I Am John Galt

by Donald Luskin

Second, our real-life Rand heroes teach us that Rand’s value system works. Follow her precepts (she once condensed them into just four words: self-interest, reason, objective reality, and capitalism2) and you will succeed.

  At the same time, our real-life Rand villains show what happens if you reject those precepts. Whether or not you achieve ostensible success in your life, you will be a parasite and a thief who brings ruin to everyone you deal with. Look at the case of Alan Greenspan. By following Rand’s precepts he took himself to the height of fame and power, and the U.S. economy benefited from his steady hand. But by violating them once he had that power, he helped usher in a global banking crisis and the Great Recession, and now lives his twilight years in bitter regret.

  John Allison is the clearest case in point. He proves that there is much you can learn from Rand’s heroes, because he built a spectacular career and one of America’s strongest banks by formally analyzing the virtues that made Rand’s heroes great, and consciously emulating them. Then look at Angelo Mozilo, a banker of Allison’s generation who took the path of Rand’s villains. Today Mozilo clings to the remnants of the fortune he built by corrupting politicians and government agencies to aid and abet his house of subprime cards, but he is a ruined shell of a man who nearly ruined the entire global banking system.

  So yes, you can learn from Rand’s heroes—the fictional ones and the real-life ones.

  From John Allison you can learn not only to live your own life in accordance with Rand’s values, but to teach them to others you work with. At Allison’s bank, BB&T, every one of the 30,000 employees has been trained in Rand’s value system—from the executive suite to the teller line. Self-evidently, it works.

  Are you looking for a concrete plan to put the value system of Rand’s heroes to work in your own life? Allison has written one for you, by identifying and articulating BB&T’s 10 core values. You don’t have to work there to put those values to work in your life. Do it on your own, and then put yourself through the ongoing process that all BB&T employees experience: Every six months, give yourself a rigorous self-evaluation based on how you’ve measured up to the values.

  From Bill Gates you learn that you must love your work and devote yourself to it fully. When fate offered the opportunity to build the operating system that would underlie almost every personal computer in the world, Gates’s competitor, who was in a much better position to grab the opportunity, was on vacation. Gates wasn’t. You might say he became the richest man in the world simply because he didn’t take a vacation on one particular day.

  You can also learn from Gates that you must not only be consecrated to your work, but always be on the alert to protect yourself from the envious parasites who will seek to bring you down. It’s not enough to build. You must defend. Gates came within inches of losing everything because he didn’t know that until it was far too late. But you know it now.

  From Steve Jobs you learn that your work is your own in every sense. Do the work you love, and love the work you do. Don’t think about the money—follow your passion, give it everything you’ve got, do it your way, and money will come. If it doesn’t, it surely wouldn’t have if you’d spent the same energies compromising. And don’t think about all the other people; ignore the bureaucrats and the naysayers, and shrug off the critics who think you’re a single-minded monster. If you have passion for something, there will be enough other people out there who will share that passion if you just wait for them to find you.

  From T. J. Rodgers you learn that the passion and excellence you bring to your work can infuse your whole life. If you can do one thing well, then you’re the kind of person who can do things well—so you can do lots of things well. Do so, and don’t settle for less. Work only with people who are the same way. Don’t waste too much time being nice to incompetents—move on; surround yourself with people who care as much as you do, and who will work as hard as you will.

  You can also learn from Rodgers not to be afraid to speak out. Sure, in today’s culture dominated by media all too eager to tear down people of achievement and fame, and in a political environment soaked in implicit and explicit obeisance to principles of collectivism, you can feel like a pariah if you speak up for freedom, for individualism, or even for achievement. But Rodgers gets away with speaking his mind, and so can you. His secret weapon? It’s the utterly guilt-free and fear-free confidence that he is right. That can be your secret weapon, too. Just don’t feel guilty about believing what you believe.

  What can you learn from real-life Rand villains?

  From Angelo Mozilo you can learn that you can make some quick bucks by conniving with politicians, lying to stockholders, and tricking suckers into buying homes they can’t afford with mortgage debt they can’t repay, and then get a government agency to take all the risk. Want to be responsible for a worldwide banking collapse and live out the rest of your days as a discredited scumbag? Want to destroy countless lives—many of those you purported to help? Then you know just what to do.

  From Barney Frank you can learn to act like a big guy by pretending you care about the little guys, many of whom will vote for you in return. Then when it turns out that you destroy the U.S. housing market—and cause irreparable harm to the little guys whose votes you were courting—because your idea of using taxpayer risk to buy off your electorate blew up, just blame Wall Street and demand to be made an even bigger guy. It’s easy.

  From Paul Krugman you can learn that all it takes to be a media celebrity is to say anything, whether or not it’s true—as long as you make sure to tell the collectivist stories the media wants to hear. Never admit error. Never admit fault. If anyone disagrees with you, accuse him or her of being partisan, dishonest, an ideological racist, or—better yet—a stalker. Creating a political atmosphere steeped in hate is a small price to pay for your fame. Go for it.

  And what can we learn from Alan Greenspan, the man who knew better—the man who started as a Rand hero and then, seemingly with the best of intentions, ended up living the life of one of her most pathetic villains? Learn that no matter how smart you are, no matter how right you are, you can’t save the world by using the police power of the state to carry out your brilliant ideas. Might makes wrong. Always.

  So with all this to fortify you, go forth and be a Rand hero. All you really have to do is take John Galt’s oath—and mean it.

  “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, or ask another man to live for mine.”

  Notes

  Introduction

  1. David Burger, “Longhorns 17, Badgers 1,” Iowahawk blog, March 2, 2011.

  2. Modern Library 100 Best Novels, www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html.

  3. Library of Congress Center for the Book, www.englishcompanion.com/Readings/booklists/loclist.html.

  4. Chicago Tribune, October 13, 1957, B1.

  5. Ayn Rand, “The Goal of My Writing,” in The Romantic Manifesto (New York: New American Library, 1969; 2nd ed. 1975).

  6. Anne Heller, Ayn Rand and the World She Made (New York: Knopf, 2009).

  7. Whittaker Chambers, “Big Sister Is Watching You,” National Review, December 18, 1957.

  8. Ayn Rand, “A Last Survey,” Ayn Rand Letter 4, no. 2 (1975).

  9. Ayn Rand, “Of Living Death,” Objectivist, October 1968.

  10. Ayn Rand, “The War in Vietnam,” in Ayn Rand Answers (New York: New American Library, 2005).

  11. Ayn Rand, “Miscellaneous,” in Ayn Rand Answers (New York: New American Library, 2005).

  12. Ibid.

  13. Ayn Rand, “On Racism and Feminism,” in Ayn Rand Answers (New York: New American Library, 2005).

  14. Heller, Ayn Rand and the World She Made.

  15. Ibid.

  16. “Reds’ Program Tints Platform of Wallaceites,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 23, 1948, 3.

  17. Tom Junod, “Steve Jobs and the Portal to the Invisible,” Esquire, October 2008.

  18. Paul Krugman
, “Fannie, Freddie and You,” New York Times, July 14, 2008.

  19. Deroy Murdock, “Jesse Jackson’s Corporate Cash Cow,” Chief Executive, July 2001.

  Chapter 1 The Individualist

  1. John Markoff, “Company Reports: Apple’s First Annual Profit since 1995,” New York Times, October 15, 1998.

  2. Press release, “Apple Announces New Board of Directors,” August 6, 1997.

  3. Michael R. Lawrence, “Memory and Imagination: New Pathways to the Library of Congress,” film for Library of Congress, 1990.

  4. Tom Junod, “Steve Jobs and the Portal to the Invisible,” Esquire, October 2008.

  5. Peter Elkind and Doris Burke, “The Trouble with Steve,” Fortune, March 17, 2008.

  6. Brent Schlender, “The Three Faces of Steve,” Fortune, November 9, 1998, 96–104.

  7. Leander Kahney, “Being Steve Jobs’ Boss,” Bloomberg Businessweek, October 24, 2010.

  8. Ibid.

  9. Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon, iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006).

  10. Kahney, “Being Steve Jobs’ Boss.”

  11. Steve Jobs, Stanford commencement speech, 2005, www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UF8uR6Z6KLc.

  12. Young and Simon, iCon Steve Jobs.

  13. Daniel Alef, Steve Jobs: The Apple of Our i (Meta4 Publishing, 2009), Location 54. www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Apple-Our-ebook/dp/B00359FCCE.

  14. Young and Simon, iCon Steve Jobs.

  15. Anthony Imbimbo, Steve Jobs: The Brilliant Mind Behind Apple (Gareth Stevens Publishing, 2009).

  16. Ibid., 42.

  17. Phil Patton, “Steve Jobs: Out for Revenge,” New York Times, August 6, 1989.

  18. Andrew Pollack, “Next, a Computer on Every Desk,” New York Times, August 23, 1981.

  19. Company brochure, reproduced in Interface Age, October 1976.

  20. Young and Simon, iCon Steve Jobs.

  21. Pilar Quezzaire, Steve Jobs (Great Neck Publishing, 2006).

  22. Imbimbo, Steve Jobs.

  23. Robert Metz, “Market Place: I.B.M. Threat to Apple,” New York Times, September 2, 1981.

  24. Robert J. Cole, “An ‘Orderly’ Debut for Apple,” New York Times, December 13, 1980.

  25. Young and Simon, iCon Steve Jobs.

  26. Kahney, “Being Steve Jobs’ Boss.”

  27. John Sculley and John Byrne, Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple––A Journey of Adventure, Ideas and the Future (New York: HarperCollins, 1989).

  28. Elkind and Burke, “Trouble with Steve,” 88–160.

  29. Andrew Pollack, “Apple Computer Entrepreneur’s Rise and Fall,” New York Times, September 19, 1985.

  30. Mark Alpert and Sally Solo, “The Ultimate Computer Factory: Steve Jobs Has Built a NeXT Workstation Plant with Just about Everything: Lasers, Robots, Speed, and Remarkably Few Defects,” Fortune, February 26, 1990.

  31. Pete Mortensen, “NeXT Fans Give Up the Ghost,” Wired, December 21, 2005.

  32. Young and Simon, iCon Steve Jobs.

  33. Cathy Booth and David S. Jackson, “Steve’s Job: Restart Apple,” Time, August 18, 1997.

  34. PR Newswire, “Pixar to Sell Image Computer Operations to Vicom Systems; Pixar and Vicom Systems Sign Image Computer Agreement,” www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-8389470.html.

  35. www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Overview.html.

  36. Planet Rome.ro, “Apple-NeXT Merger Birthday,” December 20, 2006, http://rome.ro/2006/12/apple-next-merger-birthday.html.

  37. John Markoff, “Apple Computer Co-Founder Strikes Gold with New Stock,” New York Times, November 30, 1995.

  38. Young and Simon, iCon Steve Jobs.

  39. Ibid.

  40. John Markoff, “Apple to Take Big Write-Off on Acquisition,” New York Times, February 11, 1997.

  41. Kahney, “Being Steve Jobs’ Boss.”

  42. Markoff, “Company Reports: Apple’s First Annual Profit since 1995.”

  43. Schlender, “Three Faces of Steve.”

  44. Jeff Goodell, “Steve Jobs: The Rolling Stone Interview,” Rolling Stone, December 2003.

  45. Ibid.

  Chapter 2 The Mad Collectivist

  1. This Week, ABC News, November 14, 2010.

  2. Paul Krugman, “Incidents from My Career,” Princeton University web site.

  3. Ibid.

  4. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS, October 13, 2008; and Allisa Macfarquar, “The Deflationist,” New Yorker, March 1, 2010.

  5. Paul Krugman, “Games Nations Play,” New York Times, January 3, 2003.

  6. Paul Krugman, “Rule by the Ridiculous,” New York Times web site Conscience of a Liberal blog, December 28, 2010.

  7. Krugman, “Incidents from My Career.”

  8. “Interview with Paul Krugman,” Die Weltwoche, December 24, 1998.

  9. Paul Krugman, “The Sons Also Rise,” New York Times, November 22, 2002.

  10. Ibid.

  11. Daniel Okrent, “13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did,” New York Times, May 22, 2005.

  12. Paul Krugman, “How I Work,” Krugman’s web site.

  13. Michael Hirsh, “The Great Debunker,” Newsweek, March 4, 1996.

  14. Paul Krugman, “Stimulus for Lawyers,” New York Times, January 14, 2003.

  15. Sigmund Freud, Collected Writings (London: Hogarth Press, 1924).

  16. Macfarquar, “ Deflationist.”

  17. Paul Krugman, “Taking on China,” New York Times, March 14, 2010.

  18. Tim Russert, CNBC, August 7, 2004.

  19. Krugman, “Incidents from My Career.”

  20. Paul Krugman and Lawrence Summers, “Inflation During the 1983 Recovery,” Council of Economic Advisers, September 9, 1982.

  21. Paul Krugman, “An Economic Legend,” New York Times, June 11, 2004.

  22. Paul Krugman, “Dow Wow, Dow Ow,” New York Times, February 27, 2000.

  23. Paul Krugman, “No Relief in Sight,” New York Times, February 28, 2003.

  24. Paul Krugman, “Still Blowing Bubbles,” New York Times, June 20, 2003.

  25. Paul Krugman, “A Fiscal Train Wreck,” New York Times, March 11, 2003.

  26. Paul Krugman, “Mistakes,” Conscience of a Liberal blog, New York Times web site, September 1, 2010.

  27. Paul Krugman, “For Richer,” New York Times Magazine, October 20, 2002.

  28. Author interview with Princeton Township officials.

  29. Macfarquar, “Deflationist.”

  30. Macfarquar, “Deflationist”; and Alex Kowalski, “Krugman Buys Manhattan Apartment for $1.7 Million,” Bloomberg, August 12, 2009.

  31. The Haraka, September 1999.

  32. Paul Krugman, “Capital Control Freaks,” Slate, September 27, 1999.

  33. Ibid.

  34. Paul Krugman, “Listening to Mahathir,” New York Times, October 21, 2003.

  35. Glen Tobias, “ADL Letter to the New York Times,” Anti-Defamation League, October 21, 2003.

  36. Paul Krugman, “The Smear Machine Cranks Up Again,” Krugman’s web site, October 24, 2003.

  37. Paul Krugman, “The Great Divide,” New York Times, January 29, 2002.

  38. Paul Krugman, “The Ascent of E-Man,” Fortune, May 29, 1999.

  39. Mark Tran, “Enron ‘Sting’ Used Fake Command Center,” The Guardian, February 21, 2002.

  40. Paul Krugman, “My Connection with Enron, One More Time,” Krugman’s web site, February 8, 2002.

  41. Paul Krugman, “Power and Profits,” New York Times, January 24, 2001.

  42. Paul Krugman, “Crony Capitalism, U.S.A.,” New York Times, January 15, 2002.

  43. Paul Krugman, “Death by Guru,” New York Times, December 18, 2001.

  44. Paul Krugman, “On the Second Day, Atlas Waffled,” New York Times, February 14, 2003.

  45. Donald Luskin, “Krugman, Greenspan and Ayn Rand,” Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid blog, February 16, 2003.

  46. Donald Luskin, “Paul Kr
ugman: Party Animal,” Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid blog, November 8, 2002.

  47. Paul Krugman, “Into the Wilderness,” New York Times, November 8, 2002.

  48. Paul Krugman, “Let Them Hate as Long as They Fear,” New York Times, March 7, 2003; “Off the Wagon,” New York Times, January 17, 2003; “Steps to Wealth,” New York Times, July 16, 2002; and “Liberal Oasis Interview with Paul Krugman,” Liberal Oasis, August 29, 2003.

  49. “What Greg Mankiw Really Thinks about Paul Krugman,” Curious Capitalist blog, Time web site, October 14, 2008.

  50. Donald Luskin, “Meet the Krugman Truth Squad,” National Review Online, March 20, 2009.

  51. Donald Luskin, “Krugman’s Job-Robbing Calculus,” National Review Online, April 23, 2003.

  52. Paul Krugman, “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs,” New York Times, April 22, 2003.

  53. Wall Street Week, PBS, January 31, 2003.

  54. Paul Krugman, “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: A Follow Up,” Krugman’s web site, April 24, 2003; “Fiscal Policy and Employment: Simple Analytics,” Krugman’s web site, April 28, 2003; “Even More on Jobs,” Krugman’s web site, April 29, 2003; “Zero Is Not Enough,” Krugman’s web site, May 4, 2003; and “Elephant Shit,” Krugman’s web site, May 5, 2003.

  55. Paul Krugman, “Tax Cuts and Jobs: A Summary of the Debate,” Krugman’s web site, May 8, 2003.

  56. Krugman, “Elephant Shit.”

  57. Revelle Forum, University of California at San Diego, October 6, 2003.

  58. Author’s contemporaneous notes.

  59. Author’s contemporaneous notes.

  60. Donald Luskin, “Face to Face with Evil,” Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid blog, October 7, 2003.

  61. Atrios, “Diary of a Stalker,” Eschaton blog, October 7, 2003.

  62. Hannity & Colmes, Fox News, October 17, 2003.

  63. Ben McGrath, “Balking,” New Yorker, November 17, 2003.

  64. Author’s contemporaneous notes.

  65. Daniel Okrent, “Okrent Responds,” Public Editor’s Journal blog, New York Times, May 31, 2005.

  66. Daniel Okrent, “The Privileges of Opinion, the Obligations of Fact,” New York Times, March 28, 2004.

  67. Ibid.

  68. Okrent, “13 Things I Meant to Write About.”