How Prophetic Was 'Atlas Shrugged'
Posted by Zenphamy 10 years ago to Philosophy
I received this e-mail a couple of days ago. How similar does it strike you as the owner's of John Galt's employer, The 20th Century Motor Co. that caused him to shrug, or remind you of James Taggert? Note the use of the words, 'equal and livable wage', and 'Champion of Change'.
"The White House, Washington
Hi,
I'm Randy, the founder of the Red Hen Baking Company in Middlesex, Vermont.
Our 42 employees are the core of everything we do -- the heart of Red Hen. That is why my wife Liza and I insist on providing paid sick days, an equal and livable wage, health coverage, and other benefits that help everyone balance the work they love with the life they lead. Through these workplace policies, we know we're making our employees more secure, our bakery more productive, and our business more profitable.
It's common sense -- plain and simple. That's why I'm so excited and honored to be at the White House today as a "Champion of Change" for working families. I'll be joining President Obama, Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, and other champions of workplace policies to talk about how crucial they are to building a stronger business. This is too important of an issue for anyone to sit on the sidelines. So you should join us, too.
Watch live at the White House today starting at 12:15 p.m. ET to hear what ordinary people are doing to make an extraordinary difference for America's hardworking men and women.
You can join in on the conversation using the hashtag #WorkingFamilyChamps. Whether you're an employer, an employee, a working mom or dad, or brand new to the workforce, your voice can help lift up the challenges millions of working families face and the solutions that will make a difference.
So I'll hope you'll join us live and be a champion for your employees, coworkers, or your community by standing up for common-sense workplace policies.
Because the bottom line is this: Employees that are happy at work perform better. Focusing on policies that make sense for working families has paid dividends for our business. There's no reason more companies across the country can't do the same thing and realize those benefits.
If you have thoughts, I'd love to hear them. I hope you'll join the conversation today.
Thanks,
Randy
Randy George
Middlesex, Vermont"
Can you point to other predictions from AS that are real today?
"The White House, Washington
Hi,
I'm Randy, the founder of the Red Hen Baking Company in Middlesex, Vermont.
Our 42 employees are the core of everything we do -- the heart of Red Hen. That is why my wife Liza and I insist on providing paid sick days, an equal and livable wage, health coverage, and other benefits that help everyone balance the work they love with the life they lead. Through these workplace policies, we know we're making our employees more secure, our bakery more productive, and our business more profitable.
It's common sense -- plain and simple. That's why I'm so excited and honored to be at the White House today as a "Champion of Change" for working families. I'll be joining President Obama, Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, and other champions of workplace policies to talk about how crucial they are to building a stronger business. This is too important of an issue for anyone to sit on the sidelines. So you should join us, too.
Watch live at the White House today starting at 12:15 p.m. ET to hear what ordinary people are doing to make an extraordinary difference for America's hardworking men and women.
You can join in on the conversation using the hashtag #WorkingFamilyChamps. Whether you're an employer, an employee, a working mom or dad, or brand new to the workforce, your voice can help lift up the challenges millions of working families face and the solutions that will make a difference.
So I'll hope you'll join us live and be a champion for your employees, coworkers, or your community by standing up for common-sense workplace policies.
Because the bottom line is this: Employees that are happy at work perform better. Focusing on policies that make sense for working families has paid dividends for our business. There's no reason more companies across the country can't do the same thing and realize those benefits.
If you have thoughts, I'd love to hear them. I hope you'll join the conversation today.
Thanks,
Randy
Randy George
Middlesex, Vermont"
Can you point to other predictions from AS that are real today?
Previous comments... You are currently on page 3.
I worked at Hewlett-Packard for about 27 years and when I saw the trend by 'upper management' to treat employees as "cost centers" and not 'profit producers,' I knew that The End Was Near.
I realized that the flow could have been Good Management => Happy Sales and Support Teams => Happy Customers.
When the first link in that chain rusted, the chain was bound to break. It was just a matter of time.
The bakery's website does not appear to me to sound 'socialistic' of 'mooching' as they do describe 'using their profits to improve the company'. They're apparently not operating as a non-profit.
I do wish they could have been less 'unspecific' about what they meant by 'equal pay,' and other 'benefits' like those. Sloppy thinking, editing, communicating.
And normal here, nowadays!
Cheers!
I believe we are in an early phase of the book. the wishful thinking section.
The point is that human nature (man qua man) is the development and use of one's rational faculty to identify existence (reality) for the purpose of survival and enjoyment of one's life.
Thus, the abandonment of reason is not human nature but the abandonment of it, regardless of the cause, which is, at best, the attempt to circumvent reality and, at its worst, to deny it. Whichever, in any of its forms, (especially to "bamboozle" other people,) it amounts to "I can get away with it!", the "it" being life as the nature of man qua man requires, the attempt (which will always fail) to have A be non-A.
More specifically, moochers and looters, of any stripe, persuasion or contradictory "philosophy", only see other people as reality, to con, scam, bamboozle, etc., i.e. second handers.......they don't want to deal with existence/reality, they want "others" to do that, then abscond from them in order to continue what they call "living".
At some point, they can never face the reality of their "blood sucking" because to face that one is "outside of existence" leads, in fact, to doing just that, by either insanity or suicide.
"How prophetic was Atlas Shrugged"?
If you want to find an answer in science or how much interest you have to pay, etc., you calculate, you work with formulas, math...
Numbers can show you exactly where you are heading and exactly where that outcome will take you.
Rand's work, AS, is a formula that shows
exactly where we were headed at the time it was written and exactly what the outcome would be in the future if we continued on that path.
Is AS a prophecy? Or is it a mathematical equation that when the principals are applied you get the results: A = A.
You could say that there is an explicit warning in AS, that when these principals are not applied you get what we have today- is this a prophecy or calculated results?
Yes- math!
I totally agree.
I have always viewed Rand's philosophy as mathematical formulas that if one tries to disprove them, (with opinions, skewed reasoning, religion,etc) they run smack into a brick wall since they cannot get past "A = A". There is no escaping this formula.
That is also why Rand's philosophy, Objectivism, scares the hell out of many. It cannot be disavowed. It requires dedicated continuous work on one's self of which there is allowed no relapse into contradictions, excuses, or refusal to see.
All Americans will now be required to order from The Red Hen Baking Co. You will find the correct order forms on the IRS website.
Of course it is purely voluntary. If you don't want baked goods from the Red Hen then you don't have to buy baked goods.
Ayn Rand did so much more than predict the future. She saw it happen in Russia and she saw it happening here as you said, but she saw why it happened there and why it was happening here. And then she told us why it was happening and how it was going to keep happening. And she gave us the tools to do something about it. If we are up to the task.
Like Zen said; Genius.
Edit; Great big comment, little bitty box.
(see my first comment to this post)
While entrepeneurs are perceived as "selfish sharks", socialists will get the votes of the majority. We all know the consequences of it. I see my country (Chile) captured today by those looters.
Equal pay is nonsense and only slaves would accept that. Slave workers that are forced to work on less, or slave owners that are forced to pay more, being less or more than what the market says.
Livable is just a necessary condition. If it is not livable, the worker needs to adjust the living cost, but it is obvious that nobody can sustain an impossible situation for long. And yes, this is the typical manipulation of words.
My claim is that caring for employees is good for business. I can prove this rigorously.
Well stated.
Search 1914 N Dort Hwy, Flint, MI on google earth. The two huge empty lots you see was AC Spark Plug, I expect any day to hear about implementation of Directive 10-289.
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