The plot is so poorly written that it requires multiple kinds of science magic to be invented (perpetual motion machines, magic metal) for the bazinga rich asshole utopia to be tenable even in the fiction.
I mean, its speculative sci-fi. I don't think Star Trek is worse for having FTL travel or universal translators or replication machines. Reardon Steele and Galt's Engine simply posit the possibility of a greater future surplus labor value than we enjoy today and then speculate as to how people will respond to the new bounty.
And, for all her garbage prose, I don't even think Rand was wildly off the mark. A handful of greedy, sex-pest assholes trying to corner the market on technological innovation and horde it in the face of public revolt sounds... pretty spot on to me. The real problem with Rand's fantasy free-market utopia is the fact that her heroes just kinda suck. They don't convince anybody, other than their own little insulated cabal. They don't build any kind of popular reactionary base among labor. They lose the media war. They lose control of government. And they ultimately have to retreat to a secret bunker where none of their miracle inventions can operate as more than unrefined prototypes.
Rand writes like a fucking liberal. Her triumphant conclusion is one in which the brightest, most ambitious, most hard working people in the world get completely washed. And then when they're gone everyone feels sorry about it. Even Edgar Allen Poe would cringe at that level of vainglorious self-pity.
The plot is so poorly written that it requires multiple kinds of science magic to be invented (perpetual motion machines, magic metal) for the bazinga rich asshole utopia to be tenable even in the fiction.
I mean, its speculative sci-fi. I don't think Star Trek is worse for having FTL travel or universal translators or replication machines. Reardon Steele and Galt's Engine simply posit the possibility of a greater future surplus labor value than we enjoy today and then speculate as to how people will respond to the new bounty.
And, for all her garbage prose, I don't even think Rand was wildly off the mark. A handful of greedy, sex-pest assholes trying to corner the market on technological innovation and horde it in the face of public revolt sounds... pretty spot on to me. The real problem with Rand's fantasy free-market utopia is the fact that her heroes just kinda suck. They don't convince anybody, other than their own little insulated cabal. They don't build any kind of popular reactionary base among labor. They lose the media war. They lose control of government. And they ultimately have to retreat to a secret bunker where none of their miracle inventions can operate as more than unrefined prototypes.
Rand writes like a fucking liberal. Her triumphant conclusion is one in which the brightest, most ambitious, most hard working people in the world get completely washed. And then when they're gone everyone feels sorry about it. Even Edgar Allen Poe would cringe at that level of vainglorious self-pity.