For more than four decades Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged has been providing intellectual ammunition and inspiration to the business leaders of America. Now, Atlas Shrugged is going to college, where graduate and undergraduate business students are being given the opportunity to win $24,000 in cash awards in essay contests based on the novel.
Sponsored by the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), the contest offers a first place graduate award of $7,500 (second and third prizes total $7,500), and a first place undergraduate award of $5,000 (second and third prizes total $4,000). The contest requires business students to answer one of two questions dealing with the moral case for capitalism as presented in the novel. The contest is designed to promote critical thinking and writing skills, and to challenge the students' ideas about the moral foundations of business. First published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged has become the favorite of an ever-increasing readership and was recently named the best novel of the 20th century in a Modern Library readers' poll. In a 1991 joint survey by the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club, Atlas Shrugged was named second only to the Bible as the most influential book in Americans' lives.
Atlas Shrugged is an epic philosophical novel that casts businessmen as heroes and dramatizes the principle that making money is moral, heroic and inspiring. The novel also presents the basic tenets of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism: reason, rational self-interest and laissez-faire capitalism. "The novel's depiction of the businessman as heroic and moral is one of the things that makes the novel unique," says Michael S. Berliner, the executive director of ARI, an educational institute established in 1985 to promote Objectivism.
The Atlas Shrugged essay contest joins ARI's The Fountainhead and Anthem high school essay contests, which have attracted more than 61,000 high school entrants since beginning in 1985. The Fountainhead offers awards totaling $20,000, with a first place prize of $10,000; Anthem's awards total $5,000, with a first prize of $1,000. Winners of all contests will be announced in the spring of 1999.
For further information about the contests and ARI contact Chris Wolski, ARI media relations manager: Ph.: (310) 306-9232 ext. 213, E-mail: chrisw@aynrand.org
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