I found this comparison of these two worldviews to be very interesting.
“Given the breadth and length of both novels, the comparison of Atlas Shrugged and The Lord of the Rings could go on much longer, revealing many new themes and interpretations. It seems, however, that even the few differences sketched above allow for a tentative answer to the questions raised in the introduction. As much as Ayn Rand’s novel, with its strictly modernist message, could have been at some point in the past an effective remedy against the plagues of socialism and collectivism, the world described in it does not fit today’s reality and does not help in introducing the idea of natural order. Today, it is no longer necessary to protect big business from people. On the contrary, it is people who need protection from big business, which now goes hand in hand with Leviathan in trying to create a homogenous and completely atomized society.
The Lord of the Rings shows not only the great danger associated with all attempts to defeat evil power by power, but it also teaches that collectives do not really exist, that every one of us is the hero of his own individual story, and that law and order can easily exist without the state. Despite its egoistic message, Atlas Shrugged is full of imperatives to act, to fight, to bring salvation. Rand’s characters suffer not only because the state reaches into their wallets, but because the society rejected their rational, “enlightened” vision of what is good and right.
Tolkien, on the other hand, disliked such imperatives. He hated the outlook that if something can be done, it has to be done, and once even admitted that the greatest deeds of mind and spirit are born in abnegation. That is most likely the reason his characters do not look for great challenges, nor wish to change the world, and instead live quietly, fulfilling Voltaire’s dictum Il faut cultiver notre jardin.
This is what makes The Lord of the Rings a much better means for conceptualizing the ideas of freedom than Atlas Shrugged. Reading Tolkien helps realize that, even after the “end of history,” the world and society can move in the direction of Merry Old England rather than a soulless homogenized mass of atoms. Moreover, The Lord of the Rings conveys an extremely important and optimistic message, namely that a plurality of many different cultures, languages, societies and visions, all existing together, yet separate and independent of each other, is still viable — not in a democratic regime, but in the new world of Hoppean natural order.”
Juliusz Jablecki is summer fellow at the Mises Institute, and works with the Mises Institute, Poland.
Read the whole article here.
I’ve never read Tolkien and probably never will, although I’ve seen some of the movies. I have, however, read everything Rand ever wrote.
Rand is a thinker of historic importance, Aritotle’s modern-day successor, a person whose ideas may change history. Tolkien, from what I’ve gathered from his movies and things written about them like this article, writes fairy tales.
I can see, however, that anyone who uses phrases like “today’s reality”; who thinks that the fact that collectives don’t really exist somehow refutes Rand; who sees Merrie Old England was an ideal rather a saga of blood; and, who thinks that the world should be ruled by Hoppean elites would be attracted to fairy tales rather than the real world.
Those who give up their minds are always looking for rulers.
Go to the source, read Tolkien.
Enlightening view into many libertarian minds. Mischaracterizes Rand message and characters. Fantasizes about an impossible reality. There are some parallels in the messages of the novels; such as, rejection of power over others as a means of happiness. But one evidently presents the meek and unambitious as the ideal, while the other promotes pride of achievement and reason for enjoying life.
While good on economic issues, variations of anarchistic fantasy are an unfortunate attachment the Institute makes to Mises’s work.