In this dispute between bizarro-Rumpelstiltskin and bizarro-liberaltarian little is revealed, but something worthwhile was said.

The mostly tragic world of Atlas Shrugged is one in which the truly creative and productive are rewarded with unending resentment and exploitation while politically-connected corporations pay Washington insiders to rig the mechanisms of redistributive democratic politics to reel in and lock down unearned gains. Rand thought the world we actually live in is dangerously close to the one she depicted.

Rand does not valorize the wealthy. She valorizes the uncompromising integrity of creative visionaries and the productivity of inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs. But there is little to assure the reader that the virtues she extols really pay.

When I was an egg - union made trailer trash - I read the Rand and understood this clearly. Nothing I've seen or read in my peripatetic life has shown this to be false. Those who keen the loudest about redistribution are those seeking to cement their advantages.

When we read of quasi-scientific research into attitudes, norms and preferences that purports to show that people resent the powerful, successful and wealthy there is usually serious defect in experimental design, and wild speculation about the meaning of the data in support of the biases of the testers. Better design and analysis shows, IMV, that people do not resent success, they resent unearned gains.

People are more cautious with the successful and leery of their actions since they are more powerful. That's just good sense, since you can be squashed inadvertently if you heedlessly get in the way. And people will sometimes band together to pillage the powerful: like the bank robber said, that's where they keep the money.

People will also band together to compete against the powerful. That's also just good sense since the powerful have shown themselves to be the competition. It's like double covering the all star wide receiver in an (American) football game. He's shown himself to be capable of stellar feats and bears watching lest he do it again.

But egalitarian redistribution? Not so much. It's just the sleazy whiners who resent earned gains that result from "the uncompromising integrity of creative visionaries and the productivity of inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs." The majority of people applaud such efforts and do not resent the wealth, fame or beautiful lovers that such behaviors can earn. It's more the opposite in fact since it is no secret that such virtues do not always or even often result in reward.

I also think that people at least dimly grasp that it is important to all of us that such people be allowed to flourish, that we all benefit from their efforts as society as a whole improves. What is sometimes missing is an understanding of the baleful effects of redistributive systems on productive people.

Rand thought we need to feel that effort and virtue will be rewarded, or else we will, rationally enough, stop supplying effort and virtue.

When we look at the sick societies of Europe that have begun in recent years to reduce the intrusiveness of the overwheening state in order to reverse the trend of non-performance we have experimental evidence of a sort that indicates the importance of enabling, or at least not disabling, the productive members of society. The enemies of well being and progress are not just the politically-connected corporations and their unearned gains, it is a political system that is so powerful that this is an inevitable result. To improve the situation requires the reduction of political power. This will in turn reduce the power of the politically-connected.