But Wynand chooses the other alternative. "You don't run things around here, kid," was the standard response from fools to his youthful suggestions for innovations. Determined that he will, indeed, run things, he sells his soul for the wealth and power that his vulgar tabloids bring him. Wynand refuses to withdraw passively from a world of scoundrels. Rather, he becomes as ruthless as they are. A modern slang formulation of Wynand's view is that "either one swims with the sharks or one is eaten by them." Wynand chooses to swim with them — and, to a significant extent, swim as one of them. But the price he pays is enormous: his integrity.
Ayn Rand takes a stand on one of the most important questions of moral philosophy: What is the relationship between moral virtue and practical success? Between moral character and personal happiness? Do the two stand in inverse proportion to each other? The baseball manager, Leo Durocher, once said that "nice guys finish last" — the implication being that, in order to finish first, one must be not so nice a guy. Is this cynical view true? Is it the case that, if one lives an upright life committed to moral principles, then one has no chance of achieving worldly success? Many people — including influential philosophers — have believed, and continue to believe, that this is so. One must, therefore, make a choice — your soul or your wallet, your character or your practical success. Gail Wynand and Dominique Francon both accept this premise, although they make different choices.
But the story of The Fountainhead shows that Ayn Rand rejects this theory. Wynand lives in inner conflict, his commitment to the heroic in man undercut by his pandering and power-seeking. Eventually, when he attempts to use a corrupt instrument like The Banner to defend a genius like Roark, he is destroyed by the contradiction he has tried to live. Dedication to the noble cannot coexist in the same soul with pandering to the ignoble. Wynand's moral failings do not lead to success, but to its opposite: self-destruction.
Dominique comes to realize that her pessimism is mistaken. She sees that Keating not only fails in the end but does so because of his utter lack of moral backbone. She observes that Wynand not only moves toward some disaster but does so because he has sold his soul. She recognizes that, despite all of Toohey's scheming, he can neither stop Roark nor take control of The Banner; his evil is impotent against men who are morally superior. Most important, as the final part of the book illustrates, the unqualified success of Howard Roark shows Dominique that the good men not only can succeed in the world, but that they are the only ones who can. Good men alone can achieve success, because they keep their souls intact. Holding principles and values of one's own, and remaining true to them in action, is a necessary condition of success and happiness. Dominique sees all of this, and she changes her mind. It is not the sordid and corrupt who ultimately matter and triumph, she understands, but the clean and the incorruptible.
