Sorry for the incomplete thought, I spent a bunch of time driving today and my brain is not quite all there.
Anyway, in Atlas Shrugged, you see government, through passing laws, killing off business and jobs in Colorado.
Rand foretold, in AS, the rewarding of failure that will happen, once business and government become intertwined.
We are no longer seeing “Atlas Shrugged” as fiction, rather, it is a cautionary tale of what happens when success is punished with special laws written to target specific portions of the population.
We have the dubious pleasure of living “Atlas Shrugged,” while being told to eat cake and enjoy our circuses.
"... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one MAKES them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. ......just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted -- and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
p.411, Ayn Rand, ATLAS SHRUGGED, Signet Books, NY, 1957
That is what it all boils down to. That is where we are.