The Journals of Ayn Rand (102 page)

 

The iron ore squeeze.
Parasite steel manufacturers [accuse] Rearden of “destructive competition” because he owns his own mine. Mrs. Rearden’s pet parasite enlists the help of Taggart—the deal being that the parasite will acquire the mine and give Taggart the ore freight business, instead of shipping it by lake boats (which is much cheaper). Taggart and the others get a law passed that no business can own another business. Rearden has to sell the mine—and Mrs. Rearden pushes him into selling it to the parasite. The parasite has no money (except a government loan for the down payment), so Rearden has to take a time-payment arrangement.

Taggart gets the transportation business from the mine and this destroys the lake shipping. Later, in Part II, close to Rearden’s final awakening, there is an emergency when the parasite is making a mess of the mine and it is running at a loss; Mrs. Rearden urges Rearden to “give the man a hand,” teach him how to run the mine—“since, after all, you’ll lose money if the mine goes bankrupt.” This is when Rearden has a fit of fury, his first one against his wife; he realizes that he is asked to make the man a present of the mine that he, Rearden, created, and also teach the bastard how to use his own stolen property. Rearden refuses. This is one of the important steps to his awakening.

Later, when the wheat section is destroyed, Taggart raises freight rates on the ore (there is no lake shipping available)—the parasite raises the price of ore—yet Rearden is not allowed to raise the price of steel. “You’ll do something.”

An incident in which Dagny tries to stop an important shipper from quitting
—
and it is too late.
While she waits in the anteroom, Galt is in the man’s office. (We don’t know this, of course.) Galt leaves through another door, not through the anteroom. By the time Dagny is admitted into the office, it is too late: the man has decided to quit.

 

The Francisco d‘Anconia disaster:
D’Anconia has made a big deal with Taggart to build a branch line for his new copper mine in Mexico. Taggart builds it, at great expense, because he is appeasing the Mexican government. The Mexican government nationalizes the line and the mine. D‘Anconia loses more than Taggart, but he has made the mine worthless. Dagny realizes that it was done on purpose. (Taggart’s motive was the typical one: not any actual facts that d’Anconia presented, but that d‘Anconia presented them.) (After that, d’Anconia cannot deliver the copper which TT needs. He uses the weakest shipping company he can find, in order to “help” them-the ships sink. Previously, he had used Hastings’ ships.)

Minor possibility: the cigarettes with the dollar sign are used as a code signal among the strikers.

 

Possibility:
Galt, who is getting most of his information through Eddie Willers, learns from him about Dagny’s affair with Rearden. Eddie is the only one who knows of it—he is jealous, [but] doesn’t realize it. He confesses it to Galt—while he, Eddie, is drunk. (“What’s that to me—if Dagny Taggart is sleeping with Hank Rearden?”)

 

Possibility:
Dagny calls on Francisco d‘Anconia and Ragnar Danneskjöld to help her save Galt. They have remained in the city, without Galt’s knowledge or approval, to stand by him and save him when necessary. When Dagny calls d’Anconia (from a pay booth), he tells her that he expected her call. When he comes to meet her, she makes the sign of the dollar with her fingers, smiling, even though she wants to cry.

 

 

The reason that society does not collapse into civil war and violence in my story (as it would have in historical reality) is that even a civil war is caused by some element of independence in men, some active impulse, no matter how misguided. It is the element of decision which makes men revolt, even if blindly, because they realize that conditions are unbearable, cannot be allowed to go on and something must be done. So they resort to violence, in sheer anger and despair—violence being the only resort against the parasites (since reason is what the parasites have discarded, and since they rely on and advocate violence).

So it is still some kind of creator, a man of action or decision to some extent, who is necessary to lead men into revolt and civil war. This is what happens in history when collectivism, the rule of the parasite, becomes unbearable. (Besides, it is the parasites who resort to force when they need more loot and hope to make men produce for them through terror.) Actually, in history, societies are a mixture—no principle is observed consistently, and individualism is allowed to function by default. This is what holds the creators in society, their hope for that accidental chance. But this is no longer true of modern collectivism, such as Russia or Germany.

(A good sidelight here: there are only two possible incentives for human actions: desire for gain, or fear. But fear does not work, except for a while on the most miserable level of subsistence and then only while there is still the production of free men to loot or copy (and it works only on the worst, i.e., useless, types of men). So, actually, there is but
one
incentive for men: gain—
personal desire.)

In my story, the creators do not try to cooperate with a parasite-ruled society to the point of the unbearable, then revolt, as they do in history. The creators have withdrawn. What is left of humanity without them is capable neither of production nor revolt. Therefore, the end of the world, in my story, is not one of violence, but of slow rot: disintegration, corruption, a dead body falling to pieces (and a society without functioning intelligence
is
a dead body).
It
must
be the rot of stagnation, of hopeless decay, of the gray, the dull, the trite.
(Keep this firmly in mind. Don’t have too much emotional violence in Taggart and his kind; even their crises and tragedies are gray rot.)
Without the creators, the world simply stops.

It is merely indicated that the parasites would like to resort to violence, that it is their natural course, their essence, and their last hope. This is shown in the torture scene, in the sequences relating to the professor’s laboratory, and in small, dreadful hints about their intentions, from the Cuffy Meigs types, as well as from “Chester” or “the businessman.” But they have nothing to do violence to—the creators have withdrawn beyond their reach and left the parasites to their fate (instead of fighting them in the open), to show them what that fate will be. And what’s left of humanity is a miserable, shivering herd, not worth terrorizing, because they are already in terror and will obey without violence; in fact, they ask nothing but to obey; but there’s no one there to teach the parasites what orders to give. The remnant herd is not worth ruling—they can produce nothing for the parasites to loot.

It is the
abstract
thinkers who go on strike first—since production and all the rest stems from them. Therefore, by the time the story begins, the abstract thinkers are gone already: there are no philosophers and no theoretical scientists. This is shown in the state of the Taggart laboratory, of the professor’s State laboratory, and in the prominence of the “Fadiman type” of “philosopher.”
[As noted earlier, Clifton Fadiman was book editor of
The New Yorker.]

Note on Galt
(in connection with above): Make clear that Galt is that rare phenomenon (perhaps,
the rarest)
—a philosopher and inventor at once, both a thinker and a man of action. That is why he is the
perfect
man, the perfectly integrated being. One indication of this—the fact that in college Galt was the star pupil of both the philosopher and the [physics] professor. In fact, Galt was the only student who took such a peculiar (to the college authorities and the time) combination of courses.

 

 

“Who is John Galt?” Eddie Willers, Taggart Transcontinental, James Taggart. Trouble on the Colorado line. Taggart’s evasions.

Dagny Taggart on the train—returning from a survey of the Colorado line. The Fifth Concerto. Her carrying the business and the responsibility. Order for Rearden Metal to rebuild the Colorado line. Her young engineer quits.

Hank Rearden and Rearden Steel. The mine parasite (Paul Larkin). The bracelet. Rearden and his wife (Lillian), mother, brother (Philip), and sister (Stacey). Larkin’s cautious mention of “How is your Washington man?”

[
Original:
] James Taggart’s move to force out his Colorado competition and get Rearden’s iron ore mine for the parasite. Conference: Taggart, steel parasite (Orren Boyle), mine parasite (Paul Larkin). (Skeptical derision of Rearden Metal—one of the reasons for taking mine away from him: “He’ll waste it.”) Dagny and the parasite who objects to her use of Rearden Metal—her indifference to advice. Dagny and her staff: Eddie Willers, Gerald Hastings, the young playwright. First mention of Nat Taggart. Issue of parasite in charge of Colorado Division.

[Revised:]
James Taggart’s move to force out his Colorado competition and get Rearden’s iron ore mine for the parasite. Conference in the dark bar-room : Taggart, steel parasite (Orren Boyle), mine parasite (Paul Larkin), and Wesley Mouch as an obsequious nonentity. (Skeptical derision of Rearden Metal—one of the reasons for taking mine away from him: “He’ll waste it.”) Dagny: her frustrated romanticism, her sense of life, how she became vice-president. Issue with Taggart about Mexican line, with story of line, San Sebastian, and Francisco d‘Anconia. First mention of Nat Taggart. Eddie Willers and his dinner with the worker.

Francisco d‘Anconia arrives in New York—[there is a] newspaper scandal about him and some woman. Taggart getting ready for meeting of Board. News that Mexican line was nationalized that morning. The Board meeting—Taggart takes credit for cutting the rolling stock. The Association meeting—Taggart gets vote against competitor (partly on the strength of the Mexican loss). Dagny objects, but even competitor himself accepts it. Dagny and Rearden: plans to hurry [the construction of the] line.
[Added later:
] Dagny-Ellis Wyatt.

Dagny and Francisco d‘Anconia. (The Mexican government has found his copper mines to be worthless.) (Dagny’s anger at d’Anconia’s “Who is John Galt?”)
[Note that there is no mention yet of a past romance between Dagny and Francisco.
]

Mrs. Rearden’s party: Dagny, James Taggart, Rearden, his family—their interrelationships. D‘Anconia is also present. Dagny and Mrs. Rearden: the bracelet. Rearden’s antagonism to Dagny and defense of his wife. Rearden’s attitude toward women. The cultural phonies (professor of philosophy, musician, writer). The first Galt legend—Atlantis. Rearden’s sexual attitude toward his wife—scene in her bedroom.

The law which forces Rearden to sell his mine to the parasite. He accepts this, feeling guilty about his lack of social concern (and, besides, he is too busy with Rearden Metal, his drive and enthusiasm are in that). Dagny and Rearden work together on the new Colorado line. Decision on bridge of Rearden Metal. Incident of Rearden’s guilty desire for Dagny. Their heroic effort—the public opposition. (Dr. Stadler comes out against Rearden Metal, through his parasite assistant.) The second Galt legend—“the fountain of youth.”

The triumphant ride of the first freight train over the new Colorado line. Dagny, Rearden, and Ellis Wyatt at their ecstatic celebration. (“To the world as it seems right now!”) Dagny’s and Rearden’s night together (in Wyatt’s lonely guest house, in the mountains).

Dagny and Rearden escape for a vacation together. They drive to the abandoned motor factory. They find Galt’s engine.

The history of the motor, ending on professor in diner advising her to give up the quest. What awaits them on their return: Taggart has given in to the union’s demand of no extra speed on the new line. Steel parasites and others concerned have passed a law to force Rearden to sell Rearden Metal “equally.” (No pipe-line for Wyatt, no steel for Taggart Bridge, no girders for the coal man.) Dagny hurries to Ellis Wyatt—too late—she sees the flaming oil fields.