I have just finished this book, first published in 1956, which I had somehow never read before. And I am struck by this paragraph in the coda, which takes place a the hidden Colorado mountain valley, the retreat of the country's few remaining creative people:
"The rectangle of light in the acres of a farm was the window of the library of Judge Narragansett. He sat at a table, and the light of his lamp fell on the copy of an ancient document. He had marked and crossed out the contradictions in its statements that had once been the cause of its destruction. He was now adding a new clause to its pages: 'Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade...'"
Is life imitating art?
Alonzo
Ayn Rand was very perceptive of our politics and being able to see where they would lead. Her ideas are right on but the time table has taken a little longer. I see a lot of truth in that book.
I first read Atlas Shrugged late last Fall and again this summer (a first for me, to read a book cover to cover twice). How I got to be so old without thinking these things thru for myself still shocks me. I feel like I've gone thru a personal epiphany - responsibility for self, productive achievement, a right to freedom and happiness - what a way to truly live.
Excerpt from Atlas Shrugged, © Copyright, 1957, by Ayn Rand. It is reprinted with permission from the Estate of Ayn Rand.
On money -
http://www.atlasshrugged.tv/speech.htm
More Ayn Rand excerpts here: http://www.aynrand.org/books.shtml#as