I think the inventions WOULD make a lot of money. Dagny bought a lot of Rearden Metal, and after the success of the JG Line, the orders stacked up. And how much would Dagny have paid for JG's motor to power locomotives without fuel? A lot. And there would be other applications as well, of course. How about a "Tesla" you never had to plug in?

JG used his job at the railroad to keep an eye on Dagny, for sure, but he and others needed jobs on the outside. I don't recall the specific reasons. But others worked outside as well. Akston ran a diner. Owen Kellogg had several outside jobs. There was the conductor that whistled Halley's "5th Concerto".

According to my understanding, these inventions would not make their inventors much money unless they were not doing one specific thing: increasing productivity in some way versus the most optimal technology for the task of the time. Galt's generator presumably allowed its users to spend less man hours (than competitor technology) making use of it (no mining/drilling for fuel, no transporting fuel, no disposing of waste). Rearden metal presumably had higher durability and longevity, making it cheaper (than competitor alloys) due to requiring less man hours to replace over time. However, if one was to invent a more durable horse carriage then it wouldn't make them much money because there is already a more productive competitor technology: cars. I would argue that one does not necessarily need to be smart to know about the above (maybe somebody smart tells them), nor does one need to be too smart to accidentally stumble upon some discovery that matches the above criteria (such as discovering a high-purity/low-effort gold deposit). Although, I guess odds would probably be in one's favor if one was.

I would also argue that menial jobs do require some level of intelligence. Technically speaking, all signals coming out of the brain are its product.

Wasn't Galt's menial labor job just a cover?

It's not just the "smarts" but the application. Galt's motor/generator. Rearden metal. Admittedly fictional, but these things would make life more productive.

I don't know... That's like saying I'm productive because I'm smart, but one doesn't necessarily follow from the other. I was looking for some physical process, such as "assembly line makes the production of cars cheaper (than doing without it), hence allowing for much cheaper car prices but also much bigger margins, therefore causing huge wealth generation for both, the consumer and the producer".

I have a theory about wealth creation. It seems like nobody seems to understand where wealth comes from. The book didn't express it, which I found disappointing, but maybe I missed it. The gist of it is that increase in wealth is a result of increase in productivity. Any return from investment that doesn't result in increase in productivity is a zero-sum investment in which your gain is a loss of someone else in the economy. Making cars cheaper (=less man hours) to produce results in increase in wealth of not just the producer (at least initially) but of the entire economy. I argued with people about this, but not a lot of people seem to get it. Maybe I should create a separate post to discuss this.

I was put on a worthless assignment once. I almost lost my marbles over it as it went on for a year and a half. I finally walked out the door. As I left my boss said they'd take the pile of crap off my desk. I said, "A week after I turn down this job it will be back on my desk. I just don't trust you guys anymore." I'll never forget that. As I moved to my Gulch state I took the beautiful nameplate that had given me for my cubicle and threw it in the dumpster in my driveway...

Well. Nevermind.

The reason for their productivity (or creativity, in the case of Richard Halley) is THE MIND. The strikers refused to put their minds at the disposal of those who would steal their creations. Many of the strikers actually worked outside the gulch (including Galt himself), but only in menial jobs that did not require the use of their minds.

As for "other critiques", I say bring them on! This has been the kind of discussion I like to see here in our virtual gulch.

I thought maybe the ending meant something slightly different and not literally going back to the way things were.

The collapse sounded like a hard stop. That has some severe consequences. It would take at least decades to restart. Meanwhile, food production would be way down and population size would need to fall. You wouldn't be able to "go back to the world" and continue as usual, especially so soon after the events that transpired. I would guess they would have to stay put for a few years to let things settle down.

Did they really think they could to go back? They seem to be too sure that the masses are on the same page. It is possible people might attribute the collapse to something else, maybe possibly judging them as saboteurs that caused the mess in the first place. People can be stubborn in admitting their mistakes.

It did not make sense to me.

Maybe the word "mogul" is be a bad pick. I meant to say "a person with importance in their industry".

👍🏻 Up maxguru . In AS the gulch was a hide out to outlast the deadly chaos of society burning itself to the ground. One man’s utopia is another man’s cage. Reading AS I felt the gulch was a type of utopia. People that were like minded bringing their skill of best practices to mundane human tasks. Some people have ambitions to live in splendor and grandness others just want to live laugh and love. The Galt’s Gulch was safe , had unlimited energy , beautiful scenery, fertile soil , minerals, timber , populated by people who espoused the same value system and philosophy. Obviously fiction but attractive in its description. Another fictional novel is the Utopian book by Huxley ,”The Island” .

Max, as FFA and VG have said, the intent was always to "go back to the world" - once the collectivist regime had collapsed, which collapse the strike was intended to precipitate. And I don't think the assumption that the majority of the population outside would die of starvation is correct either - unless the collectivist regime went Full Stalin and forced a famine upon the population out of raw socialist evil (a redundancy, that.) Eventually general conditions would get so bad that people would rebel against their overlords, if not as a general movement then as a continuous fraying of the totalitarian structure that it depends upon (à la the unraveling of Asimov's Galactic Empire in the "Foundation" trilogy.) At minimum the totalitarian structure would weaken to the point of instability long before people started dropping dead of starvation by the tens of millions. Which instability would allow for retaking the country by the adults.

If we want to extrapolate possible outcomes far beyond Atlas' scope and beyond the closing scenes of the novel we could do it all weekend (my speculation would be that there would almost certainly have to be some degree of armed conflict to drive out the remaining collectivist roaches before a civilization of human rights and liberty could be reestablished,) but again that extrapolation is beyond the purpose of Rand's novel.

Remembering the purpose of fiction - or any art - is key here. The novel had a theme to assert and an integrated plot was needed for exposition of that theme. As Rand herself pointed out in her discussions of aesthetics - not the least of which in the pages of The Fountainhead - great art does not throw in non-essential elements just for the fun of it. The artist restricts the work to what is needed. Galt's Gulch performed the role the novel needed it to perform - to illustrate the fact that without the mind no society can maintain any semblance of industrial civilization. Ultimately it would have to work, even if Galt had to continue poaching every competent worker from CEO down to conscientious janitor.
.

It seems they never learn from their mistakes, and still the incompetent are
promoted to positions of management over the competent.
When I gave notice to management that I was leaving
(after 2 years of un-appreciation) I offered to come back as a consultant
at half the rate my new employer would charge. It was obvious I would
be needed sometime in the next 6 months, but 'management' couldn't
admit that and declined the offer. (I had already arranged this with my new
employer where my job was as just such a consultant for their clients.)
Two months later I was needed for several months as consultant and
'management's' bad decision was made obvious ... again.
Two years later another of "management's" irrational decisions caught up
with them permanently: AIDS.

I was in a similar position. They forced me to work on non-productive crap, then gave me bad ratings when the important stuff fell behind.

I "shrugged" and went to work contracting, and eventually got a couple short term jobs pulling my old company out of the ditch. At about twice the pay. They had learned to "value" me the hard way.

Another appropriate quote! you got it in while I was typing (yes I am that slow ...)

Excellent description. Thanks. I was thinking along those lines, but you said it better.

The intention of the "gulchers" was always to return to society, after the collapse, and rebuild the US with a model that recognizes innovation and productivity. The strike was not intended to last forever, only until society collapsed from lack of the strikers support.

Recall JG's words to DT near the end of the book:
"It's the end," she said. "It's the beginning," he answered.

"The road is cleared", said Galt. "We are going back to the world."

Atlas Shrugged created by Ayn Rand is science fiction. Don't lose sight of that. It is a marvelous tool to illustrate various points and to get us thinking of comparisons to real life and how it applies. Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry is science fiction. Don't lose sight of that. It is a marvelous tool... etc.

"moguls" productive/wealth-seeking people

Many of the characters in Atlas Shrugged that I admire do not fit that description, they were wealth seeking but not moguls. They will not become wealthy moguls.

Withers. Hank's assistant. The engineer Dagny tried to recruit. Cheryl Brooks. the composer. the bus driver. the train driver. the tramp. the train conductor. the mathematician college caretaker. the philosophy prof. ..
(Pardon my memory for names).
Francisco, Galt, Ragnar are moguls but are plot carriage devices. Dangy and Hank are great realistic characters.

It is not the management of vast resources but it is self management, work ethic, honesty, and the thinking and eliminating of contradictions that makes them heroes.

How did Rand put it? Life should be a heroic endeavor.

Maybe your reading of the book has come to a mistaken conclusion. In fact the premise is not a road map of how to create or get to the Gulch, but the question of what attitudes of mind and behavior lead the way.
How close can we get? At least start in the correct direction.

I must have missed where it gives the reason for the super productivity of the protagonists. Would you point it out? There must be actual physically observable reasons, not just 'greed', 'love of money', 'capitalism', 'profit', 'capital', etc. It does say they were not altruists but, as far as I can tell, it doesn't necessarily make one productive.

I do have other critiques of the ideas book, but maybe I'll bring those up in future posts.

Before I pulled the plug on my main career path (now I'm part-time and having fun) they were talking a lot about forcing the shots. I decided I'd just stand my ground on that - make em physically throw me out if it came to that. Luckily, it was all just talk.

I've got the impression that Gulch members wouldn't be returning. They wouldn't be able to. As I recall, everything was collapsing as they were leaving. So, my understanding was that majority of the population would die (of hunger) due to the fact that a population at the given level would need industrialization to sustain required food production output. So, the "hard way" would be death from which most wouldn't return to learn anything.

I would say that Gulch members themselves wouldn't be in a much better position. They would have to spend 90% of their time "gardening" because they wouldn't be able to produce mechanized farm equipment/etc (for increased productivity) due to the required complexity of the supply chain for such things.

Even if they did return, the new population levels would still impose severe limitations on them.

I guess the book is a work of fiction, so, maybe I shouldn't take it too literally. But if that was to happen in reality, there would not be any painless way out of it even for productive people.

I think what I'm trying to say is that the point of the Gulch is wrong. This strategy would not work. Even as a threat.

the basic issue i have is that i like my job and i think i am good at it

i help my co-workers when i can, but as the mis-treatment from above continues, i simply keep to myself more often than not

if i were not married i'd have walked away when they forced the covid fake shots on us, i'm happy that i went with the J&J one as it was not mRNA

we do the best we can with the resources at our disposal

i have prepared so i can take care of my family and like minded friends