# Who collects the trash in Galt's Gulch? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 17, 2014, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569 "2014-02-17T23:54:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/81 "2014-02-18T17:00:01Z")
> [@XT](#): > > People were invited to the Gulch, though some were folks (farmers and ranchers and the like IIRC) who already lived there. Since they had been working at this for years (like 20, again, from memory from when Galt walks out of the auto plant and starts his crusade), and had been scouring the country for men (and women) of ability (from the lowliest jobs to the highest), I don’t think there would be a labor shortage, especially since most of the people there only lived there part time, living back in the real world for the majority of their time. At the end of the book they were planning on having everyone move themselves and their families to the Gulch full time and sealing the borders as the world outside was falling apart, but up to that point it wasn’t a closed system…and we don’t know how things played out when they finally DID make it a closed system. > > Again, seriously…read the book. A lot of this stuff you are asking is in there, and simply reading it would answer most if not all of the questions in this thread (aside from the nitpicks and attempts to make a fictional book operate as if it were reality). So wait a minute, Galt goes around scouring the country like some central planner deciding who gets to live there and making sure they have people to do all the jobs they need? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/82 "2014-02-18T17:01:35Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > So wait a minute, Galt goes around scouring the country like some central planner deciding who gets to live there and making sure they have people to do all the jobs they need? How is the secret kept if someone hears the proposal, but says “No.”? ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/83 "2014-02-18T17:08:05Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > How is the secret kept if someone hears the proposal, but says “No.”? They make them an offer they can’t refuse. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/84 "2014-02-18T17:08:32Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > So wait a minute, Galt goes around scouring the country like some central planner deciding who gets to live there and making sure they have people to do all the jobs they need? Not just Galt, and no, not as a central planner. Again…RTFB. 😛 Basically, he and his, I guess, followers go on strike. They still work, usually at the lowest of jobs (ones that don’t use their talents). Along the way, they find people of ability, be they street sweepers or engineers…and some are invited to the secret of the Gulch. For part of the year (a few weeks IIRC) they go there to live. Some stay there all the time. Some are able to work in their own chosen fields, but some aren’t and do other jobs that they can do or that need doing and they can make money at in exchange for the goods and services they would need. There are a variety of folks working there (the book doesn’t mention trash collectors but presumably someone or some group is doing that because there would be money to be made doing it). This is a work of fiction. Trying to score points off of it (especially when it’s clear you haven’t bothered to read it) is kind of silly. It’s just a story, not a blue print with every detail imbedded in it to ensure it would work perfectly in the real world. Like the magical static powered engine and ray screen, a lot of the aspects of the Gulch are just fictional background to provide the main theme of the book with background. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/85 "2014-02-18T17:24:59Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Not just Galt, and no, not as a central planner. Again…RTFB. 😛 Basically, he and his, I guess, followers go on strike. They still work, usually at the lowest of jobs (ones that don’t use their talents). Along the way, they find people of ability, be they street sweepers or engineers…and some are invited to the secret of the Gulch. For part of the year (a few weeks IIRC) they go there to live. Some stay there all the time. Some are able to work in their own chosen fields, but some aren’t and do other jobs that they can do or that need doing and they can make money at in exchange for the goods and services they would need. There are a variety of folks working there (the book doesn’t mention trash collectors but presumably someone or some group is doing that because there would be money to be made doing it). > > This is a work of fiction. Trying to score points off of it (especially when it’s clear you haven’t bothered to read it) is kind of silly. It’s just a story, not a blue print with every detail imbedded in it to ensure it would work perfectly in the real world. Like the magical static powered engine and ray screen, a lot of the aspects of the Gulch are just fictional background to provide the main theme of the book with background. Well I did read the book, but it is now approaching 25 years since I did. And I understand what you are describing, but it still has the feel of a central planner to me. Let’s say there is some new business someone wants to start , I dunno, serving overpriced coffee milkshakes. How does he find the right people for this enterprise? Where does he get the coffee? I agree with your last paragraph, I have no problem understanding that about the book. But I am trying to understand beyond the book, what are the practical implications. There are some people who claim they want to “Go Galt”, based on this idealization presented by Rand. So what does that mean in all practical terms. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/86 "2014-02-18T17:36:45Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > I agree with your last paragraph, I have no problem understanding that about the book. But I am trying to understand beyond the book, what are the practical implications. There are some people who claim they want to “Go Galt”, based on this idealization presented by Rand. So what does that mean in all practical terms. It is not practically achievable. It is not even fictionally achievable because it fails the most obvious and basic challenges put to it. That grown people build a political and personal philosophy around these books and ideas in general says more about the people doing so than some cranky narcissistic woman who developed these ideas in the first place. It does however explain how L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology became a thing. Some people will latch on to the craziest idea so long as there are enough others willing to go along for the ride with them. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/87 "2014-02-18T17:41:03Z")
[QUOTE=Gangster Octopus] Let’s say there is some new business someone wants to start , I dunno, serving overpriced coffee milkshakes. How does he find the right people for this enterprise? Where does he get the coffee? [/QUOTE] It’s been a while for me as well (I read this book and Fountainhead in college, and listened to an unabridged audio book of each maybe 10 years ago), but there are some examples in the book that I vaguely remember about people starting their own businesses. Basically, it would be just like in our real world…if there is a market for it, you’d identify that market and then try and fill the need. If you are successful then you make money…if not, then not. As to coffee, I’d guess the pirate guy would be the best place for that, though IIRC coffee became pretty scarce in the real world as well when a lot of the central and south American nations went socialist and stopped being able to produce goods and services. This was, again, HER reality, but that’s how I recall the background story that’s happening behind the scenes. > [@](#): > > And I understand what you are describing, but it still has the feel of a central planner to me. No. Central planning would presuppose planning. Galt didn’t plan in this way, i.e. he didn’t go out and look for a premium street sweeper this week to fill a bill for a need for a street sweeper in the Gulch. It didn’t work that way. Along the way, he met people who HE considered to be men/women of ability. If he liked what he saw, he told them about the strike and the Gulch and asked them to join in (the question of what happened if they didn’t was never fleshed out, but I suppose the pirate guy could have taken care of anyone who refused if there was a security risk :p). He wasn’t out trying to fill slots or quotas in the Gulch which is what a central planner would do. That said, I suppose the inverse might be the case…he was definitely trying, purposely, to knock out the pillars of the outside world and bring the whole thing down, so he was targeting those pillars to take down the whole thing. He targeted banking, various industries, etc, and what he felt were the key people in each…but it wasn’t as a central planner trying to fill a quota of this type of worker or that type. That would actually be against the entire theme of the book and it’s what he was fighting against and trying to bring down. > [@](#): > > There are some people who claim they want to “Go Galt”, based on this idealization presented by Rand. So what does that mean in all practical terms. Again, it misses the actual theme of the book, which was Galt struggling to bring down the old system. The Gulch aspect is more a side note to the main them, which is Galt’s struggle to remove the pillars of society by taking away or freeing the men/women of ability, which would, in this fictional book, bring everything crashing down and restore the individual rights of those people of ability to reap the rewards of their abilities, be they street sweepers or CEOs of steel companies. You have to put this all into the context of the 30’s and Rand’s own experiences with communist Soviet Russia and the socialist trends she saw happening in the western world (especially Europe) at the time. Personally, I don’t think going Galt has much to do about the Gulch, either, but instead is about going on strike from a society that doesn’t appreciate ones presumed individual talents, but I guess different people would interpret it differently. The world Rand feared would happen really didn’t, as ironically a lot of the socialist (or outright communist) nations were forced to adopt a more capitalist orientation, while capitalism was softened by many socialist aspects. What we have today is more a hybrid that she never envisioned, and by and large it’s been a pretty good balance, considering how things have played out on the economic arena anyway overall…IMHO anyway. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/88 "2014-02-18T17:46:04Z")
> [@](#): > > …It was not the pressure of a hand that made her tremble, but the instantaneous sum of its meaning, the knowledge that it was his hand, that it moved as if her flesh were his possession, that its movement was his signature of acceptance under the whole of that achievement which was herself – it was only a sensation of physical pleasure, but it contained her worship of him, of everything that was his person and his life – from the night of the mass meeting in a factory in Wisconsin, to the Atlantis of a valley hidden in the Rocky Mountains, to the triumphant mockery of the green eyes of the superlative intelligence above a worker’s figure at the foot of the tower – it contained her pride in herself and that it should be she whom he had chosen as his mirror, that it should be her body which was now giving him the sum of his existence, as his body was giving her the sum of hers. These were the things it contained – but what she knew was only the sensation of the movement of his hands on her breasts… Hot, hot, hot! Ayn Rand’s sexual writing should be copied and passed around to Catholic seminaries to help promote celibacy. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/89 "2014-02-18T18:16:31Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Was she? Ending her life with 800k, including her home and car, and furnishings, sounds like a fading starlet. Especially seeing that she joined Medicare when it was obvious her remaining money couldn’t pay for her treatment. Post snipped. Holy schnoikies man. You really need to either not post when you have no clue what you are talking about or take the time to learn what you are talking about before you post. Making shit up about Rand and then arguing she is evil because you made some shit up isn’t really all that good of an argument. Rand took Medicare because _IT WAS HER MONEY_. People try to paint Rand as a hypocrite or broke because she took S.S. and medicare. However, why don’t you actually try and understand why it is morally ok in her system. This is what Rand thought about S.S. and medicare: > [@](#): > > The same moral principles and considerations apply to the issue of accepting social security, unemployment insurance or other payments of that kind. It is obvious, in such cases, that a man receives his own money which was taken from him by force, directly and specifically, without his consent, against his own choice. Those who advocated such laws are morally guilty, since they assumed the “right” to force employers and unwilling co-workers. But the victims, who opposed such laws, have a clear right to any refund of their own money—and they would not advance the cause of freedom if they left their money, unclaimed, for the benefit of the welfare-state administration… Slee ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/90 "2014-02-18T19:04:46Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Hot, hot, hot! > > Ayn Rand’s sexual writing should be copied and passed around to Catholic seminaries to help promote celibacy. The rape scene in _The Fountainhead_ was much better… ---
**Author:** ![ThisUsernameIsForbidden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b4bc9f/32.png) [@ThisUsernameIsForbidden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisUsernameIsForbidden)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/91 "2014-02-18T21:05:33Z")
I think some neocons got their hands on Rands book and created an expanded, revised, abridges version. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/92 "2014-02-18T21:45:21Z")
I have not read the book, but if Galt’s Gulch is the magically hidden enclave, in our society and technology (undreamed of by Rand, I’m sure), there is a zero chance that it would remain hidden. As one of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal’s strips says (about Supervillains, but same underlying principle), there’s no chance that someone could build something like that and not have it ping the radar of every major intelligence operation on the planet. At some point, one or more of the ‘workers’ who have to run the place for the big shots would spill the beans. There just isn’t enough money to overcome every single person’s ego/need for attention in being the ‘media darling’ of the moment by revealing it. Traffic of all these people back and forth, and the supplies and luxury goods they order, would also draw attention. Someone somewhere is going to ask questions about all these flights of caviar, champagne, lobster and salmon to East Bumfuck, South America. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/93 "2014-02-18T22:09:27Z")
[QUOTE=Chimera] I have not read the book… [/QUOTE] _sigh_ ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/94 "2014-02-18T22:19:02Z")
I for one am shocked - _shocked!_ - that Rand didn’t spend her free time swimming through cash in her Scrooge McDuckian money vault. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/95 "2014-02-18T22:30:28Z")
> [@](#): > > I have not read the book… “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” Attributed to Dorothy Parker, but she didn’t actually say it. So I will. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/96 "2014-02-19T00:14:49Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Well, let me admit that, contrary to what seems to be the popular opinion, I haven’t read the book in quite a while (nor did I see the movie that came out a couple of years back). But you should read it if you are going to comment on it, as I think you are losing a lot in the translation. You don’t have to like the book, or even agree with the central premise, but if you are going to debate about it there is no substitute for actually reading the thing yourself instead of picking up stuff second hand. I have to admit I don’t really plan on reading it. From what I’ve heard, Rand’s book are not all that entertaining as literature. And as political tracts, they have the major disadvantage that they have no connection to reality. I might read works on communism or fascism on the basis that these political theories were tried in the real world. But why bother with libertarianism or its unacknowledged stepchild objectivism? Studying Rand seems to me to be worth about as much effort as studying David Icke. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/97 "2014-02-19T00:37:11Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > Post snipped. > > Holy schnoikies man. You really need to either not post when you have no clue what you are talking about or take the time to learn what you are talking about before you post. Making shit up about Rand and then arguing she is evil because you made some shit up isn’t really all that good of an argument. > > Rand took Medicare because _IT WAS HER MONEY_. People try to paint Rand as a hypocrite or broke because she took S.S. and medicare. However, why don’t you actually try and understand why it is morally ok in her system. > > This is what Rand thought about S.S. and medicare: > > Slee I know why she said she took Medicare. It’s one of the few bows to reality she shoehorned into her beliefs. What exactly did I make up? That she didn’t care about the poor? Read her quotes on charity. That she had less money than I’d thought someone dedicated to greed might? Not caring about other people and being devoted to greed is a fine definition of evil for my purposes. I don’t think she was a serial killer, mind you. Just a bad person. On topic: So Galt Gulch has champions of industry and champions of day labor that flock to it. The day labor guys sign up with the hope that they will eventually rise to the top. Is that right? I’m not sure how that’s different than having an underclass to exploit, except that it requires them to be ideologically devoted to having no safety net. It seems like the only workers who would show up would be fools. ---
**Author:** ![tapu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@tapu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tapu)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/98 "2014-02-19T00:45:54Z")
The best damn trash collectors money can buy! ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/99 "2014-02-19T00:47:26Z")
Dagney knew about the magic hidden valley, but they let her leave, because she was one of those special people who could be trusted with the secret. And Galt went in and out all the time, I can’t remember if others did or not. Francisco knew about it, didn’t he? And Ragnar? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569/100 "2014-02-19T01:08:52Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Dagney knew about the magic hidden valley, but they let her leave, because she was one of those special people who could be trusted with the secret. And Galt went in and out all the time, I can’t remember if others did or not. Francisco knew about it, didn’t he? And Ragnar? And Jacob. Don’t forget Jacob. He had the lists. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-collects-the-trash-in-galts-gulch/681569.md?page=6)