Almost everyone I know has read AS at one time or other. I do not know a single soul who has read through Galt's radio address in one sitting and very few who have actually read the whole thing.
In reality, I believe those who stood up to the powers that be would have been welcomed into Galt's clan.
Okay, there's a two-fold problem with this view. First, it is disproved by Scott Willers; he believed in Dagny, not the looters, but Dagny abandons him. The second problem is more abstract. The universe of AS is self-contained, and Rand believes it is an ideal. With this in mind, we cannot say "well, if this really happened Galt would act differently than he did in the book" because it did really happen in the fictional world Rand creates, and Galt exists in no other place. One has to deal with the text she has provided us, and he acts just as she wishes him to act. Had she thought Galt, et al. would ask sympathetic Prols to join them, she would have written it into the novel. There is no mention of the fate of these workers because, in Rand's world, they don't really count.
There are a lot of premises one must accept to feel Galt, et al. are justified in their strike and subsequent establishment of a Dictatorship of the Verbose. For instance, Ragnar Whatshisname, the Norwegian pirate decided that income taxes are not just, and therefore, he has a right to steal from other people who aren't fighting against an income tax in order to reimburse the wealthy folks who pay income taxes. Again with the entitlement, and even if we assume income taxes are theft (which I will not because all of the industrialists would have benefited from programs paid for with income tax dollars- roads, public works, schools, etc), the wealthy aren't the only people to pay them, but you don't see Ragnar setting up bank accounts for everyone who pays income tax- just for his extra-super special friends.
AS contains this Superman idea, which is inherently fascist (note all the existing states have looter governments, all of which are known as "People's States," which indicates a form of Socialism), and it's very unpalatable for me.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: I See What You Mean
Date: 2008-06-25 05:19 pm (UTC)In reality, I believe those who stood up to the powers that be would have been welcomed into Galt's clan.
Okay, there's a two-fold problem with this view. First, it is disproved by Scott Willers; he believed in Dagny, not the looters, but Dagny abandons him. The second problem is more abstract. The universe of AS is self-contained, and Rand believes it is an ideal. With this in mind, we cannot say "well, if this really happened Galt would act differently than he did in the book" because it did really happen in the fictional world Rand creates, and Galt exists in no other place. One has to deal with the text she has provided us, and he acts just as she wishes him to act. Had she thought Galt, et al. would ask sympathetic Prols to join them, she would have written it into the novel. There is no mention of the fate of these workers because, in Rand's world, they don't really count.
There are a lot of premises one must accept to feel Galt, et al. are justified in their strike and subsequent establishment of a Dictatorship of the Verbose. For instance, Ragnar Whatshisname, the Norwegian pirate decided that income taxes are not just, and therefore, he has a right to steal from other people who aren't fighting against an income tax in order to reimburse the wealthy folks who pay income taxes. Again with the entitlement, and even if we assume income taxes are theft (which I will not because all of the industrialists would have benefited from programs paid for with income tax dollars- roads, public works, schools, etc), the wealthy aren't the only people to pay them, but you don't see Ragnar setting up bank accounts for everyone who pays income tax- just for his extra-super special friends.
AS contains this Superman idea, which is inherently fascist (note all the existing states have looter governments, all of which are known as "People's States," which indicates a form of Socialism), and it's very unpalatable for me.