Okay, Ayn Rand isn’t a complete Asshole…just mostly

My post yesterday may have been a bit harsh. There are some elements in Atlas Shrugged that are worthwhile. To be fair, I’ll talk about those and then explain why her philosophy still leads assholery.

One of the positive elements of Randian views is recognizing the value of hard work. I completely agree with this. Things aren’t handed to you in life. Success requires effort and an achievement given isn’t an achievement at all.

Another element is being rewarded for success and having ambition to succeed. Hardwork should pay off. Those that have ambition to do something new and who put in more effort than the minimum in order to do better, should be rewarded. Striving to better oneself is an indispensable factor to the success of society.

Where Ayn Rand turns into an asshole, is she, and by association people who preach about her books, doesn’t realize that these don’t exist in a vacuum. Socialism isn’t about having everything handed to you. Hard work isn’t the opposite of socialism, it’s a required part of it.

What Randian’s/Objectivists don’t recognize is that you need more than just hard work. No one succeeds alone. A titan of industry didn’t come up with an idea, build it and sell it all by himself. He had manufacturers, sales people, helping along the way. Sure you say, those people were compensated for their effort, they didn’t do it for free.

But that’s exactly my point. Those people helped and were compensated. Randians want to pretend that because workers get paid, they are irrelevant to your success. But there were more things contributing to your success than just your workers.

There were the roads you used to transport your goods. The schools that taught YOU and your workers. The government protecting you from invasion and keeping the water clean so you stayed healthy. There was everyone else in the society succeeding and having money to be able to buy your product. There were all of the people who came before developing the technology that allows your product to be made.

All of these things contributed to your success. But Randians don’t want to compensate them. They believe the only thing that matters is their effort. That is an inherently selfish attitude. Helping those in need doesn’t diminish your effort or make people lazy. It means there are more successful people. And more successful people helping less successful people feeds itself until everyone is successful.

So yes, hard work is important. But you’re still an asshole if you think the rest of society doesn’t matter and didn’t contribute to your success.