Objectivism In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged

Distinct from the categorical dystopia of Anthem and the less worldly scope of The Fountainhead, in Atlas Shrugged there are placed various approximations of and contradictions to the Objectivist philosophy within an expounded world, which seems first to teeter before falling into dystopia in a manner that renders a plausible trajectory of the real world. Truly productive individuals, individuals who act in their own interest and at no one’s expense (similarly objectivists) find themselves in short supply, and must act within the sub-moral framework of the world as it is. “There are only two modes of living left to us today: to be a looter who robs disarmed victims or to be a victim who works for the benefit of his own despoilers. I did not

He in the course of the narrative is initially introduced with word of his conflict with the Coast Guard of Delaware Bay, followed by women’s gasp at his mere presence. This introduction handily represents, in definitive Rand fashion, the belligerent relationship between the governmental authority, general society, and Ragnar. Moreover, it signifies their relationship to the philosophical principle he personifies as well as manifests in the world. Ragnar orates on his love, “Because my only love, the only value I care to live for, is that which has never been loved by the world, has never won recognition or friends or defenders: human ability” in the way that Atlas Shrugged characters are so wont. “The steel shipped across the Atlantic by the Bureau of Global Relief had not reached the People's State of Germany. It had been seized by Ragnar Danneskjöld.” Ragnar’s action in seizing and returning the Europe-bound foreign aid to the productive people of America is ultimately the veneration of his ‘love’ and the realization of his ethics. Otherwise put, his plundering is the praxis of his philosophy. His philosophy is Objectivist in nature, and his ethics are that of property rights, therefore it