The Value in Honesty (Monica Rodriguez)

While reading about the press conference that Dagny held, I found it interesting that the reporters where so shocked by Rearden and Dagny’s complete honesty. It is normal for the goal of a business venture to be to make profits. Profits are, in essence, the point of business. The businessmen who say anything different are simply making up excuses to hide they’re greed, businessmen, such as Orren Boyle, who support the equal opportunity bill in the name of fairness, so that they may appear moral, but are really profiting from the bill.  So why then, does the public chastise Dagny and Rearden for not inventing excuses for their greed and success? It is because of the public’s complete disinterest in learning the true facts. Instead of informing themselves, they simply repeat whatever is said to them in the interest of appearing knowledgeable. Reporters, who are supposed to inform society, promote its ignorance by “slinging words together in any combination they please” so that they may appear as though they are fighting to find the truth. It seems to me that the fall of the economy in Atlas Shrugged can be blamed primarily on the majority’s interest in keeping up pretences. They lie to everyone, and in some cases themselves, so that they may pretend to be what others expect them to be. However these lies only cause more problems in the end because no one focuses on just doing their jobs. No one, that is, except for people like Dagny and Rearden, who don’t bother themselves with pretenses and will be more successful for it.