For me the really sad thing about Rand’s books is the continuing influence they have. Her vision is so intellectually inadequate and her understanding of economics so totally absent that anyone who thinks she has anything of value to convey is, frankly, deluded. Your comments about the toxic interplay between government and rent-seekers are correct, but Rand failed to see how the situation comes about and therefore had no capacity to propose any meaningful solution. Her world was infantile and her ideas just plain stupid. Which is a shame, because there probably is potentially a great work of fiction waiting to be written about the themes she attempted, and totally failed, to tackle with any degree of adequacy whatsoever.