Separating people into groups doesn’t necessarily mean that these are rigid organizations. Whether she would have viewed it as triangle where you could be anywhere between any one of those points, or more as a linear scale with thief and entrepreneur at opposing ends (and grunt-workers somewhere in the middle as may be), I couldn’t say, but I think it is safe to say that she does fairly well consider most people to be honest, hard workers, that more follow than lead.
And yes I did read Atlas Shrugged and quite enjoyed and appreciated it. If you have a different interpretation of it than me that’s fine, but like that’s just your opinion man.
I have never heard any libertarian say that “people are masters of everything.”
I have never heard any libertarian say that people should not contract with others to do things they themselves cannot; indeed, free trade is near the heart of the philosophy.
I have never heard any libertarian say that people are incompetent at defending their property; on the contrary, the right of self-defense is very highly valued.
I have never heard any libertarian deny that hiring someone to defend your property is a service, whether the state or a private security firm.
I HAVE heard strong libertarians say they would prefer privately-contracted security services to state-run police forces.
I think you may be mistaking this for a “erl hates libertarians” series of comments rather than a “I’m an ex Randista” series of comments. Hence the remarks about John Guilt, engines, and speeches in need of trimming.
It sounds like you are arguing that my individual interpretation of Atlas Shrugged is flawed by appeal to the masses of other critiques. Let’s see if the irony of that sinks in.
Actually, I’d be quite surprised if I was really the first to suggest that the meritocracy described in Atlas Shrugged is not really a meritocracy, despite her intentions and the frantic assertions of adherents as to what the TRUE CONTENTS of the book are.
Oh sweet Jebus, I can’t take this shit anymore. Rand never used the word “elite” except in the sense of referring to people who chose to be responsible for their own competence and their own minds and their own lives. It wasn’t just the “elite” who went on strike, it was truck drivers and factory workers and teachers, people from all walks of life. And if an industrialist went on strike and someone else took over (and yes, this was covered many times in Atlas), that person would have to perform or go out of business. And if he could fill the shoes of the previous owner, he too would eventually go on strike. What eventually happened is that there was nobody left to move up. All the middle management and workers had left. The “barrier” was not some sort of caste system, but competence.
And if you think her “pride in doing one’s best work” is too much like Communism’s “do your best for the benefit of society,” read the chapter on the Twentieth Century Motor Company. You’ll never make that mistake again.
If you’re going to criticize a book and its author, at least get your facts right.
In Shrugged, Francisco made it a point to sneak away without funds from his Kennedy-esque summer compound for months at a time to work as a grunt on the railroads and other assorted blue collar jobs. Foundry worker, deck swabber, etc.
He never let on to his silver spoon lot in life, even though some of his employers were suspicious of his “different” attitude.
He had a lesser speech on why he slummed around and what it accomplished. Lesser speech because his real speech was on the concept of money: http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1826
I don’t think I need to add a spoiler box to hint to what happens to a Rand character when they take their destiny in their own hands.
A word of advice to the o.p.: read The Fountainhead, which is just as pedantic and didactic but a fuck of a lot shorter and less painful. I wasted three weeks of my life reading the literary abortion that is Atlas Shrugged only to come to the conclusion that all Rand was doing was erecting strawmen and then casting them onto a pitchfork without any comprehension of actual business practice, technology, or human psychology.
As for Rand’s philosophy of the working class, it was (as described above) that they should be happy to be serving the elite leadership and fall in line with whatever self-proclaimed visionaries demand of them…which is suspiciously close to the philosophy of the fascist and authoritarian socialist societies that Rand so derided. Of course, Rand’s heroes were all intellectual and moralistic leaders, and villains were all pandering, ethically void boobies, and so, in the world of her creation, justified her sophomoric ideals.
I’d rather read some of those atrocious Star Wars franchise novels than another Ayn Rand book again.
In Atlas Shrugged, Galt is the son of a garage mechanic (I looked it up…so much for my supposed creds as a Rand ‘fanatic’). He works his way through college and goes to work for a car company as a junior engineer. How exactly does this fit in with the whole ‘they should be happy to be serving the elite leadership and fall in line with whatever self-proclaimed visionaries demand of them’ theme? In Fountainhead both the protagonist AND the antagonist (Roark and Toohey) come from very humble means. Hell, even Peter Keating (and Wynand) comes from humble beginnings.
I guess I’m not getting this whole working class needs to just shut up and soldier on theme here that others are seeing…or this caste system thingy either. It’s almost like you guys read a different book than I did.
Enough people have stated that they are seeing this stuff in the book though that I guess I’m forced to concede that, while it’s incomprehensible to me, I guess it’s there. Sort of like looking at a photo…one person sees a house and white picket fence, others are seeing a dwarf with a monkey, a nun and a donkey and a bottle of astroglide next too a swing…
Okay - then why couldn’t this bunch take over? And I was echoing some of you when I said creative - I should have said supercompetent, I suppose. Many organizations have hidden talent - consider Harry Truman, for example.
Sorry, but the mere size of the numbers involved here makes it clear that the strikers necessarily consist of a relatively small elite, rather than large swathes of the middle and working classes. Yes, it’s a meritocratic elite rather than an elite of wealth or social position alone, but it still depends on the idea that society’s survival hinges on a small and irreplaceably gifted set of disproportionately valuable individuals.
Consider, just for starters, that the chief strikers are concealed in a single remote valley in Colorado. Clearly, we’re not talking an alternative society and underground economy of tens of millions of people here. The premise is that it takes only a comparatively small number of key actors to disintegrate an entire large industrial economy just by withdrawing their participation.
And that premise assumes that the number of honest and capable people who do the chief work of sustaining an economic system is comparatively small. Moreover, it assumes that if they drop out, even though they are comparatively few in number, there will not be enough honest and capable people left to take over their responsibilities.
Yes, those are elitist assumptions. Sure, they adhere to a meritocratic brand of elitism, claiming that what makes the elite so precious is its talent and character, rather than merely hereditary position or money or power. But they’re still promoting the fundamentally elitist idea that the people who really matter to the success of a society are a comparatively tiny percentage of the population, and the rest of the population is incapable of filling their shoes if the need arises.
I think it’s the different interpretations of the word “elite” that I mentioned above that are confusing you.
You’re quite right that Rand is not promoting or advocating any kind of hereditary elite of wealth or power. But her meritocracy of talent and ability is such a small subset of the population, and its members are portrayed as so superior to the average person in terms of integrity, ability and achievement, that it’s a de facto elite.
“These few and precious people are fundamentally irreplaceable, and without them the very fabric of our society would collapse.” That’s elitist thinking, whether the “few and precious people” you’re referring to are the titled aristocrats, the moneyed plutocrats, or the heroic noble band of “strikers of the mind”.
Which is just part of the same elitist fantasy. Now, I don’t want to be unduly harsh about the “fantasy” issue here, because of course Rand didn’t intend her books to be Zola-esque realist novels, so no fair criticizing them for being unrealistic.
But my point is that the “unrealism” is of a fundamentally elitist nature. These “key industrial characters” are so few, and so at odds with their society, that despite their great individual talent, (in most cases) wealth, and crucial economic activity, a structurally democratic state is somehow able to “strip” them of their “effective participation”.
This is an elitist mindset: the people who “really count” are few, despised and persecuted. Society as a whole is irredeemably degenerate, enslaved to collectivist dishonesty and greed, and a small band of heroic individuals must resort to catastrophic measures in order to save rationality and freedom for the future.
In other words, the vast majority of people in the society are considered incapable of saving themselves or fixing the broken parts of their system through democratic means. It requires massive economic collapse masterminded by a few, well, masterminds to bring about the necessary changes. In other words, society must be rescued and rebuilt by a small elite group. This is, by its very nature, elitist thinking, whether you agree with its philosophy or not.
Francisco D had his mines nationalized by the Mexican government.
Hank Reardon was hobbled with a full time government “liason” who was, IMHO, the second most detestable character in the book.
I’ll revisit this thread when in the real world the US federal government institutes global warming restrictions and standards, crippling progressive taxes in the name of redistribution of wealth, and promote insane tort lawsuits that interfere with major industry in the USA so much so that the current batch of CEOs decide to give up on honest production and rather concentrate on fluffing their nests quickly and destructively. Oh hai! Here I am already.
Speaking as an objectivist, fixing broken parts of the system is not supposed to be the role of government thus it may, perhaps, have not been addressed to your liking. Providing an arena of justice is the role of government, not orchestrating anything.
All fixing of the broken parts of the system ended up with failed power grabs by the moochers.
You can turn on the news and see it happening in real time if you so like.
Regulating pollution is a bad thing? Top-bracket income tax rates of less than 40% are “crippling”? Dishonest and destructive CEOs should be blamed on the government?
I think this clearly illustrates the disconnect between Randian thinking and more mainstream, reality-based views of economic and social structures. Thus presented, Objectivism comes across as not a coherent political philosophy but rather a self-justifying emotional fantasy of victimization.
This touches on an implied tenet of objectivism that IMO is, if nothing else, outdated: that if there were no Microsoft/Bill Gates, that no other aspiring industry captains would have come forward and developed the technology that improved our lives. This may be related to the meme that inventions are solo efforts, when the reality is that most inventions are small improvements on existing designs. The irreplaceable man applied to industry, if you will.
In my 20+ years work as an engineer, I have seen very few such visionaries whose ideas directly made major efforts happen. More often, success results from charismatic salesmen types who convince a critical mass of people that their plan is best. The ‘ideas’ are often buried several layers down from the people whose name is on them. Bill Gates is a good example: while he did have facility with the actual code, the most important part of his success was probably the concept of software licensing, and getting others to agree to it. A good idea? Sure. Genius? Maybe. No one elses would have thought of it (or a competing plan)? Highly doubtful.
The adulation Rand heaps on ‘leaders’ is more appropriate for the small subset of truly out-of-the-box thinkers and doers whose breakthroughs might not have occurred (at least for a LONG time) if they’d never lived. It’s hard to come up with many of them, at least that everyone agrees on. As has already been suggested, such people in positions of leadership in industry may have been more numerous in Rand’s era. This was before The Organization Man.
I bristle when I hear self-stroking pointy-haired manager types declare that we need to encourage ‘leaders’ in our society. Leaders today are the ones who step up and try to run things that nerds build. If they didn’t, there’d be others clamoring for the rewards and the perks. To any leaders want to go on strike, I would quote Judge Smales in Caddyshack: “The world needs ditchdiggers too”.
IMO, more important is that we encourage competence (which I’m betting Rand would have had no problem with). If we focused more on competence (and maybe, less on bullshit-artistry?) in the people who are selected to lead, we’d be better off than we are now.
Regulating pollution is a bad thing? Top-bracket income tax rates of less than 40% are “crippling”? Dishonest and destructive CEOs should be blamed on the government?