These three concretes have something important in common:
(1) A baby born without a rational faculty
(2) A dog with no sense of smell
(3) A flat tire
They are all broken units. “A unit,” according to Rand, “is an existent regarded as a separate member of a group of two or more similar members” (ITOE 6). This particular chair I’m sitting on, for example, is a unit of the concept chair. A broken unit, then, is a unit that lacks a characteristic shared by the other units of the concep