Clash of Titans

by Tom Pratt

  To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It’s the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money—and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it. (p. 412)

  Most of the room is horrified to hear the playboy lecture them about something they all seek assiduously while denying its power and importance in their lives. Others are wondering what the wastrel is up to even being in attendance. Hank and Dagny are trying to understand what they hear and make it jibe with what they think they know of him via his public life of recent years. He makes it known that he knows most of the heavyweight players in the aristocracy of pull have been secretly buying large amounts of d’Anconia stock and that James Taggart is the largest stockholder outside the d’Anconia family. All the buying has been surreptitious in the name of phony aliases and companies. It has to be so for them because they have been party to the regulations on American companies that have made d’Anconia the only reliable source for industrial size supplies of copper left in the world. The government of Chile has been facilitating this process for years and has been raising taxes and fees on d’Anconia, justifying it because the company’s stock price has skyrocketed under the explosion of outside investment, figuring a rich playboy like Francisco will either not notice or not care. But he knows, and how he cares! At the climax of the drama he cries out in fake panic to Rearden, as if he has been asking for a loan. What he has been communicating to Rearden is the fact that a series of “disasters” are about to hit d’Anconia Copper in its worldwide operations, and the people’s governments that were gearing up to seize the assets will discover that the great company has wasted away under incompetent management (it will appear) so that mines have been worked in the wrong places and shipping has been bankrupted and value has been sucked dry by the apparent activities of an imbecilic playboy. When he cries out that he needs a loan before morning to prevent the crash of d’Anconia stock, the room panics and is quickly emptied except for three people left staring at one another. The implication is that they are the ones who know how to rebuild a fortune deliberately thrown away to protect it from the looters and “hitchhikers of virtue,” as they have been named earlier.

  Only these three--of all who have “worked” the room for favors and hidden agendas and values known to themselves and others of like mind--these three, who have seen in one another the values they hold dear, understand what d’Anconia has been saying:

  To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss—the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery—that you must offer them values, not wounds—that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. (p. 411)

  A few months later Hank Rearden is met by a man on a road in Pennsylvania that runs from his mills into the city. He is walking instead of riding because it helps to wash away the weariness of the day, which is like all the others now, where he must adhere to the administrative state and its rules to go on living. The roads are known to be unsafe because of banditry and he is carrying a gun just in case. He is met by a man of extraordinary mental powers and great courage, Ragnar Danneskjold, the pirate. Danneskjold, the third of the three great students of Hugh Akston and Dr. Stadler would have spent his life as a philosopher and teacher in another reality. Instead he is a mysterious figure preying on shipping on the high seas. Tonight his associates have blown up the illicit mills of Orren Boyle who has gotten the right through political channels to produce Rearden Metal. Danneskjold has made that impossible. He now presents Hank with a covered block of unknown nature that through the process of conversation is revealed to be solid gold, representing a down payment on an account which Ragnar has been building for him, as he has for others. The pirate has been carefully attacking only those shipments of the wealth of nations that were intended for distribution to other nations on account of their “neediness.” The gold he is holding for Rearden is a growing sum that represents the income taxes he has paid over the years, just as it does for his other “clients.” The bank is unnamed at this time to Rearden, but we learn it is the bank of Midas Mulligan in Galt’s Gulch.

  In the either-or fashion of Rand’s philosophy Rearden hears the meaning of the life of the “pirate” who would be a philosopher. There are only two ways of living now before them. The life of a looter or the life of a criminal, made so by random fiat and regulation and legal maneuvering. He has chosen to fight in his own way. “There are only two modes of living left to us today: to be a looter who robs disarmed victims or to be a victim who works for the benefit of his own despoilers. I did not choose to be either.” He continues, “I am merely complying with the system which my fellow men have established. If they believe that force is the proper means to deal with one another, I am giving them what they ask for. If they believe that the purpose of my life is to serve them, let them try to enforce their creed. If they believe that my mind is their property—let them come and get it.” (p. 575) Finally he explains that he has taken on the role of destroying the myth of Robin Hood, the man who in popular parlance “robbed from the rich to give to the poor. Well, I’m the man who robs the poor and gives to the rich—or, to be exact, the man who robs the thieving poor and gives back to the productive rich.” (p. 576) That myth, of course, has been spun out of a time when in actuality the government of Prince John was thieving from all to feather the nests of himself and his henchmen to the detriment of those who had no power against him. It has become a shibboleth of the crowd bent on using the same governmental power to steal money (and by implication productivity, that which sustains life) from one constituency to give to others who have not produced it. Robin Hood has been put in the service of the very entities that loot the wealth of the people in the name of the “common good.” Danneskjold lives and risks his life for the day when that principle will be buried in the rubble of a broken civilization that tried to make it a supreme value. “If they believe that force is the proper means to deal with one another, I am giving them what they ask for. If they believe that the purpose of my life is to serve them, let them try to enforce their creed. If they believe that my mind is their property—let them come and get it.” (p. 575)

  Rearden cannot bring himself to take what on the surface of it is “stolen” and “criminal” in his own mind. It is this tension--a reordering of the meaning of language and values in the minds of those who have not yet “seen the light” so to speak--that remains to be worked out through the rest of the novel, for this is only halfway home to the place where neither Rearden nor Danneskjold will be denominated criminals. A place that in this story has a gold dollar sign hanging over it. But it cannot be the prevailing paradigm until Francisco’s prophetic word has come to pass:

  When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion—when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing—when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors—when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you—when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice—you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so
noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot. Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. (p. 413)

  Chapter 6 - My Brother’s Keeper

  Alan Wolfe, a political science professor at Boston College, said [commenting on a study that shows “blue states” being significantly less generous in private charity than “red states”] it's wrong to link a state's religious makeup with its generosity. People in less religious states are giving in a different way by being more willing to pay higher taxes so the government can equitably distribute superior benefits, Wolfe said. And the distribution is based purely on need, rather than religious affiliation or other variables, said Wolfe, also head of the college's Boisi Center for Religion and Public Life. Wolfe said people in less religious states "view the tax money they're paying not as something that's forced upon them, but as a recognition that they belong with everyone else, that they're citizens in the common good. … I think people here believe that when they pay their taxes, they're being altruistic." –USA Today 8/20/2012

  As d’Anconia approaches the end of his speech on money, the crowd becomes more and more restless and noisy in its indignation and a telling exchange takes place:

  There were people who had listened, but now hurried away, and people who said, “It’s horrible!”—“It’s not true!”—“How vicious and selfish!”—saying it loudly and guardedly at once, as if wishing that their neighbors would hear them, but hoping that Francisco would not. “Señor d’Anconia,” declared the woman with the earrings, “I don’t agree with you!” “If you can refute a single sentence I uttered, madame, I shall hear it gratefully.” “Oh, I can’t answer you. I don’t have any answers, my mind doesn’t work that way, but I don’t feel that you’re right, so I know that you’re wrong.” “How do you know it?” “I feel it. I don’t go by my head, but by my heart. You might be good at logic, but you’re heartless.” “Madame, when we’ll see men dying of starvation around us, your heart won’t be of any earthly use to save them. And I’m heartless enough to say that when you’ll scream, ‘but I didn’t know it!’—you will not be forgiven.” The woman turned away, a shudder running through the flesh of her cheeks and through the angry tremor of her voice: “Well, it’s certainly a funny way to talk at a party!” (p. 415)

  This moment is one of many throughout Atlas Shrugged that impinge upon one of the guiding justifications of the marching statism all around the characters. It is the tension between the apparent lack of “feeling” on the part of Rand’s heroes and the loudly proclaimed intent of the statists and crony capitalists to be their “brother’s keeper.” Once again the juxtaposition of professed compassionate (feeling, pitying) involvement is met with an apparent relentless logic and rationality that defies the presence of “normal” human affection and interaction. Dagny, Hank, Francisco, Midas Mulligan, numerous striking businessmen, and ultimately John Galt are played off against James Taggart, Lillian Rearden and her mother-in-law, Philip Rearden, and various named and unnamed characters in situations where “feeling” and “logic” are made to carry varying loads of moral content depending on the purpose of those using the terminology.

  Very early in the plot the theme is introduced when James Taggart is refusing to face the reality of Taggart Transcontinental’s need for rails of Rearden Metal. He has been avoiding the decision and Dagny asserts that this cannot continue. In the conversation that ensues she states clearly what must and will get done and how he will do it. In frustration James whines,

  “That’s all right for you, because you’re lucky. Others can’t do it.” She replies, “Do what?” He continues, “Other people are human. They’re sensitive. They can’t devote their whole life to metals and engines. You’re lucky—you’ve never had any feelings. You’ve never felt anything at all.” As she looked at him, her dark gray eyes went slowly from astonishment to stillness, then to a strange expression that resembled a look of weariness, except that it seemed to reflect much more than the endurance of this one moment. “No, Jim,” she said quietly, “I guess I’ve never felt anything at all.” (pp. 23-24)

  Not much farther along we are privy to the affairs in the family of Hank Rearden at his home where he lives with his wife and mother and brother, none of which work at any profitable enterprise or profession. Their dependency on his steel mills for their own support and survival seems only to reinforce a sense of entitlement and resentment against him. As he arrives from work on the day he has poured the first heat of Rearden Metal, he is late, and his mother reproaches him for having no feelings for the day and the problems Lillian has been going through, a day of planning a special party. All agree he has no feelings for their lives and only cares about his mills and metals and machinery and money. Lillian puts on an elaborate charade getting him to agree to be at the party to be held on a date three months hence, despite the fact he does not and cannot know what will be demanding his time then. Only after a bit of playing on his “feelings” for her is he reminded that the date is his wedding anniversary. By way of trying to explain at least a little of his distraction and lateness he pulls a bracelet made of Rearden Metal out of his pocket and gives it to Lillian as a token of the first actual object made from his signature achievement. The banter between the dependents is just barely above cynicism and is overwhelmingly sarcastic and condemnatory of his apparent conceit—his mother the worst as she states loudly that she knew he was this way when he was five years old. She accuses him of giving a gift for his own pleasure (which it is) instead of that of Lillian, who surely deserves diamonds. Later out of their presence Rearden reflects inwardly:

  What did they seek from him?—thought Rearden—what were they after? He had never asked anything of them; it was they who wished to hold him, they who pressed a claim on him—and the claim seemed to have the form of affection, but it was a form which he found harder to endure than any sort of hatred. He despised causeless affection, just as he despised unearned wealth. They professed to love him for some unknown reason and they ignored all the things for which he could wish to be loved. He wondered what response they could hope to obtain from him in such manner—if his response was what they wanted. And it was, he thought; else why those constant complaints, those unceasing accusations about his indifference? Why that chronic air of suspicion, as if they were waiting to be hurt? He had never had a desire to hurt them, but he had always felt their defensive, reproachful expectation; they seemed wounded by anything he said, it was not a matter of his words or actions, it was almost . . . almost as if they were wounded by the mere fact of his being. (p. 37)

  He admits to himself that he does not “like” them, but he doesn’t understand his own feelings, for he has tried to like them and have affection for them. He cannot resolve it for now. As the evening wears on he notices that his brother is showing expressions of apparent discomfort, “Philip sat in a low chair, his stomach forward, his weight on his shoulder blades, as if the miserable discomfort of his position were intended to punish the onlookers.” (p. 40) Rearden’s inquiry elicits comments on his normal lack of interest in Philip’s life. Philip has been put through college by Hank and has yet to go to work at anything gainful. This is incomprehensible to his older brother, but Hank has been indulgent for the time being, thinking that he will surely wise up and get on about a life of work and ambition. Today, however, Philip has been engaged in trying to raise money for his favorite charity, Friends of Global Progress. He complains that he has been visiting “bloated moneybags” all day, none of which has contributed to his goal of $10,000. In the process he elaborates on the public spirited nature of his charity and the lack of “moral duty” on the part of those he has solicited. Rearden sees this as a blatant play for his sympathy without the necessity of having to ask outright, a play for
money to fund projects he knows his brother disdains. We are privy to his thoughts: “It was so childishly blatant, thought Rearden, so helplessly crude: the hint and the insult, offered together. It would be so easy to squash Philip by returning the insult, he thought—by returning an insult which would be deadly because it would be true—that he could not bring himself to utter it. Surely, he thought, the poor fool knows he’s at my mercy, knows he’s opened himself to be hurt, so I don’t have to do it, and my not doing it is my best answer, which he won’t be able to miss. What sort of misery does he really live in, to get himself twisted quite so badly?” (p. 41)

  In a show of goodwill he tells Philip to drop by the office tomorrow and there will be a check for the money. This offer brings on a massive conflict of the sort Rand has perfected. Philip is only mildly appreciative. Henry feels a dull ache inside that he cannot understand. Lillian remarks brightly that Henry is feeling magnanimous because it is the day of the great debut of Rearden Metal and suggests naming a national holiday after it. Hank’s mother remarks, “You’re a good man Henry, but not good enough.” Philip then sees fit to draw out Rearden’s actual lack of concern for the charity and then to defend his interest in it from purely altruistic selflessness, obviously taking pleasure in what he considers the highest virtue. Henry feels a deep loathing for the man and his moral values, “not because the words were hypocrisy, but because they were true.” Philip finally requests that the money be given in cash so no one will know where it came from, since Rearden is not the kind of supporter Friends of Global Progress would want to be associated with.