Just a point to the OP, wait till you get to the riots at Rearden Steel, and you see who are the real heroes. You’ll be quite amazed at the one who stands out most of all.
I love AS, tho I’m too Christian, soft-hearted & not hard-working enough to be an Objectivist. That scene is the only one that brings me to tears.
If I recall correctly, in the beginning of Atlas Shrugged, didn’t one of the important characters start out as a short-order cook? Albeit an absolutely amazing short-order cook?
As far as the workers, I think her point is that they should be grateful to the employer for giving them the opportunity work, and to shine. Regardless of the task at hand, there is a way to do it better than someone else. If you do, YOU will be the one to be promoted. And then you’re on to your next opportunity to shine, etc. She believes that people should always act in their “enlightened self interest”. Which assumes taking the long view.
That’s sufficient motivation for creators and builders and achievers, but not for the people who just make the wheels go 'round.
I strongly suggest that you stop calling others liars.
I didn’t take an instant dislike to it. The fact that I don’t like it and don’t find her argument compelling in the least, and ended up being worn down by the ad nauseum drivel doesn’t mean that I started off with a bias against it. In fact, I have to wonder who would be masochistic enough to read Atlas Shrugged without being at least partially open to the book.
The opening of the book is actually quite compelling. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by the “Who is John Galt?” business. I’m pretty sure that the point at which I decided that the book was shit was when she wrote the following exchange of dialog:
“Don’t make any false moves!”
“I never do.”
I suppose if you believe that without Bill Gates, there would have been nothing to take Microsoft’s place and provide these things, you might also buy into the two-dimensional philosophy of Atlas Shrugged.
He’s really not. It’s just that this:
. . . suggests a dramatic misreading of the book. The problems with Rand’s philosophy are legion (IMO), but the last thing she could be accused of was espousing anything resembling a caste system (unless you’re using a definition of caste that is virtually the opposite of the accepted usage).
My thing with a lot of Randians (and Randian narrative) is that they start sounding pretty reasonable and logical, until the moment you realize that they are as much uncompromising and fanatic as any Randian character.
-Goverment shouldn’t intrude in my life!
-Well, yeah.
-People with talent and the will to put an effort should be rewarded accordingly!
-Hear, hear.
-All taxes are worse than murder!
-Preaching to the choir, man… wait, actually SOME taxes are important, like for roads, or public sch–
-NO! ALL TAXES ARE A FORM OF SLAVERY! BETTER TO DIE FREE THAN PAY TAXES!
-Isn’t that sort of unreasonab–
-EVERYBODY SHOULD WEAR GUNS AND APPLY JUSTICE BY THEMSELVES! THAT’S THE ONLY WAY TO GET A FAIR SOCIETY!!
-Hooooly crap, I’m outta here before he starts foaming at the mouth…
Except for all the places he’s implying that I did not read the book.
Alternatively, I’m pointing out the implications of what Rand actually wrote in a way that he, and apparently you, did not consider.
If a specific group of people (the elites) can check out of society, and society would thus fall apart, that must mean that nobody else left in society would be able to step up to take over. There is some special barrier between society’s elites and the rest of the peons.
It’s not “elites” in the usual sense that are checking out in the book. She was saying that if all of the most brilliant, creative, and hard-working people checked out then society would go down the tubes. The “special barrier” that you refer to is that they are smarter and more productive than other people, **not **that they have more money, or authority, or social status. Membership in a particular “caste” is emphatically not something that you attain through your job performance; rather, it’s the opposite: something that you hold regardless of your job performance or personal qualities.
Now, I think that Rand’s conception of the effect of these great people on society is 95% hogwash, and for much the same reason as you apparently do . . . but she’s absolutely espousing a meritocracy, even to a fault.
Rand writes in melodrama and overblown conceits. Her characters are so two dimensional and absurd because they’re not people, they’re abstractions thrown into adverse situations in order to demonstrate how cool those abstractions are.
And Rand isn’t talking about classes. In her romantic melodrama, even someone born penniless can go on to conquer the financial world, or what have you. Again, because her characters aren’t people, they’re abstractions. The character who embodies the abstractions of ‘unlimited success’, ‘overcoming all obstacles through reason’, or what-have-you, requires the character to be able to move mountains. The fact that it isn’t realistic didn’t matter so much since Rand believed art was supposed to showcase people as they could be, with no blemishes.
So if there were any classes, it would be hero and villain (no grey between the black and white, naturally).
Of course, human history has also shown that the interchange of information/technology can lead to confluences of events. An event like the industrial revolution, or the information age, or what have you, is certainly due to the hard work and genius of a few, but it’s also due to the context and societal/cultural/economic/political/etc… factors that are shaping the system.
That is, to a degree, it steamengines when it comes steam engine time.
I understand your point, and I agree that “caste” in this sense may be challenging. Nevertheless, the only alternative explanation re: Atlas Shrugged is that for some reason, no further brilliant and creative people are born or are developing, and there is also some bright shining criterion line of “brilliance” or “creativity” at which you can be an elite or can’t. If there is a perfect match between society’s leadership needs and a discete group of people who can fill them, there is no way for any other person to move up.
I find her hagiography of the protagonists in the book to undermine the assertion of meritocracy. These are not just brilliant people, but people who never make a mistake (or false move), except of course to put up with the rest of society for as long as they did before taking their leave of us.
I strongly suggest that if you feel I’ve called you a liar that you immediately inform a mod and let them deal with it.
It’s like with anything I suspect. Some people like a book (or movie, or car, or whatever) and some don’t. I never make any value judgments about people who disagree with my taste in things…different strokes and all that.
My point was simply that you didn’t seem to grasp some of the basic things about the book which lead me to question if you had read it. Since you say that you HAVE read it then I accept that…and simply point out that reading is not necessarily comprehending. I’m not trying to be insulting here (I’m pointing this out since you seem to be thinking I’m deliberately prodding you)…if I don’t like something I don’t always absorb it very well either, even the basic points.
Without Bill Gates there would have been no Microsoft…end of story. There MIGHT have been something else, but we’ll never know. Myself, I think that Apple would probably have dominated the market without Gates and Microsoft…which would have had a pretty adverse effect on the industry wrt cheap and affordable computers in large quantities for everyone. YMMV of course.
-XT
Well…certainly Galt/Rourke make few mistakes. However, a lot of the OTHER characters in the books make mistakes or have flaws. I don’t see how the characters making mistakes or not making mistakes undermines the assertion of meritocracy however. Could you amplify on this since I might be using a different definition of what a meritocracy is than you are.
-XT
Not really. IBM needed an OS for their computers, and selected Microsoft to do it. The OS could have been Digital Research’s Concurrent, and that could be the equivalent of Windows in an alternative dimension.
Of course the people designing the OS would have been also smarter than your average Joe, but still there’s more special people than just Bill Gates in the world.
It’s one of the standard, ridiculous strawmen that folks throw out to ‘prove’ that increased freedom and liberty, or perhaps ‘libertarian’ principles, are demonstrably wrong. E.g.
Ayn Rand <professed X>.
X is <not good>/<questionable>/<irritating>.
Ayn Rand = Libertarianism and freer markets.
Therefore, Libertarianism and/or freer markets is bad.
Please help me to remember which character it was who said, when being held at gunpoint and told not to make any false moves, “I never do.”
I take meritocracy to mean that a person is rewarded for what he or she does. Ones position within a society is the result of what one does, or merits.
Rand’s characters are so simplistically, inherently, inerrantly good that it is more that they are a race of supermen and women, that they were born to take the role in society that they do. It isn’t what they do right, per se, but the fact that they could do no wrong that results in the place in society they take.
In fact, they are so removed and distinct from society that they can leave it, and there is nothing that society can do about it. (And ultimately, one might argue that petulantly taking your ball and going home because “then you’ll see that you can’t get along without me” automatically obviates a question of merit, because who would merit a high position in a society who would also choose to see that society fail?)
I doubt it, but concede it’s possible. I have serious doubts that the company would have been as driven as Microsoft was, or that the same forces that played out in the Microsoft/Apple rivalry would have been the same.
And I think Gates had a larger part in driving MS to become what it became than you are giving him credit for. There have been lots of brilliant programmers in the last 3 decades…yet there are few rivals to MS or Apple today…and no one on the horizon that I can see who will shift, change or create a new market on the personal computer side of things.
Still, if it wasn’t Gates then it would have had to have been someone equally driven and brilliant…which sort of gets back to the core issue. It wouldn’t have just sprung up fully formed by the will of the people…
-XT
Well, I HAVE read the books, and I agree with both ITR Champion and Hentor the Barbarian.
For every Bill Gates and/or John Galt, you have a Haliburton, or an Enron. Not all corporations are run by geniuses (Galt was practically a god).
God, I weep for the trees that go into making that piece of shit.
Yes I read the book and I specifically mentioned Eddie Willers.
THAT is not the point of the book. For all her bombast and single mindedness, the book has several themes and motifs that play off of each other. Nowhere in the so called screed mentioned earlier does anyone say, without us you’d be hosed.
One of the most intersting themes in the book deals with…
spoilered for the OP’s sake.
…the fact that Dagny’s heroes are the people who thwart her successes rather than the ‘second-raters’.
My point is not that your take on the book isn’t correct, just that saying that THAT is the point is not accurate.
Again, spoliered for the OP
No, the short order cook is the philosophy professor who had Francisco and John as students. (Although he is described as a superlative cook who makes a mean hamburger sandwich.)
All of the Galt’s Gulch bunch have menial jobs in the “real” world.
I think it was either the Dread Pirate Roberts (a.k.a. Ragnar Danashult…however it’s spelled) or perhaps Francisco d’Anconia. I vaguely remember the line but can’t place exactly who said it. I admit…it was a rather stupid thing to say.
Yeah, that’s kind of my definition too. So, I’m not seeing how the main characters being flawless (which they aren’t) or making no mistakes (which they do) has any bearing on it.
Well, even assuming this was true, wouldn’t they have the highest merit then? Regardless of the circumstances of their birth they are rising on their superhuman merit to the highest levels of their given fields…except for the fact that society wants to use them up for it’s own ends, etc etc. 
Well, remember that the theme of the book is that ALL of the ‘men of the mind’ (which includes women too, though she had a rather sexist view of things too…it’s among many of her actual flaws) left, not just one or two top elites. It took years for Galt to weed through society and get the top engineers, scientists, composers, business people, workers, etc, on board to go on strike. He had to systematically knock out all of the supports holding up society and he did so by basically going about and finding everyone with any kind of talent or drive and converting them to his philosophy.
It wasn’t about petulance either…it was about slavery to society vs free will. I don’t see how any of this obviates merit though, so I must be missing something about your argument.
-XT