FReeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged, The Egoist

Each question is a challenge to reality, not to the facts of The Speech. Wesley Mouch fears the public will think it was an authorized broadcast, but Head of State Thompson understands the consequences of the public thinking that the men in the room have lost control of the airwaves. Thompson demands the return of normal broadcasting and no mention of The Speech. Chick Morrison orders a lock on the story in the Mainstream Media.

Morrison doesn’t think that people of refined spirit will listen to Galt’s message. Tinky Holloway, who can’t speak for labor, says that the workingman won’t buy it. Ma Chalmers, who really can’t speak for women, says it’s no sale for women. Dr. Simon Pritchett, the nihilist philosopher who can’t speak for science, says scientists won’t accept it. Mouch thinks that Galt may be a friend of big business, and that prospect terrifies Mr. Mowen. Dr. Floyd Ferris thinks that people are too dumb to understand it, but it is Fred Kinnan who brings them all back to earth with his statement about people not wanting to starve.

Dagny tells them they have no choice but to surrender because their future is one of total destruction. Thompson sandbags Dagny, telling her he and the men need to evaluate the situation first.

But as soon as Dagny leaves, Dr. Robert Stadler, the one man of science in the room, tells Thompson that he must find Galt and kill him; it’s life or death now. Stadler advises Thompson to follow Dagny; she has to be in league with Galt and his deserters. Thompson tells Mouch to put a tail on Dagny, and if she leads them to Galt, they must bring him in alive. They need Galt because he has a corner on the men of intelligence.

As Dagny and Eddie walk on empty sidewalks past abandoned shops through a city where the lights in buildings above the 25th floor are turned off, he tells her that he recognized the voice of John Galt as his Anonymous Rail Worker friend. She tells him not to seek Galt if he values the life of his friend. She promises him she won’t desert. Thing are falling apart rapidly now, and the men of government will soon throw in the towel.

The Mainstream Media asks people not to be alarmed by The Speech but to see it as just one opinion. The country is silent until:

Thompson has the government sending continuous radio messages to John Galt asking him to come in for negotiations. Silence. The Unification Board tries to fill management jobs. Few will take them. Official broadcasts tell the nation that the government will soon work with John Galt, and stories are spread by Morrison that Galt is already in Washington conferring with government leaders. America’s industrial base grinds toward collapse. Hyperinflation erupts.

There are rumors of covered wagons traveling by night to avoid gangs of raiders, and of lights appearing in distant buildings not known to exist, but soldiers won’t dare to investigate. The Sign of the Dollar appears on abandoned buildings and government installations.

Rearden Steel is nationalized as the property of a deserter. People from the Boyle faction and Meigs faction fail to get the plant to produce, so they settle for looting the company and shipping its physical plant to friends in Europe and Latin America. An old and loyal worker who remembers Hank Rearden finally burns the plant to the ground in revenge for his boss.

Thompson asks Dagny what to do; she tells him to start the process of decontrolling people and removing taxes. Thompson balks and tells Dagny he hopes that Galt is still alive. The government is breaking into factions, and one faction wants to introduce official state terror and mass murder to get people to shut up and obey. He hopes to frighten her enough to lead them to Galt, and she is too obtuse to see the ruse.

So Dagny, who should know better, takes a 4 AM walk through a Manhattan that looks like Starnesville to find the apartment of John Galt. Based on the Taggart personnel records, she knocks on the registered address of John Galt, an apartment in a run-down building. He answers, sweeps her in and kisses her longingly. Dagny thinks they are safe, but John disabuses her of that notion; they have about thirty minutes before the “midnight knock on the door”. They will torture her in his presence if they realize the link between them, and he’d rather commit suicide than place her in that kind of jeopardy. Dagny must feign sympathy with the government, and John gives her the alibi she must use as she turns him in for the reward. He gives her a tour of the apartment he has lived in for the past twelve years, including his lab, run by his motor.

Their brief moment of happiness is interrupted by the knock. Three soldiers and a bureaucrat enter, and Dagny turns Galt in to the authorities. But the civilian says his job is to greet Galt in the name of the people and convey him to the national leadership. Their attempt to get into Galt’s lab reveals a room full of white dust; the self-destruct mechanism has done its job.

Galt is ensconced in the Wayne-Falkland, guarded by troops and government agents; there are public statements that he has joined the government. Thompson assures Galt he is not a prisoner, although he can’t leave, and offers him Wesley Mouch’s job. Galt says that if Thompson is serious, he will abolish all income taxes immediately. Thompson bridles at this, and Galt tells him that he cannot function as Economic Dictator, telling people to be free at the point of a gun. If Thompson wants him to sit at a desk and issue directives drawn up by the Head of State, he will comply, but he doesn’t have any ideas on how to fix the current system other than to abolish it.

Chick Morrison notes that the people are not reacting to promises that John Galt will deliver prosperity; they no longer believe anything the government says. Neither Mouch, Morrison nor Kinnan make any headway talking to Galt, although Kinnan understands him perfectly. Eugene Lawson screams that he can’t talk to Galt.

Although the government has announced the John Galt Plan, things are deteriorating rapidly.

Thompson asks Dagny for advice, and she plays along with Galt’s strategy of making Thompson believe she is on the government’s side. What Galt wants, she explains, is the whole earth; those are the stakes. But she pulls a fast one by convincing Thompson to let Galt see the confidential reports on how the nation is crumbling.

Arriving at her apartment, Dagny receives a note from Francisco giving her instructions on how to help and a phone number by which to reach him.

Galt meets with Thompson and Jim Taggart, who gives a long lecture on selfishness and accuses Galt of egoism. Morrison hands Galt petitions from schoolchildren, cripples, ministers and mothers begging Galt to tell the country what to do. Dr. Ferris lectures Galt on moral responsibility, suggesting that the government may order children and the elderly to be put to death for lack of food; this so enrages Thompson that he ejects Ferris from the room. Galt asks to speak to Dr. Stadler.

Eddie tells Dagny that a failed attack by raiders on the Taggart bridge over the Mississippi is not the only problem; a faction in the California civil war is holding Taggart trains for ransom in San Francisco. Eddie decides to fly to San Francisco on an army plane to take charge of the crisis. He finally admits his feelings to Dagny, and she tells him she has known for years.

Stadler has resisted the meeting with Galt, but government thugs escort him to Galt’s room with a warning to behave. At the sight of Galt, Stadler falls apart and begs for forgiveness while Galt simply says nothing. Stadler flees his former student’s presence.

Morrison arrives with a valet to get Galt prepared for an official dinner in formal attire. At the ballroom, to the applause of hundreds, Galt sits at the center of the official table; even Dagny is there, although Stadler is absent. The event is covered live on radio and television, and a newsman announces the inauguration of the John Galt Plan for Peace, Prosperity and Profit. The government men make speeches in praise of Galt and the plan, but when it’s Galt’s turn to speak, he has one simple message: “Get the hell out of my way!”

Adolescent chest-beating aside, how can the people resist a government with modern armed forces, weapons of mass destruction, and the will to use them against its own citizens?

I think the answer is found in the preceding chapter, Galts speech...

"Do not attempt to rise on the looters’ terms or to climb a ladder while they’re holding the ropes. Do not allow their hands to touch the only power that keeps them in power: your living ambition. Go on strike-in the manner I did. Use your mind and skill in private, extend your knowledge, develop your ability, but do not share your achievements with others. Do not try to produce a fortune, with a looter riding on your back. Stay on the lowest rung of their ladder, earn no more than your barest survival, do not make an extra penny to support the looters’ state. Since you’re captive, act as a captive, do not help them pretend that you’re free. Be the silent, incorruptible enemy they dread. When they force you, obey-but do not volunteer. Never volunteer a step in their direction, or a wish, or a plea, or a purpose. Do not help a holdup man to claim that he acts as your friend and benefactor. Do not help your jailers to pretend that their jail is your natural state of existence. Do not help them to fake reality. That fake is the only dam holding off their secret terror, the terror of knowing they’re unfit to exist; remove it and let them drown; your sanction is their only life belt. “If you find a chance to vanish into some wilderness out of their reach, do so, but not to exist as a bandit or to create a gang competing with their racket; build a productive life of your own with those who accept your moral code and are willing to struggle for a human existence. You have no chance to win on the Morality of Death or by the code of faith and force; raise a standard to which the honest will repair: the standard of Life and Reason."

Proving to others that it is possible to live this way is, in my opinion, the most effective strategy. Earlier on I mentioned the 'punch vs. shrug' conundrum. This is what it has distilled down to. The 'punch' (armed confrontation) is not only absorbed by the looters, it adds to their power and used against you. The 'shrug' denies them your resources and reduces their power and adds to yours.

Nancy Reagan had it right, although she may not have understood the full implication, when she told our children to "Just say NO!"

I remember that the first time I got to this part, I was thinking that people reached the limit of tolerance for smooth talking thieves. I wondered how it could take so long, but Rand wrote this in a different epoch. We now know exactly what it took for Stalin and Tung to hold onto power. The full limits of their massacres were not known when Rand wrote the book. She wrote what she knew. She was Russian, and likely knew a few things about people who will swallow the line about 'each according to his need' from personal experience.

Times have changed. Many people try to ignore what the communists did, or to analogize it with western actions, but many more people know what absolute power brings in its wake. There is a very healthy debate about the policies of the moron in the White House, even though the MSM is too brainwashed to acknowledge it. I'm not sure that the events would have unfolded as they did in the time Rand wrote the book. I suspect that there would be more violence by and against government thugs. Stalin and Tung also thought the same thing, and were very quick to kill people who threatened their power.

Only Eugene Lawson attacks the content of The Speech, and he does so hysterically. The others don’t question the content, but the nature of reality itself. What is going on here, and how did supposedly rational men reach this pass?"
". . .Dr. Stadler understands the issues, and after Dagny departs with Eddie, he urges them to murder Galt. They are as taken aback as if he had recommended using a bag of gold as a boat anchor, because despite Dagny’s explanations they really don’t understand Galt at all. But they – Thompson, especially – do know a potential asset when they see one, someone who might be bribed to be a figurehead, someone who might act as a fall guy, someone who might even have an idea they’d consider worth trying."

This is the crux of it. They do not believe that they can produce. They are sure they can make someone else produce for them. It strains belief that men who would wield power by starving and destroying the lives of millions would be troubled by murdering one more man, and that only Fred Kinnan can see what's really happening.
“Well, why don’t you try it again?” snapped Mouch. “You seem to have enjoyed it. Why don’t you try to persuade him?”
“I know better,” said Kinnan. “Don’t fool yourself, brother. Nobody’s going to persuade him. I won’t try it twice… Enjoyed it?” he added, with a look of astonishment. “Yeah…yeah, I guess I did.”
“What’s the matter with you? Are you letting him win you over?”
“Me?” Kinnan chuckled mirthlessly. “what use would he have for me? I’d be the first one to go down the drain when he wins… It’s only…that he’s a man who talks straight.”
At this point, I also started to like Fred Kinnan. I suspect that Rand wrote the character so that the book could not be accused of spitting on the blue collar class. Fred Kinnan certainly knows how many lives he's destroyed. He doesn't express guilt. He shows admiration for Galt, who can play the same game without flinching. This is also an insight into the difference between good and evil. Rand's baddies can't admit that they take what they want by force. They've been causing death and destruction for years while claiming to aid the weak for the common good. Mostly they were enriching themselves.

Galt offers no such illusions. He predicts violence and death and he is proud to be one of the causes of it.

Dr. Ferris has no problem with mass murder to get people to obey or to eliminate the “useless eaters” of society when food gets scarce. What kind of government would allow such things to be discussed in a civilized century?

Dr. Ferris would have been a very happy Nazi. He might not have cared whether the Jews were exterminated or left alone, but he would order their deaths if he thought it would increase his own power.

But there is a difference here, one that might have escaped Rand's notice due to her foreign upbringing and her life in New York and Los Angeles. She did not know middle America and she does not seem to grasp the reality of the United States Civil War. It was questioned who would follow orders to murder enemy soldiers, or even civilians and the answers ignored some legal realities in this country. The federal government does not have a monopoly on armed force. Each state has its own National Guard and its own militia. Each state has heavy weapons, aircraft, and in some cases, nuclear weapons in its control. State and local police are paramilitary organizations and can be called into service by the governor.

The movie Tank was pretty much Godawful, but it had a few shining moments. Zach Carey is an Army sergeant who owns a demil Sherman Tank. It actually had a working Browning M2, but this could be legally transferred at the time. Blake's son is framed by a crooked sheriff in Georgia. Blake rescues his son from a youth prison and they flee to Tennessee in the tank. Their plan is to force the facts of the case to be exposed in an extradition hearing. The case gets on the news and people in Tennessee and Georgia wait at the state line. There are contingents of Tennessee state police and Georgia sheriff's deputies among the crowds. The tank gets stuck just shy of the border. A group of Tennesseans throws a chain to the tank and pulls it across the line. The crooked sheriff orders his deputies to fire into the crowd. The Tennessee police commander orders his men to return fire if the deputies shoot. Is such a thing out of the question? Not if state relations were strained to the point of insurrection, and it has happened here before.

It depends on just who wins a second civil war, should one occur. If the government's firepower wins, he who challanged(sic) an order would likely find himself executed, while he who followed orders would live and probably get a medal.

My father was an Army lieutenant in France during the Battle of the Bulge. The scariest story he told me was about the time he caught one of his men raping a German woman. I asked him if he had the man arrested. He said, "I couldn't. I needed him on the line." My father was wounded shortly after that and sent to England for surgery and recovery. He never went back to Germany. I have no idea what happened to that soldier.

Some incidents are prosecuted by us in wartime, others are not. Think of My-Lai, and try not to regurgitate when you think of Jack Murtha. It depends on the perception of the mission, the trust of commanders, the trust of comrades in arms, and to a great degree, luck. The federal government is not omniscient.

Regarding Rand's thrice usurping government broadcasts by Rearden, Taggart, and Galt. This is Reversal of the Situation, found in Aristotle's Poetics. It is a Greek dramatic device, and yes, it is that old. My agent made me read Aristotle's Poetics in 1989. You can be certain that Rand read it. She was a screenwriter. She also used Recognition repeatedly in the climax, and she threw in some Pathos for Eddie and for Cherryl Taggart.

She departed significantly from the formula by omitting a Scene of Suffering for her villains. Drama of the age is supposed to make us feel sorry for the villain, when we learn that he acted out of desperation or misunderstanding. We are meant to feel pathos for people who let the looters destroy them, but not for the actual looters.

A great post, and my apology for a tardy reply.

Kinnan is convinced that he would be the fellow that Galt would find no place for, but in fact Rand writes him as an individual as clear in the recognition of the rules that govern his world as anyone in the novel, and certainly more so than anyone else in the Aristocracy of Pull. Let us posit a society built anew under the rather spare set of economic rules and the more comprehensive set of moral rules specified by Rand in the person of Galt. Let us also posit a Fred Kinnan who has survived the fall of the criminal ruling class of which he was a part. He must start anew. Could a fellow such as this succeed under the new rules?

Rand gives us no real reason to suppose that he wouldn't. After all, the primary deception common to all of that gaggle of fools is self-deception, a crime of which Kinnan is notably (and uniquely) innocent. Now, it may be the romantic in me, but I could actually picture Kinnan as being perfectly content to start as a sweeper of one of Rearden's floors - a very ambitious sweeper, to be sure, and one who would not be content in that role for very long. That is, as Rand sees it, a virtue, not a vice. She places competence high on her list of virtues, and Kinnan is, of all of them, at least a supremely competent villain. But key to Rand's presentation of this character is that she also states what his moral precepts are and that he adheres to them scrupulously, not, as he puts it, because he wants but because he knows he has to. The latter is, in fact, irrelevant under Rand's rules, at least as I understand them.

So let's leave it that I think that Kinnan, unlike the rest of the idiots in the ruling class, has the intellectual equipment to thrive under a new set of moral rules. Has he asked others to live for him? To my knowledge he has not. Has he offered to live for the benefit of others? To my knowledge he has not. Could he, then, take Galt's Oath and live by it? I can't say "yes" but I won't say "no". I guess I'd better leave it there.

Your insight as to Rand's appreciation of the issues and the upshot of the U.S. Civil War is absolutely marvelous and probably deserves a thread of its own. I won't attempt to answer it now but I will state publicly that it's one of those gems that makes the whole Book Club thing worthwhile. Thank you for that, and I mean it.

There was a more recent event in Washington, D.C. In August 1963, 250,000 people marched through town to the area around the Washington monument where Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech.

I wasn't in the crowd but I was nearby at Fort Myer in Arlington National Cemetery serving as a Sp4 with The Old Guard. During the week before the rally, the battalion practiced riot control tactics armed with M1 rifles with fixed bayonets. On the morning of the rally, officers ordered live ammo issued to the NCOs as we loaded into deuce-and-a-half trucks strung with chicken wire where we sat for hours on alert waiting to move out.

During that time, the colonel commanding the Bn went from truck to truck telling the troops to follow orders and “men, you may have to kill some Americans today”.

That was a far different time 46 years ago. Thankfully, the whole episode turned out peacefully, we never moved out, nobody got killed and we went back to business as usual burying lots of dead soldiers. Today there is the possibility of another “Freedom March” on Washington and I'm concerned about how the military will be ordered to react this time when citizens object in mass to the loss of their freedoms. So far these ‘tea party’ demonstrations have been peaceful. But the tone is getting angrier as the economy deteriorates and the politicians take more freedoms from the people in their power grab.

I'm likely to be in the crowd this time and advise any others with me to prepare for the worst. Based on my experience, the military will follow orders as it always has, just like Publius said.

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