FReeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged, The Concerto of Deliverance

A Publius Essay | 11 July 2009 | Publius

[Publius]

Part III: A is A
Chapter VI: The Concerto of Deliverance

Synopsis

The union at Rearden Steel demands a raise without bothering to ask Hank, and the impetus comes from the new workers inserted by the Unification Board and spotted by the Wet Nurse. The Unification Board rejects the raise petition, but the Mainstream Media runs stories in favor of the union and against Hank. Then the workers attack managers and disable critical equipment. The IRS attaches Hank’s assets due to a delinquency in paying income taxes that had never occurred. A bureaucrat calls Hank to apologize, claiming it was all a mistake. Then Tinky Holloway calls and asks Hank to attend an evening meeting in New York. Hank agrees to attend although Holloway’s insistence on a specific time has his guard up.

Holloway and Claude Slagenhop are working on intelligence provided by Philip Rearden, who is afraid that if Holloway pulls off a power play, Hank will desert. That would mean that Philip can’t inherit the mills; they will be confiscated.

At home Hank takes a call from his mother; she wants to meet with him at his old home. Present are his mother, Philip – and Lillian. They are there to beg for forgiveness and mercy; the money they have isn’t enough to live on since Hank’s assets were attached. Hank doesn’t care. He perceives that his family is terrified that he will desert and that the government will come after them. Philip tells Hank that he can’t desert without money – and a piece of the puzzle falls into place. So that was what the attachment order was about! And his family were to be hostages! Enraged, Lillian tells Hank that she was bedded by Jim Taggart; she pauses in her tirade as Hank watches her deflate. Hank tells them he could have forgiven them had they urged him to desert.

Hank arrives at the Wayne-Falkland suite that had previously been occupied by Francisco. Present are Wesley Mouch, Eugene Lawson, Jim Taggart, Dr. Floyd Ferris and Tinky Holloway. They want to know what policies Hank wants changed – while Lawson checks his watch frequently. They have a plan that will give Hank a five percent price increase for steel; this will ripple on to price increases elsewhere. But there will be no pay raises. Jim tells Hank about the success of the Rail Unification Plan, and Mouch tells Hank there is now going to be a Steel Unification Plan. Every operator will be allowed to make as much steel as he can, but revenues will be pooled and distributed by the number of blast furnaces each company possesses. Hank quickly does the math and realizes that this is a plan to bail out Orren Boyle. Eugene Lawson says that it’s Hank’s duty to comply and suffer because Boyle is simply too big to fail. Hank suggests that they junk all their regulations, let Boyle fail and let him buy Boyle’s assets; they balk. He suggests they simply expropriate his mills, and they recoil in horror. He asks how he can produce if he produces at a loss; Ferris says he will produce because he can’t help himself. Jim says that Hank will do something to fix the problem – and the last piece fits. Francisco was right – he is the guiltiest man in the room because he had accepted the reality that these men had created. Hank walks out.

Hank arrives at his mill to find it on fire and hears gunshots; there is a mob storming the mill, and open war has broken out. Hank turns around to head for the east gate and discovers the Wet Nurse lying wounded in the dirt. He’d tried to stop the rioters; in return, they shot him and dumped him on the slag heap. The riot had been executed from Washington as grounds for introducing the Steel Unification Plan; the meeting in New York had been a decoy. Hank carries the dying Wet Nurse in his arms, but he dies along the way.

Hank enters via the east gate and heads for the infirmary still carrying the dead boy. His loyal employees are winning the war with the rioters, but the front gate is the scene of a major battle. A man on the roof of a building by the gate fires into the crowd and doesn’t waste a bullet. Two rioters club Hank to the ground, and someone shoots and kills the attackers; Hank awakes on the couch in his office. The new furnace foreman, Frank Adams, had killed his attackers and was instrumental in organizing the battle for the mill – and Frank Adams turns out to be Francisco d’Anconia! Francisco now consummates the long-delayed recruitment of Hank Rearden.

Discussion Topics

• It was common in European history for a man accused of a crime to have his entire family brought to trial with him. This was known by the legal term “corruption of the blood”, which is explicitly banned by the Constitution. It was observed in the Soviet Union when Stalin went after a Politburo member, like his faithful servant Molotov, by going after his wife. But have we seen this in America in the past? Are we seeing hints of it today, and if so, where?
• Union violence has a long and honored history in America. The Kohler plumbing fixture concern in Wisconsin has experienced 75 years of labor violence, the worst of it in the Fifties, and most of it abetted by government officials. The Florida East Coast Railroad strike in the Sixties saw trains blown off the tracks and union members serving prison terms in excess of twenty years. Rand did not invent the Battle of Rearden Steel. Where are hints of explicit violence, or violence implied through political action, rearing their ugly heads today?

Next Saturday: “This is John Galt Speaking”

Reading John Galt’s Objectivism Speech

The next chapter contains the long radio speech by John Galt that is Rand’s philosophical treatise on Objectivism. It’s important because Rand regarded it as the centerpiece of her book, but it stops the action absolutely cold and constitutes a huge dead space. There is only one way to properly handle the speech.

• First, read the nine pages or so, depending on the edition, that start the chapter and carry the plot forward. Then stop and wait.
• Don’t make the mistake of trying to read the entire speech in one session; that is a recipe for non-comprehension. Read as much as you can take, break for a few hours or even a day, and then pick it up again.
• If there are parts that are difficult to comprehend at first reading, trying reading them aloud. It helps.

A Note on Next Week’s Thread

Thus far, these threads have been posted by myself with Billthedrill coming in later in the day to add his piece. Next Saturday, however, the posted essay will be a joint production of Publius and Billthedrill, many weeks in preparation.

In the first draft of next week’s essay, I thought my discussion questions were difficult, but Billthedrill has sharpened those questions to a razor’s edge. (I almost cut myself reading them.) It’s going to require a lot of thought and work on the part of our book club members. In reading the speech, you might want to take copious notes; you’ll need them.

I have tremendous faith in our members, and I know you’ll be up to the challenge.

[crusher]

“He suggests they simply expropriate his mills, and they recoil in horror. He asks how he can produce if he produces at a loss; Ferris says he will produce because he can’t help himself. Jim says that Hank will do something to fix the problem – and the last piece fits. Francisco was right – he is the guiltiest man in the room because he had accepted the reality that these men had created.”

---

I’m not Hank Reardon, but I might be willing to play him on television. That said, I can say that I understand the concept of this passage perfectly.

My co-workers (colleagues and management) are fully aware of my world view as I make no effort to hide it (monogamous heterosexual evangelical Christian). I don’t smack them in the face with sanctimonious ravings, but they have no doubt where I stand. As for my work product, they are counting on the fact that I simply cannot coast; I have be engaged and productive even if they do not value my contributions I will continue to produce as they withdraw their support.

But more interesting is their behavior regarding things outside my work product. They think of me (and have told me to my face) that my orthodox Christianity is “creepy” and “intolerant,” and that anyone who does not abide by an existentialist, hedonistic lifestyle or is a Darwin skeptic is “retarded.” Yet I have encountered numerous instances when one of them softly knocks on my office door, asking to come in and receive my counsel when they need someone honest and genuinely caring to listen and help them solve a problem in their lives.

Further, my coworkers know that I am a 2nd Amendment absolutist, I own and shoot guns, and even worse, I’m a “preparedness end of the world nut!”

Here comes the truly fascinating part: they expect my own faith and honor to be their ace in the hole! Of course my preparations for coming hard times is nutty and proof of my paranoia. But, they have also made it known (quietly) that when the Schumer Hits the Fan, they will come to my house and expect me to take them in and care for them because in their demented minds how could I “do anything else as a Christian ?” Implicit is their idea that “You have to do the right thing. Your beliefs command you to take care of me.”

Wow, are they in for a surprise. As I told one of them, “So you ridicule my beliefs even as you expect them to cause me to bail your behind out?”

I remember being at a Winter Party (pagans do not celebrate Christmas and have no difficulty insulting or offending those who do) in December 1999. One of the higher-ups breezed into the room and invaded my conversational group, kvetching about Y2K. She asked me if I was ready. Since as a matter of practice we have a freezer and larder full of food, my generator is in working order with a good supply of fuel, and my security devices are nearby and ready to employ, sure I was ready for a couple months if necessary.

“Oh, if things get really bad, can I come to your house?” she asked breathlessly.

Sweetly I replied that if she was unprepared for disruption, she would be on her own out in the street with everyone else.

I suspect the look on her face was similar to that on the looters in the Wayne Falkland Hotel that evening with Hank.

[gracie1]

There was a labor confernce recently where SEIU crashed the gate and attacked the attendees. People were injured and one person suffered a heart attack. And this was against their “union bretheran”! The local county home care workers held an election here in Fresno to decide if SEIU or a breakaway union would reperesent the workers. There were accusations of intimidation and threats of violence made by SEIU against workers.

[gracie1]

Your mistake is in letting people who you have no intention of saving from their own stupidity know you have adequate SHTF resources. Loose lips sink ships. It’s best to let them think you’ll be just as up a creek as them. It’ll be bad enough to help your loved ones out.

[sig226]

This is again an example of the trap Rand set for herself. Of all the industries taken over by government, steel is treated as the first one in which physical violence was needed. Considering the animosity expressed by Jeff Allen, the tramp from Twentieth Century Motors, one expects some serious violence in such a situation. Greed was the motive for the Starnes’ actions. They suffered no losses when they wrecked the wages of their employees. Iris Starnes, in particular, got to personally destroy anyone she didn’t like, which was everyone.

So where were the riots? Rearden suspects that something strange is happening when he is confronted by his family and by the various looters, but he can’t see what it is. This is hard to believe. With all of the companies and industries that failed around the world, no one expressed his anger with violence after a Paul Larkin ended thier careers.

Rand also demonstrates that while she spent plenty of hours researching steel and railroads, she learned whatever she knew about firearms from watching silly cowboy movies. Francisco D’Anconia seems not to have mastered rifles. Odd.

The story in this part is the predictable outcome of the events. Rand is using the characters she created to illustrate between good intentions and Hell. Her focus is on a single story arc, which defines good story telling, but it opens itself to criticism for the appearance of deus ex machina.

[Still Thinking]

I've had lib friends tell me that they trust government because they are the best and brightest and know what is best. I continue to pound my head on that wall and try to convince them that these people are only in it for the power, but it is impossible to argue logic with illogical people.

Exactly. My dad, while not exactly a government-o-phile, thinks that business will screw everyone all the time if not adequately regulated, and that government should be regulating them more, but are too corrupt to do so (I guess you could call this the "RIAA Paradigm"). I ask him if it makes sense to him that people in government, many of whom have never worked in a given industry, would be the most likely to make the best decisions about how that industry should be run, but I don't seem to be making any headway. I mean, if you were really good at something, wouldn't you go do that thing, rather than look for a position where you have to try to tell others less talented and intelligent than yourself, how to do it??? If I were in a position like that I'd be bald in a day, and quit in frustrated rage in a week.

[Lurker]

Thanks for all the work on these threads.

[Taxman]

Thanks for all your work on these threads!

I was driving south on I-95 this afternoon between Savannah and Brunswick, GA (didn’t note the mile marker, unfortunately), and saw a very visible billboard asking this question:

“WHO IS JOHN GALT?”

There were no other words visible on the billboard.

Offhand, I’d say that the word is getting out.

Relatively speaking, it won’t be long now before the Obama administration and the Democrat Congress pi$$ off enough people to force a “shift,” shall we say, in the direction of the US government.

Obozo is at -8 on the approval/disapproval scale now. I wonder what the tipping point will be?

I cannardly wait! For the tipping point, that is.

It will be interesting!

[Budge]

Wish you had a camera with you for that billboard!

[whodathunkit]

She had set out to break him, as if, unable to equal his value, she could surpass it by destroying it, as if the measure of his greatness would thus become the measure of hers, as if – he thought with a shudder – as if the vandal who smashed a statue were greater than the artist who had made it…

A glaring parallel with Jim Taggert's outburst with the violent destruction of an antique vase (the value of which could have fed a family for a year) in the previous chapter is enlightening. Jim and Lillian are mental twins.

[Billthedrill]

Oh, nice observation! I wouldn’t steal it, of course, but that Publius feller, why, you never know... ;-)

[whodathunkit]

Hank tells them he could have forgiven them had they urged him to desert.

This is a concrete action by Rearden that demonstrates Rands 'check your premises' advice. I am aware there are many other such instances in the book but this one stands out in my opinion. Perhaps because it took him such a long time to come to the realization of his true situation.

[whodathunkit]

Ferris says he (Rearden) will produce because he can’t help himself. Jim says that Hank will do something to fix the problem – and the last piece fits. Francisco was right – he is the guiltiest man in the room because he had accepted the reality that these men had created.

Thanks for bringing this up as a topic of discussion. It begs a deeper question that has bothered me from the beginning of the novel.

Rand seems to imply that only the top producers are capable of 'finding a way' to produce under adverse circumstances. From my observations, this is way off the mark, there are many people who, while not being a top producer, will find a way to be productive in an adverse environment.

The importance of this is most obvious when viewing the world of Atlas Shrugged with our present world conjointly.

The meeting in which this conversation takes place is toward the end of a long destructive feeding frenzy hosted by the looters. There are few crumbs left (not that Rearden is a crumb, mind you :) and Rearden is one of the last to be targeted. In our world, however, the people who can be productive in adverse situations is seemingly unlimited. This changes the dynamics and the toughest crumbs will never be sought out. There are far too many easy targets. Though I agree with Rands take on 'the guiltiest man in the room' idea, I submit that those who would provide sustenance to the Looters are 'the guiltiest people in the nation'. As to the problem of the latter group having a simultaneous epiphany, well, it just won't happen.

[Taxman]

Went by so fast I didn’t have a chance. Next time, I’ll get a picture.

[whodathunkit]

...known by the legal term “corruption of the blood”, which is explicitly banned by the Constitution ...have we seen this in America in the past? Are we seeing hints of it today, and if so, where?

Ruby Ridge, Waco, MOVE in Philadelphia, and recent headlines read - 'More than 400 children have been rescued from a polygamist sect on a remote Texas ranch'.

While not necessarily complicit, the willingness of some law enforcement to endanger entire families in order to go after criminals is obvious. No knock warrants undeniably endanger immediate family members.

[Publius]

Is the movie scheduled to come out soon? This is exactly how Hollywood would hype a movie in advance.

[Publius]

Consider it stolen. Heh-heh-heh.

(Private FReepmail on the way to whodathunkit.)

[Taxman]

LOL!

[Clock King]

One of the things I said in a previous discussion on AS is that the way to read Rand's books are as philosophy books, with a thin story wrapped around it to keep it interesting. And all philosophies, or systems of thought and logic have holes in them and are incomplete. Our real world will never follow AS exactly, but parts might.

On that note, we can look at history. Even in harsh systems with slavery, humans built the pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Notre Dame. How did it work? IMHO, it worked because people still believed in a God or Gods, in allegiance to a King (who was God on Earth). In other words, there was some motivation for them to continue. Those who design such creations, were often members of a noble class, thus they had greater freedom.

What I think Rand is describing the world of the old Soviet Union, or China during Mao. Or the more modern society of North Korea. In those times, the "Group" was all, and those societies produced nothing that they didn't steal first.

What Rand is saying is that when the "People" become predominant in a person's mind, the motivation of the human spirit dies. The drive to be creative is squashed by the overwhelming power of the group mind. You will do as you are told and what has been planned for you. As this death of motivation spreads, all progress will stop.

This is the danger our current society faces. From our leaders (you know the names) who extol us to "give back to the community", who plan how to control every aspect of your life from what temperature you can keep your home to what food you are allowed to eat, to when you allowed to have children. Progress may not stop entirely, but it could slow to an imperceptible level. A new Dark Age is never out of the question. That is what Rand is warning us about.

[whodathunkit]

Thanks for your excellent post Clock King.

I agree that...

Our real world will never follow AS exactly, but parts might.

There are many people commenting on the similarities of AS with current events. I find myself trying to discover a practicable solution in Rand's writing but so far I have come up short. The only option I can see so far is to practice Objectivism on a personal level and demonstrate to others that it is possible to live an enjoyable, moral life.

Progress may not stop entirely, but it could slow to an imperceptible level. A new Dark Age is never out of the question. That is what Rand is warning us about.

Again I agree, that is why I wanted to compare AS with the real world. For us, unfortunately, there is no end in sight, be it Looters or Gulchers, just a never ending slug fest. I fear we will easily go beyond 1100 pages!

[gracie1]

Hank has been given more than fair warning, no doubt about it. And now the mechanism of government takeover has begun to chew at his steel mills, the only productive ones left in the country and hence the ones most likely to be expropriated by a political class that still feels it is the material resources, and not the men, who create the wealth that will keep their game afloat.

We see this happening in banana republics regularly. Zimbabwe & Venezuela come to mind most quickly. Leftists simply cannot comprehend the concept that a nations wealth comes only partially from the natural resources. The second piece of the puzzle is the people who manage what resources they have at their disposal. No, they seize the resources, run out the successful people who they don't outright kill, then divid the spoils to their supporters. But the supporters didn't work for the wealth, didn't develop it, don't appreciate the value of it, and so they squander it.