Just caught whiff of this. Us Orygonian bumpkins and bumpkinettes may not have heard of this, but this sounds like the silliest, selfishest, most self-indugingest thing since the other week when that risible "teabagging" party trend (link rated R for adult situation) that happened because Santelli belched something resembling a thought (It would be helpful to note that CNBC's Rick Santellin not only Hates You (tm) but is a buffoon as well, though unlike Jim Cramer, he's not even funny).
It's called going Galt.
As someone once said, assume I'm an Objectivist, and assume I'm a dunce ... but I repeat myself. Now, we all know (even if we don't Rand around) that John Galt is the pivotal character in Atlas Shrugged. He is the ubermensch upon whom withdrawing the creative contribution causes the entire Earth to spin into the sun (or cause another Thin Man movie to be made, or something like that). If you buy into Objectivism, the "men of ability" (not you) are the people who actually make the world go round, and if they decide to stop contributing, then the whole fabric of society unravels and the whole place starts to look like sections of Detroit we've heard about recently.
Now that the rabble (if you're reading this and you wonder who the rabble might be, it's you, Sparky) have begun to actually demand that government work for them instead of on them, the Masters of the Universe (if you wonder if you are one, then it's a dead sure thing you aren't) have decided that they're just going to take their ball and go home.
Balloon Juice has a pretty good summary here:
Take that lese majeste, you little people. Once you all pipe down, we're getting you a shorter chain.
Problem is, those self-styled Galters don't really resemble John Galt much at all. Once again, if you buy into such Random philosophy and you think that the world won't go unless a creative elite does anything, most of the those who want to go Galting around don't really produce anything that society can't do with out. Conservative bloggers? Investment managers? Commentators? Michelle freaking Malkin?
We'll, they'll show us, you see. They'll go off to the gulch and hope we all Galt ourselves off a cliff.
I hope their little feelings won't get too hurt when they find out the world kind of works better without them.
I kind of hope they Galt off along with the horse they rode in on. We'll all be better off.
Mom always said there'd be people like that there, too, also.
It's called going Galt.
As someone once said, assume I'm an Objectivist, and assume I'm a dunce ... but I repeat myself. Now, we all know (even if we don't Rand around) that John Galt is the pivotal character in Atlas Shrugged. He is the ubermensch upon whom withdrawing the creative contribution causes the entire Earth to spin into the sun (or cause another Thin Man movie to be made, or something like that). If you buy into Objectivism, the "men of ability" (not you) are the people who actually make the world go round, and if they decide to stop contributing, then the whole fabric of society unravels and the whole place starts to look like sections of Detroit we've heard about recently.
Now that the rabble (if you're reading this and you wonder who the rabble might be, it's you, Sparky) have begun to actually demand that government work for them instead of on them, the Masters of the Universe (if you wonder if you are one, then it's a dead sure thing you aren't) have decided that they're just going to take their ball and go home.
Balloon Juice has a pretty good summary here:
Much html code has been spilled about the wingnut obsession with “going Galt” in order to avoid paying a 39% marginal rate on income over 250K a year. Matt Yglesias points out that we’d probably be better off if a lot of wealthy Americans went Galt, the Washington Independent has a nice run-down of the whole movement (oh, it resembles a certain sort of movement, if you follow me–ed), if it can be called that, and commenters all over point out that John Galt would never have worked as a dentist, represented people from Bakersfield, or slept with Glenn Reynolds.
Take that lese majeste, you little people. Once you all pipe down, we're getting you a shorter chain.
Problem is, those self-styled Galters don't really resemble John Galt much at all. Once again, if you buy into such Random philosophy and you think that the world won't go unless a creative elite does anything, most of the those who want to go Galting around don't really produce anything that society can't do with out. Conservative bloggers? Investment managers? Commentators? Michelle freaking Malkin?
We'll, they'll show us, you see. They'll go off to the gulch and hope we all Galt ourselves off a cliff.
I hope their little feelings won't get too hurt when they find out the world kind of works better without them.
I kind of hope they Galt off along with the horse they rode in on. We'll all be better off.
Mom always said there'd be people like that there, too, also.
It would be interesting to see how well those who subscribe to Rand-dumb philosophy would fare if we, who presumably possess none of the qualities of the "men of the mind," were to withhold our labor. Henry George was right, Ayn Rand was delusional.
ReplyDeleteHenry George was being nice. After reading the odd history of Rand's hangers-on, I'd use other words.
ReplyDeleteIt has not been lost to me that Alan Greenspan started out as a Randroid.
I think we actually have a very good idea of what might happen if we proles withheld our labor. They have a notable history of general strikes in France. We Americans tend to mock the French. We (the editorial we), as usual, have no idea of what we're talking about. It takes real guts to pull a general strike.
We might do in here in brave, individualistic America ... be we don't roll that way.