The Journals of Ayn Rand (104 page)

[
AR prepared the following questions for an interview with Lee Lyles, assistant to the president of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa
Fe
Railway system.
]

Possible lesser incident (for destruction of main transcontinental line): a big shipper, who is a parasite (inherited), goes bankrupt through parasites’ methods, and his failure is a bad blow to TT. His father was one of TT’s most important and reliable shippers, one of their mainstays. (This can be lumber, cotton, or some other basic commodity.)

Possibility—the “crucial train run,” which fails for reasons of parasites’ technique, may precede and motivate either Wyatt’s quitting or the closing of the oil line.

Don’t forget to stress (near the middle of Part I) that Dagny begins to suspect the existence of an enemy who is destroying TT. Dagny and the “feeling of Ergitandal.”

Have brief, eloquent (“condensed”) flashbacks or references to Galt’s past, giving picture of his life and of his essential character. (Mainly in Part II—possibly some, without naming him, in Part I.)

 

The people in the story are functioning, in their human moments, on old premises and principles, i.e., on the principles left over from the creators’ world, the principles of the strikers—to the extent to which they exist and function as human beings at all. They do not realize it, of course. Their avowed principles are those of collectivism and altruism. But whenever they have to act upon, or rely upon, or appeal to, decency or sense—they are implying the principles of the creators. This has a desperate quality—particularly when someone points it out to them; they are counting on the ideas they have denounced and discarded. (Example: any appeal to honesty, honor, integrity, rational sense—or personal profit. Along these lines: Francisco d‘Anconia pointing out the mistake of assuming that he wishes to make money.)

Unions and trade-associations are not directed against employers or the public but
against the best among their own members.
(Stress this explicitly—in the railroad association’s vote against Taggart’s better competitor; in the steel association’s actions against Rearden and his patent; in the union’s policy regarding the new oil line and its speed.) This is one of the most obvious demonstrations of the fact that collectivism does not aim at any kind of “justice” or “fair play” or protection of the weak [man] against any actual infringement of his rights by the strong—
but simply at stopping the strong for the sake of the weak
—stopping ability for the sake of incompetence—not just robbing the production of the able, but stopping him from producing—not raising the weak in any way whatever, but simply forcing the strong down to the level of the moron. (Of course, if you do that, you destroy the world—weak and strong both. And the weak do not profit by this—not even for the moment.)

Regarding controlled economies:
Man will not produce if all the essential elements involved are not under his rational control, i.e., if they are not understandable to him, and, therefore, predictable, so that he can set his purpose and plan of action, his end and means, accordingly. Nature is under his control—“other men” are not. If his productive activity has to depend upon the arbitrary decision or whim of some human agency, against whom he has no recourse and no choice (such as the government)—he will not produce.

This is why men can deal with a private utility company; they have an objective, mutual element to count upon—private profit, for both; both have something the other needs. But if electric power were nationalized, its best users, the biggest industrialists (and particularly new ventures that need electricity), would stop. A great industrialist is not going to venture into a huge undertaking when the ground can be cut from under him at any moment—when the sole source of electric power, which he needs, can be cut off arbitrarily by some punk bureaucrat. Never mind the fact that the bureaucrat won’t cut it off, in most likely practice; the fact that he can is enough; he knows it and the industrialist knows it—and the bureaucrat has the power of blackmail, the power to demand anything he wishes, without the necessity of making a threat. Yes, second-rate businessmen, of the second-hand kind, would accept such an arrangement and even love it; they’d get special advantages or rates for themselves, they’d be glad to pay off the bureaucrat, they’d consider him their tool. But a real industrialist will not do it. He knows who holds the power in such a set-up.

Also: man will not produce if the essential motivation to consider is not his own profit. In a free economy, no one can ask him to work at a loss; this is only the economic aspect of a much more important fact—nobody can ask him to work for his own detriment or to struggle toward his own suffering or pain. In a collectivist economy, he must do just that; he must work without reward—and, when the collective wishes, toward his own destruction. The motivation is not profit—but
self-sacrifice.

Rearden realizes that his mistake (about himself and his view of life) was due to the “strike” of the philosopher.

Scene of “common man” crying: “Why are they doing this to us? We thought our leaders
knew
what they were doing!”—and someone answering: “Those abstract, theoretical philosophers, whom you have always considered useless, are the only ones who can give men that knowledge.”

The prevalence of “Oriental” philosophies
in the parasites’ world: These are the kind of ideas the parasites would love (and even originate). Show the despair these ideas create in them and in their world. “Nothing is anything”—“We can’t be sure of anything”—“
Why do you think you think?
”—“Obey, since you can’t think”—“Feel, don’t think”—“Act spontaneously, don’t think”—“ ‘Immediate’ perception, not thinking or reason”—“The present moment, not any long-range view”—“You are nothing anyway, so why worry about anything?” —“You are low and vile anyway, so why worry about virtue?”—“Sacrifice and suffering are a Universal Law”—“The individual is an illusion” —“Total annihilation (Nirvana) is the supreme ideal.”

(Show the influence of this on: Taggart’s wife, Mrs. Rearden, Stacey, Rearden’s brother, the secretary, Eddie Willers, Taggart and his parasite friends. Also show how the professor comes to this [philosophy].)