Atlas Shrugged Part II, Chapter 4: The Sanction of the Victim - Rearden's Trial
This chapter is one of those turning points where everything clicks into place. Rand has been building toward Rearden’s trial for a while, and when it finally happens, it’s not just a legal proceeding. It’s a philosophical detonation.
Thanksgiving Dinner from Hell
The chapter opens at Thanksgiving dinner. Rearden sits with his wife Lillian, his mother, and his brother Philip. The table is absurdly expensive: $2,000 tablecloth, $3,000 silverware, $2,500 china. But the centerpiece is a gilded wooden peasant shoe stuffed with marigolds and carrots. Philip actually praises it. Anybody can buy silverware, he says, but the shoe “took thought.” That line tells you everything about this family.
His mother rambles about a childhood neighbor who ended up homeless, then says she’s thankful it hasn’t happened to her “but for the grace of God.” Nobody thanks Rearden, the man paying for all of it. Lillian mentions the trial and starts working on him. She wants him to cooperate, to compromise, to stop being difficult. Her argument boils down to: you’re not perfect either, so you have no right to fight back.
This scene is painful to read. Not because it’s badly written. Because it’s too recognizable. I grew up around dinner tables like this one. Not the silverware part, obviously. But the dynamic where the person who provides everything is the one getting lectured. Where everyone at the table depends on someone they quietly resent. Where “be kind” really means “keep paying and don’t complain.”
Philip goes further. He calls Rearden a greedy profiteer, a criminal exploiting the poor. He says it casually, like he’s reciting something from a pamphlet. Rearden finally snaps. He tells Philip that if he says another word like that, he’ll be out on the street with the clothes on his back and whatever change is in his pocket.
Nobody at the table is shocked. They all knew this moment was coming. They’d been pushing toward it for years.
What follows is a brutal exchange where Rearden’s mother begs for mercy and Philip backpedals. But the core revelation is this: Philip claims freedom of speech. Rearden says, “In your own house. Not in mine.” Philip asks about tolerance for different opinions. Rearden says, “Not when I’m paying the bills.”
And then Rearden names the thing he’s been circling around all evening: “The sanction of the victim.” The only reason his family could abuse him for years was because he permitted it. His own decency was the weapon they used against him.
Off to New York
Rearden leaves the table, announces he’s going to New York, and drives off into the night despite Lillian’s protests. He goes to Dagny’s office, where she and Eddie Willers are working on Thanksgiving evening because of a train wreck in Wyoming.
There’s a small moment here that I love. Eddie sees Rearden and, knowing the trial is tomorrow, says something along the lines of: whatever they do to you in there, it’s supposed to be in all our names. I just want you to know it won’t be in mine. Even if that doesn’t mean anything.
Rearden tells him it means more than he suspects. And it does. The whole chapter is about who gives their consent and who withdraws it.
Then Rearden tells Dagny his plan. Her order for sixty thousand tons of steel rail? He’s going to deliver eighty thousand tons of Rearden Metal instead, at the same price. Lighter, stronger, more miles of track. He’ll handle the paperwork so that if it blows up, only he takes the fall. He wants her word she’ll never admit to it. And he tells her tonight, because tomorrow he goes on trial for exactly this kind of crime.
They share a glass of brandy in front of Nat Taggart’s portrait. Rearden says Thanksgiving was a holiday created by productive people to celebrate the success of their work. That’s the last quiet moment before the storm.
The Trial
The courtroom scene is the centerpiece of this chapter, and honestly one of the best scenes in the book.
The crowd came expecting a villain. The newspapers spent a month telling them Rearden was a greedy enemy of society. But they also know he invented Rearden Metal. They know Ken Danagger’s coal company is already failing without him. They know Orren Boyle’s defective steel girders killed four workers last week. So they sit in heavy silence, watching.
Three judges, no jury. The procedure is “informal and democratic,” which in Rand’s world means a rigged game with a polite face.
The judge asks Rearden for his defense. He says: “I have no defense.”
The judge thinks it’s going to be easy. “Do you throw yourself upon the mercy of this court?”
“I do not recognize this court’s right to try me.”
What follows is Rearden systematically dismantling the entire framework. He does not recognize his action as a crime. He does not recognize their right to control the sale of his Metal. He will not defend himself because no defense is possible in a system that denies rights. He will not cooperate because cooperation implies consent, and he does not consent.
The judges get flustered. One of them accidentally says, “Do you want to let it look as if a man of your prominence had been railroaded without a…” He catches himself but the damage is done. Someone in the back whistles.
Then comes the big speech. Rearden says he works for his own profit. He earns it. He is rich and proud of every penny. He refuses to accept as guilt the fact of his own existence. He refuses to apologize for his ability, his success, or his money. And he closes with the line: “The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!”
The crowd bursts into applause.
Growing up in a post-Soviet country, I’ve heard a lot of speeches about the public good. I’ve seen what happens when that phrase becomes a weapon. So this scene hits differently for me than it might for someone who’s only read about it in textbooks. Rand was writing from personal experience too. She grew up in Soviet Russia, and this trial scene is basically her revenge fantasy against every bureaucrat who ever told a productive person to shut up and comply.
Aftermath
The judges give him a suspended $5,000 fine. The crowd cheers him and laughs at the judges. An old woman asks him to save them. A factory worker says the rich are selling the workers down the river when they give everything away.
But then the businessmen. That’s the bitter part. Other business owners are embarrassed by what Rearden said. They tell him it was “unwise.” They say he gave ammunition to the enemy. One of them insists he works for the public good, not just profit. Another says some controls are necessary. Rearden tells them: “I am sorry, gentlemen, that I will be obliged to save your goddamn necks along with mine.”
The chapter ends with Rearden visiting Francisco d’Anconia at the Wayne-Falkland Hotel. Francisco reveals the truth about his playboy reputation: it’s all camouflage. He’s never slept with any of those women. He delivers a long speech about sex, self-esteem, and values that’s very Rand. And then the chapter’s final gut-punch: Rearden tells Francisco about an order of d’Anconia copper being shipped to him. Francisco goes white. Three days later, those ships are sunk by Ragnar Danneskjold.
Francisco had the power to prevent it. He chose not to. Whatever game he’s playing, it’s bigger than Rearden’s copper order. And Rearden is left with the memory of Francisco swearing, by the woman he loves, that he is Rearden’s friend.
That’s the sanction of the victim from every angle: Rearden’s family taking his generosity for granted, the government demanding his cooperation in its own injustice, and now even Francisco, who needs Rearden’s trust more than anything, sacrificing it for a purpose he can’t yet reveal.
Previous: Part II, Chapter 3: White Blackmail (Part 2)
Next: Part II, Chapter 5: Account Overdrawn
This is part of a chapter-by-chapter retelling of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (35th Anniversary Edition, ISBN: 978-1-101-13719-2). New posts daily.