“Is Atlas Shrugging?” by Ayn Rand

Podcast audio:

Readers of Atlas Shrugged often notice striking parallels between the novel’s events and those of the contemporary world. As a result, Ayn Rand was often asked whether she meant it as a prophecy. In her 1964 Ford Hall Forum talk, “Is Atlas Shrugging?” she answered plainly: “The purpose of this book is to prevent itself from becoming prophetic.”

Until now, only a poor-quality recording of the talk was available — and it was missing its opening minutes. Thanks to the Ayn Rand Archives’ discovery of a complete tape in the Boston Public Library, her full answer can be heard clearly for the first time.

In the talk, Rand surveys the culture of the 1960s, examining topics such as the “brain drain” of British scientists, socialized medicine, and egalitarian proposals for wealth redistribution. These, she argues, are not merely political incidents but the predictable outcome of altruism, which demands its heaviest sacrifices from the most successful individuals. Society’s moral code, she shows, is draining the world of the mind, just as in her novel.

Yet despite the worrying similarities, Rand insists that Atlas Shrugged is not “a prophecy of our unavoidable destruction, but a manifesto of our power to avoid it, if we choose to change our course.” History, she explains, is not determined by fate: cultural trends can be reversed, and the future improved, if we commit to a philosophy that champions reason and individualism.

Among the topics covered:

• Why Rand rejected both prophecy and history as the novel’s purpose;
• How contemporary events reveal the culture’s intellectual decline;
• How altruism punishes the successful for being successful;
• How altruism counts on producers to keep on acting, even as it exploits them;
• Why cultural trends can be reversed with the right philosophical ideas.

The release of this rare recording exemplifies the Ayn Rand Archives’ mission to recover and restore Rand’s recorded legacy. If you’d like to support this work, consider becoming an ARI donor.