A novelist argued that selfishness, properly understood, is a virtue

Ayn Rand built a philosophy she called Objectivism around the claim that rational self-interest is the proper standard of morality, and that altruism, sacrificing yourself for others, is actually destructive to both the giver and the society that demands it. She argued this through novels like Atlas Shrugged as much as direct argument. The resulting movement remains one of the most polarizing in modern philosophy, embraced by some economists and dismissed by most academic philosophers.

— Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism — 1964