This final stretch of the chapter is where everything comes to a head. Dagny has spent nearly a month in Galt’s valley. She’s worked as his housekeeper, walked his trails, eaten dinners with the strikers. And now the vacation month is ending, and she has to decide: stay in paradise or go back to the collapsing world.
Most people think of Singapore’s military as a small defense force guarding a tiny island. Chapter 35 tells a very different story. It is the story of Singapore soldiers wearing blue helmets in war zones around the world.
Part 1 gave us the tour of Galt’s Gulch. The buildings, the people, the small economy. Now the chapter goes deeper. Now we get the ideas underneath it all. And honestly, this is where the chapter either wins you over or loses you.
Every person on Earth is affected by weather and climate. But almost nobody thinks about the UN agency that coordinates how the world monitors and predicts it. The World Meteorological Organization is one of the least famous international organizations out there. Singapore has been working with them since 1966. And the story is more interesting than you might expect.
The chapter title is “The Utopia of Greed,” and Rand is clearly enjoying herself. After hundreds of pages of collapse and bureaucratic horror, she finally gets to show us how things should work. Or at least how she thinks they should. Whether you buy it or not, the woman earned this chapter.
In the early 1980s, Singapore was a country where commercial-scale piracy and counterfeiting were tolerated. The common view was simple: Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan got rich by copying, so why should Singapore be any different? Three decades later, Singapore hosted a major international treaty conference, had the first overseas WIPO office in the world, and was recognized as a model of intellectual property cooperation.
This is the part where the tour stops being scenic and starts being philosophical. And the philosophy hits hard.
Dagny’s ride through the valley keeps delivering one gut punch after another. Every stop reveals another titan of industry doing something humble with their hands. Ted Nielsen, who once ran a motor company, is cutting lumber. Roger Marsh, electronics manufacturer, is growing cabbages. Andrew Stockton runs a small foundry. Ken Danagger, the coal magnate, is working as a foreman in smudged overalls.
The World Health Organization has 7,000 staff in 150 countries. It works with 194 member states. And some of the most important decisions get made during coffee breaks. That is one of the many things David Ho learned during his time working with the WHO in Geneva.
We’re in Part III now. The title of this final section is “A Is A,” which is the law of identity from Aristotle’s logic. The thing is what it is. No contradictions, no pretending, no fake compromises. After two parts of watching the world fall apart under the weight of its own lies, we’re about to see what it looks like when people stop lying.
A young doctor in Singapore gets a phone call out of nowhere. His mentor asks if he wants to work for the World Health Organization in Indonesia, fighting bird flu. He says yes. That one call changes his career and puts Singapore on the global health map.