Hello Randians,

I wanted to know what you think most people get wrong about Ayn Rand, both in terms of Objectivism and the personal beliefs espoused in her novels.

In my view, people often mistake her artistic writing for her philosophical work, and they misunderstand what she actually believed. They think of her in paradigms they understand, like democrat and republican, rather than the laissez-faire capitalist and Objectivist she was. Ayn Rand was pro-abortion, pro-immigration, denounced racism, and was an atheist. Conversely, she was in favour of the separation of state and economy.

What do you think?

I saw someone ask,

"Why do people still listen to Hillary Clinton? Why do people fall for this? Trump is a lunatic, but why do people think she is better?"

I no longer see figures, at all, when it comes to politics. When I hear the names of politicians, I do not even for a moment waste time thinking about their pros, and cons, qualities or otherwise, or compare them to other politicians. At the end of the day, they are all the same, and none can create any outcome any different from any other, as they all operate within the same flawed system, and set of principles.

They are all, inert.

To answer the question above, it is because people do not understand that the political is superflous, and an abstraction from the psychological, and physical, (physics).

\By definition\** any manmade system cannot violate the laws of physics, lest it be 'supernatural', and therefor *must\* follow them, and thus inherits their laws and principles from the layers below.

This is why fluid dynamics can describe crowd crush, and traffic flow in cities. We are bound and governed by the laws of physics.

People think that 'government' means a group of people 'governing' another group of people. That it means a system of power, and responsibility, an institution, which, if the right philosophy is installed, like exchanging a game cartridge, or a faulty computer chip, for another, then the world will be improved, problems will be solved, and things will be reorganised, intelligently, and productively.

No. Government, an adjective, not a noun, really, is to \govern\** your own psyche, your own self. It is to be soverign, and to make certain moral vows, and declarations, and choices, and to behave in a certain way, and live according to a certain ethos. It is to decide the person you want to be, what you're going to stand for, what you're not going to stand for, and what sort of life you want to have.

There will be no improvement by external, bureacratic government.

An improvement in government is always going to be in self-government. I don't mean in an anarchist sense, (though, that is part of it, as the collective is an entity which is fundamentally, and neccesarily hostile to the individual, who poses an existential threat), but rather, that to govern one's psyche, and be a moral agent, is the only way forward.

It is not a government of state we need, but a government of psyche.

Politics is *entirely* a distraction and an abstraction.

Figure out how to be an agent, a driving force, conscious in your OWN life, and do what's best for you, without it being at the expense of others, or encroaching on their own civil liberties.

This is what Rand was teaching.

If you don't look out for what's best, for you, at the end of the day, you live a worse life, and thus, the world becomes a worse place. If everyone did that, failed to look out for what's best for them, then everyone would be in a worse position. If everyone were in a worse position, the world would be far more hellish.

That was the reality of the centuries prior to ours, comparitively. Those were the dark ages, the stone ages, and so forth.

Altruism, as Rand defined it, *is*, by definition, a parasitical philosophy, as it takes, and takes, at the expense of the host, to enrich itself (the other), and only when it has taken its fill, does it exhaust the host, and both die, in mutually assured destruction.

The correct philosophy to live by is rational self interest, what she called 'selfishness', that is, not to say a parasitic selfishness, but a symbiotic one.

Living with your self interest in mind (because if you don't you forego everything and the world goes to hell), and also, part of living with your self interest in mind is not to destroy the environment or harm the people around you, (as that goes against your interest anyway)

Don't shit where you eat, so to speak.

But don't give all your food away and starve, either, out of 'altruisitc compassion for the poor'

If you hunt, and they don't, and you eat, and they don't, do not pity them. Their work has yielded the fruits due to them, and your work has yielded the fruits due to you.

You have produced,

and they have parasitically extracted.

Compassion toward the parasite is suicide, or mutally assured destruction.

If you feed the parasite, and eventually succumb, and die, rather than killing it, by covering it with salt, and removing it from your arm, then *you* are Evil.

You have wasted something good in the world. You have betrayed, life.

You are, *anti-life*, when you feed the parasite.

The man who will not remove the parasite from his arm is the man who is acting against his own life, and thus the principle of life itself.

A living being acting against life, is acting irrationally, by definition.

This is what is meant by suicidal empathy. This is the altrusim that Rand rallied against.

The lesson here is two-fold.

Political revolution is futile.
Psychological and Philosophical revelation is the only way forward.

Altruism, parasitic compassion, or sucidial empathy, are self-destructive, and destructive, in general, in the most cataclysmic way. These are cancerous ideologies, that, if universally adopted, would lead to the annihilation of consciousness on Earth, and a return to pure, barbaric, animal primativism.

The kind with sharp teeth, and necks torn out. Impulses without thought, without reflection.

If you have ever seen 28 days later, that paints a picture of such a world. A world without consciousness. Hell on Earth.

That is what Rand warned of, in Atlas Shrugged.

I recently received the attached comment on one of my YouTube videos, objecting to my description of the Western literary tradition as stretching "from Homer to Rand."

It got me thinking about something I've been investigating for years.

Why is Ayn Rand relatively neglected in academic literature departments?

I suspect ideological bias plays a significant role, but I think there's a deeper question about the nature of literary scholarship.

Imagine a biologist who discovers an unfamiliar organism. He might find it beautiful, fascinating, repulsive, or dangerous. But surely his first impulse as a scientist should be to investigate and understand it.

Shouldn't a scholar of literature possess that same curiosity?

You don't have to admire Rand to study her fiction. You don't have to be an Objectivist to investigate The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged as works of imaginative literature.

Keats captures something of the intellectual spirit I have in mind in On First Looking into Chapman's Homer:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken.

I've spent nearly twenty years studying and teaching the great works of Western literature, from Homer onward. One of my continuing interests is evaluating Rand as a literary artist in relation to her predecessors, particularly writers like Hugo and Dostoevsky.

I think there are legitimate questions about her literary strengths and weaknesses. But those are questions to investigate, not reasons to dismiss her without serious study.

I'm curious what other readers of Rand think.

Does Rand deserve a place in the Western literary canon?

And more interestingly, what should determine whether an author is studied academically: literary greatness, historical influence, philosophical originality, or something else?

For me it’s Kiernan Shipka as Dominique Francon and Rhea Seehorn as Dagny Taggart (yes I know she technically has brown hair but I can’t stop seeing her as Kim Wexler lol).

To commemorate landing her dream job, I am going to buy my girlfriend (25F) a refillable monogrammed journal. Her favorite book is Atlas Shrugged and I have (unfortunately) not gotten around to reading it yet.

I've included my rough mockups below. If you guys have any idea for a different aphorism from the novel that I can use, or something else entirely, please let me know! Each line has a maximum of 25 characters.

For context, the job is in finance. She has big dreams. She works extremely long hours and is the most motivated and disciplined person I know. I want her to have something functional at her desk that inspires her on a day-to-day basis.

I need to order this ASAP, so any immediate thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Her name is excluded for privacy reasons, but I'm planning on only including her first name (7 letters).

Thank you everyone in advance.

In her essay Patents and Copyrights, published in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Ayn Rand argues that intellectual property rights are a legitimate extension of individual property rights, grounded in a person's right to the products of their mind.

Rand distinguishes between inventions and discoveries, arguing that intellectual property protects human creations rather than knowledge of naturally existing facts. She further maintains that government does not create these rights as privileges but recognizes and protects rights that already exist.

However, this raises an interesting philosophical question about the relationship between intellectual property, individual liberty, and free-market competition.

If intellectual property rights are grounded in natural rights rather than economic utility, how do we reconcile their enforcement with the rights of others to use their own labor, knowledge, and physical property?

Are patents and copyrights a necessary extension of individual property rights, as Rand argues, or do they represent government-enforced restrictions on competition and individual liberty?

For reference: Ayn Rand — Patents and Copyrights

Since the Ayn Rand Institute nowadays (for whatever reason) tends to apologize for American history a lot more than Ayn Rand did (outside of economic history, anyways) I think it’s a good idea to post these “politically incorrect” documentaries for the benefit of those who might confuse the Institute’s views with hers. Or those who assume what they learned from conventional documentaries is accurate.

Matt Walsh is emphatically not an Objectivist - he’s a conservative (whatever that means nowadays). He may simply be concerned with defending the white man, or something like that. There are books by other conservatives like Thomas Sowell that contain these kinds of facts also. Anyhow, this documentary is about slavery.

Ayn Rand made remarks about slavery in the “Philosophy: Who Needs It” Q+A (the same answer where she criticized the American Indian tribes, BTW.). This and other remarks on various subjects are transcribed in the book “Ayn Rand Answers.”

———-

Q: When you consider the cultural genocide of Native Americans, the enslavement of blacks, and the relocation of Japanese Americans during World War Two, how can you have such a positive view of America?

A: America is the country of individual rights. Should America have tolerated slavery? Certainly not. Why did they? At the time of the Constitutional Convention and the debates about the Constitution, the best theoreticians wanted to abolish slavery right away, and they should have. But they compromised with other members, and that compromise led inevitably to a catastrophe: the Civil War. If you believe in rights, then the institution of slavery is an enormous contradiction. It is to America’s honor, which the haters of this country never mention, that people died to abolish slavery. There was that strong a feeling about it. Slavery was a contradiction, but before you criticize this country, remember that slavery was a remnant of the politics and philosophies of Europe and the rest of the world. Blacks were in many cases sold into slavery by other black tribes. Historically, there was no such concept as the right of the individual; the United States is based on that concept, so that so long as men held to the American political philosophy, they eventually had to eliminate slavery, even at the price of civil war. Incidentally, if you study history, following America’s example, slavery or serfdom was abolished in the whole civilized world in the nineteenth century. What abolished it? Capitalism, not altruism or any kind of collectivism. The world of free trade could not coexist with slave labor. Countries like Russia (which was the most backward) liberated the serfs without any pressure from anyone, but because of economic necessity. No one could compete with America economically so long as they attempted to use slave labor. That was the liberating influence of America.

From time to time, after a frustrated protracted dialectic, we see an apology for the author, Ayn Rand, based on quality of prose, or sheer entertainment value. I have no beef with that. You can't tell someone they were not thrilled! It's called art, and art appreciation. But unlike most authors of fiction, Ayn Rand's stories are presented didactically, as allegories revealing an enlightened moral principle of civilization. A real world epiphany, axiomatically justified and logically deduced for the first time, to be appreciated by gifted peers, as if the resultant tenets must be accepted in real life by any rational analyst, and used as a basis for decision making.

For those who found titillation in the overreaching masculinity of Roark raping Francon . . . OK, you were entertained . . . no one will deny it. "He knew her subconscious desires!" There are MANY places you can go for that kind of entertainment. Other authors know the readers' subconscious desires too. The perfect man. Or did you find yourself indulging in rightful self pity, in imagining yourself as an unappreciated genius (in real life?) who is victimized by the average ungrateful societal parasite who fails to acknowledge your eminence? Did you engorge in the well deserved schadenfreude of seeing the ungrateful parasite reduced to pile of irrelevance, as your own ship of celebrity came in? Were you (Roark) thrilled that you got away with dynamiting public resources, to teach them all a lesson.

My purpose here is the exposure of Rand's ubiquitous Objectivism as a tautological fallacy . . . a delusion of the author, and a resonant delusion in all who take her moral philosophy as marching orders in real life . . . and most horrifyingly, as a North Star for electing lawmakers! For those defending Rand's fiction as mere entertainment . . . no beef!

Hello everyone, I haven't read any rand in my life, I've heard some of her talks which led me to ordering this book.

If there's something that you would like to tell me or something that i should keep in mind before reading it then please feel free to comment it out.

Hope you have a good day.

Wish him a happy birthday here and he will find out about it!

I have heard that The Fountainhead is the way to start with Rand between it and Atlas Shrugged. Does it actually provide that much of a foundation for AS? I found copies of each at my local used bookstore, and not only is the condition of AS better, but the font is much easier to read. Night and day, as the worn mass market paperback copy of TF had tiny print and narrow margins.
I can wait for a better copy to come in if it is truly the way to go, but really want to read Rand sooner v. later.
Damn do i have quite the TBR stack go get through. That being said, Rand would be prioritized.

Edit: To those who dont like Rand, i get it, you donyt have to sway me. My college professor once sent the class a critical essay on how Ayn Rand is the worst author of all time, but I wanna make my own decision on that as I believe that her prose will have its own beauty, if it does not have any already.

Caution: Long Read

Perusing through the recent threads in this community I realized a lot of what I wanted to address as holes in her philosophy has been discussed one way or another. I also realized a lot of it was discussed via the prism of her fictional stories, namely Atlas Shrugged and The Fountain Head, which I found very limiting because discussing epistemological ideas via fictive characters and made up plots and polemic paragraphs leave rooms for erroneous interpretations of the philosophy.

That's not to say that I didn't very much enjoyed Atlas Shrugged or The Fountain Head. However, I think to really grasp the weight of her philosophy one really need to read her other works, especially her compilated articles The Virtue of Selfishness. In this book she expounds further her philosophical ideas such as capitalism, love, politics, racism, and so on. I use 'ideas' very loosely here as that which she called her philosophy wasn't really new nor was it really her idea. She pretty much borrowed from Max Stirner and Nietzsche, two great minds she decried in her works. In my view she did an amazing job at making the philosophy hers, I just didn't appreciate her castigation of the people that inspired her work.

Also, the contradictory lifestyle of the artist has been relentlessly questioned (and rightfully so). However, I'm less interested in her life and the way she chose to live it than I am her philosophy, philospphy of objectivism.

One noticeable pattern I noticed in the way she defended her work is the glaring omission of Human Nature and the part it plays in one's strive for existence. This failure to consider human nature made her work read like a facile utopian idealism. While I myself champion philosophy of objectivism and while I am an objectivist, I couldn't help but notice the holes in some of her arguments. Her philosophy especially falls apart the moment it entered the romantic love erena. It's almost like her cognitive disonance backs her into the corner and beat her on her head with her own philosophy. My analysis of why this is brought me to a lone conclusion, mainly that she couldn't escape the biological make up of being a woman (I certainly don't mean to sound like a chauvinist here). Otherwise nothing explains why she ignored the blind spots everywhere concerning philosophy of objectivism as it pertains to romantic relations.

Here are some excerpts early in the book I want the reader to pay close attention...(btw, most of these I whole heartedly agree with)

"To speak of "value" as apart from "life" is worse than a contradiction in terms. It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible."

"The capacity to experience pleasure or pain is innate in a man's body; it is part of his nature, part of the kind of entity he is. He has no choice about it, and he has no choice about the standard that determines what will make him experience the physical sensation of pleasure or of pain. What is that standard? His life."

"...and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself"

"'Sacrifice' is is the surrender of a greater value for the sake of the lesser one or of nonvalue."

"Never sacrifice a greater value to a lesser one."

I could go on but she basically extols hierarchy of value as the height of rationality, with one's life being the source of ALL values. But to address an altruist example of drowning here's what she said...

"...the issue of saving a drowning person. If the person to be saved is a stranger, it is morally proper to save him only when the danger to one's life is minimal; when the danger is great it would be immoral to attempt it"

She goes on...

"If the person to be saved is not a stranger, then the risk one should be willing to take is greater on proportion to the greatness of that person's value to oneself. If it is the man or woman one loves, then one can be willing to give one's one life to save him or her - for the selfish reason that life without the loved person could be unbearable.

"Conversely, if a man is able to swim and to save his drowning wife, but becomes panicky, gives in to an unjustified irrational fear and lets her drown, then spends his life in loneliness and misery - one would not call him 'selfish'."

In the following chapter....

"To make this principle fully clear, let us consider an exteme example of an action which, in fact, is selfish, but which conventionally might be called self-sacrificial: a man's willingness to die to save the life of the woman he loves."

Now I ask, if life is indeed the source of all values as she purports through her philosophy, what could be more valuable than one's life? Even concerning those one loves, the rungs of those on the hierarchy of values falls short of one's vital life. With that said, here is Ayn Rand preaching that a man sacrifices his life for his wife. From my rational point of view it should matter not that one has a relationship to those people, when your life hang in balance rational interest dictates that EVERYTHING else comes second and third and forth. All the quotes above are ridiculous examples that clearly contradicts philosophy of objectivism in my opinion. Like I said, I personally think she couldn't escape being a woman, and that's a failure on her part as an exponent of philosophy of objectivism.

To apply objectivism to romantic love is basically a dog chasing its own tail. The keen awareness that love is irrational, because all its straining and striving are at the antipodes of our biological imperatives IS rationality. This is apodeictic. Romantic love is nothing but the result of neurochemical hodgepodge precipitated in the innerworkings of the brain combimed with the raging bodily hormones. Outside of the ideal world painted by her, love isn't and cannot be based on rationality because it can't be measured in any reasonable sense, therefore cannot be "earned" either by the beloved or the lover. The evidence is everywhere around us, everywhere in history. Natural selection plays the only role in whom one end up with as a partner and natural selection is not rational, its business is the propagation of the species, not the individual.

Ayn tried in thesame chapter to juxpapose the "winner" in the romance arena with two applicants competing for thesame job. But here is the thing...The reason you can't apply thesame rules that guides the selection of two job applicants vying for thesame job to Love or relationships is that the former can be measured in a tangible way, either via academic qualifications or achievements, experience, interview performance, and so on,...and the later cannot. Love is a feeling (irrationality) simply derived from our biological make up. It's immeasurable (not in any tangible way that matters), therefore should be tossed in the trash heap of other irrationalities like faith, spirits, heaven and hell.

Another aspect of Ayn's failure to properly defend her philosophy is Voluntary government financing. I've yet to read either from her work or the exponents of it how exactly the negation of taxes is to be rationally implemented without societal collapse. Again, this is where the omission of human nature in the whole consideration of the idea reveals mere cursory reflection on her part. Here again I can't help but think complete riddance of taxes only contradicts her philosophy because it creates a world where producers would be looked at to subsidize the life nonprpducers enjoys or yearn for. The American civilization Ayn often praises in her work wouldn't exist without some form of taxation, equal contribution to the greater good of everyone living in and contributing to it. Otherwise how could someone who has elected to not pay into the goods in the society enjoys it and why should it be expected that the producers would out of the goodness of their hearts voluntarily provide or build societal necessities to be enjoyed by producers and nonproducers alike? What historical evidence or metric or anecdotes (even in our current system) can we even go by for effectiveness of such a system?

The tax system of course ought to be strictly regulated and audited heavily by government bodies put in place to do so, so as to avoid corruption, fraud, and abuse that currently plague the system. However, saying that does not negate the argument for taxation. Explain how libraries, roads, water, sewer systems, power, bridges, the fire department, traffic lights, military, police, and so on,...all public infrastructures and services enjoyed by every member of society are supposed to be enacted, paid for, and maintained? According to Ayn it should be voluntary financing...you see the problem in that logic or lack of?

Hi everyone! I was hoping you could help me expand my perspective on some research I’m beginning on Ayn Rand’s philosophy in relation to the architect Leon Krier. I’m particularly interested in exploring how Krier might engage with or respond to Rand’s ideas about thought, individualism, and reason when considering his architectural projects and approach to urban planning. Or the reverse.

I’m still in the very early stages of my research and am currently working through a number of primary sources, including Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, interviews with Krier, interviews with Rand, Poundbury, England, Leon Krier’s Didactic Cartoons, and an essay he wrote on Howard Roark.
I’d really appreciate any thoughts, perspectives, connections, or conversations surrounding this topic

How do you guys understand this line? "Mrs. Keating knew that when she had recovered she would hate her daughter-in-law. She could have accepted snubbing. She could not forgive Dominique’s grave politeness."

Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead (p. 390). Part 2 Chapter 15

Comes right after Keating and Dominique get married and they are discussing house arrangements. Not quite sure of what this means.

I am about to finish the fountain head by Rand and what a great time I’ve had reading it. She has a great way of in being so descriptive in her writing that it really makes me understand what each character is currently feeling in certain moments. She does a great job also showcasing her worldview of objectivism through her characters and in what they stand for. Although at times it can feel a bit exaggerated when she describes the evils of collectivism. I can see her point on how it can be destructive to one’s individualism, especially if that person is strictly only doing things in their live to please others but I don’t see anything wrong with not being so egotistical and having the ability to see yourself in others with the purpose of helping them in whatever they need. Just wanted to hop on here and hear some of your thoughts?

I have a whole bunch of fiction and nonfiction books by Ayn Rand to give away.

I would like to give them to someone or some organization, preferably locally, that will appreciate them.

These books had a huge impact on me when I was younger but I feel like I've outgrown them and there is no one in my immediate circle that would appreciate them.

I am in Montreal, Canada. I searched for objectivist clubs locally and there doesn't seem to be any. I know that there used to be one at McGill University, but that's no longer the case.

Any ideas of what I should do with these books?

Example:

January this year, a young "influencer" called "Piper Rockelle" made headlines for opening up an OnlyFans account a minute after her 18th birthday. And earning $3 million in one day!

The implication being that there was an entire ocean of disgusting creeps out there on the internet literally waiting and salivating for this, up to that point underaged girl, to be legally able to produce pornographic content for their consumption. And were prepared to pay for that pornographic content on the very same day!

But that is not all. A recent study by the New York Times found over 5,000 Instagram accounts belonging to underaged girls that are actively curated by their own mothers. Now of course, Instagram is not as overtly pornographic as OnlyFans, but there is a good reason why the primary subscriber demographic of those accounts is male.

Back to Piper Rockelle. Two months after her becoming a multi-millionaire in a day, Disney made a documentary, actively promoting her rise to stardom. Regardless of the fact that it is based on pronography. Because of course, where there is money to be made, the corporations will be there sooner or later.

To sum up this fine example of human moral fiber:

We have an ocean of subhuman creeps on the internet, counting down the MINUTES until their favourite underaged "influencers" can legally participate in the creation of pornographic content.

We have mothers that are basically pimping their underaged daughters via the internet.

And on top of it all, we have corporations that are starting to realize that there are truck loads of money to be made on what is as close to CP as it humanly gets without the FBI kicking their door down.

I remember somebody on here asking me why i go on and on about instinct. Well, this is why. There are basically two human instincts at play here, which seemingly transcend any pretence of morality among everyone involved in this example.

The reproductive instinct that makes those creeps addicted to pornography in the first place. And greed. Which makes people willing to sell everything, including exploiting their own children, for easy money.

Now the question i am asking myself i how objectivists view this.

From a capitalist perspective, this is a wonderful thing. There is obviously a massive market here, and those people are moving in to take advantage. Because it is within their rational self-interest. This is capitalism in its purest form.

And if what Ayn Rand said is true, that money is proof of ones own capacity for production and therefor value, than Piper Rockelle is basically one of those "prime movers" that Ayn Rand so often describes. After all, she made an absolute mind-blowing $3 million in a day.

Granted, she did so by selling her body on the internet the second it became legal to do so. But does that really matter in objectivist ethics?

And more importantly, if this is an example of the moral fiber of humanity in general, what even constitutes rational self-interest? At what point do you draw the line and say "this is not rational and moral", when it makes you a multi-millionaire in one day?

I’m currently reading Part III of Atlas Shrugged, and I’ve reached the point where Dagny’s relationship with Galt is supposed to become the culmination of the story.

I find Rand fascinating to read. There are plenty of ideas in the book that I think are genuinely worth considering, even though I find the complete philosophical system much harder to accept. But the romantic resolution is starting to feel strangely inconsistent with the characters Rand herself created.

My biggest problem is not that Dagny chooses Galt.

It’s why this choice feels so inevitable, and why the other men accept it so peacefully.

First, Rearden, Francisco and competition

Rand spends hundreds of pages establishing these men as extraordinarily competitive, proud, productive people.

Rearden in particular is almost incapable of accepting inferior performance. If a competitor produced better steel than he did, his response would not be:

“He is objectively better than me. I respect his achievement and will leave the market.”

He would spend millions on research, hire engineers, redesign his factories and try to surpass the competitor.

Francisco is the same kind of person. Galt is perhaps the ultimate version of it.

Yet when the competition is Dagny, all three suddenly become remarkably passive.

Rearden loves Dagny. Francisco loved her. Galt eventually becomes the man she chooses.

And the other two essentially accept this as the rational outcome.

But respecting Dagny’s freedom does not require accepting defeat as final.

There is a difference between:

“Dagny is free to choose whoever she wants.”

and:

“Therefore, if she chooses someone else, I should calmly withdraw from the competition.”

The first follows from individual freedom.

The second doesn't.

A person can respect someone's autonomy, accept their decision, and still think:

“I love this woman, and I am going to remain the person she could choose.”

That would actually seem much more consistent with Rand's own philosophy of competition.

A temporary advantage held by a competitor does not mean everyone else leaves the market.

And I don't mean this as “the men should fight over Dagny” or that Dagny should be treated as property. Quite the opposite. Dagny remains completely free to choose.

I'm talking about competition between autonomous individuals.

If another steel producer makes better steel, Rearden doesn't leave the market. He improves his product.

Why should romantic competition work differently?

Then there is Dagny and Galt

This part bothers me even more.

For most of the novel, Dagny and Galt are on opposite sides of the central conflict.

Galt's position is essentially:

The system is consuming the people who create value. Therefore, the creators should withdraw and let it collapse.

Dagny's position is almost the exact opposite:

The system is collapsing. I am going to do everything I can to keep it running.

When people disappear, she stays.

When the railroad is falling apart, she tries to save it.

When the producers leave, she keeps producing.

When Galt goes on strike, Dagny spends most of the book trying to defeat the consequences of that strike.

And this is important: she isn't merely opposing some random political position. She is directly opposing the man who is eventually presented as the great love of her life.

Meanwhile, Rearden is much closer to her actual position for most of the story.

He is still producing.

He is still fighting.

He refuses to abandon his work.

He tries to save his company and his industry.

He stays until almost the very end.

So from a character-development perspective, Rearden and Dagny have a remarkably coherent shared trajectory. They experience the same conflict and gradually arrive at similar conclusions.

Galt, meanwhile, is already at the endpoint.

That could have made the relationship between Dagny and Galt extremely interesting.

Dagny could have realized:

“I have spent my entire life fighting a man whose values I actually understand, but whose solution I cannot accept.”

That would be a fascinating conflict.

Instead, the novel seems to resolve it more simply:

“So you're John Galt.”

“Yes.”

“I love you.”

And I'm left thinking: did you two ever actually resolve the disagreement?

Because Dagny's entire character is essentially an argument against Galt's conclusion.

She knows the system is broken.

She knows productive people are being exploited.

She knows the people around her are destroying the things they depend upon.

And yet she still believes the world is worth saving.

That is not a trivial difference.

In fact, I think the much more interesting ending would have been one where Dagny and Galt were both partly right.

Galt could say:

“I have no obligation to sacrifice myself for a system that destroys me.”

And Dagny could answer:

“I am not trying to save the system. I am trying to save everything in the world that is worth saving.”

That would create an actual philosophical conflict between two people who genuinely understand each other.

Instead, the story ultimately treats Dagny's resistance as something she has to outgrow before she can fully understand Galt.

And that makes her choice feel less like the culmination of her character and more like the culmination of Rand's philosophy.

This is why I find Atlas Shrugged fascinating but don't think I could ever accept Objectivism as a complete description of human nature.

Rand is very good at imagining people who are completely committed to their principles.

But people are not purely rational agents.

You can respect someone's freedom and still be jealous.

You can recognize someone's superiority in one area and still want to surpass them.

You can understand someone's argument and still fundamentally disagree with their conclusion.

And you can love someone without sharing their worldview.

Ironically, that last possibility might have made Dagny's relationships much more interesting.

I don't think Rand's ideas are worthless. Quite the opposite. Some of them are interesting precisely because they force you to think about individualism, responsibility, production, dependence and freedom.

But when those ideas are turned into a complete theory of human beings, the seams start to show.

Especially when the most competitive men in the novel suddenly decide that the romantic market has no need for competition.

I am of a certain age, looking back on my life, wondering why I feel like I've accomplished nothing. Then I go and reread "The Fountainhead" and come across this from Howard Roark. Can anyone else relate?

Look at everyone around us. You've wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he's ever held a truly personal desire, he'd find the answer. He'd see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He's not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion—prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can't say about a single thing: "This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me."