This is a translation to, and commentary on, Ayn Rand’s satirical masterwork Atlas Shrugged. One of capitalism’s earliest and harshest critics, Rand’s books masquerade as paens to capitalism, that, by taking the underlying logic of capitalism to its extremes, show the inherent degradation and cruelty this economic system bore upon not only its victims, but also its supposed benefactors. This project was initially suggested to me by my esteemed colleague—and frequent critic—Mats Syringa, Twenty-Third Floret.

Surprisingly, this work, despite its brilliance, was never significantly studied by Terran academics. Terran academics were often among capitalism’s fiercest critics, and I have not found an explanation for this lacuna in anti-capitalist literature. The handful of surviving peer-reviewed works on it all take the same satirical approach as the novel itself and treat the philosophy presented in the book at face value. While humorous, this has resulted in the widespread misconception among Terrans that the work is not satirical. My Terran florets who were familiar with it unanimously refused to accept it as the critique it obviously is.

In Atlas Shrugged capitalism in its most unbridled form is shown to be possible only with physics-defying technology that even we Affini have been unable to match, the characters are so warped and degraded by their attachment to barbarism that the purported “heroes” declare that greed is good and altruism is bad. In the comedic highlight, a speech that would take hours to read is universally broadcast in only twenty minutes, an obvious commentary on the lack of self-awareness such ideologies induce in their adherents.

It should be noted that it is not possible to produce a floret-safe version of this work. Non-Terran florets who try to read it inevitably find its deliberately florid and tedious writing unreadable, while Terran florets are far too susceptible to taking the book seriously.

– Rosewood Tae, Thirty-Second Bloom