Discussion Of The Economies Of Dagny And Rearden

The most fundamental precept of rationality is that A equals A; this is the building block of all knowledge and the place where all minds must necessarily start. That A exists and exists independently of our naïve understanding, but still has the ability to be known is the basis of all knowledge. This fact cannot be cajoled or bargained with. The sun rises and sets. Economies grow and shrink. Atoms fuze and decay. We cannot, as children often do, hide from the truth by throwing the covers over our heads to block out the light. It is this yearning to escape from reality that leads to contradiction, and through contradiction, calamity. A equals A and B equals B. If someone says that A equals B we recognize a liar and a contradiction, but a contradiction

Deep within every one of their choices lies the belief that any good can be derived from immolating oneself on the altar of another’s need. They allow this flaw in their thinking that they would never allow in their work. A weak spot from which their strength is drained. In Rearden, this weak point is definite and specific and can be seen every time he bends to let his family stand taller from his shoulders. When he writes a check for Phillip, or mollifies the animalistic fears of his mother, or lets his wife insult the work that, in truth, he loves more than he could ever love her. For Dagny, she must learn the unstoppable, unnamable force that is destroying Taggart Transcontinental and everything connected to it, is not, the “destroyer” whom we know to be John Galt, but rather every other man in the world but him. For every ounce of sweat and blood that is put into Taggart Transcontinental is not being used to build some great achievement, as she privately imagines, rather every step that she takes to strengthen Taggart Transcontinental is a step that she is taking into the gutter. A gutter where things are not built, nor achievements made, but only the effort to extend out a hand to demand payment for the arrogance of her effort. Boiled down to its very essence the premise that Dagny and Rearden implicitly accept is that it is just for good people to

The looters, by their very essence, seek the unearned but they refuse to stand in the light and accept themselves for what they are. They give speeches and have fancy titles, but the titles are meaningless words. They correlate to no value. They want to be leaders and captains of industry without having to be the type of men that these things would require. The desire to learn the facsimile of achievement when one is unable to achieve is to spit on the very notion that achievements are something that matters. The dichotomy is that there must be those that actually achieve for the achievements to signal anything of value. It is only through these men and women that the idea of achievement can attain the strength necessary for them to try to steal it. What people like Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart come to understand is that while they seek to achieve, looters seek only the lie of achievement. But what the looters fail to understand is that the man who lies to the world is the world's slave from then on. Dagny, Rearden, and the Strikers must come to accept that while they seek to stand in full view and succeed or fail on their own merit, the Looters would rather safely live in the reflected light of