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An Analysis Of Atlas Shrugged

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Objectivism and Atlas Shrugged: We Could Learn a Thing or Two
Imploding Argentinian copper mines owned by your father and his father before him; torching oil wells that took decades to bore into the countryside; eradicating your entire life’s work to keep it from those who would purloin it for their own nefarious purposes. This is the price to enter the promised land in Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, wherein the government’s strict regulations and the inexplicable disappearance of all preeminent entrepreneurs impeding railroad president Dagny Taggart endeavoring to upheave the country out of a calamitous recession. The novel serves as a fictionalization of Objectivism, a philosophical system originated by Rand herself, which characterizes …show more content…

From the California Gold Rush to various stock market crashes, Americans have gone to great lengths to achieve and maintain wealth, sometimes at the risk of their own well-being. The heroes of Atlas Shrugged all act with their own interests in mind, which is indicative of Ayn Rand’s firm belief that the pursuit of happiness is man’s most worthwhile venture (“Pursuit of Happiness”). Every corporate mogul goes on strike to safeguard their hard-earned property from the looters and moochers who would try to arrogate it. They retreat into hiding as their last resort, and wait for all the moochers to starve (Rand, Atlas). Objectivists aver that we were not born to satiate the needs of others, but of ourselves, and the fact that we know our wants and desires so well supposedly indicates the right and the duty to pursue them (Peikoff, Objectivism 230). In my opinion, the quest for affluence is simply a means to a more noble end. One should secure enough property to live well and prosper on their own in every instance except one: that in which one is providing for their family. Man must do all that he can to keep his family safe and comfortable, for family is the lynchpin that holds one’s legacy together, and should be the center of all worldly love and affection until a man’s last

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