What Going Galt Meant to Homer
by David Atkins
I’d like to muse with your permission this Friday afternoon on the nature of “going Galt.” Due to the pernicious influence of Ayn Rand and her Objectivist acolytes, it has become a trope among mainline conservatives to proclaim that the “producers” in society are under assault from the “parasites,” who conspire to steal the profits that the deserving Masters of the Universe have supposedly rightfully earned.
These same Objectivists claim to carry the mantle of defenders of Western Civilization, of traditional values and the heritage bequeathed to us by our Greco-Roman cultural forbears. It seems fitting, then, that we should examine how Homer, arguably the first and foremost author of literature in the “Western” tradition (if indeed there was such a single person), treated the idea of producers, parasites, profits and “going Galt.”
Homer’s first great work, the Iliad, tells the story of part of the final year of the Trojan War. While it’s not contained explicitly within the work, Homer’s readers would have been familiar with the lead-up: a Trojan prince named Paris absconds with the beautiful young wife of Spartan king Menelaos and sails back with her to Troy. Menelaos seeks help from his brother, Mycenaean king Agamemnon, who proceeds to round up allegiance from kings and troops all around the Greek world to go to war with Troy.
After nine long years of fighting, the story picks up with a Trojan priest named Chryses offering Agamemnon ransom for his captured daughter, who has been taken as Agamemnon’s prized slave. As lead chieftain of the Greek armies, Agamemnon is entitled to the lion’s share of the booty and profits of war, and Chryses’ daughter was no exception. Although 99% of the Greeks were in favor of granting the priest’s request, Agamemnon arrogantly refuses, insisting that what he took (even if others did most of the the fighting for him) was his and his alone, and no entreaty or offer of ransom could dissuade him from taking full “enjoyment” of Chryses’ daughter.
Bad move. Chryses happens to be a priest of sun god Apollo, and asks Apollo to wreak vengeance upon the Greeks. Apollo punishes Agamemnon for his hubris, but punishes not only Agamemnon himself but all the Greek armies by sending a plague among them. The Greeks know that they have offended the gods in some way, but only wise old Nestor truly understands the nature of their sin. But before daring to speak against Agamemnon, he requests the protection in council of swift-footed Achilles, by far the mightiest warrior among the Greeks. After securing Achilles’ promise of protection, wise Nestor suggests in council that Agamemnon might just be to blame, and helpfully suggests that Agamemnon return the girl to her father in order to secure the support of his troops and end the plague.
Agamemnon at first refuses. But then he says that if he must give up his prize, then the prize of another man from among the Greeks must be redistributed upward to him in recompense.
Achilles, most powerful hero of the Greeks upon whom the burden of fighting has thus far fallen, objects to Lord Agamemnon, pointing out that spoils have already been handed out. Furious, Agamemnon demands to take Achilles’ captured slave girl Bryseis to punish him for his insolence–despite the fact that the Greeks would have little in the way of victory or spoils without him.
It is at this point that Achilles says the following, one of my favorite quotes in all of Homer:
‘O wrapped in shamelessness, with your mind forever on profit,
how shall any one of the Achaians readily obey you
either to go on a journey or to fight men strongly in battle?
For, you see, a man who sought only profit above honor, who cared little for his people even so as to refuse to give up even a slight portion of his already copious bounty on behalf of the well-being of his troops, was no man and no leader at all.
But after a near duel between the two men, it is Achilles who is forced to relent. Bryseis is taken to join Agamemnon in his chambers in exchange for Chryses’ daughter. Agamemnon maintains his privileged authority and profit, and the curse is lifted.
But not so fast. Because Achilles now goes Galt. He refuses to assist Agamemnon or the Greeks in any way thereafter, promising to sail back to his homeland at first opportunity. And for the next six chapters (books) thereafter, the Greeks are pushed farther and farther back from the walls of Troy, even back to the beach in a last ditch effort to prevent their ships from being put to the flame. Agamemnon begs Achilles for his help, but Achilles remains steadfast in his refusal. It is only when Achilles’ close “friend” Patroklos joins the fighting and is killed that Achilles, in his rage and grief, rejoins the battle to avenge him–but not for Agamemnon’s sake.
For the Greeks, there was a moral lesson here: just because a chief is legally entitled to his profits, doesn’t mean that he deserves them or necessarily gets to keep them. The rich man’s duty is to his people and to honor itself (as enforced by the gods) more than to himself. When the people upon whom the rich man’s wealth depend object, the rich man isn’t supposed to demand even more of their wealth for himself, or he can expect them to go on strike. Of course, Achilles was also too stubborn to relent after the rich man offered him 100 times the value of what was taken, but that’s another lesson and another story.
That’s what “going Galt” meant to Homer, founder of Western literature. A man who is mindful of nothing but profit is not to be celebrated but condemned, followed by a labor strike of the actual workers upon whom he depends. And all this in a blatantly aristocratic society no less (“aristocracy” is Greek for “rule by the noblest/best.”)
Modern Republicans do not defend the Western tradition. They reject it. They do not support democracy, but reject it, in favor of a more stratified hierarchy than even existed in Dark Age Greece. Modern-day Republicans would have offered Agamemnon a tax cut, before bringing in his troops to break Achilles’ strike and force him back to work.
They’re cloaked in shamelessness, mindful of nothing but profit. And they are truly unfit to lead.
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