"But Rand’s is the most profound critique of socialism, because it addresses the core idea, and the critique is rooted in fundamental facts of human nature. You could not hope for this problem to be fixed by some modification to the system, or some future technological developments.
If you say, “Okay, we’ll reward people for contributing more value to society,” that abandons the core idea of socialism. If you do that, you’re introducing a huge potential for inequality. This is in fact the main source of the inequality in the capitalist system that socialists decry as unjust.
You could of course propose a middle ground where people get a modest reward for productivity, less than they would get in a capitalist system. This mitigates the problem with socialism, but only by mitigating the socialism."
If you say, “Okay, we’ll reward people for contributing more value to society,” that abandons the core idea of socialism. If you do that, you’re introducing a huge potential for inequality. This is in fact the main source of the inequality in the capitalist system that socialists decry as unjust.
You could of course propose a middle ground where people get a modest reward for productivity, less than they would get in a capitalist system. This mitigates the problem with socialism, but only by mitigating the socialism."