The recently released Atlas Shrugged movie motivated me to return to and reread the Ayn Rand book. I found it even greater than I did when it was published more than a half century ago.
Ms. Rand anticipated much of what has occurred in the intervening years, particularly the elevation to positions of public authority of individuals with no tangible accomplishments and devoid of any experience in, appreciation for, or knowledge or understanding of the real world. And her depiction of our mindless leftrickle media is priceless. She's spot on there as she also is with respect to the phonies currently posing as intellectuals in the contemptible institutions that most of our country's formerly leading colleges and universities have become.
Particularly amazing is the book's portrayal of the transformation of a once great railroad under a conniving and corrupt chief executive officer into a hollow and useless entity wholly dependent on favors from a bloated governmental bureaucracy that it serves -- initially by choice and then, subsequently, by necessity -- as a handmaiden and supporter. The parallel with the course the once great General Electric Company has been and is pursuing under its current leadership with the degrading path taken by the fictional Taggart Transcontinental railroad under a loathsome CEO is striking. So too is the prescient description of the toadying and totally useless board members of the fictional enterprise and the current too sadly real one.
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