The naivete ultimately comes from the failure to define "talent." The talent that yields advancement (in nearly any large scale society, not just capitalism) is

The naivete ultimately comes from the failure to define "talent." The talent that yields advancement (in nearly any large scale society, not just capitalism) is often deception and primate dominance gestures. An aristocracy of talents becomes an aristocracy of narcissists and sociopaths. Rand's heroes all look like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. People like that are notable because they are rare. Most of the ultra-wealthy more closely resemble Rand's villains. Real creators are too busy creating to play the kind of dominance games that most often lead to political and business success. You can succeed by creating, but doing so is many orders of magnitude harder than succeeding through manipulation and so you get a smaller pool of people who can pull it off.