The Virtue Of Selfishness 8

 

I continue with Ayn Rand’s ethics book, The Virtue of Selfishness, on Pages 62 and 63: “ (d) Effort. Since a rational man knows that man must achieve his goals by his own effort, he knows that neither wealth nor jobs nor any human values exist in a given, limited, static quantity, waiting to be divided. He knows that all the benefits have to be produced, that the gain of one man does not represent the loss of another, that a man’s achievement is not earned at the expense of those who have not achieved it.

 

Therefore, he never imagines that he has any sort of unearned, unilateral claim on any human being—and he never leaves his interests at the mercy of any one person or single, specific concrete. He may need clients, but not any particular customer—he may need a job, but not any particular job.

 

If he encounters competition, he either meets it or chooses another line of work. There is no job so slow that a better, more skilled performance of it would pass unnoticed and unappreciated, not in a free society. Ask any office manager.”

 

My response: I agree.

 

 

Rand on Pages 63 and 64: “It is only the passive, parasitical representatives of the ‘humility metaphysics’ school who regard any competitor as a threat, because the thought of earning one’s position by personal merit is not part of their view of life. They regard themselves as interchangeable mediocrities who have nothing to offer and who fight, in a ‘static’ universe, for someone’s causeless favor.

 

A rational man knows that one does not live by means of ‘luck,’ ‘breaks’ or favors, there is no such thing as an ‘only chance’ or a single opportunity, and that this is guaranteed precisely by the existence of competition. He does not regard any concrete, specific goal or value as irreplaceable. He knows that only persons are irreplaceable—only those one loves.

 

He knows that there are no conflicts of interests among rational men even in the issue of love. Like any other value, love is not a static quantity to be divided, but an unlimited response to be earned. The love for one friend is not a threat to the love for another, and neither is the love for the various members of one’s family, assuming they have earned it. The most exclusive form—romantic love—is not an issue of competition. If two men are in love with the same woman, what she feels for either of them is not determined by what she feels for the other and is not taken away from him. If she chooses one of them, the ‘loser’ could not have had what the ‘winner’ earned.

 

It is only among the irrational, emotion-motivated persons, whose love is divorced from and standard of value, that chance rivalries, accidental conflicts and blind choices prevail. But then, whoever wins does not win much. Among the emotion-driven, neither love nor any other emotion has any meaning.”

 

My response, I admire what she asserts about egoism and merited personal effort. I am reluctant to endorse her claim that emotional love is empty, and that rational love is real love. It seems thigs are more complicated than that to me. It also seems to me that when competing in business or in love can cause conflict of interest, if rivals are not operating on a mutually accepted, implicit agreement, growing out of social convention, that the competing will be done without being violent, dishonest, treacherous, underhanded or vindictiveness, and that both the winner and loser agree to be good sports no matter how the conflict or competition sorts out who is the winner or loser.

 

Rand  on Pages  64 and 65: “Such in brief, are the four major considerations in a rational man’s view of his interests. Now let us return to the question originally asked—about the two men applying for the same job—and observe in what manner it ignores or opposes these four considerations.

 

(a)   Reality. The mere fact that two men desire the same job does not constitute proof that either of them is entitled to it or deserve it, and that his interests are damaged if he does not obtain it.”

 

My response: I agree.

 

Rand: “(b) Context. Both men know that if they desire a job, their goal is made possible only by the existence of a business concern able to provide employment—that the business concern requires the availability of more than one applicant for any job—that if only one applicant existed, he would not obtain the job, because the business concern with have to close it doors—and that their competition for the job is to their interest, even though one of them will lose in that particular encounter.

 

© Responsibility. Neither man has a moral right to declare that he does not want to consider all those things, he just wants a job. He is not entitled to any desire or to any ‘interest’ without knowledge of what is required to make its fulfillment possible.

 

(d) Effort. Whoever gets the job, has earned it (assuming the employer’s choice is rational). This benefit is due to his merit—not due to the ‘sacrifice’ of the other man who has never had any vested right to the job. The failure to give the man what has never belonged to him can hardly be described as ‘sacrificing his interests.’

 

All the above discussion only applies to the relationships among rational men and only to a free society, In a free society one does not have to deal with those who are irrational. One is free to avoid them.”

 

My response: Society is not yet totally free—even in America—and even here, most adults are irrational more than rational due to pervasive altruist ethics, group-living and mass second-hander living. With the rise of Mavellonialism, perhaps that will change, or get better, more closely approximating the ideal world that Rand envisions.

 

Rand: “In a nonfree society no pursuits of any interests is possible to anyone: nothing is possible but gradual and general destruction.”