Is Atlas Shrugging? (MP3 download)

By Ayn RandEver since Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957, readers have noted its uncanny parallels to real-world political, economic and cultural trends. In this lecture given just a few years after the novel’s publication, in 1964, Rand takes up the question of “the relationship of the events presented in my novel Atlas Shrugged to the actual events of today's world.” Rand draws on material from her “Horror File”—a collection of newspaper clippings she had gathered for research purposes during (and after) the writing of Atlas Shrugged—and she identifies close parallels between events in Atlas Shrugged and events of the day. Among other examples, Rand discusses the so-called “brain drain” from Great Britian—a trend, widely reported at the time, among doctors and research scientists who were moving to America to escape socialized medicine in Britian. She offers real-life examples of legislation similar to the fictional laws featured in Atlas Shrugged—such as the “Equalization of Oppor