Villains of Atlas Shrugged: Part 1

From time to time the observation and/or complaint arises that the characters in Atlas Shrugged are “unrealistic”. While Rand purposefully distills character types to provide a clear picture of their logic, it is worth noting that often her distillations hit rather close to the “real world”. The following is a brief annotated list of real world politicos and business ne’er-do-wells that easily could be characters in her novels.

Dennis Kozlowski: Former CEO of Tyco International now serving time for treating the company as a personal piggy bank. For an overview of his case see this article. His two most famous excesses were a $6,000 dollar shower curtain and a personal party in Sardinia with an ice sculpture that urinated vodka. See both under lifestyles in the Wikipedia article here.

For more on his expensive shower curtain see this article.

For more onn the infamous party he threw see this article.

This, in fact, is a villain from Atlas Shrugged: Gerald Starnes, Jr., Director of Production, at the Twentieth Century Motor Company. After his father died Jr. treated the company as his own piggy bank. He even had a shower installed in his office complete with an expensive glass door with a mermaid cut into it.

Hugo Chavez and Venezuela:

Hugo Chavez nationalized the oil industry in Venezuela. The nationalization itself looks like a mirror image of the San Sebastian Mines. Furthermore, oil production in Venezuela has declined by about 700,000 barrels a year. On Chavez’s mismanagement of the economy see this article.

Finally, Chavez’s slogan “Motherland, socialism or death” (taken from Castro), could have been the slogan of a number of countries in Atlas Shrugged or even the Twentieth Century Motor Company.

Fedex vs. UPS:

Instead of competing in the market, these two companies are now competing to saddle each other with more onerous regulations. See this article. This is exactly the kind of behavior that was exhibited by James Taggert and Orren Boyle against both Dan Conway (Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog resolution against Phoenix Durango Railroad) and the cap on the amount of Rearden Metal that Hank Rearden is allowed to fill for any one customer.

Enron:

Here is a story of business fraud. It is also a story involving that nexus of government and business Rand worries so much about. See this article in Reason Magazine. FYI Brian Doherty writes for Reason although he did not write this article.

What I find particularly interesting here is what investors and analysts did not know. From the article: “Wall Street analysts admit to never really understanding how Enron made its money. "Enron's discussion of its finances reads like something written in German, translated to Chinese and back to English by way of Polish," cracked Forbes.com. Analysts didn't care, so long as the stock price stayed high. But when the bubble started to deflate, they started asking questions.:”

After reading this go back and read Francisco’s comments about the investors in the San Sebastion Mines. The story is frighteningly the same. One can also hear Keynes in the background talking about ignorant people. People often do not do the work it takes to invest wisely. Rand is not being unfair in her portrayals of this type of investor. They exist all around us.