Atlas Shrugged “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine.” This is the oath one must swear by in order to make it into the exclusive John Galt highly intellectual society. John Galt is a character in the book “Atlas Shrugged” who is the creator and inventor and is a symbol to the power and glory of the human mind. The people who become a part of his society believe that taking care of oneself is more important than being humanitarians and providing support to those who need it. In Galt’s society there are no issues with money. There are no worries about the government taking and spending our hard earned money on war, illegal immigrants, and welfare. If only real life were this simple. However, this is a state of living that is simply not feasible. This never has happened or never will happen in my lifetime. To begin refuting this view of Any Rand, I think it is necessary to analyze the core value that is overwhelmingly displayed in Rand: Selfishness. Rand makes no secret of her selfishness. She thinks the world would be a better place if everyone was selfish. However, she also thinks that any infrastructural and economic progress shouldn’t come out of our taxes, but instead we should rely on the wealthy to make donations in the name of selflessness. That seems very contradictory to what she preaches, as well as very unlikely. Rand supports greed. The greedy won’t have any incentive to make charitable donations to help the world and therefore negate any possible way for a society to experience growth. Now just as any other living creature on the planet, it is our nature to be born stingy. However, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that every mother in history has had to condition their child into sharing. As a child one of the first things parents teach their children is to share with other children. Watching a toddler playing with another child his/her own age shows how they truly are territorial. They do not want to let other children play with their toys. This is a demonstration of man’s instinct of selfishness. Nature says to be selfish, while we are nurtured into sharing. But why are we trained to share? Because others may not be as fortunate as we are? Is that a good enough reason to mold someone into a person who thinks more for others than themselves? I think so. I think it is preposterous to preach selfishness and actually think it could benefit society. A world of greedy people isn’t turning out to be a very good one for most people. So how would a world of even more greedy people be better? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not socialist or pro-redistribution of wealth by any means. However, I do think selflessness trumps selfishness any day as far as moving towards a better world. For this reason I disagree with Rand’s philosophy. I do not think people have to be greedy in order to achieve greatness. Unlike Rand, I believe there are many people out there who do need help and cannot provide for themselves as most others can. Rand thinks that the world should be a survival of the fittest. I think that is as far away from a civilized society as one could get. I think anyone could fall under certain circumstances and need financial assistance. If Rand, or any others that support Rand found themselves in a situation where their opportunities were limited, or their bodies wouldn’t allow them to work a normal job, or they had children and couldn’t feed them; then they too would support taxation. Nobody is a fan of taxation. Mostly because of the way our taxpayer money is spent. Nearly forty percent of our income goes to others. Not to mention the six percent of every single purchase we make. No one likes forty percent of their hard earned checks going to taxes. Our taxes do not have to be so high, but it is obvious that we do have to pay some taxes. Otherwise, how else are our small cities and towns going to see any progress? We cannot rely on the rich to decide whether or not he wants to provide the city with a new bridge. And what about our law enforcement? We have to pay them somehow. Both military and local law enforcement are financed through taxpayer dollars. The majority of our country is made up of low and middle class, hard-working people who barely make enough money to pay their bills. How are we supposed to save enough money to live and pay for our medical after we retire? Does Ayn Rand really think there would be enough donations from the rich to finance these operations? Not then, not now! One thing Rand and I may see eye to eye on would be our dislike for the unemployment system. Although our reasons would differ, I think we could agree that there needs to be some sort of reform. I think she would probably go to the extreme of abolishing unemployment altogether, whereas I believe there should be greater restrictions and requirements. Should people get paid for sitting at home? Maybe for a short period of time, definitely not for an entire year. There are thousands and thousands of people who abuse this luxury of insurance provided by the public. I don’t think citizens should have an entire year to sit around and receive income from our hard earned dollars. Yes, there are times when the job market is tight and it is hard to find a job. However, I don’t think it’s fair that a corporate officer at a large private company should get fired and still draw hundreds of thousands of dollars. I think all people should be held to the same standards and whether your house payment is $100,000 a month or $200 a month, people should get the same income benefits. Don’t make unemployment so pleasant. The wealthy can make sacrifices just as the lower class can. I don’t think losing a $2,000,000 home is any more important and should draw no more sympathy than someone who loses their $50,000 home. Another thing that bothers me even worse than the allotted time allowed to draw income from the taxpayers is the fact that drug users are the most frequent abusers of unemployment. I think that if I should have to pass a drug test to get a job, the unemployed should have to pass a drug test in order to receive aid in the form of taxpayer dollars. One reason people don’t like to pay taxes is because our taxes are being paid to illegal immigrants. Maybe this is a good reason to join Galt’s society; becoming a member of Galt’s society would greatly benefit us when it comes to this issue. The bottom line is that U.S. taxpayers are giving more than nine thousand dollars a year in cash or benefits to each immigrant, a third of whom are illegal aliens. That's thirty six thousand for each immigrant household of four. And since the U.S. has thirty seven million immigrants, legal and illegal, the national cost was more than three hundred and forty six billion dollars last year alone, which was twice our fiscal deficit. This is the type of issue that I wouldn’t mind fighting alongside John Galt with. However, again I’m sure me and Ayn Rand would have disagreements as to the extent that restriction should be taken. In conclusion, although I think Atlas Shrugged is a great work of fiction, Rand’s philosophy doesn’t get any merit from me in the real world. There are a number of things that Rand has said that I find completely maniacal, while some other things that I think are quite insightful. There are many times Rand does point out things that are wrong with society, however I feel her diagnosis for fixing problems is to completely tear down the problem and fix it by heading in the extreme opposite direction regardless of who is affected. The government taxes its citizens, so Rand says taxation should end and the country should rely on voluntary contributions. People fight for religion, so Rand says religion is evil and there is no God. America has its problems, so Rand says America is heading toward a Nazi-style dictatorship. There is no middle ground in Rand’s logic. As for the theme of the paper, “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine”, I think the oath worked well and helped summarize the theme of “Atlas Shrugged”. However, in the real world there’s no place for this type of selfishness. The majority of the world needs help. Whether it comes from donations or taxes, the money that we give helps others and the greater good of our country for the most part. I definitely disagree with the way much of our tax money is spent, but my voice that disagrees with our unemployment system would be counteracted by a person who yearns to extend unemployment or to leave it as it is. This is why our tax dollars are spent the way they are; because we are a democracy. The politicians tell us their agendas, and we vote for the person we want in the position representing us. Unless there is a better solution to pay for the things we need and a consensus that this method is better than taxation, we will always live in a civilization that calls for us to pay 30 to 40 % of our incomes to help finance our country and its growth.