who is john galt and why you should fear him

 jeeez.... I have ta move another book outta my favorites cabinet.

 On one of my recent trips, I had occasion to re-read Ayn Rand's seminal work "Atlas Shrugged".....

(actually, I listened to the non-abridged book on CD........
there's nothing like a book on disk when you're travelling long distances.... )

 I dunno about you, but I always like to re-read stuff that I previously thought was good when I was younger.

 In this case, I'm not at all sure what I liked about it originally.

 I admired her writing style, and still do.... it is distinctly individualistic .

 It is also surprisingly masculine - even her rare love scenes have a certain masculinity to them. 

Her heroines approach sex more as an urge - as a emergent need.

Sex with Ayn Rand herself must have been sorta like  " wham, bam, thank you, man "  

 ( Actually, when I got home, I pulled the book out to see what I'd written in the margins....
and that was the gist of it... along with an admiration for her belief in the power of one person to change the world-- but then, we had had sufficient examples of this power changing history - mostly for the bad, but some good.....) 

 I had overlooked her tendency toward capitalistic dogmatism, and her seeming atheism, because, perhaps, of the book's strong appeal for me in the stridency of her argument for a pure form of personal liberty- - -   

-- which was much more persuasive and in better context in "The Fountainhead" than in "Atlas Shrugged", however.

In the "Fountainhead", she argues for artistic integrity and independence- freedom of art, creativity, and conscience-  and the concept of intellectual property rights. 

The extension of her concept of personal liberty is framed in a totally different context in "Atlas"....  selfishness and egoism as virtues - the striving toward material wealth being the highest ideal.    

 I said 'seeming atheism', because although she has abandoned all notions of God and religious morality, she has found another - her god is MONEY, her religion is capitalism.. and the symbol of her god is the dollar sign. 

 This objectivist viewpoint, advocated by people like Alan Greenspan and that fat guy on the radio whose name escapes me but sounds vaguely like Limberger, (and whose ravings remind one much more of it...) present more than just a few philosophical difficulties for me ........  ......   here's a couple of the main ones.

her value substitution of greed and materialism for ethics and altruism .....
(hey- the water's rising --- where's the National Guard?)

her absolute belief that the 'cream always rises to the top' 
(Come on.. look at the creeps who are running things...)

her implicit position on the working class being fodder for the rich.... 
(Welcome to the 21st century...)

her idea that the rich 'earned' their right to rule ..... 
(.... even though most wealth is not earned, but inherited-- yes, they DO think that.... )

her concept of liberty as the freedom to freely exploit both labor and resources without regard for the society at large.....
(hmmm.... remind you of anything?)

her trust in the inate 'equity' of the laissez-faire marketplace....... 
(Come on, look around!!) 

 Her protagonist John Galt dropped out of society and started his effort to "Stop the wheels of the world".

Oh, he stopped 'em alright.

Eventually his movement put millions out of work, creating food shortages and general chaos thoughout the globe.

And, this revolution he pulled off was just as brutal, destructive and totalitarian as any.  

 All for the sake of a principle of 'rational self-interest'.....  money over people .
--- much as Rand described earlier in "We Live The Living":  
 "What are your masses but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?"

Her total rejection of altruism has implications Rand didn't even try to mitigate ....

Without altruism, if your grandmother falls down right in the middle of the street,
she'll lay there until an ambulance paid to show up gets there, or until some other motive of profit turns up... maybe she's interfering with a stock broker's ability to get to work, in which case, he might help shoving her out of the way.

One idea that kept recurring as I tried to put her ideas in context of our own world was how the Nazis used slave labor to work the IG Farben factories (among others...) , and once the slave laborers reached their point of exhaustion, they were stripped of their glasses, gold teeth, shoes, clothes, etc, and exterminated - those personal items going to the state - for use by IG Farben and other industries.  

Taken to it's logical endpoint, since to the objectivist viewpoint, the individual is only important as a means of production (in this case, labor) or as that which creates wealth.....  if he cannot produce - it is perfectly acceptable to do him away and take his stuff. 

If I have the hots for your wife and three daughters, assuming I am richer or stronger than you, I can take rationally take them as long as I make sure you get a fair price for em... and if I disable you while doing it, then I don't even have to do that.

I deserve it- I am strong and productive.... You do not - 'cause you are weaker and now unproductive. 

Nice society, huh? 

But don't think that you're safe, just 'cause this is a work of fiction.

There are many people trying to make Rand's ideal society a reality in this country.

If they have their way, very shortly you will know for certain who John Galt is, and what he REALLY stands for.

And, while the "Fountainhead" remains in my favorites cabinet, "Shrugged" has been retired to the garage book racks.
( I never throw out a book !!)  

Sorry, Ayn, wherever you are...

..... and for your sake (altruism, again...) I hope paradise is a different one than the one you thought you wanted.