I'm not saying all businessmen are honest and worhty. Neither did Rand.

I think it was one of Rand's last speeches at the Ford Hall Forum (I still have the tape somewhere). She spoke at length about who serves the greater social "good" - acknowledging that as a "borrowed" premise she did not espouse.

But yes, the businessman - through production - gets the product, whatever it might be, to the people.

An artist, without a distributor, dies unknown. An inventor, without a business to mass produce, creates a curiosity.

Businessmen, no one else, are the most socially beneficial people. THEY change the world for all men.

There is no substitute for hard work.

The other one I like (that's a corollary to this) is something like "most of the time, we make our own luck."

It is an excellent truth. I have gotten less respect for Edison when I learned of his competition with Tesla and the dirty tricks he pulled. However, truth is truth, no matter who says it, it stand by itself.

Rand's central premises is that businessmen achieve a greater good than does inventors?

Because most people...Failed to try

Classic case of the relative value of an inventor and a businessman.

I take nothing away from the inventor - but it's the businessman who actually brings the product to the masses.

Who really does the greater good?

(One of AR's central premises!)