I celebrate Atlas Shrugged Day (September 2) each year by opening to a random page of Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, and reading a passage. Here is what I found today, on page 362 of the hardcover book (New York: Random House, 1957), Part II, Chapter I (“The Man Who Belonged on Earth”):

The young boy from Washington—whom the steel workers had nicknamed the Wet Nurse—hung around Rearden with a primitive, astonished curiosity which, incredibly, was a form of admiration. Rearden watched him with disgusted amusement. The boy had no inkling of any concept of morality; it had been bred out of him by his college; this had left him an odd frankness, naive and cynical at once, like the innocence of a savage.

“You despise me, Mr. Rearden,” he had declared once, suddenly and without any resentment. “That’s impractical.”

“Why is it impractical?” Rearden had asked.

The boy had looked puzzled and had found no answer. He never had an answer to any “why?” He spoke in flat assertions. He would say about people, “He’s old-fashioned,” “He’s unreconstructed,” “He’s unadjusted,” without hesitation or explanation; he would also say, while being a graduate in metallurgy, “Iron smelting, I think, seems to require a high temperature.” He uttered nothing but uncertain opinions about physical nature—and nothing but categorical imperatives about men.

“Mr. Rearden,” he had said once, “if you feel you’d like to hand out more of the Metal to friends of yours—I mean, in bigger hauls—it could be arranged, you know. Why don’t we apply for a special permission on the ground of essential need?

I will let the interested reader look up the remainder of the passage.