“Atlas Shrugged” Movie Already Inspiring Controversy

(Geoffrey Lawrence/NPRI) – Our friends at the Reason Foundation have a behind-the-scenes review of the first installment of the upcoming trilogy of Atlas Shrugged movies. Atlas Shrugged: Part I premiers in theatres on April 15 and is sure to ignite enthousiasm – particularly within the Tea Party movement, whose supporters frequently sport t-shirts bearing the question, “Who is John Galt?”

This movie series should also inspire controversy from across the political spectrum. Already, the “progressive” intelligentsia is labeling the film “socially dangerous.” Well…at least the ideas portrayed by the film are dangerous for the national-socialist agenda to which the modern American Left adheres.

However, I’m guessing that some of the film’s biggest critics will come from the political Right. Ayn Rand’s most loyal disciples, the “Objectivists,” are notoriously difficult to please and I would expect them all to voice dissatisfaction with any attempt to adapt Rand’s masterpiece to the silver screen. This trait has also inspired many of the more prominent Objectivists to lead intellectual attacks against philosophies similar, but not identical, to their own (i.e. libertarianism). Libertarians have responded to these attacks in kind over the years, which has fostered some level of antagonism between the two schools of thought. In fact, perhaps the most critical attack on the Objectivists was made not by the Left, but by none other than Murray Rothbard: “The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult.”

As an Austro-libertarian myself, I have never made a secret of my affinity for Rothbard. However, I will be the first one through the door to see Atlas Shrugged on opening night and I look forward to seeing the excitement the movie will generate.