# Ayn Rand's philosophy on the middle and working classes **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 11, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381 "2009-02-11T16:26:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/361 "2009-02-20T03:12:28Z")
In that case, I suspect if we look closer we’ll find evidence of the identification of “no true” rational individuals. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/362 "2009-02-20T19:26:35Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Keep reading. Her protagonists seem like loners . . . until they meet each other. I’m reading. It’s slow going.:eek: You are correct. They only seem like loners because they are surrounded by imbeciles and don’t really have any peers they can relate to. IRL, I feel much closer to my coworkers when they are upbeat, motivated professionals. It makes work fun and exciting because people feed off each other’s energy and sense of accomplishment. When I work with a bunch of losers who just sit around snorting at their desk, waiting to collect their pension, I feel disgusted and want nothing to do with them professionally or socially. That seems to be a reoccuring theme in the book. People doing things so they will be “popular” among the mediocre masses. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/363 "2009-02-20T19:27:48Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > Rand felt that there could be no conflict between rational individuals. That would probably be true if we all had access to the same information and processed it in the same way. The fundamental problem with Rand’s philosophy, IMHO, is that people are not, in fact, robots. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/364 "2009-02-20T19:49:03Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > The fundamental problem with Rand’s philosophy, IMHO, is that people are not, in fact, robots. Do her characters seem robotic to you? Rand rejected the idea that there’s a necessary conflict between reason and emotions . . . so long as you don’t substitute one for the other. Her heroes all had very strong emotions, but their feelings were appropriate to what was going on in their lives . . . as opposed to the bad guys, whose emotions consisted of inappropriate anger, envy, hatred, resentment, etc. Francisco d’Anconia is usually considered her most colorful character . . . and he was certainly no robot. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/365 "2009-02-20T19:56:54Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Francisco d’Anconia is usually considered her most colorful character . . . and he was certainly no robot. Personally, I thionk Ellsworth Toohey is her most interesting character. D’Anconia is too casually successful at everything he does to pose much of an intellectual challenge to the reader. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/366 "2009-02-20T19:57:35Z")
Well, at the very least, they are cybernetic, having a “long-winded speech” button built in with a hair-trigger. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/367 "2009-02-20T20:05:53Z")
\*\*\*EUREKA!!! \*\*\*I finally found a quote that I’ve been thinking about since this thread started. It’s from \*The Ayn Rand Letter, \*a publication that she put out in the '70s. \*\*"A nation’s productive – and moral, and intellectual – top is _the middle class. It is a broad reservoir of energy, it is a country’s motor and lifeblood, which feeds the rest. The common denominator of its members, on their various levels of ability, is: independence. The upper classes are merely a nation’s past; the middle class is its future."_ She also characterized the working class as “pre-middle class,” i.e., people who were working toward the middle class. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/368 "2009-02-20T20:08:15Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Personally, I thionk Ellsworth Toohey is her most interesting character. D’Anconia is too casually successful at everything he does to pose much of an intellectual challenge to the reader. I just don’t have the stomach to think about Toohey very much. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/369 "2009-02-20T20:26:33Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I just don’t have the stomach to think about Toohey very much. Then _don’t_ think of him. Heh. Anyway, among Rand villains, Toohey is the least stereotypical. He’s fully aware of his motives and even has the good sense to be occasionally sickened by the results. The closest equivalent character in _Atlas Shrugged_ would be Floyd Ferris, I guess, and Ferris was a mere shadow of Toohey. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/370 "2009-02-20T20:34:58Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > That would probably be true if we all had access to the same information and processed it in the same way. Exactly. To Rand, everything is objective, including value. How objective value works under capitalism is not something I’ve been able to fathom, and it is one of the many things that eventually drove me away from Rand. If there is objective value, there is no need for economic freedom, as everyone’s strategies would be determined in advance. One could take the position that, due to a lack of information, a state cannot successfully command an economy, but this is not so much an argument for capitalism as it is an argument against a command economy. Specifically, she cites subjectivism as the source of conflict, and suggests that subjectivism is inherently non-rational. This claim is never particularly well-supported, except via throwaway remarks about “the nature of man” and such. Personally, I believe both in economic freedom and subjective value, and feel that economic freedom is important precisely because of subjective value, but I’ve not sat down and reread Rand to develop specific counterarguments or a specifically opposing theory. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381.md?page=18)