Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 Chapter 4: The Immovable Movers

Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 10 months ago to Books
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Summary: Willers tells Dagny that McNamara quit. Dagny ponders her work, Richard Halley’s music, and d’Anconia as playboy. James and Betty Pope converse, and he condemns Dagny for limiting the San Sebastián Line, and then gets the news that Mexico nationalized the line. So James takes credit for doing what he condemned Dagny for doing. James and Orren Boyle converse, and is unable to phone d’Anconia. The National Alliance of Railroads passed the “Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule,” which sought to restrain “destructive competition,” effectively pushing Dan Conway (age c. 49) and the Phoenix-Durango line out of Colorado. Dagny tries in vain to persuade him to fight the rule. Ellis Wyatt warns Dagny that, without the Phoenix-Durango, he will need the Rio Norte Line in nine months. Dagny and Rearden agree to finish the line in time with Rearden Metal, and discuss its benefits.

Start by reading the first-tier comments, which are all quotes of Ayn Rand (some of my favorites, some just important for other reasons). Comment on your favorite ones, or others' comments. Don't see your favorite quote? Post it in a new comment. Please reserve new comments for Ayn Rand, and your non-Rand quotes for "replies" to the quotes or discussion. (Otherwise Rand's quotes will get crowded out and pushed down into oblivion. You can help avoid this by "voting up" the Rand quotes, or at least the ones you think people should see, and voting down first-tier comments that are not quotes of the featured book.)

Atlas Shrugged was written by Ayn Rand in 1957.

My idea for this post is discussed here:

http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...

All Comments

  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    Dagny to Dan Conway: “What did you expect?”
    “I thought… They said all of us were to stand for the common good. I thought what I had done down there in Colorado was good. Good for everybody.”
    “Oh, you damn fool! Don’t you see that that’s what you’re being punished for – because it was good?”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes, that is what the moochers/looters are counting on. And that's exactly the motor of the world Galt aims to stop.
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 10 months ago
    “Dagny,” he [Rearden] said, “whatever we are, it’s we who move the world and it’s we who’ll pull it through.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I was wondering about this. In the movie, they had the train going 250mph. But in the book, it says that first run was only 100mph. The movie probably got the 250mph figure from here.
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 10 months ago
    Dagny to Rearden: “As soon as I can find a plant able to do it,” she said, “I’m going to order Diesels made of Rearden Metal.”

    “You’ll need them. How fast to you run your trains on the Rio Norte track?”

    “Now? We’re lucky if we manage to make twenty miles an hour.”

    He pointed at the cars. “When that rail is laid, you’ll be able to run trains at two hundred and fifty, if you wish.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It's her turn to start wrestling with the inverted morality. But she doesn't get it yet. One can be penalized for ability; we are slaughtering one another now.
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 10 months ago
    “She [Dagny] made an effort to speak calmly; she was trembling with anger. ‘If that’s the price of getting together, then I’ll be damned if I want to live on the same earth with any human beings! If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? Nothing can make self-immolation proper. Nothing can give them the right to turn men into sacrificial animals. Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can’t be punished for being good. One can’t be penalized for ability. If that is right, then we’d better start slaughtering one another, because there isn’t any right at all in the world!’”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Now whenever I think of "Government," I think the opposite of "voluntary." Thank you, Ayn Rand.
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 10 months ago
    “The Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule was described as a measure of ‘voluntary self-regulation’ intended ‘the better to enforce’ the laws long since passed by the country’s Legislature.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 10 months ago
    “Motive power – thought Dagny, looking up at the Taggart Building in the twilight – was its first need; motive power, to keep that building standing; movement, to keep it immovable.”
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