Clash of Titans

by Tom Pratt

  The woman in Roomette 9, Car No. 12, was a housewife who believed that she had the right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing, to control giant industries, of which she had no knowledge.

  The man in Bedroom F, Car No. 13, was a lawyer who had said, “Me? I’ll find a way to get along under any political system.”

  The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 14, was a professor of philosophy who taught that there is no mind—how do you know that the tunnel is dangerous?—no reality—how can you prove that the tunnel exists? —no logic—why do you claim that trains cannot move without motive power?—no principles—why should you be bound by the law of cause-and-effect?—no rights—why shouldn’t you attach men to their jobs by force?—no morality—what’s moral about running a railroad? —no absolutes—what difference does it make to you whether you live or die, anyway? He taught that we know nothing—why oppose the orders of your superiors?—that we can never be certain of anything—how do you know you’re right?—that we must act on the expediency of the moment—you don’t want to risk your job, do you?[25]

  The man in Drawing Room B, Car No. 15, was an heir who had inherited his fortune, and who had kept repeating, “Why should Rearden be the only one permitted to manufacture Rearden Metal?”

  The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 16, was a humanitarian who had said, “The men of ability? I do not care what or if they are made to suffer. They must be penalized in order to support the incompetent.” (pp.605-606)

  We cannot hope at this distance of time and space to read Ms. Rand’s mind from a half-century and more of remove. What we can say is that we have met these characters before in real life and seen and heard them in operation far too many times to discount their presence and dominance among us. The remarkable thing is that Rand saw this coming and undoubtedly saw it around her. She explained the particular focus of Atlas Shrugged in her philosophy as creating the world that comes from the altruistic philosophy of the looters and moochers, the second-handers who live off the productivity of others and insist that it is moral to do so.[26] She made it clear that she saw this not as a neutral or benign attitude, but one of vicious predation. It is an idealized picture at each extreme to make the point in vivid Technicolor. Furthermore, using the ad hominem attack—suggesting as Steorts does that she has simply deteriorated in her mental and literary skills due to personal weaknesses--upon a philosophical piece of fiction does not speak to the issue she joins here—all mindlessness and irrationality has consequences, many of them absolutely tragic. Pastor Martin Niemoeller lamented his own failure to respond to Nazi persecution and murderous destruction of German national minorities during World War II by noting that he failed to stand up against Hitler’s murderous tyranny upon others until it was too late to save himself, for he was now all alone. What Rand is at great pains to establish throughout this section is that the concentrated productivity of the mind is the greatest safeguard against the tragedy of life, and the failure of those who benefit from it to honor it and be duly cognizant of its value and defend it against attack is in a sense unforgivable.

  The “benevolence” of the universe Rand speaks of is just as much on display in the technological revolution of a Silicon Valley as it is in the slums of Calcutta through the seemingly endless ministrations of a Mother Theresa and her order. The problem(s) in Calcutta is that it is cut off from the rational process that would actually ameliorate it for good. When that which is good is looted and diverted to the service of evil, it is truly tragic and vicious beyond understanding.

  Chapter $ - The Sign of the Dollar

  Francisco d’Anconia is Rand’s primary foil for dealing with the multi-faceted issue of money and its meaning and uses. He is the heir of a fabulous fortune from his family’s mining of copper (in Chile) and distribution throughout the world for industrial purposes and numerous other enterprises that make them perhaps the wealthiest family corporation in the world. The operation of mining and its product is essential to the great engines of the modern world such as railroads, electricity, steel mills, construction, and a myriad of other uses. It is also so secure an operation that it can go on for many years with little effort on the part of the heirs to maintain it. Many a family fortune in the real world has passed quickly into oblivion with the arrival of heirs who have no idea what it took to build the original wealth or what is required of those who would live worthy of its gift to them in the present. d’Anconia is not one of those people. As a childhood friend and early lover to Dagny Taggart (who refers to him as Frisco and he to her as Slug) he has made it his lifelong vision and ambition to push the family legacy to its greatest heights. He works in the lowest layers of the family business and at other jobs learning the meaning of work and the value of money. But, it is only under the tutelage of Hugh Akston, the philosopher, and in the friendship he shares with John Galt, beginning in university classes with Akston and Robert Stadler (the brilliant theoretical physicist), that he comes to see what the world is actually doing with his family wealth by the profusion of “people’s” governments like the one in his native Chile.

  For a while after leaving the Patrick Henry University d’Anconia succeeds famously as the multiplier of wealth he sought to be, so much so that anyone who wanted to see investments soar in value year by year hitched their wagon to d’Anconia copper. What’s more the various governmental entities with which it dealt around the globe became more and more aware of the apparent “resource” that was theirs for the taking if they could ferret out the ways to make this pool of private wealth do the bidding and serve the purposes of the public sector. They appeared to be on the way to achieving their goals until John Galt convinced Francisco to join the strike. Having seen his own efforts diverted again and again into the coffers of others through taxation, crony-capitalism, regulation, insider trading and dealing on the markets, and outright confiscations, he comes to the conclusion that only an elaborate charade can defend his family’s property and legacy from the looters and moochers. He sets out with the knowledge only of Galt and Ragnar Danneskjold (the three brilliant students of Akston and Stadler) to secure his wealth from the falling into the hands and schemes of others. As an idealized character he makes several significant speeches and is involved in several controversial moments in the plot and he has as the primary object of his speech-making the character of Hank Rearden, whom he hopes to convince to join the strike. Rearden’s character, therefore, plays off against what he believes to be the dissipation inherent in the lifestyle and choices he sees in d’Anconia.

  When the novel begins, d’Anconia is a world-renowned playboy, scion of one of the richest families on earth known to live and spend lavishly on “wine, women, and song” and every other debauched kind of behavior repugnant to Rand’s productive characters. On the other hand, he is envied and idolized and imitated by those who see his life as the natural result of great wealth and luxury, even as publicly he is denounced as a worthless philanderer and wastrel. This is the tension built into the plot over the issue of the nature of wealth, and specifically its denomination in money, symbolized by the dollar sign, for money is treated in Rand’s work for what it really is—a unit of exchange that has vastly improved the ability of mankind to turn productivity into actual wealth.[27] Through the years of barter and exchange which had no efficient monetary system that could be universally adapted to global values, wealth was painstakingly slow to accumulate and work its way through societies and classes of people. Mostly it was held by manorial and feudal arrangements of societies and governments in a system called (generally) mercantilism, which literally “filled the coffers” of monarchs and aristocracies with gold and silver and precious stones and other metals.[28] On the other hand money, the coinage and paper promise of value inherent in the dollar bill, has now become for man the measure of that which produces his survival on earth—not the concrete pieces of the exchange value they represent but the creativity and the productivity of men and women who “made” the money. As a unit for universal trad
ing, it has become the indispensable unit of exchange for those who would trade their own efforts for the efforts of others for their mutual benefit.[29]

  James Taggart is the first to utter the words, “Money is the root of all evil.” He does it in a public declaration at his wedding reception after his marriage to Cherryl Brooks, the young and naïve but proud shop clerk whom he has taken on as a demonstration of his altruistic commitment to what he and others consider to be higher values than the mere “making of money.” “Money can’t buy happiness. Love will conquer any barrier and any social distance. That may be a bromide, boys, but that’s how I feel,” he mouths for all to hear, but we know that “love” can hardly be the word to describe what has been going on in his pursuit of Cherryl and her gratitude for his attentions. (p. 392) Lest the reader misunderstand us here, the issue is not about sex or any of the normal range of transactions that take place in a romantic fictional setting leading to marriage. This marriage is a condescending gesture on the part of Taggart, staged for public consumption and the advantage to him of appearing in the eyes of his own form of aristocracy as a benefactor of the needy and undeserving. Cherryl is only vaguely aware of this, but she is terribly confused and uncomfortable, though she is also grateful to the point of near-worship that such a powerful and wealthy man should have anything to do with a poor shop clerk like herself. Nevertheless she has her pride and has refused to trade in money for affection or anything else. The newspapers at one point in the society pages have denominated the relationship “the Cinderella Girl and the Democratic Businessman.”

  This appears to be Taggart’s goal, a public persona that covers his ongoing activities, and he expects the gratitude of worship from Cherryl and the admiring public. They had met the first time after a public reception at which Taggart had been applauded as the man who built the John Galt Line for Taggart Transcontinental. Of course, he did not. His sister had forced the issue of its construction with Rearden Metal upon him and the board of directors by resigning temporarily from her position at TT and proceeding to build the line with her own capital and then to turn it over to TT at its completion. This was done to facilitate public relations with a government and public that frowned on the invention of Rearden Metal and was trying to regulate it out of existence or make it public property. Cherryl sees James as the epitome of the great railroad builder as do the unknowing public sycophants, and he takes the accolades all around after his sister has made it happen.

  As Taggart makes his way through the room of the fabulous hotel where his wedding reception is being held, it becomes clear that the guest list is calculated to further the core values on which his personality is built. Others are fully aware of this, and we are privy to thoughts and conversations that show us the motives of the people present who are of two stripes—those who are able to lift Taggart to higher rungs on the ladder of pull and those who are willing to let him walk up their backs to the heights. “By the unwritten code of the day, nobody received or accepted an invitation from a man of public prominence except in token of one or the other of these motives.” (p. 393) There are of course others present who have aspirations for assuming Taggart’s role and more, and all of them are engaged in the rough and tumble of back door dealing that constitutes in our day “crony-capitalism.” Orren Boyle is the most powerful of these at the reception. He insists on needling Taggart about the deals they have cut and the consequences involved and the future ramifications they entail. His crass way of stating what no one wishes he would state can be seen here, as he tells Taggart he had better watch himself because he (Boyle) has “friends money can’t buy”—

  The ones you buy aren’t really worth a damn, because somebody can always offer them more, so the field’s wide open to anybody and it’s just like old-fashioned competition again. But if you get the goods on a man, then you’ve got him, then there’s no higher bidder and you can count on his friendship. Well, you have friends, and so have I. You have friends I can use, and vice versa. That’s all right with me—what the hell!—one’s got to trade something. If we don’t trade money—and the age of money is past—then we trade men.” (p. 395)

  The conversation that follows is down and dirty and lets both men and the reader know what kind of trading is going on in their world of legalized mayhem.

  Lillian Rearden approaches and engages in a conversation about all the guests and seeks Taggart’s gratitude for having given him a wedding gift—the presence of her husband at the reception. She and Taggart have had conversations before about how they might be of mutual benefit to one another. Now she pointedly lets Taggart know that any time he needs to get Hank in line she has “the goods” on him and can “deliver” him. What she inadvertently has become privy to is a deal to sell some Rearden Metal on the “black market” between Hank and a supplier of coal, Ken Dannager, in order to assure that his mills will continue to function and the railroads will continue to run. This has been necessitated by their refusal to kow-tow to the crowd of regulators whose preferred distributors of coal and steel have seen to it that Rearden and his co-conspirator are cut out of normal governmental channels. They both move on in the swirling pools of aristocratic schmoozing.

  At one point Lillian confronts Dagny Taggart with listeners all around. Lillian has begged and cajoled Hank into attendance to satisfy her need to be seen with him publicly by her friends and the societal aristocracy, and Dagny has appeared reluctantly as the sister of James. Dagny and Hank have previously consummated their relationship at the time of the completion of the John Galt Line (more on this in a following chapter). Dagny is wearing a bracelet made from Rearden Metal, a bracelet which he first sought to give to his wife as a token of his loyalty and an expression to her of the pride he took in the development of his signature metal. Lillian had previously disdained it and made fun of it and him publicly in Dagny’s presence, because the bracelet was not gold or silver or bejeweled and was not worthy of her or a man as wealthy as Hank Rearden. Dagny claimed the bracelet—by trading her own very expensive necklace for it--in the midst of many expressions of horror and mortification and false embarrassment on Lillian’s behalf.

  By way of attempting to bait Dagny into a confrontation she boldly suggests that this evening’s primary event is a mark of the power of women to make their way in the world with something tradable other than productivity and work and rational pursuits. Dagny has no interest in such a conversation, but Lillian persists as her opponent refuses to take the bait. Finally she blurts out what she means:

  Well, consider your sister-in-law, Miss Taggart. What chance did she have to rise in the world? None—by your exacting standards. She could not have made a successful career in business. She does not possess your unusual mind. Besides, men would have made it impossible for her. They would have found her too attractive. So she took advantage of the fact that men have standards which, unfortunately, are not as high as yours. She resorted to talents which, I’m sure, you despise. You have never cared to compete with us lesser women in the sole field of our ambition—in the achievement of power over men. (p. 401)

  It is then that the significance of the bracelet assumes center court as Lillian attempts to exercise her “power” over Hank and Dagny with the insinuation that is not an insinuation that Dagny must return the bracelet or risk getting the reputation that she is sleeping with Lillian’s husband. The entire scene turns on her supposed power over Hank and his existence as a man and the assumed wish of Dagny not to be thought of as “that kind of woman.” Dagny makes it plain that Lillian’s opinion and that of others is immaterial to her, and Hank insists that Lillian make apology for her display of poor taste. In this case we find one persona attempting to trade on something of value to herself that has no meaning to the two other people.

  Across the room Orren Boyle listens in on a conversation involving Taggart and a group of influence peddlers and seekers who obsequiously engage in complements to the obvious superiority of his character as a “man of culture,” one
who “lives on a higher plain,” one who is “not a real businessman.” To them Jim responds, “We are at the dawn of a new age. We are breaking up the vicious tyranny of economic power. We will set men free of the rule of the dollar. We will release our spiritual aims from dependence on the owners of material means. We will liberate our culture from the stranglehold of the profit-chasers. We will build a society dedicated to higher ideals, and we will replace the aristocracy of money by—” “…the aristocracy of pull,” another voice finishes the sentence. It is the voice of d’Anconia. (p. 404) The crowd of bejeweled and gaudily dressed aristocrats gathers around him as if transfixed by his bold and apparently unconcerned demeanor. When one woman asks him what he thinks will become of the world, he replies that it will get just what it deserves, to her horror. “Oh how cruel, she cries. Don’t you believe in the operation of the moral law,” she asks. “I do,” he replies. When the murmuring of the crowd grows louder, Bertram Scudder, the pundit of the aristocracy speaks to someone near him who is shocked by what she hears, “Don’t let him disturb you. You know, money is the root of all evil—and he’s the typical product of money.” (p. 410)

  The room is transfixed as Francisco refutes the evaluation of money as evil by demonstrating that it is only a tool that validates the values one already has. It is the tool of honest men who wish to deal with other honest men for the exchange of that which each values. When it is used like this its presence or absence after the exchange does not change the “wealth” of either, for they have made the exchange based on their evaluation of the other’s effort and productivity and received what in their estimation is worth as much or more than the money which is the medium of exchange. It cannot make one happy but it can be used in the service of the happiness one already has. It cannot make one corrupt, but it can be used in the service of a corrupt character. It cannot make a fool wise or earn respect for the coward or the incompetent. It cannot buy the friendship or cooperation of the decent and honest, only of the corrupt and cowardly and thieving. “Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. It cannot give you the unearned.” But what of those who say that “the love of money is the root of all evil”? Here Rand engages, as she does again and again in the examination of premises: