Changes

In Chambers' defense, it is useful to recall the political context. Chambers, like many others, misread the clues to the time setting of ''Atlas Shrugged'' and failed to grasp that the novel was an [[alternate history]] of the United States and of the developed world (which, in her version of history, consisted of the United States of America and the People's States of Everywhere Else) and was ''not'' a projection of future history. And, of course, Rand never made clear the time setting of her novel, and the first person to do so is a [[motion picture]] producer seeking to commission an adaptation of the novel to film. To anyone believing that ''Atlas Shrugged'' ''did'' represent an attempted prediction of America's political future, the spectacles of the Equalization of Opportunity Act, [[Directive 10-289]], and especially [[Project X]] would surely have seemed outrageously exaggerated. No one then could have predicted that a "looter elite" like that depicted in ''Atlas Shrugged'' would ever have come to power.

In Chambers' defense, it is useful to recall the political context. Chambers, like many others, misread the clues to the time setting of ''Atlas Shrugged'' and failed to grasp that the novel was an [[alternate history]] of the United States and of the developed world (which, in her version of history, consisted of the United States of America and the People's States of Everywhere Else) and was ''not'' a projection of future history. And, of course, Rand never made clear the time setting of her novel, and the first person to do so is a [[motion picture]] producer seeking to commission an adaptation of the novel to film. To anyone believing that ''Atlas Shrugged'' ''did'' represent an attempted prediction of America's political future, the spectacles of the Equalization of Opportunity Act, [[Directive 10-289]], and especially [[Project X]] would surely have seemed outrageously exaggerated. No one then could have predicted that a "looter elite" like that depicted in ''Atlas Shrugged'' would ever have come to power.

Yet Chambers might have been shocked to see his old friend [[Richard Nixon]] actually put in place an economic program that read like a reworked version of Directive 10-289, with its "Ninety-Day Wage and Price Freeze," its Pay Board, its Price Commission, and the like. And what he would have made of the presidency of [[Barack Obama]], and of some of the allegations now being made against his administration, no one can begin to guess.

Yet Chambers might have been shocked to see his old friend [[Richard Nixon]] actually put in place an economic program that read like a reworked version of [[Directive 10-289]], with its "Ninety-Day Wage and Price Freeze," its Pay Board, its Price Commission, and the like. And what he would have made of the presidency of [[Barack Obama]], and of some of the allegations now being made against his administration, no one can begin to guess.

== Nathaniel Branden ==

== Nathaniel Branden ==