Joshua Cohen's Commentary on Rand's Further Criticism of the Government

Ayn Rand’s hatred for government involvement in the economy comes even further into fruition with the introduction of the directive 10-289. This puts the entire economy on hold, there is to be no innovation, no new inventions, no changing in jobs, any sort of freedoms that might have previously existed have been completely destroyed. Following this all the important leaders who care about success and innovation all quit. Ayn Rand even goes to introduce Ragnar, the pirate who has been plundering many businesses in the world, as the representation of the “anti-Robin hood” in that he steals from the “looters” who are taking unneeded charity to give it back to the rightfully deserving business leaders. Another interesting situation representative of the current situation is when the looters are on the train, headed to run for public office, which breaks down. The looters seem to be representative of the government, who is unwilling to admit that there is any power besides their own to control their progress. As soon as the train, representative of the economy, breaks down, they basically through a hissy fit and panic about getting people to do anything to get the train moving. Logically, they could have just waited a day until the train could be repaired, but they felt they needed to be in command so they threatened anyone they could to solve the problem with too much haste. The result of the panic set in motion by the “looters” is any of the sane workers quitting leaving the operation of the train, economy, to those who are not at all qualified, and they are left with a train that will kill them because of the tunnel. This is an example of how the government took control, forced a new economy into place, which, led by the incompetent replacements of the brilliant previous leaders, suffocated itself, taking down the government and everyone else around them.