How Many Bricklayers Did Galt Invite to the Gulch?
Galt went around inviting famous artists, noted business leaders to the Guch, but once there, who built their houses? Who paved their streets, dug their sewer lines?
This isn't a class warfare argument; the building of a house, for example, not only takes a skilled architect, but also skilled craftsmen and industrious laborers.
If the criterion for admission is a belief in "trading value for value", surely Galt should and would have invited "ordinary" workers to the Gulch as well as luminaries like Wyatt and Danagger?
Such people exist lower down on the ladder; people who believe in trading value for value, but lack the creative ability to invent a new motor or miraculous metal. People who didn't inherit an already successful railroad or copper mines, but would be able to get a day's worth of coal or copper dug in a day's worth of hours for a day's worth of pay. Maybe they lack the ambition to go through the headache of running a company when they get more satisfaction from digging coal out of the ground. Maybe they lack the self discipline necessary to see their visions to reality, but are still able and still believe in trading value for value.
What Utopians always underestimate in their rhetoric (no disparagement of Ms Rand intended) is the example America set before them. People's abilities and worth are not necessarily evidenced by their position in life. All the creative brilliance in the world will not get a brick wall built. A brick wall built without knowledge and skill won't stand, but the most creative and brilliantly designed wall will never exist without someone to lay it up brick by brick. Someone whose creative skill may be shrouded by prejudice toward his position in life.
There may not be a place in the Gulch for someone like me. But that would be Galt's loss.
This isn't a class warfare argument; the building of a house, for example, not only takes a skilled architect, but also skilled craftsmen and industrious laborers.
If the criterion for admission is a belief in "trading value for value", surely Galt should and would have invited "ordinary" workers to the Gulch as well as luminaries like Wyatt and Danagger?
Such people exist lower down on the ladder; people who believe in trading value for value, but lack the creative ability to invent a new motor or miraculous metal. People who didn't inherit an already successful railroad or copper mines, but would be able to get a day's worth of coal or copper dug in a day's worth of hours for a day's worth of pay. Maybe they lack the ambition to go through the headache of running a company when they get more satisfaction from digging coal out of the ground. Maybe they lack the self discipline necessary to see their visions to reality, but are still able and still believe in trading value for value.
What Utopians always underestimate in their rhetoric (no disparagement of Ms Rand intended) is the example America set before them. People's abilities and worth are not necessarily evidenced by their position in life. All the creative brilliance in the world will not get a brick wall built. A brick wall built without knowledge and skill won't stand, but the most creative and brilliantly designed wall will never exist without someone to lay it up brick by brick. Someone whose creative skill may be shrouded by prejudice toward his position in life.
There may not be a place in the Gulch for someone like me. But that would be Galt's loss.
---someday someone will do an AS compendium, so I can look up these pesky quotes when I want them. The information was given to Dagny in answer to "Who is John Galt?"
Every time I read it, and that's a couple of pages every day, I get something new and deeper.
I was fine with Galt forming his own little world when he didn't approve of the way the real world was working. But when he started actively torturing Dagney by taking away people she needed in order to save *her* little world, just to *coerce* her into becoming his... the he was no different than the progressives he was fighting against.
Accusing Galt of torture, coercion or even possession of another goes against the entire concept of such men presented within the book. Coercion, torture, theft of property, is left to those that are destroying the world. Without productivity and the rewards associated with those efforts, the world will collapse and then what will the thieves/moochers do except force people to work under threat of death.
Like water, productivity, jobs, and prosperity for those that work, comes from a point of least resistance.
Your theory is quite a stretch. Did you actually read the book? Let's give it one more try. Read the book, or read it again, and tell us who really destroys the world.
And you're wrong to say that Galt did it out of lust for her. His "lust" as you call it, for her is a manifestation of his love for life, Dagny being one of the kind of people who make that life worth living. It was that same love for life that led him to take it out of the hands of those who sought to destroy it. You've confused cause and effect.
You just echoed the looters' assertion that it's the laborors who built the modern world. When the inventors and innovators go on strike, the laborors are not able to take over and run those businesses. Will the laborers be able to run Apple, ExxonMobil, railroads, steel-making, railroads, etc. The answer is no. The world needs both the inventors and the laborers to be successful.
Who said anything about bricklayers?
I do recall that Galt did invite someone who was just a truck driver in outside life, but one who did not want to stay a truck driver. That's just one example. I believe Dagny Taggart did not meet one-tenth of the inhabitants of Galt's Culch. If the Gulch were actually the Uncompahgre or "Hot Springs Valley," where now lies the town of Ouray, Colorado, remember that Ouray, even now, has a population of a thousand residents!
Now I did read the book. So let me give you my backstory of it:
Ouray, CO, died twice. First as a mining town, and then as the tourist trap it became, when the Recession killed the tourist trade. So Midas Mulligan bought the Uncompahgre Valley and determined eventually to turn it back into a mining center.
Then came the Runaway Constitutional Convention that scrapped Congress and the Presidency in favor of the unicameral Legislature and the Head of State.
And, of course, the case of Amalgamated Service Co., Lee Hunsacker, et al. v. Mulligan Bank and Midas Mulligan.
After the Illinois Appellate Division reversed Judge Narragansett, Midas Mulligan liquidated his bank and everything he had, repaid the mortgages he had on the Uncompahgre Valley, bought livestock and heirloom seeds, and retired to the Valley. Where he built a log house with his own hands. Log, not brick. Read the book. And I believe he personally hewed every stick of furniture in the place, except for the artistic rarities he bought here and there and brought to the Valley to install in his house.
Then when Judge Narragansett had had enough, Midas invited him to come out. Maybe he hired himself out to the judge to build his farmhouse. From the start, Midas determined to build a trading relationship. No favors, no "village planning," none of that junk. However it happened, Judge Narragansett built his own house, also out of logs. As did Richard Halley. As, by the way, did the Triumvirs: John Galt, Ragnar Danneskjöld, and Francisco d'Anconia.
From that day forward, a few people would trickle in, and maybe the Triumvirs would hire themselves out to build their houses for them in the June Vacation Month.
And then came the destruction of Colorado.
And by then, Dick McNamara was already on the scene. He was a contractor. He it was who organized the laying of the sewer line. And he hired these obscure people to do skilled labor. Including, I remind everyone, pipe layers and electrical linemen. It's all in there. Read it.
You can teach a creative man to lay brick. You cannot necessarily teach a bricklayer to design a building or to contract to erect it.
http://www.conservapedia.com/Atlas_Shrug...
http://www.conservapedia.com/Galt%27s_Gu...
http://www.conservapedia.com/Midas_Mulli...
Each article has links to the other two, and to many others.
Atlas Shrugged is a work of fiction, so Mulligan might have built his house out of moonrock he scaled in himself.
It's not as easy as one might think to build a house out of logs or to hew furniture; and the result isn't going to resemble a ski resort.
And, btw, one cannot necessarily teach a creative man to lay brick. Steven Hawking is brilliant and will never lay a single brick. Some people simply lack the eye-hand coordination for the work. It takes decades to make a master mason, which is more than simply slapping rectangles of dried clay on a wall. The same for master carpenters, plumbers, electricians (of which they were going to need a freaking ton).
But my point has been missed. It takes no creative skill at all to learn to dig a ditch, even a straight one. But it does take *man hours*. The time Mulligan spent building his log cabin was time he wasn't spending doing what HE does best, time he wasn't spending exercising his creative skills. He's free to waste his time however he chooses, but if one is going to build a city, it's going to take manpower. Manpower that isn't as monetarily valuable as designing the city, for tasks that are a waste of the more valuable time of people who can invent doubletalk drives.
I'm trying to imagine what building his own log cabin did to Richard Halley's hands.
Galt et al simply would not have had the time for their nefarious schemes to lure the productive away from the world, to keep a job at Taggart Transcontinental, and build homes that were fit to live in, except by the standards of 19th century western settlers.
Did they build everything out of logs? The linings for the sewer pipes, the electrical conductors to carry electricity to the houses; were the lightbulbs made out of wood?
Unless the Gulch was a magical place with immense deposits of natural resources undetectable by satellite, they're not going to have the copper for wires, for example. That will take mines, refineries, machine tools to draw the wire, spools to wrap it on, crops and livestock to feed them while they're working, and likewise farmers, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers...
And most of these people are not creative elite who design doubletalk drives over a weekend or compose a symphony on the back of a napkin.
You *will*, inevitably, if you are to provide the raw manpower necessary, get some people, possibly a measurable percentage of people, who still support, to one degree or another, the collectivist philosophy dominant by the time of directive 10-289.
Galt's Gulch can only work through segregation; segregating the objectivists and libertarians from everyone else. And I don't think such segregation is possible and still build the city.
Now I can only reply to your discourse, not to where I think that discourse comes from. You say it's impossible for that writer or that econ prof to learn how to lay brick or pipe or string a high-rise electric line.
And that is simply not correct. I'm not saying you're lying; I'm saying you're mistaken. Hey: if I can learn how to camp out and cook a meal on a fire in the out-of-doors, I can learn to lay brick, or logs, or whatever, or string an electric line, or lay pipe for a water main or a sewer. But can everyone learn to do what I do? No. That's why people become bricklayers: because they can't learn to do anything higher than that.
The whole point of Rand's work is that the mystical/altruistic/collectivist/statist system assumed without warrant, even decreed, that there was no such thing as any person smarter than any other person. And on that basis they decreed equality of economic result.
So John Galt stood up in that factory hangar and said, in so many words: "All right. You think we can't get along without you? We will show you we certainly can. And then let YOU try to get along without US."
Now the only thing missing is this: how do you treat the one who never went along with the looters' state, but who cannot design electrostatic motors, as John Galt did (or reverse-engineer them, as Quentin Daniels did)? Or invent a new substitutionary/interstitial alloy of iron, copper, and carbon, as Henry Rearden did? The answer: John Galt removed the prime movers first. Then he declared, "All others who see our point, decamp from the looters' society now!" And they did, and formed their own camps. And maybe they didn't lay any bricks. Maybe they lived as the Native Americans ("Indians", "Amerinds") did.
But Galt's Gulch was never to be a permanent settlement. It was a place of refuge. That it turned into "the rallying center for such outposts of civilization as [others would] build" was only because the society collapsed faster and sooner than John Galt even thought possible.
Some years later, some guys in my department were working on a light-weight electronic circuit to drive a welding rod. I watched a short demonstration and asked if I could take it for a spin. I ran a 2-3" bead between a couple slabs of soft steel. When they broke the oxide layer off, one of the experienced welders said it was one of the nicest beads he'd ever seen. "How long have you been welding?" he asked. I held up two fingers about 2-3" apart. "About that long," I replied with a smile.
I started wood-turning just 2-3 years ago and have produced some really beautiful works. "The Knack" Dilbert video is a reference from my woodworking page.
Lots of folks can do lots of things; even bricklaying and ditch digging. I installed a long cellar drain pipe from Mom's basement to the street... close to 75' or so and did a great job. I cemented Z-Bricks up to a plywood façade in my first house and when a neighbor/contractor took his first look at the finished product, his first question was, "Where did you learn to lay bricks that well?!"
Or, in other words... http://www.plusaf.com/falklaws.htm#2nd
I wrote the HTML for that, too... :)
:)
Oh! Thanks, Eric_in_CO for the reminder... one of my co-workers taught me how to solder copper pipes for household plumbing and drainage. When my hot water heater failed some year or so later, I had to solder about a dozen and a half joints to get it reconnected. All were sweat-soldered joints and none of them leaked at all.
http://www.plusaf.com/falklaws.htm#2nd
I can and have done the following trades at the professional level (master is what is required to hold a license). All residential and commercial electrical, residential plumbing, carpentry, concrete work, kitchen and bath remodeling. I’ve designed and built a roof truss with my own hands. With the exception of electrical, I learned all by reading books and I made a good bit of money when I was laid off in construction management in 2008 by doing this all myself instead of un-employment. I can also fly helicopters and airplanes, make beer and wine from scratch.
I’ve spent a lot of my career around trades. Most do great work, but very few are willing to do the research and self teaching required for a free society to pay them more. Few will teach themselves to own a business or write a contract. A free society will reward those that do achieve what few will with more value. Without that reward, even fewer will reach for high achievement.
I don’t say this to be cocky, but to prove that business owners and innovators can easily teach themselves to do manual work and do it wall.
Welcome to the Gulch!
yeah, I guess my entire family for 5 generations has been just a pack of incompetent boobs, since it took YEARS to learn to become a master mason (based upon what a master mason called me, not on what a government department licensed).
"Jack of all trades, master of none" means exactly that.
Gee, I've written software in 3 different languages and even sold some of it. Does that make me a "master" programmer? Hardly.
What you are is a professional middle-manager.
I have no respect for anyone who does a number of professions and claims to be master level at them all.
Business owners are often just as stupid, lazy, foolish and incompetent as common laborers. Television programs such as "Bar Rescue" and "Restaurant Impossible" are tributes to that truth.
And Ayn Rand herself pointed this out... James Taggart was a businessman, as was Orrin Boyle.
In the movie it was, for me, a very significant scene when Mouch goes around the table to his core group; the actors played their parts, perfectly, as Mouch lectured them that their businesses were suffering, without saying why. Why does business need government as a caretaker? Because those running the business are incompetent.
I'll tell you another truth I realized recently; as companies get big enough, they begin developing all the failings of government. Bureaucracy, CYA, the Peter Principle, etc.
I am fine with being called a middle manager, but I am not even that.....yet.
You miss the point. don't watch it on TV. That is a stage. Stupid, lazy and incompetent business owners become x-business owners every time.
And FYI, I have little respect for people who don't learn a number of skills so they can do things for themselves. I am not a master of any with the exception of maybe helicopter pilot. But plenty of time and plenty of learning to do.
I also get that you resent the concepts Rand tried to present and demonstrate (and did very well in my opinion) in her book. But I fail to get or see any real depth or desire on your part to try to understand why or how others such as myself can find meaning, even enjoyment, from her writing.
The Gulch was indeed a 'magical place' built in Rand's mind to provide a place for her producers to escape the demands of the collectivists and the needy takers, while forming a society in which each gained from the value of each contribution rather than from each existence or need.
I find it telling that you finish by insisting on the need to segregate the 'objectivists and libertarians' from 'everyone else,' rather than segregating the needy takers and utilizers of force from 'everyone else.'
But you have provided a reason for some of us to think and refine our thoughts and for that I thank you.
KYFHO
Philosophically you assume a Triumvir identity and deserve the mediocrity that your Socialism begets. Nothing you post deviates from this fundamental flaw in conceptual ideology and the "mental disorder"* of Liberalism.
*Dr. Michael Savage
I like a great deal of the backstory, with the exception of the last sentence - and I think it's sitting on an unclear premise. If a man is laying brick, does that make him A Bricklayer? Not necessarily - that's what he's doing now. A number of people, both in AS and out, are doing work which is not what they ARE - if you're on strike, you take your mind off the market, but many people still need to earn a living. The job does not define the man.
The original author seemed to suggest that John Galt was in error in refusing to reach out to anyone who trained himself to lay bricks--especially if he had all the baggage that would have made him VOTE to RATIFY a runaway Constitutional Convention. (I admit I invented that. Rand didn't go into great detail on why "Congress" became a mere "Legislature" and the "President" was now a "Head of State." She said she did not want to sully those institutions by attaching them to the story's villains. And the book was already too big to have that kind of explanation. But if I were writing a prequel, I would use that device.)
Of course one who lays brick is not necessarily a bricklayer by trade. And Rand makes the point in the novel. Notice that an awful lot of university professors, who resigned or got fired for trying to teach the truth, turned to laying brick because no one else was available, and they didn't have a university for them to teach in. Only a few were fortunate enough to continue in their former professions or lines of work. (Ragnar Danneskjöld is a special case. Instead of laying brick or sawing clapboard in Galt's Gulch, he is seizing loot carriers on the high seas. I wanted to see more of thim than the mentions in the newspapers.)
See, back in the early 1980s, there was this 4th generation master mason, a contractor with 37 years experience and who'd taught countless bricklayers their trade over the years (including myself) who was doing a contract job to make a university handicapped accessible.
Being friendly with the staff, he got word that they were going to hire someone to teach a masonry vo-tech class over the summer. He applied for the position, but was refused because he lacked a piece of paper; a college degree.
The job went to a professor at the college who had spent a summer as a mason-tender.
When Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged, bricklayers were making more per week than most white collar workers; until the illegal alien invasion, it was, as were all the trades, a respected profession. Except by those who spent their lives in academia.
A very significant incident, it is not referred to anywhere later, I only got what it meant on my second reading.
Being successful is not based upon what someone has trained you to do, but upon what you've trained yourself to do. Success breeds success.
For instance, I'm a Software Engineer, self-trained and taught. I earn a very good living being a Software Engineer, but I know that I could build my own house should I need to do so and want to do so. I've always done my own plumbing and wiring and am sure with the correct tools, could install a septic system or pave my driveway (concrete or asphalt, take your pick). If I needed to and with the right tools, I could pave the road in front of my house.
Don't assume that because someone has specialized in a particular task, they are incapable of performing other tasks. Harrison Ford was construction worker before he became famous as an actor. Do you believe that since he became an actor he could no longer work as a construction worker?
However, the real question is not could they, but would they. Successful people can do most anything, but their real talents is in finding those people who do things better than they can and employing them for those tasks. That frees up time for the successful person to do what they are best at. So, undoubtedly, Galt's Gulch had laborers and others who were better and more efficient at their chosen skill than the main characters would have been. I for one am glad that Rand didn't expound on this subject; the book is already long enough!
Exactly! When Dagny "dropped out," she went to her cabin and started in on manual labor tasks.
Somebody is being a linear thinker (reader).
Figured it out fast - no help from parents or friends. Later in life I did get support from others besides my wife, just not between 18 - 21.
Ended up in USAF (navigator) for 6 years (draft eligible 1A), attended college (two bachelors and two masters), software design engineer --> program manager.
Retired early. Married 45 years, same bride.
Electrically wired daughter's new construction home (no inspector gigs) having never read a single electricians "code" - ever.
Did a frame off on a 75 Olds (still chirps in second) and finally built and flew a 200 MPH metal (14,000 rivets) airplane (RV7A).
You can learn and you can compete on many levels. That is what life is all about - pushing yourself to just do it.
No Feds needed. We will soon be forced to go Galt when the economy dies. I am ready though. Are you?
Additionally, I noticed that a good number of the striker's employees followed them to the gulch... while the focus of the book is on the elite, it appears that a lot of "underlings" (also bringing their own set of skills, practiced or prelearned) who met the requirements of residence were there as well... Of course, it would have been nice had Ayn touched on this a bit more than she did, but given that the Gulch had been populated and worked on over the 10+ years before the story line kicks in, it would make sense that either Midas et al hired competent contractors to lay the foundations of the village early on, or attracted/recruited them to "the cause"...
Many of those who had developed into those turning the engines of the world welcomed the opportunity to go back to the simpler production of building a house, cooking a meal, or planting some food. Heck, I know *I* welcome those opportunities! The simplicity is in knowing that your neighbors are doing the same and not expecting you to work for their sakes, too. We can certainly share our skills amongst one another in exchange for value in return, but never forced, coerced, or otherwise taken under duress. The distinction makes all the difference.
The difference between an amateur craftsman and a professional craftsman is both the quality of the work, but more importantly, the proficiency. You may well, in a reasonable period of time, learn to lay up a brick wall that might not look to bad or be too far out of plumb. It might take you a week to get it built, however, when it would take a professional half a day.
Of course, that wouldn't teach you to lay flagstone, or build a natural fireplace chimney, or even alternate bonds. It wouldn't teach you to recognize the necessary consistency of mortar, how or why to tool various joints, or a thousand other little things that a professional learns over time.
Meanwhile, while you're screwing around with playing amateur construction worker, you're not busy recruiting people to come to the gulch; you're not busy stalking Dagney Taggart; you're not busy inventing (out of thin air) magical force/invisibility fields.
So, Galt brings in some of this otherwise worthless cattle to employ in order to free himself up to do his world-saving... and they re-introduce all the hated aspects of the society-at-large that he wished to escape in the Gulch.
I don't care how badly I may want to, I'll never be able to be an NFL quarterback. I lack the *physical* ability. You can't just learn to lay brick because you want to, no matter how brilliant you are. It takes years of training to become proficient at it.
And my whole point was nicely summed up by you... "Building brick walls may not be something he prefers to do". In point of fact, doing so would be a waste of his real abilities and time.
There's a reason why the Antebellum South was dependent on slave labor, and why the Industrial North was dependent on immigrant labor (who in may cases were treated worse than the Southern slaves).
No amount of brilliance is going to get a physically demanding job done in a reasonable amount of time, particularly and leave the brilliant one time to do his brilliant thing.
Many people around the country are establishing their own "gulch" and plumbers, builders, craftsmen, and experts in every field are sought out.
That's besides the point of saying none of them are capable of doing manual labor. At least to a certain extent. I think Galt, Francisco, Hank, Danagger, Dagny, etc, were all plenty capable of doing manual labor and doing a good job. They had the mind and the work ethic to figure it out.
However, you have a point that because that isn't the path they chose to follow in life they aren't going to do as well as a producer who did go down that path and has the history of experience to make them do the job better.
So would they be capable of doing the manual labor work in the Gulch. Sure. Would the quality, at least initially, be the same as someone who was already working in those industries at the levels starting at the bottom going up? Probably not. Over time if they had to continue, I'm sure they would catch up.
And finally, as plenty others have said, just because the strikers in the gulch that get highlighted are the names we have been introduced to, that doesn't mean they weren't there, or if discovered, wouldn't be welcome.
However, if one intentionally removes the bolts from the axle holding the wheel in place, thus letting the wheel careen across the room and smash against the wall, one is still intentionally destroying the wheel.
An example of such destruction is the Obama administration. Sworn to "fundamentally transform" the country, his policies must, intentionally or not, destroy the country as it is in order to transform it into what he envisions it to be.
I just don't see where Galt has the right to do that any more than Obama does.
At the same time the moochers and politicians are not intentionally destroying the world, but they are taking action after action to further their goals, which cause the destruction of the world. It is Galt and his ilk who postpone the destruction, he is just asking them to stop preventing it.
Comparing to Obama is a comparison to the moochers and politicians in Atlas and not a comparison to Galt because once again he is making active choices to influence his change. Galt is just choosing not to contribute to the world in it's current state.
Excuse me? "destroy the world"!!!
What on earth are you suggesting? That the innovative entrepreneurs are somehow destroying the world?
Who has been brainwashing you? Washington politicians? Leftist professors (excuse the redundancy)?
It is such thinking that has lead to the quagmire of regulation that stifles innovation, raises costs for everyone and reduces job opportunities.
Or Galt's own words, "I will stop the motor of the world". You think he didn't know the results?
What AS part III almost certainly won't show is the millions who will die as a result of Galt's campaign.
As I understand it, society does eventually collapse. It does so as a result of Galt's efforts.
How do I know this? Look at the real world that is very much like the world of Atlas Shrugged... minus the John Galt. It's becoming less and less free, yet it's not collapsing. Communist China is, while un-free, prospering, not collapsing.
This is not events that I wish to transpire, but to suggest that Galt is not intentionally destroying the world is willful blindness.
.....who knows - maybe Dominique decorated everything too.
(that's the way it happened in my fantasy, at any rate)
Thank you for your response!
Never was there a less professional professional than Howard Roark.
I notice you've skipped through the thread, sprinkling discord where possible, and whining about why there wouldn't be a place for you, despite the multitude of examples that you are given FROM THE BOOK to refute that position.
I don't want you in the Gulch because the persona you have projected here is obnoxious, whiny, indifferent, weaselly, supercilious, class-driven, derogatory and generally a pain in the ass.
If that was your intention, congratulations, you made it. If it wasn't, sit down and shut up open up your mind and your ears [eyes?] and do your best to learn something.
Don't like what Roark designs? Hire somebody else! DUH
Yesterday I listened to the story of the 20th century motor company (again) and heard something that made me realize that Ayn Rand wasn't being elitist, even though all her protagonists do seem to be ubermenchen.
"...but you don't all stand working at an acetylene torch 10 hours a day, together"
"...there was one young boy who started out, full of fire for the noble idea, a bright kid without any schooling, but with a wonderful head on his shoulders". She seems to understand that "bricklayer" isn't a genetic type, and neither is "businessman". Some here don't seem to have grasped that yet.
But at the same time Dick McNamara is a straight construction contractor who joined the strike.
Just like a real economy, as it grows the ability and performance for individuals or small businesses to generalize their skills and job tasks shrinks, while specific contractors take on specific roles. Dwight Sanders won't have time to fix and create Aircraft AND run a pig farm as the strike gets bigger. He'll have to pick one or the other. AND he'll have to do it better than everyone else, lest he get run out of business.
We are all speculating on Galt's Gulch and Rand's attitude toward the "average" worker. I think you find that spelled out very clearly when she has Dagny stop a hobo from being thrown from her moving train. He had badly worn, but clean, well mended clothing. His pride in self caught her attention.
It is all a question not of abilities, either physical or mental, but a question of the tenacious grasp of "self". Pride, integrity, independence, industry, all are aspects of the "self". John Galt set out to stop the motor of the world. To do that he took out the biggest, most difficult to duplicate cogs. All the parts were necessary, but there was no way it could run with out the biggest cogs. And it had more PR value for Galt's goal than pulling out the bricklayers and truck drivers.
And, BTW, I'm a 64 year old grandmother with a business degree from TCU where I graduated cum laude. I can use a chain saw, a nail gun, and drive an F750, 26ft box truck as well as a large John Deere tractor. Being intelligent and successful doesn't mean you can't lay brick. So when you say they didn't build their own homes, I call BS on that. Dagny built the terraces in front of the cabin where she stayed. I built my log cabin in Colorado.
I didn't say being intelligent and successful meant you can't lay brick.
Anybody can lay brick, or do carpentry.
But it takes years to make a craftsman at either trade.
I can make my own paper, but I buy it at Wal mart, because it's not worth my time and effort, and the quality is better. To make it myself would cost somewhere around $10 a sheet, if I included per-hour labor for my time. Buying it from the specialists via the shelves of Walmart, I can get an entire pad for a dollar.
And you will (or won't, I don't care at this stage) forgive me if I sneer at your "I built my log cabin in Colorado" statement.
I'm only 51, but in my half century I've seen so very many jackasses who claimed to have built their own home when they merely contributed some minor portion of labor, so many jackasses who claimed mastery of a craft because they could actually complete the actions to build something minor, however incompetently.
I call BS on the whole concept of a city of self-reliant persons. You lose all the advantages of specialization and gain no advantages of self-reliance. And I call BS on it for the most fundamental reason:
History.
It's not about Genius vs. Rest Of The Crowd
And yes, it is that simple.
You produce something of value? So you are welcome.
You don't want that? You only want to get something for free, be it by exercising brute force or because of your invaluable holy pure existence? Then you're not.
But it's not that simple.
"produce something of value".
Well, I poop every day. That's fertilizer, so I'm welcome in the Gulch, yes?
Terrific, I'll come move in to the Gulch, with my poop, and with my sociological baggage that led the real world to its sorry state. How long before the Gulch follows?
Before I went on strike myself, I owned a business and taught at university level, but I grew up as the child of a carpenter and followed him and my grandfather around with a hammer from the time I could carry one. I designed and built the home we live in, acting as my own general contractor and doing all the landscaping myself. Right down to the concrete work with a trowel in my hand.
I can build a radio from a couple old style TVs, wire a substation or a home. And I actually built a airplane twenty years ago. There are tools in my shop for welding, machining, woodworking and I'm a real, honest to goodness potter who can make a set of dishes or a flower vase. I'm also a VERY good shot and I can feed my family from the bounty God gave us - you see, I know where food comes from and it's not a super market.
Don't sell us strikers short - we've got skills, crazy skills. That's why we are on strike.
My hobby is BenchRest. Of course being a stupid bricklayer I'm not smart enough to use a micrometer while manufacturing ammunition to specs no factory can therefore i will die soon.
Crazy skills;)
Somehow, I think you do all right in the ammo dept. :D
Keep your powder dry Brother!
Larry
you build that house? you mill every stud, you form every nail, you wire it, you drywall it, you carpet it, you roof it, every last bit of it yourself.
If you don't, then you have to import the labor, as you did. The sheer volume of labor needed to build a city will not allow you to restrict membership to tested, proven objectivists.
I have no "union buddies". They tend to stay away when you say to them "get the fck away from me before I beat you to death you slimy union sack of shit".
Kind of my reaction ever since they tried to burn my father alive.
Yours is the kind of insular, ignorant, presumptuous comment I would expect.
Let's take a deep breath, and do some introspective analysis here.
Don't we cherish reason, above all else?
And...isn't Hiraghm simply applying reason to the logistics of actually building the Atlantis, as shown, in the novel?
Ayn Rand could have resolved this with more detail, but she didn't. It is, therefore, rational for us to subjectively 'flesh' out the missing details...just as the OP has done.
His opinion has a much weight as mine, or yours, since Ayn Rand left that to our imagination. We can disagree with his conclusion...but should support his right to state his case, especially since he has answered every post with arguably rational examples.
To do any less, would be the poster child for hypocrisy.
I do agree that among the world outside of objectionist reasoning, building the village without the help of scabs would be impossible. The rules, zoning, inspections, permits and all the rest of collectivist society are setup to make it impossible to do anything without those that bind the hands of those who seek to achieve, excel and prosper.
WE can build it with tested, proven objectivists, just as I did my home. And we'll offer no comfort to those who remain outside.
The Pharoah couldn't have built a pyramid without tons of the most successful labor system in history; slavery.
"without scabs"? You use a derogatory UNION term, Mr Objectivist?
So far all you're teaching me is that objectivists are nothing but big-mouthed self-important egotists.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
— Robert Heinlein
I suspect you'll find you can do more than three or four things on that list, and it's not conclusive. Most people can do more than just their specialty. I've help build 3 houses, everything from digging the hole for the foundation, to pouring it, building walls, roofs, painting, making cabinets, wiring, plumbing, etc. I don't work in construction, I spent most of my life sitting at a desk programming computers. I can also rebuild an engine, and I could and would do all my own maintenance, if I could justify the cost of the necessary tools.
I've worked as a Firefighter, and EMT, an Electronics tech, a landscaper, a Handyman, and probably a dozen other things. I'm not an expert in any of them but it wouldn't stop me from doing them if it were necessary.
I've never fought a war, I've never planned an invasion - well actually I have, but it was only a game, I'm still alive so dying gallantly is unchecked but everything else on the list I've done. Oh, it wasn't a hog, it was a deer.
I see no reason to think Galt, or Wyatt, or Rearden were any less capable, I'd say significantly more capable (although fictional).
People who think of themselves as self-reliant, as productive, are generally capable of doing any number of things they've never tried, even if the first attempt fails.
Thank you for finally making that concession. Doing is not the same as mastering.
Now tomorrow go out and do ALL of those things.
*At the same time*.
And be done by supper time.
Being able to do something and mastering it are two different things. Heinlein may have believed in the jack of all trades, but that's not consistent with history.
What about Stradevarius? Let's see da Vinci manufacture a Strad of equal quality in the same period of time.
Exactly what trades did da Vinci master? Knowing how to do something and mastering it are two different things. He certainly sucked as a helicopter manufacturer.
Nothing inspires more than necessity....
Moon is a Harsh Mistress is my favorite. Followed by Friday. The young adult stuff was fantastic and was primarily responsible for me becoming an bibliophile. My favorites of the Young Adults which I still read now and again, The Menace From Earth, Have Space Suit - Will Travel, and Space Cadet.
The term SciFi seems to have a slightly derogatory connotation for some folks. Probably due the the BEM (bug eyed monster) movies.
The current favored term is I believe more accurate and does a better job of describing the genre - Speculative Fiction, fiction based on What If?
I was raised calling it science fiction, the authors I know who write it call it science fiction, and don't like changing the names of things to make them more "accurate" which actually makes them less clear.
<old codger voice out>
We need to move this to a Heinlein thread in books, not here. If it's not already done, I'll do that now.
The second mistaken premise is the use of the term Utopians. Objectivist philosophy has never stated that it would lead to any form of Utopia, just as Capitalism does not lead to guaranteed success. Who's Utopian rhetoric are you quoting? and why would you then attribute their comments to Ayn Rand whilst lightly backpedaling. Aside from those two mistaken premises, what makes you think that even if bricklayers etc were not brought in to the Gulch, and I see no reason why they wouldn't be; between the people that are there; the men(people) of the mind, why would you think that they couldn't build a road or a house from scratch? They may even be able to build vehicles that do not require roads. Do you think Howard Roark couldn't build a fine cabin ( I realize he is from another story)? Or perhaps between them they'd know which tradesmen they'd like to approach as and when they needed to. This question can only have been posed by someone that has not understood Objectivism.
I am fully confident that Howard Roark would never live long enough to build a four-lane highway from San Diego to L.A. From scratch. By himself.
The last sentence, "This question can only have been posed by someone that has not understood Objectivism.", was a little too judgmental, in my humble opinion.
But: What do I know? He is getting the votes...! ;-)
It happens too often, and they get dissed to the point that we never really get to know how they really feel...since they leave.
I'm not saying that this is one of those cases, and your post was spot on, until you stated that he/she was Objectivism ignorant.
That is all I was pointing out....
It's not a class warfare argument, because I'm not talking about the value of Galt's labor vs the value of a physical laborer. I'm not talking about the value of labor at all.
Get this through your skulls... there is a REASON why there are professions. Because an amateur CAN'T do it all. Not as well as a professional, which means not as quickly as a professional.
An amateur bricklayer can lay brick just as well as a professional... but not nearly as fast. or he can do so just as fast but not nearly as well.
Again, this isn't about class warfare but about TIME and ENERGY.
Sure, maybe Galt could have build the entire Guch by himself... given a thousand years. But in any reasonable time frame, he couldn't. And it would utterly disrupt their plans for them to do the common labor work that doesn't require brilliance to do. So who's going to do it?
They're going to have to recruit common laborers from the real world to do this work. And once they do, the Gulch is screwed. Because it is the common laborers who have embraced the progressive philosophy of Galt's enemy; they're what have made the transformation of society possible.
So, he'll have introduced, out of necessity, the snakes into his Garden of Eden.
Objectivist philosophy REQUIRES a Utopia, that is, a place that does not and cannot exist. It requires a world where everyone thinks like an objectivist and holds the same values as an objectivist, and there's no way on God's green Earth that's ever going to happen. The second you get a radical like me in there, Galt's Utopia will never be the same. You think the U.S. naturally evolved into its present state? No, it was consciously sabotaged over decades to bring it to this sorry state. By "radical" I mean someone just as brilliant as Galt, but resentful of any progressive who tries to control, guide or plan-out a society's path.
The other problem with Rand's philosophy and Galt's speech is the elevation of reason. Reason is great. But anyone who thinks to rule himself or the world by reason alone is an idiot.
As I understand it, objectivism places one's own happiness as the highest moral principle. Happiness is an emotion not subject to reason. It's the same mistake that makes the Vulcans of Star Drek such a joke.
Roark may pursue happiness by building buildings. Mother Theresa may pursue happiness by feeding the poor. A sadist may pursue happiness by throwing kittens on rooftops and watching them splat on the concrete below. "Reason" doesn't enter into any of these.
A person who tries to live purely by reason alone has no reason to live. The instant he is motivated to do something, he's driven by emotion, not reason. Spock may reason that he should be a programmer; but if his happiness is derived from flying shuttlecraft, reason has failed to achieve his highest morality.
Your first line that quotes me " "both men would be equal in terms of effort"... hardly. A professional bricklayer would bury an amateur, by definition... at laying brick" Is ludicrous. Why would you be measuring a man skilled in one area against another man performing the same task whose skill is in another area. The premise means to apply your own effort within your own area of expertise...it is on this basis that their respective efforts are equal. Shall I now mention how that bricklayer would be incapable of laying a single brick. Have you assumed that the bricks just popped into existence? Have you any idea what is required for a single brick to be a brick? Have you discounted geologists, chemists, physicists, the tools required to quarry and how those tools came to be. I don't know what to tell you.. go look up how a brick is made and for each item used start listing the creators required for each element to come into existence so that industrialists and investors could collaborate to erect a plant that would produce bricks cheap enough to be affordable, that a tradesman could spend a few months of his life learning the ropes in order that he may become a bricklayer. The minute you understand that the bricklayer has benefited by the many brilliant individuals, whose combined efforts made a brick possible, you may start to see the world differently, and for what it is.
Jumping and skipping over a few things. Ayn Rand stated that there is no requirement for everybody to be an Objectivist, only that no one should impede the men that innovate on moral terms (no force) and if a man wishes to choose another way of living, then that is perfectly fine, but he has no right to claim that another man should have to have a mortgage on his life because he needs it. I cannot state it enough, no Utopia required. I've already given the example of capitalism in terms of a fully unregulated, laissez-faire economy..also not a utopia.
I'm not prepared to give any more time. Accept you're wrong in that you have not yet grasped the philosophy, and if you choose to learn about it, do it with: not a closed mind, not an open mind, but with your own active mind. I shall not be commenting further on this post.
Wait...
the highest morality is one's own happiness.
Discipline is deferred happiness.
Nah, no contradiction here.
It takes lots and lots of physical effort to do so.
Roark could have designed the great pyramid at Giza. He couldn't have built it in his lifetime.
This is what I've been trying to get at; no matter how brilliant you are, building these infrastructures takes time and physical effort. If the only labor source is brilliant, objectivist minds, people, even from all walks of life, who got fed up and "went Galt", they aren't going to be able to do it on their own.
And the instant you import a labor force *not* adherent to the Objectivist philosophy, not fed up with the outside world... you've introduced an element that will disrupt the harmony of the system.
Good chance your friend got bamboozled by a Mouch.
And yes, my friend (a skilled builder of 30+ years) has been screwed over royally by the local council control freaks, about six times I think. He gave up trying about a year ago. They refuse to budge. It pisses me off. It's HIS F***ING LAND!
We all like to think that we could just buy some land, and put up our own house using the internet for instructions...but there isn't any way (that I know of) to bypass the regulatory aspect of building anything larger than a birdhouse.
Sounds good, though!
I know another guy who owns some land & was refused planning permission - again, for no good reason. So, he built (& lives in) a large 'structure'... on wheels (non permanent). Not a damned thing the authorities could do stop him 'parking' on his own land.
From "trailer trash", to "trailer treasure".
Never thought of that....
Ask James Taggart.
good segue
Things may have changed around here in the past 20 years, but it was my understanding back then that you could build your own house without following regulations... but you could never, ever sell it.
You know that the working title of it was "The Strike", right?
Can you cite anything that supports the assertion about refuge because of notoriety? I'm fascinated as to how you could get that from this book - and I want to re-read the same passages and see if I see what you see.
and you're still not doing it.
If both Rand and I had the good fortune to have met there would be a chapter devoted to masons:) only kidding.
Building a home,road or sewer is not exactly rocket science. Any person who actually desires to do so can, emphasis on desire. If there's no will failure will surely follow. The OP either hasn't read the book or hates the message. I would suggest the OP never attempt to build their own home. Without the desire to achieve there's only failure left.
I don't hate the message. I hate Galt. I'd kill him on sight, and for the same reason I'd kill Mouch on sight. Both think themselves superior to those around them.
I fully understand Rand's philosophy, I just disagree with it. Hedonism is not a viable basis for society, and when the highest morality is one's own happiness, the utopia she describes isn't possible.
Everyone keeps pretending that this is a laborer vs management argument, thus revealing their own preconceptions.
I don't give a damn how smart you are; you can have an IQ of 147,362 and a half... that's not going to get the PHYSICAL LABOR DONE that needs doing to build a house.
And people with the... mental agility, for want of a better term, to design the house are not going to be recruited as part of a labor gang whose only requirement is a strong back; they also have better things to do. And once you import that labor gang from the real world to the Gulch, they're going to pollute your utopia with collectivist ideas.
Most people who stay in a craft long enough to become journeymen lack the ambition and drive to do more... even if they have the mental faculty for it. I'm not speculating; I grew up in the construction industry, remember.
In fact, without specialization, trading value for value becomes much less possible, now that I think about it.
If Rearden can mine his own coal, wtf does he need Danagger for? If he can build/run his own railroad, what's he need Taggart for?
Part of my aggravation here is the idiotic notion that because it is hypothetically possible for Galt to build his own home, by himself, from scratch, that's they way the Gulch does/should work.
Would Wal-mart even be possible if Sam Walton did it all himself? I've no doubt he could do any job in any of his stores, after all he set the standards and practices in his company. So why hire anybody? Just do it all himself, in all... what is it now, 1500 stores?
No, he has to hire people. Someone above a certain level of competence is not going to take a job stocking shelves for $1 above minimum wage (I have to phrase it that way to account for the inflationary effect of minimum wage, sorry). Even if they are bright and competent, they may, like me, lack the self discipline or ambition to be fodder for citizenship in the Gulch. But, if there's to be a Wal-mart in the Gulch, (or a 7/11, or a McDonald's), you're going to have this quality of person to do the work, because anyone more able/ambitious will be doing something else.
And I repeat yet again, these are exactly the kind of people who would swallow Mouch's arguments.
Rearden didn't own his own coal mine, but he did own his own ore mine. Some things are more efficiently and profitably purchased from someone else, whether material or labor, but that doesn't mean you don't know how it's done.
I disagree with your premise that 'someone above a certain level of competence is not going to take a job stocking shelves for $1 above minimum wage.' I currently applied for a job that is below my skill level and only about 10 hours a week. Why? Because I want something to do and I don't want to feed the looters and moochers. Besides the bit of extra cash will be used profitably by me, for me.
You seem to also believe those who labor have no ability to reason and are subject to collectivist thoughts.
Sounds to me like you've made a habit of hiring from the bottom of the barrel. No surprise you wouldn't understand Rand.
FWIW I built my own house by myself. Took two years of working every night and weekend. A very nice post and beam if I do say so. Milled my own siding in my personal design. All wood interior and made all the trim work myself. If your the builder you say you are you should realize even a common laborer can do it IF they desire it enough.
A man who makes his living with a shovel or trowel is not necessarily regulated to using only those tools. A man with an engineering degree can have other skills besides engineering. Why would you not know these simple truths?
PS it never looks smart to threaten murder upon fictional characters or real humans for that matter.
You may want to seek counseling.
So you built your own house in two years.
Most houses, at least in the midwest, are built in as many months (actual construction, not including preliminary bureaucratic BS). By professional, specialized crews.
It may seem I have a low opinion of construction workers, but then again I grew up around them, so I should know.
there's a reason why low-wage workers tend to also be unthinking (not necessarily dumb, but inept at rational thought, or at least uncomfortable with it). There's a reason low-wage workers tend to lack ambition and/or self-discipline. It's quite simple; anyone with anything on the ball moves up the ladder, and/or has better things to do.
Oh, and there's a difference between being an academic and having a high IQ. Just as there's a difference between intelligence and wisdom.
I'm not here to look smart, or dumb, or look any way whatsoever.
Invoking Godwin's Law, would you kill Hitler if you were thrust back to 1932 and met him, knowing what he is? That's also a fictional situation. People who think they know better than others how to run their lives are dangerous. They lead to Hitlers and Stalins and Obamas.
People who believe in progress are dangerous, in that they don't really value freedom... for others.
People who wish to impose their own vision of utopia on others are likewise dangerous, for the same reason.
And that is why Galt is, in my view, no better than Hitler, or Stalin or Obama.
"I see Galt as thinking himself superior to those around him, as Rand shows in the episode......"
and you finish the sentence. If you can.
If as mentioned in a statement above, the mason could be replaced by an unskilled immigrant laborer, maybe we're starting to approach the hub of the hate for Galt. Maybe it's not so much hate for Galt removing himself and those of his same contribution levels from the society that values force over true value, but maybe an envy for his available options and reasoned choice to remove himself rather than being removed.
From personal experience I can attest that trying to explain why one laborer, craftsman, or professional is of more value when the pay-rate or continued employment decision must be made over another of equal or even greater supposed position of the ladder is a reasonable, even necessary action to take, is an extremely difficult one to accomplish.
I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to discuss these types of issues with those opposing and I don't wish to imply that reaching an appreciation of a certain philosophy is a simple thing to do nor that society doesn't need or benefit from the contributions of all. But I do insist that those contributions be comparitively valued and any level of force against the individual for any reason is obscene.
Please continue to comment. I enjoy thinking about your issues and points.
KYFHO
The law of supply and demand was, and is, being short-circuited by crooked politicians and crooked businessmen. Why is it you can accept crooked businessmen like James Taggart in Atlas Shrugged, but presume all businessmen to be honest and only interested in trading value for value in the real world? I call horseshit.
Ever since the 1970s in the U.S. quality has not been in demand; cheap has. Back in the late 18th and the 19th century the law of supply and demand in labor was short-circuited by lax immigration policy. Work men, women, children to death in (northern) factories; more will get off the boat tomorrow.
The illegal alien situation has repeated the formula. Yes, foodstuff and housing are much cheaper than they would be if the laws restricting honest citizens interested in trading value for value weren't being short-circuited... but prices would adjust, they always do.
Heinlein having been invoked, btw... he had an absolutely abysmal opinion of the house building trades, in many ways justified.
I don't really think that US quality hasn't been in demand since the 70's. I found just the opposite in the business I formed and managed. But on the other hand, reduction of costs in most goods has drastically expanded the standard of living, particularly of all in the US. Nearly every home has a large screen TV, air conditioning, internet service, cell phones, refrigerators, and etc. Access to the luxuries of life, even if not the top in quality, is greater than at anytime in history. I just don't agree with the fact that the takers have used the threat of violence against me to take from me in order to pay for all to have those things.
I'm not sure that lax immigration policy had as much to do with changes in the law of supply and demand as did the change to mass production which made things affordable to more, but altered the essential values of craftsmanship- to a price for hours of labor servicing the production line. But even with that, a market remained for quality craftsmanship, even in complicated items such as automobiles and aircraft.
I'm unsure of the brunt of your complaints or statements, particularly in reference to Rand's writings plotted around the philosophy she took and helped to define. She was simply a child growing up in a society at the time in which the collectivist/takers took over her world. She escaped that world to come here only to see some of those same influences beginning their sprouting here. It resulted in the book, AS, which I find to be prophetic and beautiful, as well as particularly fitting my own self developed philosophy.
I quite simply enjoyed her writings and find my self in agreement with most of the philosophy she describes in admittedly dramatic fashion. I'm particularly pleased to see the book made into a movie which serves to distribute much of what's in the book to new generations that don't read that much.
As for Heinlen, another prolific and great futurist writer that I've enjoyed very much. But he, as Rand, and all writers are no more perfect as humans, than are any of us. I don't worship any of them, I just enjoy their writing and I'm always pleased to find in any writing, ideas, scenarios, personalities, and even philosophies that I can relate to. That's all.
KYFHO
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15755...
I hadn't thought about Akston brain draining the copper mine, but now that you mention it, it makes perfect sense.
No craftsman can pass on his knowledge by training the less skilled.
He can only pass on his knowledge to the less experienced.
Think of "Amadeus". Mozart could teach Salieri for years, and Salieri would never develop Mozart's skill.
That last lines expresses why you fail to understand us. Your point of view is that Galt would owe his existence and the existence of the valley to your always capable hands - what you miss is that nobody has a right to place that burden on any other person.
For example, BO is certain that nobody will have healthcare without his intervention - the truth is that the vast majority of people were doing just fine before BO and Nancy P screwed things up beyond all possible workability.
The collectivist in chief keeps trying to fundamentally transform our once great nation into a socialist wet dream, but with each step he takes, more and more discover just what Rand was writing about - and know that the final crash is one day closer.
True genius does not apply to only one skill. These people, architects, writers, financiers, Wall Street moguls, were never above hard work. As Howard Roark proved in the Fountainhead, he could plan the most beautiful buildings in the world, but when he was rejected he could also break the rocks that go into those buildings.
They were their own bricklayers.
at some point it's not efficient to do everything oneself unless it's something one really enjoys.
It suggests a very Gulch-like society.
Unfortunately, the author was biased, and therefore made the society seem successful.
http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.php
Harry Turtledove's "The Last Article", to my mind, provides the most rational, and historically consistent (in that in past societies this solution was most often successful) solution to the problem presented in "And Then There Were None". http://turtledove.wikia.com/wiki/The_Las...
I work in telecommunications - and had the opportunity to work with a union employee. Long story short - her comment was: Think about is like this - we do data entry. We don't get paid to think.
I actually see value in unions in today's environment ... unless the end result is this mind set.
It made me sad ....
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