The Journals of Ayn Rand (80 page)

(Galt’s ultimatum: “Do not function on the collectivist-altruist premise.”)

The question here is:
In what specific way and for what excusable reason does she refuse to accept the right philosophy?
(Not stupidity, but a legitimate inner conflict.)

In real life, the creators stop functioning in a collectivist society—but they do it either as victims, forced to stop, or in helpless pessimism, simply believing that collectivism is natural, the law of the universe, and that the universe is evil and they are hopeless, doomed rebels against it. Galt makes them go on strike as a conscious, deliberate protest, with full knowledge of their being in the right; [they] thus demonstrate to themselves and to the parasites their function, their power in the world, and the true nature of the universe.

(As a possibility: flashbacks (e.g., Dagny or Eddie reading about it) of what had been, in effect, the strike of the creators in the past, throughout history.)

Two aspects of the theme
(to keep integrated):

The actual form of relationship between men is as follows: in an exchange between two men of equal ability (two creators), the exchange is even; in an exchange between a man of greater ability and a man of lesser ability (a creator and an average man), the lesser one actually receives much more than he gives—and it’s all right if he leaves the creator alone; the creator doesn’t rob or sacrifice himself, it’s only that his ability and his contribution are so great.

As an example: a good, able engineer is needed by a railroad to drive a train engine, and if he works to the best of his ability he makes an honest contribution and he earns the salary which the head of the railroad pays him; it’s not charity, it’s his, he’s earned it, he’s produced its equivalent in value.
But he has earned it because the genius
[who runs]
the railroad has created an industry in which the engineer’s native ability can earn much more than it could on its own.
The exchange of wages and services between the two men is fair. But the capacity of one has made the capacity of the other greater. If left on his own entirely, the engineer would not produce the equivalent (in comforts or advantages or consumption for himself) of what he produces with the help of the superior capacity of the head genius. (When the head of a company is not a genius, but inferior to his employees, something else happens. In a free society, it will not happen for long. To make it stick, compulsion is necessary. This is the case of James Taggart.)

The relationship works like this: a great, cooperative enterprise of many men is like a pyramid, with the single best brain on top, and then [at lower levels] the ability required is less and the number of men in that category is greater. Even though each man (assuming all work to the best of their ability) earns his living by his own effort and his wages represent his own, legitimate contribution—each has the advantage of all the strata above him, which contribute to the productive capacity of his own energy and raise that capacity (without diminishing their own); each man of lesser ability receives something extra from the men of greater ability above him; while the man at the top (the genius, the originator, the creator) receives nothing extra from all those under him, yet contributes to the whole pyramid (by the nature of his [work]). Now
this
is the creative over-abundance of the genius, this is the pattern of how he carries mankind, properly and without self-sacrifice, when left free to assume his natural course and function.

(What does the genius want for this? Just “Thank you.”)

As a parallel example: it’s the same process as when a worker makes a hundred pairs of shoes a day with the help of a machine. He gets paid on the basis of having produced a hundred pairs of shoes (the share of the factory owner, inventor, etc., being taken out); but left on his own (without the machine, the management, etc.) he would be able to produce, say, only ten pairs of shoes a day. His productive capacity has been raised by the inventor of the machine. Yet neither of the two men robs the other one; it’s a fair exchange; but the worker gives to the inventor less than the inventor has given to him.

A similar relationship and process takes place in the spiritual or intellectual realm among the better and lesser thinkers of the world. All production comes from and is based on first-hand, independent thought. The man who contributes to the world a new thought (whether in invention, philosophy, art, or in any human activity) has made an invaluable contribution, for which no material returns are ever quite an equivalent. And when men deal through free exchange, no matter what fortune a man makes on his new thought, he has still given to other men more than he has received from them.

In connection with this: my idea about an exchange between a writer and a composer; the fact that each reader of a book (or listener to a symphony) gets the whole of a tremendous value, for very little in return; each gets the whole, without diminishing it (and this is not just a matter of “mass production”—there can be only one book in existence and it can make the rounds of millions of men, and this still holds true). This has to do with the nature of an intellectual creation.

To be exchangeable among men, a creation has to be put into a material shape—and only that material shape is exchangeable (through a material medium of exchange, like money). The spiritual is non-exchangeable. Is it collective? Quite the opposite; it is completely individual, and not subject to exchange. A man who reads my book can get out of it only what he is able to get; I can give him nothing more; and he can give me nothing in exchange; he can give me appreciation and understanding, which are of value to me as a person, but he can give me nothing to help me with
that
book, or with the next one; my contribution has to be made by me alone, and those who want it, take it, for whatever they can get out of it. I do not write
it for them;
they do not read it
for me.
What I can get out of a book spiritually, I get it by writing it. When I give it to others, it’s a gift (but without defrauding or sacrificing myself), it’s the extra, I can get nothing in return spiritually, it can’t be an exchange. (The same pattern applies to me when I listen to a symphony—with me the receiver and the composer the giver.)

I can sell a story when I have put it into a material form, the form of a book. And all I actually
sell
is the material book—say, for three dollars. The actual content of it, the story, cannot be sold or exchanged.

A composer can sell music sheets of his symphony, or records, or performance rights (in this last case, the orchestra, instruments and players are the material form). He cannot sell the content as such—the music.

An inventor sells the physical machine he has devised (or the right to use his idea by putting it into a physical shape or machine). He cannot sell the idea.

A philosopher or theoretical scientist can only sell the book in which he presents the new knowledge he has discovered. He cannot sell the knowledge.

In economics, the realm of material exchange, collectivists demand that a man
give
his idea as well as its physical consequences or manifestations, keeping none of it for himself. He can’t get any spiritual payment for his creation—and he is expected to renounce even the physical payment. The physical objects of exchange among men come from someone’s ideas, but all men are expected to share in them equally—which [implies] a complete denial of the source of physical wealth and of the rights of its creators. The creators, then, keep the others going for nothing—receiving neither spiritual nor physical reward. And the parasites get the material benefits for nothing, for the mere fact of being parasites—and enslave the creator, besides.

Since the creator needs the material world in order to embody his idea and in order to exist, he is denied the means of creation and of existence by those who could not have these means and could not exist without him.

But in a society of free exchange, the creator gets his fair material reward (by voluntary exchange)—and the rest of mankind gets his idea as a priceless gift.

The spiritual (the realm of consciousness) is the completely individual—indivisible and unsharable. (I do not divide my book among many men, nor do I give it to all men as a collective, to enjoy together, collectively. It is one single book, and it is given individually to single men—those who want it or can get anything out of it.)

The spiritual can be given indefinitely, without diminishing the creator’s wealth, because its value depends upon each individual recipient, his spirit, and what his spirit can do with the idea. This is individualism again. The recipient has to have the spirit with which to make use of the idea. Still, the idea remains the great gift.

It may be said that a spiritual exchange would be this: I receive all the great inventions, great thinking, great art of the past; in exchange, I create a new philosophy or a new novel. But this is more poetic than exact; there is no direct exchange; there is no way to measure one against the other. [...] I do not give anything to the actual source of the gifts I received—to the great creators of the past, each as an individual. I pay the debt to mankind? Why should mankind collect that debt? “Mankind” as a species is only an abstraction. The men living today are not the great individuals of the past, to whom I may say I am indebted; the men of today did not create these great gifts; mankind did not; the gifts were created by specific men, individuals, not by an abstraction; and the pinkish stenographer who may get a copy of my book from the library (and who may hate it) is not a substitute for Aristotle (nor the proper heir to collect his debts).