re: #81 ggt

There has been a rift among Objectivists. As usually happens once the Philosopher has died.

One has to remember that Ayn Rand came from Communist Russia and take her work as the work of a Cold War contemporary.

The ideas don’t translate smoothly into our Brave New World.

There is nothing wrong with being prosperous and wanting to enjoy one’s prosperity. Wanting to do it specifically at the expense of others is wrong.

The idea that the pie is only so big and that taking one’s cut means you are depriving another is the crux of the issue, IMHO. I think it has to do with one’s concept of wealth and the limit one places on their own ability to create wealth.

Yes.

Rand’s philosophy assumes mercantilism is correct - that value is solely in the goods, and no value is added by labor. (That the value of labor is exactly what she’s indicating with Galt’s gulch is blind irony, but I digress.)

In mercantilism, trade is a zero sum game, and one party’s gain requires a loss to the other. Post-mercantilism (of which Adam Smith was a keystone) came with the realization that this (among other things) isn’t necessarily true.