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Ayn Rand is a philosopher who talks very directly on how productive action at work (or anywhere) are the morally good.

Philorandroid 4y ago
She wrote at such incredible length about meaningful labor in the pursuit of happiness -- "productive value" as she put it -- and a soulful existence in general. It's a shame that there's such a negative knee-jerk reflex to the mention of her name.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  In the same way that people use Stalin's policies to discredit Marx, people use the policies and behaviors of Ayn Rand's adherents to discredit her. At some point, when everybody who reads your books uses them to justify toxic behavior, negative knee-jerk responses become the proper societal equivalent of an immune response.
  - richardanaya 4y ago
    Comparing Stalinism to Objectivism is an apples to oranges comparison. There's never been a country run on the principles of objectivism. There's many countries that followed Marxist ideology to a logical conclusion and ended up in unsurprising mass death.
  - everybodyknows 4y ago
    Or the teachings of Jesus, as abused by the Spanish Inquisition, Jim Jones, David Koresh ...
    - Philorandroid 4y ago
      ... or the music of the Beatles, according to Charles Manson. If a bad actor wants a scapegoat, they will find one.
  - Philorandroid 4y ago
    I can only think of one example off the top of my head of supposed adherents being used to discredit the philosophy (see Eddie Lampert with Sears), whereas the inverse is true for innumerable cases, where "they read/follow/worship Ayn Rand" is used as a negative qualifier for the person. John Oliver's segment on Ayn Rand (Last Week Tonight, I forget the name of the segment but it was something to the effect of "Why Is This Still A Thing") did an excellent job summarizing the popular case against her, in all of its disingenuousness: without making an effort to view her statements through the lens of the terms she's defined, it sounds bad compared to vulgar neoliberal sensibilities, and because she herself as a human was less than perfect. It, like every mass media analysis of her or her works I've seen, comes from and is marketed towards a pre-established understanding the Objectivism is wrong. Also, I'd love to see a source on "everyone who reads" Ayn Rand (or Marx, for that matter, or any author of any written work ever) being toxic sociopaths -- it stands to reason that you'd see her closest adherents, like Onkhar Ghate, Harry Binswanger, Yaron Brook, or Leonard Peikoff being known for acting upon bad ideas if that was all that was in their intellectual orbit, not cherrypicked cases of someone claiming to have read Rand before making questionable or unethical decisions.
  - Cupertino95014 4y ago
    > In the same way that people use Stalin's policies to discredit Marx No, Ayn Rand and Karl Marx are not remotely comparable. Not until you can point to dozens of countries that tried to put Rand's principles into action, and show how they failed. Can you? Saying "true communism has never been tried" is to ignore what happened each time. "We'll do better next time" doesn't persuade unless you have a detailed understanding of how someone like Stalin or Pol Pot comes to power, and some plan more detailed than "we won't do it that way."
- richardanaya 4y ago
  Indeed, if you asked most people: "do you think your life is important?" "do you think reason is important?" "do you thinking working is important?" most people would say yes, then they turn around and totally dismiss one of the greatest advocates of individual flourishing.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
eej71 4y ago
Very much agree. You can find some select quotes from her fiction and non-fiction on the topic of productiveness here. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/productiveness.html http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/productiveness.html
pogimabus 4y ago
Not sure how you can define productive action other than to say it's action that moves the universe towards a state that is desired. Desire arises from our values and a moral action is one that aligns with our values. Given this, I don't see there being any arguing against productive action being the morally correct action, I just think many people don't understand an assessment regarding whether or not any action is productive is inherently completely subjective.
- richardanaya 4y ago
  Rand doesn't turn to society or god or personal whim to define productivity (all forms of subjectivism directly or indirectly). Rand turns to reality. Productive values are values that let you sustain your life in it's biological requirements and it's requirements for happiness. (E.g. working as a programmer helps satisfy your need for food/shelter/medicine and also allows you to satisfy your passion for a life worth living in programming ). Ayn Rand shows that the requirements to man's life are objective [external to conscious desire]. There is no subjectivity in your bodies needs for energy (via need for food), there is no subjectivity in the use of reason to accomplish values, and that there is no subjectivity in the requirements for how you reach happiness by the use of your individual judgement to fulfill your life. Productive actions come in many concretes, but all individuals are unified in that they are actions that satisfy the objective requirements of how individual maximally live. If productivity were truly subjective, anything could keep us alive and happy. But you cannot eat off playing video games [at least not if you aren't a twitch star ;)], and you cannot find happiness by doing a career you hate.
  - pogimabus 4y ago
    > objective requirements of how individual maximally live. What is it "to live"? Even more of a mystery is what is it to "maximally live"? You are reducing all of life to a single dimension that you haven't even defined. There may be an objective minimum amount of calories that are necessary to stay alive/awake but I don't think that raw survival is super relevant here; what value is there in intaking a single one beyond that? The things that make us happy at one point in our lives aren't necessarily always going to make us happy, in fact our ideas of what it is to be happy can easily fluctuate throughout our lives, and definitely do fluctuate from person to person. There's very little in this world that is as cut and dry as you seem to imply.

She wrote at such incredible length about meaningful labor in the pursuit of happiness -- "productive value" as she put it -- and a soulful existence in general. It's a shame that there's such a negative knee-jerk reflex to the mention of her name.

InitialLastName 4y ago
In the same way that people use Stalin's policies to discredit Marx, people use the policies and behaviors of Ayn Rand's adherents to discredit her. At some point, when everybody who reads your books uses them to justify toxic behavior, negative knee-jerk responses become the proper societal equivalent of an immune response.
- richardanaya 4y ago
  Comparing Stalinism to Objectivism is an apples to oranges comparison. There's never been a country run on the principles of objectivism. There's many countries that followed Marxist ideology to a logical conclusion and ended up in unsurprising mass death.
- everybodyknows 4y ago
  Or the teachings of Jesus, as abused by the Spanish Inquisition, Jim Jones, David Koresh ...
  - Philorandroid 4y ago
    ... or the music of the Beatles, according to Charles Manson. If a bad actor wants a scapegoat, they will find one.
- Philorandroid 4y ago
  I can only think of one example off the top of my head of supposed adherents being used to discredit the philosophy (see Eddie Lampert with Sears), whereas the inverse is true for innumerable cases, where "they read/follow/worship Ayn Rand" is used as a negative qualifier for the person. John Oliver's segment on Ayn Rand (Last Week Tonight, I forget the name of the segment but it was something to the effect of "Why Is This Still A Thing") did an excellent job summarizing the popular case against her, in all of its disingenuousness: without making an effort to view her statements through the lens of the terms she's defined, it sounds bad compared to vulgar neoliberal sensibilities, and because she herself as a human was less than perfect. It, like every mass media analysis of her or her works I've seen, comes from and is marketed towards a pre-established understanding the Objectivism is wrong. Also, I'd love to see a source on "everyone who reads" Ayn Rand (or Marx, for that matter, or any author of any written work ever) being toxic sociopaths -- it stands to reason that you'd see her closest adherents, like Onkhar Ghate, Harry Binswanger, Yaron Brook, or Leonard Peikoff being known for acting upon bad ideas if that was all that was in their intellectual orbit, not cherrypicked cases of someone claiming to have read Rand before making questionable or unethical decisions.
- Cupertino95014 4y ago
  > In the same way that people use Stalin's policies to discredit Marx No, Ayn Rand and Karl Marx are not remotely comparable. Not until you can point to dozens of countries that tried to put Rand's principles into action, and show how they failed. Can you? Saying "true communism has never been tried" is to ignore what happened each time. "We'll do better next time" doesn't persuade unless you have a detailed understanding of how someone like Stalin or Pol Pot comes to power, and some plan more detailed than "we won't do it that way."
richardanaya 4y ago
Indeed, if you asked most people: "do you think your life is important?" "do you think reason is important?" "do you thinking working is important?" most people would say yes, then they turn around and totally dismiss one of the greatest advocates of individual flourishing.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

eej71 4y ago

Very much agree. You can find some select quotes from her fiction and non-fiction on the topic of productiveness here. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/productiveness.html http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/productiveness.html

pogimabus 4y ago

Not sure how you can define productive action other than to say it's action that moves the universe towards a state that is desired. Desire arises from our values and a moral action is one that aligns with our values. Given this, I don't see there being any arguing against productive action being the morally correct action, I just think many people don't understand an assessment regarding whether or not any action is productive is inherently completely subjective.

richardanaya 4y ago
Rand doesn't turn to society or god or personal whim to define productivity (all forms of subjectivism directly or indirectly). Rand turns to reality. Productive values are values that let you sustain your life in it's biological requirements and it's requirements for happiness. (E.g. working as a programmer helps satisfy your need for food/shelter/medicine and also allows you to satisfy your passion for a life worth living in programming ). Ayn Rand shows that the requirements to man's life are objective [external to conscious desire]. There is no subjectivity in your bodies needs for energy (via need for food), there is no subjectivity in the use of reason to accomplish values, and that there is no subjectivity in the requirements for how you reach happiness by the use of your individual judgement to fulfill your life. Productive actions come in many concretes, but all individuals are unified in that they are actions that satisfy the objective requirements of how individual maximally live. If productivity were truly subjective, anything could keep us alive and happy. But you cannot eat off playing video games [at least not if you aren't a twitch star ;)], and you cannot find happiness by doing a career you hate.
- pogimabus 4y ago
  > objective requirements of how individual maximally live. What is it "to live"? Even more of a mystery is what is it to "maximally live"? You are reducing all of life to a single dimension that you haven't even defined. There may be an objective minimum amount of calories that are necessary to stay alive/awake but I don't think that raw survival is super relevant here; what value is there in intaking a single one beyond that? The things that make us happy at one point in our lives aren't necessarily always going to make us happy, in fact our ideas of what it is to be happy can easily fluctuate throughout our lives, and definitely do fluctuate from person to person. There's very little in this world that is as cut and dry as you seem to imply.