That's why my belief is it's useful to see Atlas as a personal guide rather than a social one. Rand's treatises on doing what's right for yourself and never doi

That's why my belief is it's useful to see Atlas as a personal guide rather than a social one. Rand's treatises on doing what's right for yourself and never doing things that you don't respect, which actually appear better in The Fountainhead, are terrific guides for living honestly with yourself and with others, once you get over the intial I'm-a-dick-because-I-read-Ayn-Rand phase. Socially her argument falls apart, because she ignores a lot of evidence that proves her points wrong. (For instance, she denies global warming because she refuses to say that mankind should be limited by nature, which is a little insane.) But man-to-man, her work is a great guide about how to function in society without giving in. That's what I was trying to say. Rand's books are very limited in scope, but if you treat them as such then they're not harmful books to read and enjoy. However, she does very specifically mention looters and inheritants as being the evil sort of rich, that which doesn't create but merely uses. So my initial point still stands: She admits that there's a problem there, even if she never really explains what she'd plan to do about it.