Chapter 3: The Top And The Bottom
James Taggert is meeting with constituents, including Orren Boyle of Associated Steel, who is busy explaining how the failing ore industry is responsible for his inability to fill the rail order. Paul Larkin is there too, adding the mining equipment industry suffers in stride. Orren points out (several times) that disunity of industries is to blame, and businesses need to support each other. "That is, I think, true," said Wesley Mouch. But nobody ever paid any attention to Wesley Mouch." Shut up Wesley.
Discussion shifts to the apparent swindle that is Rearden Metal, and Jim's concern that his sister is making a mistake. The concern is a matter of public safety, as well as the matter of Rearden being kind of a dick. Wesley agrees with everything. They propose an effort to bust Rearden's monopoly to curb the increasing losses of other steel miners and manufacturers, and are going to Washington to do it. Monopoly vs. Oligarchy! Whoever wins, we lose.
Okay, I don't get these guys. On the one hand they deride Rearden for pushing out competitors yet also want to eliminate the duplication of service a free market creates. I guess it's more about what works for them. Congratulations, guys, you're Not So Different from Rearden. Paul, being Rearden's friend, is naturally feeling awkward about the whole thing; Taggart and the others want him to wield his Power of Friendship against Rearden.
So, with super villain talk out of the way, they turn to Boyle's trip to The People's State of Mexico, where rumor has it the promising San Sebastian copper mines are about to be nationalized! "There ought to be a law against irresponsible gossip," said Taggart sullenly. Throughout the whole meeting the men deride the vapid swill that is the bartender's handiwork. Bartender meanwhile don't give a shit.
Boyle comments on the lousy ride to the mines he had on a wood-burning passanger train, an antique in this day and age. Taggart is nervous and assures Boyle an order of new engines is coming soon. We finally find out Wesley is Taggart's lobbyist. Oh, no wonder he's useless. As the group disperses, Taggart and Boyle share a final word.
"... a difficult undertaking ahead of us, Jim," Boyle was saying, "a difficult undertaking, with so many dangers and complications and so much at stake..."
"It all depends," James Taggart answered slowly, "on knowing the people who make it possible. ... That's what has to be known—who makes it possible."
That's Dagny's queue to enter back into the story. She had wanted to run the rails since she was 9, and excelled at math in school. She is called selfish by everyone (why am I not surprised?) but gets bonus points for looking at the attitude regarding women running railroads and says screw that. She starts working at Taggart Transcontinental the same year as her older brother James. She rises through the ranks because there aren't enough main characters to compete with her. Except her brother, who is made President when their father dies. She's okay with that, being in Operating while Jim is left with the equivalent of sewer work.
Meanwhile, she combats an unremarkable enemy; the ineptitude around her
◊. It was only in the first few years that she felt herself screaming silently, at times, for a glimpse of human ability, a single glimpse of clean, hard, radiant competence. She had fits of tortured longing for a friend or an enemy with a mind better than her own. Basically, in this universe even workforces can be Redshirt Armies. And Dagny is a One Woman Army who is sick of their crap.
On that note, Dagny considers Jim's first venture as President, building the line to the San Sebastian Mines, which are owned by the biggest Badass to date; Francisco d'Anconia.
At the age of twenty-three, when he inherited his fortune, Francisco d'Anconia had been famous as the copper king of the world. Now, at thirty-six, he was famous as the richest man and the most spectacularly worthless playboy on earth. He was the last descendant of one of the noblest families of Argentina. He owned cattle ranches, coffee plantations and most of the copper mines of Chile. He owned half of South America and sundry mines scattered through the United States as small change.
Seriously, he is Rule of Cool of robber barons. He's so awesome he just has to say "Yo, I totally got an infinite copper cheat for these mountains I just bought," and people beg for stock. His transactions begin with the phrase "Hissatsu!" He runs business the way wars are fought in Warhammer40k!!
◊
Why is this book not more popular again?
Meanwhile Rearden makes Adamantium and no one believes him. He could learn a thing or five from Francisco.
For some reason Dagny doesn't see the sense in building the line and opposes it to the limits of her meager authority. But President beats Operator, and Taggart gets his way. I find it funny that Dagny opposes the line back then, due to the iffy claims (it's basically Francisco's word), whereas James later opposes her hairbrained scheme involving Rearden Metal when all she had were formulas that every expert agreed were rubbish. I can't wait for this contradiction to come to light.
The Board talks about stimulating the Mexican economy with their rails, while Dagny thinks about how the rails are failing, with such lines as She thought of the ominous need of repairs, ominously neglected over the entire system. Jim also implies, politician-style, that Washington wants the line for international diplomacy and that the publicity would pay back the company (What, no government contract? Getting them to pay for it would be the best option. Oh well...) So the vote is to build.
Dagny's instincts tell her to leave the rails while the leaving's good, but she reasons the company needs her now more than ever. As the San Sebastian line is laid, an oil tanker engine wrecks on the Rio Norte line, and quick as a flash Ellis Wyatt, that Entrepreneurial Wizard from chapter 1, shifts his oil shipments to Phoenix-Durango, which until now was insignificant.
Dagny gives Jim and the Board an ultimatum; either she's made Vice-President in Charge of Operations or she resigns. Since her Power Level is so much higher than anyone else's they vote her on unanimously. She gets the San Sebastian line done in a year, utilizing far too little kung fu in the process. Maybe next time...
The good times don't roll in though; Francisco is still developing the mines, and Taggart Transcontinental keeps losing money. Which brings us to the present, where rebuilding the Rio Norte line with Rearden Metal is the Key to Victory.
And now our first real showdown. Jim bursts into Dagny's office and questions the shoddy service on the San Sebastian line.
Dagny pulls no punches. She says Francisco isn't the man he was 10 years ago, his Entrepreneur Magic is exhausted and the mine is a failure.
Jim cross-counters, claiming the rail would boost the economy of Mexico.
Block! What boost? says Dagny. There hasn't been development.
And further, one-two jab! She's intentionally limited infrastructure using antique wood-burning engines so the Looters
UPPERCUT! won't have much to take when they nationalize the line!
Jim is staggered. "You won't get away with that!
This is one time you won't get away with it!" He winds up, screaming he'll protect the brave people of Mexico with his love!
Suddenly Dagny drops her guard and offers a clear shot. She asks how many trains, what resources should she divert to the San Sebastian line. Jim stumbles, that's her job to figure out! Dagny can't will up prosperity for one line when others need attention. So it's Jim's decision.
Jim is trapped, and only manages a clumsy cross that barely phases her. He's telling the Board on Dagny, then she'll be sorry! And leaves.
As Dagny leaves for the day she pauses in the main terminal, where a statue of Nathaniel Taggart, founder of the rails, stands. She idolizes it, thinking of the legends; how Nat Taggart, a "penniless adventuer"'' from New England, kicked reason to the curb and went beyond the impossible, and built a railroad that stood to this day. That's how the Taggart family rolls.
He even dodged an allegation of murdering a state legislature (my question is, if not him, then who? We'll never know I guess). More damning perhaps are the stories of throwing a man down 3 flights of stairs for suggesting he take a government loan, yet he then whores out his wife as security for a loan from a millionaire. (By the way, this is just a few paragraphs from where Miss Rand just said he never sought any loans, only venture capital. Seems this part could have used some proofreading.)
Dagny essentially worships Nat Taggart, having thought of him immortalized in that statue with the kind of reverent idolatry they talk about in church. She buys some cigarettes from an old shop keeper on the terminal. He collects brands, and when prompted laments that there aren't any new ones being made. He waxes philosophical on cigarettes, how when a man sits and thinks with the spark in his hand there's a spark in his mind. Dagny wonders if anyone still thinks so deeply.
The shopkeep comments how hurried people are, living each day like they're being chased by something and are distant from their fellow man. He shrugged. "Oh well, who is John Galt?"
Dagny replies "He's just a meaningless phrase!" THANK YOU. Have I mentioned you're my favorite character, Dagny? She rightly points out it's a pointless meme that nobody knows what it means, so why keep saying it? When he asks why it bothers her, she says it's what people imply when they say it.
Meanwhile Eddie is dining in the railroad cafeteria. He has a conversation with a worker he often sees, but never got his name, about the state of the railroads, and how if they go he'd go with them, not being a man who could build such a thing. The Rio Norte line is being rebuilt by Mc Namara, the contractor Dagny found for the San Sebastian. The conversation drifts to Dagny's habits, and Eddie comments when she's not working she stays at home listening to records. The worker inquires which ones, and Eddie answers the music of Richard Halley, the only thing she loves aside from rails.
End of Chapter 3.
So, I think we're getting the first glance of our villains. Not much to them, there's no apparent reason for them to be so difficult. Guess we'll find out.
