The book is about a rich guy who stops doing his job and convinces all the other rich people to stop too, and the chaos that results because these amazing rich people are apparently Atlas, and if they Shrug, the whole show goes to shit. Of course Republicans want their base falling in love with John Galt, so they can get poor people to vote against their own interest. Again. Fuck.

I wonder if EVERYONE who's buying it is an exceptional demigod who's sick of being oppressed by us mediocre people, or if some of them are just aspiring exceptional demigods who think they might currently be oppressed by us mediocre people.

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/03/carol_baum_welfare_ceos_are_just_like_john_galt.php Matt Yglesias: Atlas Shrugged is a stupid book, Ayn Rand is a stupid woman, and John Galt’s ideas are stupid.

Why does this book still haunt me? To quote Dorothy Parker “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”

There should be a “Shrugged” reaction. Like…tiny little hunched shoulders.

A book for right wing kooks whose premise has be utterly annihilated by reality.  Why anyone with two brain cells to rub together would waste money on this bloviating piece of trash is a mystery to me.

Atlas Shrugged is adolescent fiction at its worst: a paean to self-centeredness, based on a completely idiotic premise: that rich people are the creators of wealth. It's a commonly held belief amongst conservatives, but never have I heard any one of them attempt to demonstrate it.  In my company, the top executives have one talent: wasting money. It's up to us in the middle to figure out how to make things work. And so it is in the vast majority of the world. Atlas Shrugged is simply an excuse for Ayn Rand and her cultists to be selfish bastards.

Like her or not, you have to admit: she's a babe.

Officer Barbrady: And then I read this: 'Atlas Shrugged' by Ayn Rand. I read every last word of this garbage, and because of this piece of s#!t I'm never reading again!

A couple red hearts from people who like A. Rand! Maybe some people like her but right now the black broken hearts are winning by a big margin!

There is a movement among idiots to embrace Randian objectivism. These are the same stupid people who constantly call everyone else stupid.  Terrible writer, and a joke of a philosopher. I repeat: only an idiot would find anything of worth in this or any of her books. And it's not libertarianism, Jonah. It's objectivism- the dregs of social philosophy.

John Galt = union organizer for rich people.

Actually John, it's quite easy. Rand is a joke among real philosophers, the Deepak Chopra of the right.

Maybe the surge is because conservatives are out of power so they are less focused on Washington and more focused on getting back to their “roots”?

Does anyone know the reason for the recent surge? I saw someone on the subway two days ago reading it. Are we going to be attacked by Libertarians?

Eric, Amanda, and Tim: Why does Libertarianism break your heart?