Thursday, October 01, 2009

Sounds like a real page-turner

Ralph Nader has written a novel, called Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us, that appears to be Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged materialized from a parallel universe.

Consider. It's long (700 pages), it's an ideological fantasy, and it centers around the world's elite and super-wealthy. But instead of society's most productive members withdrawing on principle and letting the world fall into chaos, we get society's most earnest members withdrawing to come up with a plan for mega-regulation. Instead of John Galt and his famous radio speech, we get Patriotic Polly the parrot who squawks platitudes over the airwaves. Instead of powerful industrialists like Francisco D'Anconia, Hank Rearden, and Dagny Taggart, we get Warren Buffett, Phil Donahue, and Yoko Ono.

One of the joys of Rand's novels was the aptness with which she named her characters, especially the villains: Mort Liddy, Cuffy Meigs, Chick Morrison. What does Nader come up with? Lancelot Lobo. As this WSJ reviewer quips, it's a good thing Nader chose so many well-known people for his characters.

2 Comments:

Blogger NotClauswitz said...

At Amazon Lewis Lapham says, "As inspirited a work of the political imagination as Tom Paine's Common Sense."
Lewis Lapham...I just threw up in my mouth, a bunch.

10/08/2009 3:01 PM  
Blogger Stickwick Stapers said...

Thus Lewis Lapham proves that it is indeed possible to have less than zero credibility.

10/09/2009 10:06 AM  

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