On the face of it, the remark is an absurdity: resisting the acknowledged "rulers" defines one as a political faction. But the chief engineer means that the material interests are above politics; they act only to further their own interests and will not be "handled" by any government. Charles Gould's position, "high up and outside" the light emanating from the symbolic house of national unity, emphasizes this meaning. Note also that the light of national unity is "dim" and out of square in the current national collapse.

There is a larger sense in which Charles Gould, the allegorical embodiment of materialism, agrees with the chief engineer "absolutely": to wit, the material interests are not "political" because, in the end, they have nothing to do with human beings.