MovieChat Forums > Atlas Shrugged: Part III (2014) Discussion > Who cleans the toilets in Galt's Gulch?

Who cleans the toilets in Galt's Gulch?

posted 10 years ago by ejonconrad
66 replies | jump to latest

Sometimes, something seems plausible when you read it in a book, but then sticks out like a sore thumb when you see it on the screen. For example, I calmly accepted the opening scene in *the book* The Da Vinci Code, when a mortally wounded Saunière runs around the Louvre leaving cryptic clues rather than simply call the police, but I literally laughed out loud when I saw it in the the movie - because it became crystal clear how totally ridiculous it was.

In the same way, this movie raised really obvious questions that are completely ignored in the book. In particular, who does the actual *work* in Galt's Gulch? I don't mean start companies, invent new things, or create great art; I mean pick up garbage, wait tables, and yes, clean bathrooms.

When we arrive in Galt's Gulch, it's immediately obvious that it needs a *heck of a lot* more people to function than the handful of supermen that have been invited to live there. We drive by a hillside dotted with identical log cabins. Who built them? Galt says everyone spends "the first night" with him. They then apparently build themselves a log cabin the next day, so they have somewhere to sleep the second night. Everyone knows how to fly a plane and a helicopter, so I guess it's not surprising that they can all build a cabin from scratch in a day.

When Dagny arrives at the party at Midas Mulligan's house, the driveway is lined with luminaries. Are we really expected to believe the the greatest banker in the world spent they afternoon daintily putting little candles in paper bags? At the party, we catch a brief glimpse of a bartender. Galt said everyone was invited and everyone had taken the pledge, so are we to assume that this guy was there because he was the absolutely greatest bartender in the world? What about the two guys we see disappearing into Francisco's mine? Where did they come from?

That brings up another issue. A lot of these people have skills that are of questionable value in this new utopia. Francisco appears to be starting a major Copper mining operation, but there are like 100 people and they already have electricity, so how much of a copper market is there going to be? Also, Wyatt is an oil tycoon, but why would they need oil with Galt's magic motor? Also, are people really going to keep paying *one actress* to act over and over again? This list goes on and on.

Rand believes that her supermen will succeed at whatever they do, but history has plenty of examples of people who were very successful at one thing and then failed utterly when they tried their hand at something else.

At least the professor realized that no one needs a philosopher in a place where everyone already agrees on everything, so he wisely became a vintner. This was a smart move, because if you notice, everyone in this movie drinks a lot.

The questions pretty quickly start to tumble over each other.

The fact is, when people get rich, the *first* thing they do is start paying other people to do the things they don't want to do themselves. I'm a long way from rich, and even *I* have a cleaning woman and landscapers.

Obviously, there must be lots of other people in Galt's Gulch to make it run that Rand doesn't feel it's worth mentioning, who are willing to work for whatever the supermen are willing to pay them. I wonder, did they each get to stay in Galt's house the first night, or get hired and paid in advance on the spot? If they complain about the pay, the supermen know they can alway bring in more of these people from the outside who will be happy to get it.

If this sounds familiar, it's basically the plot of Grapes of Wrath - a book I'm sure Rand wasn't too fond of.

[–] SuperDevilDoctor 10 years ago

Who, you ask?

Why, the Untermenschen, of course.

And they never stay at Galt's house... They are immediately assigned a bunk at the workers' barracks.

Send her to the snakes!

[–] ejonconrad 10 years ago

That was sort of what I guessed.

[–] Sirus_51 10 years ago

Yeah that got me going to.

In fact I posted that there would be another class of people doing the stuff the so called Elite could not.

Cleaning,baking, raising cattle as such. Transport etc, its the only logical answer I could think off.

A second class the maintains the lifestyle of Galt and his special ones.

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In a fair universe, we would all be better people.

[–] gabby_bm 10 years ago

cooking, cleaning, scrubbing toilets? Really? This is the work the non-educated can do for minimum wage. It's not brain surgery. Jeez!

As a greedy, wealthy business owner who paid his poor, poor minions minimum wage, even *I* was capable of cleaning a toilet and often cleaned up puke in the bathroom. I'm sure if John galt can build such a brilliant motor the guy's quite capable of building a chair.

Many of the activities in the gulch were a result of bartering. ANd I know that Dagny spent some time cleaning Galt's house in trade for room and board- and she also traded services with someone else to buy a gift for Galt.

I understand perceptions of "the elite" in today's world is far different than the way things used to be- where people actually worked, learned and rose up in a company rather than today where we see a CEO of Pepsi become a CEO of Apple Computers.

I'm not sure how Rand would write her "Atlas Shrugged" novel to fit into today's environment. But I imagine it wouldn't be remotely the same book even if it contained the same ideas behind it.

**WARNING: MY POSTS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS**
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[–] ejonconrad 10 years ago

OK, you've cleaned toilets, but did you install the toilet, and the plumbing, and the electrical, and build the house, and pave the road leading to the house? That doesn't leave a lot of time to start a business.

[–] gabby_bm 10 years ago

I did install one of the toilets and did SOME plumbing and electrical. But no, I didn;t build the building nor pave the roads. I concur that wouldn;t leave a lot of time to start and grow a business- which is why I traded goods and services in exchange for some of the work I couldn;t do (or didn;t want to do) Hell, that's why I hired other people- so I wouldn;t have to be at work 20 hours a day. Lazy, greedy business owner that I was.

I understand what you're saying and for a start-up community like Galt's Gulch, I'm certain it would resemble a hippie commune (without as much pot and mediocre guitar players) far more than how Rand presented it.
And obviously the Gulchers didn;t walk into the valley empty-handed. I'm sure they brought many things with them. But this book (and movie) wasn;t meant to be a How-To book on starting your own Capitalist Commune.
But it's surprising how many people take this book as literally as the Bible.

...or maybe it's not surprising at all.

**WARNING: MY POSTS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS**
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[–] ejonconrad 10 years ago

Yeah, that was the point. If she said these people didn't think they were being treated well and decided to go off and play in the woods, it would actually make some sense, but the notion you can build an industrial society consisting only of inventors, artists, great thinkers, and captains of industry is totally ludicrous. By the time you bring in all the other people you need - and take away all the labor laws - then you' ve basically got 19th century America, and from that point, there's really no reason to believe things would play out any differently than they did. There's certainly no reason to believe they would better in any way.

Rand had some very good points to make, but her absolute and simplistic point of view was falls apart pretty quickly under any sort of reasonable analysis.

I do, however, greatly admire her independent mind. I wonder how she's feel about the generations sycophants she's spawned who mindlessly parrot every word she said, and - as you say - treat AS as their inerrant Bible.

[–] gabby_bm 10 years ago

I think she wanted to present Galt's Gulch as some sort of early industrialized society replete with artists, craftsmen and innovators of design and engineering because this is the type of commune she would most like to fantasize about. It's not that much different than today's people who fantasize about living in the "Leave it to Beaver" world, ignoring the truth about 1950's society which wasn't all sock hops, pretty cars and polite, respectful children.

It's good to read it as a blueprint for individualist thinking. I think that's important for people to understand- that even though we live in a society, from birth to death the only one we can control and have control over is ourselves and our ultimate responsibility IS to ourselves first. That doesn't HAVE to mean economically, of course. It boils down to one's pursuit of happiness, be it Sam Walton or Mother Theresa. Find your joy, your passion and your happiness and pursue that (and if you can market that, even better) You own yourself and no one has a right to any part of you. Ultimately that is what Rand was writing about. The other 1,098 pages are simply filler.

I have to laugh whenever these boards get that inevitable post that says "we need a John Galt" or "We need a "Galt's Gulch. I'd move there in a heartbeat!" to which I can't help but respond with, "So, you want to leech and mooch off someone else's initiative and risk, rather than becoming John Galt yourself?"

Yeah, so many followers of Rand miss the point completely. Those crazy little Atlas Thumpers...

**WARNING: MY POSTS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS**
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[–] ejonconrad 10 years ago

Rand did have some good things to say, but for me the most disappointing thing about her writing is she never rally addressed how do deal with disagreements. I know that Atlas Shrugged isn't meant to be taken literally (a surprising number of people don't realize that), but it was meant to represent her idea of the basis of an ideal society, so it's striking how many gaping holes she left in her logic.

Right out of the gate, an important question comes up: who get's invited to Galt's Gulch? The book just tacitly accepts that Galt decides and everyone agrees, but these are *all* alpha dogs, who would be extremely unlikely to simply acquiesce to someone else's judgment. I'm sure everyone had opinions about who should be there, and it's naive in the extreme to believe they would all agree. Pretty soon, the valley fills up and you have to ask how land allocation is dealt with, etc, etc.

The fact is, there's no real conflict anywhere in her writings. Sometimes it takes a while to convince her characters to take their rightful place as masters of the universe, but once that happen,s they all agree on *absolutely everything*, and there's never any discussion about what would happen if they didn't. Sure, some people disapprove of Ragnar's decision to be a pirate, but they just agree to disagree about that one and it doesn't really matter as far as anything else is concerned.

Rand believed that once people understood what she had to say, everyone would agree. not just in broad strokes, but in every particular. She paid lip service to free thinking and open discourse, but in practice, she was extremely autocratic and would brook no dissension from her underlings. You see this a lot in her true believers. Look through these discussions, and see how many times people say "you clearly don't understand". If you say "I do understand, but I don't agree", their quiver is basically empty.

As far as her enlightened sexual attitudes, she failed miserably to apply them in her own life. When she and Nathaniel Brandon started knocking boots, she demanded that both of their spouses accept it, but when he dumped her for his next wife, she reacted like a jilted school girl, denouncing them in public and trying to "kick them out of the club".

You can invent all sorts of Utopias if you're allowed to say "OK, let's start by agreeing I'm right about absolutely everything". It's just not very realistic.

[–] me-1523 9 years ago

It's because Rand believed that if everyone used reason properly, everyone would naturally come to the same conclusions therefore no disagreements would ever occur. It just so happened that those rational conclusions were the same conclusions that Rand arrived at, she considering herself the most rational being in existence. And if you disagreed with her, it meant that you were wrong, and quite possibly insane, evil or stupid.

She hated contradictions and she hated nuance. She was certain that reason, sufficiently employed, ought to come up with one answer and one answer only for things. It just didn't occur to her that people could use reason to come to many different answers with none of them being completely right or completely wrong. That just didn't compute to her.

[–] gabby_bm 9 years ago

It just didn't occur to her that people could use reason to come to many different answers with none of them being completely right or completely wrong. That just didn't compute to her.

But if it's rational, reasoned and logical, then they have to be completely, flawlessly right. And if they are not then there's a flaw in the reasoning because there can be only one answer. It's mathematical. A is A.

So naturally, unless Rand can be proven wrong, her reasoned, flawlessly logical solution must be the correct one.

(in theory? LOL)

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[–] me-1523 9 years ago

And she employed it for everything, even matters of taste. Music, art, fashion, culture, style -- all these things could be deduced and evaluated rationally. Including smoking. Rand loved smoking and rationally justified it even after lung cancer deteriorated her health. And if you hated smoking, you were wrong. Because she used reason and you did not. If you used reason, you would come to the correct understanding that smoking was good.

Yes. Her pathos was that awful. You could not argue with her. Or you could, but she was always right.

And let me be clear: Rand was not closed-minded. She was always open and accepting of superior ideas. It just so happened that the only superior ideas were hers.

[–] gmoxie 9 years ago

This is an interesting conversation. Thanks for starting it.

Three things:
1. Rand's background is revealing in that her extreme views were born of her experiences as a young teenager. At that youthful age she saw everything taken from her father, a hard working successful and wealthy businessman (or was it doctor), when the Bolchevik Revolution occurred. The unfairness of this left a lasting and deep impression on her throughout her life.

2. I think that people often think of mathematics as "there's one answer." As a mathematician the part I like the most is that "there is not one answer." That is, 2+2 is not always 4 -- it depends on the base you use. The angles of a triangle add to 180 degrees only in plain geometry but if it's eliptic space, the sum of the angles always exceed 180, and if it's hyperbolic space, the sum is always less than 180. The assumptions and the definition of the universe (or you could say the perspective you hold) makes all the difference.

3. I saw Galt's Gulch as pretty much egalitarian. That is, whatever you do, there is not a hierarchy.

Whereas outside the Gulch there was a definite structured hierarchy where certain people had the power and others were low employees bossed around and highly taxed. The movie clearly demonstrated how people in that environment thought that anyone could be tempted (even Galt) by being offered a high position with a lot of power. Galt was not tempted and did not want power.

So basically everyone brought to the Gulch needed to buy into that philosophy of not wanting to be a boss and not wanting power over others. Going along with that, I think the assumption is that people were willing to do a lot of different things (and help each other building houses, for example, even though it was not their career expertise) because they were so extremely happy with the freedom they also enjoyed. Think about it this way -- A lot of people in our society do volunteer work -- they probably also have a career but when doing the volunteer work they don't get paid and they may do a lot of menial tasks, but they do it with a good attitude. I think this is what was behind what made the Gulch work. Further, the philosophy is not - let the sick and less able starve. The philosophy is the freedom to choose to help (aka volunteerism). This is in stark contrast to having what Rand thought was the heavy hand of government take that freedom and choice away. I guess it comes down to having confidence in the goodness of people to help each other voluntarily.

That said, I have known people who think volunteer work is stupid. Some people would never be able to function in an egalitarian environment because what seems to drive them is the need for power and to control others, and whenever they have the opportunity, to take advantage of others - get the upper hand. This does not even get into the money issue. Outside the Gulch it was not equal distribution of wealth -- the powerful got their big cut first, and then it was those lower in the hierarchy who were told they had to work to their fullest but could receive only according to their need - based on what the bureaucracy determined.

[–] ejonconrad 9 years ago

So basically everyone brought to the Gulch needed to buy into that philosophy of not wanting to be a boss and not wanting power over others.

It's really easy to design Utopias if you start by saying "As long as everyone agrees that...". Building Utopias out of real humans is a bit more complicated.

There's most definitely a hierarchy in Rand's books, and everyone gets along *as long as they accept it*. The most obvious hierarchy in this story is the hierarchy of "who Dagny has sex with", in which Galt>Hank>Fransisco - and they're all just fine with that, because they all agree on the pecking order. As I've pointed out elsewhere, Rand failed almost comically at living up to these standards in her own life. When she and Nathaniel Brandon started having an affair, they expected their spouses to accept it, but when Brandon went back to his wife, Rand behaved like a lovesick middle schooler, and started a public smear campaign against him - hardly the cool sophistication of her characters.

The signs of a hierarchy were all over the Gulch. For example, the most basic question is "Who gets invited to come here?". John Galt said that Hank would be the last person - indicating that he was in charge of the guest list, but later, Dagny just decides to swing by and pick up her assistant. Everyone accepted it because clearly "she was with John".

Do you really think that woman selling coffee at the farmer's market would be allowed to invite whomever she wanted? No, she knows she's below the "true" elites, but she's happy just to live within the framework set by them.

What about the bartender at Mulligan's party? Was he invited to Gulch because he was the world's greatest bartender? No, the rich people didn't want to have to pour their own drinks (and if you notice, they drank a *lot* in this movie).

Philosophy aside, the real problem with Rand's books as literature is that there's never any true conflict or character development. There are basically "looters" (Mouch, Jim Taggart, etc), "producers who already agree with Ayn Rand about everything" (John Galt, Francisco), and "producers who don't quite yet agree with Ayn Rand about everything" (Dagny, Reardon, etc). The "character development" involves the ones aren't quite sure about things being lectured by the ones that are, after which they agree with each other - and with Ayn Rand, of course - about *absolutely everything*. There's never any real discussion about how to handle it if that doesn't happen, because - like most narcissists - Rand believed she was so obviously right that she couldn't conceive of a logical person disagreeing with her.

[–] bek-12 9 years ago

I find these movies pretty entertaining (never read the book), but to me the most interesting thing about Rand is that after all her railing against socialism, she lived on social security in her old age. That says a lot.

[–] gabby_bm 9 years ago

I would find her hypocritical had she not paid any money into the system. But to get your money back from the system makes sense.

She would probably call it immoral to NOT get your money back!

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[–] bek-12 9 years ago

I find her hypocritical that she would even USE such a system.

[–] gabby_bm 9 years ago

I think she would have opted out of using it had she been given the choice. But since, from her perspective, the government unethically took her property, she had no moral choice but to take her property back.

I don’t need you to tell me how good my coffee is.. 
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[–] !!!deleted!!! (6571724) 9 years ago

You seriously thing socialism and social security are the same thing? How are you still breathing?

[–] bek-12 9 years ago

You seriously thing socialism and social security are the same thing? How are you still breathing?

I'm breathing because I'm good at life, kid. How about you tell me why you think social security isn't socialistic?

[–] DeniP 7 years ago

There is a big difference between "socialism and social security are not the same thing" and "social security isn't socialistic". Do not substitute other people's words and then ask them why are they saying that. They did not.

[–] bek-12 7 years ago

I would never change the meaning of someone else's sentence. Social security is VERY socialistic.

The problem we've got in the USA is that people think socialism is evil, EXCEPT for the parts of socialism we have implemented and love, like social security. Now those people are trying to decry social security as not socialistic in nature. Which is an amazing statement. But we can't have something rooted in socialism that we love, while screaming that socialism is evil. It just doesn't work.

[–] cutty2000 9 years ago

Gah, this is a huge straw man used to critique Rand/Libertarians. Rand never said that everyone had to do everything. Hank Rearden had employees. Taggart Transcontinental had engineers and such. Howard Rourke had masons and plumbers work on his buildings. Why the constant insistence that these people had to literally do everything? Who is making that claim?

The argument that employers need the labor is just as valid as the argument that labor needs the employers. That's how things like the dark ages even happened...You think there was a labor shortage? Not enough arms to swing hammers? There were plenty of arms to swing hammers, the problem was that no one knew what to swing the hammers AT.

So in these analogies, the people cleaning the toilets are the people who's highest possible attainable level of contribution, when working to the best of their abilities, is that they can clean toilets, and well. You all know someone like this...maybe a little slow, traditionally, but able and proud of their craft (even if it's toilet cleaning) Who DOESN'T get to work there are the guys that think they can show up 2 hours late to work, do a half-assed cleaning job (yay puns!), and think that they are entitled to double overtime pay and free vacation days because of the incredibly virtuous ability they have to breathe air and hold their hands out.

I mean, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of aspects of Rand's work worthy of ridicule...so much so that we don't need to make any up.

A lot of this has to do with 'conservation of detail', her main characters are all 'supermen' and not janitors for the same reason that the main characters in nearly any book/film are supermen and not janitors...who wants to watch a bunch of janitors walk around being quietly competent?

[–] bek-12 9 years ago

I wondered if this was the explanation, but it wasn't a big problem for me to guess that might be the answer.

The more pertinent question for me is... how is the pay structure working for these CEOs, now that the pool of customers has become extremely small? I mean, everyone needs a toilet, so whoever is making the toilets in the "real world" must make a nice profit. In Galt's Gulch, how many people are there? Is it still profitable to make a toilet if you are designing and making them for 1000 customers, rather than millions? And is one person supposed to make this toilet? I mean, there are designers, engineers, and porcelain experts involved... is one person supposed to have all the skill necessary? If not, then now you have the profit divided amongst X number of creators, so there's even less to go around!

And how much would you charge now that your profit margin can't be small, but must be fairly large in order to make a living? And what happens to those great thinkers when they get to Galt's Gulch and they find out that their particular skill isn't needed, as nearly happened with Dagny (and yet still may, as her usefulness seems fairly limited in the third movie). What do they do... former millionaires drop down and do menial labor tasks, and they're supposed to be happy? I doubt they would.

Seems to me Rand's entire theory falls apart upon any sort of scrutiny.

[–] ejonconrad 10 years ago

It's probably more of a spectrum than a second class. Rand's Utopia depends critically on everyone knowing their place. At the top, you have Francisco, Hank, and John all cheerfully acknowledging and accepting their relative ranking vis-a-vis banging Dagny - because powerful, successful men are *always* very mature about that sort of thing, right? You know the actress will never make a play for the alpha dog because she knows her place relative to Dagny, and so on and so on.

Lower on the scale, you have people who - of course - still believe everything Rand says, but they accept that they're not o on the same level as the people at the top, so they're happy to do menial work for them for whatever they're willing to pay them. Certainly, it would never occur to them to unionize or pass labor laws, because that would be wrong.

[–] Huskie_Jon 10 years ago

In the book, it mentions that Taggart Transcontinental has a union that gets along quite well with Dagney.

Just as any end-of-the-world or disaster movie will reduce the whole perspective to just a handful of people (How does Tom Cruise's little family deal with the Martian invasion?), Atlas Shrugged shows most everything from the view of Dagney Taggart and the people with whom she interacts, namely, the rich and powerful. In the world of Atlas Shrugged, there are two kinds of rich and powerful: the movers and shakers, and the mouchers and takers.

There are hints that not all of the enlightened achievers are multi-millionaires. Eddie Willers was only a middle manager. And there was the switch operator who called him to tell him there was going to be a problem.

I was disappointed that the movies glossed over the character Cherryl Brooks. She was oriented to achievement, but without Dangey's deep pockets.

I would guess that the toilet cleaners of Galt's Gulch take great pride in their craft. Not everyone can be an architect. Someone has to be the carpenter.

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A dope trailer is no place for a kitty.

[–] a-mar 10 years ago

It's been a while since I read the books, but I'm pretty sure Rand held manual labor in high regard. Most of her characters were willing to take "lesser" jobs if the work was pure and needed to be done. In the Gulch, consider this line from Andrew Stockton:

"Then somebody could put you out of business, too?"

"Sure. Any time. I know one man who could and probably will, when he gets here. But, boy! – I'd work for him as a cinder sweeper. He'd blast through this valley like a rocket. He'd triple everybody's production."

A "cinder sweeper" would be comparable to your toilet cleaner, so that's an example of a guy who doesn't mind moving down the chain. He understands that it's not a caste system and there's no virtue in being the boss if you don't deserve it. If everyone does the best they can, expecting a reward appropriate for what they do, they're all better off.

Other examples of people taking jobs "beneath" them are Galt working in the Taggart Transcontinental tunnels, the professor you mention becoming a vintner, and quite dramatically Howard Roark in The Fountainhead choosing to be a laborer than have his architectural designs get abused.

Now maybe you don't see that in the movie because they didn't want to cast a thousand people in the Gulch and those wouldn't be the story drivers anyway. But this isn't something Rand overlooked. She didn't assume the world only needs artists and inventors.

Also regarding how many people were invited, an aspect of the Atlas Shrugged world is that there weren't many people willing to work. Dagny in particular said often that she couldn't find good employees no matter how much she offered them. So it's not like Galt could "always bring in more of these people from the outside". In this world they don't exist.

Now if you want to compare it to reality, that's on you. It's fiction, and not every detail needs to line up for the morals to be comparable. And we should probably be glad that our world doesn't match the Atlas Shrugged dystopia and we don't need a Galt to lead our strike. But I wouldn't let that stop you from pulling out the message and appreciating it for what it is.

[–] ejonconrad 10 years ago

Rand appreciates manual labor, as long as they (and everyone else) is 100% on board with her philosophy. They would never form a government, levy taxes, institute a minimum wage, etc.

Clearly, the workers must outnumber the elites by a significant margin, so the population would actually be pretty large - too large for everything to just "work out". The elites would either have to resort to force to make everyone follow their rules, or be prepared for a government to form with which they might not agree.

Because it's a closed economy, the guys who arrived with lots of gold would have a significant advantage over anyone trying to work their way up and the society would stratify very quickly. Rand believed that industrious people relish the opportunity to compete in an open and free market, but historically, that *never* happens. Once someone establishes a market for themselves the first thing they do is try to shut competitors out. That's not evil; it's just good business. We and all other first world countries have laws to limit how far they can go in that regard, but Rand famously believed such laws are unnecessary, so there would be no laws against monopolies, price fixing, predatory pricing, etc. If someone tried to open a bank to compete with Midas or a mine to compete with Francisco, there are plenty of ways they could be edged out.

Eventually, people would get tired of this and want to establish some sort of control over things to prevent that from happening. For example, we're told that Midas bought the valley, but *that was under the laws of the US*, which they no longer recognize. People could decide it was time to reallocate it.

If you follow any of this to its logical conclusion, you realize it's really not unique. This scenario has played out countless times in human history.

You can design all sort of Utopias if you start by stipulating that everyone agrees on everything all the time, but in her own way, Rand was every bit as naive as the those that believe people will work hard with no personal reward.

[–] Huskie_Jon 9 years ago

Perhaps John Galt, or one of the other geniuses in Galt's Gulch could invent a self-cleaning toilet. Of course, in order to operate the toilet, you must make an audible promise to wipe your own ass.

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[–] me-1523 9 years ago

The problem isn't the menial labor. The problem is the time the menial labor consumes.

Let's be fair: No capitalist in a post-apocalyptic society can really do any of the real gruntwork that makes society function -- the farmers and garbage crews and janitors and sewage cleaners and miners and lumberjacks and oil workers and all the dirty, disgusting jobs that are too difficult and too hazardous for any "captain of industry" to want to spend 99% of their waking energy doing (and most don't have the physical constitution to do them anyway).

Even if you want to grant the ones who ran their industrial companies the inherent knowledge and experience of each and every one of the hundreds of specialist occupations that their companies employed, like they were all Tony Stark on steroids, that still doesn't solve the problem of maximizing their time. If you have a genius composer, do you really want him wasting his time tilling the fields 14 hours a day instead of writing symphonies? Even if he is the best farmhand in the world?

See, the truth is the builders and geniuses of the world need a disposable underclass to do the work that is too demanding otherwise they wouldn't have the free time to do their genius things. In other words: The Eddie Willers of the world don't need Dagny to run a train corporation. But Dagny needs an army of Eddies to run one.

This is an important point that Objectivists continuously fail to understand: In order for any apex civilization to pursue higher qualities like art and science, it must first employ an underclass to take care of it, freeing up time to engage in these high pursuits. In order to obtain such an underclass, it must invade its neighbors. In order to invade its neighbors, it must have a really good army.

No high civilization is ever benign. Every one celebrates its noble accomplishments on the backs of cheap labor exploited by tyrannies of chauvinistic patriarchies, and an Objectivist society that does not do this will not have the time or the power to accomplish anything at all. The fruits of man's genius will be devoured by manual labor.

And that is why Galt's Gulch is such an unrealistic failure.

[–] gabby_bm 9 years ago

And that is why Galt's Gulch is such an unrealistic failure.

i won't argue it's a fantasy. But wasn't the contention that the physical labor, the menial tasks would be performed by the best in their respective fields? The best craftsmen, thatchers, toilet scrubbers and textilers? Then people would trade and barter accordingly? So Galt wouldn;t necessarily have to spend his waking hours building a broom and installing indoor plumbing with a self-crafted toilet. He would trade his highly desired engineering expertise with a commode-craftsman and plumber for what he needed.

Or logically, he would trade gold. Otherwise it would take every waking moment to finagle a bartering deal between twenty parties to acquire what one needed from someone who didn;t need what you had to offer. What the hell is Jimmy the tattoo artist going to do with a symphony when he really just wants to rock?

I guess that would explain why Galt needed to wait for the world to collapse outside the Gulch so he could get his hands on some cheap, desperate menial labor...

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[–] me-1523 9 years ago

No, because you still run into a "too many chiefs, not enough indians" problem.

You need far more labor to mine/smelt/farm/dig/axe the raw resources than you need geniuses to explain what to do with the resources. At least 10 to 1.

If Galt's Gulch wants to keep its tech level at a post-industrial clip, it needs a disposable labor class to do the jobs that are too demanding and too hazardous. Every civilization in history did this. Nowhere in the book or the movie does Rand even hint at the existence of such a class. It's all leaders, no labor. The resources just magically appears and Galt is never seen working.

Dagny shows up and starts geniusing how to build a train line which includes bridges, trusses, and dynamiting a mountain. So she is going to do all that personally, by herself? Are the plumbers and craftsmen and thatchers and cobblers interested in putting down everything and laying rail 14 hours a day for a few months?

(In Randworld, yes. Because her ubermensches are champions at everything they do and they never struggle or fail. One even became a short order cook at a truckstop diner and damned if he didn't make the BEST TASTING BURGER OF ALL TIME!)

Does a composer really want to til the fields all day or write symphonies? Do you think the latter will suffer because of his dedication to the former?

See, specialization and division of labor is the miracle of all highly complex societies and Rand just doesn't go there. She thinks industry just happens, and without Galt to punch granite into ore with his bare hands, no one can get anything done. Pig iron production can get done without Galt. What's needed is not the vision and inspiration. What's needed is the labor.

And gold as a currency? eugh... there are so many things wrong with that, but that's a discussion for another time.

[–] gabby_bm 9 years ago

Well, no. Because you select the best lumberjacks, lawn-mowers, tireless ditch-diggers and granite-busters in their fields.

Of course the research to find the best of the best of the menial-class would take a lifetime- and that's provided you knew enough about lumberjacking and ditch-digging to be able to identify the best of the best.

you don;t always need a laborer. Some things a person can do on their own. Plenty of do-it-yourselfers handle their own repairs and improvements. It helps to have the very best drywall manufacturers instead of crafting drywall yourself on the kitchen table.

Vision and inspiration are important. These things created lightbulbs, pants and medicines. But to produce such things on a larger scale, I would agree needing more laborers is what helps build a community and a society.

but this idea isn't something that escapes Rand's "Utopia". It's simply not addressed directly. But between the lines we can read (with Kellogg's(?) recruitment) that it's not just the top tier, the captains of industry that are in the Gulch, but the industrious themselves- people who are inspired to be great at what they do, not because it's expected of them but because it's expected BY them.

This was, I believe, the ideology that Rand tried to get across: it doesn;t matter if you shovel sh^t all your life. But enjoy doing it and be the best sh^t-shoveler you can possibly be. The world needs sh^t-shovelers and (like in the case of Kellogg) they will come to you to get the best.

Now, of course, this was written a long time ago when quality was still king- long before cheap and disposable were the preference of the masses.
Cheap and disposable.... In today's world, it's not only in products and services, but in people as well.

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[–] me-1523 9 years ago

Cheap and disposable has always been the mandate/preference of the masses. Don't pretend that the past was some idyllic era where quality and contribution mattered.

And remember that the era you idolize.... Rand did not. She idolized an even earlier era -- the Guilded Age -- where life was even cheaper and more disposable, and workplace deaths occurred daily. But hey, it had none of those pesky business regulations.

And that's the fatal flaw with Rand: The system she espouses, and desires, and champions... does not, and can not, exist. There are many contradictory reasons why, enough to write a whole book about them, so let me just focus on one of the more troubling ones: Non-conflict in a resource-scarce situation.

Rand wrote as if resources were infinite and anyone can become a Titan of Capitalism by seizing them and ripping them out of the ground. But resources are not infinite, so not everyone can get them, and what's even worse: There's no competition for them. Rand's ubermensches never fight each other even when it's in their best interests to do so (for instance: Wyatt and Galt should hate each other, since the latter's magic motor will eliminate demand for the former's oil reserves. The success of their businesses are diametric opposites). They don't fight over limited resources or competitive market share in business, and they don't even fight over relationships. Why Galt, Reardon and D'Anconia didn't fight each other over Dagny is one of the more anti-climactic conflicts in the book.

Rand has explicitly shown her ubermensches to be absolutely unscrupulous in taking whatever they want and not sharing any of it while warning everyone to get out of their way. So why does this not apply to Dagny (or any woman)?

Dagny has three lovers throughout the course of the book. They can't share her because it's antithetical to Objectivist principles (and I don't think Rand had much affinity for polygamy). They can't let Dagny choose because, according to Rand, sex/love is about seizing what's yours and possessing the object of your desire (god forbid Objectivism should ever consider consensus and compromise in anything, even relationships). And they can't fight over her until one man is left because force is bad. I suppose maybe they could haggle over her like an auction, but that's tantamount to slavery and hence anti-freedom.

So Hank, Francisco and John are stuck adhering to principles of an inherently contradictory philosophy, facing a problem that's not solvable unless they violate those principles. How does Rand write her way out of this one?

Oh, John Galt gets her. Just like that, ipso facto. Hank and Francisco don't fight, don't complain, don't argue, don't plead their case, don't even seek alternatives. For the first time, they stop short of seizing what they feel is rightfully theirs, step aside and lay the matter to rest.

It's one of the more infuriating conflict resolutions in the entire book because it is a complete about-face for these men. The book has been building up to this moment. It just spent 700 pages telling us that these men always get everything they want, everything goes their way, and they never lose. These are titans of reason -- irresistible forces and immovable objects completely impervious to failure -- and here when it seems they're finally going up against each other..... they don't. Because letting another man have Dagny is the selfish thing to do?

Love is a complicated thing and I don't think for a second that Hank and Francisco can just flip a switch and turn off their desire for Dagny so that Galt can have her. I'm imagining them in the future working harmoniously in Galt's Gulch, and they see Dagny -- their soulmate, the love of their life, the woman they've been looking for all their lives -- every day, and instead of seizing her like they usually do, they remain hands off, and they stay secure in the knowledge that she beds another man every night. And they're alright with that. No, it doesn't eat them up inside at all. Definitely not. They're happy for her. No really, they are. They're happy, dammit. They're happy visualizing Galt ripping off her bodice and pressing her hard into the mattress while they sleep alone. Every. Single. Night....

[–] gregorioos 9 years ago

Actually, I believe that Dagny Taggart offered to act as John Galt's housemaid, so I doubt that any of the community felt either too proud or too busy to get their hands dirty.

The real problem that I had with the book was that Galt and friends were like gods. There was nothing that they could not turn their hands to, which made them nothing like real lifecapitalists. Andrew Carnegie, the iron and steel baron, was inclined to say that if he wanted knowledge, he bought it. Steve Jobs, who effectively built Apple Computer, probably couldn't even program.

[–] ejonconrad 9 years ago

Actually, I believe that Dagny Taggart offered to act as John Galt's housemaid, so I doubt that any of the community felt either too proud or too busy to get their hands dirty.

Yes, she was supposedly employed to work around Galt's house, but then she spent all day checking out the town and going to parties. Nice work if you can get it.

As for the rest, not only could they build houses, pave roads, and fly planes and helicopters, but the Doctor apparently made the custom ASICs for his little diagnostic thingy himself - presumably carving them out of the copious "Colorado Redwoods".

[–] me-1523 9 years ago

Don't remember that diagnostic thingy in the book, but the sheer number of devices that Rand's heroes invent out of nothing borders on ludicrous. Including Galt's perpetual motion machine. I mean, if you're going that far to prove your philosophy right, why not go all the way and make Galt fart magical rainbows and unicorns that provide all the parts and tools he needs.

This goes back to the "you didn't build that" comment Obama made that the libertarians objected to, which is somewhat right but kind of wrong. If it takes 100 steps to bring a product from conception to completion, ALL OF US are just 1 of these steps. Some of us may be more than 1, but in Randworld her heroes are 99 of them.

Even if you want to grant their omnicompetence, that still doesn't solve the problem of time management. Look around you. Every device you see in your room got there by way of millions of man hours and thousands of highly specialized occupations, from designers and planners to fabricators, manufacturers, artists, marketing, shipping, and sales. We each have our role in this process: We add our own value to things and then pass it on to the next specialist. In other words: We are all standing on the shoulders of giants.

Let's take a realistic look at what Galt needs to do to build his magical motor from scratch.

First, he would have to go into the hills and mine his own ore. But just ore by itself isn't very useful. He needs to smelt it to separate the iron, copper and tin, and to do that he needs to construct a special firing kiln because regular fire is not hot enough. To get a super hot furnace, he needs coke (no not the drug or the soft drink). It's super carbonated ash and the best coke is actually man-made highly refined petroleum coke, but since Galt doesn't have access to a petroleum refinery, he's going to have to find some natural sources of bituminous coal, which isn't as high quality but it'll do. Failing that, he can always make charcoal by cutting down some trees and burning them but it's even worse quality.

Fortunately, coal can be found all over the place but he has to know how to find it, how to mine it, how to purify it, and how to transport it. All these things require access to technology and distribution channels that he doesn't have.

But let's say he does. So Galt has the ore for smelting and he has the coke for burning. Oh, and he also needs some limestone flux as a fuel agent but let's say there's all sorts of it lying around Galt's Gulch anyway.

Now, Galt has to construct an airless blast furnace to get temperatures hot enough (up to 2000 degress) to smelt the ore. I won't go into the details of the different types of furnaces he's going to need to extract different metals like tin, lead and iron, so let's just focus on one for now. He also needs to construct a smokestack (preferably out of refractory brick -- who knows where he can get those from) for ventilation, bleeder valves to protect the top of the furnace from sudden gas pressure surges, a dust catcher to protect coarse particles from escaping and killing everyone in the enclave, and a few rail cars for delivery, waste, and disposal of elements (because the thing is damn hot and you can't get near it), a casthouse at the bottom of the furnace, a bustle pipe, copper tuyeres (at least four) and the equipment for casting the liquid iron and slag. And also tapholes (preferably more than one), skimmers, and a cooling system (water-based of course).

This is not a one-man job. He's going to need the entire population of Galt's Gulch x5 to construct it. I don't know what he could construct it out of, but let's pretend his hands can punch granite into concrete. And that no one minds manning the thing in perpetuity afterward.

All of this, just to turn his iron ore into pig iron. It's not even steel yet. Or anything useful.

There are still hundreds of more steps to go. Once he's got the steel, then he needs to make the casts. Then he pours the steel into the casts to create tools. He uses the tools to create machine tools (I'm glossing over this part, but the construction of machine tools is more complicated than smelting the ore. In fact, machine tools is probably the most important facet of industrialization. Without machine tools, you have no industrial society -- it's one of the reasons why the Greeks did not have an industrial revolution). He uses the machine tools to design, shape, and fabricate identical metal parts for his devices (nails, screws, nuts, bolts, rivets, etc... who knows if they're ISO compliant, but let's pretend Galt invented a new standard called the GSO and everyone in the Gulch accepted it because that's what Objectivists do -- follow others).

Then he can get down to actually inventing his magic motor with his bare hands. But he first needs to create -- from scratch -- about a dozen highly complex industries first, and he needs a chain of workers to keep them functioning all the time. Galt's Gulch is simply not built for that level of industrialization. It doesn't have the resources, it doesn't have the manpower, and it certainly doesn't have the industrious infrastructure.

[–] JohnJackson12 9 years ago

I haven't followed this whole discussion, but this movie is a silly example of Capitalism, I would not take it seriously and if these are the people who are the out there making the case for Capitalism, it's no wonder so many have turned against it.

[–] ejonconrad 9 years ago

Don't remember that diagnostic thingy in the book

Right after they take Dagny to Galt's house, the doctor pulls out something that looks like an iPad Mini. On the screen, you see an X-Ray of Dagny's leg and a little green "she's OK" indicator. He casually says something like "I invented this here. It's amazing what you can get done without government regulation."

If we deconstruct this like your example, it means at the very least, the good doctor is also a medical imaging physicist, electrical engineer, software developer, and has access to a custom chip foundry and electronics fabrication facility - or that all of these skills are somehow represented in this tiny rustic community.

The of the economy is also wrong. He went to all the work to develop this. Now what? There's no one the sell it to. Given the size of the community, he'd get to use it once every few weeks at most. Even if he charged huge fees, it doesn't make financial sense (which is all that matters in Galt's Gulch).

[–] me-1523 9 years ago

Yeah, I remember it in the movie, I don't remember it in the book.

But you're right: There is no medical community in Galt's Gulch therefore no commercial application for his device. And how the hell could he design, manufacture and fabricate all the materials for it anyway? From plastics to fiberglass to silicon to gold/copper relays to lithium batteries, etc... and where did he get the miniaturization facilities to make the microprocessor for it?

The overhead is ridiculous and the market is non-existent.

It's like taking your cell phone back to the stone age. Without the infrastructure in place, all our devices are just really fancy, intricately designed paperweights.

[–] ejonconrad 9 years ago

Yeah, I remember it in the movie, I don't remember it in the book.

It wasn't in the book. If I remember correctly, she didn't need a doctor in the book, she didn't crash land,right? She just followed Galt through through the "magic invisibility field" and landed safely. It took a leap of faith to follow him after he disappeared, but she was never in any actual danger.

The film makers added the little detail where Galt takes the woman he's been obsessing over his entire adult life and leads her to virtually certain death - which she escapes only through the sheerest of dumb luck. This does not move things in the direction of "more believable". (seriously, what are the odds of surviving a private jet crash?)

Normally I wouldn't go to this much trouble picking apart a movie. Lord knows I enjoy some pretty implausible movies. It's just that Rand-o-philes take this stuff *so* seriously, and really see it as a blueprint for "Utopia".

[–] gabby_bm 9 years ago

It's just that Rand-o-philes take this stuff *so* seriously, and really see it as a blueprint for "Utopia".

Would these be the same people who cry out "we need a John Galt", thereby completely missing the point of the novel?

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[–] ejonconrad 9 years ago

Would these be the same people who cry out "we need a John Galt", thereby completely missing the point of the novel?

Exactly. Whatever faults she had, Ayn Rand was an original and free thinker, so it's somewhat ironic that she's spawned generations of sycophants who mindlessly parrot everything she said.

I'd say this would offend her, but she was notoriously autocratic and had an ego the size of Jupiter, so she'd probably really dig it.

[–] me-1523 9 years ago

I wouldn't necessarily call her an original thinker. Her philosophy was a mix of Nietzsche, Aristotle and maybe some Machiavelli and Bertrand Russell for style points. It has staying power precisely because she did what all pop philosophers are wont to do: Tell rich and powerful people what they want to hear.

And I wouldn't necessarily call her a free thinker. She was a slave to her own childish self-centredness, and rather than learn (like we all do) that proper moral behavior is to be more considerate and understanding of others in order to integrate properly in social settings, she instead sought to rationalize why her impulsive desires should never be encumbered for any reason whatsoever.

[–] ejonconrad 9 years ago

And I wouldn't necessarily call her a free thinker. She was a slave to her own childish self-centredness, and rather than learn (like we all do) that proper moral behavior is to be more considerate and understanding of others in order to integrate properly in social settings, she instead sought to rationalize why her impulsive desires should never be encumbered for any reason whatsoever.

It was also rather entertaining to see how well she applied her high-minded "rational philosophies" to her own life. When she and Nathaniel Brandon hooked up, they expected both of their spouses to accept it. On the other hand, when Brandon dumped her and returned to his wife, Rand reacted like a heartbroken schoolgirl and launched a massive professional smear campaign against him. That's a far cry from, say, Hank being totally cool with it when Galt started banging Dagny.

[–] cutty2000 9 years ago

It has staying power precisely because she did what all pop philosophers are wont to do: Tell rich and powerful people what they want to hear.

Not going to try and defend Rand on a personal level here (indefensible position), but I find it interesting that many perceive her works to be pandering to the rich and powerful...maybe this is because of the co-opted association with the tea-party people and others of that ilk. To me, Rand always seemed to advocate for producers, regardless of their economic status (contrast Rourke in Fountainhead, basically broke for the entire book, with Rearden in Atlas, a big-money steel tycoon)

It seems like as long as you've gotten the money by the correct means (via productive effort as opposed to 'mooching'), she didn't care what you did with it or how much you had; it's your money. In our society today, there may be some producers at the top of the chain, but the richest of the rich aren't making things anymore, it's the bankers and wall street financiers that are the truly rich and powerful, and she couldn't have been more vehemently opposed to bankers, financiers, and crony capitalists in her writing. I would almost argue that her works have staying power despite the best efforts of the rich and powerful, the critics and the kingmakers, the 'liberal hollywood elite' and big money bankers to basically make reasonable consideration of her positions to be social suicide. Try to argue for the virtues of Rand and people look at you like you're suggesting it should be ok to marry 12 year olds, like you're a sociopath for not having a knee jerk 'Rand is the devil' reaction when she's brought up.

and rather than learn (like we all do) that proper moral behavior is to be more considerate and understanding of others in order to integrate properly in social settings, she instead sought to rationalize why her impulsive desires should never be encumbered for any reason whatsoever.

Again, her personal practice of her philosophy was flawed (quite the hypocrite) but this is another reading of Rand that I've always taken differently. The main point I always saw in Rand's work with regard to consideration and understanding of others was always centered around compulsion. If you are compelled through threat of force (fines, jail, garnishment of wages, social ostracism) to be understanding and compassionate, then you cannot do so...to her the very definition of compassion implied unfettered free will. This ties in to her main point vis a vis 'selfishness'. She gets a bad rap because she chose a word with negative connotations, perhaps in the misguided attempt to 'take back the word.' Her 'New Hat or Feed the Baby" example pretty much explains it. In a nutshell, a woman has a choice between buying a new hat and feeding her baby. By most people's definition of 'selfish', the selfish act would be for the woman to buy the new hat, but by Rand's definition, that would only be the case if the woman valued the hat more than the baby. If you love the baby more than the hat, then it is in your best interest to feed the baby; in that instance, feeding the baby is the selfish act because it benefits you more to feed it than it is to buy the hat.

To put it another way, if helping those in need made you feel crappy instead of good, then no one would do it. So it's actually 'selfish' to give a dollar to a bum, because the good feeling you derive from that gift is greater than the dollar is worth. It's just people not understanding the nature of their value judgement that leads to confusion.

[–] gabby_bm 9 years ago

Excellent presentation of "selfishness". I wish more people understood this.

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[–] cutty2000 9 years ago

Tell me about it. I feel like it's one of those instances where two people are saying the same thing but neither one realizes it, so they just argue semantics until they're blue in the face because one can't get over the word 'selfish' and the other can't get over the fact that the first one sees obviously 'selfish' acts as 'selfless'.

[–] me-1523 9 years ago

And yet, not a single person in her books does these things nor does she.

You cannot "take Rand differently". You must have a complete and total buy-in to her philosophy to the exact letter, with no room for interpretation, deviation, addition or alteration. If you disagree with any single part of it, you disagree with all of it, and in her eyes that means you are either insane, evil, or stupid.

[–] ejonconrad 9 years ago

You cannot "take Rand differently". You must have a complete and total buy-in to her philosophy to the exact letter, with no room for interpretation, deviation, addition or alteration. If you disagree with any single part of it, you disagree with all of it, and in her eyes that means you are either insane, evil, or stupid.

That's why even if you leave the "philosophy" aside, her books are simply awful literature. There's no genuine conflict or development. There are basically four types of characters:
- unredeemable looters (Cuffy Meigs, Dagny's brother)
- elites who realize and accept they are elites (John Galt, Howard Roark)
- elites who don't yet realize they are elites (Dagny, Hank Reardon, Gail Weinand)
- lesser sycophants who are not elites, but believe in them and would never loot from them (Dagny's assistant)

The "development" always involves the reluctant elites accepting their true place. After that, everyone agrees on *absolutely everything* - including who gets to bang whom. It's neither realistic nor particularly interesting.

[–] ejonconrad 9 years ago

Not going to try and defend Rand on a personal level here (indefensible position), but I find it interesting that many perceive her works to be pandering to the rich and powerful...maybe this is because of the co-opted association with the tea-party people and others of that ilk. To me, Rand always seemed to advocate for producers, regardless of their economic status (contrast Rourke in Fountainhead, basically broke for the entire book, with Rearden in Atlas, a big-money steel tycoon)

Her fantasy belief is that rich "producers" would prefer to hang out with poor producers rather than rich "looters". For example, Midas Mulligan owns all the land in Galt's Gulch, so he could easily set the prices as high as he wants. It's not surprising that Hank Reardon and Dagny can afford to buy their way in, and Galt's machine power source will buy him some credit, but what about that woman running the coffee stand? We're supposed to believe that a billionaire banker will arrange for a someone who is clearly near the bottom of the financial food chain to live in Galt's Gulch at a bargain price because he "likes the cut of her jib", when he could sell the same land to a rich "looter" for a lot more money. What kind of a business plan is that?

In reality, with a few "eccentric" exceptions, when people get rich they
- hire poor people to do the things they don't want to do themselves (clean, garden, drive)
- Otherwise do their best to avoid poor people (rich neighborhoods, expensive restaurants, private
clubs, high end vacations).

You don't even have to be rich. Pretty much everyone does this to the extent they're able to. It's just human nature.

In her own way, Rand's utopia is every bit as unrealistic as those based on everyone living collectively and willingly sharing everything.

[–] phantom2-2 9 years ago

yes, in the book dagny crashes her plane in the gulch after flying through the cloaking field. yes, in addition to being an elite executive, she's also a top-notch pilot. as a result of the harrowing crash of her plane into a mountain, she suffers a sprained ankle. (no, i could not possibly make this stuff up)

[–] gabby_bm 9 years ago

Hey, if Vesna Vulović can fall 33,000 feet without a parachute and survive I don't find Dagny surviving a plane crash with just a broken ankle to be that much of a stretch.

i cant argue about the force field though. I guess that's why the novel falls under the science fiction category.

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[–] Huskie_Jon 9 years ago

Atlas Shrugged is kind of like Batman.

Crime in Gotham is worse than anything we have in the real world. That and his back story lead Bruce Wayne to give up all the trappings of wealthy lifestyle and use his money to buy a weaponized batsuit, a hideout with a fleet of military vehicles and risk his life to fight crime at night. This is justified on the basis that Bruce Wayne is up to his ears in principle, and the wayward society of Gotham has pushed him to this point.

Likewise, John Galt and his crew have been pushed so far, that they would rather live in Galt's campground than continue to live among the wealthiest people in the nation. Dagney Taggart would be John Galt's housemaid by day, and moonlight designing a mini rail system to help mine coal, than run the largest rail system in the nation, because, doggone it!, at least in Galt's Gulch she is appreciated.

In Atlas, you are either a hard-working achiever or a political mooch. There's Dagney, and there's James, and they are philosophical enemies, in spite of sharing the same blood line. In the real world, CEOs need to be a little of both.

In the real world, there is no Batman and there is no John Galt.

The Government bureaucracy is there, like it or not. If Dagney did not want to deal with the government, she should have hired someone else to do it for her. She should have either fired her brother, or split up the business, and then see who succeeds. If she did not like the politicians who were making the rules, she could have contributed money to more friendly candidates. Notice how in the world of Atlas Shrugged, the achievers were also heroes to common folk. So why couldn't they just combine their funds, rally the voters, and throw the bums out of Washington DC?

_______________
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[–] phantom2-2 9 years ago

other than the valley cloaking device, voice activated locks, rearden metal, a weapon x that's capable of obliterating half the country, and galt's magical energy machine, i can't imagine why atlas shrugged could be considered science fiction. 😂

oh yeah - and that trains are still relevant!

[–] ejonconrad 9 years ago

other than the valley cloaking device, voice activated locks, rearden metal, a weapon x that's capable of obliterating half the country, and galt's magical energy machine, i can't imagine why atlas shrugged could be considered science fiction. 😂

In the movie, the "secret weapon" was just the device they tortured Galt with. The makers seemed to think that electrocution-based torture devices were really high-tech.

Of course they also thought Colorado has Sequoias and that Copper wears out and has to be constantly replaced.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] C.S.Wood 9 years ago

The fact is, when people get rich, the *first* thing they do is start paying other people to do the things they don't want to do themselves. I'm a long way from rich, and even *I* have a cleaning woman and landscapers.

Not only that though, but the entire concept of Galt's Gulch goes against human nature.

Okay, best as I could tell the vast majority of the "smarties" were men, with only (if I recall) one woman being singled out (the actress) aside from Dagny, who snuck in. Did any of these smart people get to bring their wives and families? For the single smarties, will they be provided with women? Or, ahem, men? Would they really settle with talking to and interacting with the same group of people forever?

The more you think about it the more it sounds like a prison.

And, okay, all these smart people leave the world to find for itself. Are you telling me there are no OTHER smart people out there who now might be given a chance to flourish now that all of these important jobs are available? Is Dagny the ONLY person in the world who knows how to run a train company? Does Rearden not have any competitors who have figured out how his metal works and made a knockoff? I mean Rearden never tells anyone how it's made so did he even patent it?

The world this story sets up would completely fall apart in the real world.

Don't try to cash in love, that check will always bounce.

[–] ejonconrad 9 years ago

Okay, best as I could tell the vast majority of the "smarties" were men, with only (if I recall) one woman being singled out (the actress) aside from Dagny, who snuck in

Seriously, how many times are people going to see *the same* actress?

There was one other woman: the one who sold coffee and homeschooled her kids. I guess she was the best darn coffee seller in the world.

[–] gabby_bm 9 years ago

It wasn't meant to be taken literally. but as a sampling of what a civilization could be.

Of course, failure is a huge part of innovation. People need the freedom to be dumbasses in order to be accomplished in the long run. Rand did seem to write for Midases who touched things that turned to gold the first time. She seemed to ignore people who failed a lot before persevering.

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[–] ejonconrad 9 years ago

She seemed to ignore people who failed a lot before persevering.

Or - in the specific case of people who try to build magical perpetual motion machines that produce electricity out of nothing - people who fail their entire lives...then die.

[–] gabby_bm 9 years ago

Or - in the specific case of people who try to build magical perpetual motion machines that produce electricity out of nothing - people who fail their entire lives...then die.

i think I've found the secret. It lies in my two-year old child. But Rand didn;t write kids into her books so she needed the magical machines instead.

I don’t need you to tell me how good my coffee is.. 
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[–] ultimatelotrcrossover 9 years ago

There was one other woman: the one who sold coffee and homeschooled her kids. I guess she was the best darn coffee seller in the world.

So what happens when she runs out of coffee? Colorado isn't noted for it's tropical agriculture.

[–] ejonconrad 9 years ago

So what happens when she runs out of coffee? Colorado isn't noted for it's tropical agriculture.

Well.... Colorado isn't supposed to have sequoias either, you know.

It turns out that in addition to selling coffee and homeschooling her kids, she's also a brilliant genetic engineer, who developed a genetically modified strain of coffee that will thrive in the Colorado climate. She developed those fast growing sequoias in her remaining spare time.

Unfortunately, because there are no pesky regulations in this Utopia, they don't realize that the new coffee renders everyone who drinks it sterile, and the whole social experiment ends with this generation.

[–] phantom2-2 9 years ago

and here i thought that the gmo coffee turned everybody into hyper-caffeinated zombies like in world war z....

[–] !!!deleted!!! (6571724) 9 years ago

Mexicans. Duh.