Spot on. When I exercise my free will by donating to my church, Cub Scouts, or a needy person, Rand would have no problem with that. In my view, I'm receiving "value for value", because there was no coercion involved.
When my liberal friends remind me that Rand was an atheist, I reply "so what? Atlas Shrugged is a great novel, one that I enjoy reading."
And let us not forget, what “Atlas Shrugged” is really about is an extreme reaction to a society and government that believes it can take from one person to give to another (which is where we are now)
The book, in my opinion isn’t about altruism, it is about the reaction to forced confiscation of wealth through cultural/society coercion or outright government action.
It is looting in both cases, IMO.