Category Archives: Atlas Shrugged

When Gary Stevenson was a boy, he woke up early each morning to wave goodbye to his dad through the window as he flew by on the train. As a Post Office worker, his dad rose at 5am every weekday for 35 years to commute from their two-bed terrace beside the railway track in Ilford, on the outskirts of east London, to his 20,000-a-year job. Stevenson would leave shortly afterwards for his paper round, which earned him 12 a week.

The middle child of three, Stevenson excelled at maths but was unable to afford school trips while a pupil at Ilford County Grammar School. He would watch the glass and steel towers of Canary Wharf being built on the deserted docklands in the distance the iconic pyramid-topped skyscraper, 1 Canada Square, went up in Londons new business district when he was eight and he felt it was being built for him.

Now, this scene reminds him of the symbolism of the skyscrapers in Ayn Rands 1957 dystopia Atlas Shrugged. I saw it on the horizon and thought: That will be a place where Ill get a job and make money. Why shouldnt it be me? It was aspirational. It was on our turf, it felt like it could be ours.

And so it turned out. By 2011, Stevenson was Citibanks most profitable trader. After joining as an interest rate trader in 2008, when the financial crash shook the industry, he earned just under 400,000 in his first year. Hed just turned 23. The following year, he made his first million.

Now 35, having retired in 2014, Stevenson is an economist focusing on wealth inequality. Having been expelled from grammar school at 16 for a drug-related transgression, he nevertheless made it to the London School of Economics in 2005 to study maths and economics. I used to wear Ecco tracksuits, I was pretty hood. LSE was international money all Gaddafis kids and parents in the Chinese Politburo or Pakistani Air Force.

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[See also: What were getting wrong about the Great Resignation]

In his second year, he struggled to sell himself when applying for jobs. Everyone had been trekking in the Sahara or was a concert-level pianist, and there was I, stuffing pillows at DFS, he told me as we spoke over cups of builders tea on a picnic bench between the River Thames and Canary Wharf.

Instead, he won his City job in a card game held to recruit one new trader from five participating universities each year. He likened it to liars poker, the eponymous game played by bond traders in the financial journalist Michael Lewiss 1989 book of the same name.

In his black T-shirt and hoodie, grey trackies and beat-up Puma pumps, Stevensons once legendary status in the temples looming over us would not be obvious to passers-by. Stevenson had cycled over from his nearby flat in Limehouse, east London, bubbling with easy charm and amusing anecdotes, despite having been out for his birthday the night before.

He told me how his fellow traders used to call him Gary the geezer his east London accent a novelty. The Essex City boys of Loadsamoney Thatcherism were by then an anachronism. Theres this myth of the cockney wideboy-trader and everybody loved me coming in, talking like a geezer, making loads of money, Stevenson said. Trading had changed from that stereotype towards being a lot of very posh people, elite universities, monogrammed shirts, expensive cufflinks.

Growing up, Stevenson had never imagined such wealth. When I was a kid, I thought if you made 60,000 you were a millionaire, he told me, his green eyes squinting against the sunlight bouncing off the towers of his old workplace. My dad worked so hard, and then after one year I made nearly 400,000. It was a way to give financial security to my family, but something about it made me feel sick.

When he received his first payslip, he was struck with a memory of scrimping for the cheapest Tesco lunch during his school and student days: he would buy two scotch eggs for 75p. I specifically remember sitting in that office, looking at this amount of money on this piece of paper, and just thinking: All those motherfucking scotch eggs. All the times I picked the cheapest option, or skipped a meal.

In that moment, Stevenson felt he had been made to do this stupid dance of going to the supermarket and finding the cheapest thing my whole life, while others were making millions, just sitting at a computer who hed had no idea about. It scared me, he said. It still does.

While on the trading floor, he developed his theory: the impact of wealth inequality on demand was dooming the post-crash recovery. His job was to predict interest rates, which he described as a pretty close proxy to predicting recovery. While he read economic forecasts that rates would rise, Stevenson bet the opposite.

Back home, old friends and their families told him that they were remortgaging or selling their houses, saving up every penny, struggling to buy property or pass it down to their children. While his well-off colleagues were buying houses, the people of his past had no money to spend wealth stopped flowing through the system. Therefore, went his theory, interest rates would never rise.

It basically came down to one big question: Why are people not spending money? he said. They dont talk about inequality in economics. I knew economists were not going to clock this, and most traders were from rich backgrounds so also didnt understand why people werent spending.

[See also: The goodness business: how woke capitalism turned virtue into profit]

He began to bet really aggressively on there never being a recovery and became a multimillionaire. I knew the markets were wrong, I became obsessed with mastering this craft. It was surreal very gratifying to be right, but what you have figured out is disaster.

Stevenson spiralled into a moral crisis. After six years, he left the industry eager to develop his theory further starting with a two-year masters degree in economics at Oxford University. It was like going from playing in the Premier League to pub football, he sighed. While conflicted about the banking world, he nevertheless respected his former colleagues nous. Oxfords economists, however, made him feel depressed and disillusioned.

Theyre so disconnected [from the economy], he said of his professors. These guys literally wear capes and teach in castles, and theyre just inverting matrices, doing galaxy brain maths. I started to think change was not coming from there.

Instead, he immersed himself in the work of economists such as the French inequality experts Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, US household debt analysts Atif Mian and Amir Sufi, and Harvard macroeconomist Ludwig Straub.

Today, Stevenson is a member of the Patriotic Millionaires, the global movement of wealthy people campaigning to pay more tax, for which Abigail Disney, heir to the Disney fortune, is the figurehead. He believes a wealth tax, or even a 150-year time limit on wealth just to make the rich spend, could help.

Having saved up enough himself never to work again, he dedicates his time to explaining the impact of the wealth gap through media interviews and his own punchy YouTube videos. When Covid-19 hit, he predicted house prices would rise, against popular opinion (the Guardian was saying they were going to collapse obviously!) and shopping would become costlier. He was right again.

My grand, macro thesis is that real interest rates have to stay low, and thats because the rich have all the wealth and like saving, he reflected. Now, no matter how hard you work, how smart you are, if you come from the wrong family youll probably never own property. That is feudalism. Were going back into a world of aristocracy. Capitalisms over.

[See also: Why increasing corporation tax is less progressive than you think]

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Capitalism's over: The man who made millions by betting the economy would never recover - New Statesman

"Atlas Shrugged" character

John Galt () is a character in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged (1957). Although he is not identified by name until the last third of the novel, he is the object of its often-repeated question "Who is John Galt?" and of the quest to discover the answer. Also, in the later part it becomes clear that Galt had been present in the book's plot all along, playing several important roles though not identified by name.

As the plot unfolds, Galt is acknowledged to be a philosopher and inventor; he believes in the power and glory of the human mind, and the rights of individuals to use their minds solely for themselves. He serves as a highly individualistic counterpoint to the collectivist social and economic structure depicted in the novel, in which society is based on oppressive bureaucratic functionaries and a culture that embraces mediocrity in the name of egalitarianism, which the novel posits is the end result of collectivist philosophy.

The novel unfolds Galt's story in a progressive retrospective, with Galt, the son of an Ohio garage mechanic, leaving home at age twelve and beginning college at the fictional Patrick Henry University at age sixteen. There he meets Francisco d'Anconia and Ragnar Danneskjld, who become his two closest friends. Galt takes a double major in physics and philosophy, and after graduating, he becomes an engineer at the Twentieth Century Motor Company, where he designs a revolutionary new motor powered by ambient static electricity. When the company owner dies and his heirs decide to run the factory by the collectivist maxim, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need", Galt refuses to work there any longer and abandons his motor.

During the main storyline of the book, Galt has secretly organized a strike by the world's creative leaders, including inventors, artists and businessmen, in an effort to "stop the motor of the world" and bring about the collapse of the bureaucratic society. While working incognito as a laborer for Taggart Transcontinental railroad, he travels to visit the key figures that he has not yet recruited, systematically persuading them to join the strike. This strike is not revealed immediately within the story, but forms the backdrop of the novel as a mystery which protagonist Dagny Taggart seeks to uncover, with Galt as her antagonist. She calls him "The Destroyer" and regards him as her arch-enemy, on one occasion seeing a door which just closed and realizing he had been in the room ahead of her. The strikers have created their own secret enclave known as "Galt's Gulch", a town secluded in a Colorado mountain valley, based on Ouray, Colorado.

Galt had been deeply in love with Dagny for years, but knew he could not reveal himself until she would be ready to join his strike. On one night he was struggling with the temptation to knock on her door but restrained himself and she saw his shadow, but not himself. Dagny herself had always had a concept of an ideal man "at the end of the railway", and her other lovers Francisco D'Anconia and Hank Rearden did not fit this image, however much she loved and respected both of them.

While in the valley, Dagny develops a romantic relationship with Galt, although it remains physically unconsummated which is linked to her refusing to join the strike. After she returns home to New York, Galt takes over the airwaves, delivering a lengthy speech that explains what he sees to be the irrationality of collectivism and offers his own philosophy (Ayn Rand's Objectivism) as an alternative. Galt speaks against what he sees as the evil of collectivism and the idea that individuals must be responsible for each other, and says that should be replaced by voluntary association and adherence to rational self-interest. Seeking Galt after the speech, Dagny accidentally leads the authorities to him, and he is arrested. She and the strikers rescue Galt as the government tortures him. They return to Galt's Gulch and prepare to rebuild the rest of the world, as the collapse of the incompetent government nears.

Literature professor Shoshana Milgram traces the origins of the character to adventure stories that Rand read as a child, including the French novels La Valle Mystrieuse and Le Petit Roi d'Ys. Rand also owned a copy of a 1940 novel with characters named Jed and John Peter Galt. There was a 19th-century Scottish novelist of the same name, but Milgram says that any connection to the character is "highly unlikely". Milgram also notes that the name Rand originally picked for her character was Iles Galt.[1]

At least two real people of Rand's acquaintance have been suggested as partial inspirations for Galt. Rand denied any connection to her friend John Gall, a conservative attorney, but did claim some inspiration came from her husband, Frank O'Connor.[1]

Author Justin Raimondo has found parallels between Atlas Shrugged and The Driver, a 1922 novel by Garet Garrett.[2] Garrett's novel has a main character named Henry M. Galt. This Galt is an entrepreneur who takes over a failing railway, turning it into a productive and profitable asset for the benefit of himself and the rest of the nation. The general population and government turn against him instead of celebrating his success. Raimondo also notes that in The Driver, some characters ask, "Who is Henry M. Galt?", similar to the question "Who is John Galt?" that plays an important role in Atlas Shrugged.[3]

Rand is not the only famous author to invent a character with this name. Pulp fiction author Robert E. Howard, creator of heroes such as Conan the Barbarian, used a villain named John Galtalso a man of mystery missing for a long time and possessed of great wealth, trying to manipulate his world from the backgroundin the tale "Black Talons" in 1933, more than twenty years before Atlas Shrugged was published.

The Galt character has been compared to various iconic figures from literature and history. In the novel itself, he is compared with Prometheus from the Greek myths.[4] English literature scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein sees similarities to the figures of Arthur and Galahad from the Arthurian legends.[5] Parallels have also been drawn to Captain Nemo, the anti-hero of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, who has likewise turned his back on "civilization" in self-imposed exile with a number of chosen allies, refusing to partake in a society he views as irreconcilably evil and oppressive.[6]

Galt is not necessarily intended to be a rounded or realistic character; he has been called "more a symbol than a person"[7] and "two-dimensional".[8] Mimi Reisel Gladstein describes Galt as "more icon than character".[9] Rand's own notes indicate that she expected the character to have "[n]o progression" and "no inner conflict" because he was "integrated (indivisible) and perfect".[10]

The book's opening line, "Who is John Galt?", becomes an expression of helplessness and despair at the current state of the novel's fictionalized world. The book's protagonist, Dagny Taggart, hears a number of legends of Galt, before finding him. In one legend Galt seeks the lost island of Atlantis, in another he discovers the Fountain of Youth. After eventually joining Galt's cause, Taggart learns that all of the stories have an element of truth to them. She names the Colorado spur of her railroad line the "John Galt Line" which surprises many people. When asked "Who is John Galt?", she replies "We are!"

"The book's hero, John Galt, also continues to live on", wrote journalist Harriet Rubin in a September 2007 article about the influence of Atlas Shrugged. Rubin mentions John Galt Solutions (a software company) and the John Galt Corporation (a demolition company) as examples of companies named after the character.[11]

The use of Galt as a symbol in the context of political or social protest has taken root in some places. "Who is John Galt?" signs were seen at Tea Party protests held in the United States and at banking protests in London in April 2009.[12] Texas Republican congressman Ron Paul's presidential primary campaign of 2008 included a play on the phrase, using "Who is Ron Paul?" on campaign T-shirts; his web site biography uses the same title.[13]

In August 1988, the Louisiana business lobbyist and columnist Edward J. Steimel referred to the United States Congress and the liberal majority elected in 1986 in the last two years of the administration of US President Ronald W. Reagan as "the John Galt Congress". Steimel objected to an increase in the minimum wage, a measure which he said would "wreak havoc with the very individuals it is designed to help most new entrants into the work force and new minority workers in particular". Steimel described the public as uninformed people who merely shrug their shoulders and ask "Who is John Galt?" whenever they are questioned about the grip of expanded government on their lives and liberty.[14]

In May 2011, I Am John Galt: Today's Heroic Innovators Building the World and the Villainous Parasites Destroying It, by libertarian columnist and business consultant Donald Luskin and businessman Andrew Greta was published, profiling modern-day examples of Ayn Rand's iconic heroes and villains.[15]

In 2009, For Beginners, LLC released Ayn Rand for Beginners by Andrew Bernstein as part of its ... For Beginners graphic nonfiction comic book series. The illustrations by Own Brozman included a number of drawings of Galt in the section discussing Atlas Shrugged.

From 2011 to 2014, a movie adaptation of Atlas Shrugged was released in three parts. A different actor portrayed Galt in each film. In Atlas Shrugged: Part I, director Paul Johansson played the role, albeit with limited screen time and in shadow. Actor D. B. Sweeney took over the role for Atlas Shrugged: Part II, released in 2012. For the 2014 release of Part III, the role was again recast, this time with Kristoffer Polaha.

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John Galt - Wikipedia

Few books are as loved and as hated as Atlas Shrugged. Exploring Atlas Shrugged: Ayn Rands Magnum Opus is a collection of standalone essays by Edward W. Younkins, executive director of Wheeling Universitys Institute for the Study of Capitalism, bookended by a synopsis of Atlas Shrugged and an explanation of Objectivism, the philosophical movement following in Rands footsteps. The book brings together new and old material: a couple of chapters were previously published, a couple of chapters are new, and another chapter was taken from a presentation at a conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of Atlas Shrugged in 2007. It is a useful companion to Rand for scholars interested in her work and teachers who use it in the classroom.

Younkins takes Atlas Shrugged seriously as a work of philosophy, literature, and economics, as a commentary on business, and as an analysis of social change. Atlas Shrugged has been enormously influential, so much so that organizations like the Ayn Rand Institute distribute copies like the Gideons distribute Bibles, and philanthropists like John Allison have given large sums to support the academic study and teaching of Rands ideas.

One of the more frequent criticisms of Atlas Shrugged that youre likely to see points out that the characters are unrealistic and one-dimensional. Younkins takes on this objection and explains how this is a deliberate move on Rands part, and one that Bryan Caplan has noted could be leveled at Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. As Younkins writes, By eliminating irrelevant and trivial attributes and actions, her characters become moral projections. It means that her characters are in a lot of ways, inhuman; however, Rand makes this choice deliberately in order to be as clear as she can be about her philosophical ideals.

You can usually tell that someone hasnt really read or understood Ayn Rand if they think her books are mere apologetics for grasping, materialistic greed that seeks profit at any cost. First, this is hard to square with the fact that her other major novel, The Fountainhead, is about an architect who refuses to compromise his aesthetic and moral principles even when doing so would be quite lucrative. Second, Atlas Shrugged isnt about the virtue of getting money. The books villains like James Taggart and Orren Boyle do plenty of that through political machinations that either throttle their competition or cut out the middleman and simply funnel government subsidies directly into their pockets. As Younkins writes of James Taggart, He wants to be rich without earning wealth and to be loved and admired without earning the right to be loved and admired. Jim is motivated by his hatred of good men and his desire to kill them. Reading this description reminds me of Murray Rothbards description of Karl Marxs hatred of God as a creator greater than himself. Atlas Shrugged is about making money by innovation and exchange. Rands heroes are not virtuous because they are rich. They are rich because they are virtuous.

Younkins points out how Rand repurposes and reconfigures classic myths. John Galt, Rand tells us, is Prometheus, but Prometheus who takes fire back. Rands fictional composer Richard Halley asks in an opera What if Phaethons ride was successful? Midas Mulligans ability to evaluate investments is an unalloyed blessing, and one he withdraws when he is compelled to lend money to people who will almost certainly waste it. Atlas Shrugged makes a lot more sense when you understand that Rands characters are basically gods both good and evil.

As the book is a collection of standalone essays, it suffers a little from repetition; more than once, readers will ask Havent I already read this? and realize theyre reading a repetition of something that was in an earlier chapter. This space might have been used better going deeper into some of the issues the book raises. Dr. Younkins runs an institute at a Jesuit university, and I would have loved to see an exploration of the tensions between Rands ideas and the Jesuit tradition. I think Rand is far too dismissive of religion, but the devout are too dismissive of Rand (John Piper is an important exception)or of individualism and capitalism. One of my favorite characters in Atlas Shrugged is Eugene Lawson, the banker with a heart, who gave no thought to profitability, bankrupted his community with his good intentions, and blamed everyone else for falling short of his lofty ideal. Younkins discusses Lawsons folly on page 100, but I think there is a lot that remains to be said about his (ig)noble experiment and how it fits in with different ethical traditionsor doesnt. Im drawn to Atlas Shrugged as an economist and a Christian because it is such a piercing explanation of how much ideas matter and how much intentions dont.

Atlas Shrugged is a profoundly influential book, one of the most influential of the post-World War II era, and it deserves a prominent spot on college syllabi ranging from freshman to graduate seminars. It is a book filled with ideas that everyone should spend a lot of time considering, and Edward Younkins Exploring Atlas Shrugged: Ayn Rands Magnum Opus will make that pondering easier and more fruitful.

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Review of Edward Younkins, Exploring Atlas Shrugged: Ayn ...

Four years ago today, on November 5, 2017, Vladislav Mordasov picked the wrong day to go out and protest. Then 21-years-old, he and his friend 18-year-old Yan Sidorov took to the square outside of the regional government building in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, with posters demanding support for local residents who had lost their homes to a major fire. The activists were arrested, and later accused of helping a banned movement led by exiled nationalist politician Vyacheslav Maltsev, orchestrate the so-called November 5th Revolution. Initially, both Mordasov and Sidorov pleaded guilty, but they later stated that they confessed under torture. Nevertheless, the two were convicted and sentenced to 6.5 years in a maximum security prison colony. The Russian Supreme Court later reduced their prison sentences to three years. Both Mordasov and Sidorov were released on Wednesday, November 3. At Meduzas request, journalist Gleb Golod, who covered the Rostov Case, spoke to Vladislav Mordasov about his time in prison and plans for the future.

Before November 5, 2017, Vladislav Mordasov was living the ordinary life of a provincial guy. He had a job at a recycling plant and, he says, went to work and went home. I wasnt an activist before that day, he tells Meduza.

Mordasov says he decided to go out in protest that November 5 because someone needed to. There are problems and they arent resolved. But I didnt go out at the call of Maltsev, as was said in the indictment, he adds. I watched his channel, like many other YouTube channels. But I wasnt a supporter of this particular blogger.

Mordasov is referring to Vyacheslav Maltsev, an exiled nationalist politician turned video blogger who founded a movement called Artpodgotovka. Beginning in 2013, Maltsev made repeated claims that Russia would experience another revolution on November 5, 2017, calling on his supporters to occupy city centers across the country until President Vladimir Putin stepped down. The revolution Maltsev fled abroad in July 2017 (he later received political asylum in France) and in October 2017, Russia outlawed his movement as an extremist organization.

One of Maltsevs videos did, however, lead Vladislav Mordasov to follow a link to a group chat called Revolution in Russia. I asked if there was anyone from Rostov. A guy named Oleg Kotsarev responded. We decided to create our own chat [for] Rostov. I created it, but Kotsarev, who was also an administrator, renamed it to Revolution 5/11/17 Rostov-on-Don, Mordasov explains. (Oleg Kotsarev would later act as a witness for the prosecution. During the investigation, he testified that Mordasov called for violent actions. But he retracted his testimony in court, saying that he gave it under pressure).

The chat stopped being a place to discuss Maltsev fairly quickly and began to turn into a group of opposition-minded guys, who wanted to go out in peaceful protest, Mordasov continues. But instigators quickly began popping up, who called for armed resistance. I removed them, made comments, but its impossible to moderate a chat with almost 200 people.

Mordasov says hes never been a supporter of violent protest. He decided to conduct a picket on November 5, 2017, over the governments failure to help the victims of a fire that destroyed an entire downtown neighborhood that August. The authorities openly didnt give a damn about ones right to private property, Mordasov underscores. Theres also a massive amount of other problems, theres no point in listing them by name, but in every area the system doesnt function as it should.

Two days before the picket, on November 3, Mordasov met Yan Sidorov. He seemed like one of the most reasonable participants in the chat. I invited him and a couple other guys to meet. We met, chatted, and parted ways, Mordasov remembers. The next day, I got a phone call from an unknown number. The man on the phone introduced himself as a police officer and asked Mordasov to meet with him: I refused and told Yan about it. He offered for me to spend the night at his place, just in case.

Mordasov spent the next two days at Sidorovs house. They bought supplies and made posters for the picket. They joked about the possibility of being thrown in prison, but they actually thought theyd be charged with a misdemeanor at worst. It was around lunchtime on November 5, when they took to the square outside regional governments offices.

This small protest landed Vladislav Mordasov and Yan Sidorov in the prison system for four years. Mordasov describes the conditions he experienced as completely unsanitary. There were no flagrantly illegal actions there. There was no violence, for example. But the reality didnt correspond to any sanitary standards the space was very cramped. The toilets were a complete nightmare, he remembers.

Mordasov says there was only ever cold water if there was water at all: Sometimes they liked to turn off the water completely for several days. The food was better than in the army. But still left a lot to be desired (he describes finding cockroaches in his food, and being served expired eggs and undercooked meat). But Mordasov found overcrowding to be the hardest problem to deal with.Theres a lot of people, its impossible to be alone. Theres constant noise. I really missed being alone, he tells Meduza. I spent 22 days in solitary confinement and this was the best time of my entire prison term.

Mordasov says he got along well with both the other inmates and the prison staff. He spent his time reading letters, books (like Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand), and newspapers (mostly Novaya Gazeta), and playing board games. In August, he was recruited for prison labor, but he refused to work. I told the foreman that I wouldnt work. There are quite a few such people, he explains. Im not against working, but I was unlawfully convicted, and money is taken from employed convicts salaries to pay for their upkeep. Im not comfortable with that. You put me in prison, you pay for it.

The prison conditions took a toll on Mordasovs health. His teeth are badly damaged and, just two months before his release, he fell ill. I had a fever for eight days, nothing could bring it down. But, no matter, I got better, he says. Mordasov wasnt diagnosed with the coronavirus, but he says the prison saw outbreaks that coincided with spiking cases in the region. I didnt see serious cases among the prisoners, he adds. The colony was vaccinated with Sputnik V. At the same time, the pandemic led the prison to introduce additional restrictions like a ban on visitors and, in September, penalties for refusing vaccination. For a year and nine months I saw my mother and brother once, and it was a short meeting, Mordasov says. In the abstract, a ban on visits is a violation of rights, just like mandatory vaccination. Nevertheless, I support it. Sometimes saving lives is more important than some small freedoms for people.

Mordasov says that in 2017, he might have thought twice about picketing had he known the consequences. But today he says hed do it again I dont regret it. And now that hes been released, he has no plans to return to his provincial life.

In prison I studied to be a plumber for five months [...] Now, I want [to keep] studying but I still havent decided in what field. To start, I need to finish [high school], he tells Meduza, explaining that he dropped out after the tenth grade and was later conscripted into the army. Id like to get a higher education in the field of law or political science.

In the meantime, Mordasov has plans to move to Moscow with Yan Sidorov the two remain close friends and they want to put their direct experience with the Russian justice system to use by doing human rights work, with a focus on prisoners rights.

I experienced it all firsthand, I saw how it works on the inside. I saw how an investigation works, what methods they use to obtain confessions. I saw how a court, regardless of a lack of evidence, renders an unjust verdict. I spent two years in pre-trial detention and the same [amount of time] in a prison colony; I understand how the FSIN [Federal Penitentiary Service] system works, Mordasov underscores. This experience needs to be used, and Yan and I will work as a team in this field. We want to pay the most attention to political prisoners, but in no case should ordinary people be forgotten.

We wont give up Because youre with us

Interview by Gleb Golod

Summary by Eilish Hart

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'I wasn't an activist before that day' Newly released from prison, Vladislav Mordasov wants to put his time 'on the inside' to use Meduza - Meduza

Elon Musk doesnt think visionaries like him should pay taxes the way little people do. After all, why hand over his money to dull bureaucrats?

Theyll just squander it on pedestrian schemes like bailing out Tesla at a crucial point in its development. Musk has his sights set on more important things, like getting humanity to Mars to preserve the light of consciousness.

Billionaires, you see, tend to be surrounded by people who tell them how wonderful they are and would never, ever suggest that theyre making fools of themselves. But dont you dare make fun of Musk.

Billionaires money gives them a lot of political clout enough to block Democratic plans to pay for much-needed social spending with a tax that would have affected only a few hundred people in a nation of more than 300 million.

Who knows what they might do if they think people are snickering at them?

Still, the determined and so far successful opposition of incredibly wealthy Americans to any effort to tax them like normal people raises a couple of questions.

First, is there anything to their insistence that taxing them would deprive society of their unique contributions?

Second, why are people who have more money than anyone can truly enjoy so determined to keep every penny?

On the first question, theres an enduring claim on the right that taxing billionaires will discourage them from doing all the wonderful things they do.

For example, Mitt Romney has suggested that taxing capital gains will cause the ultrawealthy to stop creating jobs and buy ranches and paintings instead.

But is there any reason to believe that taxation will cause the rich to go Galt and deprive us of their genius?

For the uninitiated, going Galt is a reference to Ayn Rands book Atlas Shrugged, in which taxes and regulation induce wealth creators to withdraw to a hidden stronghold, causing economic and social collapse.

Rands magnum opus was, as it happens, published in 1957, during the long aftermath of the New Deal, when both parties accepted the need for highly progressive taxation, strong antitrust policy and a powerful union movement.

The book can therefore in part be seen as a commentary on the America of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, an era during which corporate taxes were more than twice as high as they are now and the top personal tax rate was 91 per cent.

So, did the productive members of society go on strike and paralyse the economy? Hardly. In fact, the postwar years were a time of unprecedented prosperity; family incomes, adjusted for inflation, doubled over the course of a generation.

And in case youre wondering, the wealthy didnt manage to dodge all of the taxes being imposed. As a fascinating 1955 Fortune article documented, corporate executives really had come way down in the world compared with their prewar status. But somehow they continued to do their jobs.

OK, so the superrich wont go on strike if forced to pay some taxes. But why are they so concerned about taxes anyway?

Its not as if having to cough up, say, $40 billion would have any visible impact on the ability of an Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos to enjoy lifes pleasures. True, many very wealthy people seem to consider moneymaking a game, in which the goal is to outperform their rivals; but standings in that game wouldnt be affected by a tax all the players have to pay.

What I suspect, although I cant prove it, is that what really drives someone like Musk is an insecure ego.

He wants the world to acknowledge his unequaled greatness; taxing him like a $400,000-a-year working Wall Street stiff (my favorite line from the movie Wall Street) would suggest that he isnt a unique treasure, that maybe he indeed doesnt deserve everything he has.

I dont know how many people remember Obama rage, the furious Wall Street backlash against president Barack Obama.

While it was partly a response to real changes in tax and regulatory policy Obama did, in fact, significantly raise taxes at the top what really rankled financiers was their sense of having been insulted. Why, he even called some of them fat cats!

Are the very rich pettier than the rest of us? On average, probably yes; after all, they can afford it, and the courtiers and flatterers attracted by huge fortunes surely make it harder to keep ones perspective.

The important point, however, is that the pettiness of billionaires comes along with vast power. And the result is that all of us end up paying a steep price for their insecurity.

This article originally appeared inThe New York Times

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Elon Musk is just the latest in a long line of insecure billionaires - The Irish Times

While I have never read the book, the way this movie is filmed and the lack of big named stars really took me in. This is a wonderfully produced movie with some incredibly deep overtones of the situation that the US is currently potentially facing.

The acting is excellent and the dark feel and sense of hopelessness really gets inside of you as I realize this is a possible future as being orchestrated by the powers that be. Art imitates life so to speak and being someone who deeply distrusts the main stream media, seeing it as the 100% propaganda that it is and has researched a lot into the darker truths about those running our country, its almost as if Ayn Rand was seeing the way the power structure of the world was setting up the world to achieve its goals of domination and subservience of the US population.

Fear is rampant in this moment and the government uses that fear to take even further control from the people. This movie should hit home and make us take stock of what we have and wake up to what the military industrial complex, bankers and power elite have in store for those of us that continue to stand still with our head buried in the sand while all of our liberties are taken by us one by one.

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Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike (2012) - IMDb

Nora Sullivan Horner

This week isnt going well for the Biden administration.

The Presidents approval rating is in freefall. West Virginia Senator and Democrat Joe Manchin wont budge on his $1.75 trillion cap for infrastructure spending, and (unlikely) rumors are floating that hes prepared to switch parties if the budget deal goes south. To top it off, Alyssa Milano was arrested for demanding Democrats use their mandate to protect voting rights on the White House lawn.

As Bidens biggest cheerleader on campus, Ive been hearing a lot of told you sos. Most of my peers believe the administrations boldest campaign promises are unachievable without structural change, which Biden refuses to use the bully pulpit to advocate for.

This criticism makes a lot of sense; if we really want structural change, why wouldnt we advocate for it?

Paradoxically, the best argument against prioritizing structural change is structural. Reconciliation can only cover budget-related issues, which means voting rights legislation or Supreme Court reform will face an impenetrable Republican filibuster in the Senate. Picture Ted Cruz and Rand Paul gleefully trading off passages of Atlas Shrugged as an already-watered down bill withers and dies on the floor.

This argument admittedly wont rally progressives behind Bidens agenda. Political leaders worthy of praise arent pragmatists. They will sacrifice their legislative cachet, and even their own electoral prospects, for a bold and consistent policy vision. Bernie Sanders, a perennial failure at the ballot-box with few legislative credentials, is still the de facto leader of the American left. Grassroots activists dont care if political institutions flay elected officials alive, as long as those officials stand against these institutions.

Crucially, this approach ignores/neglects the Democratic voters who matter most. The poor families that spend an average of 30% of their income on childcare. One in four mothers return to work within two weeks of giving birth. Students in low-income neighborhoods whose high schools are practically Superfund sites.

Bidens Build Back Better Plan is anything but sexy. Theres no provision to ban Voter I.D. laws or establish the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Seat on the Supreme Court.

However, it does include provisions to expand childcare tax credits and provide $200 billion for universal preschool for all three- and four-year-olds. It will create a national comprehensive paid family and medical leave program. $100 billion dollars are allocated to upgrade and build new public schools. Poor Americans who elected Democrats in 2020 cannot afford for their representatives to sacrifice these benefits for a powerful, but fruitless gesture.

This argument is still imperfect. Last week, Professor Henry Laurence stumped me with a great and obvious question: does the reconciliation bill matter if our democracy is collapsing in on itself?

I had no good answer. The survival of our democracy is a race between incremental progress and the disintegration of the status quo. If we cant plug the holes, pessimism will create a gap between the political elite and the public so vast that nothing but revolution can bridge it. The far-right is already thereand January 6 is a testament to this reality.

A federal voting rights bill might be the only way to ensure elections in conservative states remain representative, given the Republican policy response to Trumps Big Lie. Court reform is probably the only way to ensure such a bill isnt struck down. And even these initiatives are frivolous in the long run without a sweeping climate plan.

But these big dreams simply arent options in the current political environment. We dont have enough seats. For now, we need to suck it up and pass reconciliation in its available form. Then, we need to elect more Democrats.

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Biting the bullet on structural change The Bowdoin Orient - The Bowdoin Orient

Lucy McKenzie was already exhibiting her work regularly when in 2007 she began studying at the Van der Kelen Logelain school of decorative painting in Brussels. Her paintings and installations draw on the 19th-century techniques taught at the school, with a particular emphasis on the the trompe loeil tradition. Work in other media includes a collaboration with Beca Lipscombe on Atelier E.B., an experimental fashion label. Currently on view at Tate Liverpool, McKenzies first UK retrospective brings together more than 80 works from the mid 1990s to the present day.

Where is yourstudio?In the city centre of Brussels.

What do youlikemost about the space?It is an old storage building that I converted, so I could add details that are practical for a painting studio. For instance, an extra-wide space in the stairwell so that large canvases can be easily moved between floors. Also, its invisible from the street and is a quiet sanctuary in a noisy part of town.

What frustrates you about it?After working there for more than a decade I know what could be added or built to make things easier and nicer, but implementing those plans is always postponed because Im too busy or lazy.

Workcoats (2010), Lucy McKenzie. Courtesy the artist; Lucy McKenzie

Do you work alone?I have two assistants who have worked for me regularly for almost 10 years now. They come twice a year for a month each time, and I save up a lot of different jobs for us to do together. We work like demons in those weeks.

How messy is your studio?Not too bad. I studied decorative painting and have done a lot of large-scale painting on site, which can only be done stress-free with good planning, so I fell into good habits. And I do various different things in the studio not just painting, but also dress-making so it has to stay flexible and clean.

What does it smell like?Linseed, turpentine, varnish, wax, hay-like odours from the metres of pre-primed canvas. Visitors love it.

Whats the weirdest object in there?I dont have any weird objects in my studio, its a workroom. But I do have a beautiful 24-hour clock by Tauba Auerbach, and a framed certificate from my decorative painting school.

Which artistic tool could you least do without?My special wooden ruler for painting straight lines. It was made for me by a craftsperson to be the right length and weight.

Side Entrance (2011), Lucy McKenzie. Tate

Whats the most well-thumbed book in your studio?I dont have any books, but I do have ring binders full of my recipes for different painting procedures gilding, painting skies, shadows, wood, marble etc.

Do you cook in thestudio?My studio and home are connected, and I always cook lunch for and with anyone who is working with me there. I am grateful for any help, and this is a small way to show appreciation (and keep stamina up).

What do you listen to while youre working?When I look at old work, I can often hear the things I was listening to when I made them. BBC Radio 4 coverage of the 1997 general electionWuthering Heights read by Patricia Routledge. I stopped listening to music in the studio when I realised it had a direct effect on painting wood and marble. Techno made me feel like I was having a heart attack, and everything got jittery; classical music made the lines wavey and languid. So now its only audiobooks, podcasts and radio.

My brain has been cauterised by a lifetime of consuming murder-pornography, and I try to tone it down when the studio assistants are around, but they are almost as bad as me. Typical working audio would be every book in the V.C. Andrews series Flowers in the Attic or Atlas Shrugged. I have a parasocial relationship with one podcaster with a beautiful voice; Ive listened to hundreds of hours of him talking about evil. His voice makes working (which can be lonely, physically painful and relentless) bearable.

What do you usually wear while youre working?A white work coat, with degrees of cleanliness depending on the work.

Is anything (or anyone) banned?No, but anyone with cat allergies is forewarned.

Lucy McKenzie is at Tate Liverpool until 13 March 2022.

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In the studio with Lucy McKenzie - Apollo Magazine

In an environment of worsening economicconditions, Dagny Taggart, vice president in charge of operations,works to repair Taggart Transcontinentals crumbling Rio Norte Lineto service Colorado, the last booming industrial area in the country.Her efforts are hampered by the fact that many of the countrysmost talented entrepreneurs are retiring and disappearing. The railroadscrisis worsens when the Mexican government nationalizes TaggartsSan Sebastian Line. The line had been built to service FranciscodAnconias copper mills, but the mills turn out to be worthless.Francisco had been a successful industrialist, and Dagnys lover,but has become a worthless playboy. To solve the railroads financialproblems, Dagnys brother Jim uses political influence to pass legislationthat destroys Taggarts only competition in Colorado. Dagny mustfix the Rio Norte Line immediately and plans to use Rearden Metal,a new alloy created by Hank Rearden. When confronted about the SanSebastian mines, Francisco tells Dagny he is deliberately destroyingdAnconia Copper. Later he appears at Reardens anniversary partyand, meeting him for the first time, urges Rearden to reject thefreeloaders who live off of him.

The State Science Institute issues a denunciation of Rearden metal,and Taggarts stock crashes. Dagny decides to start her own companyto rebuild the line, and it is a huge success. Dagny and Reardenbecome lovers. Together they discover a motor in an abandoned factorythat runs on static electricity, and they seek the inventor. Thegovernment passes new legislation that cripples industry in Colorado.Ellis Wyatt, an oil industrialist, suddenly disappears after settingfire to his wells. Dagny is forced to cut trains, and the situationworsens. Soon, more industrialists disappear. Dagny believes thereis a destroyer at work, taking men away when they are most needed.Francisco visits Rearden and asks him why he remains in businessunder such repressive conditions. When a fire breaks out and theywork together to put it out, Francisco understands Reardens lovefor his mills.

Rearden goes on trial for breaking one of the new laws,but refuses to participate in the proceedings, telling the judgesthey can coerce him by force but he wont help them to convict him.Unwilling to be seen as thugs, they let him go. Economic dictatorWesley Mouch needs Reardens cooperation for a new set of socialistlaws, and Jim needs economic favors that will keep his ailing railroadrunning after the collapse of Colorado. Jim appeals to Reardenswife Lillian, who wants to destroy her husband. She tells him Rearden andDagny are having an affair, and he uses this information in a trade.The new set of laws, Directive 10-289,is irrational and repressive. It includes a ruling that requiresall patents to be signed over to the government. Rearden is blackmailedinto signing over his metal to protect Dagnys reputation.

Dagny quits over the new directive and retreats to a mountain lodge.When she learns of a massive accident at the Taggart Tunnel, shereturns to her job. She receives a letter from the scientist shehad hired to help rebuild the motor, and fears he will be the nexttarget of the destroyer. In an attempt to stop him from disappearing,she follows him in an airplane and crashes in the mountains. Whenshe wakes up, she finds herself in a remote valley where all theretired industrialists are living. They are on strike, calling ita strike of the mind. There, she meets John Galt, who turns outto be both the destroyer and the man who built the motor. She fallsin love with him, but she cannot give up her railroad, and she leavesthe valley. When she returns to work, she finds that the governmenthas nationalized the railroad industry. Government leaders wanther to make a speech reassuring the public about the new laws. Sherefuses until Lillian comes to blackmail her. On the air, she proudlyannounces her affair with Rearden and reveals that he has been blackmailed. Shewarns the country about its repressive government.

With the economy on the verge of collapse, Francisco destroys therest of his holdings and disappears. The politicians no longer evenpretend to work for the public good. Their vast network of influencepeddling creates worse chaos, as crops rot waiting for freight trainsthat are diverted for personal favors. In an attempt to gain controlof Franciscos mills, the government stages a riot at Rearden Steel.But the steelworkers organize and fight back, led by Francisco,who has been working undercover at the mills. Francisco saves Reardenslife, then convinces him to join the strike.

Just as the head of state prepares to give a speech onthe economic situation, John Galt takes over the airwaves and deliversa lengthy address to the country, laying out the terms of the strikehe has organized. In desperation, the government seeks Galt to makehim their economic dictator. Dagny inadvertently leads them to him,and they take him prisoner. But Galt refuses to help them, evenafter he is tortured. Finally, Dagny and the strikers rescue himin an armed confrontation with guards. They return to the valley,where Dagny finally joins the strike. Soon, the countrys collapseis complete and the strikers prepare to return.

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Atlas Shrugged: Full Book Summary | SparkNotes

The blogger John Rogers once noted that there are two novels that can shape the lives of bookish 14-year-olds: Atlas Shrugged and The Lord of the Rings. One of these novels, he asserted, is a childish fantasy that can leave you emotionally stunted; the other involves orcs.

Well, I was a bookish 14-year-old, but my touchstones were two different novels: Isaac Asimovs Foundation and Frank Herberts Dune.

Many social scientists, it turns out, are science fiction readers. For example, quite a few experts on international relations who I know are fanatics about the TV version of The Expanse. I think its because good science fiction involves building imaginary worlds that are different from the world we know, but in interesting ways that relate to the attempt to understand why society is the way it is.

Anyway, thats my excuse for devoting todays newsletter not to the latest scary developments in politics and economics but to a much happier event: the U.S. release of a wonderful, satisfying film version of Dune the first movie Ive seen in a theater since the pandemic began.

Before I get there, however, a word about the new Foundation TV series, which is being released one episode a week on Apple TV+.

The Foundation trilogy had a huge impact on my teenage self. For those whove never read it, its about social scientists who use their knowledge to save galactic civilization. I wanted to be Hari Seldon, the brilliant mathematician who leads the effort; this economics thing was as close as I could get.

Foundation might seem unfilmable. It mostly involves people talking, and its narrative inverts the hero-saves-the-universe theme that burns many acres of CGI every year. The story spans centuries; in each episode everything appears to be on the brink, and it seems as if only desperate efforts by the protagonists can save the day. But after each crisis, Seldons prerecorded hologram appears to explain to everyone what just happened and why the successful resolution was inevitable given the laws of history.

So how does the Apple TV+ series turn this into a visually compelling tale? It doesnt. What it does instead is remake Star Wars under another name. There are indispensable heroes, mystical powers, even a Death Star. These arent necessarily bad things to include in a TV series, but theyre completely antithetical to the spirit of Asimovs writing. Pretending that this series has anything to do with the Foundation novels is fraudulent marketing, and Ive stopped watching.

Now on to Dune. The book is everything Foundation isnt: Theres a glittering, hierarchical society wracked by intrigue and warfare, a young hero of noble birth who may be a prophesied messiah, a sinister but alluring sisterhood of witches, fierce desert warriors and, of course, giant worms.

And yes, its fun. When I was a teenager, my friends and I would engage in mock combat in which the killing blow had to be delivered slowly to penetrate your opponents shield which will make sense if you read the book or watch the movie.

What makes Dune more than an ordinary space opera are two things: its subtlety and the richness of its world-building.

Thus, the Bene Gesserit derive their power not from magic but from deep self-control, awareness and understanding of human psychology. The journey of Paul Atreides is heroic but morally ambiguous; he knows that if he succeeds, war and vast slaughter will follow.

And the world Herbert created is given depth by layers of cultural references. He borrowed from Islamic and Ayurvedic traditions, from European feudalism and more Dune represents cultural appropriation on a, well, interstellar scale. Its also deeply steeped in fairly serious ecological thinking.

So why was the 1984 film a disaster? Because the director yes, David Lynch either didnt grasp the subtlety and richness or decided that audiences couldnt handle it. That is, he did to Dune what Apple TV+ has done to Foundation. For example, in the book theres the weirding way of battle, which is about using psychology and deception to overcome foes; in Lynchs film this was replaced with some kind of gadget.

The great thing about Denis Villeneuves Dune: Part I is that he respects the audience enough to retain the books spirit. He trimmed the narrative to reduce it to filmable size and even so, his two and a half hours cover only the first half of the book but he didnt dumb it down. Instead, he relies on spectacle and spine-tingling action to hold our attention despite the density of the story. In so doing he made a film worthy of the source material.

I wouldnt say that this Dune matches the vision I had when reading the book. Its better. The visuals surpass my imagination those ornithopters! The actors give the characters more depth than the books author previously had in my mind.

Will this labor of love sell to a mass audience (and allow Villeneuve to finish his story)? The early box office looks good, and this does seem like the kind of film people will see twice I did so sales may hold up longer than usual. But I guess well find out.

In any case, all of us former bookish 14-year-olds finally have the Dune movie we always wanted to see. Sometimes, things actually do go right.

Some guy wrote the introduction to a special edition of Foundation.

Was Dune climate fiction?

Another novel that definitely is climate fiction.

Maybe politicians would act if we called whats happening to the West Duneification?

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Opinion | What 'Dune' Gets Right that 'Foundation' Doesn't - The New York Times