...And Then the World Came Tumbling Down
"Atlas Shrugged," and the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
They say that life imitates art. Now, I don’t know if my half-forgotten conception of a book that I read in intermittent spurts truly constitutes “art,” or whether a story that I’ve heard entirely through skewed news articles and hysterical social media posts truly constitutes “life,” but after reading about the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio for the greater part of a month, I can’t help but think about Atlas Shrugged. Ah. A contendent for the crown of ‘most controversial novel,’ at least in the United States. I’m certainly no fan—at least in the sense that most people who like this book really, really like this book, and I don’t see Ayn Rand’s philosophy as a complete worldview but, instead, as a very good point that, in its attempt to become a ‘complete’ philosophy, has been stretched way too far. Her philosophy almost seems like the capitalist equivalent of utopian socialism—the natural result of the pendulum swinging too far the other way.
Let’s not forget, however, that Rand escaped Russia at the beginning of its transition to communism, and knew firsthand what happened when capitalism was abandoned, and individual freedoms were curtailed in the name of the ‘greater good.’ While the book can certainly read as a heavy-handed propaganda piece for her political ideology, that does not negate the soundness of the points that she is trying to make. I loathe the all-too-common idea that one’s entire bibliography should be discarded just because they were not correct about everything that they dared to write about. It is as ludicrous as the idea that one should take everything that a person says as gospel just because they agree with some of their statements. So, while I certainly wouldn’t cite her as an authority on, say, the mitigation of poverty in the United States, I kind of like Ayn Rand. That is, I like the main point of her novel, which states essentially that politicians lie, and that once the meritocracy that is capitalism is crippled via laws providing preferential treatment to lazy aristocrats under the pretense of ‘equality,’ things start falling apart.
On February 3rd, 2023, a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, causing a massive fire that released a black cloud of toxic chemicals such as vinyl chloride and butyl acrylate into the air. Fish, birds, and even pets were found dead after the accident. Worried about a potential deadly explosion, Norfolk Southern elected to initiate a controlled burn of the chemicals inside the rail cars. Before the chemical release, officials initiated an evacuation order in the area, which ended up lasting for five days. Upon returning to their homes, residents’ concerns abounded—contaminated soil and drinking water, cancer risk, and acid rain were just some of the many potential effects. Despite the EPA’s consistent assertion that the area is safe to inhabit, weeks after the accident, numerous reports of problems such as nausea, rashes, and trouble breathing have been reported. The National Transportation Safety Board has stated the most likely cause of the accident to be an overheated wheel bearing. News sources have deemed the accident to be entirely preventable. Norfolk Southern is facing lawsuits related to the derailment, and government officials are holding the company financially accountable for the cleanup.
In fact, the government seems quite eager to step in and play the hero of the situation. A CNN article reports that Congress is nearly unanimously in favor of increased regulation of railroads as a result of this incident. This may sound great. After all, the railroad screwed up. Surely something must be done, right? It is common, whenever an accident occurs, for people to respond with an endless stream of rules designed to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. However, if one can manage to stray far enough away from the cacophony, they just might hear Ayn Rand rolling in her grave.
The incident in East Palestine is a tragedy of human negligence. But is government regulation actually the best response to this accident? In order to understand this question (and Atlas Shrugged), let’s briefly examine the history of antitrust law in the United States. In the 1800s, as ‘big business’ was reaching heights never before seen in history, the American public was starting to worry about monopolies. Large conglomerates were forming in such industries as oil, steel, and, of course, railroads, and the issue of unfair competition became a fashionable topic. In 1887, the Interstate Commerce Act was passed specifically to regulate the railroad industry (making it the first industry to be subject to such federal regulation). It prohibited fare discrimination, and required that fares be “reasonable and just.” Shortly afterwards, in 1890, the Sherman Antitrust Act was implemented, prohibiting ‘anticompetitive conduct,’ meaning conduct that would give one company an unfair advantage in the market against which no other company could compete. The wording of the law was vague, and since its passing, each Supreme Court decision that cited it tried to limit its scope as much as possible. Thus, in 1914, the Clayton Antitrust Act was passed, which broadened the government’s control of the economy. It prohibited specific actions on behalf of businesses, such as price discrimination, ‘exclusive dealings’ contracts, mergers and acquisitions that could lessen competition, and certain instances of one person becoming a director of multiple corporations. In the same year, the Federal Trade Commission was established in order to enforce these laws.
Ayn Rand was a vocal critic of these laws. Her argument was, essentially, that the unfair competition that they addressed was not the fault of free-market capitalism, the way proponents of the laws assumed, but instead resulted from ‘mixed economies’: economies whose governments sometimes interfered in business. In a chapter entitled “Notes on the History of American Free Enterprise” from her 1966 book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Rand stated the following:
“If a detailed, factual study were made of all those instances in the history of American industry which have been used by the statists as an indictment of free enterprise and as an argument in favor of a government-controlled economy, it would be found that the actions blamed on businessmen were caused, necessitated, and made possible only by government intervention in business. The evils, popularly ascribed to big industrialists, were not the result of an unregulated industry, but of government power over industry. The villain in the picture was not the businessman, but the legislator, not free enterprise, but government controls.”
She went on to provide examples supporting her point. She mentioned the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads, which were two railroads that came into being as a result of government financial assistance, and ended up going out of business. She mentioned the “over-building” that plagued America: railroads that were built haphazardly and promptly abandoned, leaving everyone they touched in financial ruin. This, she said, was not evidence of “‘the unplanned chaos’ of free enterprise,” as many critics believed, but instead was a direct result of government incentivizing. The government was offering money to entrepreneurs, and thus people started railroad projects as a way to collect a quick government handout, with no thought as to whether their business plan was financially viable or whether they were even going to keep their business running long-term. She then mentioned J.J. Hill, owner of the Great Northern, a railroad that “was responsible, single-handed, for the development of the entire American Northwest.” I wonder if the Taggarts of Atlas Shrugged were modeled after him. Hill was persecuted incessantly under the Sherman Act, called a monopolist. It seemed to Rand that the enforcement of these acts had more to do with who was lobbying in Washington than who was actually a threat or an asset to the United States economy. This was a major theme of her novel: that it was becoming more important for a business owner to have a buddy in Washington than for them to actually create a profitable enterprise.
The question remains: was Rand correct? Surprisingly, when I was searching for statistics on train derailments on the transportation.gov website, I found some data that supported her theory. On a page entitled “Rail Equipment Accident/Incident Data,” I generated a graph measuring the amount of Form 54 reports (“Rail Accident/Incident Reports”) filed per year reporting derailed loaded freight cars. The data started from 1975, and continued on to the present day. I found that between 1975 and 1979, there were an average of 34,363 of these reports per year, a number that decreased to an average of 12,373 per year between 1980 and 1989, 7,799 between 1990 and 1999, 7,809 per year between 2000 and 2009, 4,319 between 2010 and 2019, and 3,503 between 2020 and 2022. I have included screenshots of the data that I generated below, for anyone who would like to see for themselves.1
It did not surprise me that the numbers have decreased since the 1970s. After all, technology has gotten a lot safer since then. What was surprising, however, was the sharp decrease between the 1970s and the 1980s. In fact, the decline happened between 1979 and 1980—there were 33,747 reports in 1979, and only 25,539 in 1980. The number dropped again to 18,513 in 1981. And it kept decreasing—remember, the average for the whole of the 1980s was only 12,373. I immediately searched for something to explain this data. Perhaps a new type of engine was invented, or a new safety feature that kept the train from veering off of the tracks. What I found delighted me. In 1980, Jimmy Carter signed the Staggers Rail Act into law, substantially deregulating the railroad system. Railroads were allowed to set their own prices, negotiate the deals they wanted. The law was a success. In the 1970s, the railroad system was on the brink of collapse. Railroad companies, on the verge of bankruptcy, did not have the money to repair their tracks, so their trains had to operate at reduced speeds. Customers were turning away from rail altogether. After the Staggers Act, companies started making money again. Rates decreased, and traffic increased. Accidents also decreased, despite the increased traffic. Contrary to what staunch anti-capitalists would have you believe, this increase in wealth was good for everyone.
This is exactly what Rand was trying to illustrate with Atlas Shrugged. The novel starts with a description of a crumbling, dystopian America. Infrastructure on the verge of ruin, a president whose excessive use of executive orders can be described as “dictatorial.” It is a world in which the most brilliant minds in every industry are resigning inexplicably, leaving executive positions open for arrogant incompetents whose only skills involve schmoozing the higher-ups in Washington. At the root of all of this is a single culprit: an insidious philosophy which preys on the altruism of its adherents. It is the infectious idea of ‘equality of outcome’: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”2 Closely linked to this philosophy is nihilism—the belief that everything is meaningless, which Rand attacks vehemently in the book.
Her argument sounds callous to anyone who has bought into Marxist ideology, but it holds a lot of truth to it. Money is not evil—not in a fair system, at least. Money is simply a token of value. It can even be viewed as a symbol of freedom. Only in a capitalist system can people determine for themselves just how much they deserve. Sure, there are extraneous factors at play. Life is imperfect, and it is certainly not fair. But a free market economy is the only one in which the rules are fair, even though everyone is dealt a different hand.
Of course, we no longer live in such a system, and the plotline of Atlas Shrugged depicts the ironic truth that, when the ‘evilness’ of money is touted ad nauseum, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the book, regulations are touted in the name of the ‘greater good’ (a saying that Rand detests). Antitrust laws that, in name, are meant to give everyone a fair opportunity, in actuality only serve to put honest, hardworking people out of business, leaving opportunistic ‘looters’ with the spoils. The people who benefit are in Washington, slowly draining wealth from what other people produce under the guise of moralistic lies such as ‘fairness’ and ‘equality.’ In the book, the ‘intelligentsia’ believe the lies. So do the majority of the public. The only people immune are the true capitalists, whose jobs are portrayed as thankless, undesirable, and absolutely necessary to the functioning of the country. And these people cannot exist under such a system.
It is sad that history is always doomed to repeat itself. The businesspeople in this country have once again grown sloppy. No doubt accustomed to government handouts and bailouts, they’ve allowed the infrastructure to crumble, have grown negligent in taking care of their property. Once again, just like in the past, “Public opinion has reached the stage where, as a cure for the country’s problems, people are asking for more and more of the poison which made them sick in the first place.”3 Now, officials are calling for increased regulation, a relatively new addition to this news story that I have been following since the beginning of this month. And people are supporting it. It is as if the masses, in all of their touting of Orwell quotes and the evils of wealth inequality, have forgotten about the essential tenet that characterizes not only Atlas Shrugged but virtually every dystopian novel that has ever been written: politicians lie.
What we need in America is ingenuity. Our railroads are lagging sorely behind when compared to the rest of the world. Bullet trains in Europe, China, and Japan can reach speeds upwards of 400 miles per hour. Japan’s trains are so punctual that they are internationally famous for handing out notes excusing people from being late to work if their trains are late by more than a minute. A common illustration of American rail’s outdatedness is this: there is currently a train in China that can traverse the distance from Chicago to New York City in five hours. In our current railroad system, such a trip would take twenty-two hours.
I’ve seen arguments stating that America’s geography is not conducive to the construction of high-speed railroads. Our cities are spread too far apart. Our population density is too low for such a system to be worth it. I’ve even seen it said that, since a high-speed rail system is destined to lose money, its only hope of being implemented is if the United States government footed the bill out of pure generosity.
Perhaps it is true that such a railroad is not profitable in America. If so, is it really the price of the materials that is the problem? Could it instead be the red-tape and barriers put in place by a government whose stake is in the existing railroad and airline companies—for whom high-speed rail would be detrimental competition?
Perhaps it would be profitable. There are some private companies in California and in Florida giving it a try. I assume that anyone who is intelligent enough to engineer America’s first high-speed rail project has the capability of determining whether the endeavor will be economically feasible. Perhaps these new calls for increased regulation exist in an effort to correct this, or at the very least for the people in government to still get their ‘cut.’
It seems almost pointless to even write about this subject, at this point. We’re over a century past ‘the beginning of the end.’ Free market capitalism is not coming back to America without a fight. Why would it? That would mean that the ‘elites’ in power today would have to freely relinquish the handouts that their families have been enjoying since before they were even born. It’s not going to happen. And seeing how badly they always turn out, do we really want another revolution? People you love would die. You might die. And besides, it’s futile. America didn’t even last a century as a truly free country after its first revolution. Things have a tendency to wind up the same way no matter what: bad. What we can do, however, is wake up. Recognize the lies for what they are, and stop supporting them. What we have is pretty good, all things considered. We have some degree of freedom of speech. We can still own a business, in theory, and make money for ourselves. If we can avoid being deceived, we can stop things from getting any worse.
In a way, Ayn Rand was actually overly idealistic. Not in her admiration of capitalism. Nowhere in Atlas Shrugged does she make the point that capitalism is perfect. She acknowledges poverty (although she clearly does not dwell on it too much). She came from an affluent family, so it is unlikely that she truly understood it in all of its ugliness, but she nevertheless acknowledged a difficult truth that most people do not want to face—that poverty is a byproduct of civilization. We’ve never seen a country without it. Rand, having immigrated from Soviet Russia, knew this well. In fact, she defends wealth inequality, asserting that the wealthiest entrepreneurs deserve their wealth, because they are providing a benefit to humanity by doing a job that no one in their right frame of mind would want to do if it was not paying them vast sums of money. She acknowledges that being a capitalist is a lonely, obsessive life—she admires them, but she does not deify them. She remains conveniently silent on the issue of how the dirtiest and most awful jobs are typically done by desperate people who are paid the least. But I am inclined to believe that capitalism, which generates wealth, leads to a world where everyone enjoys more wealth than they would have under any other type of economic structure. Besides, the appeal of Rand’s philosophy is precisely that she is not a utopian—she does not claim that capitalism is perfect, but merely that it is the best system we have invented.
If anything, any trace of naiveté she displays is expressed not in her admiration of capitalism, but in the notion that it could continue. Atlas Shrugged is a love letter to a dying system, to a world that, while beautiful in its day, was no match for the brutal methods of control that would eventually take its place. George Orwell wrote in the 1930s and 1940s about the future of Britain. Most of his writing assumed the rather pessimistic idea that, after the totalitarian regimes of the early twentieth century came around, it was impossible for capitalism in its unadulterated form to continue. Once the knowledge became widely available that there existed tools of mass manipulation and control, it was inevitable that these tools would be used. He believed that England’s only two possible futures were socialism or fascism, and that socialism was the lesser of the two evils because it rested upon some type of morality. He was, of course, incorrect in his assumption that there is anything fundamentally different between socialism and fascism besides the lies that their leaders spout, but he was correct in his assumption that capitalism was nearing its expiration date. It seems that the only hope for the resurgence of capitalism will come from the inevitable failure of socialist policies. And, as history has illustrated and as Rand illustrated in Atlas Shrugged, it will collapse.
You’d think, given Rand’s Russian background, that she’d call out the ideology she was attacking by name. Instead, she was keenly aware that a socialist America would not be socialist in name. It would instead wear the mask of capitalism, retain some of its features, all the while crippling the industries that once made it function. Her villains are not evil in the traditional sense. They are greedy, yes. Lazy. They want wealth and they do not want to go through the work of creating it. But they are not actively trying to destroy America’s infrastructure. They are self-serving, after all. If the whole system collapses, then who would be left to steal from? The prevailing quality that led to the downfall of Atlas Shrugged’s America was simple ignorance. The people in power had neither the brains to see the destruction that they were ensuring nor the foresight to see past tomorrow. If warned, they did not pay attention.
Many people are terrified of a grand conspiracy threatening to undermine America. This may well be true, but in my opinion, human stupidity is way more threatening than human ingenuity. The agenda of overregulation is being pushed for the same reason it always has—shortsighted greed. And the public and the intelligentsia are playing along for the same reason that they always have—the misguided idea of morality. We are witnessing the symptoms of a sick society with no concept of where its luxuries comes from or how much work it takes to maintain them. Whether the Ohio train derailment leads to a chain-reaction of increased economic regulation or not, one thing is for certain—we will be seeing many more events like this in the near future.
Let’s start a dialogue. What are your thoughts on Atlas Shrugged and the downfall of American capitalism?
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References:
Ohio Derailment:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/politics/east-palestine-washington-regulations/index.html
https://www.newsweek.com/ohio-train-derailment-toxic-chemicals-list-epa-1780805
https://www.axios.com/2023/02/06/ohio-train-derailment-chemical-release-evacuations
Train Derailment Statistics:
https://data.transportation.gov/Railroads/Rail-Equipment-Accident-Incident-Data/85tf-25kj
https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot.gov/files/2019-09/F6180_54_EffectiveJune012011.pdf
Bullet trains:
https://www.thehealthyjournal.com/faq/why-doesn-t-america-use-bullet-trains
https://engineerine.com/why-the-us-have-no-high-speed-trains/
https://barringtoninstitute.org/why-the-us-has-no-high-speed-rail-transcript-of-cnbc-video/
https://america.cgtn.com/2017/10/25/what-if-the-us-had-chinas-bullet-trains
https://www.simplemost.com/china-bullet-train-travel-chicago-new-york-five-hours/
Antitrust Law History
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Commerce_Act_of_1887
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Antitrust_Act_of_1914
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staggers_Rail_Act
https://www.aar.org/article/freight-railroads-the-staggers-act-of-1980/
If you would also like to generate the data for yourself, click this link, and then click visualize>create visualization, and select “Accident Year” under “Dimension” and “Derailed Loaded Freight Cars” under “Measure”
This quote comes from Karl Marx.
From “Notes on the History of American Free Enterprise.”
Ayn Rand was a prophet of our times. Too many people get hung up on her personal philosophy/objectivism and fail to see the underlying point of both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged; totalitarian governments are slowly, but surely, killing the human spirit and ingenuity. Look at the character Ellsworth Toohey from the fountainhead, what was his main role in society? He was the main propagandist for what today would be considered the Left. He hated Howard Roark because Roark had an individual view of the buildings he wanted to build(along with very ingenious architectural designs) while Toohey wanted all buildings built in the same fashion in order to squash the notion of individuality and beauty; in Toohey's mind the ideas of beauty should not be left to the unwashed masses but to those of an academic background, much like himself. Toohey is one of the best literary examples of what believing in critical race theory will lead to, nothing but egomania and narcissism.
The entire plot of Atlas is based around the government killing individual liberties in order to promote the greater good for the collective, thus you have all the countries of the world being turned into "Peoples Republics" that are looted en masse by the powers that be. Anyone with half a brain or a good business mind slowly remove themselves from society thus draining the workforce of motivation and intelligence, much like how DEI is causing anyone that is not in the cult to remove themselves by "quiet quitting". What happened in East Palestine, along with the Boeing airplanes losing doors in flight and lately with the Baltimore bridge collapse, are events that would have been right at home in the Atlas Shrugged universe. Rand tried to warn the world of what was coming but too many people got hung up on her Objectivism and failed to heed her warnings.