Daily Archives: September 22, 2022

Television host Mike Rowe (b. 1962) has accrued millions of fans for his work glorifying dirty jobs. Novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand (19051982) has likewise gained millions of readers by depicting the sorts of hardworking men and women who could fit perfectly into one of Rowes shows. What could explain their popularity? In large part, their fans yearn to see the values of self-reliance and hard work made visible in all their glory.

Rowes rise to fame began with launching the show Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel in 2003. It ran for eight years, and Rowe has since proven that hes no one-hit wonder. Somebodys Gotta Do It aired in 2014 on CNN and ran for four seasons, Returning the Favor ran on Facebook Watch from 2017 to 2020, and his podcast The Way I Heard It has been running weekly since 2016. He founded MikeRoweWORKS and the MikeRoweFoundation in 2008 and published Profoundly Disconnected in 2014 to spark interest in the skilled trades and raise scholarship money for those pursuing a career in these fields.1 As of September 20, 2022, his Facebook page has six million followers, with many fans calling for Rowe to run for U.S. president.2

Rand, who created a system of philosophy called Objectivism, has inspired countless individuals with vivid depictions of uncompromising heroes in her novels Atlas Shrugged (1957), The Fountainhead (1943), Anthem (1938), and We the Living (1936). More than sixty years after their publication, her novels have sold millions of copies and have been translated into dozens of languages, with annual sales exceeding six figures for decades.3 Every year, tens of thousands of high school students enter essay contests in which they read and write about her novels. And organizations devoted to teaching people about Rands ideas are proliferating across the globe.

Rowe and Rand have captured the hearts, minds, and imaginations of their fans for many of the same reasons. Their audiences appreciate the unapologetically heroic exemplars set before them. Some of these heroes maintain bridges and sewer systems, whereas others run railroads and steel mills. But all of them possess ennobling grit, confidence, and determination that inspire admiration and emulation.

Their mediums and manner may differ, but Rowe and Rand have a lot in common. Both understand that each of us must work for a living; they uphold productiveness as a virtue; and they appreciate that there is dignity in any kind of honest work, whether clean (i.e., white collar) or dirty (i.e., blue collar). Rowe has said he doesnt consider himself a real Ayn Randian, but he has read her books and think[s] she was right about more than a few things.4 Examining their common ground can help us better appreciate the values that each offers.

Rowe is more philosophical than the typical TV host, and he grounds his ideas in verifiable facts, not fuzzy abstractions. He began cultivating this reality-first orientation at a young age by recognizing his own limitations, which ultimately led him to discover his talents.

He was inspired by his grandfather, Carl Knobel, whom he regarded as a magician and wanted to emulate: Some days he might reshingle a roof. Or rebuild a motor. . . . He was a plumber, a mechanic, a mason, a carpenter, and a master electrician. He built the church I went to as a kid and the farmhouse my brothers and I grew up in.5

Rowe explains: My career started with a profound desire to build things. Sadly, it was accompanied by an equally profound lack of natural ability. After washing out of every available shop class in high school, I finally took my grandfathers advice, and got myself a different kind of tool box.6 That is, he faced the uncomfortable facts about his career prospects. He enrolled in a local community college and studied theater, music, philosophy, poetry, and creative writing. He proved himself a talented singer and earned a spot in the Baltimore Opera. He also landed a job with the QVC shopping channel by speaking impromptu for eight minutes about the merits of a pencil after the interviewer rolled one across the desk and challenged Rowe to make me want it.7

That toehold in the world of television hosting, along with his tenacity and a subsequent string of other hosting and narration work, positioned him for his big break. It came while paying homage to his grandfather after visiting him one weekend. Rowe explains, I decided on the flight back to San Francisco to do a TV show in his honor. Something simplea short series of specials that portrayed hard work with humor and relevance.8 Originally pitched by Rowe as Somebodys Gotta Do It, the idea was picked up by the Discovery Channel, whose executives changed the name to Dirty Jobs. The show would highlight the unsung heroes who do work that many take for granted. Rowes commitment to following the facts led him, among other things, to his first big break.

Another aspect of Rowes reality orientation comes out in relation to his views about safety on the job. One of his controversial mottoes is Safety third. His considered view is safety always, but he uses safety third to provoke conversation about the dangers of complacency. He and his crew had gotten used to mandatory safety training on the sites of various jobs when he noticed that many crew members started getting injured. After a worker died in a factory where his crew was filming, Rowe reflected on what was occurring. People confused safety with being in compliance. Lured into a false sense of security, they let down their guard and took more chances, creating situations ripe for accidents. Rowe realized that there is a vast difference between safety and compliance. The physical worldnot rules or regulationsdetermines what is safe or not. Mistaking what Rand identified as the man-made (such as safety regulations) for reality (such as the danger of stepping in front of a speeding truck) leads to foolish behavior, dashed hopes, and life-threatening danger. Rowe emphasizes that each person needs to take responsibility for his well-being and attend to his surroundingsregulations or no regulations.9

Rowes follow-the-facts attitude is an example of what Rand referred to as the primacy of existence, a view that entails accepting reality and refusing to engage in evasion or wishful thinking.10 A person is reality oriented to the extent that he focuses on figuring out what is true and choosing to live accordingly. For example, when you figure out which foods nourish you and which are unhealthy, you can make better decisions about what to eat and act on that knowledge. If a diabetic chooses to eat chocolate cake because he wants to indulge his desire for sweets, thenmuch like a person who hopes that a speeding truck he has walked in the path of wont kill himhe is evading reality, and he will pay the consequences. Respecting and understanding reality enable us to work with it to enhance our lives.

A lesson Rowe received early in life from his father is that each person not only needs to work for a living to sustain himself, but also that doing so both requires and builds character. They lived in a house that was heated by wood, and family members had to go outside, cut down trees, and split logs. Rowe reflects:

Chopping wood yields immediate results, and its gratifying to see progress unfold. But up there in the woodpile, the real gratification would be delayed. Because my dad was not just teaching me how to swing an axhe was teaching me that work and play were two sides of the same coin. He was showing me how to enjoy the challenges of doing a hard thing.11

Rowe may not explicitly discuss virtue, which Rand describes as action by which one gains and/or keeps a value, or free will, which Rand describes as the choice to think or not.12 However, he emphasizes that each individual is responsible for the person he becomes. Rowe created a twelve-item S.W.E.A.T. Pledge, the acronym standing for Skill and Work Ethic Arent Taboo. Item #10 of the pledge states: I believe that I am a product of my choicesnot my circumstances. I will never blame anyone for my shortcomings or the challenges I face. And I will never accept the credit for something I didnt do. In item #12, he adds, Some choose to be lazy. Some choose to sleep in. I choose to work my butt off.13 And, elsewhere, he urges a virtuous work ethic: Work for free if you have to. Make yourself indispensable. Be insatiably curious about every aspect of every other position. Work harder than everyone else around you, and smile your face off the whole time.14 This advice is based on his personal experience in the workforce and on his observations of those featured on his shows. He says:

I met hundreds of men and women who proved beyond all doubt that hard work didnt necessarily have to be conditioned on anything other than a personal decision to bust your own ass. By and large, the workers I met on [Dirty Jobs] were happy and successful because they were willing to work harder than everyone else around them. And in doing so, they thrived. . . . In fact, many of the Dirty Jobbers we featured were millionaires.15

Rowes view about the character traits required for a rewarding career are similar to Rands account of productiveness as a virtue, which she defines as the recognition of the fact that productive work is the process by which mans mind sustains his life, the process that sets man free of the necessity to adjust himself to his background, as all animals do, and gives him the power to adjust his background to himself.16 The heroes of Rands Atlas Shrugged take an oath that would fit right into Rowes S.W.E.A.T. Pledge: 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.17 Rand points out that each person must use his mind to figure out what will promote his life, then work to produce the values he needs to survive and thrive. Among other things, he must think carefully about his career, his diet, his relationships, and then work to produce the values that make for a wonderful life.

Like Rowe, Rand held that productiveness involves more than merely getting things done. It both builds and requires characterhelping one to become a clear-thinking, hard-working person who proudly takes responsibility for his own life.18 As Rand wrote:

Just as [man] has to produce the material values he needs to sustain his life, so he has to acquire the values of character that enable him to sustain it and that make his life worth living. He is born without the knowledge of either. He has to discover bothand translate them into realityand survive by shaping the world and himself in the image of his values.19

Like Rowe, Rand didnt denigrate manual laborrather, she often celebrated it. She held that people can be upright and productive in any line of rational endeavor, great or modest, on any level of ability.20 And she demonstrated this in her fiction, portraying morally good people who hold a wide variety of jobs, from cooking fast food to driving a bus to running a transcontinental railroad. Consider how Rand describes an everyday street scene:

Eddie Willers shifted his glance down to the street, to a vegetable pushcart at the stoop of a brownstone house. He saw a pile of bright gold carrots and the fresh green of onions. He saw a clean white curtain blowing at an open window. He saw a bus turning a corner, expertly steered. He wondered why he felt reassured. . . . When he came to Fifth Avenue, he kept his eyes on the windows of the stores he passed. There was nothing he needed or wished to buy; but he liked to see the display of goods, any goods, objects made by men, to be used by men. He enjoyed the sight of a prosperous street.21

Rands novels also reflect the adaptability and resilience of those who recognize and value the breadth and depth of options in the realm of productivity over those who harbor a stubborn insistence on doing only white-collar work. In Atlas Shrugged, for instance, various titans of industry find themselves in altered circumstances and cheerfully work for the time being as lumberjacks, cabbage farmers, fishwives, shoemakers, plumbers, and the like. When Dagny is dismayed that aristocrats were taking the lousiest kind of jobs, a former oil tycoon retorts with words that could have come out of Rowes mouth: Theres no such thing as a lousy jobonly lousy men who dont care to do it.22

Further, Rands good characters admire one another for the competent work they do. When we are introduced to Howard Roark, hero of The Fountainhead, he is friendless and dedicated to studying architecture and working in the building trades. The first real friend he makes is master electrician Mike Donnigan, who worshipped expertness of any kind.23 They meet on the site of a construction job where Donnigan assumes that Roark is yet another one of the impractical college smarties the architectural firm sent down from the office. However, when Roark not only instructs him on how to solve a difficult construction problem, but also wields a blow torch to demonstrate the work, Donnigan gazes reverently at the neat hole cut through the beam and remarks, Do you know how to handle a torch!24 The shared value of pride in a job well done is an important basis for their friendship. If Roark were a real person, he would fit right in on one of Rowes shows. The scene might unfold much like one in The Fountainhead, with Mike Rowe in place of Mike Donnigan: Roark extended his hand and Mikes grimy fingers closed about it ferociously, as if the smudges he left implanted in Roarks skin said everything he wanted to say.25

By showcasing skilled tradesmen and self-starters on Dirty Jobs and Somebodys Gotta Do It, Rowe shows appreciation for the hardheaded, good-natured, clear-thinking individuals who arent afraid to step outside their comfort zones and make good things happen.26 He invites us to think more about what makes a technologically advanced civilization possible, saying, for instance, Every tangible thing our society needs is either pulled from the ground or grown from the ground, and that without such fundamental industries, there would be no jobs of any kind. There would be no economy. Civilization begins . . . when skilled workers transform those raw materials into something useful or edible.27

Rowe does not speak about such jobs merely as manual labor that just anyone can do. He recognizes and spotlights the fact that doing these jobs requires both hard work and significant intelligenceusing ones body and mind to create the values on which life depends. In item #9 of his S.W.E.A.T. Pledge, Rowe highlights the lifelong need to develop ones mind and skills: I believe that my education is . . . absolutely critical to my success. . . . I will never stop learning.28

Rowes view of work aligns with Rands identification that mans mind is the source of wealth. She explains that because mans essential characteristic is his rational faculty, and his mind is his basic means of survival, the action required to sustain his life is primarily intellectual: everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and produced by his effort. Production is the application of reason to the problem of survival.29 Dagny Taggart, heroine of Atlas Shrugged, reflects on the brilliant thinking involved in solving the problems of transportation while her train plunges through the tunnels of a railroad station: She watched the tunnels as they flowed past: bare walls of concrete, a net of pipes and wires, a web of rails . . . [O]ne could admire naked purpose and the ingenuity that had achieved it.30 Similarly, steel industrialist Hank Rearden looks out from his office over his mills and furnaces and thinks these were an achievement of his mind, which he built from scratch and would be nothing more than a pile of dead scrap without his thought, direction, and judgment.31

Wealth, whether money or manufactured goods, does not lie around already existing in the world for people to stumble across, take, or redistribute. It is created by individuals choosing to use their minds to create values. This theme animates Atlas Shrugged, which illustrates what happens to a civilization when those who think and produce withdraw from the broader society: Bridges collapse, trains halt, food rots, and mass privation and death ensue.

Rowe states that without entrepreneurial risk, no new job would ever get created; and he honors not only those who do the job, but also those who create the job, meaning entrepreneurs and business owners who take the risk and initiative to start companies.32 In an environment often hostile to business, the latter group often doesnt get due credit.

The entrepreneurs who end up succeeding in a market system are those who, in Rowes words, are passionate about their work, even though many dont follow their bliss. More important to them than pursuing any specific vocation is having an entrepreneurial attitude and commitment to an ethic of hard work:

The happiest people Ive met over the last few years have not followed their passion at allthey have, instead, brought it with them. . . . What they did was step back from the crowd and watch carefully to see where everyone else was going. Then, they simply went the other way. They followed the available opportunitiesnot their passionand built a balanced life around the willingness to do a job that nobody else wanted.33

Unlike people who pursue their passion though it cannot pay their billsor who resentfully take a job they deem beneath themthose willing to pivot toward and embrace opportunity tend to be happier and more prosperous. They also tend to produce successful companies, goods and services, and opportunities for others to be productive or more productive.

Rand likewise highlights that we are indebted to entrepreneurs for modern conveniences and our high standards of living. In her novels, especially Atlas Shrugged, she shows how entrepreneurial, self-made businessmen are fundamentally responsible for the goods and services we enjoy. Therein, we see that a modern factory employing thousands of people, for instance, is made possible by the productive genius of the industrialist who built it and the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new.34

Rand defended businessmen and entrepreneurs in her nonfiction, calling them Americas persecuted minority.35 This is because they were unfairly blamed for various problemsfrom recessions to alienation to povertywhen as a class, they have demonstrated the greatest productive genius and the most spectacular achievements ever recorded in the economic history of mankind.36

Rowe observes:

Weve got millions of people looking for work and millions of jobs that nobody wants. College graduates are a trillion dollars in debt and struggling to find employment in their field of study. Meanwhile, 88 percent of all the available jobs dont require a four-year degree. They require specific training. So what do we do? We push a four-year degree like its some sort of a Golden Ticket. We remove vocational education from high schools at the time we need it most. Were lending money we dont have to kids who cant pay it back, educating them for jobs that no longer exist. Im no expert, but Id say thats profoundly disconnected.37

This profoundly disconnected state of affairs has led to a skills gap, a mismatch between the more than three million available jobs in various skilled trades, many with salaries well above the national average, and the millions of unemployed who are not trained to fill those positions.

Underlying this skills gap is what Rowe calls a willingness gap caused by a lack of people who [are] willing to reinvent themselves in order to get a job.38 An underlying problem, says Rowe, is an attitude of expectationalism: Many people have come to expect that they can simply go to college for whatever strikes their fancy and that, upon graduation, theyll be handed a high-paying job they lovenever stopping to consider whether theres any demand for the skills theyre pursuing.39 As a result, a large number of them (and their parents) have accrued crippling debt that they may never be able to pay back, and they find themselves filling out applications at coffee shops and grocery stores. Meanwhile, they are moving back to their parents homes in droves. Their dream has become a nightmare, both for them and for the broader economy.40

America needs to reconsider the definition of a good job, says Rowe. Weve developed some stigmas and stereotypes around certain types of work and certain forms of learning.41 Blue-collar work and physically demanding jobs should not be widely viewed as undesirable, lowly, or undignifiedand the same goes for the prerequisite vocational training for such jobs. Rowe challenges the prevailing narrative that a real education can be acquired only through a four-year college degree. He doesnt reject such degrees, but he thinks that they are not for everyone, especially those who cannot afford them. Associate degrees, vocational training, continuing education programs, and autodidacticism fueled by a local library also are good forms of alternative education. He rejects stereotypes that denigrate skilled trades, as though such jobs are beneath college grads and can be performed only by mindless slobs. (Indeed, many college graduates are beneath those jobs, lacking the necessary knowledge and training to perform them.) Rowe locates one of the main causes of Americas ailing economy and skills gap in this dysfunctional entitlement mentality that looks down on dirty jobs.42

This relates to what Rand calls the primacy of consciousness.43 The primacy of consciousness is the attempt to place ones wishes over the facts of reality. When people ignore relevant information, evade the responsibility of thinking carefully about their alternatives, and maintain, whether explicitly or implicitly, that they are entitled to a reality different from the one in which they exist, they are acting as if consciousness can rewrite reality in accord with their fantasies.44 Like her identification of the primacy of existence discussed above, Rands identification of the primacy of consciousness spotlights the fundamental issue driving what Rowe diagnoses as profound disconnection and the willingness gap.

Whether through unreflective acceptance of cultural norms about good jobs, willful ignorance of the connection between skills development and employment, or resentment of markets, many young people have set themselves up for unemployment, debt, and dissatisfaction. They are like Philip Rearden in Atlas Shrugged, who petulantly demands that his successful brother, Hank, give him a job in his steel mill. Even though Philip has no job-related skills and would be of no use to [Hank] whatsoever, he asserts that Hank should give him a job because he needs one and everybody is entitled to a livelihood.45 Philips primacy-of-consciousness approach toward work contrasts sharply, for instance, with Roarks primacy-of-existence approach in The Fountainhead. Roarkwho passionately wants to be an architectinitially finds himself unable to win commissions and so takes a job in a granite quarry to earn a living. When Donnigan, who reluctantly agrees to recommend Roark for the job, says, Architects dont take workmens jobs, Roark says, Thats all this architect can do, and assures him, You dont have to feel sorry for me. I dont.46

What are the respective roles of governments and markets in relation to job creation, wages, and the skills gap?

Consider Rowes response to those demanding that the government address recessions and rising unemployment by creating shovel-ready jobs: [C]ome ontwelve million people are looking for work and three million jobs cant be filled? . . . Why do we talk only of job creation, when we cant even fill the jobs we have?47 Rowe argues that government intervention is not the answer to unemployment. Instead, the solution is for individuals to take responsibility for their lives, formulate their career expectations in accord with their actual prospects, and retrain for available jobs as necessary.

Asked about the idea of a living wage, Rowe said, Some jobs pay better, some jobs smell better, and some jobs have no business being treated like careers. But work is never the enemy, regardless of the wage. Because somewhere between the job and the paycheck, theres still a thing called opportunity, and thats what people need to pursue.48

When looking at the impact of government-sponsored student loans, Rowe invokes the butterfly effect of unintended consequences:

[W]hen the government suddenly makes hundreds of billions of dollars in student loans readily availableunder the popular (and voter-friendly) theory that everyone should go to collegewe see an unintended consequence. . . . Republicans and Democrats have both allowed a trillion dollars of public money to flow freely between students and colleges with no real accountability for the results.49

The unintended consequence is the aforementioned skills gap.

The solution to Americas economic woes, in Rowes view, is not to be found with politicians from either side of the aisle. He holds that ultimately, the way out of this is not through D.C. The buck no longer stops there. It stops with us. It has to. Thats in part because politicians cannot create jobs. The best they can do is encourage an environment where people who might be willing to assume the risk of hiring other people are more inclined to do so.50 In other words, government needs to get out of the way of businesses and let them do what they do best, namely, produce.

Like Rowe, Rand held that when politicians attempt to regulate business and guarantee well-being, they can only make things worse. In Atlas Shrugged, she illustrates this via the conflict between Dagny Taggart and her brother, James, who opposes free markets and cuts crony deals with politicians. Dagny works hard to keep the family railroad business, Taggart Transcontinental, afloat, mitigating the destructive impacts of her brothers actions and those of other cronies by offering services that customers willingly pay for. James, by contrast, insists that some constructive policy has to be devised, something has to be done . . . by somebody.51 And by somebody, he means government bureaucrats. Despite his wish otherwise, those very policies prove destructive for Taggart Transcontinentaland the country at large. For example, government-mandated wage hikes and partisan subsidies cause skyrocketing prices, as well as supply and labor shortages that cripple Taggart Transcontinental.

Rand argues that capitalismwhich she defines as a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rightsis our best hope for flourishing and securing ourselves against future need.52 Individual rights protect mans freedom to think, act on his judgment, and keep the fruits of his work. In this way, capitalism enables people to create the values on which human life depends. This is why Rand claims that [b]usinessmen are the symbol of a free societythe symbol of America.53 Entrepreneurs and innovators are hampered to the extent that they lack protection for their rights. They thrive in a society that protects those rights, and in which all interactions are voluntary and mutually beneficial.54

***

Rowe highlights mans heroic spirit by spotlighting individuals who choose elbow grease over entitlement. These are folks who agree that Somebodys gotta do it. And that somebody is every individualbecause each and every one of us is responsible for supporting his own life and pursuing his own happiness. Both Rowe and Rand understand the necessityand virtueof personal responsibility. Their work offers powerful guidance for individuals to effect positive change in their own lives and beyond.

If more people were to live by these ideas, they could help replace the downward spiral of rights-violating policies, mounting debt, and recession with a turnaround toward prosperity, creativity, and flourishing.

Dr. Carrie-Ann Biondi holds a B.A. and M.A. in American Studies and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy. She has twenty-five years of experience teaching philosophy at the college level and worked for three years as a high school humanities curriculum developer and Montessori guide for Higher Ground Education. She translates ancient Greek and specializes in Aristotles ethical and political works. Her research interests and publications range from virtue ethics, egoism, and individual rights to Socratic pedagogy and popular culture, and she also serves as book review editor at Reason Papers.

1. About, MikeRoweWORKSFoundation, https://www.mikeroweworks.org/about/; and Mike Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected (MikeRoweWORKSFoundation, 2014). These are private endeavors where he offers a place for employers to post about openings and training programs and provides scholarship opportunities for those who would like to learn a trade.

2. https://www.facebook.com/TheRealMikeRowe..

3. Allan Gotthelf and Gregory Salmieri, eds., A Companion to Ayn Rand (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), 15 n. 1.

4. Mike Rowe, interviewed by host Evan Hafer, Black Rifle Coffee Podcast, ep. 209, May 20, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heCD6ftsYlw. Rowe has also briefly discussed Rands ideas on his podcast The Way I Heard It (see, e.g., Jack Carr Is a Tomahawk Kinda Guy, ep. 261, July 26, 2022, https://audioboom.com/posts/8127355-jack-carr-is-a-tomahawk-kinda-guy; and Lets Get Alex Epstein on Bill Maher, ep. 263, August 9, 2022, https://audioboom.com/posts/8135565-let-s-get-alex-epstein-on-bill-maher).

5. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, 117.

6. Mike Rowe, Facebook post, January 25, 2015.

7. Mike Rowes Own Dirty Job: Selling Knick-Knacks Overnight, National Public Radio, All Things Considered, February 16, 2014, https://www.npr.org/2014/02/16/277979918/mike-rowes-own-dirty-job-selling-knick-knacks-overnight.

8. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, 118.

9. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, 8994.

10. Ayn Rand, The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made, in Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It (New York: New American Library, 1982), 24.

11. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, 113.

12. Ayn Rand, The Objectivist Ethics, in Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness (New York: New American Library, 1964), 25.

13. See the S.W.E.A.T. Pledge, https://www.mikeroweworks.org/sweat/.

14. Rowe, Facebook post, January 25, 2015.

15. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, 147.

16. Rand, Objectivist Ethics, 26.

17. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (New York: New American Library, 1985 [1957]), 680.

18. Rand, Objectivist Ethics, 1527.

19. Ayn Rand, The Goal of My Writing, in Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto, rev. ed. (New York: New American Library, 1975 [1971]), 169.

20. Rand, Objectivist Ethics, 26.

21. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 12.

22. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 670.

23. Rand, The Fountainhead (New York: New American Library, 1971 [1943]), 93.

24. Rand, Fountainhead, 9293.

25. Rand, Fountainhead, 134.

26. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, xi.

27. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, 75.

28. See the S.W.E.A.T. Pledge at https://www.mikeroweworks.org/sweat/.

29. Ayn Rand, What Is Capitalism?, in Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: New American Library, 1967), 1617.

30. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 25.

31. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 917.

32. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, ix.

33. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, 56.

34. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 988.

35. Ayn Rand, Americas Persecuted Minority: Big Business, in Rand, Capitalism, 44.

36. Rand, Americas Persecuted Minority, 48.

37. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, xxix.

38. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, 9.

39. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, 122.

40. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, 80.

41. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, xl.

42. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, 12123, 12830, and 14345. See also item #9 of the S.W.E.A.T. Pledge: I believe that my education is my responsibility, and absolutely critical to my success. I am resolved to learn as much as I can from whatever source is available to me. I will never stop learning and understand that library cards are free.

43. Rand, Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made, 24.

44. Rand, Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made, 2425.

45. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 861.

46. Rand, Fountainhead, 19899.

47. Rowe, Profoundly Disconnected, 103.

48. Rowe, Facebook post, February 5, 2015.

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Mike Rowe and Ayn Rand on the Virtues of Thinking and Producing - The Objective Standard

We may be learning to live with covid but as the latest inflation report shows, its still a pandemic economy. Two-and-a-half years after the first lockdowns, the economy remains weird: It can take more than a year to a get a dishwasher, many months to get a passport, businesses are short-staffed, stores routinely run out of staples like pain reliever and, of course, there is high inflation. Americans enjoyed years of plenty, where the newest, best thing was always available and many services got cheaper by the day. Now some days it feels like we woke up in the dystopian second half of Atlas Shrugged.

When will things get back to normal? In some ways maybe never. The pandemic accelerated changes to the economy that were already in the works. And it upended many of our assumptions, changing the economic relationships that formed the basis for many forecasts, making everything from inflation to consumer spending harder to predict for years to come. There will always be parts of the economy, like energy prices, that we have less control over, but other aspects can be fixed. One day soon we should again be able to count on fully stocked shelves and more stable prices.

So heres a quick rundown of what should snap back and what we should start getting used to as the Covid economy evolves into the new economy.

What will return to normal: The US labour shortage is a big deal, a major reason why the economy is still weird. Every recession loses workers and some people, especially men, are still not working. Adding to the current shortages is the fact that legal immigration is still effectively on hold, with a backlog of visas that have yet to be processed. The Biden administration should make this a much bigger priority. But relative to other recessions, the labour market has recovered, wages are up and people are returning to the labour force. Fewer people are retiring and even some of the pandemic early retirees are coming back to work.

Supply chains are still messed up. The pre-pandemic world economy was efficient because goods were made with parts from all over the world. But the system was complex and the pandemic showed just how vulnerable it was to disruption. In December last year ports were starting to unclog and the computer chip shortage was easing, but hopes for normalcy in 2022 were squelched by Russias war on Ukraine. China is still having covid-driven shutdowns. And a US freight rail strike appears to have just been narrowly averted. Even so, the Citi index of supply chain pressures shows its better than a year ago. There will be more improvement if energy costs fall and more people go back to work. Longer term, firms may become more resilient to future disruptions and better diversified.

Whatll persist: Inflation uncertainty means more volatility in asset markets. Once supply chains and the labour market heal, inflation will ease and stabilize, and that will help stabilize asset markets. But it will be a very long time before inflation falls back to 2% or lower again. Between demographic changes and weaker trade relationships, inflation may be naturally higher no matter what central banks try to do. We might need to learn to live with 3% or 4% inflation. And that means interest rates (and mortgages) will be higher too.

Offices are still empty. The next few months will reveal what the future of work will look like as some bosses demand all employees return to offices. Some will go back reluctantly and others never will. Business districts already have more life, but they arent bustling five days a week. Offices arent full every day and most public transportation is still down to 60% of its pre-pandemic levels. The pandemic established working from home as a viable option and the office will never be the same.

Trust in institutions also may never recover. During the pandemic everything was politicized from public health to central banking. It was somewhat inevitable as government becomes a bigger part of life in an emergency; its condemned for bad decisions (prolonged school shutdowns was a predictable tragedy) and it doesnt get credit for good policies. Nonetheless, distrust will undermine the economy going forward because strong trust in the government and its services, corporations and cultural institutions is critical to a healthy economy and public safety. Fewer children are in public school, many people no longer trust election results, the justice system or public health authorities.

The pandemic economy will outlast the pandemic. Some of the changes, like how we use technology, may one day turn out to be positive. But more than two years on, bottlenecks of the flow of goods and people means we are still living with shortages, high inflation and a lot of uncertainty about when at least some things might get back to normal.

Allison Schrager is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering economics.

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Excerpt from:

The pandemic economy will outlast the outbreak of covid | Mint - Mint

We may be learning to live with Covid but as the latest inflation report shows, it's still a pandemic economy. Two and a half years after the first lockdowns, the economy remains weird: It can take more than a year to a get a dishwasher, many months to get a passport, businesses are short-staffed, stores routinely run out of basic staples like pain reliever and, of course, there is high inflation. Americans enjoyed years of plenty, where the newest, best thing was always available and many services got cheaper by the day. Now somedays it feels like we woke up in the dystopian second half of "Atlas Shrugged."

When will things finally get back to normal? In some ways maybe never. The pandemic accelerated changes to the economy that were already in the works. And it upended many of our assumptions, changing the economic relationships that formed the basis for many forecasts, making everything from inflation to consumer spending harder to predict for years to come. There will always be parts of the economy, like energy prices, that we have less control over, but other aspects can be fixed. One day soon we should again be able to count on fully stocked shelves and more stable prices.

So here's a quick rundown of what should snap back, and what we should all start getting used to as the Covid economy evolves into the new economy.

Things That Will Go Back to NormalThe labor shortage is a big deal. Its a major reason why the economy is still weird. Every recession loses workers and some people, especially men, are still not working. Adding to the current shortages is the fact that legal immigration is still effectively on hold, with a backlog of visas that have yet to be processed. The Biden administration should make this a much bigger priority.But relative to other recessions the labor market has recovered, wages are up and people are returning to the labor force. Fewer people are retiring and even some of the pandemic early retirees are coming back to work.The supply chain is still messed up. The pre-pandemic world economy was incredibly efficient because goods were made with parts from all over the world. But the system was complex and the pandemic showed just how vulnerable it was to disruption. In December last year ports were starting to unclog and the computer chip shortage was easing, but hopes for normalcy in 2022 were squelched by Russia's war on Ukraine. China is still having Covid-driven shutdowns. And a US freight rail strike appears to have just been narrowly averted.

Even so, the Citi index of supply chain pressures shows it's better than a year ago. There will be more improvement if energy costs fall and more people go back to work. Longer term, companies may become more resilient to future disruptions and better diversified.Slow Improvement | As Covid problems receded, the Ukraine War renewed pressure on the supply chain.

Issues That Arent Going AwayInflation uncertainty means more volatility in asset markets. Once the supply chain and labor market heal, inflation will ease somewhat and stabilize, and that will help stabilize asset markets. But it will be a very long time before inflation falls back to 2% or lower again. Between demographic changes and weaker trade relationships, inflation may be naturally higher no matter what central banks try to do. We might need to learn to live with 3% or 4% inflation. And that means interest rates (and mortgages) will be higher too.Offices are still empty. The next few months will reveal what the future of work will look like as some bosses demand all employees come back to the office. Some will go back reluctantly and others never will. Business districts already have more life, but they arent bustling five days a week. Offices aren't full every day and most public transportation is still down to 60% of its pre-pandemic levels. The pandemic established working from home as a viable option and the office will never be the same.Trust in institutions also may never recover. During the pandemic everything was politicized from public health to central banking. It was somewhat inevitable as government becomes a bigger part of life in an emergency; it's condemned for bad decisions (prolonged school shutdowns was a predictable tragedy) and it doesn't get credit for good policies. Nonetheless, distrust will undermine the economy going forward because strong trust in the government and its services, corporations and cultural institutions is critical to a healthy economy and public safety. Fewer children are in public school, many people no longer trust election results, the justice system or public health authorities.

The pandemic economy will outlast the pandemic. Some of the changes, like how we use technology, may one day turn out to be positive. But more than two years on, bottlenecks of the flow of goods and people means we are still living with shortages, high inflation and a lot of uncertainty about when at least some things might get back to normal.

Allison Schrager is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering economics. A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, she is author of An Economist Walks Into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk.

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Much Of The Pandemic Economy Is Here To Stay - Financial Advisor Magazine