Posted on 06/06/2009 7:23:17 AM PDT by Publius
Synopsis
Dagny awakens to the face of John Galt! He is surprised that Dagny braved his cloaking device to reach the valley. It is too painful for her to walk, so John picks her up and carries her. She hears the strains of Halley’s Fifth Concerto, played by the composer himself, coming from his house. She spots a three-foot statue of a dollar sign cast out of solid gold seated on a stone column – Francisco’s private joke, says John.
A car arrives, driven by Midas Mulligan, with Hugh Akston as his passenger. Akston is stunned by her arrival, having previously told her that she would never find the designer of the motor and now finding her in his arms. Mulligan profanely gives her a rich tongue lashing for having endangered her life by crashing into the valley rather than entering by the front door; he is flummoxed by the arrival of the first “scab”. John takes responsibility for Dagny and thanks her for hiring Quentin Daniels.
As they drive along, Dagny finds that Mulligan owns the valley, John works there, and Akston is one of John’s two “fathers”. The final penny drops. John Galt was the mysterious third student of Akston and Stadler, the second assistant bookkeeper, the designer of the motor – and The Destroyer.
At his house, John admits he has been watching her for years. The famous Dr. Hendricks, who had disappeared six years before, tends to Dagny’s injuries. As John cooks and serves breakfast, Dagny finds that Lawrence Hammond runs a grocery store, Dwight Sanders a pig farm, and Judge Narragansett a dairy farm. John Galt is merely the handyman. Dagny realizes that John’s motor is the power source for the valley and badly desires to see it in action. But she is astonished that Mulligan is charging John twenty-five cents to rent his car; she quickly learns that the word “give” is banned in the valley.
Quentin Daniels delivers the car. He apologizes to Dagny for skipping out without notice and tells her how John had come to his lab, erased his work and written down one simple equation. After that, he would have happily followed John Galt to the ends of the earth. With pride, he tells her that he is now a janitor and hopes to rise to the position of electrician!
The first stop on the grand tour is Dwight Sanders, who agrees to fix her plane for a mere $200 – in gold. But she can’t buy the gold, and all her cash and stock is worthless in the valley.
The second stop is Dick McNamara, the former rail contractor, who is in charge of the valley’s utilities. He now has three helpers: a former professor of economics who taught that one can’t produce more than one consumes, a former professor of history who taught that the poor of the slums did not build America, and a former professor of psychology who taught that men are capable of rational thought. Dagny understands that John is taking her on a tour of the men he had taken from her. The fourth stop is Ellis Wyatt’s oil shale facility. One of Wyatt’s two employees is the young brakeman caught by Dagny in the first chapter whistling the theme from Halley’s Fifth Concerto; he is now Halley’s best student. Wyatt is producing two hundred barrels of oil a day from shale.
Along the way she discovers that Ted Nielsen runs the lumber yard and Roger Marsh grows vegetables. The fifth stop is at Andrew Stockton’s foundry; he had to ruin a competitor, who is now his employee, to run it. Stockton says he would be happy to be ruined by Hank Rearden, who would revolutionize life in the valley. Ken Danagger turns out to be his foreman.
The sixth stop is the valley’s Main Street, home to Hammond Grocery, Mulligan General Store, Nielsen Lumber, and Mulligan & Akston Tobacco. Actress Kay Ludlow, who had disappeared five years earlier, now runs a cafeteria. Down the street is Mulligan Bank and Mulligan Mint, which produces coins of gold and silver like those from America’s past.
The seventh stop is the house of Francisco d’Anconia. Dagny now has figured out that John was the man to whom Francisco had pledged his life twelve years ago.
The eighth stop is the powerhouse. On the building is the inscription, “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” As John pronounces the oath, the door to the powerhouse swings open, but he closes it quickly. When Dagny is ready to say those words and accept the consequences, he will show her the motor.
At dinner at Mulligan’s house, Midas introduces her in the US Navy manner as “Taggart Transcontinental”. Dagny dines with Ellis Wyatt, Ken Danagger, Hugh Akston, Dr. Hendricks, Quentin Daniels, Richard Halley and Judge Narragansett. To Dagny it is like going to heaven, meeting again the great people of one’s past. Danagger tells her what John had told him: “Well done.” Perhaps too well, in Dagny’s case.
Halley has composed more in the past decade than in all the previous years of his life. He appreciates Dagny’s recognizing his new piece from hearing just a few notes whistled by a brakeman, and he wants her to come over to his house for a private recital. Dr. Hendricks has made a breakthrough in treating strokes, the judge is writing a treatise on the philosophy of law, Mulligan is financing everything in the valley, and Akston is writing a book on moral philosophy. But no product of this work will ever be seen outside the valley; these men are on strike. John Galt launches into a speech about the mind, reason and how these men are on strike against the moral code that demands their martyrdom.
Each man at the table each went on strike for his own reason: Akston because he could no longer share his profession with those who denied the existence of the intellect; Mulligan because of the appeals court decision in the Hunsacker case, likewise Judge Narragansett; Halley because he could not forgive the public’s view of his success, seeing themselves as Halley’s compositional goal; Dr. Hendricks because the government took over the health care system; Wyatt because he decided not to be a meal for the cannibals; Danagger because he discovered that the men who wished to rule over him were impotent; Daniels because he did not wish to place his mind at the service of brute force; Galt because he refused to feel guilty about his abilities. After leaving Twentieth Century, John looked for any sign of talent in the world and pulled that man out of the world and into his. The men whom he recruited took an oath to deny their talents by withdrawing from the world or taking menial jobs. They would pursue their true interests in Mulligan’s valley – Galt’s Gulch – but share nothing with the world. Once a year they would come to the valley and meet for a month. Now things in the world are collapsing at a rate they had not foreseen. Soon they will be ready to return to rebuild the world.
At the Galt house, there is momentary pause at John’s bedroom, but the moment passes. Instead, Dagny is placed in the guest bedroom bearing the inscriptions of the men who had spent their first night at Galt’s Gulch there, each in his own private purgatory.
Rand and Technology
The first operational laser dates from 1960. Rand’s refractory ray and its magnetic effect on motors is interesting, but wide of the mark. The hologram that hides Galt’s Gulch is more on the order of the technology in the later “Star Trek” universe. For Fifties science fiction, however, it’s not bad.
The idea of extracting oil from shale was barely a glimmer in an oil man’s eye in the Fifties; not until the Seventies did the price of oil rise to the point where recovery from oil shale might be profitable. Here Rand was far ahead of the curve.
Rand never saw the possibilities of a global positioning system and spy satellites as a means of making it truly impossible to hide a site like Galt’s Gulch from the all-pervading eyes of government. The surveillance state’s technology was not on her horizon.
America’s Mixed Relationship With Gold
After of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, tensions with Britain eased, and the country got around to governing itself under the Articles of Confederation. But the war debt caused major problems, not the least of which was a deflationary depression. A few states took their debts seriously, but others engaged in partial or total repudiation. At the same time, the Continental Dollar, supposedly backed by one Spanish Milled Dollar each, was collapsing in value because there was no real backing except for a nebulous promise to pay. Enlisted men in the Continental Army had been paid in paper dollars, and they expected those dollars to be honored at full value.
There were only three banks in the entire country; these banks didn’t care about the farmer, the shopkeeper, or the wage slave, but only the owner of the textile mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the import-export business in Manhattan, or the iron foundry in Batsto, New Jersey. Ordinary Americans held their wealth in their mattresses and under their floorboards. Without a genuine coin of the realm, people relied on coins of gold and silver minted in Spain, England and France, along with base metal coins minted by the states. Coins of precious metal were often “clipped”, so merchants weighed them to see just how much gold and silver were really present.
While farmers and shopkeepers could survive without a coin of the realm, the owners of the banks and large businesses could not. How could a capitalist perform the Italian art of accounting if there is no coin of the realm? How can he construct a balance sheet or income and expense statement if there is no standard by which to measure value?
The states that wanted to treat their war debts honorably had a problem. The basic unit of governance in America was the county. The county collected the property tax, and a voter had to show his tax receipt at election time to the county clerk in order to vote. The county built the roads and maintained the poorhouse for indigents. States collected taxes for their own purposes, but repaying war debts would require a major hike in taxes, and a war had just been fought over that.
There is an old saying in the word of taxation: “Don’t tax him, don’t tax me, tax the guy behind the tree.” The states that wanted to retire their war debts found a way of taxing the guy behind the tree – they taxed the residents of other states. After all, residents of other states could not vote in state elections, so the states charged tariffs on goods crossing state lines. The Connecticut farmer who loaded his wagon and took his produce to New York to sell now found himself confronted at the state line by a New York customs agent who slapped taxes on his produce. Quickly other states took up the idea, and a full scale trade war erupted.
Then the issue of the legality of the Continental Dollar came to a head when Massachusetts refused to accept it in payment of taxes in spite of the words “legal tender”. And that led to Shays’ Rebellion, which led to the Constitutional Convention.
In 1790, Alexander Hamilton, now Secretary of the Treasury under Washington, pushed for assumption, the act of taking the debts of the states and nationalizing them. What Hamilton wanted was financial ballast. A ship without ballast is gyroscopically unstable and tosses and turns on the sea. Hamilton believed that a properly managed national debt would act as ballast and be a blessing. Hamilton didn’t figure this out on his own but copied Sir Robert Walpole who established the Bank of England in 1694. The key was “properly managed”. Hamilton saw a national debt as a way of encouraging a basic conservatism in American finance. By rolling the state debts into a national debt, Hamilton effectively monetized all those Continental Dollars whose value had dropped almost to zero. On a weekly basis, Hamilton’s clerk at Treasury went down to the New York Stock Exchange and either bought or sold Treasury bills, thus managing the money supply; this is similar to what the Federal Reserve does today. Was each new American dollar backed by the proper amount of gold or silver as mandated by the Constitution? No. And that is one of our lesser known financial secrets: the US Dollar started out as a fiat currency in violation of the Constitution’s Gold and Silver Clause.
It should be noted that the Gold and Silver Clause has been honored more in the breach than in the observance.
Hamilton intended the US Mint in Philadelphia to fix the gold and silver problem. Congress established gold and silver coins of different denominations, and people who owned foreign coins or bars of gold and silver could take them to the Mint, which would smelt them to the correct purity and mint coins of the realm, which would in turn be handed back to the owner to be placed in circulation.
Hamilton’s consolidated war debt was paid off by James Monroe’s first term, and the new debt accrued during the War of 1812 came close to being paid off by the end of Andrew Jackson’s first term. That led to a problem. Under Nicholas Biddle, the Bank of the United States had put aside its function of neutral arbiter of capital allocation and had played favorites. Biddle saw this as a prudent form of industrial planning, making him the father of Japan’s MITI, Max Palevsky, Felix Rohatyn – and Jimmy Carter.
When Jackson ran for reelection in 1832, his campaign slogan was “Jackson and No Bank”. Jackson referred to the Bank as “The Monster” and made its abolition the cornerstone of his second term. Biddle inadvertently helped Jackson when he fought the president in Congress by allocating capital to congressmen who were the Bank’s friends and punishing its enemies via foreclosure. It was a fatal mistake. With the end of the Bank, the national debt was gone – and so was the financial ballast. And the sharp practitioners of Wall Street were ready for a world under a gold exchange standard.
In the world of finance, there is Smart Money, Stupid Money, and Widows’ and Orphans’ Money.
With the end of good, safe government bonds, an asset bubble began to form on Wall Street in stocks. The Smart Money had already staked a claim, and the Stupid Money followed; next came the Widows and Orphans. It should be noted that the primary business of Wall Street is to fleece investors by inflating and bursting bubbles, known as “pump and dump” in the trade.
The bubble in stocks created the illusion of prosperity, and Jackson never understood what he had wrought. With the luck of the Scots-Irish, Jackson left the presidency to Martin van Buren before the Panic of 1837 erupted. People lost their savings, their homes, their farms, and froze to death in the cities. The road back was slow, arduous, and interrupted by other financial calamities, such as the Panic of 1857, when a ship full of gold coins minted in San Francisco was lost at sea in a hurricane off the coast of South Carolina. That hole in the money supply launched a panic from which the Cotton South recovered more rapidly than the industrialized North. In 1860, that led to a fatal miscalculation by the southern states.
To avoid usurious interest rates from the House of Morgan, Abraham Lincoln issued a paper fiat currency known as the greenback, which was to finance the War Between the States and then get mopped up via federal tax collections afterward. Upon being withdrawn from circulation, the disappearing fiat money triggered deflation and the Panic of 1873, which set off a depression.
In 1913, America established the Federal Reserve, which was not exactly a national bank because it was owned by a cartel of private banks. But the country was still on the gold standard. The calamity of October 1929 and the events that followed inadvertently made the dollar stronger with respect to European currencies. To permit expansion of the money supply via inflation, Franklin Roosevelt closed the gold window for domestic payments and made the possession of gold by Americans illegal. This permitted America to fight a deflationary depression and a world war by printing massive amounts of money.
The Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 made the US Dollar the world’s reserve currency linked to gold at the 1934 price. This functioned well until Lyndon Johnson’s disastrous “guns and butter” decision of 1965, which led to the London Gold Pool as an attempt to support the dollar by suppressing the gold price. Charles de Gaulle put an end to that by demanding payment in gold for France, which prompted Richard Nixon to close the gold window to foreign payments, which in turn set off the double-digit inflation of the Seventies. In 1975 Americans again were permitted to possess gold as a result. Fed Chairman Paul Volcker pushed interest rates above 20%, thus ending the inflation of consumer prices, but the liquidity spigot was never turned off, which led to the inflation of asset prices in the 1982-2007 bull market in stocks and real estate.
Fiat currencies can be very messy and full of unintended consequences. But so can gold.
Discussion Topics
But I'm more the Eddie Willers type, so I'm not sure I'll get an invitation. If you haven't started a steel mill by the time you're my age, then it's too late.
OK... I said I would spare everyone the comparisons... but I changed my mind. Some of my observations on the allegory from one of our email exchanges (my lib friend played for Arkansas in the 70’s, hence the SWC/Big 12 refences)...
Just as the rules committee would not call plays for a team, neither should the legislature dictate how a business operates.
The rules committee does not determine that one team has more talent than the other and enacts rules that only apply to the stronger team so the game is more fair.
Teams don’t lobby the rules committee to give them five downs and the other team three.
Teams are not required to recruit to match a defined racial mix. Players are not kept as starters if they don’t perform. The quarterback is not required to throw equally to each receiver. The team is not required to run an even mix of run and pass plays so that every player gets an equal chance to play.
Players play with pain and overcome all manner of setbacks.
The goal posts don’t move.
Sometimes the ball bounces funny... that does not call for a “do-over”
The referees are not free to change the rules.
There are players with more God given talent that excel and there are players that work harder than others who also excel. Not every player gets to play quarterback. Some don’t get to play at all. Players who were starters in 8th grade, sat on the bench in high school and didn’t play beyond high school have to find something else they are good at... and may end up designing a football stadium. (me, btw)
The rules of football are designed to provide boundaries in which the game is played but they do not micro manage play. Each rule is designed to answer a specific need.
The rules committee, the commissioner and the referees do not “play”. Adding another 250 referees on the field might get you better calls, but mostly they would just be in the way.
The fat, balding guys on the rules committee may be able to play the game, but not nearly as well as the players on the field. They should not even try.
Coaches are given a great deal of freedom within the rules to do things that are inventive... i.e. trick plays, the run and shoot, no huddle, the 3-4, the nickel. The old days of the ends next to the tackles and a full back and two running backs in the backfield have given way to all sorts of alignments and positions. In 93, Oklahoma came out in a set against A&M where the tackles were spread out wide. A&M got destroyed. They didn’t know what to do. Was that fair? I didn’t like watching it, but I have to admit that it was fair and we simply got out coached.
Everyone has the opportunity to start for a division one team... if they work hard and have the talent. If they don’t do both, they either play for a division II team or even lower... or they play in the band or sit in the stands.
You might bitch about them in the bar after the game, but when the team takes the field, you cheer for them with all your might. You NEVER hope that they lose... even if you do want a new head coach.
When a running back like L.T. comes along, you don’t add extra weight to his pads so he will be more equal to the other team’s running back. In fact, your second string running back will be better for the competition.
Players that have more impact - through a strong work ethic or raw talent or good luck - get paid more because they are worth more to a successful team. If the team is successful and draws fans to the stands and viewers to the set, the team makes more money and can afford to pay the third string guy more than if they were not successful. The stadium vendors and the tv crews and the parking lot attendants and the sportswear company and the training staff and everyone else involved in the game makes more, too.
When the game is over, you can still raise a beer with a fan from the other team... even t.u.
It's never too late... I hope your book deal proves it.
Beer and chocolate.
You can't have a civilization without beer and chocolate any more than you can have one without, um, baseball. Scratch that, you don't need baseball, I ought to know, I'm a Mariners fan. But beer and chocolate - whoa, think Mulligan would float me a loan to build a brewery? I could get the copper kettle from Francisco, the barley from some retired tractor tycoon, and send my minions - I'd have to get some minions - to the outside world for the hops. Ragnar Danneskjold would have to bring me the cocoa beans but he'd do it...for a price. Let's see, what else? Butter we got, maybe some aluminum for the little foil wrappers.
I'm gonna be rich. Rich, I tellya...
As long as I can be paid in gold.
giving something to someone who can afford to pay what its worth is not charity, its an insult. the point is that it is not immoral to charge a fair price for a good or service.
“Thank you for catching that. Better to catch it now before a publisher does. FReepers rock!”
Just tryin’ to help;-)
BTW, here’s another one: I think the “air money” you are referring to is found in “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”, which takes place on Luna, and is one of RAH’s real masterpieces, at least among his later works. It is either the source of or recalls Greenspan’s famous dictum “TANSTAAFL!”
Every FReeper should read it.
Kirk
TANSTAAFL does in fact come from "Moon", and I've used it quite a bit in speeches about transportation policy.
“But I’m more the Eddie Willers type, so I’m not sure I’ll get an invitation. If you haven’t started a steel mill by the time you’re my age, then it’s too late.”
If I understand Rand correctly, it is not that your ability must be of the highest order in order to live in the Gulch, but that you must ascribe to and live by the principles represented by its inhabitants. Most especially “I swear by my life and my love of it... etc.”
I don’t think AR intended to foster elitism, it’s just that only the most acute thinkers and creators would grasp Galt’s point, at least in the beginning. After all, we have all had to be conditioned OUT of our natural self-interest, and it takes a powerful ego to swim against that stream. That’s why I’m glad I was spared the corrupting influence of kindergarten socializing;-)
Although I’m sure I’m not much fun to live with as a result.
Kirk
“Heinlein worked his libertarian and objectivist ideas out the fullest in The Moon is a Harsh MIstress. But they also pop up in some of the Future History short stories, to include the last books he wrote. I think the “air money” concept was something that gestated over a period of decades.”
Right you are, but I’m hard pressed at the moment to think of any other references to “air money”. I re-read all his stuff (and re-re-read, and re-re-re-read... well, you get the idea), except for everything after “Time Enough For Love”. I think in his later years he begame almost Randian in his style, although not as good and with less to say. Having written an essay on how to write science fiction, he forgot what he had written.
I’ll pay closer attention now, just to satisfy myself;-)
Kirk
“giving something to someone who can afford to pay what its worth is not charity, its an insult. the point is that it is not immoral to charge a fair price for a good or service.”
I didn’t insult anyone with my banana bread today. And I’m sure they all could have paid for it.
It wouldn’t be immoral for me to go into the banana bread business, of course not. But there should be room for daily, regular, course of life giving to others without keeping a tally sheet.
“And it is voluntary.”
And here is where we meet. It is VOLUNTARY. Socialism and communism are nothing but theft, and I do not support either.
But I don’t think someone who feels righteous due to the fact that they charge for every little thing is a person to be emulated.
“To return to Heinlein’s science fiction, prospectors on asteroids had no hesitation in giving air to someone in an emergency situation. However, once things were stabilized, it was customary to pay for the consumption of that air.
It has nothing to do with atheism.”
Well, we are dealing with sci fi, presumably air was a commodity, like gas. If I ran a gas station, I’d charge everybody for gas, at least normally. But every once in a while, if I felt it was the kind thing to do, I’d discount or give some away.
It’s the biblical principle of gleaning, I think. The legitimate land OWNERS and farmers are instructed not to get every last bit from their fields, but to leave some to glean. The poor could come and glean, and not pay. No hard feelings. That was God’s law, and the principle remains.
In re: gas, I don’t own a gas station. But my son told me he was unable to get to Sacramento this week, as he is out of money until the 15th. I told him, if he needs some gas money, let me know. I will give him some money, because I have some. No debt sheet, no interest, and I’ll probably forget that I did it within a few weeks.
Desperately toting up every little transaction does indeed have something to do with atheism. There is no concept of grace, no acknowledgement that ultimately all you have is God’s blessing to you; that you arrived here naked and without possessions, and will leave here the same way.
This is not to endorse the theft of socialism or communism. It is just to reject extreme self righteousness that Ayn Rand pushes so heavy handedly in her works.
>>But there should be room for daily, regular, course of life giving to others without keeping a tally sheet.
But there is a tally sheet, whether you think so or not. If you have a group of friends, say 8 or 9, and one consistently never hosts a party, never brings anything to a party, never bakes, cooks, offers to clean-up...what happens? They don’t get invited because they are FREELOADERS (looters in Atlas Shrugged). This happens all the time.
“If you have a group of friends, say 8 or 9, and one consistently never hosts a party, never brings anything to a party, never bakes, cooks, offers to clean-up...what happens?”
Socially, you are correct. This is the usual course of events. This behavior shows ingratitude, and we don’t like that. The LEAST you can do is express appreciation, help clean up.
But I have done things for people who can never pay me back, and more often, people have done things for me.
For instance, my friend runs a horse camp. We can not and probably will not, for many years, be able to send my kids to horse camp. Waaaay out of our budget. She invites my girls a few times a year, no charge, so they can enjoy themselves. What is my contribution? Sometimes I send them with some cinnamon rolls. We say thank you. That is about it. It’s all I can do. She is not being “paid” equal to what she is giving, not by a long shot.
And what does Jesus say?
“But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” Luke 14:13
It should come as no surprise that some of Rand’s values stand in direct opposition to the teachings of Christ. Her atheistic values come out. Not all of her ideas are objectionable. But she has no concept of grace.
First of all, the men like Ken Dannagger know when to hire experts to do something they can't do. Hank Rearden's only failure is addressed in this matter. He hires the aptly named Wesley Mouch to lobby for him. Rearden also meets with Dr. Potter of the State Science Institute and Potter attempts to extort him. Rearden threatens to kill Potter over it. But then Mouch steals the money Rearden paid him to lobby for Rearden Steel, then helps to get a law passed that persecutes Rearden, then joins forces with the looters who are trying to destroy Rearden's fortune. Rearden does nothing.
This only exists as a plot device, and no matter how many times Rand tries to explain Rearden's psychology, it never convinces. Rearden is supposed to be a man who could mine iron ore, run a steel furnace, and build an empire across the scale from raw materials to finished goods. When he gets ripped off for tens of millions of dollars, he espresses no desire to get it back, nor to get even with those who stole it. He's supposed to be modeled after Nat Taggart. Nat Taggart strangled a banker who tried the same thing. Rearden doesn't even hire another lobbyist to try to get the law repealed, and the unemployed masses wander around asking about John Galt instead of venting their anger on the elected representatives.
In the real world, we have the recordings of Abscam Jack, who at least understands the meaning of jobs in his district. In the real world, no matter how noble a man, he is still subject to spite and hate, as well as irrational beliefs. Rand's world is a good way to illustrate a point, but it's also a Greek Tragedy. The lead players are supposed to be gods.
In general I align more with you.
But watching an interview with Rand, it seems she has no objection to people giving to others *of their own free will*. I don’t think it comes through in AS, but her general way of expressing it is if you think of it as a sacrifice, it really isn’t freely given.
I personally get a lot of satisfaction from giving to others when I want to. But giving because some government official tells me to, or some United Way rep comes around to my cubicle and tries to shame me into giving, no thank you. They support things I would never freely give to, so instead I give to things I value: the BSA or cancer research for instance.
I agree with you. And Rand's atheism hasn't seemed to be a factor in the story as much as it may be when she's discussing the straight philosophy in it's own regard (where her use of "rational thought" seems to carry hints that one should acknowledge nothing which is unproven).
But still, solid unbending objectivism could be nothing else, though that wouldn't necessarily exclude one from practicing morals and ethics like those taught in religion. And she may or may not have connected atheism with her other beliefs, I don't know. She must have known or expected her vision of society would have to be compatible with belief in God, since the vast majority of people do have some kind of religious beliefs.
Now that's food for thought. In Rand's world, the unions control votes. The looters control power via the bureaucracy. People like Hank and Dagny may hire lobbyists, but they don't have the clout to control poliicians. They don't set policy.
It's interesting that Rand didn't foresee K Street or the power of industry and high finance to own and operate politicians.
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