I made my argument: insurance has a benefit (risk management and cost certainty), that justifies the cost for many (most) people. Your premiums don’t go into a black hole somewhere, they purchase coverage, which benefits you, should you need to file a claim. A built-in profit margin doesn’t negate that calculus.
I assumed you had some sort of universal argument, not a subjective, personal one, as you hinted at it before:
I guess I was mistaken. These things happen.
So, to recap, in a story that has as it’s major theme people going on strike you state that workers would need to ask permission (I bet Galt is feeling pretty silly since he failed to get his employers permission to strike, and in fact walked out on him in the middle of a meeting and under threat…aren’t HIS cheeks red about this??) about going on strike from the ‘producers’ (who you continue to fail to realize means the workers as often as it means the CEO types), and based on this eagle eyed insight you figure you know more about the book under discussion as someone who bothered reading it? Is that pretty close?
To paraphrase from Prince Bride, your intellect is truly dizzying. 
And I think with this I’ve reached my absurd quotient for a given thread. If you and the rest who haven’t read the book under discussion wish to continue to give such insightful assertions about the book, please, feel free…it’s fascinating to watch, but obviously the input from someone who bothered to read the thing aren’t needed to keep this circle jerk chugging along.
Individual freedom does not, in GG, include the freedom to force someone to hire you. The employer can fire you at will and you can quit at will. The employer can’t force you to work for him and the employee can’t force the employer to hire him. That is the balance inherent in the freedom as envisioned in GG. No one in GG would take a job that some had been forced to give him.
It’s funny that we keep hearing that it would be so hard to attract workers to GG, but also that it would be so easy to fire them or not give them “permission” to join a union. Seems to me that the dearth of workers would give them all sorts of bargaining power.
Only in Rand’s fantasy world of Galt’s Gulch, where workers are enticed to abandon their jobs, neighbor and friends because “freedom”, and where they will not(or, more ominously, cannot) leave to rejoin the outside world.
First of all, many (most?) of the folks in GG did not live there full time. They lived there as much as they could. Second, they can (and obviously did) leave all the time. Third, I’m glad you finally accepted that this is a work of fiction!
I’ve never accepted it as anything but fiction, and poorly written fiction at that. As a political diatribe it depends too much on magic, but as fiction it depends far more on a complete non-understanding how humans think and react, and how easy it would be for any government to find out the details of this settlement.
You’re right-- it’s not a work of Realism. It was never intended to be. But if you don’t like it, you don’t like. It’s just that criticizing it for being something it isn’t intended to be isn’t a very compelling argument.
So tell me what you think it is intended to be, and whether you think it is successful and/or well written.
It’s mean to be a work of Romantic Fiction, presenting a dystopian world. I enjoyed it, and so I guess I must think it was well written. Whether or not it’s “great literature”, I’ll leave that up to the experts. I’m not one of them. I just know what I like.
Yes, exactly. Galt’s Gulch had two classes. Rand wrote about the upper class, which she felt was free to do things like go on strike (and slum around as a worker when it suited them). She ignored the lower class, which she wasn’t interested in - if those people tried to do the same things the upper class did, their actions were wrong because they were hurting the privileges of the upper class.
The Gulchers could go on strike and cause the collapse of the rest of the world and they were heroes. But if a bunch of workers formed a union and went on strike in some factory in order to make the owner give them more pay, they were evil moochers who were trying to force the owner into giving them something they weren’t entitled to.
If a noble goes into the forest and shoots a deer, he’s hunting. If a peasant goes into the forest and shoot a deer, he’s poaching. Hunting is legal and poaching is a crime, even though they’re the same act - the difference between them is who’s doing it.
Any support for the second sentence, there? Rand would have opposed some strike-related tactics, no doubt (such as employing violence against replacement workers, or occupying a factory), but not a strike itself, which her book plainly supports.
The trash would never be collected in Galt’s Gulch because nobody would ever want to be a garbageman in Galt’s Gulch. They’d all live outside the Gulch in a society where they had more rights.
It was like a plantation where any slave could be free if he left the property. No cotton would have ever been picked there.
But plantations could exist when they were in a society that didn’t allow alternatives. Slaves had to pick cotton because they didn’t have the option of leaving the system (at least not without risking death).
No worker would choose to live in Galt’s Gulch. But if Galt’s Gulch controlled the world, they’d have no choice. They’d be forced to exist under Gulch rules. That’s when they’d find themselves under the thumb of the upper class.
Wrong. Had you read the book, you would know that’s incorrect.
Wrong. Had you read the book, you would know that’s incorrect.
Wrong. Hand you read the book…
Please stop making incorrect assertions about a book you have not read. It’s just silly, and it spreads ignorance. We are supposed to fighting ignorance here.
Can you describe the society that existed outside GG? Can you list the rights that workers had in the book you have not read?
Hint, spoilered since you might as some point decide to actually read the book you are so eager to discuss:
You’re wrong, again. Do not make the assumption that USA in Atlas Shrugged is the USA you know and love. It was not. You’ve been told this I don’t know how many times in this thread, but I’ll do it one more time: The USA in Atlas was more like the USSR, perhaps worse.
Do we have that clear a definition for “moocher”? I had always thought it referred to some sub-set of people who either don’t work at all or work far less than their upkeep requires. Your use of the term implies that it also applies to workers who want more pay than they “deserve”.
As well, I am assuming that the Free Market (blessings and peace, etc…) is the defining standard. Which seems to mean that one might be shifted from the Blessed Ones (producers) into the The Damned (moochers) simply by demanding more pay for the same work, however “productive” that might be.
It would seem, then, that this odd form of atheistic Calvinism has displaced God as the judge of human value and worth, and replaced Him with the Free Market (b & p, etc…). Is that a premise held by Orthodox Objectivists, but not so firmly held by Reform Objectivists?
Rand only supports strikes when it’s her side doing it.
Many people have said that Rand opposed any force being used to compel somebody to give up their money. What do you think a strike is? People stop working in order to hurt the business in the expectation that they can force the owner to give them more money. In a Rand world that would be illegal force (and it has been illegal force at times in this world).
The Gulchers understood this. They knew that their strike was causing the rest of the world to collapse. They didn’t object to strikes unless it was other people using it against them.
John, you sparked a question there. Without doubt, the America of the year the book was released (1957) was closer to a dystopia than it is today, if for no other reason than the advancement of civil rights.
Any black people in Gollum’s Gulch? Galt’s, sorry, slip of the keyboard…
(I do not require a citation of chapter and verse, I’ll take your word for it. Her works have all become rather a blur in the intervening years. I’m usually somewhat uncomfortable to confront memory lapses, but in this case, its a blessing. Shut up, Memory…)
Any support for this, from her writing? Her “side” were the people she considered producers, not employers or owners.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Many people have said that Rand opposed any force being used to compel somebody to give up their money. What do you think a strike is? People stop working in order to hurt the business in the expectation that they can force the owner to give them more money. In a Rand world that would be illegal force (and it has been illegal force at times in this world).
The Gulchers understood this. They knew that their strike was causing the rest of the world to collapse. They didn’t object to strikes unless it was other people using it against them.
[/QUOTE]
Again, any support for this?
A strike is a negotiating tactic, and nothing more. It’s not a use of force, unless actual force is brought to bear (e.g. violence or imprisonment). Perhaps that’s the source of your belief that Rand opposed strikes.
Not the USA as it was. The USA as it was portrayed in the book.
Ever read “The Road”? It also presented a digferent USA. I don’t see why that is a problem in a work of fiction.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Yes, exactly. Galt’s Gulch had two classes. Rand wrote about the upper class, which she felt was free to do things like go on strike (and slum around as a worker when it suited them).
[/QUOTE]
Gods, you are hilarious. Can you point to anything in Atlas Shrugged that supports this interpretation? Anything at all?
Feel free to show examples of this as well. Thanks in advance…I’m sure you will be able to reel this off from your memory and obvious vast knowledge of the story in question. You could also give examples from any of her other books that support this, since we are beyond simply talking about AS at this point.
Really? Good, should be easy for you to demonstrate this with some examples from the book. Please do so and fight my ignorance about a book I read but you didn’t but seemingly know so much about to make a statement like this.
Gods, the irony of this is pretty much off the scale. Do me a favor…if you ever DO bother reading the book, when you are finished go back and re-read this paragraph you wrote here. Then tell me how bit the face palm was. :smack: