Ayn Rand and How Her Works Criticize Collectivism

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Independent Author Project Quarter 4
"The Great Leap Forward was begun in 1957 by Chairman Mao Zedong to bring the nation quickly into the forefront of economic development. The rural society was to keep pace with the dream by producing enough food to feed the country plus enough for export to help pay for industrialization. These changes were intended to improve conditions for everyone by collectivizing agriculture and establishing communal eating facilities where peasants could eat all they wanted free of charge" (chronicle.uchicago.edu). The Great Leap Forward was a program by the Communist Party of China that aimed to change the country from an agrarian economy into a communist society through fast industrialization and collectivization. This led to prohibition of private farming where those against were persecuted. Collectivism is the practice or principle of giving a group priority over each individual in it. The central theme of both novels is any Marxist-like plan for the group leads to chaos and destruction in society. In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, the author of Atlas Shrugged and We the Living, shows the reader what happens when governments and organizations follow socialist ideas, incentive is destroyed and corruption is inevitable. In We the Living, Rand shows what happens when individuals put their group over themselves, corruption is unavoidable, and ideals are questionable.
Atlas Shrugged takes place over a couple of years in a futuristic United States of America. The individual stories of the characters are connected in order to explain Ayn Rand's perspective of the wrongs of the communist policies that the government is enforcing. The book is divided into three parts. Part One is "Non-Contradiction" where it ...

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...ters of their respective novels, and both believe that collectivism destroys society and in no way helps it.
In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand shows the reader what happens when governments and organizations follow socialist ideas, incentive is destroyed and corruption is inevitable. In We the Living, Rand shows what happens when individuals put their group over themselves, corruption is unavoidable, and ideals are questionable. Atlas Shrugged and We the Living portray the central theme where any socialist like plan for the group leads to chaos and destruction in society.

Works Cited Page
Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. New York City: Random House, 1957. iBooks. Rand, Ayn. We the Living. New York Coty: Random House, 1959. iBooks. Harms, William. "China's Great Leap Forward." China's Great Leap Forward. University of Chicago Chronicle, 14 Mar. 1996. Web. 23 May 2014.

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