Why wouldn’t a business owner talk to the best workers from his business outside of GG? I think that an attractive applicant would be very attracted to: “I give YOU the opportunity to work for ME, without the good intentions of politicians weighing down our relationship. I give you the opportunity to be rewarded directly for your worth, for your talents, skills and work ethic. I won’t put you in a box with a hundred other guys and have you progress only as they progress. You won’t be guaranteed the small raises that you get now due to you having to work within that box. In fact, you won’t be guaranteed any raise at all. But you will be guaranteed that I will pay you whatever you can demonstrate you are worth to me. Whether it be the $X we decide on now to start, or some multiple of X commensurate with the degree that you increase your worth to me.”
You don’t know what a dystopia is and why people wouldn’t want to live in one? Did you miss the half dozen times I and others posted that in this thread?
You know, your snark is okay in small doses when it’s actually funny. For the life of me I can’t see any value or humor at all in what you just posted. I wasn’t describing my philosophy - I was describing hers. That they are very similar has to do with the fact that they both come from the same philosophical roots. Although Rand hated libertarians, her philosophy quite clearly has a lot in common with libertarianism.
By the way, Rand was famously hostile to libertarians. But it wasn’t because their policy prescriptions were that different. Her stated reason for hating them was similar to why she hated National Review - she thought that they gave ‘her side’ a bad name by advocating for similar principles but for immoral reasons (in her mind). In the case of libertarians, she saw them as hedonists. National Review was hated because it mixed the message of freedom with religion. But she would have agreed with about 95% of what libertarians argued for, and probably 70% of what National Review advocated.
The real reason was more likely that Rand had a controlling personality and she demanded 100% agreement in all things or you were her mortal enemy. She saved some of her worst criticism for people who were closest to her philosophy yet unwilling to accept everything she said.
And before you go on to say that this is reflected in her philosophy or caused by it, consider the number of very poorly behaving liberals I can trot out. Let’s keep her personal life separate from the philosophy.
If the workers are all being mistreated, I would assume that soon there would be no workers, and the businesses would fail. The supposition in Rand’s novel is that the only people who would voluntarily move to Galt’s gulch are the kind of people who would live by the maxim “A fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay.” The workers wouldn’t tolerate abuse.
Furthermore, if an employee is being enticed to leave society for a job in GG, he or she just might demand a contract specifying the relationship and terms. I know I would. And such contracts would be enforced.
In Rand’s world, an employee might also not take a job in a ‘company town’ until and unless he or she had saved enough money to be able to afford to leave if it didn’t work out - because in Rand’s world such people take care of themselves and don’t throw themselves into situations where they need to be bailed out if things go badly. That would give them even more negotiating power.
You don’t need a union to choose not to work for someone who isn’t treating you fairly. And if enough people feel that way, the employer will be forced to respond even if they don’t belong to a union. As I pointed out in my last message, only a small percentage of American workers are unionized, yet only about 1% of them make minimum wage. By what miracle to you assume the others managed to negotiate better salaries? Why do companies without unionized work forces still give raises and provide better than the minimum-regulated benefits?
I quite agree, Sam, that her “philosophy” shares a lot with libertarianism, especially in that both are rather silly. I also agree that she most likely despised libertarianism due to her own desire to think of herself as boldly original, born full from the forehead of the god Reason.
Czarcasm: how many disgruntled workers were there in GG?
How would it advance the theme or plot to have one who ratted the place out?
As to what would have happened… I don’t know. I can imagine several scenarios, some which would not have changed the message at all and some that would have changed it significantly. But I can’t see why she would have introduced that ot element unless she wanted to write a different book with a different theme.
John, that wiki cite is sorely in need of your correction! This
certainly seems to support the contention that Galt’s Utopia was mostly about the wealthy and powerful, and it entirely neglects the vast numbers of working class people surging towards GG in order to escape the grasp of “moochers”. Probably didn’t read the book, yeah, that must be it.
You should offer several of the many, many passages that refute this, as clearly whoever wrote this wiki didn’t read the book. You have, and are therefore eminently qualified. I have as well, but my memory isn’t what it used to be. Or maybe it is, and I just don’t remember. At any rate, I am advised by an expert that “obviously” I haven’t read it, so I will defer to his judgement. Which leaves you.
It’s been decades since I read the book, but my recollection is that it very explicitly describes a number of people who would not be considered ‘rich and powerful’ who join Galt’s Gulch. I seem to recall Dagny bemoaning the loss of some of her best rail workers before she knew where everyone was going.
Again, Rand is very clearly not about just protecting the rich and powerful. She wasn’t looking through the lens of rich vs poor. I know that’s hard for some to get because that’s the only lens they’ve got, but it’s true. Some of the worst villians in her books are rich and powerful men and women, and some of the most uplifting characters are simple workers.
You seem to be confused as to who the ‘moochers’ are, too. You seem to think ‘moochers’ are poor people who want what the rich have. In fact, to Rand a ‘moocher’ is simply someone who is demanding that the productive capabilities of others be shared with him through force for his own gain. Whether it be the architect who steals ideas from others, a businessman who can’t compete in the market and therefore goes to the government to ‘level the playing field’, or a union boss who lobbies for government to supply force to help him achieve what he can’t get people to agree to voluntarily. Most of the struggles in her books are between the rich and powerful - not the rich exploiting the poor.
Ah! So the CEO who takes a bigger share of the profits of the enterprise is also a “moocher”? Exploiting the labor of the workers who make $30,000/year while he pulls down $30 million? After all, there is no reason the workers should be forced to support the lifestyle of the CEO/moocher, any more than he is obliged to support the idle and feckless. Upward charity is no better than downward, and altruism be damned!
Might you offer some passages to support this? Which would have the added advantage of proving that you have read the book, the “gold standard” for this thread.
And of course the struggle would mostly be among the rich and powerful, they are the only ones with anything to contend with, nobody else has any ammunition.
That’s nice. But then the people who arrive rich and powerful remain so, yes? Is there some mechanism to prevent this? And why would the rich and powerful consent to such a thing? If they won’t do it for Jesus, why would they do it for Galt?
Remember that 3+ hour speech I linked to? That speech was supposedly given to them first, and that speech is supposedly what convinced them to join up.
Not that it really matters, but my curiosity bump is itching. Do you mean that the speech was “previewed” for a select audience before it was broadcast?
During the beginning of the speech Galt makes the claim that the reason those industrialists signed up with him is because they heard the same speech he is now broadcasting. Whether those industrialists were forced to listen to the whole damn thing before they were allowed to sign on the dotted line isn’t brought up.
Meh. It’s certainly true that Ayn Rand didn’t focus on the “common man”, preferring to write more about the exceptional ones. Not realistic, I know, but that doesn’t bother me as it seems to bother you.
But there are people in GG who are doing what would be called non-creative tasks. And most of them probably aspired to do more than that, eventually.
As for the wikipedia article, I think it’s fine the way it is, especially since (if you dig a little deeper and go to the link about the characters):
By the way, this site offers support for the notion that labor unions would be free to organize and function.
They are rather coy about what constitutes forbidden “force”, regarding it as physical force rather than considering economic force, but that is a small enough question to overlook. Since none of this is ever going to happen anyway.