The Journals of Ayn Rand, page 66
Since all work is done individually, a cooperative work is divided into specific parts, each of which has to be done by an individual; when these parts and the specific individual jobs are not consciously defined by the men involved, inefficiency, friction and trouble follow. An organization is successful to the extent that it functions on such specific division of labor and responsibility, even if unstated and arrived at pragmatically, not consciously and rationally. The extent to which jobs and responsibilities infringe on one another and blend “collectively,” with the decisions and judgment of one man interfering with or being forced on another, determines the degree of the organization’s inefficiency and failure.
(“Division of labor” must also be “division of responsibility.”)
As example of the absence of such clear definitions, with awful results: the motion picture industry. In their stated theory, the movies have no such definitions; they merely hold the producer as omniscient and omnipotent. In practice, they are forced to observe definitions, sort of by default, “bootleg” definitions—and only to that extent do they or can they function successfully.
As example of proper definition on a railroad: it is the president’s job to set the general policy of the road; it is the job of each subordinate to carry out his part of the work toward the accomplishment of that policy. A freight agent has no business deciding what the railroad as a whole should do; his job, specifically, is to see that freight is handled in the best manner possible. An engineer on a train must understand and accept the conditions of his job, which is to run the engine of a train. It is not his job to decide when the train goes, what it carries, what it charges and to whom. His job is only to make it move, on a certain schedule, from a certain point to another certain point.
If he thinks the conditions imposed on him for the operation of the engine are wrong (in strict relation to his job of running it, and only to that), he should not hold the job; he should quit. For instance, if he thinks the rules of stopping, accelerating, watching signals, etc., are wrong—he must not hold this job, because he cannot hold it successfully. If he does not understand the rules and just obeys automatically, he’s no good at the job. If he thinks the rules are wrong, and he is mistaken about it, he still cannot be good at the job by obeying the rules blindly. If he thinks the rules are wrong, and he’s right about it—he shouldn’t keep the job, because the result will be disastrous to him and to the company that enforces the wrong rules. (He is, of course, free to make suggestions to his superiors at any time; but if they disagree and he is convinced that he’s right, he should quit.)
How can an average man know whether he’s right or wrong? By never attempting a job where, in the specific performance of his duties, he has to venture beyond the limit of his own capacity of independent rational judgment, and act without understanding. If he understands a problem, he is sure of whether he’s right or wrong; if he isn’t sure, and can’t arrive at any certainty with the most careful study, he must leave the problem and the job alone.
Within the province of his job, no man should do anything for a reason such as the desire or opinion of another man, or of a number of other men. Certainly not anything that he himself rationally considers wrong. But more than that: if he has no rational grounds for an action, one way or another, still he must not do it if the only reason is the desire or order of another man.
Dagny’s job (if not by title, then in fact—I must check on that, as far as her official position on TT is concerned) is to run the whole railroad. She accepts the interference of James Taggart and government “regulators” as an unavoidable part of her job, an unavoidable evil. She thinks she can work in spite of that interference, or get around it, or compromise with it, and still make the railroad successful. That is her mistake. It can’t be done.
By accepting Taggart’s decisions, which she knows to be wrong, then by helping him to carry out bad ideas well (such as efficiently delivering the “soybean freight,” when it should never have been attempted at all), she only helps him to run the railroad badly and thus contradicts and defeats her own purpose, which is to run it well. She postpones the natural consequences of his bad decisions (which would be disastrous) and thus leaves him free and gives him the means to do more damage to the railroad by even worse decisions.
A bad thing done well is more dangerous and disastrous than a bad thing done badly. An efficient robbery is worse for the victim than an inefficient one. The fool Republicans who help the New Deal to enforce unworkable regulations destroy their own industries—because unworkable regulations inefficiently enforced would give the industries a better chance to function and survive.
This is Dagny’s mistake—based on an imperfect understanding of cooperation with men, of her need of their services in her own aim, and on the difficulty of defining the job of an executive in charge of a huge organization that involves thousands of men. But when she accepts Taggart’s stupidities and tries to make them work (for the sake of the railroad, hoping to get around them or counteract their bad effects), she is doing the equivalent of what I would do if I agreed to put something into a book of mine which I considered bad, but which the publishers, critics or public demanded, and if I justified myself by an argument such as: well, they want it, and after all I have to deal with them, etc. I could not say (like all the damn Republican fools) that I would accomplish my purpose in spite of such compromises: if I consider the outside suggestions bad, that means they are bad for my book and its purpose, therefore by accepting them I defeat my purpose. (Yet this is just what all men mixed by “social” considerations are doing nowadays. And this, in a more complex form, is what Dagny does.)
The pattern of the proper cooperation among men goes like this:
First, the basic premise, without which men cannot deal with one another safely or rationally: that each man lives only for his own sake; therefore, he acts only for his own personal profit, respecting the same right and motive in every other man; therefore, they can act together only if the action is personally profitable to each man involved; and the objective test of that is each man’s own free decision and voluntary consent.
Second, the objective, general purpose of the organization is understood and accepted by all men involved in it—and it is a “selfish” purpose in the same way as the purpose of each man involved.
Example: The purpose of every man working on a railroad should be, generally, to do productive work, which is the proper moral purpose of a human being; more specifically, to do the kind of work he likes or has chosen, and to earn his own living through that work (which means, in effect, to produce and keep the product of one’s own work). No man can expect anything from others as a “sacrifice,” i.e., as a one-sided advantage, a consideration of his own desires with no selfish compensation for or advantage to the other party. (The objective test? Voluntary mutual consent.) No employee can expect ten dollars a day, because he needs it, if his boss can get men willing to do the same work for one dollar. No boss can expect an employee to work for one dollar, if the worker can get ten dollars elsewhere. Any forced freezing, or artificial agreements, or the mere confusion of this principle (“no sacrifice of anyone to anyone”), will not work. It only leads to hatred, injustice, disaster, and destruction.
The relation of a railroad as a whole to the other industries of the country, to its customers and to the whole nation, is the same as that of each man working on it to each other man; here the railroad may be considered as a unit among other units. The purpose of a railroad is to produce a certain commodity (transportation) and to keep the product of its work (profit). Its purpose is not to “serve the nation” nor to “serve its shippers.” You do not run a railroad just because sharecroppers need train rides; their need is none of your concern—unless they can pay their fare, i.e., give you something of value in exchange for what you give to them.
And it is not the purpose of the nation or of the shippers to serve the railroad. Men deal with the railroad only when their mutual interests agree and the exchange is to mutual selfish advantage. The objective test? The voluntary consent of both parties involved—the railroad and the shippers. But if the railroad is considered and run as a “service” (i.e., service to others being its primary purpose, and profits being ignored), then there is nothing but greed, exploitation, inefficiency, failure, and destruction ahead.
This is so by definition: if a railroad is to be run without regard for profit, this means without regard for cost or efficiency; if it serves some project for subnormal charity objects and this service does not pay its cost, someone has to pay for it. The railroad then consumes more than it produces. When all production and all industries are run on such a principle—there is soon nothing left to consume.
Yet the above is precisely what James Taggart tries to do—both in relation to the purpose and policy of TT as a whole (“public service”), and in relation to the duties of employees within the organization (“the strong must serve the weak,” “the interest of any employee must be sacrificed to the interest of the railroad,” “team-work,” etc.). Instead of the growing prosperity that comes from a principle that makes each man profit by cooperating with others, Taggart creates misery and growing poverty by a principle that demands, within, the sacrifice of each man to the organization, and, without, the sacrifice of the organization to other organizations (or collectives, or “the nation”). This is blatantly evident in one simple statement: One system is based on the principle of profit, the other—on the principle of sacrifice; therefore, one will achieve general prosperity, the other—general misery.
This is what Dagny deals with and accepts (if not explicitly, at least implicitly). This is what she hopes to work with and around. That is her mistake and her failure. It can’t be done.
Here, also, is the difference between Dagny and Roark: Roark had no concern for others, and kept them out of his work (and when they did interfere, he took action against them); Dagny has no concern for others and lets them interfere in her work, accepting the interference. The proper concern for others is self-protection-the protection of one’s own principles and inalienable rights, and above all, the protection of oneself against being anybody’s “servant,” the keeping of one’s moral principle of living for one’s own sake.
Regarding Dagny’s determination to function as a creator at all costs: Dagny doesn’t understand the difference between the relation of the creator to nature and to people. In relation to nature, the creator must function to shape the world to his wishes—against every obstacle. In relation to people, he must not allow them (and their rules, stupidity, or force) to come between him and nature—because then he destroys his first function, he makes it impossible, so that he can no longer master nature, but becomes helpless before it, like the parasites.
A creator must function at all costs—but not at the cost of his own principles, not at the cost of his independence, because then he makes it impossible for himself to function; he destroys his base and premise.
Plot Lines for Characters
(To illustrate, dramatize, and integrate their individual progressions)
John Galt
No progression here (as Roark had none). He is what he is from the beginning—integrated (indivisible) and perfect. No change in him, because he has no intellectual contradiction and, therefore, no inner conflict.
His important qualities (to bring out):
Joy in living—the peculiar, deeply natural, serene, all-pervading joy in living which he alone possesses so completely in the story (the other strikers have it in lesser degree, almost as reflections of that which, in him, is the source). His joy is all-pervading in the sense that it underlies all his actions and emotions, it is an intrinsic, inseparable part of his nature (like the color of his hair or eyes). It is present even when he suffers (particularly in the torture scene)—that is when the nature and quality of his joy in living is startling and obvious, it is not resignation or acceptance of suffering, but a denial of it, a triumph over it. (This is extremely important to convey—clearly, unmistakably.) And this quality of his is particularly what is lacking in the parasites and in their whole world, in the world as it has become. (He laughs, as answer to the crucial question of the torture scene.)
(The worship of joy as against the worship of suffering.)
Self-confidence, self-assurance, the clear-cut, direct, positive action, no doubts or hesitations.
The magnificent innocence—the untroubled purity—a pride which is serene, not aggressive—“the first man of ability who refused to feel guilty.”
Dagny Taggart
Progression from enthusiastic activity, joy in working, brilliant self-confidence and belief in the triumph of the right (of intelligence and competence) —to a helpless bewilderment in the face of the parasites’ behavior and motives—to a teeth-clenched determination to go ahead, ignoring them (end of Part I, beginning of Part II)—to a slow realization of the truth, with a slow anger growing with the steps of this realization.
Her full understanding of the issue and of the parasites is retarded because, as her anger grows, she comes to a stage of bitter contempt for them and refuses to think about them any longer. Her attitude becomes: “To hell with all of them—they are not worth considering or examining—I am not interested in them and never have been—so I will live for and think about my only interest: my work. I will deal with them only as I need them for my work, and I will use them for that. I can use them, not vice versa, because I am intelligent and they’re not. They’ll serve my purposes, not I theirs.” And this is true, so long as she does not accept their terms or compromise with their principles anywhere in her work and in her relations with them. When she does—they win and they use her, because they are more consistent in the application of their own principles and because she has placed her intelligence in their service, in the furtherance of their aims and principles, and thus she has turned her great and only weapon—her intelligence—against herself.
Thus, it is she who defeats herself—who makes it possible for her enemies to destroy her, to win. This is the pattern of the creators’ destruction of themselves through cooperation with parasites. You do not cooperate with parasites at any time. When and if you cooperate with a man, you can properly do so only to the degree that he can or is willing to act on the principles and terms of a creator in the particular activity or exchange involved. And no more than that. No further. And the terms of a creator are: “Man as an end in himself,” therefore every action must have a personal, selfish purpose or advantage for every man involved in it, recognized and accepted as such by the others involved in it.
Does this mean that you depend on them, on waiting for their recognition of your rights? No. You don’t have to deal with them; never primarily—only secondarily. So you merely refuse to deal with them, if they do not accept your terms. (Your attitude is: “Take it or leave it.”)
Those who can really be of help in the execution of your interests are only those who share your terms (or only to the extent that they do); they are the only ones capable of being of value to you. The others are of no use to you whatever. But you are of use to them (on your terms). (Their mistake is in thinking that they can make you of use to them—on their terms.) Hold out—and they will accept your terms to the extent to which they can survive at all. But give in, compromise—and you destroy your work, aims, desires, happiness, and life—you help them to last a while on the terms of evil, you postpone the justice of [reality‘s] retribution against them, you serve as their shield—and the end is only total destruction for you and for them.
June 30, 1946
To illustrate the preceding: Dagny’s whole problem is that she cannot find able men to work on the railroad she runs. Her very predicament disproves her idea that she needs others, the stupid or inferior ones, for her purpose, and therefore she must find some way to deal with them, must consider them or compromise with them (she does not really believe it, only wonders about it, is bewildered on this point—but so many others do believe it, particularly the professor). The fact is that she cannot do anything with inferiors—the “cooperation” she wants can be achieved only with men of intelligence (to the extent of intelligence she needs from them).
Cooperation can be done only on a level; if one attempts to do it “down,” one fails. If a person’s attitude is: “My superior intelligence has a great goal or project in mind, but unfortunately I need dumbbells to carry out my orders, so I must adjust myself to them in some way, scale down my ideas, principles and methods”—that person is doomed to fail. If your project requires the services or cooperation of others, your only chance is to find those equal to the particular task it requires of them; adjusting the great project down to those inferior to their proposed part in it does not raise them, but merely destroys the project.
Dagny needs men with whom she can deal on her own terms, the terms of the creator, the terms of intelligence, capacity and independence—or she can do nothing. What, then, is the proper interrelationship of men working on a project, such as the building of a great skyscraper? They cooperate through and are held together by their various capacities—not their inferiorities. The bricklayer has contributed his ability—but the architect has contributed a much greater ability: [he has provided] the opportunity for the exercise of the abilities of the others involved, and this must be acknowledged.
