From: Xela@yabbs
To: laelth@yabbs
Subject: earnings and Ayn Rand
Date: Mon Feb 14 11:29:58 1994

This message is in no way an endorsement of Any Rand's philosophy, but I 
am advancing it to you as something to think about.  

You claim that the word earn can have no meaning as we do not create 
anything: 
"You 
may have "gotten" x dollars, but you didn't in any way "create" that 
money, or the wealth (stuff, things) that you can buy with that money.  
Since you didn't create those things, then you didn't "earn" them.
"

There is something which separates us from other animals, in that we are, 
for lack of a better word, industrialized.  In other words, that which 
natural endowment has failed to give us, we have created.  Such useful 
examples include bridges and cars, both ease transportation and improve 
the general quality of life.  Cars and bridges are not grown on trees, if 
they were your argument woudl have merit, as both are man-made.  As a way 
of dealing with each other on this planet, and providing each other with 
neccessary goods for existance, we have to build cars and bridges.  They 
cannot be grown by nature, they exist as an extension of Man, his mind, 
and his strength.  We also create the unit of currency, money, to equal 
out and give value to goods.  Money buys that which is created by Man.  
Wealth is what you can create, be it cars, bridges, aeroplanes, etc.  by 
hand, by *your* hand.

In this sense, if you create wealth, i.e. work to produce goods, then you 
earn wealth.

Whether you are altruistic or selfish is a matter of internal principle, 
but the fact remains if you create wealth, you earn wealth.

Alex