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I didn't mean to imply any disagreement with the decision to drop the bomb on Japan. A horrible necessity.

But this comment gets to the root of our disagreement:

And in the AS case, it's equally undeniable that the vast majority who survived lived a much better life after the crushing of the looters than they would have otherwise.

We will never know whether your statement would be true. But , first, given the level of physical destruction and decay described by Rand it would seem reasonable to think they where back to a pre-industrial condition.

And, second, without getting ahead of ourselves in the story, can we really be sure the hearts and minds of the people where changed? I gotta tell ya, what I know of human nature tells me that there will be a hell of a lot of pissed off people coming out of the ashes. But that's for a later thread!

We will never know whether your statement would be true.

I disagree. I believe it is indisputably true. The leeches, at least the ones in power, were dead or deposed. That in itself should qualify as a vast improvement even if living conditions didn't improve, which they couldn't help but do.

But, first, given the level of physical destruction and decay described by Rand it would seem reasonable to think they where back to a pre-industrial condition.

But you can't charge that decay to the gulchers. The decay is in almost every case the proximate result of the beliefs and policies of the looters and wouldn't be prevented even if the able gulcher-types kept on trying. Look at the decay Dagny suffered on the railroad while she refuses to shrug. And in even those cases where no one is immediately to blame or where shrugging gulchers are the proximate cause, the blame properly belongs on the mooching looters.

You make an excellent and frightening point here. I'd hope they'd be able to see for the reasons I've outlined that it's not the gulchers but the looters they have to blame.