Difference between revisions of "Ragnar Danneskjöld"

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== The Privateer ==
 
== The Privateer ==
Ragnar Danneskjold's solution came from the heritage and tradition of his [[Viking]] forebears. How he acquired or captured a ship and outfitted it as a ship of war, the novel never makes clear. From the descriptions given of his activities, Ragnar had a fast ship that nevertheless carried long-range guns capable of bombarding either another ship or a shore target at long range. Given the period of the novel, and if one assumes that the United States never entered the [[First World War]] and that that War was settled when [[Communist]] movements overthrew the governments of all the combatants (and not merely that of [[Russia]]), then one may assume that Ragnar assembled a crew of very dedicated and very angry men, trained them in commando-style operations, and then led a raid on the [[Brooklyn Navy Yard]] (or the [[San Francisco Navy Yard]]) where they took forcible possession of a [[battleship]] that was part of what would be, in this [[alternate history]], the "mothballed fleet." The forcible seizure of a steam-driven ship from a dock would be much more difficult than would the seizure of a sailing ship, but not impossible. (Fueling would not be an issue, because Danneskjold would have access to [[John Galt]]'s novel technology of harvesting static electricity from the atmosphere, and would therefore have retrofitted his ship to run on static electricity rather than steam.)
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Ragnar Danneskjold's solution came from the heritage and tradition of his [[Viking]] forebears. How he acquired or captured a ship and outfitted it as a ship of war, the novel never makes clear. From the descriptions given of his activities, Ragnar had a fast ship that nevertheless carried long-range guns capable of bombarding either another ship or a shore target at long range. Given the period of the novel, and if one assumes that the United States never entered the [[First World War]] and that that War was settled when [[Communist]] movements overthrew the governments of all the combatants (and not merely that of [[Russia]]), then one may assume that Ragnar assembled a crew of very dedicated and very angry men, trained them in commando-style operations, and then led a raid on the [[Brooklyn Navy Yard]] (or the [[San Francisco Navy Yard]]) where they took forcible possession of a [[battleship]] that was part of what would be, in this [[alternate history]], the "mothballed fleet." The forcible seizure of a steam-driven ship from a dock would be much more difficult than would the seizure of a sailing ship, but not impossible. (Fueling would not be an issue, because Danneskjold would have access to [[John Galt]]'s novel [[John Galt#The electrostatic motor|electrostatic motor]] technology, and would therefore have retrofitted his ship with an electrostatic power plant.)
  
 
Ragnar also had at his disposal at least one aircraft: a cargo carrier with which Ragnar would later transport large quantities of the [[gold]] he collected in his activities. The novel provides confusing clues as to whether or not this aircraft launched from and landed aboard his ship. If he seized a battleship, then he probably did not try to use it as an [[aircraft carrier]]—which, in any case, was not even conceived until the 1930s. Ragnar does boast at one point of "defying the law of [[gravitation]]," but that is a specific reference to his carrying a record load of gold.
 
Ragnar also had at his disposal at least one aircraft: a cargo carrier with which Ragnar would later transport large quantities of the [[gold]] he collected in his activities. The novel provides confusing clues as to whether or not this aircraft launched from and landed aboard his ship. If he seized a battleship, then he probably did not try to use it as an [[aircraft carrier]]—which, in any case, was not even conceived until the 1930s. Ragnar does boast at one point of "defying the law of [[gravitation]]," but that is a specific reference to his carrying a record load of gold.

Revision as of 19:29, May 2, 2009

Ragnar Danneskjold, in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, was a philosopher who became a privateer. Alone he defied the might of the United States Navy (not as difficult a task as one might imagine, given the probable period of the novel's action) in order to be, as he famously said, "the friend of the friendless."

Spoiler warning
This article contains important plot information

Background

Ragnar Danneskjold studied physics and philosophy—a highly unusual double major—at the Patrick Henry University (not to be confused with the real-life Patrick Henry College). His nationality was never revealed, but he seems to have descended from one of the aristocratic families of either Sweden, Norway, or Denmark.

What at PHU, he made two lasting friendships that were to change his life forever, though he did not know it at the time. One of these friends was Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia, who also was an aristocrat of sorts, though Latin American rather than European. The other was John Galt, who was anything but aristocratic, and came to PHU with barely a penny to his name. These disparities in background and circumstances did not matter to any of these three. All three shared a love of the natural world, how it actually worked, and how one should function within it.

When they graduated, each made a different plan. Francisco d'Anconia planned to take over his father's great copper company, D'Anconia Copper SA of Chile. John Galt planned to go to work as an engineer and an inventor. Ragnar planned to teach philosophy and perhaps to remain at PHU, though this part of his plan is never made clear.

Though each of the three began to implement is respective plan, each would receive a rude interruption.

The Strike

About four years following their graduation, Ragnar received a summons from John Galt to meet him at his home. Francisco d'Anconia received a similar summons. John Galt then told his two friends what had happened to him.

He had gone to work for the Twentieth Century Motor Company, Starnesville, Wisconsin. There he had built the prototype of a motor that could collect static electricity from the atmosphere and do useful work with it. But the owner of the factory had died, and his three children inaugurated a plan to have everyone at the factory work according to his ability, but be paid according to his need. Ragnar probably recognized that principle at once, from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.

John Galt had refused to work under such a plan. He not only quit the factory, but also announced to the three heirs that he would "stop the motor of the world." He began, of course, by wrecking his prototype and carrying away with him those portions of his notes that would enable any future investigator to duplicate his work. And now he was asking his two friends to join him in what he called the strike of the men of the mind, and recruit others to do the same. The rules were simple: anyone having savings to retire on, would do so; the rest would take the lowest jobs that they could find, so that they would not give society the benefit of their talents.

Ragnar found the plan elegant and logical—but incomplete. If John Galt was correct, then the larger society was guilty of armed robbery—and if that society would not police itself, then the men of the mind must not only withdraw from it, but make war against it to reclaim what was rightfully theirs.

The Privateer

Ragnar Danneskjold's solution came from the heritage and tradition of his Viking forebears. How he acquired or captured a ship and outfitted it as a ship of war, the novel never makes clear. From the descriptions given of his activities, Ragnar had a fast ship that nevertheless carried long-range guns capable of bombarding either another ship or a shore target at long range. Given the period of the novel, and if one assumes that the United States never entered the First World War and that that War was settled when Communist movements overthrew the governments of all the combatants (and not merely that of Russia), then one may assume that Ragnar assembled a crew of very dedicated and very angry men, trained them in commando-style operations, and then led a raid on the Brooklyn Navy Yard (or the San Francisco Navy Yard) where they took forcible possession of a battleship that was part of what would be, in this alternate history, the "mothballed fleet." The forcible seizure of a steam-driven ship from a dock would be much more difficult than would the seizure of a sailing ship, but not impossible. (Fueling would not be an issue, because Danneskjold would have access to John Galt's novel electrostatic motor technology, and would therefore have retrofitted his ship with an electrostatic power plant.)

Ragnar also had at his disposal at least one aircraft: a cargo carrier with which Ragnar would later transport large quantities of the gold he collected in his activities. The novel provides confusing clues as to whether or not this aircraft launched from and landed aboard his ship. If he seized a battleship, then he probably did not try to use it as an aircraft carrier—which, in any case, was not even conceived until the 1930s. Ragnar does boast at one point of "defying the law of gravitation," but that is a specific reference to his carrying a record load of gold.

And so he became a privateer, and in fact became known as the scourge of the high seas (chiefly the Atlantic Ocean and occasionally the Caribbean Sea). He was careful never to kill a member of another ship's crew if he could avoid it; if he ever had to sink another vessel, he would put the crew adrift in lifeboats. He never attacked any private vessel, nor seized private property. With one exception: at Francisco d'Anconia's specific request, he attacked D'Anconia Copper ships and sank them with their loads. Francisco had decided to destroy D'Anconia Copper systematically, so that no one would benefit from his talents or those of his father and grandfather and ancestors.

Ragnar's actual targets were what he called the "loot carriers." These were "humanitarian" cargoes paid for with taxpayers' money and sent by order of the Bureau of Global Relief. This was the best method available to Ragnar to recover the substance that was taken from men of the mind by force. Eventually, not a single such cargo could ever sail from an American port to any of several "People's States" throughout the world and hope to reach its destination. Ragnar Danneskjold was always waiting, and always found his targets. From the description given of some of his other activities, one may infer that he had an espionage network unrivalled for effectiveness and avoidance of compromise.

Ragnar would take these cargoes to various smugglers throughout Europe and Africa (whether he ever penetrated the Straits of Gibraltar with one of his prizes, the novel never says) and sold them. He always demanded payment in gold. He would never accept any fiat currency, be it Federal Reserve notes or the scrip of any People's State.

That he could elude the United States Navy for twelve years might seem incredible. But if the novel's action was supposed to take place during the years 1917-1929 (as seems likely from various internal clues), this would be entirely plausible. The United States Navy would not become a force powerful enough to suppress piracy on the high seas on its own until during and after the Second World War.

Galt's Gulch

At first, Ragnar had no plan for making restitution to John Galt and his fellow strikers, except to hide the gold in a secure cove until John Galt declared the strike over. But the defection of Michael "Midas" Mulligan changed that. Midas Mulligan, after losing a lawsuit brought by an unsuccessful loan applicant, liquidated his Chicago bank and converted all his worldly assets into land and food. The land was a secluded valley in the Rocky Mountains, to which Mulligan intended a permanent retirement. Soon after Midas built his house in the valley, Judge Narragansett, the trial judge who had found in his favor only to be reversed on appeal, came to rent some land from him. Other strikers followed, and soon they established a working, even a thriving town where they could use their talents for the benefit of themselves and one another.

And so Midas Mulligan re-established his bank in what was now known widely as Galt's Gulch (though Galt himself called it Mulligan's Valley, in recognition of the actual owner of the land). Now Ragnar could make a more definite plan to restore the spoils he had recovered. He opened accounts with the New Mulligan Bank in the names of all the strikers, and in the names of those persons still on the outside whom John Galt and Francisco d'Anconia were laboring the hardest to recruit. He then asked his spies to ferret out those people's income-tax returns, with the intention of refunding, in full and in gold, the income taxes that these persons paid.

The establishment of Galt's Gulch complicated Ragnar's life in another way, though a pleasant one. Actress Kay Ludlow left the theater on the outside and came to the Gulch to live. Perhaps Ragnar attended one of her performances in one of his annual trips to the Gulch with his cargo of gold for deposit in the Mulligan Bank. In any event, he fell in love with her, and she with him. They were married in a civil ceremony, with Judge Narragansett presiding.

Henry Rearden

The last full year of the strike saw an event that would drive him to take the greatest risk of his career. The Bureau of Economic Planning and Natural Resources issued Directive 10-289, by which all persons were to remain attached to their jobs and all intellectual property was to be surrendered to the government. From his spy network, Ragnar learned that Henry Rearden had been forced, by blackmail, to surrender his right to the new copper and iron alloy, called Rearden Metal, that he had invented. He also learned that a rival firm, Associated Steel, headed by Orren Boyle, would attempt to make Rearden Metal at one of its factories on the coast of Maine.

Ragnar stood off from the coast and addressed Orren Boyle's workforce over a powerful and probably directional megaphone. He simply identified himself and ordered them to evacuate the facility within ten minutes. Then he leveled the factory, and all of its blast furnaces, using his ship's guns.

He did not stop there. He had himself taken ashore and accosted Henry Rearden as he was walking home along a lonely road. He handed Rearden a gold ingot, probably one Troy pound in weight, and described it as "a small repayment on a very large debt," that being "the money that was taken from you by force." Rearden was shocked to hear Ragnar identify himself by name, and even more shocked to hear Ragnar's description of his activities. Rearden told Ragnar that if he now was to be defended only by a "pirate," then he did not wish to be defended any longer.

Then a highway-patrol cruiser pulled up to the two men. The lead officer asked Rearden whether he was in any danger, and Rearden said no. Then the officer asked who Ragnar was, and Rearden referred to him as his bodyguard. In short, Henry Rearden could have handed Ragnar over to the authorities, but did not.

Ragnar thanked Rearden for this consideration, and predicted that he and Rearden would meet again, and that sooner than Rearden might think.

Dagny Taggart

Later that year, Ragnar made another of his summer trips to Galt's Gulch, with an unusually large cargo of gold. The Bureau of Global Relief had been very active in sending "relief cargoes" to various People's States, but of course none of them reached their intended ports. It was in this context that Ragnar boasted of having "defied the law of gravitation."

He called on his friend John Galt, and then discovered Dagny Taggart staying in John's house. Dagny puzzled him by saying that she was still a scab, and had not committed to joining the strike. She in fact was in the Gulch after a mishap: she had tried to follow one of John Galt's recruitment flights and had had her engine shorted out by the refractor-ray screen that provided the Gulch with its concealment.

He described his activities to her as well, and perhaps sensed that she did not approve of them. He then started to tell John about his exciting encounter with Henry Rearden, but John did not allow him to continue. Perhaps he learned later why John Galt did not want Ragnar to speak about Henry Rearden in Dagny Taggart's presence just then.

The rescue

Ragnar continued his privateering activities throughout that summer and into the fall. His last mission to sink one of Francisco d'Anconia's cargoes probably came in the end of August, because on September 2 the People's State of Chile tried to nationalize D'Anconia Copper, but Francisco destroyed every remaining asset that the company had on that date. One month later, Ragnar received word that Henry Rearden had at last agreed to quit and join the strike, and that a large number of Rearden's regular employees followed him to the Gulch.

Then on November 22, John Galt made his famous three-hour speech to the world. Ragnar never learned the full extent of the spontaneous strike activity that John Galt's speech inspired. But he did learn that John Galt himself was arrested by the American authorities, and that Dagny Taggart had somehow been involved in that arrest.

If Ragnar actually believed that Dagny Taggart had betrayed John Galt to the other side, his disappointment would be short-lived. Perhaps Francisco d'Anconia knew the truth of the matter—that John had encouraged Dagny to pretend to have sold him out in order to protect herself. In any event, Dagny settled all doubts, after the abortive presentation of the obviously factitious "John Galt Plan for Peace and Prosperity," by joining the strike herself, and swearing the Oath of the Men of the Mind before Francisco:

I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

Ragnar's spy network was still in place, and from them he learned that John Galt had been taken to the secret installation of "Project F" of the State Science Institute for "enhanced interrogation." Ragnar, Francisco, Dagny, and Henry Rearden all staged a commando raid on "Project F" and rescued John Galt before the authorities could do him any permanent injury. In this, Ragnar had the help of the entire male population of the Gulch, in addition to his own ship's crew.

The return

This marked the end of Ragnar's privateering activities. With John Galt set free, the American government and economy abruptly degenerated into anarchy and chaos. The one project that could have threatened a continuation of the United States government (Project X) was destroyed when the project's nominal inventor struggled with another factional leader who had seized control of it, and in the process had triggered the destruction of the project and everything within a hundred miles. As Ragnar's rescue plane overflew the Eastern seaboard, it was plunged into darkness as the entire electrical grid failed.

Ragnar disbanded his crew and suggested that they settle in the Gulch. He beached his ship in another secluded cove, and planned eventually to strip it of most of its armament and convert it into either a freighter or a passenger liner. He himself looked forward to following the career he had intended to pursue before John Galt had called him to go on strike: to teach philosophy.


Spoilers end here.


Typology

In his own words, Ragnar Danneskjold is simply carrying out a philosophical imperative. Because he pursues this imperative without regard to the good or bad opinions of others, he is an anti-villain rather than a true hero. He also is Ayn Rand's idea of a larger-than-life champion of justice.

Yet Rand did provide a vital clue to Ragnar as an allegorical literary type. In his introduction of himself to Henry Rearden, Ragnar mentions Robin Hood, the legendary Saxon gentlemen who stole from the rich allies of Prince John and shared his loot with the poor peasant farmers who labored under John's oppressive rule. Ragnar complains that the legend has been distorted. Robin Hood took money from a government that had robbed people and gave that money back to its victims. But as the legend survives, he simply stole from the rich because they were rich, and gave to the poor because they were poor. Ragnar decides to reverse the process, but in fact he is acting in a manner that recalls the original legend. Thus he seizes certain goods paid for by exorbitant taxes, and shares those goods, or at least the gold that he sells them for, with the payers of those taxes. If he then appears to "steal from the poor and give to the rich," that is only because the taxes in his day are progressive, whereas the taxes in the days of the original Robin Hood were regressive.

Ragnar Danneskjold's privateering activities illustrate another common libertarian theme: that "taxation is theft." In other essays published in The Objectivist and other magazines and newsletters that she published from time to time, Ayn Rand actually proposed that taxation be placed on a voluntary basis, and suggested that a government-run lottery might be one workable method of voluntary taxation.

Ragnar Danneskjold is a type of another sort of person whom Miss Rand did not describe in any great detail: a militiaman. In fact, his rescue of John Galt from the State Science Institute is a prize example of militia in action. The armed forest camps that the spontaneous "strikers" set up after John Galt makes his famous speech are another militia example.