But there are a couple of things fairly clearly wrong with Chambers's thesis here - first, that the entire point of the book was the morality behind capitalism, not its amorality, and second, that - I'll be delicate here, because I respect Chambers deeply and it's a fairly inflammatory suspicion to express toward a literary critic - but I don't think he actually read the book.
You don't have to, really, to argue its salient points, but you do to get them right. In Chambers's case I suspect his religious epiphany made him more skeptical of the atheist Rand than her actual narrative justifies. Despite her nominal rejection of God she is drawn time and again back to seminal religious issues in developing her own ethical system: virtue, soul, sin. Her realization that Original Sin is a central topic in Christian theology is quite correct; her actual apprehension of the issues inherent is superficial and embarrassingly in error. I'd like to have read Chambers's views in that regard instead of this. All IMHO, of course.
“her actual apprehension of the issues inherent is superficial and embarrassingly in error.”
Can you elaborate?
To me, her point re original sin is that it is intended to teach you right from the get go that your life is not your own. You owe it to someone.
And conveniently, organized religion can act as the collection agency. Hard not to see that as little more than another “moocher”.