I guess I don’t understand what you are saying. Look around you. Is everyone like John Galt? Is everyone like Wesley Mouch? Probably no on both counts, right? If the iPhone didn’t exist, would you be able to invent it? Me neither. What exaclty is elitist about a book that acknowledges that some people are able to contribute more to society than the rest of us schmoes in the middle?
Another thing–I think you (and others) are getting wrapped up in the problem that plagues other debates, such as those about intelligence. Rand is just recognizing the objective fact that some people are able to do more than others. This doesn’t mean she thinks those people are worth more than the schmoes or that people should bring out their finest meats and cheeses every time one of these man-gods graces us lowly schmoes with thier presence. She’s just saying that Hank can make some mighty good metal. That’s it.
I don’t know why people are so thick-headed about this. The strike was NOT limited to some superior elite caste. Atlas is filled with examples of ordinary people who went on strike. Some of them were replaced by others, who either filled their shoes or not. It was never implied that there was no one to move up through the ranks . . . until the end of the book, when there truly was no one, because ALL the competent people, on all levels of all professions, went on strike.
And on a personal level, Rand was extremely appreciative of anyone in her life who did their job competently . . . from her hairdresser to her bodyguard. The only people she looked down on were the ones (on every level) who weren’t doing the job they were paid to do.
The hypothesis that these people are comparatively very rare, and that society would literally crumble without their support. That assumption of a crucial elite group of people is what makes Rand’s view elitist.
To repeat (again): Rand never said that competent people were rare, nor that they were an elite. She believed that the average worker, at any level, would have gone on strike. But of course there’s a hierarchy; there were people like Dagny and Rearden at the top, who would be difficult to replace. But there were also all the people who worked under them, who were, in Rand’s view, no less worthy of esteem. In fact, they were the ones who went on strike before Dagny and Rearden; that’s why it was so difficult for them to run their businesses; by the end they were practically running their companies single-handedly, since all the competent workers had left.
To repeat (again): The entire plot of the book makes it clear that the competent people are rare. For mercy’s sake, the whole strike leadership and alternative society founded by the competent people fits into one remote concealed valley in Colorado. From its commencement to its completion, the whole strike lasts only about thirteen years all told. This is obviously a collaborative effort by a comparatively tiny segment of the total population, not a mass movement of many millions.
You are right that Rand never actually claimed (and probably would not have wanted to admit) that her views about “competent people” as opposed to ordinary people were elitist. And in fact she herself may never have consciously realized how elitist she was being. But the whole book is permeated with an elitist mindset nonetheless.
For mercy’s sake, do you really think that everyone who dropped out of society wound up in a little valley in Colorado? After Galt’s radio speech, people were dropping like flies, and none of them even knew about the valley. In fact, the valley wasn’t even necessary; it was more symbolic than anything else. Its main purpose was to provide a context and background for some of the main characters . . . and to get Dagny and Galt together. But it was obvious that there were millions of anonymous strikers who never made it to the valley.
That’s absurd. Where were these millions, what were they doing, how were they managing to avoid participation in the mainstream economy and society? And how did millions of people coordinate their dropping-out in the few months between Galt’s speech and the destruction of the mainstream society?
Mind you, I’m not saying you’re stupid for interpreting Rand as intending to give the impression that lots of people were inspired by the strikers. I’m saying that Rand was stupid for failing to see the inconsistencies and logical flaws in her plot development, and the ways in which her assumptions were fundamentally elitist because the only people whose actions she seriously thought or considered important about were the members of a small elite group.
Then all I can say is that you need to re-read the book. It’s all there.
I actually witnessed a discussion she had on this subject. She explained that, as a novelist, she had to focus on the story’s main characters and the events of their lives. And as a novelist in the Romantic Realist tradition, she had to be selective about the people she was writing about. She pointed out that that’s a difference between a novelist and a journalist. A journalist would have told the stories of the “common man.” She certainly did mention the millions of other people who went on strike, but it would have been beyond the scope of the book to tell all their stories. Would you actually want the book to be longer???
I’m pretty much out of this discussion, but just wanted to make a brief response to something:
It was absolutely implied in the story and if you didn’t pick up on this then, as previously suggested you should go back and re-read it. There were plenty of examples of ordinary individuals who were on strike but who weren’t part of the leadership…as there were passing mentions of people leaving their jobs in large numbers and disappearing. Not all or even a large percentage of these people knew the leadership of the strike nor of the existence of the valley…they were doing it spontaneously. Galt wasn’t coordinating this effort in any meaningful sense…people heard his words, saw what was happening and those who agreed did as they thought best. Galt was like the founder of a religious movement who, having gotten the word out just sort of gets out of the way and lets people do what they are going to do.
Whether this was a realistic hypothesis of what would happen is beside the point. This was what the author had in mind and certainly her intent. I’m puzzled that you didn’t get this since it was kind of central to the story.
-XT
But the trouble is that it isn’t, if “it” means a logically consistent plot structure that can support the way you’re interpreting it.
I have no problem with that, and as I said, I don’t have a problem with her writing being somewhat unrealistic either. But it’s one thing to imagine cartoonishly one-sided main characters, or to omit details of the activities of the other characters, and another to create a plot structure that can’t support what you’re trying to say.
The problem with the plot of the strike is not that it’s insufficiently detailed but that it’s internally inconsistent. And it’s Rand’s elitist viewpoint that makes it so. She didn’t pay enough attention to workers in the mass to even bother imagining a way in which their activities could logically fit into her plot.
You are simply wrong…it IS all in there, though in a lot of cases it’s mentioned in passing or implied. A careful reading of the book would show you numerous examples that this strike wasn’t just a few dozen or even a few hundred elite…it was a major movement towards a paradigm shift with literally millions involved in the US alone. There were numerous examples of companies finding it more and more difficult to get decent workers. Even HR was finding it hard to staff his foundry toward the end of the book and was having to essentially hire anyone who would work at all, regardless of their skill levels or abilities.
-XT
I know. My point is precisely that this plot point makes no sense. Rand never bothers to think about even the most basic consequences of having millions of people stop participating in the mainstream economy and society.
Where they are, how they get their food, who schools their children—she has no idea how any of that would logically fit in with the context she’s assuming for her main plot, because she doesn’t care. Those alleged millions of dropouts are just a rhetorical device to illustrate how wonderful and persuasive the ideas of her elite few are.
Well yeah…a lot of authors do this. They gloss over reality in an effort to tell a story and make a point they are trying to make. Rand isn’t trying to be realistic here…she is trying to make a philosophic point about contrasting paradigms that are in opposition. She didn’t ACTUALLY think that people would go on strike…just like she probably didn’t really think that you could get unlimited energy from some static electricity thingy either. Those were just plot devices to tell the story she wanted to tell.
What difference? She isn’t going into those details in telling her story. Seriously…you’ve never read a book where the author glosses over major issues in their plot? Never seen a movie with equally large holes in it’s plot where the writers or authors gloss over things in an effort to tell their story??
She isn’t trying to tell a realistic story here…she is trying to make a philosophic point and do so in an entertaining (well, to those of us that liked the book) way.
-XT
Rands philosophy is that society runs on actual people doing actual work to build your buildings, drive your trains, put food on your plate and weave the clothes on your back. They don’t do this out of altruism or brotherhood or obligation to society or whatever. They do it because they get paid to do so. It doesn’t matter if you are Harry Reardon or one of his steel mill workers. These people are only “elite” because they are actually contributing to society. The Balph Eubanks, James Taggarts, Orren Boyles and Wesley Mouch do not contribute anything. They just enact laws and regulations to siphon wealth off of those who do produce so they can live cushy lifestyles pretending to work at whatever bullshit they pretend to work at. “They don’t want to make money, they just want to have money”.
If you don’t like the fact that Rand portrays the Dagny Taggarts and Harry Reardons as elites of society compared to “you shmoes”, I imagine she would probably tell you to go build a railroad or steel mill or invent a longer lasting lightbulb or something.
Fact of the matter is, society would wallow in a sort of agrarian poverty if it wasn’t for the Andrew Carnegies, J.P Morgans, Henry Fords, and Bill Gates of the world. Wealth is created by millions of inventors tinkering in their garages, not by some Beureu of New Stuff to Invent.
I think our current economic crisis is a pretty good indicator of what happens when you have a society that doesn’t make anything but thinks wealth should be distributed among all the workers because they “deserve” a certain standard of living.
Yup, I know. It isn’t the lack of realism I mind, it’s the lack of internal consistency. I don’t object that her plot events don’t correspond to what was going on in the contemporary real world, or that her characters are much more simplistic than real-world people—I object because her plot events don’t make sense even within the imaginary world that she’s constructed.
Sure. And the way in which those holes are constructed and glossed over frequently indicates something significant about the author’s assumptions.
Why on earth do you think that? You do know that for the last few decades wealth distribution in the US has trended upwards, not downwards, right? Wealth has become much less “distributed among all the workers” and much more concentrated at the socioeconomic top level.
… at the same time that the productivity of American workers (i.e., the wealth they are creating with their labor) has been increasing and their real wages (adjusted for inflation) have been decreasing.
But that’s precisely her point. When productive people remove themselves from society, that society collapses. There is no food, there are no schools, everything grinds to a halt. That’s why she included scenarios like the grain disaster, where tons of grain were abandoned to rot, because of bureaucratic screw-ups, and many people became that much closer to starvation. And what kind of schools would there be, when the best teachers walked out? Believe me, Rand was well aware of all the consequences of the strike: society would collapse. That was the whole point.
I’m not seeing the lack of internal consistency to be honest. What I’m seeing is that she is simply glossing over the real world logistical aspects of the strike. She isn’t concerning herself with how people are coping with the strike, how they are getting the essentials, etc etc. She simply isn’t concerning herself with those details as they aren’t central to the story she is telling. Just like she isn’t really concerning herself with the details of how Galt’s magical tech actually would work.
Certainly. It also indicates what the author thinks is important to the story and what they don’t feel they need to go into details about.
-XT
Remove themselves to where?
The issue of how you can have literally millions of “productive people remove themselves from society” is not just a minor plot detail that Rand didn’t bother filling in. It’s absolutely fundamental to the internal consistency of the whole culmination of her plot. And the fact that she didn’t even trouble to deal with its logical impossibility in the context of her plot is very revealing about how she thought about workers in the mass.