Movie Monday: Atlas Shrugged needs a substantial libertarian caveat regarding big business!

May 16th, 2011

I finally ponied up the $7 (student discount) and saw Atlas Shrugged before it left Tempe’s local indie cinema.  Overall I’d heard pretty negative reviews, even from libertarians.  One of my good friend, perennial troublemaker Ian Hosking, called it a “mediocre movie about trains.” I’d heard that the New York Times didn’t even bother to review it; such a deep insult that it probably wounded producer Harmon Kaslow’s soul. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes has it rated at 13%… If you’re not familiar with percentages you should know that it goes all the way to 100%, so 13/100 isn’t a very good score at all.

As a result of this information my expectations were pretty low, and as a result of my low expectations I was able to be pleasantly surprised (a very good strategy for most things in life).  In general I thought the film did well considering the numerous production constraints it faced.  It didn’t blow my mind or move me with the power of beauty but I was entertained and didn’t feel ripped off by attending.

I enjoyed that it was short; coming in at 90ish minutes.  I’m a big fan of Mark Twain’s witticism, paraphrased: “I have seldom heard a speech I would not have liked better if it were not shorter.”  Now, there are two more films coming out to complete the Atlas Shrugged narrative so this quote isn’t perfectly applicable but I thankfully didn’t become too restless during the screening of the first installment.  Even if it did run too long that isn’t even to say that it wouldn’t have been worth it.  There are plenty of really long films that are often laborious to complete a viewing in one sitting, like Seven Samurai or The Godfather. Even silly films like The Big Lebowski run long but are still brilliant.

Anyways, beyond a mention of some clunky dialogue that irked me I’ll leave the technical reviewing to others more qualified, like J. Neil Schulman in his delightful review right here at Silver Underground.  What interested me most by Atlas Shrugged is its view of the American political economy.

Celebrating big business in the current economy requires massive nuance.  After all, Murray Rothbard, Mr. Libertarian himself, once said:

For some time I have come to the conclusion that the grave deficiency in the current output and thinking of our libertarians and “classical liberals” is an enormous blind spot when it comes to big business. There is a tendency to worship Big Business per se … and a corollary tendency to fail to realize that while big business would indeed merit praise if they won that bigness on the purely free market … in the contemporary world of total neo-mercantilism and what is essentially a neo-fascist “corporate state,” bigness is a priori highly suspect, because Big Business most likely got that way through an intricate and decisive network of subsidies, privileges, and direct and indirect grants of monopoly protection.

Producing a film where the heroes are captains of industry makes me worry for the impression it conveys to viewers.  Attendees who will develop an appreciation for libertarianism as a result of viewing Atlas Shrugged as well as critics of libertarianism who see the film may then believe that libertarians think big business is the most persecuted and noble group in America.  This isn’t even close to the whole truth of how the American political economy looks nor how (good) libertarians perceive it.

I’m glad they’re making the Atlas Shrugged films either way. Cultural transmission of ideas has far greater potential than writing yet another white paper and going to your hundredth libertarian convention.  This is why Pasha and Megan work so hard at producing Silver Circle — stories can change the way people look at things in an accessble and entertaining way; and chocked full of pathos they can be quite moving!

Ayn Rand is responsible for creating more libertarians through her fiction than possibly any other proponent of the philosophy, so all in all, I’m supportive of the efforts to bring her to the silver screen once more even if I must qualify my support with a sizable caveat: big business is absolutely not the hero of the libertarian narrative.



About the Author: Ross Kenyon

Ross Kenyon is a Center for a Stateless Society Research Assistant currently living and studying in Istanbul, Turkey. He was a member of the Arizona State University Students For Liberty leadership team, and has recently started his own organization, Mutual Aid on the High Seas, devoted to sailing to impoverished communities in the Caribbean, performing humanitarian aid and promoting dialogue about liberty as an emancipatory philosophy for working people. On top of all of that, Ross will be joining us on Silver Underground as a contributor. Subscribe and follow his clever jabs and thoughtful reviews on news!