How To Go John Galt

With the recent political events there has been renewed interest in Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged wherein the character John Galt leads a strike of the producers against the takers.

You may be aware that the tax base has narrowed so that 60% of the American populace can vote themselves goodies from the other 40%, particularly the richest 20%. This may motivate some rich guys to "Go John Galt."

This note tells you how!

First, you have to quit engaging in productive activity.

Second, you have to stop paying taxes. If you do it right, you can pretend your tax cheating is "an honest mistake." Or you may live in a high tax state. And the way to address that is by moving from a high tax state to a lower tax state. Suppose you live in Illinois with higher taxes. Just move to Virginia or Maryland.

Third, if you've read Atlas Shrugged you know the book depicts an economic collapse instigated by John Galt and his allies. To really do the John Galt thing, you've got to substantially and materially contribute to an economic collapse.

Conversely, you might not appreciate these "wreckers." You might think think people who do such things are criminals. Perhaps we can identify those who've already gone John Galt.

First, who does less productive activity, or does more anti-productive activity than a government official? Second, when the guy running the IRS is a tax cheat as well as the chairman of the House Ways & Means committee, tax-paying is definitely optional for some people. Third, the unicorn of hope and change has pursued disastrous economic policies that have has chased capital out of the financial markets. Presumably, George Soros is done shorting the markets.

So, who is John Galt?

Who's John Galt?

Ayn Rand wrote a novel, Atlas Shrugged, that I read when the Soviet empire was imploding. It made perfect sense at the time as the events in the novel, depicted in the US, were mirrored in events in the Soviet Union.

What I didn't realize at the time was that the "strike" against the "looters" described in the Atlas Shrugged had already occurred in the United States. And that strike was only broken by the rise of Nazi Germany and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Consider the crash of 1929. It was a major correction as a market bubble popped. It also caused reverberations from Wall Street to Main Street. My grandparents were impoverished and my parents lived with the concern about another depression. My father's friend would invariably ask, "Do you think we'll have hard times, Don?" A generation of Baby Boomers learned to roll their eyes in response to exhortations to economize from their Depression-baby parents. Today, a lot of economists claim that the hard times were prolonged by our politicians response to the crisis.

Here's the problem. Economic corrections are painful and politicians are compassionate people. Yes, they're corrupt and self-serving in too many cases, but you'll never meet a politician who really doesn't feel your pain. And they want to relieve your pain if they can. They'll get reelected if they relieve your pain. Governments relieve economic pain by putting money into the hands of those who hurt most. This takes a number of forms: unemployment benefits, bailouts of critical industries, welfare, entitlements and college tuition grants. But some of these analgesics can be habit forming, like morphine they cause dependence. The greater the pain of an economic correction, the greater the likelihood that the government will be pressured to apply pain-killers. If pain-killers become addictions the electorate will demand more of them.

Governments can pass various laws, but they cannot repeal the law of gravity. They can set up rules for coordinating economic activities in an orderly fashion. But governments can't create wealth out of nothing. Governments can print money, borrow money, and raise taxes. This wealth can be given to those who are hurt by an economic correction. But this wealth is taken from someone. There's a book out there called "The Forgotten Man" about the Depression. I've not yet read it, but I suspect this book's "forgotten man" is not unlike John Galt of "Atlas Shrugged."

Someone has to create wealth and that's done by working. Tonight I watched the movie, "My Man Godfrey," wherein several pointed remarks are made about prosperity being right around the corner and "The only difference between a derelict and a man is a job." In a capitalist country, rich people need things done and they give jobs to people willing to do those things. Or you take what you have, and create a job out of it. In rich countries, those who work harder make more money and they spread the wealth around by buying stuff or hiring others. This is just common sense. It is deprecated by those wiser minds who call it "trickle down" and they hope to change this.

In this country we tax income but not wealth. This enables many wealthy people to live off their trust funds, and this frees up their time to do things like become Senators. This system is very good for maintaining the status quo. It makes it harder for new money to displace old money. This is what I realized when I was hanging out with Democrat community organizers who liked money and tax breaks as much as Republicans. If you're Ted Kennedy, you can stay rich and make everyone else pay for the goodies you buy votes with.

Certain Republicans who are wiser than I am (just ask them) say that the Reagan Revolution is dead. They think the Republican party should move to the center. They now think the McCain campaign that was crafted according to their design along these lines should be rebooted. These same Republicans claim that neo-Reaganism is a cancer to the Republican party. There's an old saying that seems apt, "It's not the mountains ahead of you that grind you down; it's the sand in your shoes." Mr. Brooks and those like him have been the sand in the Republican campaign this year.

The Republican party certainly has a branding problem. And it may not be the political party that is needed to oppose those who would grow an already bloated government and lead us further down "The Road To Serfdom."

I've never been consumed with blind ambition. Depending upon how the election turns out, ambition will only earn you a higher tax bracket. Should I go out on strike? Ask John Galt?

Check Your Premises

I'm told that Ayn Rand was wont to tell people to check their premises. With this in mind, I recently read this essay. The essayist angrily accuses a large group of people of being irrational in their response to the mishandling of a cracker. I agree that it is irrational for people to get upset about a cracker.

However, there's more to this story than just a cracker. I do not believe in the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. But I do understand the doctrine. In short, it claims that the elements of the Lord's Supper, bread and whine, are transformed by the priest's recitation of the rite into the body and blood of Christ.

It is one thing to mishandle a cracker. It is another thing to mishandle the body of Christ. Whereas the essayist signifies the flap as concerning a cracker, millions of Catholics and Orthodox Christians would claim what was once a cracker is no longer a cracker. To them, the flap is over desecration of the body of Christ. If you desecrate a cracker it is one thing, but if you desecrate the body of Christ that is another thing entirely.

Catholic ire is premised upon the mishandling of the body of Christ. The essayist chooses not to recognize the significance of Christ in the elements of the Lord's Supper.

A Catholic friend who pointed this essay out to me is greatly exercised at the essayist's insensitivity. And I sympathize with him. He also made dark hints that violence might be directed against the desecration.

I don't believe in transubstantiation. But if I did, I would not be as ired as the Catholics seem to be. Christ is either living or dead; either capable of taking care of himself or powerless beyond the activism of his Church. I happen to believe in the former.

In Old Testament times, the prophets of Ba'al contested with the prophet Elijah on Mount Carmel. The contest was simple: Here's an altar with a sacrifice upon it, let the deity that really exists set it afire. As you may recall, the prophets of Ba'al got themselves into a lather to no effect, whereas Elijah poured water on the altar and made sure that only God could get the credit. And then fire came from heaven and burnt everything up. In this we see contrasted the religion of dead idols and the religion of a living God.

Thus, I see Christ as more than capable of protecting himself from, or responding forcefully to, any desecration. I think members of the Roman church are responsible to take every reasonable measure to maintain the integrity of their rites and relics. But this stops short of unethical measures. Islam is the religion of riots and murders over a rumored desecration.

This reminds me of another situation where people attach different significances objects. Consider a cluster of a few thousand cells. I've a pro-abortion friend who considers this cluster of a few thousand cells "a bit of goo." Conversely, when this cluster of cells is a fetus I regard it as constituting a human being with rights. I was pro-choice until I signified the fertilized ovum as a distinct human life whereupon I became pro-life.

I think that people who think that fetuses are humans with rights are obligated to take every reasonable measure to secure the rights of such powerless individuals. But this stops short of bombing abortion clinics or shooting abortionists. Such actions are not pro-life.

Partisan arguments about the cracker and the bit of goo are so bitter because each side starts with different premises and reasons from there to conclusions that the other side is populated by demons or madmen. For this reason, we each have to acknowledge our own premises and those of our interlocutors. Humans are by-and-large reasonable creatures. We have the ability to reason from the other fellow's premises. I think we should do so periodically to remind ourselves that the fellows on the other side are not demons.