Rand doesn't view those of lesser productivity as "evil", assuming they aren't leaching off of others when they could be providing for themselves. She simply vi

Rand doesn't view those of lesser productivity as "evil", assuming they aren't leaching off of others when they could be providing for themselves. She simply viewed them as uninteresting: they aren't the people changing the world. She was admittedly quite harsh in her judgement of what constituted "productive". She described the character of Eddie Willers in _Atlas Shrugged_ as "a typical man of mediocrity", and he was a top-level exec in a large railroad company! It's too bad, really. There is so much good in her philosophy that gets obscured by her personnal flaws and her limited (and self-admitted) lack of understanding of human psychology. _The Fountainhead_ is a great novel, raw and bitter and steeped in human struggle as few books are. It has a dozen flaws, but it's still one of the greatest books I've ever read. There is a scene in it where Roark and Dominique discuss the chemical properties of the different kinds of marble. Boring right? It has to be one of the greatest extended allegories ever written. (TASTE the dialog there. Slippery silibants suggesting sly secrets of the soul.)