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Part One, Chapters III–IV (3 - 4)

Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 4:05 pm
by Chris OConnor
Part One, Chapters III–IV (3 - 4)

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

Re: Part One, Chapters III–IV (3 - 4)

Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 5:49 pm
by LanDroid
The Top And The Bottom
I really enjoyed the first two chapters, but this one is starting to make me a little nervous. Some of the speakers appear to be caricatures rather than developed characters. In the beginning executives are talking about avoiding blame, unfair competition, and the need for the country to use resources for the public good.
"Conditions and circumstances, Jim," said Orren Boyle. "Conditions and circumstances absolutely beyond human control. We had everything mapped to roll those rails, but unforeseen developments set in which nobody could have prevented. If you'd only given us a chance, Jim."
"The only justification of private property," said Orren Boyle, "is public service."
"That is, I think, indubitable," said Wesley Mouch.
"Jim, you will agree, I'm sure, that there's nothing more destructive than a monopoly."
"Yes," said Taggart, "on the one hand. On the other, there's the blight of unbridled competition."
"That's true. That's very true. The proper course is always, in my opinion, in the middle. So it is, I think, the duty of society to snip the extremes, now isn't it?"
"Yes," said Taggart, "it is."
I don't think we're likely to hear statements of that ilk outside of a commie Image hippie Image or artist :artist: commune let alone in a corporate board room. These seem like straw men set up for a good ol' fashioned flame throwing. Image

What do you think of those discussions on capitalism and the economy? Other examples?

And yes, I DO like smilies. Either get used to it or over it.
:fyi:

Re: Part One, Chapters III–IV (3 - 4)

Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 6:25 pm
by LanDroid
A little bit later, the statements above are extended into foreign policy and aid. These sound more familiar.
They spoke at great length about the poverty of the Mexicans and their desperate need of railroads, "They've never had a chance." "It is our duty to help an underprivileged nation to develop. A country, it seems to me, is its neighbors' keeper."
...
"The Mexicans, it seems to me, are a very diligent people, crushed by their primitive economy. How can they become industrialized if nobody lends them a hand?" "When considering an investment, we should, in my opinion, take a chance on human beings, rather than on purely material factors."
Between the two quotes above, Dagny worries about the lack of maintenance at Taggart Transcontinental.
She thought of the ominous need of repairs, ominously neglected over the entire system. Their policy on the problem of maintenance was not a policy but a game they seemed to be playing with a piece of rubber that could be stretched a little, then a little more.
I bring this up partly to show how short sighted the executives are (I work in a company with similar "maintenance problems") and partly in the hope there's an error in the version I'm reading: Rand didn't actually use the same word twice in one sentence? If it's not an error, perhaps you can defend this instance of repetition? It's page 42 in the .pdf file I'm reading.

Heh, I know the risk of branging dat up, y'all don't even go on critiquing my grammar an spelin as payback - I ain't a claimin' tuh be a published author 'er nuttin.
:kap:

Re: Part One, Chapters III–IV (3 - 4)

Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 6:57 pm
by LanDroid
Nat Taggart sounds like a wild character - he built a railroad, but had a dangerously explosive temper. What's your opinion? Here's Dagny's with independent minded superhero qualities in bold.
Dagny regretted at times that Nat Taggart was her ancestor. What she felt for him did not belong in the category of unchosen family affections. She did not want her feeling to be the thing one was supposed to owe an uncle or a grandfather. She was incapable of love for any object not of her own choice and she resented anyone's demand for it. But had it been possible to choose an ancestor, she would have chosen Nat Taggart, in voluntary homage and with all of her gratitude.

Re: Part One, Chapters III–IV (3 - 4)

Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 6:59 pm
by LanDroid
Well I'm at the end of Chapter 3 and I'm not sure what the title "The Top And The Bottom" means. It could refer to the executives in relation to the Mexicans or perhaps to both Dagny and Eddie Willers enjoying talks with very low level workers?

Re: Part One, Chapters III–IV (3 - 4)

Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2012 7:49 pm
by LanDroid
Thinking a bit more about my first post above and problems with straw men, perhaps Rand is warning about what would happen IF people with such opinions about private property and capitalism got into positions of power. I can go along with that, but I doubt it satisfies Objectivists*. I suspect Rand would say her warning was about the very near future and Objectivists would say that problem has long since occurred.

*Rand's philosophy is known as Objectivism.

Re: Part One, Chapters III–IV (3 - 4)

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 10:30 am
by Interbane
Landroid, would you be willing to expand on what you mean? Is the displayed empathy at odds with Rand's philosophy?

Re: Part One, Chapters III–IV (3 - 4)

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 9:54 pm
by Robert Tulip
LanDroid wrote:Some of the speakers appear to be caricatures rather than developed characters. In the beginning executives are talking about avoiding blame, unfair competition, and the need for the country to use resources for the public good.
What Rand is doing is identifying social tendencies and exaggerating them. Her simplistic caricatures are designed to show how she imagines people really think, beneath the veneer of concealment. Of course no real businessmen ever speak like this, but Rand's agenda is to help a conservative readership imagine the hidden thought process that leads to the baffling partisan hostility where policies are blocked for no good reason.

It also aims to show why some firms succeed and others fail, with the argument that a single minded focus on profit alone is key to success, and that only a profitable economy delivers the social spillover benefits of improved living conditions for all. The job of a railway company is to build railways, not to be diverted by second-guessing how ignorant people feel about their operations. Rand argues that a tough visionary focus on core business provides the values required for private success, and therefore for social improvement. When people don't get on board a competitive mindset the whole economy stagnates. It goes back to the argument of Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations that the invisible hand delivers the greatest good, with market forces coordinating supply and demand.

Assumptions are pervasive in politics. By setting out the overlap she perceives between communism and liberalism, Rand is engaging in a class war struggle on behalf of capital against labour. Her caricatures aim to reinforce the assumptions of business people that liberals are airheads and communist fellow travellers.

It is useful to understand these caricatures to know where politicians like Paul Ryan are coming from (see New Yorker article on Ryan and Atlas Shrugged). But if implemented, Rand's policies would be dangerous. This came through to me in considering the views of international mining executives, who understand social licence to operate as key to enlightened self interest. Rather than seeing community engagement as morally corrosive and a waste of money, sensible businesses and governments recognise the costs that come from failure to distribute the benefits of growth. As I commented in the discussion on Haidt Chapter 12, wealth creation and wealth redistribution stand in dialectical relation. What this means is that good policy requires a balance between different approaches that have some contradictory impacts. Too much equality and the economy stagnates: too much inequality and the society explodes.

Re: Part One, Chapters III–IV (3 - 4)

Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 9:04 pm
by LanDroid
Interbane wrote:Landroid, would you be willing to expand on what you mean? Is the displayed empathy at odds with Rand's philosophy?
If "the displayed empathy" refers to the commie/hippie/artist statements by the businessmen, then yes, those statements are in complete opposition to Rand's philosophy. Rand advocates heroic individual action against any claim whatsoever on those efforts. As we've seen from Dagny above, this applies even to the emotional bond from immediate family which, like a salary, must be earned.
R. Tulip sez: What Rand is doing is identifying social tendencies and exaggerating them. Her simplistic caricatures are designed to show how she imagines people really think, beneath the veneer of concealment. Of course no real businessmen ever speak like this, but Rand's agenda is to help a conservative readership imagine the hidden thought process that leads to the baffling partisan hostility where policies are blocked for no good reason.
I think the first part helps, but not sure about the last bit. The book explains why libertarian ideals are not universally accepted by exaggerating commie opinions? Don't conflate conservatives with libertarians, it's important to recognize libertarians (Rand) are a different breed - not conservative, liberal, or independent.

To get a flava, see where you stand by taking the "World's Smallest Political Quiz".
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz

Re: Part One, Chapters III–IV (3 - 4)

Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 9:36 pm
by LanDroid
Chapter IV - The Immovable Movers
Uh-Oh...Dagny confronts an atrocity.
On her way through the plant, she had seen an enormous piece of machinery left abandoned in a corner of the yard. It had been a precision machine tool once, long ago, of a kind that could not be bought anywhere now. It had not been worn out; it had been rotted by neglect, eaten by rust and the black drippings of a dirty oil. She had turned her face away from it. A sight of that nature always blinded her for an instant by the burst of too violent an anger. She did not know why; she could not define her own feeling; she knew only that there was, in her feeling, a scream of protest against injustice, and that it was a response to something much beyond an old piece of machinery.
Coldly indifferent to most other humans, but outraged by this image? And yet more of the mysteriousness mentioned by sal10e earlier, "She did not know why; she could not define..." There is a lot of weird going on in the emotional life of The Heroic Characters (Tm).
Please discuss...