Rational Self-Interest

“What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing?” That is a quote from the novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Some books become so intertwined with the culture that they must be read to fully understand what it means to be an American. In the political sense of that awareness are books like Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville, 1984 by George Orwell, and Atlas Shrugged, the most extensive statement of Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. Released in 1957, the novel received many critical reviews but it has been cited by readers as a very influential novel and it remains a best seller.