Menoetius revolted: a critical reading of ayn rand’s atlas shrugged

Rafael Galvão De Almeida and Leonardo de Deus
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Leonardo de Deus: UFMG

No 654, Textos para Discussão Cedeplar-UFMG from Cedeplar, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

Abstract: This article analyses Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, from the point of view of the critique of political economy. Using immanent analysis, we critically analyze the objectivist philosophy of the novel and its superficial resemblances with Marxism, especially its idea of a utopic society in the John Galt’s Gulch. While Rand presents the individual producer as a realized and rational human being, we contrast him with the idea that the capitalist is merely the personification of capital to show how Galt’s Gulch fails as a utopia. Such analysis allows us to situate Atlas Shrugged in the liberal project, arguing that liberalism still has an aristocratic bias which facilitate the 2008’s economic crisis.

Keywords: Ayn Rand; liberalism; critique of political economy; aristocracy; economics and literature. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B24 B29 Z11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2023-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-pke
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