The Twentieth Century Motor Company - Part 3

The end of an enterprise

In our last installment, we discussed the ways in which socialistic policy kills production and profit by destroying and even punishing motivation and high levels of performance. Under a socialist/communist system, people no longer own nor receive the fruits of their labor; it is consumed by others. It is a system of legal theft. Under this system, those who produce are forced to produce more so that those who do not produce may have their needs met. It is a system under which producers are enslaved to support those who are unproductive, and those most productive are punished most with ever more work. Under this system, the moral is immoral and the immoral becomes moral.

The last pieces to fit into the puzzle are the people who would push this philosophy and their reasons for doing so. Rand provides three examples of such people and their motivations.

As the train continues down the track, so does the account of the tramp:

Was there any reason why this sort of horror would ever be preached by anybody? Was there anybody who got any profit from it? There was. The Starnes heirs. I hope you're not going to remind me that they'd sacrificed a fortune and turned the factory over to us as a gift. We were fooled by that one, too. Yes, they gave up the factory. But profit, ma'am, depends on what it is you're after. And what the Starnes heirs were after, no money on earth could buy. Money is too clean and innocent for that.

Fooled into believing the enterprise belonged to the employees! This is the same fable foisted now upon us by those in government. Though our founding fathers saw government as being of, by, and for the people, and that the government served the people (hence the moniker “public servant”), politicians today believe the people exist to serve them, that they are elite, our intellectual and moral superiors, and that they give to us. They have nothing, however, to give. Anything the government gives to one it must first take from another. Theft. Looting. Larceny. Use whatever word you would like. Taking from one in order to give to another is criminal. We are dealing with criminals who, in Rand’s estimation, want something apart from money - something more corrupt than simple financial gain.

Moving on to the more specific examples: 

Eric Starnes, the youngest—he was a jellyfish that didn't have the guts to be after anything in particular. He got himself voted as Director of our Public Relations Department, which didn't do anything, except that he had a staff for the not doing of anything, so he didn't have to bother sticking around the office. The pay he got—well, I shouldn't call it 'pay,' none of us was 'paid'—the alms voted to him was fairly modest, about ten times what I got, but that wasn't riches. Eric didn't care for money—he wouldn't have known what to do with it. He spent his time hanging around among us, showing how chummy he was and democratic. He wanted to be loved, it seems. The way he went about it was to keep reminding us that he had given us the factory. We couldn't stand him.

How many politicians could be Eric Starnes or in part reflect his characteristics? I could name at least a dozen off the top of my head, not the least of which is President Joseph Robinette Biden. Until the past year and a half, his four-decade career in Congress produced almost nothing. He wants to project an image of being “chummy” - good ol’ uncle Joe. Tales of sitting around the family table having everyday conversations with everyday people. It seemed, at least before the dementia really set in, he wanted to be loved. Since taking office, and with the policies he has set in place, he never fails to remind us of all he has done for us. For instance, he tells us how this year, he put big pharma in its place, after spending billions on “free vaccines” that he attempted to mandate. He tells us he’s bringing down inflation through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, legislation that contains nothing which could possibly live up to its title. He touts record employment, when unemployment is higher than it was prior to 2020. He lauds rising wages, when inflation is rising faster, resulting in a net lowering of wages. Don’t let facts stand in the way. We gave you these things. We’re going to give you free college, and if you’re in debt for it, we’re going to forgive that debt. Of course, the president isn’t the only one pushing this narrative, nor is he the only one on the left (or right for that matter) who tries to portray himself as for the people or doing so much for us. They love to remind us that the government is by, of, and for the people. They love to crow about how those opposed to their agenda are a threat to “our democracy™.” Eric Starnes really could be almost any Democrat currently in office, or one of many Republicans.

Let’s see who is next:

Gerald Starnes was our Director of Production. We never learned just what the size of his rake-off—his alms—had been. It would have taken a staff of accountants to figure that out, and a staff of engineers to trace the way it was piped, directly or indirectly, into his office.

None of it was supposed to be for him—it was all for company expenses. Gerald had three cars, four secretaries, five telephones, and he used to throw champagne and caviar parties that no tax-paying tycoon in the country could have afforded. He spent more money in one year than his father had earned in profits in the last two years of his life. We saw a hundred-pound stack—a hundred pounds, we weighed them—of magazines in Gerald's office, full of stories about our factory and our noble plan, with big pictures of Gerald Starnes, calling him a great social crusader. Gerald liked to come into the shops at night, dressed in his formal clothes, flashing diamond cuff links the size of a nickel and shaking cigar ashes all over. Any cheap show-off who's got nothing to parade but his cash, is bad enough—except that he makes no bones about the cash being his, and you're free to gape at him or not, as you wish, and mostly you don't. But when a bastard like Gerald Starnes puts on an act and keeps spouting that he doesn't care for material wealth, that he's only serving 'the family,' that all the lushness is not for himself, but for our sake and for the common good, because it's necessary to keep up the prestige of the company and of the noble plan in the eyes of the public—then that's when you learn to hate the creature as you've never hated anything human.

Again, I suppose this could describe almost any modern American politician. We know they all love their fancy parties and events. I don’t know if there are any who don’t seek to grace the pages of popular publications. Imagine, if you will, a Representative attending a gala wrapped in a custom white gown emblazoned with red letters reading, “TAX THE RICH.” The papers and magazines would fall all over themselves to publish such a display - and they did. After all, it’s not about her; it’s about the people. What better way to display the disparity between the privileged and the proletariat than to attend a pageant prohibited to the public?

Democrats perpetually present themselves as champions of “social justice.” These are the same people who endlessly exclaim the virtues of taxing the rich to make them pay their fair share™, while at the same time glossing over the fact that they themselves are the possessors of plenty and boasting of their benevolence for the commoners. It’s all “for the common good.” Lockdowns to protect you from a virus are for “the common good.” Forcing people to receive an experimental shot is “for the common good.” Eliminating fossil fuels is “for the common good.” Controlling the information you are able to consume is “for the common good.” Transitioning away from meat to eating bugs is “for the common good.” All they do is “for the common good.” Of course, in their eyes, “the common good” means their own enrichment and empowerment; the proles be damned!

Rand saves the worst of the Starnes heirs, in her estimation, for last:

But his sister Ivy was worse. She really did not care for material wealth. The alms she got was no bigger than ours, and she went about in scuffed, flat-heeled shoes and shirtwaists—just to show how selfless she was. She was our Director of Distribution. She was the lady in charge of our needs. She was the one who held us by the throat. Of course, distribution was supposed to be decided by voting—by the voice of the people. But when the people are six thousand howling voices, trying to decide without yardstick, rhyme or reason, when there are no rules to the game and each can demand anything, but has a right to nothing, when everybody holds power over everybody's life except his own—then it turns out, as it did, that the voice of the people is Ivy Starnes. By the end of the second year, we dropped the pretense of the 'family meetings'—in the name of 'production efficiency and time economy,' one meeting used to take ten days—and all the petitions of need were simply sent to Miss Starnes' office. No, not sent. They had to be recited to her in person by every petitioner.

These are the virtue signalers. These are the ones who make a show of being one of the little people, of standing for whatever is the issue of the day. These are the people who often don’t even understand what it is they are doing. For instance, many in Congress, the same day they introduced a bill to address alleged police brutality, took a knee in tribute to a criminal while wearing traditional African Kente cloth. For those of African descent, that cloth, and even the colors, have significance, and these lawmakers drew a lot of criticism for using threads of tradition as political props.

These also are those who, aside from claiming to be the voice of the people, claim to be their benefactors as well. It is they who will supply society with sustenance. These patrons of the public will look after our best interests and provide our every need - if only we will continue to vote for them. This is their vaunted verisimilitude. They have utterly forgotten that in actuality, they are our servants, not our betters nor our rulers. We are citizens, not subjects. They are our employees and, should we as a people have the courage to stand up and assert ourselves, they answer to us. Nonetheless, they will allow neither this reality nor the Constitution stand in their way.

The traveller tells further:

Then she made up a distribution list, which she read to us for our vote of approval at a meeting that lasted three-quarters of an hour.

We voted approval. There was a ten-minute period on the agenda for discussion and objections. We made no objections. We knew better by that time. Nobody can divide a factory's income among thousands of people, without some sort of a gauge to measure people's value. Her gauge was bootlicking. Selfless? In her father's time, all of his money wouldn't have given him a chance to speak to his lousiest wiper and get away with it, as she spoke to our best skilled workers and their wives. She had pale eyes that looked fishy, cold and dead. And if you ever want to see pure evil, you should have seen the way her eyes glinted when she watched some man who'd talked back to her once and who'd just heard his name on the list of those getting nothing above basic pittance. And when you saw it, you saw the real motive of any person who's ever preached the slogan: 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,' "This was the whole secret of it. At first, I kept wondering how it could be possible that the educated, the cultured, the famous men of the world could make a mistake of this size and preach, as righteousness, this sort of abomination—when five minutes of thought should have told them what would happen if somebody tried to practice what they preached. Now I know that they didn't do it by any kind of mistake. Mistakes of this size are never made innocently.

Here is the crux of our current condition. The populace is voting for its own destruction. This is such an apt description of the Democrats, and many Republicans, in Congress and their dealings. They offer ostentatious orations of pious pursuits of progress; yet even as they bellow their unctuous utterances, the deception is clear. When confronted with their avarice, their lust for power, their craving for control, they feign indignance. Under that virtuous veneer lies a depraved and debased desire to dominate. I would attribute to them narcissism or a savior complex, but this drive is more demonic. Regardless, masses cast their ballots to grant these goblins the power they so desperately pursue. It is our own fault! We allow it. We fail to educate those who vote then decry the disastrous result. Our legislators regularly and without remorse violate their oaths, scoff at our laws, exclude themselves from subjection to those laws, show abject scorn for our Constitution, yet year after year, we return them to their offices. We are voting for our own demise! Why?

Our narrator proffers an explanation:

If men fall for some vicious piece of insanity, when they have no way to make it work and no possible reason to explain their choice—it's because they have a reason that they do not wish to tell. And we weren't so innocent either, when we voted for that plan at the first meeting. We didn't do it just because we believed that the drippy old guff they spewed was good. We had another reason, but the guff helped us to hide it from our neighbors and from ourselves. The guff gave us a chance to pass off as virtue something that we'd be ashamed to admit otherwise. There wasn't a man voting for it who didn't think that under a setup of this kind he'd muscle in on the profits of the men abler than himself. There wasn't a man rich and smart enough but that he didn't think that somebody was richer and smarter, and this plan would give him a share of his better's wealth and brain. But while he was thinking that he'd get unearned benefits from the men above, he forgot about the men below who'd get unearned benefits, too. He forgot about all his inferiors who'd rush to drain him just as he hoped to drain his superiors. The worker who liked the idea that his need entitled him to a limousine like his boss's, forgot that every bum and beggar on earth would come howling that their need entitled them to an icebox like his own. That was our real motive when we voted—that was the truth of it—but we didn't like to think it, so the less we liked it, the louder we yelled about our love for the common good.

Well, we got what we asked for. By the time we saw what it was that we'd asked for, it was too late. We were trapped, with no place to go. The best men among us left the factory in the first week of the plan. We lost our best engineers, superintendents, foremen and highest skilled workers. A man of self-respect doesn't turn into a milch cow for anybody. Some able fellows tried to stick it out, but they couldn't take it for long. We kept losing our men, they kept escaping from the factory like from a pesthole—till we had nothing left except the men of need, but none of the men of ability.

And the few of us who were still any good, but stayed on, were only those who had been there too long. In the old days, nobody ever quit the Twentieth Century—and, somehow, we couldn't make ourselves believe that it was gone. After a while, we couldn't quit, because no other employer would have us—for which I can't blame him. Nobody would deal with us in any way, no respectable person or firm.

Greed. Those who don’t have will always vote for themselves to receive that which others possess. This is the road to socialism. This is the path to destruction. Our government was instituted to guard our rights, not meet our needs; but when people are convinced otherwise, that government exists to provide rather than protect, the goal of voting changes. The American education system has done a great disservice to our children, to our country, in failing to teach our founding documents and principles. The internet is replete with “man on the street” videos asking people questions about our history, about the Bill of Rights, about government, and while these videos are certainly edited for effect, I do not doubt that what is depicted, a widespread inability to answer simple questions, is absolutely accurate. This also is why Democrats are so eager to permit aliens to enter the country illegally. Like our younger generations, they do not understand the fundamental precepts of a government of, by, and for the people, of natural rights, of limited government. Coming from impoverishment, how would anyone expect them to vote when one party offers government assistance? This is the epitome of “from each according to his ability (Americans paying into the system), to each according to his needs (illegals coming to this country with little or nothing).” Americans in need are denied the same benefits, even if they spend their lives remitting required taxes. The system is broken, and it is our fault. Perhaps we have not voted for those who support such a sinister scheme, but we fail to educate those who do. As those at the Twentieth Century Motor Company came to realize, it is an unsustainable situation. Those who can will “leave” - if not literally, then figuratively. Leave the country, leave the workforce, leave the urban areas. We see people fleeing their disastrous decisions daily. We see this in the exodus from states like New York and California. Those who can’t leave will have no morale, no motivation. Hopelessness, helplessness, and homelessness abound. These states are crumbling under oppressive taxes, soaring crime rates, and dictatorial governance. They are microcosms of America under progressive leadership. They have traveled so far left as to be almost off the map. For the country to follow down this road leads only to disaster.

Rand wrote much more, and I can neither do her justice nor address all she wrote. Her insight was incredible and worthy of the time to read. Therefore, I encourage you, read Atlas Shrugged. In the meantime, keep in mind, our plane has lost the engines on the left wing, and no one has a grasp on the stick. We are in a nose dive that we can only survive if we regain control of the yoke, suppress the engine fire, and return to our original flight plan, which, despite the many who protest (especially on the left), requires religion and morality (so said John Adams). If we are unable to right the plane, we soon will see the end of an enterprise.