Scholarship Submission: Ayn Rand Institute Atlas Shrugged Essay Competition
I drafted this one up in 2006, in the most religiously Objectivist fashion I could… and all I got was an offer to sign up for the Ayn Rand fanclub. Blast!
Prompt: At his trial, Hank Rearden declares: “The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!” What does he mean? How does this issue relate to the rest of the novel and its meaning? Explain.
When Hank Rearden sells four thousand tons of steel in mutual trade, he is tried as a criminal for breaking economic regulations. Rearden’s resounding declaration at this end of his speech during his trial carries two significant concepts that reverberate throughout Atlas Shrugged: the illegitimacy of the principle of collective good, and the removal of the sanction of the victim from acts of evil.
