Never mind the instances of injustice, of ability being passed up and second-handers making a success through pull or palaver—in a free society, such instances defeat and eliminate themselves (though not instantaneously); ability will be rewarded, the second-hander will fail—if you leave men alone. But the greater the spread of the principles of second-handedness, parasitism, and collectivism in a society—the more injustices occur and the longer they hold. Make collectivism permanent and the injustices are frozen in place, made permanent. But then society collapses. [...]

  April 24, 1946

  A man incapable of producing an original thought (or [not in sufficient] degree to affect his practical life or contribute to general knowledge) can still be a moral man and a valuable member of society, if he exercises his own intelligence honestly and to the best of his ability. He can be a good “absorber.” He becomes an excellent—and needed—executor of the ideas of others. He does not become a scientist, but a good engineer; or, he does not become an engineer, but a good mechanic.

  And he cannot be considered a second-hander, if he does not indulge in any of the second-hander’s motives or “social” [methods], if he is honest about himself and his work, does not wish or pretend to be an innovator, but understands his own sphere, his own work, likes it and does it well. In this way, he is being perfectly moral, since he does not place his prime concern within others or into any comparison. He says, in effect: “Others may be men of greater ability, but that is not my primary concern; they offer me an idea in exchange for my work; I give them my best honest effort in return; we’re dealing as equals in free exchange to mutual advantage. I like my work in carrying out their ideas—and the work does require a first-hand, independent effort of intelligence on my part. I am happy in my own effort, work, and life. That is all that matters. That somebody is a greater man than I am is none of my concern—except that I appreciate him, I like him for his genius—and, perhaps, I am also a little grateful to him (though not in the primary manner of a dependent).” This is the stand applicable to all good, moral men of average ability.

  But the parasite does not take this stand. This is not his attitude nor his method. (The above man is an active man; the parasite is not. The above man is a producer; the parasite is not.)

  The parasite discards his status as a human being, his attribute of survival—the independent rational mind. Only those who discard it are incapable of producing, since the independent rational mind is the source of all production. The parasite is not insane nor a congenital idiot; he has his rational mind; he could function as the moral average man above (call him “the executor”); but he doesn’t want to function as an executor—so he does not exercise even such ability as he has. Now what makes the parasite do it?

  It is the desire to get more than he deserves, in both the spiritual and the material realm. It may have started only with the material, but now, in this stage of civilization where material abundance is so lavish for all, due to the work of the geniuses of the ages, the desire for more than one deserves has gone mainly into the spiritual realm—and there it is most vicious and deadly (this is not to discount plain grafters and looters, but they are not the real menace today). This is the root of all modern collectivism.

  The man who renounces (by statement or by implication) the basic axiom of living by his own independent rational mind has, in effect, announced his desire for more than he deserves and his status as a parasite. (This applies to every philosophy or attitude that is anti-reason.) The axiom [of living by reason] implies most powerfully, without room for escape, that each man stand essentially on his own and get nothing except what he deserves. (Which means: what he earns, what he produces, what qualities he possesses—all of his claims must be based on reality, on objective fact.) The escape from reason is the escape from reality.

  Now if a man declares that he wants to discard reality, it means that he wants to acquire something that reality can’t give him; something more than he deserves in hard fact. (To admit this is to admit his own inferiority, to say: “I want to be more than I actually am, because I know I’m small, inferior, rotten,” but this does not bother a parasite. In fact, it is to escape just such a realization that he discards the validity of reason, logic, or any kind of fact, so that he does not have to face or accept this conclusion. He says: “Oh, it may be so—in reason. But reason is an illusion. Reason doesn’t work. Life is not reasonable. Nothing is reasonable. I can say that I am an inferior and consider myself a superior at one and the same time.”)

  What does the parasite want? Anything that is of value, spiritually or materially.

  Materially—he wants more wealth than his own effort is worth; here we have any bureaucrat or politician, any man who wants to gain through restricting competition, any man who seeks economic advantages through political power, i.e., through force, any man who tries to make a success through pull, through the “human” rather than the business angle, through friendship rather than merit, any Peter Keating, or any man who chooses his profession because of the returns he sees others getting from it, not because of his actual ability or desire to do that work (the man who wants to be a writer, not to write).

  Spiritually—the parasite wants an immense, vague, undefined field of advantages, and it is here that his attitude has that peculiar quality of viciousness, corruption, weakness, touchiness, and hysteria. This is the real sphere of the complexes and the neuroses. A Peter Keating is healthy and even active compared to the primarily spiritual parasites. (P.H. is the best example of such a parasite that I know personally.) This type wants a sense of superiority, which he lacks. (Note that he wants, not greatness, but superiority.) Therefore, this sense must be given to him by others, second-hand; but this is impossible—so the parasite is never satisfied, never reaches any kind of happiness, his demands grow, the more others give him the more he demands of them, and, in fact, he hates them for giving (actually hating himself for accepting).

  He wants, from others, any reward given to human values or virtues—without possessing these values or virtues. Above all, he wants admiration (without an achievement to admire, without even giving to himself any reason why he should be admired). He wants authority, unearned and causeless; he wants to be obeyed, he wants power and the feeling of influencing others. He wants love and affection—[while] never loving anyone himself. He wants prestige—of the comparative kind, being considered better than others. He wants fame. He wants fawning, kowtowing and the sense of having inferiors around him. He wants, hysterically and forever, to beat somebody at something; not to do something good, but to do something better than somebody else has done it. (This last is indicative of his motive, of the basic cause that made him a parasite.)

  He wants, actually, to reverse cause and effect—thinking that the effect will create in him the cause. He doesn’t think that admiration proceeds from achievement—he thinks that achievement can be made to proceed from admiration; only he isn’t really concerned with achievement.

  Where would a parasite get the conception of more than he deserves? From observing others, of course. [...] The “material” parasite in modem life is the man who wants to get more than he deserves, by riding on the achievements of others: the hack popular writer who makes a comfortable living by thinly disguised variations on the writings of others; the dress designers who steal from Adrian, etc. (An inferior dress designer isn’t satisfied with the income he can make on “Broadway Shoppe” designs; he wants to get some of the income brought in by Adrian dresses—without possessing Adrian’s ability; the only way to do that is to steal Adrian’s ideas.)

  In the spiritual realm, the parasite wants every reward he has seen being given to better men. He would have no conception of admiration, since he never produced anything to admire, if he hadn’t seen the genius being admired for his achievements. He wants the reward, without the reason; the effect, without the cause. He wants the admiration—for nothing. His irrationality makes such a conception or desire possible. (Conception?—that belongs to reason. He doesn’t even have to consider whatever it is that’s going on in his head as a “conception”; nor to state it, nor to define it. Just want it. Just “feel. ”)

  What does all this do to the parasite’s relation with other men?

  The parasite began by being a second-hander. His first premise was accepted on the second-hander’s basis—the basis of comparison. He said: “I am inferior, because I see others who are better than I am. I must escape from my inferiority—and from those hated men who made me conscious of it, from those better ones.” Then he becomes an irrationalist in order to achieve this [escape]. A man’s estimate of and attitude toward himself will, of course, determine his attitude toward everything else: others, life, the universe.

  Having started with the idea that value is established by comparison (or else having started by hating himself for some flaw and considering himself inferior without comparison—the result being the same when he confronts others), the parasite will naturally hate the genius, and any man of ability, virtue, or superiority of any kind. In effect, he will have the insane idea that he can become great simply by eliminating those who are better. Values have no absolute existence for him; they are all relative. He doesn’t want to grow ten bushels of wheat; he will be happy if he grows two, [as long as] everybody else grows only one. (Marcella B. and her “two cars.” [AR is referring to a young woman she met while working at RKO in the early 1930s. When AR asked the woman about her goals, she said: “I’ll tell you what I want. If nobody had an automobile, then I would want to have one automobile. If some people have one, then I want to have two.”]) (Of course, a second-hander can have no absolute values; they have to be relative; his standard and measure is in others, or in his own comparison of himself to others; absolute values require an independent rational judgment.)

  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.)