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Part Three, Chapters VII–VIII (7 -

Please use this thread for discussing the above chapters. You're welcome to create your own threads too.

Part 3 Ch. 7, there is a thread specifically created for John Galt's Speech discussion, which you can find here, but you can always talk about that chapter here in this thread as well, if you'd like:
http://www.booktalk.org/topic13466.html


Part 3 ch. 8


The economy continues to worsen, because of the regulations:

The wads of worthless paper money were growing heavier in the pockets of the nation, but there was less and less for that money to buy. In September, a bushel of wheat had cost eleven dollars; it had cost thirty dollars in November; it had cost one hundred in December; it was now approaching the price of two hundred— while the printing presses of the government treasury were running a race with starvation, and losing.
[…]
Arrests were futile, the jails were full, the arresting officers winked at their prisoners and let them escape on their way to prison— men were going through the motions prescribed for the moment, with no thought of the moment to follow. No action could be taken when mobs of starving people attacked warehouses on the outskirts of cities. No action could be taken when punitive squadrons joined the people they had been sent to punish.

Because of the way paper money can be manipulated that way and for other reasons, Rand was all for a gold standard. You can find more about that in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, the chapter titled “Gold and Economic Freedom”.
Don Watkins writing here:



Mr. Thompson asks:

What are we to do, Miss Taggart?”
“Start decontrolling.”
“Huh?”
“Start lifting taxes and removing controls.”
“Oh, no, no, no! That’s out of the question!”

The free market solution, they think is the problem, that’s why. And you can see what happens in their regulated economy, and can probably imagine what it would be like if Dagny, Rearden, were left alone in the marketplace.

Then later in the chapter when they have capture Galt, Mr. Thompson:

“The country is in a terrible state. People are starving and giving up, the economy is falling to pieces, nobody is producing any longer. We don’t know what to do about it. You do. You know how to make things work. Okay, we’re ready to give in. We want you to tell us what to do.”
“I told you what to do.”
“What?”
“Get out of the way.”
“That’s impossible! That’s fantastic! That’s out of the question!”

“[…] We’ve got to handle it peacefully. We can’t afford to antagonize him or . . . or harm him. We don’t dare take any chances on . . . anything happening to him. Because . . . because, if he goes, we go. He’s our last hope. Make no mistake about it. If he goes, we perish. You all know it.” His eyes swept over the faces around him: they knew it.

Then we have a revealing exchange here in this chapter between Eddie and Dagny:

She extended her hand. “Good-bye, Eddie.” He clasped her hand firmly, not looking down at his fingers; he was looking at her face. He started to go, but stopped, turned to her and asked, his voice low, but steady, neither as plea nor as despair, but as a last gesture of conscientious clarity to close a long ledger, “Dagny . . . did you know . . . how I felt about you?” “Yes,” she said softly, realizing in this moment that she had known it wordlessly for years, “I knew it.”
“Good-bye, Dagny.”

So Eddie had feelings for Dagny.

Then the chapter ends, when Galt is on TV at the point of a gun, that the public doesn’t see, well… until:

The camera moved to Galt. He remained still for a moment. Then, with so swift and expert a movement that his secretary’s hand was unable to match it, he rose to his feet, leaning sidewise, leaving the pointed gun momentarily exposed to the sight of the world— then, standing straight, facing the cameras, looking at all his invisible viewers, he said:
“Get the hell out of my way!”