What Does It Mean "to Shrug"?
Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 9 months ago to Economics
I hear people say they're a few years away from shrugging or they're considering shrugging. What does that mean? I have thought of five levels of shrugging.
5. Try Something New: Sell or close one business and start doing paid work in some form and/or start a business in less regulated industry. Keep your wealth invested as before.
4. Partially Retire: Stop working for money but keep your wealth invested as before and possibly act as an angel investor and mentor for entrepreneurs just starting or take occasional consulting projects.
3. Fully Retire: Stop all paid work in all forms. Invest all wealth in large funds that don't require any management work on your part. Make no angel investments and no real estate investments except for REITs that require no work or management involvement on your part, apart from passively reading prospectuses. Accept no paid positions on boards and no indirect payments of any kind. You can still do unpaid work like helping your kids do repairs, but just for the joy of it, not in trade.
2. Fully Retire with No Investments – Put all your wealth in things that don't generate new income or value, such as precious metals and undeveloped land. You can sell the land and metals to get money to spend at for-profit businesses to provide for your needs, but you personally are not trying to make any profit or taxable income.
1. Atlas-Shrugged Shrug: Take all the wealth you can carry to a hidden “Gulch” settlement. Destroy the rest to the extent it's practical. Abandon or destroy all wealth that exists on the outside world.
Numbers 5 through 3 still involve a lot of participation in the economy and are things even people with no problems with the government do. With #2, you've mostly checked out but you're still feeding the economy by consuming goods and services.
I love the notion that there might be small secret Gulches of sorts were people could move. I hope people build a large one, maybe a non-secret Gulch, within my lifetime.
Assuming there's not a secret Gulch you know of, what does it mean to say, “I'm frustrated with the gov't, and I'm considering _shrugging_ at some point in the next five years.” What does that mean?
5. Try Something New: Sell or close one business and start doing paid work in some form and/or start a business in less regulated industry. Keep your wealth invested as before.
4. Partially Retire: Stop working for money but keep your wealth invested as before and possibly act as an angel investor and mentor for entrepreneurs just starting or take occasional consulting projects.
3. Fully Retire: Stop all paid work in all forms. Invest all wealth in large funds that don't require any management work on your part. Make no angel investments and no real estate investments except for REITs that require no work or management involvement on your part, apart from passively reading prospectuses. Accept no paid positions on boards and no indirect payments of any kind. You can still do unpaid work like helping your kids do repairs, but just for the joy of it, not in trade.
2. Fully Retire with No Investments – Put all your wealth in things that don't generate new income or value, such as precious metals and undeveloped land. You can sell the land and metals to get money to spend at for-profit businesses to provide for your needs, but you personally are not trying to make any profit or taxable income.
1. Atlas-Shrugged Shrug: Take all the wealth you can carry to a hidden “Gulch” settlement. Destroy the rest to the extent it's practical. Abandon or destroy all wealth that exists on the outside world.
Numbers 5 through 3 still involve a lot of participation in the economy and are things even people with no problems with the government do. With #2, you've mostly checked out but you're still feeding the economy by consuming goods and services.
I love the notion that there might be small secret Gulches of sorts were people could move. I hope people build a large one, maybe a non-secret Gulch, within my lifetime.
Assuming there's not a secret Gulch you know of, what does it mean to say, “I'm frustrated with the gov't, and I'm considering _shrugging_ at some point in the next five years.” What does that mean?
And the American dream to me is quite simply just complete freedom. Freedom to choose how to live, what to build on property you own, what work to do, to travel freely from place to place without the cohesive effects of government. The freedom to succeed or fail of your own free will. Freedom, just like the Founders of this country had when they establish it.
I try to emulate that as much as possible. I have my daily chores here on the farm (as we call our little place in the country) and I have a 30x50 studio where I pursue my art and every so often I head out with some hardware to spend some quality time with folks who enjoy things that go boom!
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We have to starve the monster without starving ourselves. Not an easy thing to do.
For me the description of the Gulch in AS was really about each individual's recognition, even if guided by Galt or others, that all the effort of trying to live and work with the principles of a man of the mind and keep those principles intact in the political and socio/cultural system they faced, was fruitless for themselves individually and for all others they impacted. That there was no way to do so without compromising those principles and at the same time allow the system to use and take advantage of them and their efforts.
For myself, I see the Gulch in my mind as a determination to maintain my principles in life, even when that results in less rewards. I simply refuse to become involved in or with or accept in my life those things that this corrupt system attempts to embroil me in. There are methods available and things to do that might best be described in the 1979 book, Alongside Night by J. Schulman, as countereconomics. I leave it to others to determine for themselves what that term means to each, but for me it's a recognition and celebration of one of the strengths of some of our founding generation. At the same time, there are people that can be educated and shown the extent of the loss of liberties and the multitude of problems generated from within our own government.
While many have chosen leaving the country in an attempt to find their own Gulch, many more have chosen to shrug in plain site. It just boils down to each individual's determination and willingness to live with their own principles in the best way that they can. A country or government in which an Objectivist can live their lives with full achievement and satisfaction, welcomed and appreciated won't exist in my lifetime or probably in the lifetimes of my sons. But each life lived to the maximum of Objective principles available to each, is a step forward.
I like the one that says the American Dream means go do your own thing, which might be getting rich or might be subsisting on a low-income and hanging out by a lake-- it's whatever the individual wants.
So if people say they're going to "shrug" by walking away from the American Dream, what steps do they take? Is it just a vague expression of being frustrated or is it a set of actions people actually execute?
This is its original definition coined by a freelance writer , James T. Adams, 1931
It is not as fully formed as Rand defines Capitalism, but let's start here.
The US is not the best place to attain the American Dream.
Midas himself went on strike when he was ordered to give money to people who he knew would never pay it back. Judge Narragansett resigned from the district court because the very first decision he made that was overturned by a higher court was the case that ordered Midas to "loan" the money he knew would not be repaid.
Ellis Wyatt set his oil field on fire and joined the strike when new taxes were passed that only applied to successful businesses in one state and those taxes were going to be supposedly "redistributed" to "help" less fortunate businesses that were failing in other states.
While these and some of rest of the members of the gulch may have kept working in the same field they had before going on strike, they didn't go to the gulch with the intent of gaining greater riches than they had on the outside. They left "the world" hoping to find lives free of the looters that were sucking the life's blood out of them and their businesses. In the case of Ken Danagger who owns Danagger Coal in Pennsylvania, he decided to go on strike because the government wanted to tell him who he could sell his coal too and how much coal he could deliver and how much he could charge for it. So when he left just ahead of a judge who was going to throw the book away because he violated all three points, he was working in a foundry in the valley and was looking for iron ore in his spare time. He was just one example of somebody who was not in his old field, there were several more.
None of the folks in the gulch were getting rich, but what they did find was freedom and the richness of the soul that comes from earning what you were paid and keeping what you worked for - not giving 40-50% or more to the looters.
To the extent that those in the gulch were enjoying the peace of mind that comes from being free and not a government slave, yes, they were seeking a dream, but it wasn't the dream they had when they started their businesses in the outside world. I do think it's safe to say they were walking away from their dream outside, and the governmental interference that went along with it.
Thanks for summary why they went to the Gulch. I had forgotten how the Gulch residents carried on working in different jobs on the outside. This makes me think that they're shrugging was NOT just about moving to the Gulch but rather about stopping trying so hard on the outside and just gave average effort. I imagined before the Gulch had average people, but this definition average people can't shrug b/c they only have average abilities to offer in the first place. I'm thinking this through for the first time.
Not all members returned to the outside world after their "vacation", in fact, I believe that Midas makes the comment that due to the disintegration of the outside world most everyone would soon be living there full-time.
I think that most people did live there full time at the point we are introduced to the gulch and those who were going to be soon were in the process of liquidating assets and purchasing what they would need for life in the gulch.
If that brief summery I made of the reasons some of the characters were in the gulch sounds familiar, I'd say it's almost like it has been written from the pages of todays newspapers as they cover the actions of our present government. The similarity is uncanny - and more than a bit scary.
You are in a different phase of life than I am in. When I was your age, although we experienced some declines in freedom, and actually a retro-active tax increase-imagine that-a law passed that raised the income tax rate and covered past years. Would that anger you? but regardless, certain laws had not yet passed that attacked our livelihood and the livelihoods of technology entrepreneurs yet. Our risks were calculated and based on reasonable criteria-so were the businesses we represented. It began to change in the early 2000s. WE didn't know exactly what the money would chase if it couldn't see growth in areas such as technology, but real estate seemed to be the thing left that the govt not only left alone but encouraged and backed crazy loan making. It was time to formulate a plan to focus more time and energy on the war of ideas and less about chasing chimeras. Db and I do not think it is the best use of our talents or skills to be on the front line of a physical war, but fighting the intellectual war of ideas. in the meantime, we are leading as happy a life as we can while pursuing those goals, which in our case meant leaving the US.
I had forgotten about their taking low-level jobs. That part doesn't make sense to me b/c these were great people who would have been productive in any job. Maybe they slacked off and did the low-level jobs half-heartedly but that doesn't seem like something great people would do.
+1
That's the hardest part of my job, right now (not saying that I have amazing ability or anything like that, though). I keep butting my head up against people up and down the chain who are just there to collect a paycheck.
I told my boss once that we have 3 kinds of employees; those who earn their pay, those who collect their pay, and those who collect what they feel they're due.
I've seen this phenomenon firsthand. Efficacy will get you nowhere fast. Game playing, manipulating, pretending like you are stupid or injured will get management to move you around so eventually you end up where you want to go in the company.
Lack of integrity will get you everywhere.
But if the being good always gets you nowhere, how did these great people become top business leaders in the first place?
They don't pay rent, toilet paper, utilities, etc until they're adults. They only receive money for things beyond what we consider normal responsibilities for their age.
Unfortunately, he landed in a position in the "private sector" ... (not sure that there is such a thing any longer) and he is often up against the same phenomenon.
The American Dream is being supplanted by the Utopian Dream. More accurately the Utopian nightmare of tyranny of subjugation and servitude to the state masters that decide what your hopes and dreams SHOULD be. What your abilities should be. What your level of production should be. What your "fair share" contribution to the collective should be. What your thoughts should be. Where your devotion to the collective should be.
From those according to their ability, to those according to their need.
It makes me sick. I shrug Utopia and all that it represents. Death.
Cheers
Reduce your expenses. The main thing that keeps you in thrall to the state is a "need" for money. So strive for self-sufficiency. Plant a garden. Raise some livestock. Chickens are easy! Give up the distractions. Do you really need 200 television stations? If you're paying $70/month, that's the better part of a gand a year. Cell phones are another huge money pit. Even at $30/month, that's $360/year. What would you do if you weren't wasting all your time gabbing about pointless stuff to someone who doesn't really care in the first place? Internet - costs $20/month for the slow stuff. Most of the time, you're not using it. So strike a deal with your neighbor. Share via wi-fi. Use extension antennas - old DISH antennas work great! Shop cheap. Aldis has prices that make most other retailers weep. Forget the "name brands". It's the same stuff in a fancier box with charges tacked on for advertings. Cut out the middle man. You buy bread? At what cost? $2/loaf? $3? Pick up a bread machine at Goodwill for $10 and make your own bread for about 40 cents a loaf. Garden. Some crops are REALLY easy. No store-bought tomato will ever taste as good as home-grown. Peppers are easy (we're talking about the South here). Other foods that take a little longer, but are easy vary by locale: Bananas (which will be soaring in price over the next few years), Papaya, other fruits and nuts. The sooner you get started, the sooner you'll get results and the longer you get the benefit.
Combined, these reduce your costs and take a couple grand a year out of the economy. If you figure it's all worth $2000, then double that, because if you paid for it all, your income would be taxed at nearly 50%.
Pay off your mortgage. That takes a lot of pressure off. Make it your #1 priority.
Once you reach that point, your biggest expenses are utilities. Water, trash, power. Put in a well. Decline the local trash collection "services" (if you can). That's typically another $400/year ($800 in wages). You'll find that the amount of waste you produce is far less when you stop buying everything in stores. Compost!
If you're not working, suck down every socail welfare dollar you can find. You've paid into the system for years. Now it's time to take - and help slay Leviathan in the process. Push for collapse. In the meantime, use resources to improve your "gulch".
Don't understimate the value of security. A dog that barks, firearms, even security cameras, can be your best friends. If you have some spare cash, buy silver/gold. They WILL go up.
Join forces. If you know like-minded people, you can share resources. A roto-tiller is a useful tool for gardening. But it's not used enough in small gardens to make buying one worth while. But if you own a rototiller and loan it to someone who happens to be a welder, and they do work for someone who raises chickens... there's synergy. Barter outside the system.
You'll reach a point (especially with the mortgage paid off) where you can live on as little as a couple hundred dollars a month, and you can trade goods/services for that. If you go solar - you could be an economic "zero footprint".
Welcome to the gulch.
I have had things happen in my life over the past decade that have made me sure that if you're a working middle-class family man in America you are seen as nothing more than livestock and a source of revenue. I have adjusted my life in response in my own style of going Galt. I no longer participate in charity. I actually work more, but that's because I am self-employed. I do it only to help me, my wife and kids. Some of the work I do places me in a very good place, financially.
Being awake may be the first step in going Galt, in my case.
Thank you for your comment. I notice your use of the passive voice: "you are seen [by some group] as nothing more..." I think what you're saying is you don't care what that unnamed group sees you as, and I agree completely. There are countless groups who see you as all kinds of things.
First of all, remember that Galt's Gulch in the NOVEL, is a respite until the collapse of the moocher's world. That happens and Galt and all the others start back into the world at the end of the novel to remake it in a producers' construct..
So, essentially we have to face the realities of the real world. As I see it, the US will descend into an England social-welfare type state. Democracy favors the will of the masses. Social-welfare programs over individual responsibility/self-realization. That is, the primary purpose of the politician under the current democratic construct is to get re-elected.. The easiest way for that, as we see, is pass social-welfare programs to get re-elected
The bottom line for that is TERM LIMITS FOR ALL POLITICIANS. The only question is if enough of us are smart enough to get enough people together to get that accomplished.
To save the founding principles of the United States. Written on this July 4 weekend from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Harry M
While unpopular if not anathema to the egalitarian ethos, the reality is that the truly brilliant do not think just twice as fast and twice as accurately as the average person – they think differently. It is a qualitative difference, more than a quantitative one. The brilliant think in multiple and simultaneous modes, ignoring the convenient distinctions of domains of thought and knowledge. After four decades among brilliant individuals in the private sector, I set about to demonstrate this, creating a vetted instrument of measurement and accompanying dissertation, acting on the promise that it would be allowed by the local branch if the State Scientific Institute. Like Rearden Metal, it proved dangerous to individuals if it was wrong and dangerous to society if it was right. After a few minutes of reflection, I withdrew it from SSI consideration, and took it private as a monograph. The Ph.D. was salvaged by spending twenty-eight days writing a 444-page piece of party-line drivel; unanimously accepted by the faculty on first defense, it is now buried in the back-yard.
After a year’s “rustication,” I was offered a job at the SSI’s College of Educational Theology, the mantra of which is “all children can learn.” [“All pigs can fly.”] Tens of billions of looted dollars are spent repealing the Law of the Survival of the Fittest, preparing pseudo-intellectuals for pseudo-sciences. I have become Mel Brooks’ Max Bialystock in no danger of producing a hit.