The Journals of Ayn Rand (81 page)

Re: Economics.
Since the material proceeds from the spiritual, production from ideas, men must conduct their material existence and their productive activities according to the principles of their source—the principles of the spiritual realm, of man’s free, rational thinking. To preserve the effect, one must preserve the cause; to have a river, one must keep free and open the “fountainhead,” the source which produces the water. If one attempts to manage the cause by the rules applicable only to the effect (and actually not applicable [even to the effect]), one stops the cause. If one uses the water in the river as the spring gives it, one has both river and spring. If one attempts to regulate the spring by rules derived from considerations of the river without thought of its source, one loses both spring and river. Another example of the collectivist-altruist reversal of cause and effect, of the primary and the secondary.

He tries to make his
able
employees feel that they are dependent upon him, that he does them a favor by giving them a job. He loses all his good employees that way (among other reasons). He doesn’t do that with the incompetent ones, whom he prefers and encourages; in fact, he is “a friend of the workers,” he likes to stress his dependence upon them and yelps a lot about “team work.” He tries to crush the individual—and fawns over the collective. He tries “to keep in his place” any man on whom he knows himself to be dependent.

Her error—and the cause of her refusal to join the strike—is over-optimism and over-confidence (particularly this last).

Her over-optimism is in thinking that men are better than they are; she doesn’t really understand them and is generous about it.

Her over-confidence is in thinking that she can do more than an individual actually can; she thinks she can run a railroad (or the world) single-handed, she can make people do what she wants or needs, what is right, by the sheer force of her own talent, not
by forcing
them, not by enslaving them and giving orders—but by the sheer over-abundance of her own energy; she will show them how, she can teach them and persuade them, she is so able that they’ll catch it from her. (This is still faith in their rationality, in the omnipotence of reason. The mistake? Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.)

On these two points, Dagny is committing an important (but excusable and understandable) error in thinking, the kind of error individualists and creators often make. It is an error proceeding from the best in their nature and from a proper principle, but this principle is misapplied (through lack of understanding of others and of their own relations with others). This is excusable, since it is their nature not to be too concerned with others, therefore not to understand them, particularly when the creators are unsocial by nature, and also could not possibly understand the psychology of a parasite, nor wish to bother wondering about it.

The error is this: it is proper for a creator to be optimistic, in the deepest, most basic sense, since the creator believes in a benevolent universe and functions on that premise. But it is an error to extend that optimism to other
specific
men. First, it’s not necessary, the creator’s life and the nature of the universe do not require it, his life does not depend on others. Second, man is a being with free will; therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it’s up to him to decide by his own reasoning mind which he wants to be; the decision will affect only him; it is not (and should not be) the primary concern of any other human being. Therefore, while a creator does and must worship
Man
(which is reverence for his own highest potentiality), he must not make the mistake of thinking that this means the necessity to worship
Mankind
(as a collective); these are two entirely different conceptions with diametrically opposed consequences. Man, at his highest potentiality, is realized and fulfilled with each creator himself, and within such other men as he finds around him who live up to that idea. This is all that’s necessary.

Whether the creator is alone, or finds only a handful of others like him, or is among the majority of mankind, is of no importance or consequence whatever; numbers have nothing to do with it; he alone or he and a few others like him
are
mankind, in the proper sense of being the proof of what man actually is, man at his best, the essential man, man at his highest possibility. (The
rational
being who acts according to his nature.)

It should not matter to a creator whether anyone or a million or
all
the men around him fall short of the ideal of Man; let him live up to that ideal himself; this is all the “optimism” about Man that he needs. But this is a hard and subtle thing to realize—and it would be natural for Dagny always to make the mistake of believing others are better than they really are (or will become better, or she will teach them to become better) and to be tied to the world by that hope.

It is proper for a creator to have an unlimited confidence in himself and his ability, to feel certain that he can get anything he wishes out of life, that he can accomplish anything he decides to accomplish, and that it’s up to him to do it. (He feels it because he knows that his reason is a [powerful] tool—so long as he remains in the realm of reason, i.e., reality, and thus does not desire or attempt the impossible, the irrational, the unreal.) But he must be careful to define his proper sphere of desires or accomplishments, and not to undertake that which is contrary to the premise of independence and individualism on which he functions. This means not venturing into second-handedness (which will end in certain failure).

Here is what he must keep clearly in mind: it is true that a creator can accomplish anything he wishes—if he functions according to the nature of man, the universe, and his own proper morality, i.e., if he does not place his wish primarily within others and does not attempt or desire anything that is of a collective nature, anything that concerns others primarily or requires
primarily
the exercise of the will of others. (This would be an
immoral
desire or attempt, contrary to his nature as a creator.) If he attempts that, he is out of a creator’s province and in that of the collectivist and the second-hander. Therefore, he must never feel confident that he can do anything whatever to, by or through others. He must not think that he can simply carry others or somehow transfer his energy and his intelligence to them and make them fit for his purposes in that way.

He must face other men as they are (recognizing them as essentially independent entities, by nature, and beyond his
primary
influence), deal with them only on his own, independent terms, and deal only with such others as he judges can fit his purpose or live up to his standards (by themselves and of their own will, independently of him). He must not deal with the others-and if he does, he must not fool himself about them, nor about his own power to change them.

Now, in Dagny’s case, her desperate desire is to run TT. She sees that there are no men suited to her purpose around her, no men of ability, independence, and competence. She thinks she can run it with incompetents and parasites, either by training them or merely by treating them as robots who will take her orders and function without personal initiative or responsibility,
while she, in effect, is the spark of initiative, the bearer of responsibility for a whole collective.
This can’t be done. This is her crucial error. This is where she fails.

But both these errors—of over-optimism and over-confidence—are excusable and understandable, because they proceed from a creator’s nature and virtues, because they proceed from strength and courage, not from weakness and fear.

Note (for Dagny or any executive): cooperation is possible only on terms of equality, i.e., between ability and ability (though one man’s ability may be greater than another’s),
not
between ability and incompetence, nor between intelligence and stupidity. Cooperation must be between
equals in kind,
who might differ in degree—but it can’t be between opposite kinds. Cooperation is possible only among independent men, by free, voluntary, rational agreement to mutual advantage, each being concerned primarily with his own personal benefit, and being concerned with the benefit of the other only to the extent of not making himself a parasite, not getting something from the other for which he gives nothing in return.

But you wish to do something involving a great number of men, like running a railroad?
It can’t be done,
except on the above terms of cooperation between rational, independent individuals. If you can’t find them—
don’t wish to do it;
hold your work to the “non-social” scale (that’s all your work actually is, anyway); you can’t
force
the ability of others; let the scale of your work develop naturally, without your participation or concern; if it doesn‘t, it means that you’re living in a world where it can’t—a collectivized world.

 

Dagny
is an example of the material exploitation of the creator, in the sense that her life in the world, with others, is made miserable—
but she is not touched inside.
They use her only in the sense of expropriating the material benefits which are the result of her ability, and robbing her of credit for it. She has to give up (in effect, not quite knowing it) all hope of a real world of her own kind, and live alone in her own world, seeing its expression only in her work.

The industrialist
is an example of the spiritual exploitation of the creator—exploitation within his soul, by his acceptance of the altruist-collectivist philosophy, therefore his feeling of guilt, therefore his spiritual unhappiness. (This, probably, is also the case of the composer, or some other of the martyred artists.)

The main, concrete dramatization of the methods and forms of how the world exploits the creators must be in the lives of Dagny and the industrialist.

Dagny, who is considered so hard, cold, heartless and domineering, is actually the most emotional, passionate, tender and gay-hearted person of all—but only Galt can bring it out. Her other side is what the world forces on her or deserves from her.