Grasp the Nettle

The New York Times offers a book review of a Rand biographer in which they fundamentally misunderstand  Rand’s vision of capitalism:

“When Bennett Cerf, a head of Random House, begged her to cut Galt’s speech, Rand replied with what Heller calls “a comment that became publishing legend”: “Would you cut the Bible?” …In fact, any editor certainly would cut the Bible, if an agent submitted it as a new work of fiction. But Cerf offered Rand an alternative: if she gave up 7 cents per copy in royalties, she could have the extra paper needed to print Galt’s oration. That she agreed is a sign of the great contradiction that haunts her writing and especially her life.”

Why would this be a contradiction?

“Politically, Rand was committed to the idea that capitalism is the best form of social organization invented or conceivable. This was, perhaps, an understandable reaction against her childhood experience of Communism… Yet while Rand took to wearing a dollar-sign pin to advertise her love of capitalism, Heller makes clear that the author had no real affection for dollars themselves. Giving up her royalties to preserve her vision is something that no genuine capitalist, and few popular novelists, would have done. It is the act of an intellectual, of someone who believes that ideas matter more than lucre.”

I see. It is only a contradiction if you think that capitalism, as opposed to being a system which makes possible the creation of wealth and the expression of different preferences for various goods and services (by allowing one to decide how much one will pay for them), is a system which imposes a mandate that one maximize the pursuit of wealth over all other values, and that if one considers oneself an advocate of capitalism, one is particularly bound to this notion of wealth-maximization.

Rand’s decision to take a royalty cut in exchange for the Galt speech being published is actually a perfect example of the capitalist ideal at work: it is an example of Rand valuing a particular service (the publishing of her novel intact) more than an alternative (higher compensation), and being willing to accept one in exchange for the other. A capitalist system which respects the rights of individuals makes such bargains possible.

Rand was not only one of the most forceful advocates of capitalism, but also one of the most articulate. The fact that her position could be misunderstood as advocating “higher profits at any costs,” especially when she spends so much of Atlas Shrugged critiquing those who use sway with the government to pursue such an approach, is problematic.

Do people have ideas on specific arguments to convince people of the truer position?