Equalization of Opportunity

Atlas Shrugged – Day 013 – pp. 124-133

“Whether I did it on purpose,” he said, ‘or though neglect, or through stupidity, don’t you understand that that doesn’t make any difference? The same element was missing.”

Same element? Hmmmmm.

Dagny tells him that if he sees all that’s going wrong in the world he, of all men, should stand and fight them.

Whom?

The looters and the thieves.

Francisco maintains that it’s her he has to fight. (huh??)

The eight million dollars that went to the Mexican workers housing settlement was the price paid for the crap that was built. But it was enough to have bought steel structures.

“That money went to men who grow rich by such methods. Such men do not remain rich for long.  The money will go into channels which will carry it, not to the most productive, but to the most corrupt. By the standards of our time, the man who has the least to offer is the man who wins.”

Then he gets bold with a few predictions. Taggart Transcontinental will not recover from the loss on the San Sebastian line. The Phoenix-Durango – the only good railroad in existence – has been put out of business by her brother’s greed. And Ellis Wyatt will be the next to go belly up.

Dagny still can’t understand (and frankly, I’m still a little mixed up as well.)

He still insists she’s not ready to hear the truth.

“You have a great deal of courage Dagny. Some day, you’ll have enough of it.”
“Of what? Courage?”
But he didn not answer.

Well that was weird.

Onward to Chapter VI – The Non-Commercial.

Ah! It’s the night of Lillian Rearden’s big party and Hank is mentally beating himself up, unable to get over his own guilt over his success.

“You don’t care for anything but business.” He had heard it all his life pronounced as a verdict of damnation. He had always known that business was regarded as some sort of secret, shameful cult, which one did on impose on innocent laymen, that people thought of it as of an ugly necessity, to be performed but never mentioned, that to talk shop was an offense against higher sensibilities, that just as on washed machine grease off one’s hands before coming home, so one was supposed to wash the stain of business off one’s mind before entering a drawing-room

Despite all this, he has remained driven and held himself solely responsible for his successes and failures. He’s really the ultimate entrepreneur with a bad guilt trip.

At the moment, he’s feeling guilty because he has work he should be doing instead of attending a party. More guilt.

While he’s dressing, a news clipping his secretary put in his things falls on his dresser. It’s about a bill called the “Equalization of Opportunity” bill. The esence was that with opportunities apparently becoming scarcer, it is unfair for one man to own too many businesses.

“…competition was essential to society, and it was society’s duty to see that no competitor ever rose beyone the range of anybody who wanted to compete with him.”

Sounds like the flip-side of “too big to fail”…  “too good to succeed?”

His Washington guy, Wesley Mouch assured him the bill would never pass.

At the party, a number of modern philosopher types are spouting the nonsensical rhetoric of the day.

“Man? What is man? He’s just a collection of chemicals with delusions of grandeur.”

And the “Equalization of Opportunity” bill?

“I believe I made it clear that I am in favor if it, because I am in favor of a free economy. A free economy cannot exist without competition.  Therefore, men must be forced to compete. Therefore we must control men in order to force them to be free.”

Jesus. Sounds like the crap out of Washington today!