 Oh, hello. Welcome to Roman's book report. Today, I'm going to talk about this wonderful book, The Driver by Garrett Garrett. Two of my entrepreneurial friends say that this is their favorite book of all time. And I can see why. It's about an entrepreneur who everybody doubts, who risks his personal fortune and his family's fortune. He has to face the government trying to drag him down once he starts becoming successful. But despite all this, he believes in himself and he perseveres and he works hard and he earns a fortune. He prevails. It's kind of like the famous novel The Great Gatsby, where that main character or at least the character around whom the plot revolves is not the main character in the book. The protagonist is sort of a passive observer. I'll share a couple of my favorite moments from the book. It begins with the Coxley's army, which is a historic event of a protest that we're underway. And here's according to this fictionalized account, they were doing this march across the country to go to Congress, to demand from Congress a law by which unlimited prosperity and human happiness might be established on Earth. Sounds a lot like Occupy Wall Street. Another one of my favorite moments comes when the narrator first meets this entrepreneur. And this entrepreneur knows that the narrator's been reporting on Coxley's army and he asks him, wasn't there plenty to eat? And the main character says, people were very generous along the way. But wasn't there plenty to eat? He asks, repeating the question aggressively. There was generally enough and sometimes plenty, I replied. Then I added rather sharply, I have no case to prove for the Coxleyites, if that's what you think. I know you haven't. And then he goes on to say, he goes on to say, those people are out of work, that's bad. But people who will ask need not be hungry. You cut that out, meaning you cut that out of your reporting. The unemployed eat, you've seen it yourself. Do the Ravens feed them? What are you driving at? I asked. They all eat, he repeated. It ain't that extraordinary. It doesn't seem so to me, I said, they have to eat. Oh, do they? You can eat merely because you have to, can you? Suppose there wasn't anything to eat. I love that exchange. Some libertarian reviewers of this book, and you can see why libertarians love this book because it identifies commerce as the force of creation and government as the force of destruction. But some libertarian says that it gets the economics perfect. I disagree with that very slightly for two reasons. First of all, it contributes, it contributes the bust, just the kind of mass delusion. And it refers frequently to just people's superstition on Wall Street. There's a little anecdote about grass growing through a crack near the financial exchange. But I can't blame him for that. The Austrian theory of the business cycle, which really explains crashes, wasn't even out until the 30s. And this was written, I believe, in 1920. So no fault there. And certainly from a literature standpoint. Who cares, I guess, or at least I don't. He also sometimes portrays commerce as win-lose, like Darwinian, and that's the frequent criticism of capitalism. And I think commerce is really win-win when it happens, when it's allowed to happen. Here's one little example of that. The profession of dynamic men is arms. It has never been otherwise. Only the rules and weapons change. Wall Street is a modern jousting place. The gates open. Anyone may compete. There is no caste. The prizes are unlimited. The tournament is continuous. Capital is not an essential. Well, he goes on. So those are my two very, very small disagreements with economics in this otherwise great book. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this book and why it has sort of a cult appeal is that it seems and rand copied a lot of things from this book, which is a big deal because unlike me, Anne Rand was a very fervent believer in copyrights in that intellectual property is property. So the entrepreneur in this book, his name is Henry Galt. Anne Rand's Atlas Shrug begins with the line who is John Galt. And not only that, but twice in this book, the line is featured very prominently where everyone sort of quietly having lunch on one of those instances. And then somebody finally speaks up and breaking the silence and says, who is Henry Galt? And everyone kind of reacts to that question. So it's pretty clear that this influenced Anne Rand and for other reasons as well. This book's Henry Galt is a railroad tycoon. And there are other similarities too that you can search for on the internet. But it's a great read. Writing wise, I think it's very good. Occasionally, like the expectations aren't met, for example, there's a lawyer at the end who's just described excessively as just the most tricky, the most knowledgeable, the most sleazy lawyer in the world. And then his questioning of Henry Galt doesn't live up to that. It's great questioning. The dialogue is really funny, but it's kind of like mismatched with his description. So very minor criticisms like that. But great book. And I highly recommend it for its cult appeal. And just for the story of an entrepreneur risking a lot and succeeding, I found it very uplifting. And uplifting to know that the left and the socialists do not own all of literature. Please tune in next time. We'll be another one real soon.