Galt's Gulch

Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 Chapter 10: Wyatt's Torch

Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago to Books
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Summary: Dagny and Rearden investigated the 20th Century Motor Company. Mark Yonts with The People’s Mortgage Company of Rome, Wisconsin sold it to more than one buyer. Yonts bought it from Mayor Bascom of Rome. Mayor Bascom bought it in a bankruptcy sale from Eugene Lawson of the Community National Bank of Madison. Upon learning this, they were called back to work because the railroad Unions were demanding limits on the size and speed of cars, the politician looters were pushing for the Preservation of Livelihood Law, Fair Share Law, and the Public Stability Law. Dagny confronted James, who had no answer. Larkin failed to deliver ore to Rearden, which he needed. Lillian came in to discuss Hank’s self-sacrifice. Lawson said the 20th Century Motor Company was run by Lee Hunsacker of Amalgamated Service, in Grangeville, Oregon. Hunsacker took it over after “the heirs of Jed Starnes had run it into the ground,” but he failed because he could not get a loan from Midas Mulligan. She found the Starnes heirs, who led them to Mrs. William Hastins, who pointed them to Mr. Hastings’ young assistant John Galt (age 26 when he left the company) at the Akston Diner. Dagny conversed with Hugh Akston, who challenged her thinking, but refused to give direct help. Then Dagny learned that Mouch had passed the Directives described above, and then saw that Ellis Wyatt had quit.

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Atlas Shrugged was written by Ayn Rand in 1957.

My idea for this post is discussed here:

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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
    Dagny and Hugh Akston: “Why should you work like this, when you can have a better job?”
    “I am not looking for a better job.”
    “You don’t want a chance to rise and make money?”
    “No. Why do you insist?”
    “Because I hate to see ability being wasted!”
    He said slowly, intently, “So do I.”
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    • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
      At first glance, it seems like he is against "making money." d'Anconia considered this, "to make money," to be a great virtue. I also note that he is making money; just enough to meet his goals. This apparent lack of ambition makes sense when you consider how little the Gulchers value America's fiat money. What hurts him most is to see everyone else wasting their efforts on this broken and corrupt system.
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      • Posted by VetteGuy 9 years, 5 months ago
        If I remember correctly, this is addressed later in the book. Some of the "Gulchers" have to work outside the gulch, but only in relatively menial jobs, so that the looters do not get the benefit of their true worth - the fruit of their minds. John Galt's job in the Taggart terminal is similar.
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
    Hugh Akston to Dagny: “There is only one helpful suggestion that I can give you: By the essence and nature of existence, contradictions cannot exist. If you find it inconceivable that an invention of genius should be abandoned among ruins, and that a philosopher should wish to work as a cook in a diner – check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
    Dagny and Hugh Akston: “But…but what are you doing here?” Her arm swept at the room. “This doesn’t make sense!”
    “Are you sure?”
    “What is it? A stunt? An experiment? A secret mission? Are you studying something for some special purpose?”
    “No, Miss Taggart. I’m earning my living.” The words and the voice had the genuine simplicity of truth.
    “Dr. Akston, I… it’s inconceivable, it’s… You’re… you’re a philosopher… the greatest philosopher living… an immortal name… why would you do this?”
    “Because I am a philosopher, Miss Taggart.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
    Ivy Starnes to Dagny: “Our plan? We put into practice that noble historical precept: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Everybody in the factory, from charwomen to president, received the same salary – the barest minimum necessary… Rewards were based on need, and the penalties on ability… That was our plan. It was based on the principle of selflessness.”
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    • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
      It is presented as a lofty ideal. Altruism, selflessness, it sounds so virtuous, only having failed because people were not good enough. But when you understand that it is based on rewarding people who don't work and penalizing people who are productive, it is easier to see that it is an inverted morality. I would say I was an altruist before reading Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand did a masterful job showing the practice and logical conclusions of that mindset. Now I call altruism evil.
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
    “Midas Mulligan was a vicious bastard with a dollar sign stamped on his heart,” said Lee Hunsacker, in the fumes of the acrid stew. “My whole future depended upon a miserable half-million dollars, which was just small change to him, but when I applied for a loan, he turned me down flat – for no better than that I had no collateral to offer. How could I have accumulated any collateral, when nobody had ever given me a chance at anything big? Why did he lend money to others, but not to me? It was plain discrimination.”
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    • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
      Yes. Discrimination. I've noticed that many of my friends use that term in a negative way, hoping to give it the baggage of discrimination based on race. But in this case it was performance based discrimination. Hunsacker had proved that he was unable to produce more than he consumed.
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
    “Why yes, I can,” said Midas Mulligan, when he was asked whether he could name a person more evil than the man with a heart closed to pity. “The man who uses another’s pity for him as a weapon.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
    Lillian Rearden to Hank: “I have no mortgage on you, no collateral, no guns, no chains. I have no hold on you at all, Henry – nothing but your honor.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
    Lillian Rearden to Hank: “It’s really very simple. If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what have you given her? It’s no more than a fact and it has cost you nothing. But if you tell an ugly woman that she is beautiful, you offer her the great homage of corrupting the concept of beauty. To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. She’s earned it, it’s a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake – and that is a real tribute of love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your integrity and your invaluable self-esteem… What’s love, darling, if it’s not self-sacrifice?” she went on lightly, in the tone of a drawing-room discussion. “What’s self-sacrifice, unless one sacrifices that which is one’s most precious and most important?”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
    Rearden thinking: “There’s no other course open, thought Rearden, as he had thought through days and nights. He knew no weapons but to pay for what he wanted, to give value for value, to ask nothing of nature without trading his effort in return, to ask nothing of men without trading the product of his effort. What were the weapons, he thought, if values were not a weapon any longer?”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
    Rearden thinking: “Rearden had to decide how much he could risk to invest upon the sole evidence of a man’s face, manner and tone of voice, hating the state of having to hope for honesty as for a favor.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
    Dagny thinking: “She could not descend to an existence where her brain would explode under the pressure of forcing itself not to outdistance incompetence. She could not function to the rule of: Pipe down – keep down – slow down – don’t do your best, it is not wanted!”
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    • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
      I know this feeling. I've left jobs a couple of times upon learning that my employers did not want to improve, much less excel. It reminds me the movie "Hot Fuzz":

      Met Sergeant: You can't be the Sheriff of London.
      Chief Inspector: If we let you carry on running around town, you'll continue to be exceptional... and we can't have that. You'll put us all out of a job.
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      • Posted by VetteGuy 9 years, 5 months ago
        I've seen this as well. I once wrote in a Program Document that the purpose was to have a "Premier Program" and establish our company as the industry leader. In a subsequent revision it got changed (over my objection) to state that we would have an "effective" program. By the time I left, we could not even get the budget to manage "effective".
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
    Dagny thinking: “There was no action she could take against the men of undefined thought, of unnamed motives, of unstated purposes, of unspecified morality. There was nothing she could say to them – nothing would be heard or answered. What were the weapons, she thought, in a realm where reason was not a weapon any longer?”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
    James Taggart to Dagny: “You have always been opposed to every progressive social measure. I seem to remember that you predicted disaster when we passed the Anti-god-eat-god rule – but the disaster has not come.”
    “Because I saved you, you rotten fools! I won’t be able to save you this time!” He had shrugged, not looking at her. “And if I don’t, who will?” He had not answered.
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
    Mayor Bascom: “In this world, either you’re virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not both, lady, not both.”
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    • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
      This is a sign on the tension in the Code of Death. A truly virtuous life, living well, ought to lead to true joy, true happiness. It is the Code of Death that has the conflict of being happy or being good (like being productive or being virtuous).
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
    Mayor Bascom: “There’s plenty of laws that’s sort of made of rubber, and a mayor’s in a position to stretch them a bit for a friend. Well, what the hell? That’s the only way anybody ever gets rich in this world” – he glanced at the luxurious black car – “as you ought to know.”
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    • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 5 months ago
      This is nothing new. Politicians are fallible, corruptible. When you have the power, I can only imagine it is easy to use force to your own benefit (instead of merely protecting individual rights). I see the history of Government as an argument for limited government. Limited in size, limited with enforceable checks and balances, and limited in function.
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