Who is Henry Galt?
Fortune takes note of the "crumbling infrastructure" and suggests that Randian capitalists might come to the rescue (the article is confused and meandering so no reason to ponder the thesis completely). But it does remind me of the book I just read last week, one I thought was just over-the-top wonderful: The Driver, by Garet Garrett.
It is set at the tail end of the Gilded Age, when railroads were being taxed and regulated to the point that they were losing money, even as their loses were being picked up by the taxpayer and the railroads being made public property. Along comes a shadowy speculator named Henry Galt, about whom everyone has previously asked: "Who is Henry Galt." He emerges into public view by buying out a railroad and gaining total control of it. He spends like crazy for upgrades and reroutes and generally does an amazing job in turning losses to profits. He then moves on to acquire more enterprises until he becomes a member of the super-rich, while working that mad. It is a thrilling story, complete with a detailed description of why bi-metallism didn't work.
But he makes a few too many people angry in the process. The FTC, his competitors, and Congress put him on trial. He is even arrested! But in some thrilling testimony that explains the role of the speculator and capitalist, during which time the railroad stock begins rising again, he is ultimately vindicated.
This is just a wonderful book. In fact, I read it in two 4-hour sessions, and I didn't want it to end. Another 200 or 300 pages would have been much welcome. Garrett is a wonderful stylist and he understands markets like few 20th century novelists.
You might be wondering about the unusual parallels with Atlas Shrugged. Wonder all you want. There is no real way to answer the question. But it is a fact that The Driver came out in 1922.
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Comments (10)
Comments (10)
Cosmic Vortex
Very interesting. I wonder if Rand may have read this as a child and forgot she read it, then it spins around in her subconscious for a few years until she spins it back into Atlas.
Published: August 15, 2007 8:56 AM
Randall Besch
Wouldn't be the first time for a writer to be consciously or unconsciously affected by other works.
Published: August 15, 2007 10:35 AM
Mark Humphrey
Garet Garrett was a powerful writer, who had the ability to shed light on the subject of political philosophy as few others of his generation did.
I read "The People's Pottage", which criticized FDR's power grab and welfare state manipulations, when I was about 15. Wowed by this rare and telling criticism of a left-wing People's Hero, I immediately turned to "The Rise of Empire".
"Empire" was even more awesome than "Pottage", because Garrett effectively drove home a point about which almost everyone else on the right was silent (in 1962). Garrett explained that the American rise of empire, beginning with US intervention in the Spanish American War and extending through both World Wars, gathered power to the state at the expense of individual liberty.
I was slightly astonished but persuaded by Garrett's radical and sweeping theme of the virtue of small, republican government, dedicated to defending individual freedom at home, and minding its own business--and none other--abroad.
For the first time, it began to dawn on me that the William Buckley crusaders were pulled along by the same cultural currents as nearly everyone else.
All thanks to the remarkable Garet Garrett.
Published: August 15, 2007 3:20 PM
KAZ
One must also face the possibility that Rand was dishonest and a plaigerist. I've long noted that, in Atlas Shrugged, she treats the dishonesty of her characters as heroic, as long as it's being used for the goal of bringing down the State. The fraudulent copper mine, for example, is a prime example of coercion through deception, although of course an apologist might be tempted to offer a Clintonian sophism as to whether actual falsehoods were uttered in some exact way.
The end, it seems justified the means in Rand's mind...perhaps it would extend to stealing another's words.
Note that I don't even believe in intellectual monopoly laws like copyrights and patents...but I do believe that deception is wrong, including the conscious use of another's words, then claimed as one's own without their permission.
Published: August 15, 2007 8:05 PM
gene berman
Doubt that she read such a book as a child and then forgot where she'd read it. If memory serves, she emigrated (from Russia) to the US as a young adult.
Published: August 16, 2007 8:23 AM
lester
"over-the-top wonderful" lol
Published: August 16, 2007 11:32 AM
Grant Williams
I'd like to take issue with the comment "KAZ" made. Although I have not read "The Driver", it doesn't change the much greater magnitude and seemingly more sophisticated indictment of collectivism that "Atlas Shrugged" addresses. If the existence of this novel is it's inspiration, it doesn't change the fact that that was Rand's original work.
I do agree that it is certainly possible that Rand plagarized the basic plot and the main character's last name from "The Driver." From what I know of her character, and she dealt with her schism from Nathaniel Branden, it wouldn't suprise me.
However, except for perhaps during her interest in Nietzsche in her younger years, I don't believe that Rand ever explicitly believed in the doctrine of "the ends justifies the means." Nor is this reflected in "Atlas Shrugged." Given the much greater role of the state in her novel as opposed to "The Driver" as well as the much more precarious state of the nation at large, the actions of the novel's protagonists did not constitute fraud. None of them owed their would-be opporessors the truth any more than a homeowner owes a would-be burglar a tip about how to break into his house.
Published: August 16, 2007 2:50 PM
Grant Williams
I'd like to take issue with the comment "KAZ" made. Although I have not read "The Driver", it doesn't change the much greater magnitude and seemingly more sophisticated indictment of collectivism that "Atlas Shrugged" addresses. If the existence of this novel is it's inspiration, it doesn't change the fact that that was Rand's original work.
I do agree that it is certainly possible that Rand plagarized the basic plot and the main character's last name from "The Driver." From what I know of her character, and she dealt with her schism from Nathaniel Branden, it wouldn't suprise me.
However, except for perhaps during her interest in Nietzsche in her younger years, I don't believe that Rand ever explicitly believed in the doctrine of "the ends justifies the means." Nor is this reflected in "Atlas Shrugged." Given the much greater role of the state in her novel as opposed to "The Driver" as well as the much more precarious state of the nation at large, the actions of the novel's protagonists did not constitute fraud. None of them owed their would-be opporessors the truth any more than a homeowner owes a would-be burglar a tip about how to break into his house.
Published: August 16, 2007 2:50 PM
Brian
You've all been taken in by this bogus joke, apparently concocted to promote the Mises Institute's republication of the book in 2007. There is no "reoccurring literary motif through the book [that] has people asking: 'Who is Henry Galt?'" as the Mises review claims on Amazon. The question appears once, on page 52 as: "Who is Henry M. Galt?", and is asked by the narrator who is not familiar with the character.
This is quite different from the Mises blog assertion that it's a question "everyone has previously asked..." ...? Not quite.
She could have read it. The connections are: railroads, politics, socialism, and the last name "Galt". But the claim that she took the motif, which would clearly indicate the theft of an idea, is unfounded.
Published: August 24, 2008 12:50 PM
Daniel
Hmm... I would have to say that anyone who believes Ayn Rand supported the "ends justify the means" moral theory knows very little about Rand.
Published: August 24, 2008 5:50 PM