Atlas Shrugged [636]
"You have to make certain sacrifices to the public welfare!"
"I don't see why Orren Boyle is more 'the public' than I am."
"Oh, it's not a question of Mr. Boyle at all! It's much wider than any one person. It's a matter of preserving the country's natural resources-such as factories-and saving the whole of the nation's industrial plant. We cannot permit the ruin of an establishment as vast as Mr. Boyle's. The country needs it."
"I think," said Rearden slowly, "that the country needs me much more than it needs Orren Boyle."
"But of course!" cried Lawson with startled enthusiasm. "The country needs you, Mr. Rearden! You do realize that, don't you?"
But Lawson's avid pleasure at the familiar formula of self-immolation, vanished abruptly at the sound of Rearden's voice, a cold, trader's voice answering: "I do."
"It's not Boyle alone who's involved," said Holloway pleadingly.
"The country's economy would not be able to stand a major dislocation at the present moment. There are thousands of Boyle's workers, suppliers and customers. What would happen to them if Associated Steel went bankrupt?"
"What will happen to the thousands of my workers, suppliers and customers when I go bankrupt?"
"You, Mr. Rearden?" said Holloway incredulously. "But you're the richest, safest and strongest industrialist in the country at this moment!"
"What about the moment after next?"
"Uh?"
"How long do you expect me to be able to produce at a loss?"
"Oh, Mr. Rearden, I have complete faith in you!"
"To hell with your faith! How do you expect me to do it?"
"You'll manage!"
"How?"
There was no answer.
"We can't theorize about the future," cried Wesley Mouch, "when here's an immediate national collapse to avoid! We've got to save the country's economy! We've got to do something!" Rearden's imperturbible glance of curiosity drove him to heedlessness. "If you don't like it, do you have a better solution to offer?"
"Sure," said Rearden easily. "If it's production that you want, then get out of the way, junk all of your damn regulations, let Orren Boyle go broke, let me buy the plant of Associated Steel-and it will be pouring a thousand tons a day from every one of its sixty furnaces."
"Oh, but . . . but we couldn't!" gasped Mouch. "That would be monopoly!"
Rearden chuckled. "Okay," he said indifferently, "then let my mills superintendent buy it. Hell do a better job than Boyle."
"Oh, but that would be letting the strong have an advantage over the weak! We couldn't do that!"
"Then don't talk about saving the country's economy."
"All we want is-" He stopped.
"All you want is production without men who're able to produce, isn't it?"
"That . . . that's theory. That's just a theoretical extreme. All we want is a temporary adjustment."
"You've been making those temporary adjustments for years. Don't you see that you've run out of time?"
"That's just theo . . ." His voice trailed off and stopped.
"Well, now, look here," said Holloway cautiously, "it's not as if Mr.
Boyle were actually . . . weak. Mr. Boyle is an extremely able man.
It's just that he's suffered some unfortunate reverses, quite beyond his control. He had invested large sums in a public-spirited project to assist the undeveloped peoples of South America, and that copper crash of theirs has dealt him a severe financial blow. So it's only a matter of giving him a chance to recover, a helping hand to bridge the gap, a bit of temporary assistance, nothing more. All we have to do is just equalize the sacrifice-then everybody will recover and prosper."
"You've been equalizing sacrifice for over a hundred"-he stopped -"for thousands of years," said Rearden slowly. "Don't you see that you're at the end of the road?"
"That's just theory!" snapped Wesley Mouch.
Rearden smiled. "I know your practice," he said softly. "It's your theory that I'm trying to understand."
He knew that the specific reason behind the Plan was Orren Boyle; he knew that the working of an intricate mechanism, operated by pull, threat, pressure, blackmail-a mechanism like an irrational adding machine run