The love of freedom encompasses all social and economic levels--from the aristocrats to the peasants. It is universal. NOBODY wants to be a slave--unless he is conditioned by an outside force, like government-run education.

There was a man who used to live in Homestead, Florida, who would have been a perfect example. He was very likable but he did things his own way. That included his very famous home--Coral Castle.

Read Coral Castle Construction. A Kindle (electronic) version is available on Amazon for less than 10 bucks. (Sorry, there are very few printed copies left. Good luck if you can find one.)

Agreed! I got a degree in Electrical Engineering. A few years later I thought radio-controlled model planes were neat, so I built one from a kit. I asked an experienced pilot to fly it the first time and he reported that he'd never flown a newly-built plane that needed so little trim adjustment.

Some years later, some guys in my department were working on a light-weight electronic circuit to drive a welding rod. I watched a short demonstration and asked if I could take it for a spin. I ran a 2-3" bead between a couple slabs of soft steel. When they broke the oxide layer off, one of the experienced welders said it was one of the nicest beads he'd ever seen. "How long have you been welding?" he asked. I held up two fingers about 2-3" apart. "About that long," I replied with a smile.

I started wood-turning just 2-3 years ago and have produced some really beautiful works. "The Knack" Dilbert video is a reference from my woodworking page.

Lots of folks can do lots of things; even bricklaying and ditch digging. I installed a long cellar drain pipe from Mom's basement to the street... close to 75' or so and did a great job. I cemented Z-Bricks up to a plywood façade in my first house and when a neighbor/contractor took his first look at the finished product, his first question was, "Where did you learn to lay bricks that well?!"

Or, in other words... http://www.plusaf.com/falklaws.htm#2nd


I wrote the HTML for that, too... :)
:)

Oh! Thanks, Eric_in_CO for the reminder... one of my co-workers taught me how to solder copper pipes for household plumbing and drainage. When my hot water heater failed some year or so later, I had to solder about a dozen and a half joints to get it reconnected. All were sweat-soldered joints and none of them leaked at all.

http://www.plusaf.com/falklaws.htm#2nd

Very well said... One does not NEED a master designation to build a log ski resort - nor even architect or run the job, or design or install the many subsystems - and do a spectacularly good job. I've redone electrical jobs "done by journeylevel electricians" that were scary not right. Built (in most cases, overbuilt) structures and other structural elements. Am I a framer, a carpenter, an electrician? Not even. But I do know the principles, have read the applicable codes, and studied the "how" to do it and do it right.

Not true. Even the bees need a queen to focus and direct their activities so as to maximize efficiency and productivity. You need ALL workers to help keep things going - and that includes management, accounting, IT (especially), etc.

Hiraghm: I'd also like to make a note of how beautifully you write!

One of the major themes of Atlas Shrugged is that men working in their personal self interest in a free capitalist economic system exchanging value for value will produce ever increasing value to exchange. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things is to corner stone of the book. Francisco’s great grandfather Sebastian d’Anconia , Ken Danagger, even Hank Rearden and especially John Galt all started with nothing but an idea and turned it into success by hard work and employing reason and logic to discover the knowledge to brings success to their creative endeavors. Skilled craftsmen are every bit a part of the fantastic world Ms. Rand created in her “objective” civil society known as Galt’s Gulch. She even placed herself in it as the fish woman by the lake in Galt’s Gulch, as a skilled laborer and philosopher. When Readen finally leaves for Galt’s gulch with Francisco, the productive skilled men and women of his company come with him. The distinguishing feature of everything in the valley of the golden dollar sign is that everything there glistens with the “prodigal ingenuity of thought and a tight economy of physical effort” which is the also the distinguishing feature of a skilled craftsman. So, yes, craftsmen as producers are welcome in the gulch.

Mastered may have been the wrong word. I completed a NYS Model Maker Apprenticeship. For people in machine tool based apprenticeships "the test" happens around 3.5 years of the four year program. You are expected to be qualified to do any job that arrives in the shop. Apprentices that fail tend to wash out early. In the machine tool world a man peaks around ages 35 to 45. After that, age starts to affect your ability to do the job. I could on but that would take us of subject.

I appreciate your comments on illegal aliens, but I thought we were talking about unskilled immigrant labor. As for crooked politicians and businessmen, and a presumption that all businessmen are honest, I'm sorry, but I don't know where in my responses that you've found that. IMO, businessmen are no more honest or dishonest than any other grouping of humans. By the way, I don't really accept such labeling or groupings as generalizations of anything.
I don't really think that US quality hasn't been in demand since the 70's. I found just the opposite in the business I formed and managed. But on the other hand, reduction of costs in most goods has drastically expanded the standard of living, particularly of all in the US. Nearly every home has a large screen TV, air conditioning, internet service, cell phones, refrigerators, and etc. Access to the luxuries of life, even if not the top in quality, is greater than at anytime in history. I just don't agree with the fact that the takers have used the threat of violence against me to take from me in order to pay for all to have those things.
I'm not sure that lax immigration policy had as much to do with changes in the law of supply and demand as did the change to mass production which made things affordable to more, but altered the essential values of craftsmanship- to a price for hours of labor servicing the production line. But even with that, a market remained for quality craftsmanship, even in complicated items such as automobiles and aircraft.
I'm unsure of the brunt of your complaints or statements, particularly in reference to Rand's writings plotted around the philosophy she took and helped to define. She was simply a child growing up in a society at the time in which the collectivist/takers took over her world. She escaped that world to come here only to see some of those same influences beginning their sprouting here. It resulted in the book, AS, which I find to be prophetic and beautiful, as well as particularly fitting my own self developed philosophy.
I quite simply enjoyed her writings and find my self in agreement with most of the philosophy she describes in admittedly dramatic fashion. I'm particularly pleased to see the book made into a movie which serves to distribute much of what's in the book to new generations that don't read that much.
As for Heinlen, another prolific and great futurist writer that I've enjoyed very much. But he, as Rand, and all writers are no more perfect as humans, than are any of us. I don't worship any of them, I just enjoy their writing and I'm always pleased to find in any writing, ideas, scenarios, personalities, and even philosophies that I can relate to. That's all.
KYFHO

I disagree with you. I too come from a construction family with master carpenters, general contractors and designers. You do not get to be a master craftsman by not thinking.

Rearden didn't own his own coal mine, but he did own his own ore mine. Some things are more efficiently and profitably purchased from someone else, whether material or labor, but that doesn't mean you don't know how it's done.

I disagree with your premise that 'someone above a certain level of competence is not going to take a job stocking shelves for $1 above minimum wage.' I currently applied for a job that is below my skill level and only about 10 hours a week. Why? Because I want something to do and I don't want to feed the looters and moochers. Besides the bit of extra cash will be used profitably by me, for me.