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@[email protected] What you have done in your reasoning, is not just abandon the idea of currency. You abandon all objective reason with regard to the value of your work. First of all how did you become a lawyer, you or your family perhaps with government's assistance. At that point no one raised the question why you should pay a lot of money to become a lawyer. If all peolpe in the world lived like you, unless you come from a very well off background, there is no way you would have got education. So you take something that took effort to produce and reduce its value to nothing by not agreeing to fair trade before providing your service. You talk about capital, but what capital do you have. Can you quantify that 'goodwill' can you ensure that when you're cold and hungry that one of those people who owe you 'goodwill' will repay the favour? You have no place to live an nothing to purchase even the most basic sustanance. What's your capital? If your car, that you used to procure food for you (by driving your friend), who will pay for its prepairs. What if the mechanic does not want your 'goodwill'? Let's say I am a doctor, I invest half my life into finding a cure for lung cancer. And then I find it. A simple pill that kills all lung cancer cells. What would you do with this. In a free market economy this person would become immensly wealthy enjoying the benefits of his hard work. But I am not even sure what a doctor would do in your world. Would he just publish the formula online for all? And have nothing for himself. In such a situation why would ANYONE devote half their life to something that they get nothing in return for it? Wouldn't it be easier to do menial work that does not require your mind? Or would a doctor driven by your philosophy simply treat those he/she wants to? Surely that one doctor cannot treat all patients that would need it. Then how does one objectively choose who to provide care to? What you're proposing is not 'going-Galt.' Galt valued his labour and in the Gulch nothing was for free. Even if one were to offer his services for no cost, no other resident of the Gulch would morally accept such an agreement. Rearden and Dagny were moral in every way. James and Lilian were the antagonists since the very beginning. If you want to claim that fiat currency and taxation are the tools of the looters and live 'off the grid' that would be different. Galt wanted people like Dagny and Rearden out of the system, because they supported it. They were more dangerous because they could produce thereby the worked against Galt's ideas. As such taking them out of the world was a purely selfsihly motivated goal for Galt. He wanted to stop the engine of the world regardless fo who suffered along the way (justified as it was a virtuous cause).Dagny and Rearden though would not cross over until it was in their interests. Galt could not persuade them, and morally could not coerce them (as they were moral themselves). But at every step it was a trade of equal value between both parties. If you provided your services for equal value trade without the use of currency, then you would be closer to what Galt did. However as mentioned before barter system is incredibly inefficient. So to summarize your method of conducting cashless 'business' amount to nothing but pure altruism. Your 'goodwill' is worthless because it cannot be objectively quantified (not money but value). So one day you will either coerce someone to pay back that 'goodwill' or you will encounter a situation of life and death where no one is willing to pay back your 'goodwill'. In the first case you are the immoral in every sense of the word. In the second case you will either be dead or your quality of life will be reduced to nothing. Either case you have given up your will to live the moment you abandned objective value of your product. Read 'We the Living' to see how your altruism turns out on a big scale (hint: it always starts with vouluntary altruism).