I really love Atlas Shrugged. I don’t agree with everything in it (please. I’m an evangelical Christian!) and the truth is it’s really poorly written. But the story… that’s a different matter. Rand was a great storyteller, and this was a good one.
At the same time, I think that the response by most people who disagree with the idea of “going Galt” aren’t disagreeing with it as I defined it here. It’s a work of fiction. Granted, Rand was amazingly prescient, much like Tom Clancy has been on quite a few issues. But it’s fiction. There’s no Galt electricity machine, no profitable train industry – Amtrak’s been on the dole for years – and no Rearden Metal. None of us are on a par with Rand’s fictional heroes. The loss of my small business isn’t going to make a substantial impact; believe me, I’m not trying to engage in self-aggrandizement. But me plus thousands, tens of thousands like me – that would make an impact. To take “going Galt” literally – i.e. snidely remark that nobody’s a genius who invented a Rearden Metal that we can now withhold – is a really specious argument.
QandO essentially argues that if John Galt existed, he’d despise my sort for a namby-pamby response in his name. He conducted an illegal strike!1!! The idea, I guess, is that anyone who does less or risks nothing isn’t entitled to use the sacred name of Galt. I’m not sure what law I’m expected to break in order to rightfully use the name of Galt. Look, it’s a Darmok and Jilad at Tenagra sort of thing… to call it “going Galt” readily identifies the general concept and steers people toward Atlas Shrugged. That’s good. What do I risk? Nothing, really. But ask what I sacrifice in service of this goal and the answer is quite different. While my lifestyle is still unimaginably wealthy compared to the rest of the world, by American standards it’s reduced already and will be reduced still more.
The fictional John Galt organized a strike of people who were net contributors to society. I’m a net contributor who is going on strike. I’m hoping a lot of other people choose to do the same. And that’s what this “going Galt” movement is about; not a re-enactment of a work of fiction.
When I talk about “going Galt” I mean acknowledging that 60% of the country relies on forcible wealth transfers from 40% in order to maintain the status quo. That’s not fiction. That’s fact.
If the 40 percenters decide to stop paying into the system at our current levels, the status quo cannot be maintained without the government borrowing more and more money – and at some point, other countries will stop loaning it. That’s not fiction. That’s fact.
When other countries stop lending us money, what option will the government will have but to reduce services?
The government beast consumes huge amounts of resources in the process of redistributing that wealth; it’s not like the 60% are enjoying the life of Riley on that money. Do I want to “punish” the 60 percenters? No. I would like them to gain a better understanding of how misplaced their sense of entitlement is. What I would really like is to reduce the size and scope of government, and if there’s a better way to do it than starving the government of funds, I will gladly sign on for that program.
Both parties seem irredeemably corrupt; the Republican earmarking and big spending is disgraceful. It is the government that is the problem here. Politicians get into office and in order to “stay in business” they work hard to market themselves to voters. They sell voters more and more government services and the system feeds on itself as an increasingly larger, increasingly dependent society elects the people who promise the most. All of this is predicated on the idea that “the government” has unlimited funds to do these things. Few seem to comprehend that the government doesn’t have a dime that it didn’t first take from someone else.
Closing my business puts my family right at the line of neither mooching nor being looted. If the 40 percenters – especially the people making $250k and up – reduce their tax burden, then the government will feel the pinch. It will have to choose to make cuts or borrow more; the cycle of spend and borrow isn’t sustainable. Sooner or later it’ll come to an end. I’m doing my part to make it sooner.
Haha, love the Star Trek reference
You’ve really cut to the heart of the matter. Unfortunately, our country has developed an enormous ability to borrow wealth from foreign nations, and this credit potential masks the negative impact of socialism. FDR, Johnson, Bush, Obama, or whoever can implement all kinds of expensive schemes. No one understands to blame these men for America’s trouble — because these tyrants use debt to postpone the trouble until they’ve left office. But debt can’t postpone failure forever.
Many people accuse conservatives of cruelty, but our philosophy is simply a matter of reality. Debt can mask the truth for a time, but ultimately resources are limited. This is earth, not heaven, and with imperfect humans, even the best possible earth will involve suffering.
Jesus said that we will always have the poor with us. Proving the truth of his statement is simple. Consider that much of world poverty actually comes from tyranny and war. Obviously there is no way we can solve the world’s poverty problem because, politically, we can barely even manage to liberate Iraq without people throwing a fit. Even the liberals understand this limitation.
But whereas the limitation in ending foreign poverty involves a lack of troops, a similar lack of resources applies at home. We simply can’t save everyone. The more you tax, the more wealth you destroy. The only reason we haven’t seen it yet is because of debt.
Well said. And I knew you’d get the Trek ref.
I am so proud that my ancestor pledged his “life, fortune and sacred honor” in order to birth a nation that allows to whine so loudly about the tax they pay on the amount they make over $250,000 going up by less then 5%. So if you make 250k or under your taxes aren’t really going up, and if you make more then it only the amount OVER 250k will be taxed at a marginally higher rate.
Puhleez… Rand wrote Atlas at a time when the top tax rate was 91%, so let’s have some perspective here! And speaking of perspective how a Christian can reconcile any elements of Rand’ philosophy of life with their faith is beyond me personally since the woman was about as close to the Anti-Christ as one can be without actually killing anyone: He preached selflessness and service to others she preached selfishness and service to your pocket book above all else(see Christ’ commentary about the ability of a wealthy man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and note the passage should be read with the Lord thy God made flesh making a joke about it being easier to put a camel through the eye of a needle). You can not reconcile the two as they are the polar opposite of each other!
Sure Rand is appealing; so was the serpents offer in the garden and each are just as bad for you.
As to going Galt… knock yourselves out! As that will be exactly what you do: Knock yourselves out of the game entirely. How long do the “productive class” remain that when none of the “lesser classes” purchase their goods or services? How long until the market provides an alternative pool of more civic minded “producers” who cut the previous group out of the loop entirely?
Not long.
Also the terms used just drip with the kind of elitism that my ancestors poured out copious amounts of their own blood and treasure expelling from this nation… “productive class” is just another way of saying “aristocrat” and just as likely to have the user think that they are the “better” of their fellow citizen. The levels of arrogance and pomposity encapsulated in it are stunning! I am sorry so many of you view paying taxes in this nation as a “punishment”, I have always viewed them as an honor and a duty; because this is MY nation and these are MY people! I am responsible for them and too them, it is my duty to provide for the needs of the nation both in blood and in treasure, and my obligation as a Christian to see to needs of my fellow man.
Yet you find such a punishment and a burden.
I am sorry I can not in good conscience view them as such. And mind you I have paid my share of taxes (let’s put it this way the last year I did I paid more then I grossed the second year of my first GOOD adult job which was enough to make me middle class)! And as someone who has been both rich and poor in my life I do not have the required gaul to look at someone in a lower economic strata as beneath me… Too do so would be to look down upon myself at an early point in my life and think of me as lazy or less human. And tragically some of the posts I have seen here in the comments seem to do that, and do so without any sense of shame.
Bob, income taxes are by far not the only taxes we pay. Since Rand’s time – and Reagan’s, when the tax rate was higher – our tax burden has been massively increased to the point that Tax Freedom Day was April 23 last year. You may be content to work 4 months of the year for the government, but I certainly am not. And this still doesn’t take into account the taxes we’re bombarded with when we pump gas, go to the grocery, etc. We just have a TON more government than we used to have. Too much!
As for Rand’s “anti-Christ”like qualities – honestly, that’s just ridiculous. She was your average, run of the mill atheist with some particularly cogent political views. Her philosophy of rational self-interest is not incompatible with Christianity. She was heartily against forced sacrifices and so should we be – that’s slavery. Christians do what we do voluntarily and in service of a larger goal. (Which is why the government cannot perform “Christian charity” via forcible wealth redistribution.) Rand just didn’t see that far ahead, but even she said in this Donahue interview that self-sacrifice was within the bounds of her philosophy. She just doesn’t use the phrase the way we do. She was against rejecting something that was of value to you in favor of something of lesser value, and obviously that’s a stupid, irrational thing to do. Christians are sacrificing something of lesser value (worldly treasure) in favor of something of greater value (eternal treasure). Rand saw clearly within her limited scope; it’s sad that she couldn’t or wouldn’t step back and see the bigger picture. John Piper’s views on Rand also might interest you. As to the tax rates in those times, Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957. The tax rate in 1950 was 24.6% and ten years later was 27.7%. (here, scroll down)
I think it’s interesting – well, Orwellian might be a better word – how you correlate “productive class” – i.e. people who work and make money – with “aristocrat” when historically it was the exact opposite. A small group of people worked less and were supported by a large group of people. Now we have the inverse – a large group of people work less and are supported by a small group of people. As to which is “better” – obviously I do find it better to be self-supporting than to live off money that was forcibly confiscated from people who worked hard for it and made intelligent choices in their lives. I was on welfare at one time, and worked my butt off to improve my life. People who fail to do so do not have my respect; why should they? (Incidentally, it’s “gall” not “gaul.”) I’ve been poor, cold, and hungry. Having stood in line at the welfare office, I saw an attitude of entitlement to other people’s money which was both shocking and disgusting. And I’ve seen it – and posted on it – many times since. I don’t apologize for my views on that. Poverty isn’t what most people think, anyway. For someone to receive charity thankfully and do whatever it takes to ensure they no longer need it, is one thing. For the “big screen TV poor” class to demand a certain standard of living from others yet be unwilling to work for it is an outrage. We can’t sustain a society of these perpetual children who insist on being cared for at increasingly higher levels. Lazy? In many cases, yes. In some cases, without hope or motivation to try to do better. (A problem government is incapable of solving, btw.) Less human? Certainly not.
Jesus certainly did preach selflessness and service to others. But NOT via the government. Your views are well-intentioned but completely wrong-headed. When we do as Jesus commanded and serve the poor – as the right consistently does better than the left, for all your side’s moralizing – then God is glorified. When we do as you suggest and get the government to do our jobs, then government is glorified. Serving the poor is not a goal in and of itself. Jesus could have eradicated poverty with as much ease as he calmed the sea. Serving the poor – who as Jesus said, will be with us always - is a delivery method for the gospel, something that the government emphatically does NOT do.
As an aside, I thoroughly enjoyed your comment. I’d much prefer to be forcefully (but civilly) challenged as you’ve done than have some passive-aggressive whiner complain what a meanie I am. You may find my views shocking – and I’m equally distressed by yours – but at least you’re direct about it. It’s refreshing.
Bob, it’s pretty funny that you talk about the Founding Fathers, because it just so happens that the Founding Fathers didn’t give the federal government any power to tax incomes. And most of them would be pretty surprised to learn that inadvertently, they had authorized government to nationalize banks and socialize medicine with simple phrases like “general welfare” and “interstate commerce.”
What you’ve just described is called “competition,” and it’s the reason why markets are efficient. Prices will approximate the marginal cost of making goods. In competition, people generally charge the lowest price they can without going out of business. Alternatively, if a businessman is so “civic-minded” that he goes out of business…well then I guess his civic-mindedness won’t last long.
Also, it’s inaccurate to assume that your taxes won’t go up. In reality, every business that gets taxed passes it on to you…or otherwise goes out of business. Ever heard of sales tax? The business doesn’t pay that tax; you pay that tax. When Obama says he’s going to jack up small business taxes and hike corporate taxes, what he’s really saying is that your sales tax will rise. We pretend that we don’t have a national sales tax, but we actually do. And Obama will raise it, if he follows through with his campaign promises.
Likewise, Obama’s plan to appease the mighty earth goddess Gaia by taxing carbon dioxide will severely harm you.
Likewise, every dollar we spend at a deficit puts you further into debt. It’s really insane to imagine that only the “rich” will suffer, and not you. In fact, even the poor will suffer. But it serves them right, I guess. Envy is destructive to everyone.
You can’t “Go John Galt” and hang on to your ridiculous mystical beliefs. There is no God or religion in a fair society, keep it private where it belongs. You “Christian” nutjobs do more harm than good to objective causes.
Considering that no one elected you arbiter of all things Randian – and that I am not even an objectivist, I’m a Christian Hedonist (not what you think, read John Piper) so if you were the arbiter of all things Randian I’d still be unimpressed – I’m not particularly concerned about your opinion of me. But had you taken the time to read this blog at all instead of just spewing an uninformed opinion, you’d have learned that in terms of public/private religion, our positions are closer than you might expect.
A few thoughts on some of the above responses. Bob: you make the mistake of thinking that you have the right to be generous with what does not belong to you. Taxes are confiscated from people who have earned the money and used by politicians to buy the approval of those to whom they award it. This is not generosity, it’s stealing. If you wish to pay higher taxes or give more to the poor my only question is: what’s stopping you? My guess is that you would like to increase the taxes on those whose incomes lie just above yours. As in any cross examination the defense must wait for the prosecution to open the door as you did by invoking the founders of the nation. What do you make of article 1, section 2, paragraph 3 of the U.S. Constitution “Representatives AND direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers… I take this to mean that in return for his one equal vote a citizen will be expected to bear one equal share of the burden. Imagine an ocean liner where the stowaways get to vote on the course or destination of the ship. That sounds more like a hi-jacking to me. Incidentally you might want to check out the following with respect to the scrpiture you quoted from Mathew. This is just a technical observation.
http://www.angelfire.com/wy/Franklin4YAHWEH/camelthroughneedle.html
As to Rand’s atheism what difference does that make to anyone who simply advocates free voluntary associations and trade. As T. Jefferson put it “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” John Galt let reality be the judge when he disagreed with another man of the mind stating: If I am right he will learn, if he is right I will, but both will profit. Why not apply the same logic to the unknown areas. If Rand is right then she would have been glad to know that she has had more influence than any other novelist, if she is wrong then she is glad to see that she has had more influence than any other writer than God. With respect to picking some aspects of her philosophy to subscribe to while leaving others alone, don’t we do exactly this when shopping in the supermarket, choosing strawberries not cherries, romaine not iceberg lettuce?
What I fear most about Obama is that he wishes to use one man to serve the purposes of another. You might well say that that is as good a definition of slavery as any. How many times has he called for sacrifice? What he calls for is usually the opposite of what he wants. After the sub prime melt down Obama called for people to have skin in the game; by which he meant that those who were already paying their loans according to agreement should also pay more to cover those who weren’t. The hallmark of Obama’s rule is the use of force. I would ask a general question: if Obama’s policies are such a good idea why does force have to be used to get everyone’s co-operation? When he says “we’re asking the rich to contribute more” what he means is “we’re telling anyone we can get money from they will give us more under penalty of whatever we decide to do to you including confiscation of more property, humiliation and ultimately jail.”
Peaceful VOLUNTARY exchange!!! Very truly yours, Jeff B.