Jim
Taggart and the men in Washington want certain bills to be passed but do not
want to know what is written in the bill. They want to be able to say they had
no idea what the bill was going to do and that it there was lack of explanation
on Mouch’s fault. They do not want to take the blame for anything that might go
wrong. Jim refuses to take responsibility for his own actions and chooses to
take credit for Dagny’s. When the John Galt Line was closed, Jim did not want
to be the one to say they had failed, instead it was Dagny who had to admit it.
Jim took credit for saving the John Galt Line and for saving the company to
make himself seem better. All his friends in Washington do the same thing. They
refuse to take the blame but will take all the credit when something miraculous
happens. When Jim first meets Cheryl at the store, he only speaks about “his”
accomplishments for Taggart Transcontinental to make himself feel better about
losing profit.
When
Jim tells Mouch he cannot afford to raise the salaries of his men, Mouch does
not listen. He only wants what he thinks will help the economy and what the
people want, even though it means others will like Jim will go into debt and
will eventually loose the company. The time Mouch cares about what will happen
is when it starts to happen to him. When Jim tells him they must double the
freight rates, Mouch claims that they are “bleeding” him to death and by
doubling it will make matters worse (pg. 494).
In
my opinion, the men in Washington are giving false promises that they clearly
know they cannot keep. These men need to take responsibility for what they are
doing and stop blaming each other. They have caused nothing but chaos and
decay. By choosing to ignore the problems and the consequences of their actions
they themselves will end up without profit and their people will slowly start
to turn against them. These men claim they are trying to help the public
welfare and help the economy but in reality, they are just as bad as business
men who are they trying to ruin.
I completely agree with Jessica's post. Besides giving false hopes to the public and taking responsibilities for their actions, Jim and his group of friends constantly victimize themselves. Reading your blog reminded me of this one scene in the book where Jim is in Dagny's office crying for help. He tells her how he is so unfortunate because she has gotten everything that she wants and he has not. Because of that he says that she owes him, because he hasnt had the same chances that she had and he is her brother so it is her duty to help him so she has to. This is the typical mindset of a looter that the men at the valley described, and I cant understand why Dagny would go back to the real world to deal with it.
ReplyDeleteI am in agreement with Jessica's post as well. The government and the board of directors of Taggart Transcontinental do not take responsibilities for their actions and blame all the mess and chaos they have created over the years on the people who are trying to fix it. I was impressed by and in agreement with Dagny's decision to not comment or make any suggestions during the meeting of the board of directors. They were discussing the current possibilities to "save" the company and were waiting for Dagny to mention a solution so that she could take the blame for the inevitable end of the railroad, but she is much smarter than that. Also, The "washington friend" present at the meeting does not seem to care that much about the demise of the railroad, as long as he gets what he wants he is happy. This shows the lack of competence of the government, who has not taken blame for any of the economy's destruction, and doesn't seem to care to break it apart a little more. Dagny and Hank should be bringing the economy back to life, however, with the more powerful inefficient government above them, they will need to find a stronger way.
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