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A ROUND UNIVERSE 151
Rand turned to him for information about the steel and railroad industries,
using his knowledge to make Atlas Shrugged more realistic. The
two shared a fascination with the nuts and bolts of the economy, the
myriad daily processes that meshed into a functioning whole.
The position of Leonard Peikoff was more precarious. He met Rand
while visiting Barbara, his older cousin, in California. Their fi rst meeting
was revelatory. Torn by his family’s desire that he study medicine,
a fi eld he found unappealing, Leonard asked Rand if Howard Roark
was moral or practical. Both, Rand replied, launching into a long philosophical
discussion about why the moral and the practical were the
same. Her answer spoke directly to Peikoff’s confl ict, and “opened up
the world” for him. He left thinking, “All of life will be different now.
If she exists, everything is possible.” Within a year he had abandoned
medicine for philosophy and moved to New York to be near Rand. She
took a motherly tone toward “Leonush,” one of her youngest fans. But
Peikoff’s occasionally incurred Rand’s wrath when he showed interest
in ideas she disapproved of. Over time, as Peikoff’s expertise grew, Rand
came to depend on him for insight into modern philosophy. 45
Rand saw nothing unusual in the desire of her students to spend each
Saturday night with her, despite most being more than twenty years her
junior. The Collective put Rand in the position of authority she had
always craved. She initiated and guided discussion, and participants
always deferred to her. It was a hierarchical, stratifi ed society, with Rand
unquestionably at the top. Closely following her in stature was Nathan,
then Barbara, with the other students shifting status as their relationship
with Rand ebbed and fl owed. Rand carefully watched the balance
of power, openly playing favorites and discussing her preferences with
Nathan and Barbara. Because conversation revolved around Rand’s
ideas and the novel-in-progress, the Collective was valuable fuel for her
creative process; she could rest from the rigors of writing without truly
breaking her concentration. The Collective was becoming a hermetically
sealed world. Within this insular universe dangerous patterns began to
develop.
Murray Rothbard caught a glimpse of this emerging dark side in 1954.
In the years since their fi rst meeting, Rothbard had gathered to himself
a subset of young libertarians who attended Mises’s seminar and carried
on discussion into the early hours of the morning, often at Rothbard’s
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