Comment by notahacker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by notahacker | Hacker News Reader

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It's hardly a "nitpick" to point out that throughout the book the heroes make a point of congratulating themselves and each other on only acting in their self-interest every time they conclude an agreement, whilst every time they dare to practice the Randian vice of altruism either the ungrateful recipients or the book's narrative throws it back in their face.

The real purpose for Dagny's dinner with the tramp after all isn't for Rand to illustrate the virtues of helping tramps, but for the tramp to lecture on how the Twentieth Century Motor Company failed because the company based its ethos around helping those claiming to be in need, and explain that the book's hero has resolved to "stop the motor of the world* rather than continue to work for others.

And yeah, the symbolic nature of having to pay for everything rather than do favours is the heroes believe [in maintaining the illusion that] those deserving of their support are evaluated not as individuals but based on their ability to produce interchangeable tokens of past effort....

I used the word "nitpick" intentionally. I was referring to your point questioning whether "a zillionaire capitalist accepting a token amount of gold for performing unskilled labour represents a functioning market". This is the kind of arbitrary criticism someone comes up with when they're not interested in honestly understanding the author's message.

"The real purpose for Dagny's dinner with the tramp after all ... [is] for the tramp to lecture"

This is another example of your nitpicking. You know that I was not talking about that one particular scene, but illustrating that Rand has nothing against charity and she has many scenes in her novels where characters help people in need. That is, Rand does not teach "never help others", as you imply.

"And yeah, the symbolic nature of having to pay for everything rather than do favours is the heroes believe [in maintaining the illusion that] those deserving of their support are evaluated not as individuals but based on their ability to produce interchangeable tokens of past effort...."

And nope, you're still misunderstanding the message. The heroes are not asking who is "deserving of their support" then evaluating them "on their ability to produce interchangeable tokens". The heroes want to live by their own effort. Living with others who also want to live by their own effort makes life easier, because you can specialise and trade the products of your labour for the products of their labour. Production and trade are essentials of any human community, charity isn't, which is why there is no charity in the valley.

Pointing out that Ayn Rand didn't really understand the capitalist system she eulogised is far from a mere "nitpick". You seem to have missed the entire point of the criticism: zillionaires devoting time that could have been spent more productively to giving people lifts is exactly the kind of "charity" Rand is trying to pretend it isn't.

And when the heroes do help each other, just in case you think they might be supposed to be doing it out of a sense of kinship, Rand tends to have them say things like this:

"I hope you know it's not for your sake that I wanted to help you fight."

He smiled; it was a faint, friendly smile. "I know," he said.

"It's not out of pity or charity or any ugly reason like that. Look, I intended to give you the battle of your life, down there in Colorado. I intended to cut into your business and squeeze you to the wall and drive you out, if necessary"

He chuckled faintly; it was appreciation. "You would have made a pretty good try at it, too," he said.

"Only I didn't think it would be necessary. I thought there was enough room there for both of us."

"Yes," he said. "There was."

"Still, if I found that there wasn't, I would have fought you, and if I could make my road better than yours, I'd have broken you and not given a damn about what happened to you"

As with all religious texts, Atlas Shrugged produces its blind devotees who will assert literally anything to avoid confrontation with any other aspects that might conflict with their worldview. But it's a curiously selective reading of the text that argues a book whose key moral messages include the slogan "I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine" is about a personal system of individuals helping each other, and not the negation of said system in favour of the logic of self-interest and cold hard cost-benefit analysis.

I am struggling to understand your point - your last sentence is a masterpiece of unclear grammar - yet as you're now referring to "religious texts" and "blind devotees" I don't think you have any interest in rational debate. Curious minds can google "The Ethics of Emergencies" for AR's views on charity.

You've managed three posts of ad hominem attacks on me for dissing your sacred text, completely failed to negate my original point that Rand obviously doesn't capitalism as "an intrinsically personal system of individuals helping each other" (as opposed to a means to ensure the productive get rewarded) and you're accusing me of being uninterested in rational debate? Seriously?

I disagree. See my last paragraph to two posts ago.

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