This is a real-life 'Atlas Shrugged'

I am nearing the end of a novel that was written in 1957 that is almost scary with regard to how similar the circumstances in the story are with what is happening today. The book is "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand.

It is a story about a group of industrialists who are smart and very ambitious. They love to figure out better ways of doing things and they often succeed which produces wealth. It is also a story about a government run by intellectual elites who are slowly convincing the country that wealth is bad, wealth is all greed and anyone who has it is to be punished.

The government garners more and more control over industry while at the same time promising more and more entitlements to a culture that is becoming more and more comfortable with not having to take responsibility for anything. Sound familiar?

The five-page section just before the halfway point describes a man in his medium-sized Midwest industrial town where they decide to adapt a socialistic system for running their factory. Everyone is paid the same and told they will be taken care of the same regardless of effort or talent. Ambition and production start to fall and quality of product plummets shortly there after.

I understand it is a novel, a fictitious story, but if someone would have told you 10 years ago about the government taking over GM, or the IRS enforcing new health insurance compliance, or billions in new taxes based on faulty global warming science you would have thought it too was science fiction.

Marc Thomsen

Elk Grove Village