Atlas Shrugged – Day 098 – pp. 1100-1109
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Does it always take this long to read the last 100 pages of a book? Or only when you run into the holidays?
OK, I’m still waiting on some threat to the entire world by the Thompson Harmonizer / Project X thing. What a POS red herring that would be if Rand didn’t follow up on it.
Anywho…
John Galt is being held in the Wayne-Falkland Hotel by the band of looters and presently being interrogated by their leader. Mr Thompson has just offered Galt the position of Economic Dictator of the world.
Galt laughs at him. (No benefits?)
Not at all. Includes pretty much everything.
“If you don’t like controls — repeal them. If you want higher profits and lower wages — decree them. If you want special privileges for he big tycoons — grant them. If you don’t like labor unions — dissolve them. If you want a free economy — order people to be free.”
That last one, I think, punctuates the stupidity of the entire looters’ thesis. Order people to be free. Like order them to be happy.
Galt says if he takes the job, his first order of business would be to have Mr Thompson abolish all taxes. (Get’s my vote.)
Can’t do that. That’s on the distribution side of the equation.
Thompson doesn’t get it. (I’m wondering if there are men really that stupid, or if you just go into politics in Washington long enough, you begin to believe your own crap.)
“I don’t get it. You said that you’re out for your own selfish interest — and that, I can understand. … I offer you a blank check on anything you wish — and you tell me that you don’t want it. Why?”
“Because there are no funds behind your blank check.”
Thompson insists he can give Galt anything he wants. A billion dollars.
“What will it buy me?”
“…when the country gets back on its feet.”
“When I put it back on its feet.”
“…every man, woman and child in this country will obey your orders…”
“After I teach them to do it.”
“If you want anything for your own gang…”
“After I bring them back.”
“Well, what on earth do you want?”
“What on earth do I need you for?”
“Huh?”
“What have you got to offer me that I couldn’t get without you?”
It’s still not sinking in. Galt won’t be held at the point of a gun.
“Alright then, I’ll hold a gun. What are you going to do about it?”
“I’ll obey you.”
“What?”
“I’ll do whatever you tell me to.”
“Do you mean it?”
“I mean it. Literally.”
Order him to sit at a desk, he’ll do it. Order him to issue a directive, he’ll do that too. Order him to save the economy — that’s something he doesn’t know how to do. Thompson orders him to think of a way.
“No, you don’t want me to think. When you force a man to act against his own choice and judgment, it’s his thinking that you want him to suspend. you want him to become a robot. I shall comply.”
Bingo! (again.)
Cut scene to a meeting six days later in Thompson’s office. The boys (and Dagny) are all there. Their media blitz of “John Galt Promises Prosperity” on the front pages of the papers have been received with a resounding ignorance.
Seems people have finally stopped believing the media blather. I wonder if that’s ever a real possibility?
They’ve all been in to talk to him. To try and persuade him. And all with the same result.
“He doesn’t hear a word you say.”
Fred Kinnan chuckled. You mean, he hears too much, don’t you. And what’s worse, he answers it.”
I sort of like Fred. At least he’s an honest criminal. In his brief appearance in the book, he never put on the facade of nobility. He always made it clear he was extorting and stealing from the masses. Something the rest of them would never admit to (still won’t apparently.)
Kinnan chuckled mirthlessly, “What use would he have for me? I’ll be the first one to go down the drain when he wins … It’s only… it’s only that he’s a man who talks straight.”
A kindred contempt for the looters. If criminal endeavor was an industry, I believe Fred would be on Galt’s team.
Ha. What an irony that’d be.
Ferris again implies firmer tactics. Thompson insists that’ll never happen:
“…because if he goes, we go. He’s our last hope.”
He seems to have that right.
What does he want Miss Taggart?
“He’s an arrogant egoist. He’s an ambitious adventurer. He’s a man of unlimited audacity who’s playing for the biggest stakes in the world.”
She’s lying. And sort of enjoying it. She’s been playing the game since they caught her and apart from the fact that it cut clear against her moral nature, she’s finding it easy to do to them. Almost enjoyable.
Tell them what they want to hear and they’re licking your hand.
(Didn’t Fred Kinnan say something about hand lickers and independent thinkers once before when they were issuing directive 10-289?)
Anyway, they’ve bought her story hook, line and sinker. And now they’re imploring her for help.
“The biggest stakes in the world, Miss Taggart? What is it? What does he want?”
What a place to end 10 pages…