t sources of opportunity (to trade your stuff or the stuff you make to people who value it more) but rather of domination by others and unfreedom: the system forces you to sell your labor-power for its value which is less than the value of the goods you make. And it is that conclusion that human freedom is totally incompatible with wage-labor or market exchange that leads the political movements that Marx founded down very strange and very destructive roads. “The deeper layer of real reality” bit comes from Hegel. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/42 "2021-05-30T03:33:00Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > And so Marx vanishes into the swamp which is the attempt to reconcile the labor theory of value with economic reality, and never comes out. > > This matters because one conclusion Marx reaches is that markets and their prices are a source of oppression–that they aren’t sources of opportunity (to trade your stuff or the stuff you make to people who value it more) but rather of domination by others and unfreedom: the system forces you to sell your labor-power for its value which is less than the value of the goods you make. And it is that conclusion that human freedom is totally incompatible with wage-labor or market exchange that leads the political movements that Marx founded down very strange and very destructive roads. Or worse, Marxists start claiming that markets themselves are a false consciousness; that prices or even whether an endeavor is profitable or not are simply an artifact of the capitalist system, that would vanish like dew in the morning sun if the workers simply refused to go along with it. I think Marxists are the economic equivalent of Freemen On The Land. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/43 "2021-05-30T06:22:27Z")
As for Karl Marx himself, Professor DeLong discusses a number of things he got right in the link. > [@Bradford DeLong](#): > > Marx the economist–well, Marx the economist had six big things to say, some of which are very valuable even today across more than a century and a half, and some of which are not. I would call them the three goods and the three bads: ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/44 "2021-05-30T10:18:38Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Just like Shakespeare : I really don’t think that the prosperous playwright who retired with all his money to Stratford and bought up houses and real estate really believed that we should kill all the lawyers. Not least because the speaker of the line, Dick the Butcher, is one of the unambiguous villains of Henry VI. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/46 "2021-05-30T10:32:52Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Funny how Rand, a White Russian Marx hater, has heroes who put in the real effort of envisioning and creating things, disdaining the fat cats who think their power to write regulations or provide funding entitles them to meddle with that creation. Its almost as if she was saying _all value derives from labor_ . Funny, the impression I got from _Atlas Shrugged_ is “libertarianism leads to a utopia where society’s best and brightest can pull their own weight, but only after you first solve for the needs of energy and security by inventing a literal magical perpetual energy machine.” ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/47 "2021-05-30T11:43:28Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > The situation is different for Johnny: when he negligently fires off a weapon in training that could have killed one of his mates, he gets a field discipline. Minor nitpick to your excellent post: Johnny’s mistake was not firing off a weapon. Rather he was leading a squad of his fellow trainees in a field exercise that was simulated as being at night. He was supposed to use only some kind of night vision device, but was not very good at using it. So he snuck a look at where his squad members were without it. That sneeked look is what got him into trouble. It’s been quite a while since I’ve read the book, but I’m sure this is what happened in that. Perhaps the movie changed that detail or something. Anyway, we now return you to your regularly scheduled libertarian/Marxist/Randian/Heinleinian/Steinbeckian discussion/flamewar/whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/48 "2021-05-30T14:13:15Z")
I think you’re thinking of the movie (I never saw it). I went and checked the plot summary of the novel in Wikipedia, since I don’t have a copy of the book anymore: > [@](#): > > Rico himself is given five lashes for firing a rocket during a drill with armored suits and simulated nuclear weapons without checking to see that no friendlies were within the blast zone, which in combat would have resulted in the death of a fellow soldier. If the movie changed that to getting a flogging just for sneaking a peek with the wrong equipment, sounds like another example of them doing everything they could to make it about military fascism. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/49 "2021-05-30T14:15:23Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The problem with a piece of literature which “extolls” some particular philosophy is that such a purpose is in inherent conflict with the main purpose of literature, which is to tell an interesting story with engaging characters and imaginative or engaging situations. No, its a takes skill to pull off (something Ayn Rand is sorely lacking IMO) but a good chunk of the greatest pieces of literature are absolutely attempts to extol some philosophy or other while telling an interesting story with engaging characters and imaginative or engaging situations (you could argue its a prerequisite for great literature). Of the top of my head 1984, The Jungle\*, Les Misérables and An Inspector Calls are all examples off the top of my head. - - Other than the preachy last chapter where any pretense of using an interesting story with engaging characters is removed. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/50 "2021-05-30T15:01:38Z")
On reading the plot summary for _Starship Troopers_ I see that I got the name of the Johnny’s CO wrong; he was Lieutenant Rasczak, not Capt. Rubik. Dangers of relying on memory. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/51 "2021-05-30T16:21:01Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > If the movie changed that to getting a flogging just for sneaking a peek with the wrong equipment, sounds like another example of them doing everything they could to make it about military fascism. I never saw the movie, so I don’t know what, if anything, they did with this scene. However, I did dig up my copy and I find we’re both wrong to an extent. Yes, it was about Johnny firing a missile that may have endangered a member of his unit, but that’s not precisely why he got the punishment. The real reason was that the proper procedure for firing that weapon was to use his radar to find the target location. But since he was not good at reading the radar display, he eyeballed it. Now if he’d followed correct procedure and still endangered the troop, all it would mean was that he needed more training. It was the fact that he violated procedures that got him the lashes. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/52 "2021-05-30T17:01:58Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > I never saw the movie, so I don’t know what, if anything, they did with this scene. They made it look suggestive of gay sadomasochism. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/53 "2021-05-31T04:19:04Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Regardless of what one thinks of Ayn Rand or her Objectivist philosophy, the general consensus is that “Atlas Shrugged” simply isn’t a good novel by literary standards. So what would be a good alternative? > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The problem with a piece of literature which “extolls” some particular philosophy is that such a purpose is in inherent conflict with the main purpose of literature, which is to tell an interesting story… The problem with _Atlas Shrugged_ for instance, isn’t that it doesn’t actually have the nugget of an interesting story… So you’re basically saying that the best alternative would be just go read a completely different book? I’m okay with that! . (Full disclosure: I’m a former Randian Objectivist. I got better…) ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/54 "2021-05-31T05:08:09Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > I never saw the movie, so I don’t know what, if anything, they did with this scene. Here’s the scene in question: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/XKPuumm_bfs/maxresdefault.jpg "Starship Troopers - Simulation Combat & Administrative Punishment Scene (1080p)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKPuumm_bfs) In a nutshell: Rico is serving as squad leader in an (extremely stupid and unsafe) live-fire exercise. One of the other troops complains that his helmet is blocking his vision, and Rico helps him remove it. At that exact moment, another trainee trips and accidentally fires a burst backwards, hitting the helmetless soldier in the head. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/55 "2021-05-31T06:10:58Z")
And of course, it hits him in the eye, a part of the face not covered by the helmet anyway. Assuming of course, that a helmet would deflect a direct hit in any case. Still not the best idea to take off your armor in the middle of an exercise, but that death was on the idiots that decided to make this a live fire exercise, not on Rico. Terrible movie based off an okay book. I was mostly excited to see the movie as I wanted to see the suits, as described in the book, in action. Not having those suits was my largest, but certainly not my only, disappointment in the movie. If we want to get inside the mind of Heinlein and grok his preferred cultural and governmental structure, I’d say that Stranger in a Strange Land is written with a sort of yearning, rather than the more analytical approach to other systems of civilization explored in his other books. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/56 "2021-05-31T12:19:57Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Still not the best idea to take off your armor in the middle of an exercise, but that death was on the idiots that decided to make this a live fire exercise, not on Rico. Yeah. A lot of the movie was about the idea that during the Bug War, signing up to the MI wasn’t quite a suicide mission but it was close. And the lethal risks start immediately in training because the only way to toughen the troops for their future is to sear them with violence. Experience in other militaries has not born this out as a valid training tactic. But it does make for movies that appeal to teenage boys. Then again, we’ve never had to fight aliens; what works for fighting humans may not work when dealing with aliens. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/57 "2021-05-31T13:20:52Z")
There are many, many stupid things about that scene, but I think the worse is that they were holding a live fire exercise _in the middle of a base._ There were other soldiers just walking around in their arc of fire! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/58 "2021-05-31T14:23:15Z")
Yeah. It reminded me of the horrifically hokey scene in one of the early James Bond / Sean Connery films where the supervillain is showing off the training camp for his faceless minions to some visitor. We see a walled compound with small squads jogging, rapelling, doing hand-to-hand combat drills, etc., as the supervillain narrates. And a few goons machine-gunning a fleeing group of men in different uniforms. While the supervillain cavalierly says something about “… and target practice … with live targets of course.” Pretty darn lame then and really lame now. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/59 "2021-05-31T20:30:05Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Experience in other militaries has not born this out as a valid training tactic. But it does make for movies that appeal to teenage boys. And therein lies the problem. The film representation of SST is one of the few instances where I have come to accept that, first impressions as a teenager aside, it really was meant as a work of satire. Honest to god, I totally didn’t get it, even when NPH came out dressed like an SS officer. The director just did too good a job in making fascism look fun and appealing, representing a fascist society as he fascists themselves might allow it to be portrayed. So… even as I know this is a common way to shrug off or minimize just criticism of bad/idiotic movies… just this once… maybe it was satire? _Atlas Shrugged_ (the movie, part I—the only part I saw) was so bad I might have sworn it, too, was intended of satire. But I know enough about Rand’s work and her philosophy to understand that that’s not the case. Objectivism really is as bonkers as it seems. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/60 "2021-05-31T20:32:14Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > So… even as I know this is a common way to shrug off or minimize just criticism of bad/idiotic movies… just this once… maybe it was satire? Nope. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2021, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107/61 "2021-05-31T20:37:01Z")
No. It really, really was. The film version of SST was satire. Either done too well or not well enough, but satire all the same: > **[Starship Troopers: One of the Most Misunderstood Movies Ever](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/-em-starship-troopers-em-one-of-the-most-misunderstood-movies-ever/281236/)** > > The sci-fi film’s self-aware satire went unrecognized by critics when it came out 16 years ago. Now, some are finally getting the joke. And a look at [the director’s other works](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000682/) may be illuminating. Particularly _Soldier of Orange_, _Black Book_, and yes, even the original _RoboCop_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternatives-to-atlas-shrugged/943107.md?page=4)