Atlas Shrugged movie

Do we really need this? Ayn Rand's mammoth novel is being made into a trilogy of films, the Star Wars of the Libertarian\Tea Party crowd. Frankly, I've never understood the appeal of Rand's writings. I don't find her to be particularly individualistic, whatever the claims of her supporters. Certainly, socialist Jack London's Martin Eden stacks up quite well against Atlas Shrugged as a study of individualism. I do think that Anthem is a reasonably scary, well done dystopia, but again I don't think it measures up to the dystopias of Jack London or George Orwell. We all, of course, know why capitalist-friendly Hollywood is producing Ayn Rand, but not Jack London. It doesn't take massive intellectual skills to see John Galt and company call the rest of the world "phoney". It does take such reading skills to understand why Martin becomes the social pariah he does, even as a successful individualist. Oh well.

Karl Marx and the Triumph of Libertarian Sci-Fi

One of the most peculiar aspects of the science fiction genre is that it has been dominated, not by liberals, as is traditionally supposed, nor conservatives, but libertarians. Poul Anderson, Greg Bear, Gordon Dickson, The Prisoner, H. Beam Piper, and Robert Heinlein, among many others, could all be labeled libertarian in their outlook. So far as I know, only Mieville and Kim Robinson, among major authors, are socialist in outlook. The picture becomes even worse when one looks at fantasy, though the situation in both genres is improving. Fantasy literature has too often been dominated by right wing ideologues, like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. So what needs to change in the genre? I think, first of all, there needs to be a greater awareness of the plight of working class people, something Marxist fiction is particularly good at supplying. Secondly, publishers need to be challenged to diversify their production lines beyond the conservative\liberal, libertarian banners, to something more original, inviting voices from socialism and anarchism as well. Lastly, as the Sci-Fi Politico has pointed out before, the genre needs to accept individualistic voices, especially in TV and Film, rather than rely on retreads of old ideas. Only then will we have a genre that both Rand and Marx could be proud of.