Who is John Galt?

Disclaimer: I have never read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. I have read the Wikipedia article, and several summaries over the past few days. The book's standing on Amazon has apparently shot up recently. Who knows, I might even read it someday.

I read the summaries in response to seeing the suggestion that some top income earners are planning on "going John Galt," i.e., withdrawing their productivity from the economy, in response to Obama's plan to tax their income at a higher rate. At first glance, this sounds ridiculous. It's not like they're planning on taking 30 percent more of your earnings above $250,000, they're just planning on taking a few percent more. If you are earning close to the limit, the extra tax won't apply to very much money. If you earn further away from the limit, then you would have to work really hard to get your earnings down below 250,000, and although you might pay a lot more money, you have more to give.

Actually, at second glance "Going John Galt" still looks silly to me. I can't imagine anyone making over 250,000 who is working only for money. There are so many other reasons to do a good job (not being able to live with yourself if you do a shoddy job being one of the highest) that I can't imagine the money making enough difference that a person would decide to retire rather than work.

Then I realized that I have actually been doing this for years, in two ways. First, when I was a grad student, I thought about increasing the number of hours I tutored. But if I did that, then I might have earned enough to have to pay taxes, including self employment taxes, and I knew from experience as a consultant that it would take about 50% of the money I earned, maybe more. Tutoring recalcitrant students for $20 an hour was pretty good. Tutoring for less than $10 an hour was not so attractive, so I didn't increase my working. So government taxes have actually kept me from working more.

The second way I have gone "John Galt" actually has to do with the free market. The market doesn't value my skills as a teacher or tutor enough to pay for child care for 3 kids. So I don't add my productivity to society in that way. I do feel like I am being productive, but it is not worth it right now for me to go out and add to GDP, so I don't.*

Does this mean that I am only interested in working for money? Not really (I hope) but it does mean being rewarded definitely influences how I feel about how hard I'm willing to work. It's interesting to think about in light of the idea of going Galt.

*This may change when they are all in school, or old enough to take care of themselves after school.