“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves Orcs.”First, I almost sent a bill to Barry for a new computer screen when I saw this quote; I found it that funny. But, there is a certain "it wouldn't be funny if it weren't so true" element to it.
Here's the basic deal with Ayn Rand: she wrote fiction. Yes, I realize it's an allegory, but that's not the point. She could have said everything she needed to say in a few simple sentences, such as, "my work is mine alone to do with as I please, regardless of the choices I make regarding its use." Instead, we're treated to a 1000 page pedantic monstrosity. BORING.
I should also add -- for those of you who keep threatening to "go Galt," shut up and get on with it.
13 comments:
Can't remember if it says in the book or not, but who grows the food, cleans the houses, etc. in Galt's Gultch?
The problem with Rand's philosophy is the same as the problem with Marx's philosophy: it works great in an idealized world that doesn't actually exist.
The reality is that government didn't just form out of thin air, it came to be as an evolution of an established need for collective action. Taxation, regulation, etc, are all a part of what evolved to make this possible. Sure, there are flaws in our government, but the solution to this is improving the government we have, not throwing it out entirely.
I was one of those bookish 14-year old's. I ate up all of those fantasy books by about 22 or so (went to a public library for the very first time to find one that wasn't in the book stores). Then I grew up a little and, by about 25 or so, found it all quite absurd and boring. However, at 45 now I still love LOTR.
You don’t see the going Galt going on. It is more like going part time going Galt. I am a small business consultant and two of my clients have cut back because it isn’t worth the hassle of dealing with more employees. More employees means more lawyers and HR personnel pushing you to adjust to the lowest common demoniator. It causes moral hazard in the company and I was witness to it in one company.
Rich people have already gone Galt. That is in part why you hate them so much. They are not hiring. At least they are not hiring here the way they are overseas.
Squire: ultimately there's no way to fix the situation you're talking about. Inevitably no matter what degree of regulation we have, as a company grows it will have to deal with more of that. Generally speaking if a business owner sees the revenue upside of expansion then they'll get over the hassles of HR, legal, accounting, etc.
I'm a small business owner myself and I totally get what you're saying. I'm just in business on my own now and I have little desire to get to a point where I have employees, etc. Having said that, if I thought I could make significantly more money by going that route, I'd consider jumping through the necessary hoops.
Yup, I'm going to be 35 years old in November and I just quite my job and took one with about half the hours and a third of the pay, so I guess you can say I'm going Galt like you asked.
Regardless of regulations, no one is going to add employees unless they are needed, not even if they have the money to do so (and to pay HR). It doesn't matter how much money you throw at the "job makers" (e.g., by shifting more tax burden onto working class). They will not add jobs unless the jobs are needed for something.
Ayn Rand would have a field day writing about the Occupy Wall Street crowd. Oh, but wait -- she already did that -- it's called Atlas Shrugged. I'll take the Rand capitalists over the "give me something I didn't earn" wealth redistributors.
I might give Rand more respect if "Anthem" wasn't a direct ripoff of Evgeny Zamyatin's "We".
"Anthem" showed strong hints of literary talent - all plagiarized. "Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" lie atop it like six feet of earth.
Redistribution? Who demanded (and got) a bigger handout? The Occupy Wall Street crowd? Or those they protest?
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Protesting the bailout makes perfect sense. Protesting Wall Street is perfectly moronic.
The Jungle and The Grapes of Wrath are also fiction as well, but notice the difference: What people took away from those works were the heart-wrenchingly accurate depictions of life on the ground.
What do people take away from Atlas Shrugged? An ideology. Heck, The Jungle was a full-blown advocation of socialism, but its legacy didn't work out that way, and even the author admitted that.
Altas Shrugged is harmless as a boring fantasy novel. What terrifies me are people -- politicians, no less -- who think there's anything to be learned by it.
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