The Objectivist Utopia, Part 2

This is continued from Part 1, posted earlier.

In Atlas Shrugged, the great industrialists, fed up with progressives, government, regulations, and taxes, decide to leave the world behind and retreat to a place of hiding, where they establish a new Atlantis.

The founder of this community was John Galt, a highly talented engineer who had invented a revolutionary motor that draws power from the air.  When the company he worked for succumbed to the policies of the progressives, he declared that he would stop them by going on strike.  He began a campaign to recruit others who were similarly disillusioned.  One of those recruits, a banker named Midas Mulligan, owned property in a secluded mountain valley in Colorado.  Upon leaving his bank, he converted his assets to gold, and moved to his property, along with food, seed, and livestock, where he built a home and lived permanently.  Mulligan paid Galt to conceal the valley from view and obscure roads leading to it.  Eventually, Galt and other strikers moved to the valley, leasing property from Mulligan, upon which they built comfortable homes.  The community was known as Galt's Gulch.

The Objectivist Utopia, Part 1

I was in a discussion with a self-described objectivist who regards Ayn Rand's philosophy as the model for creating an ideal society.  I objected that she preaches selfishness and greed, and that leads to undesirable consequences.  He insisted that I don't understand Rand's philosophy, and questioned whether I had even read her books.  I had to admit that I hadn't read them, but I have read plenty about them and about Rand's way of thinking.  He replied that Rand is misunderstood, and if I haven't read her works myself, then I have a distorted view of her objectivism.  That's a fair criticism.