Who Was Garet Garrett?

[CICEROSC 0]

I am posting here because I am curious about the recent republication of the works of author Garet Garrett (1878-1954) over at Mises.org.

Some over there (not surprising for a Libertarian-oriented site) are jumping on the opportunity to disparage Ayn Rand by arguing that Atlas Shrugged is a plagiarism of Garrett’s 1922 book The Driver. I have recently discovered the PDF’s that Mises.org has published of all Garrett’s novels, and have now finished reading The Driver myself. My own view is that the plagiarism charge is ridiculous. Both books involve the railroad industry, and The Driver’s main character is similar in temperament and talent to Dagny Taggart or Hank Rearden, but Garret makes no effort to delve into philosophy, and the narratives are completely different.

However, after reading both books and reading more about Garrett, it seems likely that Ayn Rand was very familiar with this work and presumably Garrett himself. Of several parallels the detractors will use to yell plagiarism, perhaps most deserving of a reply is that the hero in both books is named GALT. Though Garrett’s hero’s first name is Henry, rather than John, Garrett also employs the question “Who is Henry Galt?” as a literary device. The coincidence now tempts me to believe that Galt’s name in Atlas Shrugged comes from this source, more than likely as a tribute to Garrett rather than from any negative aspects.

I was hoping to read more of Garrett’s work before posting this question, but I just started The People’s Pottage and when Garrett cited Aristotle I decided to proceed. So far as I can tell, Garrett’s personal story seems to be a heroic figure of resistance against the New Deal. He was apparently very well known in the 1920's and 1930's as an editor of the Saturday Evening Post and a writer whose works were published by Caxton, who I understand also to have been a printer of one or more Rand works. It also seems to me that the great majority of what I have read so far in Garrett’s work is fully compatible with the views of Ayn Rand (i.e. it is not based on religion, utilitarianism, or other superficialities.)

For the same reason I find information about the early influences on Ayn Rand interesting, I am now curious to know to what extent she was in contact with Garet Garrett, and whether she ever made any direct commentary about his work. The person at Mises.org who is coordinating the posting of Garrett’s work is evidently himself sympathetic to the views of Ayn Rand, but from the comments on that page it seems clear that Ayn Rand’s detractors will think they have been handed a major weapon to use against her. (The charge has evidently been leveled in the past, but the new availability of The Driver on the net will probably spread it further.)

I think it would be a service to the memory of Ayn Rand if those who have any information about her contacts or views of Garet Garrett would relate those publicly, so a body of information can be compiled to derail the slanderers before they get started. Perhaps this is a subject that is already well known to others and I have just missed it. Does anyone have good information about this? Is there a place where this question could be posted so those who knew Ayn Rand personally would see it?

Regardless of this issue, based on what I have read so far, Garrett’s life and work deserve to be remembered. I think most readers of Ayn Rand’s works will find Garrett's works (especially The Driver) to be good reading.

[PhilO 0]

The major sections of Atlas Shrugged are named in honor of Aristotle's work; and Aristotle's philosophy had a large influence on the construction of Objectivism. That hardly means that she "plagiarized" Aristotle. Ayn Rand also immersed herself in the details of architecture prior to writing The Fountainhead, and the railroad industry prior to writing Atlas. It's a false view of the nature of independence to say that nobody is independent unless they literally manufactured everything on their own including their own words (taken individually.) Obviously on such a view, nobody could possibly be independent.

I think it's possible (but far from proven) that she gave a hidden homage to somebody she admired by re-using a discoverable literary device such as "Who is X?" But it's easy to tell if such details are ultimately important by simply asking the question: Would the work have changed, either essentially or even to any major degree, if those elements were removed? Obviously the answer is no, in the case of Atlas. It's another example of a primitive concrete bound mentality poking away at irrelevant minutiae while completely missing the real picture.

[Bill Bucko 0]

This seems no more than an odd coincidence. I've heard of no evidence that Ayn Rand ever knew of this book; and from my quick skimming it seems very far indeed from being Atlas Shrugged, or anything that could ever have inspired it. In fact, we have Miss Rand's account of exactly what did inspire it: a phone conversation with Isabel Patterson, in which the latter insisted Miss Rand had a "duty" to write about her philosophy, and Miss Rand retorted, "What if I went on strike? What if all the creative thinkers went on strike? ... That would make a good story." Miss Rand spoke and wrote extensively on the development of her ideas and of Atlas, with a frankness and openness that makes it impossible for any honest person to suppose she was hiding anything; look at her Journals. Shoshana Milgram has commented in lectures on the possible origins of the name Galt: she (or someone else) said there was a small town of that name, near Miss Rand's Los Angeles ranch home. Ed Cline pointed out an historical figure with that last name; I myself noted a possible derivation from the German verb gelten, galt, gegolten, er gilt, "to be worth"; Miss Rand did read German, and would have come across this word in Schiller.

I doubt if ARI will ever comment, because it's simply too insignificant. Ayn Rand haters (who deserve no attention from any decent person) will jump on it--displaying not only their vicious immorality, but blatant ignorance as well: they seem to have no idea what "plagiarism" actually consists of; but those who are firmly rooted in reality (as opposed to conspiracy theories) will not. It's been said that million-to-one coincidences happen to seven people a day in New York City (since there are seven million people there). The vague, far-fetched resemblance of this book to Atlas Shrugged is FAR, FAR less striking than a million-to-one coincidence.

[Free Capitalist 0]

CICEROSC,

That's like saying Ayn Rand plagiarized from the Scarlet Pimpernel, on account of the many similarities with that novel as well. It strikes me just how similar Marguerite is similar to Dagny, a beautiful woman whose actual distinction in life is her interest in ideas. The whole turn of the Pimpernel novel (which is brilliant) relates very strikingly to what later happens in AS, because we think Scarlet Pimpernel hero is the main character (the novel's titled after him?), but the main character is really Marguerite, who for half the book hunts for the secret man whose heroism she worships. But the most powerful and emphatic similarity, of course, lies in the great surprise of that novel; I won't reveal the spoilers, for those who haven't read it, but the great twist of that book is a literal parallel to key events in AS.

But having said all that, again all charges of plagiarism are ridiculous. I think what these similarities show is that Ayn Rand was an educated, intellectual woman who was in the sphere of the great intellectual and Romantic works of her youth; she is also on record expressing her desire to be the link between the Romantic Victorian era, now almost forgotten, and the modern world slowly forgetting its heroes. It shows Ayn Rand bringing 19th century Romantic ideals into much more amplified 20th century terms, along with striking and powerful innovations of her own. All of this speaks of Ayn Rand as an inspired and reverential part of the greater Western culture. Then again this would bother only someone who thought Ayn Rand lived in a vacuum and created everything from scratch and lived in isolation to the world around her.

[Bill Bucko 0]

Well, whadaya know ...

According to Mapquest, there's a town called Acton, a bit northeast of Ayn Rand's former home in Chatsworth.

Farther away--nearer to San Francisco, in fact, than to Los Angeles--about 25 miles south of Sacramento, is the town of Galt. In fact, it's on the road between Sacramento and Stockton:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?searc...CA&zipcode=

Next, those worthless #&@%s are going to accuse Miss Rand of "plagiarizing" from the map.

[Bill Bucko 0]

There's also a Mulligan Hills, CA (south of San Francisco) ... though no Wyatt, Taggart, Reardon, or D'Anconia.

When Miss Rand visited East Chicago's Inland Steel works, doing research for Atlas Shrugged , she was only two or three miles from Hammond, Indiana [as in Hammond Motors], where I grew up.

And as I've noted before, the last sentence of Victor Hugo's juvenile novel Han d'Island (Hans of Iceland) states that the marriage of the noble hero and heroine founded the Counts of Danneskjold.

[PhilO 0]

It's been said that million-to-one coincidences happen to seven people a day in New York City (since there are seven million people there).

The joke I heard was from Isaac Asimov: A guy in NYC tells his mathematically ignorant girlfriend that she's one in a million, which makes her happy ... not realizing that it means that he has 6 other girlfriends there.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

So far as I can tell, Garrett’s personal story seems to be a heroic figure of resistance against the New Deal. He was apparently very well known in the 1920's and 1930's as an editor of the Saturday Evening Post and a writer whose works were published by Caxton, who I understand also to have been a printer of one or more Rand works. It also seems to me that the great majority of what I have read so far in Garrett’s work is fully compatible with the views of Ayn Rand (i.e. it is not based on religion, utilitarianism, or other superficialities.)

Considering that Ayn Rand was intellectually active in the 1920's and 1930's, particularly in anti-communist and anti-New Deal political groups, it is quite possible that Garrett got some of his best ideas from Ayn Rand!

[CICEROSC 0]

Thanks for the replies. As I said in the opening post, I agree a plagiarism charge is ridiculous.

Going beyond that and back to the subtitle for the topic, I think it would be interesting to know what Rand thought of Garrrett. In this context I am reminded of these words from Anthem:

Perhaps, in those days, there were a few among men, a few of clear sight and clean soul, who refused to surrender that word. What agony must have been theirs before that which they saw coming and could not stop! Perhaps they cried out in protest and in warning. But men paid no heed to their warning. And they, these few, fought a hopeless battle, and they perished with their banners smeared by their own blood. And they chose to perish, for they knew.

To them, I send my salute across the centuries, and my pity

.

I have often wondered who, if anyone, tried to stand up to the leftists in the early decades of the 20th century, and why they failed. Presumably the Republican party was as impotent as it is today, so I suppose that can explain why the politicians were ineffective. Nevertheless, it seems there would be SOME major figures who were more eloquent in trying to hold the line.

From what I have read so far Garrett was an excellent writer, so he has not been ignored because of lack of talent, and if he was an editor of the Saturday Evening Post and the Wall Street Journal then at one time he must have been well known. I tend to think memory of him was erased by the leftists, and if his memory was not preserved by the conservatives as not a favorite of theirs either, then he might really be a lost treasure.

I hope Garrett's name will be rehabilitated for his own merit, and his memory not manipulated as if his only significance is a (false) dig against Ayn Rand. If THE DRIVER is representative of the rest of Garrett's work, then he deserves to be saluted for his efforts.

[Kitty Hawk 0]

And as I've noted before, the last sentence of Victor Hugo's juvenile novel Han d'Island (Hans of Iceland) states that the marriage of the noble hero and heroine founded the Counts of Danneskjold.

The name Ragnar also appears in Hans of Iceland. Miss Rand was familiar with Stewart Holbrook, a writer about various American industries (logging, iron mining, railroads), and she almost certainly read his book The Story of American Railroads. The names Galt and Taggart both appear in that book.

It's interesting that Garret was an editor of The Saturday Evening Post. Under it's first editor, George Horace Lorimer, it published Calumet "K" by Merwin and Webster, The Road Builders by Merwin alone, and stories by Frank Spearman as well. Clearly it was one of the better literary magazines in the early 20th century.

[Bill Bucko 0]

... Miss Rand was familiar with Stewart Holbrook, a writer about various American industries (logging, iron mining, railroads), and she almost certainly read his book The Story of American Railroads. The names Galt and Taggart both appear in that book.

It's actually a certainty, not a near certainty. Years ago, when the newly formed ARI was auctioning off books from Miss Rand's personal library to raise money, The Story of American Railroads was one of the books.

Could you please elaborate on the names Galt and Taggart appearing in it? (On which pages, in what connection?)

[Kitty Hawk 0]

... Miss Rand was familiar with Stewart Holbrook, a writer about various American industries (logging, iron mining, railroads), and she almost certainly read his book The Story of American Railroads. The names Galt and Taggart both appear in that book.

It's actually a certainty, not a near certainty. Years ago, when the newly formed ARI was auctioning off books from Miss Rand's personal library to raise money, The Story of American Railroads was one of the books.

Could you please elaborate on the names Galt and Taggart appearing in it? (On which pages, in what connection?)

In discussing the building of a rail line from Portland, Maine to Montreal, in Chapter 6, page 73, Holbrook mentions "a group headed by A.T. Galt prepared to build the line from [Montreal] to meet the Portland line at the border."

In Chapter 23, page 277, speaking about railroad accidents, Holbrook wrote "John S. Taggart, telegraph operator at the Angola [New York] station, testified that when he heard the crash of the derailed cars, he hurried to the bridge, saw what had happened, then started back to the depot to wire for help." Then he gave some more details of that incident and Taggart's testimony.

[Kitty Hawk 0]

It also seems to me that the great majority of what I have read so far in Garrett’s work is fully compatible with the views of Ayn Rand (i.e. it is not based on religion, utilitarianism, or other superficialities.)

Before he published The Driver, Garrett published a work of fiction called The Blue Wound, which is available online here: The Blue Wound

It is a sort of strange, fantasy novel, in which a mystical character named Mered (which he says means "rebel" or "rebellion") expounds his philosophy, mainly political/economic, but also ethics, to the narrator of the story. Mered can travel through time and space at will. He begins by saying that, since the Garden of Eden, man has had laid upon him "the curse of toil . . . in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. Thus was [man] cursed, to apease a jealous wrath." (p. 16). He returns to this idea again and again. He criticizes those men who work harder than others, because they end up richer than their brothers, and then lending them money, and so having power over them. He criticizes white collar workers, basically, for exploiting blue collar workers. He often sounds like Karl Marx, in other words.

In the end, the culmination of his philosophy is that rich nations exploit poor backward nations, who eventually revolt and will overthrow the richer nations. Therefore, all nations should become "self-contained," meaning self-sufficient, and therefore not be vulnerable to other nations, nor exploit them. In this context, he narrates a bit of the history of Japan, in which he extols their period of isolationism, and excoriates those [i.e., America], who opened Japan up to international trade. He is against "competitive" international trade. He would only have nations export things that other nations do not produce, therefore not competing against them. He says man must "embrace the curse," with "everyone to assume his fair share of it. No one to exploit the toil of another. No one to hire that to be done for him, or on account of him, which he is loath to do for himself . . . " He wants no one to have less toil than anyone else.

So, in this book at least, it is hard to see how Garrett's philosophy could be any further from Ayn Rand's. He sounds like a Marxist, and is decidedly isolationist in the anticapitalist sense. Anti-globalisation.

He even elevates labor above management, saying management would perish without labor, rather than the other way around.

I haven't read any of Garrett's other books. It's not surprising that the Mises Institute decided not to publish this particular work, since it goes against he idea that Garrett is a capitalist or a forerunner of Ayn Rand.

[Bill Bucko 0]

Thanks, Kitty!

[Kitty Hawk 0]

Overall, the character Mered, who is presumably a stand in for Garrett, views man's lot as tragic, specifically because he has to work in order to live - "the curse of toil." He actually discusses the (I presume) Biblical passage where man is so cursed, while the snake is made to go about on its belly in the dirt - and Mered says the snake got the better end of the bargain, because it doesn't have to work to live. It merely takes life as it comes.

I knew Garrett was an isolationist, because he published a book called Defend America First, against FDR's plan to join in the combat of WWII. But I mistakenly assumed this was a purely military isolationism. In fact, Garrett wants virtually total isolationism, economic, military, and everything else. And his view of the proletariat = good, capitalist = evil came as a total shock to me. It doesn't seem to go with his other books, as I've seen them described. But there it is, in black and white, in The Blue Wound.

[CICEROSC 0]

Kitty:

I interpreted Blue Wound much differently than your summary. I would defend Blue Wound as an insightful book largely consistent with, but not as deep as, the work of Ayn Rand.

First, it is clearly written in a very allegorical way; somewhat like Anthem, but clearly (fantasy in the sense of moving through space and time; somewhat following the Christian analogy of the devil showing Jesus the world from the top of a mountain) not intended to be a non-fiction economic treatise.

My interpretation of Garrett’s fundamental point is that he starts with the observation that the masses of men prefer leisure and attempt to avoid hard work. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable observation. He does not observe this approvingly, and in fact illustrates repeatedly the superiority of work to slothfulness. For example, he cites the Caine /Abel to show that Abel’s offering (deriving from the work of farming) was superior to the simple gathering done by Abel. He argues that Caine’s decision to kill Abel derived from his jealousy against the fruits of Abel’s labor, that he was not willing to work himself to attain. He is in no way slamming the producers by pointing out that the parasites generate their anger and enemy from observing the unequal results of work versus sloth.

Garrett then goes on to illustrate that a repeating theme throughout the rise and fall of civilizations is that the envy of the indolent groups leads to conflict against those who work to improve themselves. He observes that the indolent (groups from both without and within society) often resort to force to seek to destroy that which they want but cannot attain for themselves due to their slothfulness. Remember the story of the valley where the eleven families evict the twelfth? That eviction was solely because the twelfth family was diligent and willing to work and invest for the future, and to make loans to those who wanted to enjoy leisure now at the expense of paying for it in the future. Garrett was obviously praising the diligent family and slamming those who evicted them. Once again an excellent object lesson in the stupidity of the leftists, in my view.

Garrett then applied his observations to his concern about the NEXT world war which might follow WWI (which had just finished when he wrote the book).

His observation was that ever-increasing specialization has a downside when a nation outsources (not a word he used) ALL of its industrial and scientific ability to other nations – nations that are for one reason or another its mortal enemy.

SPOILER: In Blue Wound, the illustration was that Germany, by focusing on chemical research and science, would develop a super-weapon (essentially similar in power to a nuclear weapon today) that would make it capable of taking on and defeating the entire world. Garrett observed that it was folly for one nation (the US) to neglect its science and industry and expect that it would ALWAYS be able to backpedal from the brink of disaster by trying to restart its military base (science / industrial base) AFTER war was imminent. In other words, he was warning that if the US waited too long and let its enemies get too far advanced in military science, then that overspecialization, which resulted from a desire to pursue leisure at the expense of work, would be disastrous.

Thankfully events in the real world turned out otherwise. The United States developed “the bomb” first and Germany and Japan were defeated, but the result could easily have been different if the New Deal leftists had worked faster and achieved in the 40's the educational disaster we have today.

Ultimately, and getting back to the beginning again, I think Garrett’s point was simply that at the nation-state level (and at the individual level as well) there is virtue in SELF-RELIANCE. I think it is a very valid point, (and therefore consistent with Rand) that the nature of man (man qua man) requires that all of his essential natural abilities be developed in rational balance, and that important areas should not be neglected at the expense of focusing all energy on other areas. Bad things happen when the needs of the body (physical health; strength; the ability to defend oneself) are unduly neglected out of expending ALL one’s efforts on pursuits of the mind. (Maybe better said: the rational pursuits of the body ARE rational pursuits of the mind -- there is no mind-body dichotomy.)

Kitty, I don’t dispute your observation that Blue Wound can be used to argue against “globalization.” It is certainly limited in that it is grounded in the specific facts and circumstances of the early twentieth century. It is not a deep philosophical work that can easily be applied to all times and all places. Is China or Iran today the equivalent of Germany or Japan of the 30's? I doubt it, but that's a question of fact, and debatable on both sides by men of good will.

I think the point, however, is that where you live in a globe where you are buying your food and weaponry from people who hate your very existence, it behooves you to think twice before you shut down ALL your farms and factories. This obviously also applies on the individual level, for example, where the educational establishment that you need to educate your children devolves into leftist, man-hating drivel. In such times, it is not appropriate to so segment and specialize your time that you do not provide your children a proper alternative. Providing that alternative might mean that Howard Roark will have to take some time away from architecture and spend some time on locating and supporting a proper educator for his children, but such is the nature of the circumstances.

So I think BLUE WOUND is an excellent book. I think it is debatable to what extent it specifically applies to international trade today, but I think it is highly instructive about the pitfalls that need to be avoided.

[CICEROSC 0]

I knew Garrett was an isolationist, because he published a book called Defend America First, against FDR's plan to join in the combat of WWII. But I mistakenly assumed this was a purely military isolationism. In fact, Garrett wants virtually total isolationism, economic, military, and everything else. And his view of the proletariat = good, capitalist = evil came as a total shock to me. It doesn't seem to go with his other books, as I've seen them described. But there it is, in black and white, in The Blue Wound.

Kitty, we were apparently posting at the same time -- please see my post #16 in this thread.

As stated there, I think the apparent inconsistency you are seeing is explained by the allegorical nature of Blue Wound. Garrett is NOT stating a pro-proletariat / anti-capitalist viewpoint, but in fact the opposite.

[CICEROSC 0]

In further comment, Kitty, I think one's reaction to Blue Wound follows from one's view of what some call the "national security" exception to the desirability of free trade. I have run out of time this morning looking for examples of AR's comments on good reference examples such as free trade with Russia (presumably there were few such comments because it made no sense to talk about buying things from such a backward economy) but I believe she was antagonistic toward many types of dealing with Russia in general. AR's attitude toward buying goods and services essential for military protection from Russia would roughly parallel what Garrett was writing about in Blue Wound.

Perhaps others can correct me or substantiate my memory as to AR's comments on trade with communist countries. Particularly instructive would be comments were addressed to buying important products or services from hostile regimes.

The best I could find on short research were two quotes I think show that AR held that in the right context, national security would indeed trump free trade.

First, as to George McGovern:

And if some day a living but disarmed continent is overrun by Soviet thugs—who have declared their intention to do so, and have demonstrated it on other continents—there will be little consolation in leaving to them the best schools, the healthiest families, the safest streets, the cleanest cities, and the purest air achievable on earth. <arl_109>

Ask a soldier who has seen combat duty, whether "the health of his family" would help him if the size of his bombs proved nadequate. When you deal with the threat of force, nothing can answer it but armed force.

When a bloody aggressor is loose in the world, a threatened nation must subordinate all expenditures to the requirements of national defense, which is the first and foremost duty of its government; only when defense is secure, can one begin to live or breathe

. To simper, in the context of the possibility of a nuclear war, about schoolhouses for the kiddies, or free aspirin for Grandma, or new housing projects for Mom and Pop, or clean air for the birdies—to attempt to confuse and deceive the people by so cheap a collection of irrelevancies and so deadly a package deal—is such a ghastly performance that, for the honor of American history, I hope McGovern is merely stupid.

AR letter, Vol 1 No 24 August 28, 1972

Second, and more important, is this as to the proper context of dealing with other people in general. Note how she is specifically considering this issue in the context of the benefits of specialization of labor:

"The two great values to be gained from social existence are: knowledge and trade. Man is the only species that can transmit and expand his store of knowledge from generation to generation; the knowledge potentially available to man is greater than any one man could begin to acquire in his own lifespan; every man gains an incalculable benefit from the knowledge discovered by others. The second great benefit is the division of labor: it enables a man to devote his effort to a particular field of work and to trade with others who specialize in other fields. This form of cooperation allows all men who take part in it to achieve a greater knowledge, skill and productive return on their effort than they could achieve if each had to produce everything he needs, on a desert island or on a self-sustaining farm.

"

But these very benefits indicate, delimit and define what kind of men can be of value to one another and in what kind of society

: only rational, productive, independent men in a rational, productive, free society." ("The Objectivist Ethics" in The Virtue of Selfishness.) A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort, or enslaves him, or attempts to limit the freedom of <cui_330> his mind, or compels him to act against his own rational judgment—a society that sets up a conflict between its edicts and the requirements of man's nature—is not, strictly speaking, a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang-rule.

Such a society destroys all the values of human coexistence, has no possible justification and represents, not a source of benefits, but the deadliest threat to man's survival. Life on a desert island is safer than and incomparably preferable to existence in Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany.

If men are to live together in a peaceful, productive, rational society and deal with one another to mutual benefit, they must accept the basic social principle without which no moral or civilized society is possible: the principle of individual rights.

CUI - Appendix on Government

[Kitty Hawk 0]

In further comment, Kitty, I think one's reaction to Blue Wound follows from one's view of what some call the "national security" exception to the desirability of free trade. I have run out of time this morning looking for examples of AR's comments on good reference examples such as free trade with Russia (presumably there were few such comments because it made no sense to talk about buying things from such a backward economy) but I believe she was antagonistic toward many types of dealing with Russia in general. AR's attitude toward buying goods and services essential for military protection from Russia would roughly parallel what Garrett was writing about in Blue Wound.

But Mered's view of international trade was not limited to restricting trade with nations that were antagonistic to your own. He wanted trade restricted with all nations of the earth. The completely isolated Japan of the pre-Commodore Perry era was his example of the ideal self-contained state.

My interpretation of Garrett’s fundamental point is that he starts with the observation that the masses of men prefer leisure and attempt to avoid hard work. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable observation. He does not observe this approvingly, and in fact illustrates repeatedly the superiority of work to slothfulness. For example, he cites the Caine /Abel to show that Abel’s offering (deriving from the work of farming) was superior to the simple gathering done by Abel. He argues that Caine’s decision to kill Abel derived from his jealousy against the fruits of Abel’s labor, that he was not willing to work himself to attain. He is in no way slamming the producers by pointing out that the parasites generate their anger and enemy from observing the unequal results of work versus sloth.

That is not how I understood his viewpoint. He showed that harder work is rewarded with more wealth and power, but that this very power necessarily made "slaves" of everyone else. And that it was legitimate for them to rebel against that "enslavement" by force or any other means available to them. In any case, his solution to this problem was not simply to support justice and individual rights, as Ayn Rand does, but to completely cave in to the "slaves" and create a society where no one has leisure, and everyone toils equally. An egalitarian society.

There were passages scattered throughout the book that led me to believe Mered saw the proletariat as superior to the capitalist. They are hard to find without a physical copy of the book, but I jotted a few down. On page 77 he said " . . . [the man who digs coal] receives less pay and less honour than another person performing in linen [i take this to mean a white collar worker, or management] a preferred and less essential task." This seems a clear statement that manual labor is more important than management or capital, which are "less essential." How else can it be interpreted?

And then the passage I quoted in a previous post: "everyone to assume his fair share of it [the toil of physical labor]. No one to exploit the toil of another. No one to hire that to be done for him, or on account of him, which he is loath to do for himself . . . " Clearly he believes capital and management have heretofore been exploiting labor.

[CICEROSC 0]

Kitty:

If I have read your posts correctly, you and I have read the same two books (The Driver and Blue Wound). Maybe once I read more I will change my mind, but for now I think much of the difficulty stems from the "parable" format:

It seems to me that Garrett does not intend Mered to be representative of Garrett's own views. Based various references throughout the book, on the similarlty of the scenario (flying around; looking down at the world from a mountaintop-like place; supernatural powers), and the inference that Mered had himself caused the WWI, I interpret Mered to be a Lucifer / Satan character. Rather than being Garrett's mouthpiece, Mered seems to be more representative of the common superficial religious viewpoint. I think it's also important that standard procedure for a Satan character is that he will employ trickery to make his points -- the cliche is that Satan will say things that seem reasonable, and may even have a grain of truth in them, but distort the truth and tempt toward incorrect and disasterous conclusions.

But Mered's view of international trade was not limited to restricting trade with nations that were antagonistic to your own. He wanted trade restricted with all nations of the earth. The completely isolated Japan of the pre-Commodore Perry era was his example of the ideal self-contained state.

I would think this is another example of misdirection, or the parable format. Mered paints the pre-Perry Japan as an idyllic simple state. Is it obvious, however, (to fans of Ayn Rand, or anyone who appreciates the nature of man) that the simple life is the best life? Mered's words lead in that direction, but shouldn't a reader who values human initiative and improvement question that conclusion? I think Garrett expects the reader to realize the error, especially given that this is one of a series of scenes where the lesson is becoming increasingly more clear.

He showed that harder work is rewarded with more wealth and power, but that this very power necessarily made "slaves" of everyone else. And that it was legitimate for them to rebel against that "enslavement" by force or any other means available to them. In any case, his solution to this problem was not simply to support justice and individual rights, as Ayn Rand does, but to completely cave in to the "slaves" and create a society where no one has leisure, and everyone toils equally. An egalitarian society.

The trouble I have with this interpretation stems from the word "necessarily", and again from the question of point of view. Mered's examples do show that envy on the part of the lazy follows success on the part of the industrious. But isn't that a correct observation of reality? True, it is to the moral fault of the lazy that they fall prey to the envy, and that they act on the envy to attack the productive, but that's just what we see in the real world, and what's illustrated by the rise of the parasites in Atlas Shrugged. It is certainly NOT true that envy is the necessary result of some working harder than others, but this would be another example of Garrett not going as deep as Ayn Rand. He's not offering a diagnosis and a solution through philosophy. He's merely observing the symptom, that the less productive do in fact conclude that the sight of abler men (paraphrased from the Fountainhead I think?) insults them by implication.

There were passages scattered throughout the book that led me to believe Mered saw the proletariat as superior to the capitalist. They are hard to find without a physical copy of the book, but I jotted a few down. On page 77 he said " . . . [the man who digs coal] receives less pay and less honour than another person performing in linen [i take this to mean a white collar worker, or management] a preferred and less essential task." This seems a clear statement that manual labor is more important than management or capital, which are "less essential." How else can it be interpreted?

Mered's words presume that the reader agrees with the generalization that a white-collar worker will receive more pay and prestige than a blue collar worker. Of course, on the face of it that observation is also statistically true, but of course fans of Ayn Rand would disagree that there is no honor in blue collar work. But this is the middle of the book, and there is no Ayn Rand or Garrett character speaking at that point. The main character, who is probably more representative of Garrett than is Mered, does attempt to argue, but admits that "I am not skillful in these matters of economics." It's also important to note that this exchange comes after the main character had argued that "There is another kind of trade which surely is open to unlimited extension in principle. I mean trade such as even now is being transacted on a very large scale among equals, for example between Europe and the United States. In this trade there is a voluntary exchange of commodities for mutual advantage without coercion on either side." That's a pretty fair statement of the proper position, but that's not the point Garrett was intending to address through his parable.

And then the passage I quoted in a previous post: "everyone to assume his fair share of it [the toil of physical labor]. No one to exploit the toil of another. No one to hire that to be done for him, or on account of him, which he is loath to do for himself . . . " Clearly he believes capital and management have heretofore been exploiting labor.

I am going to need to look up that passage to find the context, but I think the answer is the same as I would make to this:

Overall, the character Mered, who is presumably a stand in for Garrett, views man's lot as tragic, specifically because he has to work in order to live - "the curse of toil." He actually discusses the (I presume) Biblical passage where man is so cursed, while the snake is made to go about on its belly in the dirt - and Mered says the snake got the better end of the bargain, because it doesn't have to work to live. It merely takes life as it comes.

This is another example where I believe Garrett is employing the Biblical analogy (such as he did in naming "The Peoples' Pottage" which makes no sense to those who do not know the story of Jacob and Esau). In my view he has placed these observations you quote in the mouth of Lucifer. Do we in fact agree that the snake is blessed because he can crawl around and eat what is at hand, and man is cursed because he must work to live? ;-)

I don't think Garrett would put his own views directly in the mouth of a Lucifer character who had already been responsible for WWI and was about to start the future world war, without also intending that the reader separate the truth from the misdirection. Some of what Mered says is presumably Garrett's position, but the part that IS his position is probably found in the chapter entitled "The Answer", in a scene just prior to the second world war. There, Mered says that the way out of the cycle of class warfare is that "Man must embrace the curse." (page 121) Mered says, "Once man has embraced the curse, he would no longer take pride in shirking the drudgery which is inseparable from existence." Given all we know about Garrett's career, this has got be "apocryphal" - work is of course not a "curse" but a "blessing," and it is in fact essential to man's life that he support himself through productive work (I'm thinking here of the Roark formulation especially). Garrett knew that; it's what The Driver is all about.

OK, I completely admit that this is a long way around the path to get to a destination, but this is also why it's laughable for the libertarians to say that Atlas Shrugged plagiarized The Driver. Garrett simply wasn't dealing at the same deep level as was Ayn Rand (especially in this book). Seems to me he was using a literary device to make a limited point, and maybe also attempting to reach people who might follow his point better in a familiar semi-Biblical analogy. Stripped of the parable / fantasy context, the argument is that self-reliance is the way to avoid dependence on others, and thereby to avoid the friction that generally arises because both the depender and the dependee end up resenting each other. It would have been a lot clearer to use a scenario where a character came right out and clearly explained the point, but then that wouldn't be the way a Lucifer character would operate, and wouldn't have made for as challenging a parable.

[Kitty Hawk 0]

Kitty:

If I have read your posts correctly, you and I have read the same two books (The Driver and Blue Wound). Maybe once I read more I will change my mind, but for now I think much of the difficulty stems from the "parable" format:

It seems to me that Garrett does not intend Mered to be representative of Garrett's own views. Based various references throughout the book, on the similarlty of the scenario (flying around; looking down at the world from a mountaintop-like place; supernatural powers), and the inference that Mered had himself caused the WWI, I interpret Mered to be a Lucifer / Satan character. Rather than being Garrett's mouthpiece, Mered seems to be more representative of the common superficial religious viewpoint. I think it's also important that standard procedure for a Satan character is that he will employ trickery to make his points -- the cliche is that Satan will say things that seem reasonable, and may even have a grain of truth in them, but distort the truth and tempt toward incorrect and disasterous conclusions.

I have only read The Blue Wound. I intend to read The Driver, however, and perhaps his other books as well. The first comparison that came to my mind when reading The Blue Wound was Nietzsche's Zarathustra, who speaks in similar fashion to Mered, with equal disdain for the opinion of the masses. But you are undoubtedly correct that Lucifer is more likely the model, since he is in fact referred to in the novel. However, it is also possible that Garrett would favor a Lucifer character over "the jealous wrath," or God, in the same way people favor Prometheus over the jealous gods of the Greek pantheon. Prometheus aided man against the gods, and Mered at least says he wants to do the same.

While Mered started WWI, his stated aim was to teach mankind the lesson that nations do not actually need to go out and steal other countries resources to survive. As he said, Germany was totally cut off from resources from other countries during the war, but got along without them. But man failed to learn the lesson, according to Mered.

I am not real familiar with the ways of parables, and that's a fact. I truly do not understand why someone would write a book expounding a philosophy that is opposite to his own. I will have to reread the chapter called the Answer to see if he does in fact answer it. When he made the point about free trade for mutual advantage you quoted, Mered then went into his spiel about America being different than others, without adequately explaining what he meant.

My comments are not meant to criticize Garrett as a fiction writer. I actually liked his style of writing, and intend to read his other works. I greatly enjoy Hugo's writing, in spite of his philosophy. The same may be true for Garrett.

[CICEROSC 0]

I truly do not understand why someone would write a book expounding a philosophy that is opposite to his own.

It is too early in my reading of Garrett, so I am not yet at all sure that this applies, but are you familiar with this theory of writing from the relatively famous philosopher Leo Strauss (from Wikipedia)?

In 1952 Strauss published Persecution and the Art of Writing; a work that advanced the possibility that philosophers wrote esoterically to avoid persecution by the state or religious authority, while also being able to reach potential philosophers within the pious faithful. From this point on in his scholarship, Strauss deepened his conception of this means of communication between philosophers and “potential knowers.” Stemming from his study of Maimonides and Al Farabi, and then extended to his reading of Plato (he mentions particularly the discussion of writing in the Phaedrus) Strauss thought that an esoteric text was the proper type for philosophic learning. Rather than simply outlining the philosopher's thoughts, the esoteric text forces readers to do their own thinking and learning. As Socrates says in the Phaedrus, writing does not respond when questioned, but this type of writing invites a kind of dialogue with the reader, thereby reducing the problems of the written word. ....

Ultimately, Strauss believed that philosophers offered both an "exoteric" or salutary teaching and an "esoteric" or true teaching, which was concealed from the general reader. For maintaining this distinction, Strauss is often accused of having written esoterically himself. This opinion is perhaps encouraged because many of Strauss's works are difficult and sometimes seem mysterious. Moreover, a careful reading will show that he also emphasized that writers using this "lost" form of writing often left contradictions and other excuses to encourage the more careful examination of the writing. There are many examples of this in Strauss's own published works, providing a source of much debate surrounding Strauss.

Therefore, a controversy exists surrounding Strauss's interpretation of the existing philosophical canon. Strauss believed that the writings of many philosophers contained both an exoteric and esoteric teaching, which is often not perceived by modern academics. Most famously, he believed that Plato's Republic should never have been read as a proposal for a real regime (as it is in the works of Karl Popper for example).

[Kitty Hawk 0]

It is too early in my reading of Garrett, so I am not yet at all sure that this applies, but are you familiar with this theory of writing from the relatively famous philosopher Leo Strauss (from Wikipedia)?

I have heard of such esoteric writing, yes. I suppose it is possible Garrett may have written esoterically. I would simply say that it isn't a good idea. It leaves the writer's ideas wide open to total misinterpretation, with no way of proving what he meant, one way or the other.

[CICEROSC 0]

This weekend I read "A Time is Born" that Garrett wrote in 1944.

As with the Blue Wound, the book is a strange mix mostly focused on international trade. If someone were (like me) looking for common threads in Garrett's viewpoints, be sure to read the LAST chapter. It turns out that the phrase A Time Is Born apparently refers to his observation that world history was about to take a revolutionary turn, in that science was going to make it possible for nations to become more and more self-reliant and less dependent on others for vital supplies. As a result, he seems to be concluding that while the economic conflicts in the past may have been an inevitable result of the European social systems (at least to some degree), the future held the promise of less conflict through greater self-reliance.

I am developing a working hypothesis about why some of this is so confusing as I try to compare it to the work of Ayn Rand. Although I thought his commentary in Blue Wound was intended to be of universal application, I now think what Garrett was focused on then (and clearly so in A Time is Born) was not so much "international trade" in the sense of Free Trade / Capitalism but specifically EUROPEAN trade theories such as colonialism and mercantilism. Maybe this is because Garrett had just lived through two world wars, but I think his examples of the rise and fall of cities, and the inherent tension between manufacturing and agriculture/mining/manual labor, is more a commentary on the ancient world and colonialism than on what we think of as free trade between free nations today. For example, the constant use of the "rise and fall of cities" that Garrett refers to doesn't really have a parallel in the history of the United States. It's much more applicable to ancient civilizations and the competition between colonial powers that was evidently largely a cause of World War I. Further, we know from his other writings that Garrett was VERY opposed to the US bailing out the war debt of the European countries, so he was obviously spending a lot of time thinking about how European mercantile ideas (evidently adopted by Japan as well) were so destructive.

Maybe on this point there's a relevance to the fact that when Ayn Rand left Russia, she didn't stop and settle in Berlin, or Paris, or London. When I think of the passion with which she adopted and defended the AMERICAN sense and way of life (such as her defense of the US agaisnt charges of racism, genocide, etc. in the West Point QA session) I suspect that something similar is behind Garrett's viewpoint. He's specifically defending AMERICAN concepts of justice, freedom. and free trade between equals, against EUROPEAN colonial economic views that tolerated slavery and similar use of force to settle trade disputes.

If there's any truth to that, then what Garrett was really opposing was not free trade between free people as a concept -- nowhere do I see him advocating trade barriers between New York and New Jersey. Rather I suspect he was advocating self-reliance rather than dependence upon enemies for vital resources.

As I commented above with cites to Ayn Rand, that's certainly a legitimate perspective in time of war, and a matter for serious debate between men of good will in times that seem to be moving in that direction.

[Kitty Hawk 0]

I just finished reading The Driver. It is an interesting business novel, along the lines of several I've read by Samuel Merwin, Henry Kitchell Webster, and Frank Spearman. Garrett is more knowledgeable about economics than the others. Henry Galt seems to be a composite of many of the so-called "Robber Barons," including Carnegie, Rockefeller, JJ Hill, and Jay Gould. I have a suspicion that Garrett modelled the name 'Galt' on 'Gould.' Of all the giant titans of that day, Gould was the most villified in the press (as Galt is in the novel), and he eventually took control of a great railroad - the Union Pacific. Henry Galt resembles him very much.

I was also interested in Garrett's descriptions of the silver/gold question of the 1890s, and the consequent run on gold that resulted from Congress's irrational meddling. I'd like to read a historical book on that whole situtation.