Atlas Must Stop Shrugging

A dwindling number of us are old enough to remember being awakened in college after reading Ayn Rand’s great novel Atlas Shrugs. It has been summarized as a fictional novel which describes the struggle against an increasingly socialistic government that impedes individual success with increasingly burdensome laws and regulations.

The theme of this book is more apt today than it was when it was published in 1957. Rand’s Atlas is the individual mind and individual creativity. Historically, the Atlas behind our prosperity and freedom has also been our middle class. After visiting this country in 1831, French political scientist, Alexis de Tocqueville lauded our unique middle class. Today, the middle class (income between $49,715 to $149,160) is derided by our media and elites and indoctrinated and suppressed by educators and government.

The middle class is disillusioned and withdrawing. The labor participation rate has dropped from 68.1% in 1997 to 62.7% today. The US Army missed its 2022 recruiting goal by 25%. In 2023, by 17%. There are unprecedented levels of early retirements from an already shorthanded and downcast law enforcement. There is a shortage of doctors and nurses as well as first responders and firefighters. Our institutions are not trusted. They have an irrational adherence to “wokism” and ESG resulting in the abandonment of middle-class principles such as meritocracy, free-market capitalism and Ayn Rand’s philosophy of rational self-interest.

The notion of our middle class or “Atlas” symbolically shrugging is not new. However, this current election presents a unique opportunity for the middle class to reassert itself politically, economically and morally. Only 66% of the voting-eligible population voted in the 2020 presidential election. The middle class is fundamental to citizenship and voting is a fundamental expression of citizenship. The middle class must vote and begin to become America’s “Atlas” again.

David Carlini
Bradenton