A Point of Clarification
I remember back at the beginning of the financial crisis, I heard a lot of people I knew in finance saying how persecuted and scapegoated they felt about things. The cry, “Who is John Galt?” went out among them, since they felt they were somehow supporting all that was left of our banking system with little to no appreciation.
Of course in this narrative, they were seeing themselves as the Atlas who held up the world against the oppressive weight of parasites, with John Galt come to tell them how to shirk this burden and let the weight of the world fall off their shoulders.
Well, let’s get one thing straight, management class: John Galt isn’t one of you. You’re not Daedalus, you’re Icarus, and your wings are melting. You’re not Atlas, you’re the parasite. You suck money off the top in exchange for sitting in chairs yelling at people.
What you’ve built is built on the backs of people who can actually make things. The media journalist, the plumber, the welder, the police officer, the writer, the people who learned to do a job and they do it right.
You learned to get paid to give orders, and you scarcely ever give the right ones. You learned to be comfortable while others made things. You learned to be a parasite.
Well, the host is pissed. The host is marching in the street. John Galt is here, and he’s not a man, or a woman, or a single person at all. He has no color or religion. He doesn’t have an “ism.” You cannot divide him into little pieces, or promise him ascension into your 1%. He is the collective frustration of the individuals who have been churning through the firestorm you created since you set about creating it. He is an elemental made of the anger of the skilled creator against the unskilled slave master, a zeitgeist not of fire and brimstone but one made entirely of the unwillingness to suffer your bullshit any-more.
Who is John Galt, owners of America? He lives in Zuccoti Park, and he’s your worst fucking nightmare.
