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What should Rearden do?

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softwareNerd

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*** SPOILER ALERT: Skip this thread if you have not read Atlas Shrugged ***

 

In Atlas Shrugged, Rearden is slow to buy into the idea of a strike. He loves the businesses he has built up and it makes more sense to stand and fight for what he owns than to give it up for the alternative. (This is dramatized in the scene with furnace and Francisco, where Rand indicates that Rearden is not ready to quit, even though it is getting increasingly difficult to do business.) This is just background... as such, I don't want to explore it here.

 

My question is this: suppose Galt did not exist, and there was no strike-plan on the table. Yet, suppose the world was becoming ever more statist, what would Rearden do?

 

In the novel, we see Rearden reacting to the times by hiring a lobbyist. (Though, being Rearden, he can't play that game too well or with any enthusiasm.) Project his character under ever-tighter government control. What else would he have done? Would he have blown up his factory? Would he have immigrated abroad? Would he have walked away into retirement and a vegetable garden? Would he have gone into "relative" retirement, by scaling down to a small-time business of some sort (think a metal-related business on the scale of the small diner)? Would he have thrown his fortune behind political activism to reverse things? Would he have made himself adept at playing the game: morphing into a Wynand-like character? (We see him thinking that he might be a black-market dealer businessman if he were starting out young.)

 

Are some of the ideas above impractical?

 

What are his other plausible alternatives?

 

And, in addition to what he would do, what would you advise him to do? (These don't have to be single choices. There could be alternative.)

 

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In AS, there wasn't any place to emigrate to. There also wasn't room for a revolution: the source of the expanding government was the population which voted for it.

In general, I think that AS is meant to illustrate the economic role industrialists and other producers play in a country's economy, rather than predict the future. I don't see that scenario, with all the world's countries falling into socialism at the same time, playing out. At least not without a war (in which case, the answer is easy: freedom loving men should fight in that war, to stop evil then and there).

I believe there will alway be somewhere to go, for people who wish to be selfishly productive. I believe the answer will always be to leave, rather than stay and try to survive in a culture that doesn't want you to.

As far as what Rearden should do in that hypothetical, probably something similar to what Galt did. But I don't think it's very clear what Galt did, as far as establishing a free country goes. At the end of the novel, his group supposedly return to establish a free society. But the novel doesn't say how. The best I can speculate is that the general population lost the will to fight for any ideology, so they seized power in the vacuum, and established a system (a dictatorship: rules set up and enforced unilaterally) that would make it possible for future generations to grow into moral, freedom loving men and embrace their freedom. AS offers no suggestions on how one would change the current generation into actively supporting the same.

Rearden, in a situation where there is no other way, should do something similar: allow society to crumble and look for a way to establish a new system in the long run (somewhere, somehow).

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Great question - It makes an interesting thought exercise.

 

Reardon's growth from top producer that refuses to give in and had the top capacity to weather the looters, all the way through to the point to going on strike, is a dramatized process Rand uses to show how men accept one creed and suffer under its effects.  The novel is the process of liberation from that morality. 

 

I think it might help to look how this plays out with him outside of the political arena.  His

family and marriage is a mirror of the political landscape that Rand uses to show how the morality of the looters plays out on a personal day-to-day level.  He goes from suffering a family that smears him and a marriage he is not interested in, in addition to thinking sex is a base animal urge, all the way to the end where he sees his family for what it is and seeing sex as a noble act.  At the beginning he thought he was wrong and with the help of Francisco he comes to understand his love affair with Taggart is a virtue in every way. 

 

Now, without Galt it is safe to assume there is no Francisco (at least in the novels form or need to connect with Reardon).  Without those “light posts” of inspiration I think Reardon would be split between accepting the looter morality still while finding ways to rebel against it in others.  Eventually his love affair would be public and he’d likely get throttled over it, mostly due to his own guilt since he never overcame the looter morality on love and sex. 

 

Reardon however is the best industrialist in the country and is willing to carry any burden.  By the end of the novel with Galt he is bored.  Following laws and breaking them when needed, getting his work taken from him and moved around without his consent.  It is only the Steel Unification Plan and Francisco’s moments of advice that breaks him through to the point he understands his virtues and how it is being used against him.  Most men have a breaking point but Reardon is designed by the author to withstand all of that so we can see the drama of the final collapse reach its end.

 

So without Galt, I can see Reardon suffering under his family while slowly boiling inside with frustration, turning into guilt and self damnation.  He trudges on trying to fight the good fight, much like he did in the novel, but this time without the knowledge he is right and without an escape hatch at the bitter end.  He is ground between a rock and a hard place. It’s a poor analogy in some ways, but Reardon becomes the highest profile Eddie Willers in that he is a good person that suffers from the system.  Only in his case he lasted longer than the rest, up until the bitter end and the final collapse of the system that takes his company down too. 

 

The good news from this bleak version of the story is that if we work from the benevolent universe premise (we are still working within the novel sans Galt), he survives and is the last man standing, which means he is the man to start society over!  His final condition after surviving all of the trials and his personal ethics would still be mixed, so we will not get the ideal society of the novels ending, but it would be a better one. 

 

Perhaps Bruce Willis in Die Hard is a better analogy at this point. 

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Without Galt, I don't think Rearden would have done anything differently. Though he was a conflicted man, he didn't see the nature of his conflict until his interactions with Francisco. Even then, it took a very long time, coupled with a more or less country-wide economic collapse and the resulting heavy looting of his business. All of his still-respected business associates would have still been in business, and without the panic that followed their disappearance, he would have gotten (comparatively) no trouble from Washington.

I think that extreme, fast-to-develop context was necessary for Rearden to change his mind. Wasn't that the function of his and Dagny's characters in the novel? That they were so hardworking and great, they would need the most proof before they could ever compromise their convictions?

He would have also probably continued to support his family, and would have stayed married. There would have been no Dagny, because her and Francisco would have never split.

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As a first time poster I would like to say hello to everyone... And go right ahead and kiss up, I love the question and everyone's answers.

 

I believe that the character of Rearden would have attempted to actually make a difference, joining with other great “Doers” and attempted to sway the popular opinion instead of tucking his tail and running to a mountain hide out.

 

I believe Francisco would have ended up joining him in this endeavor, along with Wyatt. These three strong players along with financial leadership in Midas Milligan could have forced some policy changes. Policies established to allow Conway to stay in business, thus strengthening the Colorado foothold on technology.

 

Also great minds like Hugh Akston would have stayed at University inspiring a next generation of the virtues of Reason. And Quentin Daniels could have continued teaching engineers the proper way of problem solving.

 

Reardon would have ended up as President and Richard Halley would write concertos about his Greatness. When he finally retired from office he would have been so popular that Roark would build him a bungalow.

 

All of this would have forced Paul larkin to marry Oyren Boyle and live together happily ever after

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Thanks for the answers, everyone.    And, JamesScottBooks, welcome to the forum.

 

I think Rearden would have "done something". So, a retirement to a vegetable garden is low down on the list of possibilities. What exactly he would have done depends on his intellectual development. He might have tried political activism, with people like Ellis Wyatt. In the context of the novel, though, I don't see much hope that he'd win any fight: more likely go down fighting, probably end up losing his mills when they've been hobbled enough so a bureaucrat can run them just as well. 

 

Immigration is a possibility. The book does not paint a good picture of the rest of the world. However, this raises a question: what is your view of the state of the US at the time when Rearden finally leaves his mills in the book? What country today would be a significantly better that the U.S. portrayed there. I assume most people would agree that the U.S. of today is one. i.e. if the U.S. of today existed in parallel, Rearden would clearly prefer it to the world he faces near the end. On the other hand, I assume most people would agree that today's North Korea would be a worse alternative. So, what current country would be borderline? What about the China of today? Russia? Burma? Egypt? Would it make sense for him to immigrate from his world, to any of these? 

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S'nerd, As bad as American Objectivists think it is, at least the awful principles haven't yet come completely home to roost in the US, and I've some confidence will be partially staved off. Everywhere is much worse (short of copping right out of reality to Costa Rica, or somesuch, as I've been considering...) You are still in the freest country of all. If that seems relative, it's still not bad. I appreciate that held up to the standards of what once was, and what should be, that's small comfort.

"Find a place to make your stand" (The Eagles) holds for our consciousness as much as -if not more than- our location, I've come to think.

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S'nerd, As bad as American Objectivists think it is, at least the awful principles haven't yet come completely home to roost in the US, and I've some confidence will be partially staved off. Everywhere is much worse (short of copping right out of reality to Costa Rica, or somesuch, as I've been considering...) You are still in the freest country of all.

Sure, I have no big argument about the America part, but I'm really asking about the "everywhere is far worse". Contrast those "everywhere" places with the U.S. at the end of Rearden's stay in the "outside world". Using that America, not today's America: how would you change your answer?
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As far as what Rearden should do in that hypothetical, probably something similar to what Galt did. But I don't think it's very clear what Galt did, as far as establishing a free country goes. At the end of the novel, his group supposedly return to establish a free society. But the novel doesn't say how. The best I can speculate is that the general population lost the will to fight for any ideology, so they seized power in the vacuum, and established a system (a dictatorship: rules set up and enforced unilaterally) that would make it possible for future generations to grow into moral, freedom loving men and embrace their freedom. AS offers no suggestions on how one would change the current generation into actively supporting the same.

 

To me it's very clear that this is not what they did at the end of Atlas Shrugged.  Throughout the book you see a number of indications that 'the common man' is ready to embrace rational ideas.  Causes such as the John Galt Line and Rearden's trial draw large popular support, and there are many minor characters that object to the current state of things but can't give voice to an alternative.  That is the point of Galt's speech, to provide a positive moral alternative to ideas that many are ready to reject.  That speech serves to rally those that have sensed something wrong with the current system to the new rational moral ideal.  I think there is a healthy contingent of people ready for a rational alternative when those few from Galt's Gulch return to the world.  It's not just the few people from Galt's Gulch returning to a destroyed world; Galt's speech has readied the way for much of the population to welcome them back.

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To respond to the OP here, I agree with Nicky that emigration is probably the best alternative in the real world.  I think that any kind of 'strike,' whether it's early retirement, the scaling back of one's businesses, or the destruction of one's factory, is highly impractical without the larger plan that Galt offered.  If Galt had just withdrawn from the world after the Starnes' took over the factory, had withdrawn his new motor technology but had not set out on a mission to convince others to do the same, there would have been no real effect from his one-man strike.  The strike isn't practical without his mission to convice every person of ability to join him, and an equivalent strike in the real world would be just as ineffective.  For someone like Rearden, it's either throwing himself into political activism to save his own country, or moving to another one that isn't as far gone.

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For someone like Rearden, it's either throwing himself into political activism to save his own country, or moving to another one that isn't as far gone.

Given that you said the majority of the population wasn't happy with the degenerating political scene, do you think the country would have even needed saved?

The impression I got from the novel was that the collapsing US was an even mixed bag of ideas. Some people were too far gone and would never come around, most had given up out of stupidity or indifference and could be swayed either way, and some others were against the government and its supporters. A mixed bag is hard to predict, but Galt's acceleration plan showed the result in a few short years. His conclusion was that it was safe for the producers to return. But, he didn't say why and I don't think the novel explains by implication. I suppose an argument could be made that his line, the NYC lights going out, would be obvious enough to change everyone's mind about the true value of the producers. That's a bit of a gamble on his part, though.

The mixed nature of the US was the reason I thought that Rearden's life without Galt wouldn't change at all -- the country could have fumbled along for a long while more given how many producers were left to count on, especially with their continued innovation. Rearden Metal alone, which probably wouldn't have been taken from him without the panic, would have greatly increased the value of the country's output. I think life would have been similar to our current US.

Edited by JASKN
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"If Galt had just withdrawn from the world after the Starnes' took over the factory, had withdrawn his new motor technology but had not set out on a mission to convince others to do the same, there would have been no real effect from his one-man strike.  The strike isn't practical without his mission to convice every person of ability to join him, and an equivalent strike in the real world would be just as ineffective.  For someone like Rearden, it's either throwing himself into political activism to save his own country, or moving to another one that isn't as far gone." - Dante
 

As a counter to your question, why not take your technology and force the corrections that you could make... While Tesla lost his battle for free energy Galt was in a different position.

 

Instead Galt took the easiest way out - I can't buck the system so I am going to quit. That is fine if you think the system isn't worth fighting to save. Problem is he obviously feels it is. In his Eight hours long speech he prooves that.

 

The biggest issue I have is why yes there are worse places than America today... Here we are allowing our country to get down as close to it as possible. Listening to actors who got there's tell us we don't deserve ours... Direct parrallel to Rand's work. It's just flat scary to me.

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"Given that you said the majority of the population wasn't happy with the degenerating political scene, do you think the country would have even needed saved?" - Jaskn

 

I may have missed what you are saying here but America's last election there was a 10% approval rating for Congress, there was a 90% re-election of the imcumbence.. This says to me that we are not happy with the degenerating political scene... And that we can't yet figure out how to beat the system...

 

When our politicians keep setting themselves up to win, its a painful road for those that fight, but don't quit.
 

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... America's last election there was a 10% approval rating for Congress, there was a 90% re-election of the imcumbence...

And, on average, Americans get a mix of politicians who reflect the political thinking of the electorate. Better politicians do not win because they do not pander enough. And folks who are better still do not even run, because they realize they don't stand a chance.

Similarly, in AS, even though people were fed up with the political scene, it was of their causing. Dante's point is that people were ripe for someone who would get them to examine their deeper premises, and have an "Aha!" moment where enough of them changed their minds. That's where Galt's speech fits in. It's a fictional context, where we're invited to suspend disbelief about the efficacy of such a speech. Could that happen IRL?

Even in the fictional context, without Galt, Rearden would probably not reach the full awareness and understanding the is embodied in Galt's speech. OTOH, the world would probably not go downhill so fast. Also, if we assume a more realistic context, the world would probably not go down so fast.

Edited by softwareNerd
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And folks who are better still do not even run, because they realize they don't stand a chance. .... Even in the fictional context, without Galt, Rearden would probably not reach the full awareness and understanding the is embodied in Galt's speech. OTOH, the world would probably not go downhill so fast. Also, if we assume a more realistic context, the world would probably not go down so fast.

 

1) Many good folks don't run because the role of our present government is perversely immoral and they want nothing to do with it.

 

2) Reardon is easily duped by Washington insiders because he doesn't play that game. He would have had everything stripped from him and not been able to defend himself. Reardon metal production may have been stopped by Boyle's pet environmentalists. He would have stayed with his wife because he would have clung to the morality of his youth, holding marriage as an ideal and not knowing how to respond to a woman such as Lillian. Ultimately, the loss of his factories would have caused Lillian to divorce Reardon! Reardon would have been poorer if not completely destitute, miserable, and cynical.

 

3) Given a more realistic context, the world has not gone down that fast. Isn't that the point of the strike--to accelerate the moral consequences of dominant political philosophies? Instead of the Soviet Union crashing in 70 years, it would crash in a single generation. Similarly, the US would reach its end quickly enough that the reasons would be clear and the alternative course clearly evident.

 

(Pardon the solid contradiction in the original version of this post.)

Edited by aleph_1
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