[Still Thinking]

If power(to reinvest and grow)is not a goal wouldn't the producers just do enough to subsist?

Rand pictures producers as internally motivated. Produce, and produce well, is just what they do; it's who they are. I know a lot of people like this. Many of the producer characters continue to produce long after the government starts taking from them the external rewards of doing so. Rand/Galt have the difficult task of telling producers not to do the only thing they care about, in order in the long run to restore the kind of system that values them for doing so.

[whodathunkit]

Produce, and produce well, is just what they do; it's who they are. I know a lot of people like this.

I can truly say that this describes the majority of the people that I've worked with.
The water keeps getting warmer but to them it's not time to hop out yet.