Atlas Shrugged – Day 061 – pp. 669-678
Anyway, the tramp is going on about the utter social decay the Starnes kids’ experiment of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” created.
It’s a long section, as much of Rand’s stuff tends to get, but it’s an excellent depiction of exactly how the “welfare-mind” destroys productivity.
Anyhow, business continues to decline. As people are no longer paid according to value, the quality of the value they produced – motors – declined precipitously. Selling defective motors ain’t a good business plan.
It ruined the business, it ruined the camaraderie of the plant, it ruined peoples’ lives.
“If this is what it did in a single small town where we all knew one an other, do you care to think what it would do on a world scale?”
Mr. President?
He goes on for a bit longer when Dagny brings him back to the original point of his story – who is John Galt?
Yes. Who is he?
By now, I’ve pretty much got an idea. Rand’s let on enough to fill in the blanks which I think hurts the dramatic effect a little at this point. But she keeps the scene short. . .
“This is a crucial moment in the history of mankind!” Gerald Starnes yelled through the noise. Remember that none of us may now leave this place, for each of us belongs to all the others by the moral law which we all accept!”
“I don’t,” said one man and stood up. . . . “I will put an end to this once and for all. . .”
“How?”
“I will stop the motor of the world.” Then he walked out.
A pretty ambitious plan for a young whiz-kid.
But true to his threat, business began to fail, shops began to close, the roads began to grow empty.
“We began to think that he had damned us and there was no escape from his verdict and we would never be able to get away from him — and this was the more terrible because he was not pursuing us, it was we who were suddenly looking for him and he had merely gone without a trace. . . . But when I hear them repeating that question, I feel afraid. I think of the man who said that he would stop the motor of the world. You see, his name was John Galt.”
There you go.
Cut to later that evening. Dagny is half asleep listening to the sounds of the train wheels. Suddenly she’s jolted awake by the sound of nothing. The train has stopped.
They called it a “frozen” train. When a crew would stop the train. Get off and disappear.
So once again, she’s forced to take control. She makes her way to the engine when she runs into a familiar face — Owen Kellogg. The young kid from way back in Chapter 2 or 3 who quit before she could promote him. He offers to assist.
Realizing what happened, they know their only options are to wait for the next train in the morning, or to find a working call box along the rail where they can call for a back up crew.
Owen offers to go with her. As they’re about to leave, she hears a voice.
“Trouble ma’am?”
It’s the tramp. He offers to go with for safety. She tells him Kellogg’s going with her. Instead she puts him in charge.
“. . .ever worked for a railroad before?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well you’re working for one now. You’re deputy-conductor and proxy-vice-president-in-charge-of-operation. Your job is to take charge of this train in my absence, to preserve order and to keep the cattle from stampeding.”
Wonder if he gets business cards with all that on it.
“Tell them that I appointed you. You don’t need any proof. They’ll obey anybody who expects their obedience.”
That last sentence is the kicker. Obeying those who expect obedience. Regardless of valid authority. Sheep.
The tramp’s off to do his job. Owen and Dagny are off to find a phone.