Who Said IT: 'atlas Shrugged' Villain Or Real-life Public Figure?

1. "To me, what democratic socialism is about is to maintain the strong entrepreneurial spirit that we have in this country."

Atlas Shrugged Villain

Real-Life Public Figure

Taggart Transcontinental president James Taggart says this to Eddie Willers when Willers won't tell Taggart the whereabouts of his sister Dagny Taggart, the railroad's operating vice president. James is calling his sister a deserter. This is from page 625 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

Explanation

Taggart Transcontinental president James Taggart says this to Eddie Willers when Willers won't tell Taggart the whereabouts of his sister Dagny Taggart, the railroad's operating vice president. James is calling his sister a deserter. This is from page 625 of the 1992 hardcover edition.

142. "Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences."

Atlas Shrugged Villain

Real-Life Public Figure

Donald Trump said this at a press conference on December 1, 2016. This concerned the Carrier air conditioning company closing plants in the USA and opening plants in other countries where costs are lower. Trump said he would have the State provide special "incentives" to companies that maintain their plants in the USA while having the State penalize companies that made foreign direct investments elsewhere after closing U.S. plants. The information was available on NBC News at https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/804419132682665984 .

Explanation

Donald Trump said this at a press conference on December 1, 2016. This concerned the Carrier air conditioning company closing plants in the USA and opening plants in other countries where costs are lower. Trump said he would have the State provide special "incentives" to companies that maintain their plants in the USA while having the State penalize companies that made foreign direct investments elsewhere after closing U.S. plants. The information was available on NBC News at https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/804419132682665984 .

Who Said IT: 'atlas Shrugged' Villain Or Real-life Public Figure?

1. "To me, what democratic socialism is about is to maintain the strong entrepreneurial spirit that we have in this country."

2.

What first name or nickname would you like us to use?

2. [On governmental seizures of private land for The Public Interest™:] "You're not taking property, you're paying a fortune for that property. Those people can move two blocks away into a much nicer house."

3. "This is because the greatest possible misery is also the greatest possible pain, and the urge to escape pain is entirely pre-moral. It is found in creatures that have no social life and thus no possibility of morality."

5. "...[economic] growth isn't an option any more -- we've already grown too much. Scientists are now telling us that we're blowing past planetary boundaries at breakneck speed. And the hard truth is that this global crisis is due almost entirely to overconsumption in rich countries."

7. "A similar majority also believe we should strive to buy and own less, and that doing so would not compromise our happiness. People sense there is something wrong with the dominant model of economic progress and they are hungry for an alternative narrative."

8. [In response to someone saying that he should be able to keep the money he earns rather than for it to be taxed away:] "You don't deserve to keep all of it. It's not a question of deserving, because what government is, is those things that we decide to do together."

9. [Two characters discuss what they claim is the need for the government to intrude in private affairs for the purpose of saving jobs:]Character 1: "The free market has been sorting it out and America's been losing."Character 2 (agrees): "Every time, every time."

10. [Discussing with colleague how to sell their political plan to the public:] " Let the grassroots turn on the hate because that's the only thing that will make them do their duty."

11. "There is a growing global anti-establishment revolt against the permanent political class at home, and the global elites that influence them..."

12. [Explaining that life necessarily contradicts itself:] "The belief that all good things move together and there need be no conflicts between them is, ultimately, a religious one. And -- by definition -- a totalitarian one."

13. "The chief reason for this is that we all understand and accept the permanence of contradiction and conflict in life."

14. [Explaining how government officials should address economic crises:] "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you did not think you could do before."

16. "Who are we kidding? The business model of Wall Street is fraud. That's what it is."

17. "You wouldn't want to give support to the widespread impression that you are a man devoid of social conscience, who feels no concern for the welfare of his fellows and works for nothing but his own profit."

19. "It's everything related to jobs. ... I'm the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up."

20. " I can see this on Wall Street today — I can see this with the securitization of everything is that, everything is looked at as a securitization opportunity. People are looked at as commodities. I don't believe that our forefathers had that same belief."

21. "Figure out who is in your tribe, and fight to the death for your tribe, but give nothing to the enemy. No succor to the enemy. Not a cup of water, not a bowl of gruel, no, not shelter, not kind words, not conciliation, not forgiveness."

23. "I don't like to analyze myself because I might not like what I see."

24. "I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system."

25. "...there's always been...a belief that we're all connected, and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation. We believe...that through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves. "

27. "I think it is perfectly unfair that one man should get all the breaks and leave none to others."

29. "...I have enough expertise in politics and history to understand that a free market ends up as monopoly unless you force it to be free."

30. "A country is more than an economy. We're a civic society."

31. " 'Government' is the word we use to describe the process by which our collective resources are mobilized, and our collective choices are made to achieve our collective goals."

32. "There are no absolutes. Reality is an illusion."

33. "His old-fashioned brand of ruthlessness seems to be too much even for those predatory barons of profit."

34. "...production is not a private choice, but a public duty."

35. "That's the trouble -- that businessmen refuse to approach us in a spirit of trust and friendship. They seem to imagine that we are their enemies."

37. [Denying that an invention is truly unique and takes a lot of mental effort:] "We're reluctant to believe that great discoveries are in the air. We want to believe that great discoveries are in our heads..."

38. [Asked on what he wants to happen to the political system.] "I want to bring everything crashing down..."

39. "Markets are the single most destructive thing human beings have ever created."

40. "Darkness is good. ... That's power. It only helps us when they get it wrong, when they're blind to who we are and what we're doing."

41. "My problem is that I don't believe in progress, and I am skeptical of how chemistry is contributing to my humanity."

42. "...we must control men in order to force them to be free."

43. "The boundaries of 'me' are fluid and blurred. We are all profoundly linked in countless ways we can hardly perceive. My decisions, choices, actions are inspired and motivated by others to no small extent."

44. "Man? What is man? He's just a collection of chemicals with delusions of grandeur."

45. "When in doubt, it's the weak that must be considered, not the strong."

46. "...you businessmen have been predicting disaster for years, you've cried catastrophe at every progressive measure and told us we'll perish -- but we haven't."

47. "I want to be loved for myself -- not for anything I do or have or say or think. For myself -- not for my body or mind or words or works or actions."

49. "I think that is the effect which would be very unfortunate, but to my mind there is no such thing as an innocent purchaser of stocks -- I mean innocent in the sense in which we are considering the purchasers of stock in the organization."

50. "The idea of 'de-developing' rich countries might prove to be a strong rallying cry in the global south, but it will be tricky to sell to Westerners. Tricky, but not impossible."

51. "Now it may rationally be maintained that, if there is anything divine on earth, it is the state, the product of the same God-given instincts which led to the establishment of the church and family."

52. "For the most part you can't respect people because most people aren't worthy of respect."

53. [Serious, not joking:] "Two plus two equals five."

55. "The attempt to bring such utopianism to the here and now is the sin of trying to immanentize the eschaton."

56. "I don't want scientists messing around in the garden of my soul."

58. "One of the great American industrialists of our day -- a man who has rendered yeoman service to his country in this crisis-recently emphasized the grave dangers of 'rightist reaction' in this nation. All clear-thinking businessmen share his concern."

59. "What I've been thinking is, we ought to think of expanding [government control] -- the way things are, there's nobody to stop us, it's there for the taking..."

60. "If we think we're alone in our darkest thoughts, we experience shame. When we recognize we are not alone in our darkest thoughts, we gain solidarity, a tribe."

61. "The purpose of philosophy is not to seek knowledge, but to prove that knowledge is impossible to man."

62. "It's logical illogic. . . . In my philosophy, and in what governs my behavior as a journalist in a free country, is that if you start to eliminate this 'glorious gray' -- I would call it -- then you're taking me down the road to a system that has absolutes in it, and that, to me, is anathema."

63. [As a command:] "But move away from philosophy and down to earth."

64. "And I don't like the idea about no directives and no controls. I grant you they're running hog-wild and overdoing it. But -- no controls at all? I don't go along with that. I think some controls are necessary. The ones which are for the public good."

66. "Markets are a destructive force and need to be abolished -- replaced with some kind of democratic participatory planning process."

67. "You do not grasp the fact that the universe is a solid contradiction."

68. "Every child born into the world should be looked upon by society as so much raw material to be manufactured."

69. "Unlimited freedom means that a strong man is free to bully one who is weak and to rob him of his freedom. This is why we demand that the state should limit freedom to a certain extent, so that everyone's freedom is to be protected by law."

70. "I'm open-minded enough to believe that two absolutely contradictory propositions can indeed both be able to exist in this wonderful, brilliant world of ours we can only begin to fathom a small percentage of."

71. "Likewise, 'life' is an idea. We find it useful to think of some things as alive and others as inanimate, but this division exists only in our heads."

72. "We are not the sole authors of our destiny, each of us; our destinies are entangled -- messily, unpredictably. Our cultural demands of individualism are too extreme."

73. "We need a national subsidy for literature . It is disgraceful that artists are treated like peddlers..."

74. "Personally, I'm proud to believe that I am working for the public good, not just for my own profit."

75. "Argument and propaganda got nowhere. The lords of property simply sat on their bottoms and proclaimed that all was for the best."

77. "So we ought to place a limit upon their material greed."

78. "In light of this, perhaps we should regard such countries not as underdeveloped, but rather as appropriately developed. And maybe we need to start calling on rich countries to justify their excesses."

80. "Man's metaphysical pretensions are preposterous."

81. "There is no such thing as 'a tree' in the world outside the mind."

83. "Everybody uses the work of everybody else. Nobody ever invents anything."

84. "A man's brain is a social product. A sum of influences he's picked up from those around him."

85. "...free economy is now on trial. Unless it proves its social value, and assumes its social responsibilities, the people won't stand for it. If it doesn't develop a public spirit, it's done for."

86. "...we live in a society that affirms the dependence and interdependence of all. To that extent, it affirms a basic truth of our nature. We forsake it at our own peril."

87. "Here the state must act as the guardian of a millennial future in the face of which the wishes and selfishness of the individual must appear as nothing and submit."

88. "We will release our spiritual aims from dependence on the owners of material means."

89. "Here is my conclusion: Life is a concept, not a reality."

90. "We have free will but we do not own ourselves, and we certainly cannot take ownership of ourselves by obliterating ourselves."

91. "I want everyone to keep the property that he has acquired for himself according to the principle: benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual."

92. "...selfish individualism led us into the wasteland of official indifference to the suffering of many."

9. [Two characters discuss what they claim is the need for the government to intrude in private affairs for the purpose of saving jobs:]
Character 1: "The free market has been sorting it out and America's been losing."
Character 2 (agrees): "Every time, every time."