So I'm familiar with all the criticisms of the book and honestly every criticism is correct. It's boring. The characters have little to no emotion. The "good guys" of the book are ridiculously pure in every way. The author is almost a sadist in her attitude to social welfare programs and charity.
In addition there's a few criticisms that are warranted only by 21st century standards. The author writes "you should feel pride in whatever job you have and be happy with whatever pay you get" made a lot more sense in the 1950s when a grocery store bagger could buy a house and raise a couple kids on his pay. You, today, can claim Ayn Rand was full of it because these days you can't just be happy with whatever your job is paying you because it likely isn't a living wage. 75 cents an hour in 1959 probably was a living wage.
But the one thing that holds up is her calling out corrupt corporate practices. Towards the end of the book a character says "I decry all efforts from the public or private influences to suppress the benefits of hard work." Emphasis on the word private. This book is pretty damn critical of corporate policy to suppress innovation and I would even go as far as to say you cannot understand how big corporations are so often mismanaged if you do not read Atlas Shrugged.
Whereas the good guys in the book were ridiculously pure, the bad guys of the book were extremely well written. I don't care how warranted the criticisms of the book are, I will die on the hill that the way she writes the bad guys is some excellent literature.
Or as my friend puts it, Ayn Rand is really good at identifying problems in society but then she prescribes the worst solution.
If Atlas Shrugged enters public domain in my lifetime then I'm gonna publish my own version of it.
by SemiLoquacious