Did Rand think that people in the real world were that stupid?

Question

Atlas Shrugged is a novel that was written for the purpose of expressing Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism. Generally speaking, barring those setbacks placed in their way by non-Objectivists, the Objectivist characters of Rand's books ultimately accomplish great things and live happy lives. The non-Objectivists, on the other hand, make one bad decision after another because of their lack of rationality and inability to see the world as it really is. This is true even when the decisions they make are extraordinarily ill-advised, like rerouting trains so that the only shipment of wheat does not make it to the East Coast, setting up many to die of hunger (Part Three, Chapter V). It almost makes it feel like the non-Objectivists in Atlas Shrugged are mere straw men.

I don't think it's true that most people are irrational at that level, or that they would continue on an irrational path when faced with utter disaster. So, I wonder if Rand meant the antagonists of her books to portray real-life non-Objectivists (meaning, she really believed them to be that stupid), or if she exaggerated their irrationalities for the purpose of illustrating her philosophy.

Did Rand think that people in the real world were that stupid?

Answer 1

While researching this question, I found a sort of answer. According to the novel's Wikipedia page

Rand herself stated, "My characters are never symbols, they are merely men in sharper focus than the audience can see with unaided sight. ... My characters are persons in whom certain human attributes are focused more sharply and consistently than in average human beings".

The citation goes to an article by Robert James Bidinotto, and does not (as far as I could tell) indicate where Rand wrote the above.

The only criticism of this as an answer to the above question is that Bidinotto only references the Rand quote with regard to her Objectivist heroes (Hank Rearden, in particular); it is unclear whether that rule of character creation applies also to the antagonists or humans in general in the novel.

Answer 2

I think your second hunch is closer to the truth: "she exaggerated their irrationalities for the purpose of illustrating her philosophy".

Although a huge fan of Atlas Shrugged, I have often been bothered by the far-fetched stupidity of many of the antagonists. But upon deeper reflection, I have concluded that these antagonists are caricatures that were constructed to illustrate irrational traits that actually do exist in those with the looter mindset to this day, albeit more subtly. Taking it one step further, I believe Rand was utilizing Plato's Theory Of Forms in constructing these exaggerated models of human archetypes.

So, while you'd be hard-pressed to find people in the real world who are actually very much like any of the antagonists in Atlas Shrugged, each antagonist has philosophies and traits that can be discovered in many people in the world, both then and now. If Rand had kept her characters more realistic and subtle, much of the literary power of the book--and her ideological aims--would have been diluted.