FReeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged, The Man Who Belonged on Earth

At the State Science Institute, Dr. Robert Stadler reflects on the harsh winter just ended. There had been rail incidents that affected society, a five day power outage at the Institute and talk about conserving fuel. What irks Stadler is the book on his desk, Why Do You Think You Think?. It demeans logic and rational thought, questions the very nature of reality, is written by Dr. Floyd Ferris, Top Coordinator of the State Science Institute, and is published under the Institute’s aegis.

Dr. Ferris arrives half an hour late due to a car breakdown and the inability to find an open gas station on America’s empty roads. Stadler complains that Ferris is spending too much time in Washington and asks what is going on with the oil shortage. Ferris says the Institute has taken over the reclamation of the Wyatt oil fields while explaining to the country that Wyatt had never fired his fields but had perished in the accident that set them ablaze. The government is now operating those fields. Reclamation is going well, and Wesley Mouch has agreed to a larger appropriation for the effort with the concurrence of three other bureaucracies. But other than getting one well to give up six and a half gallons of oil, the effort is not a success.

One of Stadler’s concerns is Project X. Ferris explains that “X” stands for “xylophone”, and it would be most inadvisable for Stadler to mention this top secret project.

But Stadler is most concerned with Ferris’ book, characterizing it as “indecency”. Ferris says it is a best seller. Stadler calls it the work of a drunken lout, leering with its hatred of the mind; it can be summed up by one word: “Obey.” He is furious that it has come from the Institute. Ferris says the book is not for scientists, but for the general public. Stadler is upset that Ferris has taken the work of Simon Pritchett and given it legitimacy by turning it into science. Ferris says that people don’t want to think and that they will bless anyone who takes the obligation of thinking away from them; Wesley Mouch himself is pleased by the book. Stadler is unable to permit himself to think that the things suggested by the book are possible in a civilized society. Ferris says, “That is admirably exact ... You cannot permit yourself.” Ferris tell Stadler to stick to his science. Stadler heads to New York for a meeting with Dagny.

Dagny scratches a Colorado freight train off the Taggart roster as she has struck so many others. Lawrence Hammond has retired and disappeared, and Hammondsville will no doubt dry up and blow away as have the towns of Wyatt Junction and Stockton. With Wyatt’s fire, new operators had claimed the oil business until prices rose to the point where large customers turned to coal, and the government rationed oil and levied a special tax to subsidize out-of-work oil hands. Then the government subsidized the oil operators but just those with connections. Coal briefly became king until Andrew Stockton retired, closed his foundry and disappeared. The only thing that Dagny can discover is that somebody spent most of the night talking to Stockton before he vanished.

With the oil shortage, Dagny is running coal burning steam locomotives and depending on Ken Danagger for coal. Jim is getting a government subsidy for every train running, and those subsidies produce more revenue than Dagny’s operations. Jim brags that he is responsible for the best six months in the railroad’s history.

Wesley Mouch has unfrozen the nation’s railroad bonds but only to certain people. A whole new profession of “defreezing” has been created by young wonders just out of college who know how to fill out the government paperwork – and who have connections.

Dagny’s engineers, who searched the abandoned plant of the Twentieth Century Motor Company, found nothing; they interviewed people who worked there and learned nothing. The Patent Office was yet another dead end. Dagny’s friend at the Taggart Terminal cigarette stand can’t even locate the brand of Hugh Akston’s dollar sign cigarette.

Dagny’s attempt to find an engineer to reconstruct the motor encounters people who don’t think it will work, don’t care if it will work, want too much money to make it work, or believe that if the motor works, it should be suppressed because of the harm it would do to the egos of lesser scientists. She decides to approach Dr. Robert Stadler.

Stadler is happy to see Dagny, but remembering her last meeting with Stadler, Dagny is extremely formal. Her statement that Stadler is the only great mind left in the world touches him deeply. Showing him the incomplete specifications of the motor, Stadler quickly becomes the consummate professional and is beside himself with excitement as he perceives what the designer has wrought. But Stadler can’t think who could have designed the motor, why he would have designed it – making a massive scientific breakthrough in the process – at a factory in rural Wisconsin, and he is even more shocked that the designer didn’t seek him out. His statement that even a greedy industrialist with no brains would have taken the motor to make a fortune prompts a bitter smile from Dagny. She asks him to recommend someone who could work on the motor, but Stadler tells her he can’t even find the kind of simple talent possessed by a decent garage mechanic. He asks to see the motor.

Dagny takes him to the underground vault. Upon seeing the motor, Stadler is thrilled to see a great new idea that isn’t his. He condemns the mediocrities who fear anyone with an idea better than their own and who envy achievement. He and Dagny briefly experience a meeting of the minds. Stadler recommends a young engineer named Quentin Daniels who works at the Utah Institute of Technology; he has no desire to work for the government but only for his own wealth. Utah Tech has gone under, but Daniels is still there.

As they walk through the underground warren, they hear a frustrated rail crew working on a repair, and one of the men says, “Who is John Galt?” Stadler doesn’t like the expression but says he once knew a John Galt, now deceased. Had he lived, the whole world would have talked of him. Dagny points out that the whole world is talking of him. Stadler reacts in terror: “He has to be dead.”

Hank Rearden refuses an order from the State Science Institute for ten thousand tons of Rearden Metal for something called Project X. He has had problems with the Fair Share Law and ended up with an arbitrary government figure for what he could produce. He now has a backlog of orders for the next fifty years. The rights to Rearden Metal – what we would call “derivatives” today – are being bought and sold on a gray market by speculators with everybody making a profit but Hank. Those speculators who get the rights are those with connections in Washington.

The government has assigned him a bright young boy just out of college as his Deputy Director of Distribution; the plant workers call him the Wet Nurse. He offers Hank a shot at getting Rearden Metal to his friends with a little help from Hank’s wallet for “expenses”. Hank rebuffs him after the Wet Nurse’s lecture on moral flexibility in the absence of absolute standards. He warns Hank about his rejection of the Institute’s order.

Hank is visited by a paramilitary inquiring about Hank’s reasons for refusing the order. Hank won’t provide that answer and refuses to sell anything to the Institute for any purpose. The paramilitary explains that Hank must obey the law; Hank tells him to arrest him and steal whatever he wants from the railcars sitting in the steel mill’s yard. The paramilitary is horrified at how the public would react but tells Hank that he will regret his decision.

Hank gives Dagny a priceless ruby pendant, undresses her and puts it on her naked body. But his best gift is a fur coat he gives Dagny before they go out to dine in New Jersey. Hank tells Dagny that he is giving her these gifts for his own pleasure, and Dagny seconds that emotion. He tells Dagny that he was so cold and formal to her at the party at his house because he wanted her.

After a meeting with copper producers, Hank discovers that they are hamstrung by a sweetheart deal between the government and Francisco d’Anconia.

Hank visits Dagny at her apartment, and she updates him on her meeting with Stadler about the motor. Hank tells Dagny she should not have met with Stadler because he was seeking validation for what he had been before he sold his soul. Hank is now penetrating the heart of darkness. He and Dagny are the intended victims, and the looters seek the sanction of the victim, forcing him to face the world from the looters’ perspective.

A derivative is a security whose value is derived from another security. As early as 1792, when the New York Stock Exchange opened for business, derivatives were sold as bets on the rise and fall of interest rates. It started as a form of hedging but ended up as the source of our first government scandal.

Alexander Hamilton had bedded a woman who was involved in a badger game with speculators on Wall Street as accomplices. In return for her silence, Hamilton was to give her accomplices advance notice of the purchase and sale of Treasury bonds. To his credit, Hamilton fell on his sword, admitted his infidelity and saw his political career go up in flames. From his perspective it was a small price to pay to preserve the credit rating of the infant United States.

Rand makes an interesting point here. Hank Rearden is the inventor and developer of Rearden Metal; by rights the profits should go to him. But thanks to government interference, he is not reaping the benefits of his labors; Wall Street speculators are. These are people who neither sow nor reap but profit from their connections in Washington. It is the epitome of immorality.

This question came up when this project was conceived; essays and newspaper columns likened our time to the book. Well, look what happened in Olympia, Washington.

Six Democratic legislators in the Washington State Legislature introduced a bill to prevent Boeing from threatening to move out of state. That's right. Threatening.

Our tale begins with a different bill, one that would have forbidden any company from requiring employees to attend a meeting about labor issues. It was called the “Worker Privacy Act”, and it violated federal labor law. Although Boeing maintained a respectful silence, its friends said that this would be the last straw that would cause the company to move its production facilities to North Carolina. But then the Washington State Labor Council got caught sending threatening e-mails to legislators about it, e-mails that opened a window into corruption in Olympia. The governor and Democratic leaders in the legislature then publicly killed the bill and sent the e-mails to the Washington State Patrol for investigation.

Organized labor and its allies in Olympia were livid, so six legislators introduced a bill that would make it illegal to threaten the relocation of manufacturing jobs, especially jobs involving commercial airplane manufacturing. Boeing could leave, but it could not threaten to leave.

Do you remember Bertram Scudder’s Public Stability Law, later enacted by Wesley Mouch via administrative law? We have arrived.

Next week’s chapter contains Francisco’s Root of Money Speech, one of the large set pieces of the book. It is a critical insight into Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism and a good primer on capitalism. There are three ways one can handle the speech.

The speech is important to understanding what Rand is trying to get across, so it’s critical to pay proper attention to what she is saying. Take your time, read it, and prepare to discuss it thoroughly.

And telling yourself you had no choice never makes it easier. I tell myself I ran away to fight another day. Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to survive and save my ass.

I'd first say it's not a stark menu of those two choices, but a continuum from one extreme to the other, and your actions are closer to the first (fight another day) than the second (survive at the cost of your dignity). Here's why: How long did the looters (city of Camden in your case) benefit from your "surrender"? Answer -- not long. They're no better off now that you've moved than they would have been had you refused their demand for protection money the very first time. And it's not something irrevocable like Rearden giving the government rights to Rearden Metal. I give you an A- at worst. While I do feel bad for the neighborhood kids who lost their jobs, maybe this will be an object lesson for them in the worth of overbearing government vs. the worth of the productive who produce value, and they'll grow up to be Galt's themselves.

Who is John Galt?” Stadler doesn’t like the expression but says he once knew a John Galt, now deceased. Had he lived, the whole world would have talked of him. Dagny points out that the whole world is talking of him. Stadler reacts in terror: “He has to be dead.” Why the terror? This isn't the first character in the book to be afraid when John Galt is mentioned, I believe.

I thought about that awhile myself. My assumption at this point is like how Bromden thinks about McMurphy is Cuckoo's Nest, that it's better for him to be dead rather than enduring the current state of affairs. IOW, "How terrible if John Galt were to be living in a world like today's!"

I am going to respectfully disagree with you. I think the whole "sanction of the victim" refers to trying to manipulate the victim - in your example, the tax payer - into believing that the punishment being handed out is not only good, but deserved.

I think the idea is somewhere between that and that the government would be satisfied if the victim acts as if the government premises were correct, even if he doesn't believe it himself. Remember the conversation between the police type and Rearden over his refusal to sell RM to the Science Institute. The cop seemed more concerned with public perception than with Hank's opinion.

No, Barak Obama = Head of State Thompson, whom we will meet in a later chapter.

Ooh, good call. The Obama:Mouch thing didn't fit for me either, based upon either position or personality.

Of course you wanted to survive to save your ass, so you paid the protection money. Nobody can fault you for that.
But you should be saluted for going on strike against the city of Camden.

When I was hiring programmers a few years ago, I was hard pressed to find anyone who knew more than the computer language itself. There was a depth of education that is lacking now, IMHO.

I had a similar experience with Mechanical Engineering and Drafting. Back in the day, we were required to be able to design a good drawing that would convey simply and unambiguously the part we had designed. Fast forward a couple decades to CAD applicants from supposedly prestigious (and ACTUALLY very expensive) CAD schools, and you find that they hadn't been taught drafting-using-CAD, but simply how to work the CAD program. They had no idea what made a drawing good, much less how to design a part, but they thought they were mechanical designers because they could work the CAD program. Doh!

I haven’t been able to figure out how to italicize items I pull from other responses

Put "< i >" before and "< / i >" after the text (no quotes or spaces). Use "b" instead of "i" for bold, "u" for underline, and "s" for ~~striked~~ ("stricken"?). There's a HTML primer hosted somewhere on FR that covers not only all of this but posting images and links as well as colors, font sizes, etc. Also if you use Firefox, download the HTML Xtra addon. It expedites adding the tags; that's what I use.

I wrote of the concept of “rent seeking”, the pursuit of government subsidy for the sake of profit...

...Where else is this going on today?

The welfare state comes to mind. Those who are able to show that they can't work are often very skilled at 'working' the system. Also, local government entities are very hard pressed to find workers who are skilled at writing grant proposals because they are in such demand. Indeed our local government was scrambling before the last election to have 'shovel ready' projects for the great govenment money giveaway! The local leaders had an anything goes attitude, as long as it brought federal dollars to this area.

Interesting. I didn’t even think it could’ve had a compassionate cause. The two characters I remember so far showing fear that Galt might be alive seemed more like ones that would be happy he was - so your interpretation makes more sense. Thanks for the insight!

Sorry, it's not HtmlXtra, but BBCodeXtra, as it also does bulletin board style tags as well as xHtml. I only use the HTML ones and only have that menu turned on, so I thought that was the name of the entire add-on.

My company has resorted to hiring computer security (Information Assurance) engineers who have history and psychology degrees. Ever try to get something done while working with totally incapable people?

LOL! How frustrating for you.

Actually, though - I have. I taught for a short time. ;(

Funny - I did my masters thesis and had to punch a full box (2000 cards) of data. Fairly straightforward program, but lots of data. When I found out I could read that into a data file and read that instead of feeding the box of cards every time, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven! :-)

Same here - the first year I got to use a terminal to input my program was SO wonderful.

Actually, some of the best programmers I’ve worked with have had “odd” majors like music and philosophy. Go figure... Music I can kind of understand, but philosophy surprised me a bit. I guess it was the logic part of philosophy.

Now that you mention it, that makes sense. Logic is required for programming above anything else, IMO. And it needs to be pretty intuitive - hard to teach on the job. Majors like engineering and math - and even music and philosophy - will teach that throughout the 4 years in school. Now it makes sense why Lenny (Lenny the Liberal, we called him - poor guy got a lot of razzing) was doing s/w.

Yeah, so far at least I see Stadler as kind of a wussified Galt. He knows what’s right, but is too willing to compromise due to some belief in the futility of fighting what’s going on. While he did work for the establishment of the Science Institute which strikes us as emblematic of the collectivism about them, he apparently didn’t do it out of those beliefs, and doesn’t even seem to adhere to them himself. I kind of suspect that somewhere in the book he’ll find his stones and stand up and finally become fully one of the good guys. Don’t forget he was one of (albeit the weaker one) the formational mentors of Galt, d’Anconia, and Dannerskjold.

I’m almost to the end of Part II and I’m still baffled by the identity of Eddie Willers’ silent (to us) dinner partner. Obviously a gulcher and an influential one, because spoiling events have occurred which due to their timing have to have occurred because of these dinner conversations, and using intelligence gained there. But since Eddie doesn’t recognize the guy, it can’t be anyone he knows, like Francisco, whom he grew up with. At the moment I’m assuming John Galt. (Not a spoiler if true because I’m just guessing!)

Thanx, I’ve now added “Our Enemy the State” to Locke’s 2nd treatse on government, Adam Smith “theory of the moral sentiments” and “wealth of nations”, the “Federalist Papers”, the “Anti-Federalist Papers” and Herbert Spencer’s “Man Verses the State”.

Also, local government entities are very hard pressed to find workers who are skilled at writing grant proposals because they are in such demand.

You passed by it without seeing it. That sentence contains the key truth of the matter.

Why is there the profession of Grant Writer? Isn't that just a Defreezer by a different name?

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