Going Galt in 2011 – I Guess Atlas Shrugs Was Right
by Mike Kimel
Going Galt in 2011 – I Guess Atlas Shrugs Was Right
crossposted at the Presimetrics blog A couple years ago, there was a small spate of commentary of folks by conservatives and libertarians about how, if the Bush tax cuts weren’t renewed, we’d see a bunch of highly productive people going Galt. In other words, a whole bunch of people on whom society depends, seeing the parasites started sucking even more of their lifeblood, would simply withdraw from society… and the rest of us would suffer.
crossposted at the Presimetrics blog A couple years ago, there was a small spate of commentary of folks by conservatives and libertarians about how, if the Bush tax cuts weren’t renewed, we’d see a bunch of highly productive people going Galt. In other words, a whole bunch of people on whom society depends, seeing the parasites started sucking even more of their lifeblood, would simply withdraw from society… and the rest of us would suffer.
It turns out that those who gave us these warnings were partly right. It seems there are a lot of people – schoolteachers, firefighters, police officers and the like – threatening to go Galt in Wisconsin these days. Its just that the rest of the story isn’t playing quite the way the promoters of going Galt predicted. Nevertheless, I’m sure they must be absolutely ecstatic that some people have finally stood up to the government and said: “enough is enough.”
I have two thoughts on this.
In Galt’s Gulch Victory Garden, was Galt actually the one tending the garden? I sincerely doubt it. That’s work for lower class people.
And on the supposed theme that selfishness is good, it seems that it’s only good to the correct class of people, and the burgeouis aren’t supposed to be the correct class.
I’ve tried to read the book. It’s wallowing in something that I just can’t put my finger on, and I can’t really go on and finish it.
Mike
I went Galt 15 years ago and they never noticed.
Bryan
that’s what’s so funny. The author of the morality of “first raters” is a less than third rate writer.
We have to assume that the gardeners in Galts Gulch are all first rate gardeners, or at least first rate servants who know their place.
The Koch boys can ‘git anytime they’d like.
Maybe they should before someone gets the ropes.
Same for Peterson and Murdoch (in London?)
Fear of the middle class “going Galt” is the driver behind dis-empowering union efforts. Before everyone can be treated as an air traffic controller, the infrastructure of mutual support must be destroyed.
There were two related articles in the NY Times this AM concerniing the goings on in Wisconsin. One had to do with the demonstrations and threats by the state government leadership to carry forward with its draconian union busting plans, but was couched in some what different terms. The article put much focus on the “other” Wisconsin people who were sufferiing from the economic climate and who were supposedly becoming increasingly anti-public worker if not anti-union in general. One could come away from the article thinking either a) damn selfish public workers don’t want to share the pain of others suffering their own financial woes, or b) damn unions are responsible for all that is economically bad whether it be the loss of private industry jobs or the avarice of public workers or c) if the reader tried hard they might come away thinking that workers are turning against one another based on the Times portrayal of things. Even the title of the article strongly impies a conclusion not supported by the content, “Union Bonds in Wisconsin Begin to Fray.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/us/22union.html?ref=politics
Also reported was the role of the Koch brothers in funding most Republican and Scott Walker activities in Wisconsin. The article describes the role of Koch brother money in the growth of a so-called grass roots conservative organization, Americans For Prosperity. From the reading it is difficult to determine who’s prosperity is being championed.
You have identified the true silliness of the Galt notion. None of our mega-rich could be mega rich outside the society from which Galt tells them to depart. If “going Galt” means nothing more than living on the wad they accumulated, while still enjoying all the benefits of this society, that amounts to nothing more high-minded than “I got mine, so gas up the yacht”. If “gong Galt” means building a new society apart from the one that’s already here,..Well, go on. Skedaddle, vamoose, ta-ta.
kharris
well said.
Kochs, Peterson, teap party the great CONservative movement.
It is class war, the Pearl Harbor was 20 Jan 1981 and the CON is winning.
Maybe the Great Stagflation is really the story of the middle class going Galt back in 1980. What’s the point of working harder if the Koch brothers are just going to take it all away?
Maybe the story of the Great Stagnation is really of the middle class going Galt back in 1981. What’s the point of working harder if the Koch brothers are just going to take it all away?
This makes me think of the baseball players’ stirke in the nineties. Aside from some frustrated fans and of course the owners nobody really noticed.
But the players’ strike was followed up by a janitors’ strike in Los Angeles (as I recall – it might have been San Fransisco) and that was a mess.
The fact is if the bankers and traders all walked off the job we’d all just muddle along (most of what they do is unproductive anyways).
But if cops, firefighters and EMTs all walk of we’re screwed.
And I read about two pages of Ayn Rand when I was about 14 and decided the lady was a no talent wack-job. But then I pretty much thought then same thing about Karl Marx. Go figure.
“In other words, a whole bunch of people on whom society depends, seeing the parasites started sucking even more of their lifeblood, would simply withdraw from society… and the rest of us would suffer.”
I’m pretty sure that this is happening, just not the way the Rand fans thought it would. I know a staggering number of really smart, talented young people who overwhelming buck the rat race and instead opt for live a simpler life, doing far less “productive” (lucritive?) work. Rather than giving up their individuality to jive with the corporate butt-kiss. They opt for less money, and greater freedom. Oh the irony! It’s not the government driving potentially productive people away, but rather the stranglehold of soul-sucking corporate life that people are trying desperately to avoid.