Having "Gone Galt" for 15 years. What works and what hasn't.
Posted by NeilMXY 8 years, 7 months ago to Going Galt
I was homesteading in remote Alaska by the 1990's. In 2001 I began restoring an Alaskan ghost town. It has always felt like Going Galt to me. After 15 years I have two small hotels, a few little retail stores, a saloon and a fine dining restaurant.
Some strange twists and turns along the way -. indeed - even some premise checking!
I am looking forward to sharing my examples in hopes it encourages those who take ideas seriously.
I am curious if there are others in this group who have been going Galt for years.
Some strange twists and turns along the way -. indeed - even some premise checking!
I am looking forward to sharing my examples in hopes it encourages those who take ideas seriously.
I am curious if there are others in this group who have been going Galt for years.
I see someone wearing an AS shirt in the preview! Is that you!?
We are filming season 3 now. Although I would hesitate to call the show a platform for Objectivist reality tv - it is enjoyable to be a part of, especially because our stories do involve freedom, self reliance, community and the individual.
Jeremy Keller - the homesteader who does not want changes in the area, is more of a conflicted luddite than an objectivist. He wears an "Atlas Has Shrugged" sweatshirt for the first two seasons. Probably as an anti - Rand statement more than pro-objectivst.
Why gather with others at all? What I learned is how the gathering of self reliant individuals is a gathering of skills. This gathering creates community while allowing for each individual to remain un-coerced. I find Alaska remarkable on many levels. Not the least of which is the intelligence and productivity that it requires to thrive without much of society's infrastructure.
I saw Galt's Gulch as representing the conscious decision making of individuals to gather as a group and create a community that thrives only because of individual expressions of productivity. It took persuasion by Galt - ideas had to be taken seriously by the characters, who in turn had to check their premises, as Rand would say. Packing up and leaving society is seldom as fearless as in fiction. Most in my community have come to it with a love of nature and a repulsion of man. So I am in conflict with some of my neighbors. There is little if any coercion because of the tolerance that comes from self reliance.
I also learned some real limits to what can be done without infrastructure. So I have built much infrastructure within the community over the past 15 years. Homesteading can be a do it alone version of shrugging. In community, I work with those that can apply unique skills to my projects.
David Kelly's objectivism with tolerance - is a style of objectivist philosophy that works well for me in a community of mixed agenda. It's the mixed agenda that makes this area far less than Rand's Gulch.
In my case, I create opportunity for myself, and in turn others - In 2001 I had a couple of employees. My companies employee 37 individuals now, and many are the same locals each year.
Of the 3 dozen year around residents, most are carving a life out of the wilderness. A few are leadership in my organization. Some are just there for the summer to have a great time.
Here is how I know it works for me: I have pursued and found my happiness.
Epistemology: I see daily that homeschooled kids learn the direct relationship between their actions and results. Chop wood for heat, deal with food or go hungry. There is no avoidance. U.S. City life is fraught with the ease of avoiding action and resulting disconnect.
Politically, we have access fights,and not much political radar. Shear distance and living outside of any Burrough or local governing body helps a bit. It's not a perfect political arena, just substantially less influenced by politics.
Metaphysically we do not live for the sake of others, and this is expressed in daily life. For instance, we are in the hospitality industry, however we share our lifestyle with guests. Hospitality in our area is literally sharing your life with strangers. An interesting position for this objectivist anyway.
Esthetics: my life is an artistic expression of business surrounded by the highest concentration of mountains and glaciers on the planet. I am currently working on opening a mine tour that is an expression of man's nobliest achievement.
Ayn Rand never advocated dogma, or intolerance towards learning from others. No one can learn everything he needs to know from some Objectivist. Ayn Rand learned philosophy at a university in the Soviet Union.
"The two great values to be gained from social existence are: knowledge and trade. Man is the only species that can transmit and expand his store of knowledge from generation to generation; the knowledge potentially available to man is greater than any one man could begin to acquire in his own lifespan; every man gains an incalculable benefit from the knowledge discovered by others. The second great benefit is the division of labor: it enables a man to devote his effort to a particular field of work and to trade with others who specialize in other fields. This form of cooperation allows all men who take part in it to achieve a greater knowledge, skill and productive return on their effort than they could achieve if each had to produce everything he needs, on a desert island or on a self-sustaining farm." -- Ayn Rand in Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal
Home schooling may or may not be superior or necessary depending on the local school systems available. Division of labor is a value where possible. One can accomplish a lot more when he doesn't have to do everything himself.
Altruistic self sacrifice is an ethical doctrine, not metaphysics. Trade, the exchange of value for value, is not altruism. There is nothing inherently altruistic about the tourism or hospitality industries.
Enjoying grand scenery while running a business is not art. Choosing to live in such a setting rather than the conveniences and life-saving services routinely available somewhere else is a personal choice of lifestyle, not Objectivist esthetics.
Operating a mining tour to emphasize one of man's achievements and a necessity of civilized life is a real irony inside a National Park. Providing such education is putting a target on your back! Living with the National Park Service is a long way from a "perfect political arena" and is no escape from politics. Escaping political control in a rural area anywhere today is an illusion.
I am not trying to convince anyone not to live in the wilds of Alaska, but it does not mean Objectivism and does not even necessarily mean "going Galt". Objectivist philosophy provides principles for living anywhere, and living successfully and fully anywhere requires it.
I went to McCarthy because I loved the artifacts and history as much as the scenic area. The lack of infrastructure was a challenge, but not a cause. I had to build it, it would have been easier to be productive somewhere else. But if I wanted to restore McCarthy it had to do be done there.
In sharing my life with strangers, I make money, I never looked at it as altruistic. In making the community better I did it for me, and everyone is welcome to come along for the ride.
I was not advocating that Objectivism is somehow Alaskan, I just notice a lot more self reliance in general as you get further away from civilization.
"Enjoying grand scenery while running a business is not art." - agreed - but I was making a bad joke - "Esthetics: my life is an artistic expression of business surrounded by..." I was poorly using business as art. Which is as creative as I can get. The restorations of the old ghost town buildings, surrounded by impossible natural beauty.
sort of pamphlet magazine with a green cover; I
got it for a little while, and then Ayn Rand closed it
and started putting out The Ayn Rand Letter). I
sent for a couple of back issues, out of curiosity
about two articles. One was "To Whom It May
Concern" and the other was "A Statement of
Policy". As I recall from these, Ayn Rand was
not very enthusiastic about people's trying to
start a "Gult's Gulch" out in some remote area.
She did list certain conditions under which it
would be "time to quit", two of these being one-
party rule, and censorship.
What I have been trying to do is promote
Objectivism within the existing society. I don't
say that the time to quit can never come, but I
don't think it has yet.
Ayn Rand knew, and approved, of individuals silently quitting, changing careers, or moving to another country to avoid repression, but opposed the notions of dropping out of society entirely, trying to emulate the fictional Galt's Gulch of Atlas Shrugged, going on "strike", trying to start new countries, etc. in an attempt at reform.
She regarded censorship to be a primary criterion before resistance against the legal system as a means of fighting back because she knew the importance of ideas. She was an intellectual who advocated the spread of betters ideas, particularly philosophical ideas, as the fundamental means to influence the course of the country.
I don't advocate dropping out of society either. Ayn Rand presented a theoretical gulch to illustrate her philosophical potential for society. I saw (somewhat romantically at first) a potential for myself to bring business, productivity and advancement to my life by taking on a big project in a tiny town.
I don't want to be pretentious, I did not drop out of society to shrug. I moved into a unique world that offered an opportunity to create.
One regret on posting it as "Going Gulch for 15 years" is that I am being inaccurate, and presumptuous.
I wanted to compare other versions of the process of removing much of the government overreach from one's life. But to imply that removing government was the big reason for going to McCarthy, is inaccurate. The main draw for me is the restoration of the ghost town and building and stabilizing businesses.
The NPS battles make my work as "at risk" to government over reach as anyone in the lower 48. I should have spent more time considering the depth of that issue and how it impacts the ability of "Going Galt".
As for your discovery of the impact of NPS in what seemed like an isolated area safe for productivity, with nature the only enemy to overcome, this is an aspect of government today that few realize. Few know the real National Park Service outside its utopian PR imagery. Who would have thought that an agency known for its cuddly Smoky the Bear image charged with something as simple as managing picnic tables and parks could go so wrong.
There is no rural area left in the country (or the world) that government and the big viro organizations (like the Nature Conservancy) are not monitoring, controlling, and trying to stifle for forced preservationism under complete government control. Those who think there is some remote place to go to start some kind of libertarian utopian enclave in anonymity are in for a big shock.
A century earlier McCarthy was one of the more modern towns in America. Fresh eggs were the luxury in the middle of Alaskan winters where only powdered eggs were possible. The town was electrified before most of North America. Heat and lights created the light cycle needed to have productive hens. Pete & Ma Johnson had fresh eggs for their clients.
The gold and wealth of the company town of Kennicott made for a very prosperous sin city; McCarthy. The 'Alaska Syndicate' (aka Robber Barons) was a JP Morgan and Guggenheim joint venture to create the Alaska Steam Ship Company and The CR & NW rail, to facilitate the richest copper mines the world has ever seen. Kennicott Copper Corporation which extracted and refined the copper that was needed to industrialize the world.
I noticed how the NPS and most of the local population enjoyed the "Ghost Town". They got here, fell in love with the area, built cabins, and most did not want anyone else to find it. Many felt that 'Outsiders' would ruin it. That was my first lesson. Locals and NPS shared one common thread: Fear. Not fear of bears or injury or not being able to "get something from town' - but a real fear of the unknown. I understood the fear as this town has seen it's share of coercion play out in deadly ways. So the fearful feel the need to coerce and control the bad guys. Problem is they don't know who the bad guys are, so 'compliance' becomes a way of life for many.
Most locals, when politically pressed, are ok with coercion directed at them - for they don't seem to recognize coercion. Now that to me is the most ironic part of living here.
I have neighbor who's granddad founded the town, but this guy is a pure speculator. He claims to own the streets and therefore expects me to pay a toll for easement. Of course I, as has the whole town for 100 years, have been "open and notorious" about ownership of easement and all things related to access!
I enjoy the history and the meaning behind the mineral extraction at this scale as well as the carving and shaping the world to a livable outpost turned "sin city."
It just so happens that this copper mine surrounded by wilderness and the projects of restoring this town, satisfy my needs to be relevant to my ideals.
A bad day is when I consider lifting all the buildings in town and moving them 1 mile to a new location, outside the reach of the coercive neighbor who claims to own the streets. But moving the town a mile closer to the glacier would be destructive to the few neighbors who are freedom fighters.
As you well know, a much larger, more coercive force makes it all a moot point.
Reality certainly beats conjecture.
I'm old & retired, but it is good to know that there are people like yourself out there. It gives me hope.
Before moving to Alaska I was a sales & marketing consultant.
Living in remote makes you skillful at things that you construct, repair, or resourcefully invent - but it can feel like a waste of valuable time. As ewv indicated in a statement above, why create what already exists? Restoring is interesting, but I am also stuck doing a lot of building infrastructure for the sake of moving forward. I can't have a resort without a restaurant. I can't have a restaurant without water. I need a certified well operator to run a public water system. There is not much business to begin with, so it started in 2001 as a tiny operation. Wanting to restore a ghost town into a remote resort means taking on a lot of projects and becoming adept at decision making. Deliberate practice.
It may seem like I have "abilities in a large number of applications", but most of the remote skills I have is because no one locally had the skills, so I had to become proficient in many things. Certified Well Operator? Some see that as a skill. It's a couple courses, a responsibility, a public safety concern, and something required of me by the government to run a business in a remote area.
Interestingly, the State Of Alaska will not accept UV sanitation techniques, so I, as a certified Well Operator, who enjoys a great restaurant experience (aka a foodie) must add Chlorine to our water in order to serve "safe drinking water for the public".
Some of my deliberate practice is interrupted by legal snafu's. McCarthy has what is likely the closest old (glacier melt) water source to a town. As a certified well operator, I am required by state law to add poison (chlorine) to the best water in the world in order to legally serve it to the public.
File this under an example of "What Hasn't Worked".
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Reminds of the time I was installing an electrical device and the plumbing inspector decided to come out because "all the other guys were inspecting."
Since you recognize you are sitting on your true potential, perhaps if you can spell out your potential, recognize the gap in how well your performance matches your potential, and you will have a gap that you can close.
creative thought, E2;;; this world needs some shaking! -- j
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I am not completely off the government grid. I did have to create my own grid (water, septic, electrical systems). I'd say you are correct to recognize the limitations in my version of going "gulch".
Although not perfect, I'd file my case example under the heading: "Excellence prevents good"
There have been a lot of problems with the National Park Service in Alaska, especially in McCarthy where inholders have been harassed and bullied as NPS blocks owner access to private property either directly or through attempts to impose enormous, punitive fees. You are lucky NPS doesn't have eminent domain authority like it does in other units of the National Park System. But it has routinely seized private mining claims across Alaska.
Being in a remote, quiet rural area in many places in the country leads to a false sense of security and safety. When you are out in the woods it can seem that you are safely away from the bureaucracy, but you aren't. Bureaucrats don't have to be there to impose control. Most people don't know that in Alaska in particular less than 1/2 of 1% of the land is privately owned -- everything else is controlled by the Federal government, the state, and the Native Corporations (Indian tribes). ANILCA (from the end of the Carter administration) has been a disaster for Alaska, turning it into more of a Federal colony than a state.
Our community is the last non native community still inside a National Park. We've had major fights over the years, and while things look calm now, the typical park method of waiting out the locals a generation or two, is going to be difficult in our park. I've had the target on my back for a while.
My strategy is to thrive. Creating awareness that we exist, long before they come back to take it away, offers some protection. Admittedly not much, but McCarthy is worth my efforts.
Picking McCarthy wasn't for the fight, it was for the potential. Early on it turned into a fight when I was approached by the lead ranger who wanted to talk about how the NPS was "partnering" with me. It was a roller coaster ride from that moment on.
I've enjoyed the work and doing what I can to get it ready for the next owner. Included in the process is awareness on all fronts. Creating a consumer product that ties in Alaska land rights and tourism is part of the work.
The NPS has fought us before and we expect a new fight every decade, we are overdue.
campaign removing tens of thousands of people for the massive expansion of the National Park System in the 1970s.
http://www.landrights.org/ak/wrst/Pil... This is during the heat of the battle. There is an oped piece I wrote in 2004 that changed a lot of the dynamic. However, you are correct in that the federal "compliance" mixed with 'in your face attitude' is a freedom fight on the front lines.
It wasn't limited to the Pilgrim family and the other inholders who had their access blocked at Wrangell St-Elias. NPS ambushed and pointlessly arrested people on the Alaskan rivers, ultimately causing a big commotion with the Alaskan Congressional delegation.
NPS wars come in waves, not just in Alaska but everywhere. A controversy dies down with no apology, compensation, or admission of wrongdoing, then they relatively behave themselves for a while, then it starts up again when the bureaucrats think everyone has forgotten and they can get away with it. This is what happens when government has arbitrary power. Get anything you can about NPS abuse into the TV series any way you can work it in. The public is in near complete ignorance about how abusive that agency is -- NPS hides its corruption behind the scenic props.
Your 2004 op-ed on NPS attitude towards population removal is excellent. Here is a short video of an NPS official very arrogantly stating what you were talking about (at 0:02:52). Watch the expression on his face. They regard inholders allowed to stay as "museum pieces" that are part of their display and find normal human life to be a "contradiction". It's not hard to see what would happen to you if NPS got eminent authority (which it usually does have). The NPS bureaucrat was referring in particular the mass condemnation for population removal of thousands of people for the establishment of the Shenandoah National Park and for which it has no regrets and no conscience to this day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkWH3...
Shenandoah and other atrocities - I've seen the film, and I am sure you are familiar with A Land Gone Lonesome and other works. The fight I am in is in the quite stage now. It is a manageable endeavor that respects productivity and freedom.
There are others, including several short ones on Shenandoah with interviews of victims and family members. The link I just gave for Shenandoah had some interviews but I was focusing on the NPS arrogant response at the end. It's the same bureaucratic arrogance they reveal elsewhere, including in an NPS internal administrative history of Cuyahoga where they said that they had "to get the land while the getting was good".
NPS may seem quiet to you there now, but is quietly working behind the scenes for more Obama National Monument decrees nationwide, plus the latest NPS centennial celebration this year -- its previous centennial celebration was in 1972, which was "celebrated" with massive acquisitions expanding the National Park System under the government slogan, "Buy Back America".
Isn't it great to have a national "celebration" of a government agency? Do we get one for IRS, too?
In film, the park system's advocacy led by Ken Burns, is another expression of the contempt of mankind.
I hope to get the mine open as an expression of man's ability to create - and how this specific mine was critical in industrializing the country.
Restoring town is my work. That is not restoring buildings as much as it is restoring commerce.
I haven't got far in my campaign to call the park a 12 million acre park. It's currently billed as America's largest, a13.2 million acre park. One million of those acres are private.
Burns toured the country for at least a year before promoting his prop-flick before PBS aired it, which it has done over and over and over for the campaign, and is now pushing again for the centennial celebration. Burns and Duncan collaborated with both NPS and the NPS lobby, and were made "honorary rangers". Burns repeatedly extolled the National Park System in religious terms, describing his various mystic states while in the scenery and proclaiming NPS to be "America's best idea", a slogan he took from Wallace Stegner, ideological viro and government wilderness zealot. Burns said he wants to double the size of the National Park System. He doesn't mention the civil rights abuses.
Of the entire 12 hours of the 6 part viro Castro speech with scenery, a couple of minutes acknowledged the mass condemnation of thousands of people for the Smoky Mountain National Park and nowhere else. It is too well known to ignore completely and must seem safe to them to mention now as 'ancient history' no longer relevant. Equal emphasis was put on trashing the private logging companies who dared to cut their trees before the government could get them. It showed no remorse or conscience for the forced population displacement, only academic double talk weighing the so-called necessity and rationalizing it away.
At the beginning of the Obama administration, Burns, the Sierra Club, et al gave a specially edited showing of the film in the White House designed to appeal to Obama's ego. Obama appointed radical viros to his administration, including the Interior Dept, and has already set a record for land (and water) locked up by presidential decrees of National Monuments bypassing Congress.
Ken Burns, America's propagandist.
Mahalo,
iSank