Last year was the 50th anniversary of Ayn Rand’s greatest work “Atlas Shrugged.” An epic novel that differs from many other great works by making business owners the heroes of the story. It takes place in the United States at an unspecified future time. The country is in a downward economic spiral with businesses closing and men out of work.
This economic downturn has been as a result of economic restrictions placed by the government on businesses in order to limit the amount of wealth individuals can make in order to promote fairness throughout the country. As businesses begin to fail the government raises workers’ minimum wages while reducing the costs of the products they manufacture. This quickly causes the economy to go from bad to horrible and in response to these increasingly devastating conditions the government passes Directive 10-289 which requires all workers stay at their current jobs, all businesses to remain open, and all patents and inventions be voluntarily turned over to the government.
Because of these economic policies the great business owners and innovators flee the country which has stolen all of their hard work. They move to a hidden valley as riots and severe food shortages are taking place. In this valley all of the great entrepreneurs are free to invent and innovate without anyone stealing their hard work or their wealth they have toiled so hard to achieve. But as things in the outside world continues to get worse the government begs these individuals to come back to save the country. Eventually the “looter” government collapses allowing the “men and women of the mind” to return.
While this story is certainly fiction there are aspects of this “looter” society creeping into today’s world. With the election of Barack Obama, many wonder what effect his policies will have on both small and large business. Will his methods of redistributing wealth create a disincentive for individuals to innovate or will they actually improve our economy? Only time will tell but there are many who are worried that they will have to “run to the valley.”
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