The parasite hates competition—because he sees all life as a competition. He knows he can’t hold his own, on his own independent terms (he has none), against the genius; hence his desire for “security,” “controls,” and “collaboration.” Yet, as a non-producer (who has discarded the necessary precondition of a producer: the independent rational mind) he sees all life as a race for a static, given amount of benefits. He doesn’t think that material wealth is created by the energy and intelligence of men—an inexhaustible source; he thinks that there’s just so much material wealth (a static amount) and whoever gets rich takes that much away from him; his “share” is that much smaller. (He doesn’t realize that in a free society of producers each wealthy man
adds
to the total wealth, that each creates his own new wealth, and also adds to the wealth of others by his ideas and his energy. But to realize this would be to cease being a parasite.)
He thinks the same in the spiritual realm; he sees spiritual values as a static sum total, so anything gained or possessed by another man is taken away from him. If another man is loved, this reduces his chances of being loved. If another man is admired, it reduces his possible share of admiration. If another man has any personal virtue—intelligence, courage, integrity, beauty—his own virtues are thereby diminished or destroyed (as if virtues were something distributed around out of a common grab-bag-and there’s only so much of it to divide). This is the non-producer‘s, the irrationalist’s, the collectivist‘s, the parasite’s view of the world, spiritual and material. (This is the miserable trembling for one’s share of the “common pot”—since everything is common, collective, isn’t it?)
If it is said that what the parasite dreads is competition for a specific goal—such as one particular job, or the love of one particular woman—and what he fears is that the better man will beat him in that specific instance, then it’s still second-handedness. The creator (or any “active” man) attaches no crucial importance to anything that comes from others, from the will of some one other man; he may regret losing a job or losing the woman he loves to someone else, but it is not a crucial tragedy for him, nor the breaking of his life, since it never was his primary concern. He wants a job in his particular line of work, but not necessarily any one specific job. He may love only one woman in his life and he may lose her, and this is a tragedy—but
not
the end of him, since he did not exist primarily for that woman, nor for any other human being. His primary goal is within himself.
It is said that this is fine for the genius who’s sure of his superiority and chance to win out against others in any competition for a specific object—but what about the lesser men who know they’re doomed to be the losers? The answer is: If such are the facts, there’s nothing they can do about it; hatred and destruction of the genius will not change anything. They must face the facts and accept the lesser rewards, those they’ve deserved; they can have nothing more anyway. If there is no genius (or better man) around, it does not mean that the woman whom the lesser man wants will necessarily want him; she may not want anyone at all—the lesser one will never satisfy her. (Personal love is the nearest one can come to a situation where the gain of one consists of the loss of another—and even then it doesn’t quite hold; in fact, it doesn’t hold at all.)
If the competition is for jobs, the lesser man cannot hold the job which is actually above his capacity—the job which the genius would have taken, if the lesser man had not decided to destroy the genius.
Here, in fact, is one of the key pillars of my story:
if the lesser man is afraid of the competition of the genius for a top job, and thinks that the job would be his, if it weren’t for the genius, and so all he has to do, in legitimate self-interest and self-preservation, is to destroy the genius—he will learn that the job, created by genius for genius,
is not for him.
Such a job—created by superior ability and requiring superior ability to be filled, in an advanced civilization which represents the accumulation, the end product, of centuries of thought, effort and genius—cannot be filled by him. (And he ought to know it by his own definition of himself, the genius, and the job.) If he forces his way into it—by compulsion, collectivism, and destruction of the genius—he will not hold the job or get its advantages; he will merely destroy the job—and himself.
(This is important
—James Taggart.)
From such premises, it’s logical that the parasite’s most frequent and strongest emotion is envy. Envy of ability, of achievement, of virtue, of happiness. This is why the parasite comes to wish ill to everyone, to rejoice in anyone’s misfortune and resent anyone’s happiness. This is why he will hate any success and relish every failure. This is why he will love the incompetent. This is why he will hate the men of ability, try to crush, stop, or destroy them—and why he will surround himself with mediocrities, with his inferiors, why he will help them, encourage them, push them forward. (And since he is a dreadful mediocrity himself, and has quite a sensitive instinct about recognizing his superiors—boy! how low he has to go in order to find inferiors!) Envy is his constant, corroding, consuming emotion—and his strongest motive (perhaps his only motive). Since emotions come from reason, from the premises one has accepted, this is logical and unavoidable: the premise of second-handedness can produce only the most second-hand of all emotions: envy. If that is his dominant principle, that will be his dominant emotion.
Now what is the exact pattern of the parasite’s actions in exploiting the genius?
The simplest and most primitive: if there were only two men in the world and the genius were producing the food needed to exist—the parasite, who produces nothing, would do one of two things: he can descend upon the genius, kill him and seize his food, but then he himself will starve when he’s consumed the food and can’t produce any more; or, he can try to enslave the genius and make him work, taking as much of the genius’ production as he can get away with.
The last is the basic pattern of what has been done to the genius throughout history.
But the genius doesn’t work under compulsion; the nature of his genius is the independence of his mind, so the necessary condition for the exercise of his genius is destroyed when he is enslaved. The greater his genius—the greater his sense of independence, of being an end in himself, and not the means to anyone else’s ends, not anyone’s servant. Whatever altruist-collectivist theory he might have absorbed merely makes him miserable, tortures him and causes a civil war within him. With respect to his work, and to the extent to which he lives in accordance with and by the principles of his genius—he will maintain his independence, fiercely and passionately.
Also, an incompetent ruling a genius, a non-producer trying to control and direct the productive work of a producer, can result only in disaster. The actual performance of men in society is a constant, fierce, undefined struggle between the genius and the parasite. [In order] to function, the genius must have his freedom and his independence—whether by stated, accepted principle, or by unstated default, or by open rebellion against the stated principles of collectivism in society. To the extent of his actual independence, he is able to function. But he is crippled, hobbled, tied, held back constantly by the encroachments and restrictions of the parasites who get their unearned sustenance from him.
How do the parasites do it and what is their long-range policy?
They do it by two means: through actual force—this is political power, the regulated society,
collectivism;
and by spiritual poisoning—this is the philosophical means to disarm and enslave the genius from within, the corruption by the parasite’s morality of
altruism.
(My story must show both methods. Galt leads the revolt against both.)
As parasites, they have no long-range policy. Long-range planning belongs to the producer. The parasite acts on the psychology of the animal or the savage: grab the kill or the bananas of the moment and don’t worry about tomorrow; tomorrow you will start looking for another victim.
The parasites will not face the fact that they are destroying their own providers, their own means of survival. If they think anything at all on the subject, it’s something like this: there will always be some genius around, we can milk one of them dry, destroy him, and then pick on the next one. The geniuses will always come along to be picked—it’s only a question of how much we can get away with. And this has always been true: the geniuses did come along and the parasites got away with as much as the traffic of any particular time would bear. When the parasites went too far, a civilization collapsed into dark ages; then the geniuses were free (by default, by the parasites’ impotence amidst ruins) to rebuild the world, and then the parasites climbed on their shoulders—and it started all over again. (This is what Galt wants to stop once and for all.)
How do [the parasites] act toward any man of ability in practical life? In a way which is as contradictory as their philosophic premise. First, they hate him. Second, they want to get all they can out of him. They want to destroy him and to use him at the same time. They put every possible impediment in his way and want as much production as they can get out of him. They refuse to recognize his rights—but they want him to recognize and accept their right to exploit him. They act on the premise of exploiting the better man—yet refuse to admit that he is better. They act on the premise of exploiting his productive genius—yet refuse to admit that production comes from his genius.
Above all, they want him to think (and they want others to think it and would like to fool themselves into thinking it) that what they get out of him is not charity and alms, but is theirs by
right.
The theories and methods to achieve this and the rotten trickery involved are infinite—but it all comes down to collectivism and altruism. (They do not mind so much if their exploitation is thought of as
loot
—this gives them a sense of having bested the genius in some way—but they do not want it to be called charity. This is the touchy vanity of the parasite.)
(This is the attitude of James Taggart toward Dagny, Rearden, the young engineer, and any man of ability he encounters.)
Now-what
happens in a world where there is nothing but parasites left? What happens in a world run by parasites? What happens to the parasites when they are left on their own, left to their own devices and methods?
April 25, 1946
Before answering the last question, one more note on the parasites. Is parasitism basically a desire for undeserved material wealth, which then leads to the spiritual parasitism? Is the basic motive material—and the spiritual evil only the means to an end, the justification, a result of and a disguise for it? No. The material proceeds from the spiritual, not vice versa. The material is the expression of the spiritual, the form of the idea, the flesh of the soul. The spiritual intention determines its material expression. Not the other way around.
Therefore, the parasite’s basic motive, premise, and evil is spiritual. It is, of course,
self-hatred
[caused by] the discarding of his rational faculty and of the kind of life (the only kind possible to man) which the rational faculty implies and demands. The first crime is against his own
ego.
All the other crimes follow.
What makes a man do that? This is a huge question by itself. It seems that self-reverence (which is the root of self-confidence, which is the root of independence) is a primary axiom for man—the axiom of survival, the life principle. This must be thought out in detail. Here, I trace the course of the parasite from that first crime on. (Nowadays, of course, the reason is the huge pressure of the teachings of altruism. But what is the essential cause here? What was the reason of the primary, original error? Was it fear? If so, what cases that kind of fear?)
If a parasite hates himself, he has to become an irrationalist, in order to survive. Otherwise, he would have to destroy himself, to be consistent.
Once he has [rejected] reason, he has lost or discarded his capacity to produce, his understanding of the source and nature of production, and also his spiritual entity, his
self,
and the entire realm of his spiritual life. No spiritual life is possible without the mind, without
reason;
the spiritual is the rational. On the irrationalist premise, there is nothing but a sickening chaos left, since the man is doing constant violence to himself, acting contrary to his nature—and, of course, suffering constant pain, as he would physically if he insisted on acting contrary to the requirements of his body. Also, no spiritual life is possible [to a man who] hates himself; spiritual life has to begin with a strong, proud, happy sense of identity; but that is precisely what the parasite has discarded and is trying to escape. Without the rational faculty, no independence is possible, i.e., no inner existence at all. The parasite is trying to escape from any inner reality; he has discarded the essence of what constitutes life.
But he goes on existing. So he has to find a substitute [for reason]—he thinks that’s possible, just as he thinks it’s possible to exist without self, without identity. (The process without object? The movement without that which moves?) The obvious substitute of the spiritual is the material. The reversal is similar to what he has already done. As a second-hander, he placed others first, above self. Actually, all relations with others are secondary, and a result of one’s entity, one’s attitude toward oneself; but he decided that his entity will be determined by and emerge from that relation. (“My virtue is to be determined by the good I do for others,” etc.) So now he performs another reversal: instead of realizing that man’s material activity and production is the result of his spiritual entity (his thinking, his desires, his purposes) and that the material is meaningless except as the form given to the satisfaction of a primarily spiritual need—he decides that his spiritual happiness will proceed from the material, that the material will give him a spiritual entity. He places the material first.