Of all the political events of the last month or so, one in particular has fixed itself in my mind. That it should have done so strikes me as somewhat surprising, given that the event in question was neither scandal nor gaffe of bigot-gate proportions, nor even a hilariously edited poster of call-me-Dave. No, I refer to that slightly surreal Tory coup whereby business leaders, tycoons, and captains of industry massed behind Cameron, ostensibly in response to Labour’s proposed N.I. increases. The phenomenon was interesting enough to observe, if not exactly earth-shatteringly exciting, but what did make it memorable, and the reason I write about it now, is how bizarrely reminiscent the whole episode was of Atlas Shrugged – a comparison which was understandably ignored in the national press at the time, but which may, tangentially, lead us to see added significance behind a mere political stunt.
‘Who is John Galt?’ So goes the famously enigmatic opening of Rand’s masterpiece, a novel of staggering scope (at 1168 pages) which regularly tops lists of the most influential works of fiction of the last century. The book describes an alternate reality in which the U.S. is the only country in the world not yet run by socialists, or ‘looters’, ‘moochers’ and ‘parasites’ as Rand charitably refers to them throughout her novel. That situation, however, is changing, and with the economy in crisis Washington seeks to impose ever greater constraints and controls on big business.
It is with this background, which has a certain resonance in the contemporary climate, that the story of Atlas Shrugged unfolds. Rand envisages a scenario in which the ‘men of talent’ whom she celebrates – the great inventors and industrialists who are responsible for production and growth – go on strike. Atlas shrugs: the business leaders who hold up the economy, like the mythological titan who propped up the sky, refuse to co-operate any longer with a government that wishes to hamstring them under the pretence of admirable values such as fairness and equality of opportunity. They gather behind the mysterious figure of John Galt, withdraw the benefit they confer on society, and watch as things collapse.
The novel, in other words, is a libertarian economist’s wet dream: a laissez-faire fairy tale in which industrialists are morally upright paragons of integrity, metaphorically holding up the very sky, whereas socialists or ‘looters’ are lazy, detestable, and lacking purpose. So what does Atlas Shrugged have to do with David Cameron? What else but show us his (albeit rather extreme) literary counterpart in the form of John Galt, rounding up all the ‘business leaders’ with a view to creating a better society. It remains to be seen whether or not Cameron’s roll-call of economic titans can achieve this in the coming years; what is certain, however, is that they will be considered vital to the recovery by the new government. Perhaps, then, it will not be completely irrelevant to ask ‘who is John Galt?’
