Kelley Quoted in Wall Street Journal Article on Atlas Shrugged

January 9, 2009 -- David Kelley, The Atlas Society founder and chairman, was quoted in a January 9, 2009 Wall Street Journal article entitled "'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years."

In that piece, senior economics writer Stephen Moore reviewed the parallels between the events in Ayn Rand's path breaking novel and in the world in which we now live. In the pages of Rand's fiction and in corridors of power in Washington today we see politicians crippling and punishing productive entrepreneurs in the name of stamping out "greed", restricting economic freedom in the name of preventing destructive "dog-eat-dog" competition, and subsidizing failed enterprises with taxpayer dollars in the name of protecting essential industries.

Moore has a long public policy background. He worked--and was a colleague of The Atlas Society's Edward Hudgins!--at the Heritage Foundation, the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, and the Cato Institute. He also headed up the Club for Growth.

In Steve's WSJ piece, Kelley explains that "the older the book gets, the more timely its message." Concerning the planned cinematic treatment of Atlas, Kelley joked that "We don't need to make a movie out of the book" because "we are living it right now."

You can read Moore's entire article in the print version of the Wall Street Journal on page W-11, or on the paper's website.

Also of interest, on October 10, 2007 the Wall Street Journal carried Kelley's commentary on "Capitalist Heroes" to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Atlas. That piece also appeared in The Moscow Times, bringing Rand's message to English-reading Russians.

Another piece on the novel's relevance was Ed Hudgins's op-ed on "Atlas Shrugged at 50," published in the Washington Times on October 11, 2007.

Hudgins also penned a piece for the October, 2007 issue of The New Individualist on "Atlas Shrugged as Prophecy."

And very relevant today is the 2005 discussion that Hudgins co-authored with Fred Smith, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, on "Ayn Rand at 100: When Will Businessmen Learn Her Lessons About Politicians?"