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John Galt

2009-06-09T00:27:58Z

LaxmanGurung: What would ZIZEK do?

'''John Galt''' is the mysterious [[protagonist]], or more accurately [[anti-villain]], in [[Ayn Rand|Ayn Rand's]] novel ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]''. For much of the novel he is merely a name without a face, about whom people ask, "Who is John Galt?" without knowing what or whom they're talking about. Eventually John Galt answers them directly, in a manifesto for individualism and [[capitalism]]. More to the point, he is an inventor, a philosopher, and a political movement leader, though not a politician in the usual sense, because he functions neither as legislator nor as administrator.

{{spoiler}}
== Back story ==
John Galt came to the [[Patrick Henry]] University (not to be confused with the actual [[Patrick Henry College]] set up by [[James Falwell]]) "parentless, penniless, and tie-less," according to the account given by [[Hugh Akston]], professor and chairman of philosophy. He came determined to pursue a double major: [[physics]] and [[philosophy]], the science of the world and the science of the mind. While at PHU, he met two other students who entered when he did, each of whom had a background radically different from his. One was [[Francisco d'Anconia|Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia]], the current descendant of a famous Spaniard who established the family fortune by digging for copper in the [[Andes Mountains]] of [[Chile]]. The other was [[Ragnar Danneskjold]], a Scandinavian aristocrat. (His specific nation of origin is never specified.)

Remarkably, ''all three'' pursued the double major in physics and philosophy. The three men also became fast friends. But not a man among the three suspected how closely they would be working together after they graduated.

== Stop the motor ==
John Galt took his degree and signed on as a junior engineer with the Twentieth Century Motor Company, Starnesville, [[Wisconsin]]. There he conceived the idea that he could extract static electricity from the atmosphere and use it as an almost limitless source of energy. He actually completed a prototypical electrostatic motor and prepared to demonstrate it to his employer, Gerald "Jed" Starnes.

Then disaster struck. Gerald Starnes died, and his three children&mdash;two brothers, Gerald Jr. and Eric, and their sister Ivy&mdash;proposed a radical change in management for the factory. Under this system, people would work according to their ability, but be paid according to their needs.

The employees actually voted in favor of this plan, with no conception of what it would mean. This vote took place in the main assembly bay of the factory. After this vote, Gerald Starnes, Jr. stood up to announce the results. According to the skilled lathe-operator and shop foreman who witnessed it, Mr. Starnes said the following: "This is a great moment in the history of our country! Remember that none of you may leave this place, for you are all bound here by the moral code which we all accept!"

"I don't," said John Galt, who quietly stood up in his place. Every eye sank when it beheld him, because "he stood like a man who knows that he is right."

Galt went on, "I will put an end to this once and for all." Then he turned to walk out of the bay.

Gerald Starnes called after him, "How?"

Galt turned and said, "I will stop the motor of the world."

To understand what John Galt meant by that provocative statement, one needs to understand what ''is'' the motor of the world. Ayn Rand's point was that man's mind is the motor of the world&mdash;and if you punish a man for using his mind, then sooner or later the mind will refuse to move the world. Thus John Galt proposed not only to quit the factory (which he did, after deliberately wrecking his prototype and removing most of his notes, leaving only enough notes to remind people of what might have been) but also to quit a system that, even ''beyond'' one factory with three misguided heirs running it, rewarded failure and punished success.

John Galt's plan was simple: he would approach men when they were most vulnerable, when the world socialistic system had meted out one insult too many, or one injury too many, and then he would tell them, "Why put up with this? Go on strike." This, then, was the essence of how John Galt planned to stop the motor of the world: tell men of the mind, like himself, to ''go on strike'' against the collectivistic system that thanklessly exploited them.

At first, the strike rules were as simple as the plan itself. Anyone having savings to retire on, retired. Any other man would take the lowest job that he could find, a job bringing in just enough to put food on the table.

The first two men whom he recruited to join him in this strike of the men of the mind were his two former fellow students, Francisco d'Anconia and Ragnar Danneskjold. Francisco was devastated. He could not argue with his old friend's logic. But for him personally, the logical endpoint was that stepping down as head of D'Anconia Copper SA would not be enough. He must ''deliberately destroy'' the family enterprise. As he would later say to [[Dagny Taggart]], the last holdout among the people of the mind, "I am not merely leaving it as I found it; I am leaving it as Sebastian d'Anconia found it. And let the world try to get along without him or me!" As cover for his activities, Francisco d'Anconia cultivated a reputation as a typical "millionnaire playboy," or what is sometimes called a "trust fund kiddy." Thus people regarded his actions as irresponsible. No one would suspect, until far too late, that his actions were in fact deliberate and calculated.

Ragnar Danneskjold followed his own chain of logic, but also was driven by towering wrath and indignation. Like Francisco d'Anconia, he did not believe that merely quitting the world was sufficient. He proposed to go to active war with it. The world system robbed men of the mind; he, therefore, would take back from that world and give back to them whom the world had robbed. Thus he became a [[privateer]], and for the next twelve years he built a reputation as the scourge of the high seas. John Galt did not ask him to do this, but John Galt did not actively oppose him, either&mdash;for if anything, Ragnar Danneskjold was an even more competent philosopher than Galt was.

== Galt's Gulch ==
John Galt continued his recruitment. He persuaded [[Professor]] Akston to join him, and labored for a year to persuade William Hastings, his former immediate superior at the [[Twentieth Century Motor Company]] to join the strike. Next he recruited a [[composer]] named [[Richard Halley]].

Then he met a banker named Michael "Midas" Mulligan. His defection changed the John Galt strike plan radically. [[Midas Mulligan]] became embroiled in a lawsuit after he refused a business loan to one Lee Hunsacker, who had bought the old Twentieth Century Motor Company in a fire sale after the Starnes heirs finally ran that company completely into the ground. Hunsacker sued Mulligan. The original trial judge ([[Judge Narragansett]]) found for Mulligan, but that judgment was reversed on appeal. Naturally, John Galt approached Midas ''and'' Judge Narragansett and encouraged them to go on strike.

Mulligan's answer was to liquidate his bank totally, though he made sure that no depositor lost any money in the liquidation. He then took the proceeds and bought a secluded valley in the [[Rocky Mountains]]. There he built a home and stocked it with supplies sufficient to let him retire there for life. Judge Narragansett then asked Midas whether he would be willing to rent some land to him, and Midas agreed.

Apparently, John Galt built a much larger version of his electrostatic motor and used it to drive a [[dynamo]] to provide the valley with electric power. Now Midas asked Galt to advertise leaseholds in his valley to other strikers. Galt did, and then the strikers began to populate the valley and even turn it into a functioning society and economy. Midas received rents from everyone and even reopened his bank. John Galt became the ''de facto'' mayor of what he called Mulligan's Valley (because Midas Mulligan actually owned the land) and the other strikers called [[Galt's Gulch]] (because John Galt was still their spiritual and political leader, and because John Galt's electrostatic motor gave the valley an actual source of physical power). In addition to acting as mayor, John Galt was also the chief utility provider&mdash;because his electrostatic motor was now the main power plant of the valley, which he housed in a building guarded by a sound lock that would respond only to a repetition of the Oath of the Men of the Mind that he had coined:{{cquote|I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.}}
The judicial power rested with Judge Narragansett, and legislation was by the rough equivalent of a [[New England]] [[town meeting]].

So now, joining John Galt's strike meant leaving a punitive political and economic system, and joining a true [[republic]] in which [[capitalism]] and property rights were paramount.

Yet John Galt did not spend all his time in the valley. He spend eleven months out of the year as a track walker in the [[New York City]] terminal of the [[Taggart Transcontinental Railroad]]. His purpose was twofold. On one hand, he functioned, quite simply, as a spy, and cultivated a relationship with a junior executive ([[Eddie Willers]]) who would talk freely. On the other hand, he was spying on a particular executive with whom he had fallen in love: [[Dagny Taggart]], the President's sister, who served as Vice President in Charge of Operations.

== The last three years ==
John Galt's last three years were his busiest. In those years he accomplished his most numerous and most consequential recruitments. The consequences were, quite simply, devastating for the world system. As the [[United States]] government added outrage after outrage (with names like "Equalization of Opportunity Act" and "[[Directive 10-289]]," both of which presaged [[Richard Nixon]]'s wage and price controls and [[Barack Obama]]'s present program), John Galt found recruitment that much easier.

Yet his two most important prospects continued to elude him, and to resist the efforts by his friend Francisco d'Anconia to recruit them. One was Dagny Taggart, with whom he was now fully in love, a state that he might have feared would cloud his judgment. The other was [[Henry Rearden]], the owner of a [[steel]] company who had developed his own new version of [[steel]] that included [[copper]] as well as [[iron]]. (The government had in fact confiscated the formula for "Rearden Metal," but the only steelmaker to try to copy the formula had to abandon the attempt after Ragnar Danneskjold shelled his factory to ruins by an offshore bombardment.)

== The scab ==
In July of the last year of the strike, Eddie Willers let slip to Galt that an engineer named Quentin Daniels was attempting to reverse-engineer his electrostatic motor. Galt also discovered that Daniels had abruptly refused to accept any remuneration for any continued work, because any remuneration he received would merely be subject to [[tax]], and he had no wish to support "the looters" by paying any more taxes. Galt traveled across country to recruit Daniels in ernest, perhaps not quite realizing that Dagny Taggart had also headed westward to persuade Daniels not to quit. As Galt and Daniels took off for Mulligan's Valley, Galt realized that another aircraft was on his "six-o'clock." He took no showy evasive action (perhaps his aircraft was not built for aerobatics), but simply flew to the valley and ducked behind the refractor-ray screen that he had installed, at an altitude of 700 feet above ground level (8700 feet above sea level), to create a mirror in the sky and make the valley look rocky instead of green and lush. To his horror, the pursuing aircraft followed him down, and impinged upon the screen. The rays struck the aircraft with a bright flash and instantly shut down its engine, causing it to spiral down. The pilot made one last desperate control input before crash-landing in the grass near the Valley airstrip. To Galt's further horror, Dagny Taggart was the pilot. To his immense relief, she survived with nothing more serious than a broken ankle.

Having little choice, John Galt hand-carried Dagny into the center of the little town and introduced her to the members of his community. He did not delude himself into thinking that she would join his strike immediately, and so he introduced her as "the [[scab]]." In actual fact, he allowed the townspeople to speak for him. Each one told her why he or she had quit the world, and also showed her some of what they had invented in the valley.

One of the more brief visitors was Ragnar Danneskjold. Galt would not allow Ragnar to speak, in front of Dagny, about his meeting with Henry Rearden after the passage of Directive 10-289. (Galt had learned from one of his conversations with Eddie Willers that Dagny Taggart and Henry Rearden had been having an affair.) Ragnar did speak of his privateering operations and his proposal to refund the [[income tax]]es of all the strikers. Dagny indignantly refused to accept any of Danneskjold's money and asked John Galt to hire her as his cook and housemaid, so that she could earn her room and board. Galt, beside himself with mirth, accepted the proposal.

The valley dwellers had one occasion to be alarmed about two weeks into Dagny's stay: ''another'' aircraft dipped into the upper reaches of the cone that formed the valley, in an obvious search for Dagny's aircraft. Dagny gave a start of recognition, but denied it to Galt. Whether Galt was fooled by this, the story does not make clear&mdash;but in any case he would obviously learn later that the pilot of this search aircraft was Henry Rearden.

Galt entertained a small hope that Dagny would change her mind after he and Francisco d'Anconia invited her to see "D'Anconia Copper No. 1," a copper mine that Francisco had dug into the side of one of the mountains that formed the valley wall. Dagny pointed out that Francisco was wasting time he couldn't afford to waste by transporting the copper ore on [[mule]]back to the valley floor. She quickly sketched a plan to lay rail from the mine to the valley. But at the last minute, she bewailed that she could not bear to lay only a mile or two of track and abandon a transcontinental system.

In the end, Dagny Taggart did not consent to remain in the valley. So John Galt took her out to the nearest airport&mdash;blindfolded, so that she would not be able to find the valley again.

== The last recruits ==
On September 2 of that year, the parliament of the People's State of [[Argentina]] prepared to nationalize the D'Anconia Copper Company. But in synchrony with the striking of the speaker's gavel to call the parliament to order, Francisco d'Anconia blew up the last of his facilities.

Francisco then went to work at the Rearden Steel Company, under an assumed name, as a furnace foreman. In October, a staged riot broke out at Rearden Steel, and Francisco led a contingent of regular workers to defeat the rioters, who were in fact government infiltrators. Henry Rearden was injured in the incident, and Francisco rescued him. Francisco talked to Rearden after he regained consciousness and finally persuaded him to join the strike. With Rearden came virtually his entire regular workforce.

Now only Dagny Taggart remained in the larger world. John Galt was determined to recruit her. So now John Galt took his greatest risk.

== The great speech ==
The [[President of the United States]] proposed to make a "report on the world crisis" on every [[radio]] and [[television]] channel, on November 22. On that day, John Galt simply jammed the airwaves with his own signal that overrode all the others. Then, promptly at 8:00 p.m., John Galt delivered his message: on voice only, but clear, distinct, and, depending on the listener, either inspiring, infuriating, or terrifying. In three hours, John Galt expounded on the strike of the men of the mind and his reasons for calling it. He made no demands. Instead he made a simple suggestion to any man of the mind still left in the world to go on strike himself, each in his own way.

=== The abridged text ===
''Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Thompson will not be speaking to you tonight. His time is up. I have taken it over. You were to hear a report on the world crisis. That is exactly what you are going to hear.''

''For twelve years you've been asking "Who is John Galt?" This is John Galt speaking. I am the man who has taken away your victims and thus destroyed your world. You've heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis and that Man's sins are destroying the world. But your chief virtue has been sacrifice, and you've demanded more sacrifices at every disaster. You've sacrificed justice to mercy and happiness to duty. So why should you be afraid of the world around you?''

''Your world is only the product of your sacrifices. While you were dragging the men who made your happiness possible to your sacrificial altars, I beat you to it. I reached them first and told them about the game you were playing and where it would take them. I explained the consequences of your 'brother-love' morality, which they had been too innocently generous to understand. You won't find them now, when you need them more than ever.''

''We're on strike against your creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. If you want to know how I made them quit, I told them exactly what I'm telling you tonight. I taught them the morality of Reason -- that it was right to pursue one's own happiness as one's principal goal in life. I don't consider the pleasure of others my goal in life, nor do I consider my pleasure the goal of anyone else's life.''

''I am a trader. I earn what I get in trade for what I produce. I ask for nothing more or nothing less than what I earn. That is justice. I don't force anyone to trade with me; I only trade for mutual benefit. Force is the great evil that has no place in a rational world. One may never force another human to act against his/her judgment. If you deny a man's right to Reason, you must also deny your right to your own judgment. Yet you have allowed your world to be run by means of force, by men who claim that fear and joy are equal incentives, but that fear and force are more practical.''

''You've allowed such men to occupy positions of power in your world by preaching that all men are evil from the moment they're born. When men believe this, they see nothing wrong in acting in any way they please. The name of this absurdity is 'original sin'. That's impossible. That which is outside the possibility of choice is also outside the province of morality. To call sin that which is outside man's choice is a mockery of justice. To say that men are born with a free will but with a tendency toward evil is ridiculous. If the tendency is one of choice, it doesn't come at birth. If it is not a tendency of choice, then man's will is not free.''

''And then there's your 'brother-love' morality. Why is it moral to serve others, but not yourself? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but not by you? Why is it immoral to produce something of value and keep it for yourself, when it is moral for others who haven't earned it to accept it? If it's virtuous to give, isn't it then selfish to take?''

''Your acceptance of the code of selflessness has made you fear the man who has a dollar less than you because it makes you feel that that dollar is rightfully his. You hate the man with a dollar more than you because the dollar he's keeping is rightfully yours. Your code has made it impossible to know when to give and when to grab.''

''You know that you can't give away everything and starve yourself. You've forced yourselves to live with undeserved, irrational guilt. Is it ever proper to help another man? No, if he demands it as his right or as a duty that you owe him. Yes, if it's your own free choice based on your judgment of the value of that person and his struggle. This country wasn't built by men who sought handouts. In its brilliant youth, this country showed the rest of the world what greatness was possible to Man and what happiness is possible on Earth.''

''Then it began apologizing for its greatness and began giving away its wealth, feeling guilty for having produced more than ikts neighbors. Twelve years ago, I saw what was wrong with the world and where the battle for Life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality and that my acceptance of that morality was its only power. I was the first of the men who refused to give up the pursuit of his own happiness in order to serve others.''

''To those of you who retain some remnant of dignity and the will to live your lives for yourselves, you have the chance to make the same choice. Examine your values and understand that you must choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil.''

''If you've understood what I've said, stop supporting your destroyers. Don't accept their philosophy. Your destroyers hold you by means of your endurance, your generosity, your innocence, and your love. Don't exhaust yourself to help build the kind of world that you see around you now. In the name of the best within you, don't sacrifice the world to those who will take away your happiness for it.''

''The world will change when you are ready to pronounce the oath that I took at the start of my battle:''

''I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.''

== The unraveling ==
Thousands of listeners took John Galt's advice. They could not contact him, so they could not come to Mulligan's Valley. But many of them set up their own versions of Mulligan's Valley, chiefly armed camps in various forests and other "wilderness" regions.

John Galt now made his almost-fatal mistake. He remained in New York City long enough for Dagny Taggart to come to him. But, unknown to her, she had the [[FBI]] on her tail, and in consequence, John Galt was arrested, as he knew he would be.

The authorities could not charge him with anything. Instead, President [[Mr. Thompson|Thompson]] tried to urge him to take the post of "Economic Dictator" of the country, a suggestion that Galt found laughable. To illustrate the absurdity of the proposition, Galt said that his first order would be to abolish all income taxes and fire all government employees. Naturally, Thompson rejected those proposals.

A number of senior administration officials then tried to plead with Galt, all to no avail. [[Floyd Ferris]] of the [[State Science Institute]] did not plead; he threatened. Specifically he threatened to institute a program of executions of "unproductive citizens," a program he said would be necessary if Galt did not cooperate. [[Mr. Thompson]] was horrified and said that Ferris was not serious. Galt was having none of that. He said, {{cquote|Oh yes, he did mean it. Tell that [illegitimate son] to look at me, and then look in the mirror, and ask himself whether I could ever think that ''my'' moral stature was at the mercy of ''his'' actions.}}

The last person to see Galt, and this at Galt's seemingly incongruous request, was his former chairman of [[physics]] at PHU, Dr. [[Robert Stadler]], now the (nominal) Director of the State Science Institute. Galt said nothing; he merely allowed Stadler to babble at him about how much he wanted a laboratory and what he could have done with it. But Stadler talked too much, and revealed his conclusion that Galt was now the man who had to be destroyed. Stadler tried to take that back, but Galt said to him, {{cquote|You have said everything that I wanted to say to you.}}

Finally, the authorities put on a television show and announced a new "John Galt Plan for Peace and Prosperity," and ordered Galt (at the point of a gun) to dress for the occasion and appear on camera. Galt cooperated until at last the time came for him to speak. And then, moving swiftly enough that the viewers could not miss the gun aimed at him, he rushed to the on-stage podium and said, {{cquote|Get...out of my way.}}

The authorities stopped the show immediately and then took Galt to the headquarters of the State Science Institute. They then tried to examine him under torture by electric shock&mdash;but Galt was prepared for it, and knew in advance that they would not dare deliver to him a lethal shock.

Then the electroshock generator broke down, and the operator could not repair it. John Galt himself gave the diagnosis of the trouble and suggested a repair, and the rich irony of the situation caused the operator to flee in terror. The three interrogators also fled, after one of them ([[James Taggart]]) cried out that he wanted "to make him scream," and then screamed himself, now that he realized exactly what sort of man he had become.

Not long afterward, Francisco d'Anconia, Dagny Taggart, Henry Rearden, and Ragnar Danneskjold staged a commando raid on the laboratory, killed several security guards, and rescued John Galt. As their escape plane overflew the Eastern seaboard, the entire ground fell dark in an instant. The collapse of the world system was now complete.

Galt returned to Mulligan's Valley and spent his first winter there. In the next spring, John Galt would declare that the world couldn't threaten them anymore, and it was time to come back.
{{endspoiler}}

== Analogous situations ==
The [[Northeast Blackout of 1965]] is especially memorable to anyone who called himself a student of [[Objectivism]] at the time. Nearly everyone with a passing familiarity with Ayn Rand's work spoke only half-jokingly of trying to tune in their radio to see whether they could catch someone saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. [[Lyndon Johnson|Johnson]] will not be speaking to you tonight. His time is up. I, John Galt, have taken it over."

== Present day ==
With the election of [[Ronald Reagan]], any thought of replicating the John Galt Strike was abandoned. The Objectivists had only one quarrel with Reagan, and that concerned the issue of [[abortion]]. On every other point, they agreed with his stated principles.

Today, the Ayn Rand Institute has enjoyed frequent citations on the [[Fox News Channel]] and especially by commentator [[Glenn Beck]], who has interviewed its current head several times on his program.

More to the point, "to go Galt" has now become a catch phrase for quitting a system that now begins to look like the extremely collectivistic system that Ayn Rand projected in her novel. Regardless of multiple accusations in the [[liberal]] media, no one has&mdash;yet&mdash;proposed to "go Danneskjold", i.e. turn privateer and make an active, not merely a passive, war.

== Feasibility ==
=== The electrostatic motor ===
Electrostatic motors do exist, chiefly as tutorial demonstration projects. However, in 1997, William J. Beaty published to the [[World Wide Web]] a short essay discussing the feasibility of electrostatic motors, especially for applications in the vacuous conditions of outer [[space]]. Beaty also suspects that the power of an electrostatic motor might vary with the length and [[inductance]] of its collecting coil. Beaty reports that one researcher managed to achieve 1/16 horsepower with his motor, using a lightning-rod-like collector carried aloft by a weather balloon.<ref name=Beaty>Beaty WJ, "[http://amasci.com/emotor/emotwhy.txt Electrostatic Motor: What Is It Used For]?" ''[http://amasci.com/ The Science Hobbyist],'' 1997. Accessed May 2, 2009.</ref> (When Dagny Taggart first sees John Galt's wrecked prototype, she spots the collecting coil and realizes its significance at once.)

According to Beaty, the recently discussed "micromotors" created on silicon chips are actually electrostatic motors. Furthermore, he suggests that electrostatic motors would be much lighter in weight and thus much easier to deploy in space. He also asserts that bacterial [[flagellum|flagella]] and cellular [[cilium|cilia]] run on rotary electrostatic motors, and that all [[muscle]]s are in fact linear electrostatic motors.<ref name=Beaty/>

From the above, an electrostatic motor, as used in ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'', might have been feasible. At least one anonymous source, writing in Wikipedia, suggests that an electrostatic motor would require a recharge every half hour.<ref name=wikipedia>"Static electricity." ''Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia''. 2 May 2009, 02:14 UTC. 2 May 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Static_electricity&oldid=287371163>.</ref> However, the collecting coil would be a source of continuous charge, so that becomes a moot point. The chief limitation would be on the size and inductance of the collecting coil.

The novel specifically states that John Galt built an electrostatic [[dynamo]] to provide electric power for all of Mulligan's Valley, and also built a much smaller version to provide electric power for the laboratory that he maintained in his apartment in [[New York City]]. It further states that when the strike was over, John Galt proposed building [[locomotive]]s that would be powered by his invention. That [[Ragnar Danneskjold]] would try to retrofit his vessel to run on an electrostatic powerplant is only logical to suppose.

Ayn Rand is not the only author to propose that an electrostatic motor would have such widespread application. [[Jules Verne]] initially proposed that the [[submarine]] called ''[[Nautilus]]'', in ''[[Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea]],'' would have an electrostatic powerplant. (The [[motion picture]] adaptation of that novel assumed that the ''Nautilus'' would be a [[nuclear]]-powered submarine, and indeed the very first nuclear-powered submarine in the [[United States Navy]] was named ''Nautilus'' in Verne's honor.) In the [[motion picture]] ''Master of the World'', the helicopter airship ''Albatross'' also had an electrostatic powerplant.

However, no engineer has yet proposed to build an electrostatic motor that would be nearly as powerful as Ayn Rand suggested.

=== The strike as a political movement ===
History has seen examples of men defecting from their countries of origin in order to live in other countries that have far more lenient [[tax]]ation and other policies. The history of the United States also has examples of some States drawing population and sometimes jobs from other States on account of differential tax, regulatory, and other policy. Still, the prospect of a total defection from organized society, and a retreat to a secluded mountain valley, provoked derision from reviewer [[Whittaker Chambers]]<ref name=chambers>Chambers W, "Big Sister Is Watching You," ''National Review'', December 28, 1957. Hosted at National Review Online, published January 5, 2005. Accessed May 1, 2009.<http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback200501050715.asp></ref> and others, and few persons have proposed such a thing and actually expected people to take them seriously. But few indeed have been the instances in history in which the provocations were as great as ''Atlas Shrugged'' describes. Some suggest that the current policies of [[Barack Obama]] and the [[United States Congress]] now under the complete control of the [[Democratic Party]] might indeed provide just such provocation.

Nor would "going on strike" necessarily require building anything as elaborate as [[Galt's Gulch]]. The spontaneous organization, after John Galt's speech, of the "miniature Mulligan's Valleys" in various forest and similar regions is a far more likely scenario.

=== Defensibility ===
The chief defenses of the John Galt strike are the seclusion of Mulligan's Valley and the utter incompetence of those who remain in governmental power. Whittaker Chambers simply did not believe that anyone in authority would ever show the kind of abject incompetence that leaves the "looter society" vulnerable to privateering activities (by a single ship!) and, at the last, a raid on a guarded installation.<ref name=chambers/> But some observers suggest that Barack Obama and some other officials have been conducting themselves in just such an incompetent fashion as ''Atlas Shrugged'' depicts on the part of its villains. Perhaps, then, a modern-day John Galt, perhaps having a command of [[cold fusion]] technology instead of something as problematic as an electrostatic motor, could indeed lead a movement of the magnitude of the strike of the men of the mind, and even lead such a movement to political victory by default.

== References ==
{{reflist}}

{{nb Atlas}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Galt, John}}
[[category:Literary Figures]]

WHAT WOULD ZIZEK DO?

Income tax

2009-06-09T00:27:33Z

LaxmanGurung: What would ZIZEK do?

'''Income tax''' is a tax levied by government on the income of individuals and businesses. The income tax was first introduced in the [[United States]] in 1862 as a levy on the salary of federal officers. In 1913, the [[Sixteenth Amendment]] to the Constitution made clear the federal government can collect taxes from any source. The Amendment won near-unanimous support from conservatives at the time. The federal income tax started low but became high during [[World War I]]; it was lowered in the 1920s by the conservatives. Most states and some localities (especially New York City) levy their own income tax. Taxes were raised by Republican President [[Herbert Hoover]] in 1932, and jumped to very high levels during [[World War II]] to pay for the war. The '''[[Withholding|withholding tax]]''' was introduced in 1943 so people would pay taxes from every paycheck, instead of waiting until next spring.<ref>The withholding tax was devised by economist [[Milton Friedman]], at the time a liberal.</ref>

Income taxes are collected by the [[Internal Revenue Service]]. [[Republicans]], believing in a smaller, more efficient, and less expensive government, work hard to cut income taxes.

Since the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s, the top income tax rate paid by the rich has fallen sharply. However the proportion of GDP absorbed by federal taxes has remained constant at about 20%, in accord with "Hauser's Law".<ref> See [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121124460502305693.html David Randon, "You Can't Soak the Rich," ''Wall Street Journal'' May 20, 2008]</ref>
[[Image:Hauserlaw.jpg|thumb|275px]]

==Year 2007 income brackets and tax rates==
An individual's marginal income [[tax bracket]] depends upon their [[income]] and their tax-filing classification. As of 2007, there are six tax brackets for ordinary [[income]] (ranging from 10% to 35%) and four classifications: single, married filing jointly (or qualified widow or widower), married filing separately, and [[Head of Household (Tax)|head of household]].
{| class=wikitable style="text-align:right"
|-
! width=75 | Marginal Tax Rate
! width=150 | Single
! width=150 | Married Filing Jointly or Qualified Widow(er)
! width=150 | Married Filing Separately
! width=150 | Head of Household
|-
!10%
| $0 – $7,825 || $0 – $15,650 || $0 – $7,825 || $0 – $11,200
|-
!15%
| $7,826 – $31,850 || $15,651 – $63,700 || $7,826 – $31,850 || $11,201 – $42,650
|-
!25%
| $31,851 – $77,100 || $63,701 – $128,500 || $31,851 – $64,250 || $42,651 – $110,100
|-
!28%
| $77,101 – $160,850 || $128,501 – $195,850 || $64,251 – $97,925 || $110,101 – $178,350
|-
!33%
|$160,851 – $349,700 || $195,851 – $349,700 || $97,926 – $174,850 || $178,351 – $349,700
|-
!35%
|$349,701+ || $349,701+ || $174,851+ || $349,701+
|}

An individual pays tax at a given bracket only for each dollar within that bracket's range. For example, a single taxpayer who earned $10,000 of [[income]] in 2007 would be taxed 10% of each dollar earned from the 1st dollar to the 7,825th dollar (10% × $7,825 = $782.50), then 15% of each dollar earned from the 7,826th dollar to the 10,000th dollar (15% × $2,175 = $326.25), for a total of $1,108.75. Notice this amount ($1,108.75) is lower than if the individual had been taxed at 15% on the full $10,000 (for a tax of $1,500). This is because the individual's marginal rate (the percentage tax on the last dollar earned, here 15%) has no effect on the [[income]] taxed at a lower bracket (here the first $7,825 of [[income]] taxed at 10%). This ensures that every rise in a person's pre-tax salary results in an increase of their after-tax salary, contrary to the popular misconception that being bumped into a higher tax bracket reduces after-tax [[income]].

==States and Local Municipalities==
Most states and even some cities asses a tax on income, further increasing the amount of money withheld before a worker even sees their paycheck.

==Other Taxation systems==
Other state and national proposed tax systems include the Flat Tax and the Fair tax
*[[Flat Tax]] - creates a single [[income]] tax bracket that applies equally to all Americans
*[[Fair Tax]] - eliminates the [[income]] tax in favor of a consumption tax, most often proposed as a ~23% National Sales tax

==Sources==
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oecon/chap12.htm

====references====
<references/>
[[Category:Economics]]
[[Category:Business]]
[[Category:Taxation]]

WHAT WOULD ZIZEK DO?

Tax

2009-06-09T00:27:18Z

LaxmanGurung: What would ZIZEK do?

#REDIRECT [[Taxation]]

WHAT WOULD ZIZEK DO?

United States

2009-06-09T00:27:09Z

LaxmanGurung: What would ZIZEK do?

#REDIRECT[[United States of America]]

WHAT WOULD ZIZEK DO?

Robert Stadler

2009-06-09T00:27:04Z

LaxmanGurung: What would ZIZEK do?

'''Robert Stadler, Ph. D.''', in [[Ayn Rand]]'s [[novel]] ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'', was a brilliant [[physics|physicist]], and was [[professor]] and chairman of the Department of Physics at the [[Patrick Henry]] University. Then he effectively sold his soul for government grants, by endorsing, and then accepting the directorship of, the [[State Science Institute]]. Sadly for him, he would discover that he was a mere figurehead, and that the State Science Institute was actually in the hands of a fellow scientist who had planned for a long time to pervert the use of [[science]] in the search for political power. He ended up striving for physical control of a [[weapon of mass destruction]] and dying in agony.

{{spoiler}}
== Back story ==
The novel tells nothing of Robert Stadler's childhood, adolescence, or [[education]]. It says only that he was professor and chairman of physics at the Patrick Henry University (not to be confused with the real-life [[Patrick Henry College]]), which was located in [[Cleveland]], [[Ohio]]. In his last years at that institution, he had three extraordinary students who he was never to forget. They majored in physics and in [[philosophy]], a demanding double major and a highly unusual choice.

As the three students explained it to him (and to [[Hugh Akston]], chairman of the [[philosophy]] department), physics was the study of the natural world (from the [[Greek]] ''physis'', literally &quot;nature&quot;), and philosophy was the proper study of how to approach that world. The three would very often spend hours at a time, after teaching hours, with Dr. Stadler and/or Dr. Akston, discussing some arcane point of their respective disciplines.

It was the most rewarding experience that Robert Stadler ever knew. He would later describe these three as &quot;the kind of reward a teacher prays for.&quot;

Those three students were, of course, [[Francisco d'Anconia]], [[Ragnar Danneskjold]], and [[John Galt]].

== The State Science Institute ==
As those extraordinary three students prepared to graduate, the [[United States Congress]] began its debate on the establishment of a government-funded institute dedicated to the sciences. Dr. Stadler saw this as a unique opportunity. Like virtually anyone working in &quot;pure&quot; or &quot;abstract&quot; science (as distinct from [[engineering]], often called &quot;applied&quot; science), Dr. Stadler always felt limited in the amount of private grant moneys that he could attract. A stable source of grant money definitely had its appeal.

Furthermore, an institution devoted to the pure sciences seemed to Stadler the most noble possible use of public money. But what drove Stadler even more than this consideration was his confirmed opinion that the &quot;pure&quot; sciences were &quot;pure&quot; precisely because they had no immediate commercial application, and that engineering was somehow &quot;dirty&quot; or at least mundane.

John Galt was appalled. When Stadler endorsed the establishment of the future Institute, John Galt criticized him severely, and indicated that their friendship was at an end. Galt's criticism was twofold: that the science/engineering dichotomy was false anyway, and that scientific research was not a proper function of government. Stadler was devastated at losing John Galt's friendship, but still felt that he was right. (If Francisco d'Anconia or Ragnar Danneskjold said anything to him on the subject, they never discussed that with any other character, including Hugh Akston.)

Later, Stadler would claim vindication of his stance, after hearing what became of two of his former students. Francisco d'Anconia became, to all appearances, a [[playboy]] and a subject of [[gossip]], chiefly about how many women he was intimate with. (He would have been surprised to learn that Francisco never was actually intimate with more than one woman in his entire life.) Ragnar Danneskjold became the notorious [[pirate]] who seized government relief cargoes bound for foreign countries. John Galt vanished completely, and now was the subject of a repeated question by laypeople: &quot;Who is John Galt?&quot;

Robert Stadler never admitted to anyone that he could tell them who John Galt really was. If he connected the first instances of the repetition of that question with the accelerated breakdown of the American economy, he never told anyone. He once told [[Dagny Taggart]], when she came to see him, that he suspected that his third student (whose name he did not mention) might have become a &quot;second assistant bookkeeper.&quot;

But of course, Robert Stadler knew better. But he would not have hard evidence that John Galt was anything more than a student who had called him a traitor to his own intellectual capacity until many years later.

== The Rearden Metal Incident ==
When [[Henry Rearden]] introduced his new Metal, an alloy of [[iron]] and [[copper]] (and other traditional constituents of [[steel]]), his opponents (chiefly [[Orren Boyle]] of the Associated Steel Company) sowed [[FUD|fear, uncertainty, and doubt]] about the utility of the metal. The State Science Institute tested the metal and then issued an unfavorable, or at least an inconclusive, report on it. Robert Stadler added his signature to it, at the urging of his associate director, [[Floyd Ferris]].

[[Dagny Taggart]] then came to see him and tried to persuade him to reopen the investigation. He was forced to admit that they had never seen a metal so strong, lightweight, and easy to work as Rearden Metal, but refused to reopen the investigation. (Perhaps he knew even then that he could never have done so even if he had so desired.) This was the occasion in which he told Dagny Taggart about his three prize students and what had happened to them. In fact, he blamed the destinies (as he incorrectly understood them) of Francisco d'Anconia and Ragnar Danneskjold for his disillusionment.

He would, however, hear from Dagny Taggart once more. She called him and asked his help in trying to understand, and reconstruct, what apparently was a [[prototype]] of an [[John Galt#The electrostatic motor|electrostatic motor]]. Stadler was amazed that anyone could have invented such a thing, and indicated that such an inventor belonged in &quot;pure science,&quot; not building motors, electrostatic or otherwise. Nevertheless, when Miss Taggart ask for his recommendation of an engineer who might be competent to reconstruct the prototype, he made one. He gave her the name of [[Quentin Daniels]] and his contact information.

He would not hear from Dagny Taggart again, nor see her, until the late fall of the last year of the [[strike]].

== The figurehead ==
Two incidents connected with his job at the State Science Institute, occurring following the collapse of the economy of [[Colorado]], made him realize that his post as Director was a sick joke. Though he had a budget for virtually any line of experimentation he wished to pursue, and was nominally in charge of the Institute's budget, he discovered that at least one project was unaccountable to him and even hidden from him, in the sense that he never once saw an itemized statement from the officer(s) in charge of that project or even any statement of what the project was about. That project was [[Project X]]. When he later asked Floyd Ferris about it, Ferris was evasive. Ferris said only that the letter ''X'' stood for ''Xylophone'' and that the project had to do with [[sound]].

Worse than that incident was Floyd Ferris' publication, through the State Science Institute Press, of a book of practical philosophy titled ''Why Do You Think You Think?'' In it, Ferris urged his readers to forget any notion that they were actually capable of independent thought, and learn to accept the pronouncements of those superior to them in their understanding of the physical or political world.

Stadler was appalled. Critical thinking is a necessary faculty in any scientist, a principle that Stadler had lived by at PHU and never thought to see questioned, much less directly contradicted. As he later said indignantly to Ferris, he would sooner have expected to see such a book written by &quot;a drunken lout&quot; than by &quot;a man of science,&quot; and worse yet, under the ''imprimatur'' of the State Science Institute.

But when Stadler threatened to withdraw the book from circulation and disavow any connection with the official opinion of the Institute, Floyd Ferris quite calmly told Stadler that he was in no position to do any such thing. In brutal fact, Ferris had always been the political animal, and the liaison between the Institute and the [[Executive Office of the President]], where the Institute's funding came from. Stadler, in contrast, had ''no'' friends either in the [[Mr. Thompson|Thompson]] administration or on Capitol Hill.

Stadler could, therefore, do no more than accept his role as a mere figurehead. His filing of his copy of Ferris' work in the &quot;circular file&quot; was, at best, a petulant gesture, and he knew it even as he made it.

== Project X demonstrated ==
In July of either 1929 or 1930 (the last year of the [[strike]] of the men of the mind), Dr. Stadler found himself at a remote location in [[Iowa]], ostensibly to attend a demonstration. But he had not even been told ''what'' would be demonstrated. His first clue came when a reporter asked him about his role in the recently completed &quot;[[Project X]].&quot; Immediately Stadler rushed to Floyd Ferris' side and demanded to know what Project X was all about. Ferris replied cryptically that he would find out soon enough.

And find out he did. [[Mr. Thompson]], the [[President of the United States]], was also at the demonstration, as were several other senior Administration officials and Members of Congress. They made the first speeches, and announced the completion of a new device that they called the &quot;Thompson Harmonizer,&quot; named after the President.

Then came the moment of the demonstration. As one of the officials worked several levers on a small console, Stadler watched in horror as a tethered goat, a wooden shack, and a section of [[railroad]] trestle all were knocked flat to the ground, seemingly without being touched. This was the effect of the Harmonizer, or the Xylophone as it was also called: it used [[ultrasonic]] beams to weaken or even pulverize any object at which they were directed.

Stadler asked Ferris, &quot;Who invented that ghastly thing?&quot;

And Ferris answered, &quot;You did.&quot; Ferris then explained: Project X had grown out of Robert Stadler's own pioneering work on the physics of sound, work he had begun at the University and then brought to perfection at the Institute. Then, before Stadler could protest further, Ferris handed him a speech to make to the millions of people listening on the [[radio]].

As Stadler approached the microphone, listening to speech after speech making eerily absurd claims of how &quot;good&quot; and &quot;friendly&quot; the Xylophone would prove to be to humanity, a reporter called upon Stadler to denounce the project and tell the truth about it in order to save the country from becoming a dictatorship. Stadler shook the man away, and Ferris demanded the reporter's press credentials and work permit. Then Stadler began his speech:{{cquote|I am humbly proud that I have been able to place into the hands of Mr. Thompson a device that will prove a salutary liberating influence on the mind of man.}}

== John Galt makes a speech ==
On November 22 in the last year of his life, Robert Stadler found himself at [[Madison Square Garden]] to attend a live broadcast, on [[radio]] and on the still-new medium of [[television]], of a speech to the nation that Mr. Thompson had scheduled. But at five minutes to the scheduled airtime (8:00 p.m.), the technicians announced that all the radio and television stations were jammed. Mr. Thompson and several other officials started threatening mass firings if the problem was not corrected, all to no avail. Then, abruptly, a man's voice began to speak:{{cquote|Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Thompson will not be speaking to you tonight. His time is up. I have taken it over. You were to hear a report on the world crisis. That is exactly what you are going to hear. For twelve years you have been asking, &quot;Who is John Galt.&quot; This is John Galt speaking...}}

Robert Stadler gasped in horror as he recognized that voice: it was the voice of his third student. And even if Stadler had not been able to make the instant intuitive leap of realization that this same John Galt was responsible for the disappearances of men of the mind, and the overall breakdown of the national economy, John Galt fairly ''boasted'' of playing exactly that role, and gave his reasons for so acting, for the next three hours. He also boasted that he had invented an electrostatic motor, and perhaps then Stadler realized that this could only have been the prototype that Dagny Taggart had asked him about.

When John Galt had finished speaking, [[Dagny Taggart]] raised her voice, telling the assembled officials to &quot;give up and get out of the way&quot; and &quot;leave men free to exist.&quot; Stadler knew then that Dagny Taggart was actively in league with John Galt. He also was very much afraid of the fate that John Galt had in store for him and for the government he served, though he had long since allowed his ability to think that problem through to atrophy from disuse.

So instead of delivering a thoughtful reply, he cried out, &quot;Don't listen to her!&quot;

Dagny Taggart repeated her admonition and left the Garden. Stadler then turned to President Thompson and actually called him a &quot;bloody fool,&quot; saying that John Galt was manifestly guilty of treason, and that Dagny Taggart was in league with him. Stadler spoke bluntly: John Galt needed to be taken and executed.

The President ordered that Dagny Taggart be placed under covert surveillance. But he would not accede to any order for Galt's execution. The President actually thought that he could negotiate a deal with John Galt and induce him to &quot;sell out&quot; those who had followed him on his strike of the men of the mind, as he had called it. Stadler knew better: that not only would John Galt never sell anyone out, but also&amp;mdash;and more direly&amp;mdash;John Galt was their implacable enemy.

== Stadler v. Galt ==
Not long after that, the authorities were indeed able to capture John Galt. Dagny Taggart was involved in that capture, and was widely quoted as saying that she had assisted in his capture because he was inevitably out to destroy her [[railroad]] (the [[Taggart Transcontinental Railroad]]) and would do so unless she acted to stop him forcibly. But one may safely infer that Robert Stadler did not believe a word she said, and considered John Galt far more dangerous than anyone was willing to admit.

And so he was surprised, and even terrified, to receive a summons from the President to New York's Wayne-Falkland Hotel, where John Galt was being held in the penthouse suite. Mr. Thompson said that John Galt had actually told him that he wished to see Stadler.

When Stadler was ushered in to the penthouse suite, he saw John Galt sitting casually on the sill of one of the windows. John Galt said nothing; he simply looked at Stadler. And then Stadler, unable to contain himself, began to talk, or rather, to babble disconnectedly. He talked about wanting and needing a laboratory, he talked about who it actually was who set the rules of the games of life and politics, and he said a great deal about &quot;living and working in the real world.&quot; And as he talked, he realized instinctively that he was making no impression on Galt, except to make Galt more implacably cold toward him than ever.

Finally Stadler blurted out that Galt was the one who had to be destroyed. As soon as he said that, he tried to take it back. But Galt said,{{cquote|You have said everything that I wanted to say to you.}}

Stadler rushed to the door, raised his doubled-up fists, and banged on the door until Mr. Thompson's guards let him out. He would never see John Galt again.

== Death ==
Robert Stadler did not wait to see what the authorities would do next. He jumped into his [[automobile]] and drove across country, toward Iowa and the site of Project X. As he drove, he heard that the authorities had managed to negotiate with Galt, and that those negotiations had produced &quot;The John Galt Plan,&quot; which they would announce at an upcoming broadcast from the grand ballroom of the Wayne-Falkland. Stadler tuned this program in, but even before John Galt said, &quot;Get...out of my way,&quot; and the broadcast was cut off, Stadler knew how it would end.

Stadler drove on, muttering to himself, &quot;I'll show them. I'll show them.&quot; His intention was to seize control of Project X and rule the area of its influence as his private feudal domain. He had no plan in mind of how to make this happen, other than to walk onto the project campus, drop his name, and start barking out orders.

He arrived at the Project site to find it occupied by the sort of persons, commonly called &quot;goons,&quot; with whom he had never before had the misfortune to deal. In a blustering, imperious tone, he demanded entry and was admitted. He would repeat his name, thinking that his name alone would open doors for him. Yet no one seemed to know his name, a situation that angered him. At every step, he found himself demanding to see the next higher person in command, and kept trying to assert his own authority:{{cquote|I'm the boss around here. I give the orders. I'm Dr. Robert Stadler, and if you don't know ''that'' name in ''this'' place, you've got no business being here.}}

Then it hit him: these men had taken the project over for themselves! Incredulous, he asked sarcastically whether these untrained and uneducated men actually thought that they could &quot;handle a high-precision instrument of science.&quot; Then he demanded to see the leader of what he now regarded as he would any gang of robbers or burglars.

The leader turned out to be [[Cuffy Meigs]], whom Stadler knew to be a thoroughly corrupt functionary, famous for enriching himself while holding such posts as Director of Railroad Unification. Stadler found Meigs in the central control room of the Xylophone. Meigs was obviously [[alcoholic drink|drunk]], almost too drunk to stand, and was barking out instructions for proclamations and tax demands as Stadler burst in.

Stadler still tried to play on the strength of his name, and imperiously demanded of Meigs what he thought he was doing, and what he was doing in that place. Meigs scoffed at Stadler, at least when he could concentrate on him. What appalled Stadler even more was when Meigs would sway about and then grab a control lever to steady himself. Stadler blurted out, &quot;Don't touch those levers, you fool.&quot; This at first made Meigs recoil from the levers, but then made him roar out defiantly that he now owned the Xylophone and could do with it as he pleased. Stadler tried to assert his own ownership over the Xylophone, saying that he had &quot;invented&quot; and &quot;created&quot; it and &quot;made it possible.&quot; Meigs sarcastically &quot;thanked&quot; him and said that he had his own mechanics.

Stadler was even more appalled. As he spoke, he realized that he had sold his soul, and also realized that Cuffy Meigs was, in essence, here to collect it. In a last gesture of defiance, Stadler roared at Meigs not to touch the levers and tried to push him away from them. Meigs knocked Stadler down and then yanked a lever at random.

The result was catastrophic. The Xylophone, activated at full gain, destroyed itself, its own blockhouse, Stadler, Meigs, Meigs' crew, and every structure within a hundred miles. Stadler would never know it, but every man, woman and child in that radius was killed almost instantly&amp;mdash;and, worst of all, the Taggart Bridge across the [[Mississippi River]] was cut in half.

Robert Stadler survived the initial blast, only to die in agony within about five minutes.
{{endspoiler}}

== Typology ==
Robert Stadler is a distinctly minor [[Literary type#Villain|villain]]. His more important function is as an [[Literary type#Allegorical types|allegorical type]] of every scientist who convinces himself that he can best serve the &quot;cause of science&quot; by securing a &quot;stable&quot; source of grant moneys, and is not loath to accept government grants. Such grants often come at a price, and the price, according to Rand, is the scientist's soul. When the government funds something, that something becomes politicized.

We see this in the [[United States]] today, whenever [[Barack Obama]] speaks of &quot;putting science back in its rightful place&quot; by providing unlimited and unrestricted federal funds for [[embryonic stem cell]] research, for example. But Ayn Rand had a more dire fear: that science in the hands of the government could and probably would inevitably find itself used in the service of tyranny, and the creation of weapons of mass destruction.

In addition, Ayn Rand saw the apparent dichotomy between &quot;pure&quot; and &quot;applied&quot; science as a false one, and suggested that if any principle of science could be valuable to man, then some ''private'' individual or group would be willing to fund it. Robert Stadler is a type of any scientist who fails to realize that, who thinks that private funding is somehow dishonorable merely because it ''is'' private, and furthermore, that applied science is somehow dishonorable because it ''is'' applied to the problems that real human beings deal with every day. Such a person very often forgets that public funding can often lead to the creation of instruments of tyranny and death, because after all, the government is that institution having a monopoly on the initiation of force.

Ayn Rand also made a minor point, and a scathing one, against scientists who try to get their way through name-dropping. In virtually any Western country, untold numbers of scientific institutions, and especially [[hospital]]s and various lecture and [[laboratory]] halls in medical schools, often sell or offer to a &quot;prominent&quot; physician or a member of the &quot;generous community&quot; the privilege of having his or her name on a building wing and his or her portrait in oil in the hallway. Indeed, many such institutions build veritable [[shrine]]s to such people. While some of these people deserve some recognition for some extraordinary discovery (like the techniques of [[aorta|aortic]] [[aneurysm]]al repair and other even more breathtaking techniques of cardiovascular [[surgery]] developed by [[Michael E. DeBakey]]), or even for years of service, other such people win this recognition merely by paying for it. Ayn Rand perhaps sought to illustrate what would happen when an institution, ostensibly dedicated to science, might be taken over by a group of people who would ''not'' respect the owner of that name. In such a situation, all the name-dropping that the person could do would avail him nothing.

{{nb Atlas}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stadler, Robert}}
[[Category:Literary Figures]]

WHAT WOULD ZIZEK DO?

WHAT WOULD ZIZEK DO?

Taggart Transcontinental Railroad

2009-06-09T00:26:54Z

LaxmanGurung: What would ZIZEK do?

WHAT WOULD ZIZEK DO?

State Science Institute

2009-06-09T00:25:38Z

LaxmanGurung: What would ZIZEK do?

WHAT WOULD ZIZEK DO?

Robert Stadler

2009-06-09T00:25:27Z

LaxmanGurung: What would ZIZEK do?

'''Robert Stadler, Ph. D.''', in [[Ayn Rand]]'s [[novel]] ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'', was a brilliant [[physics|physicist]], and was [[professor]] and chairman of the Department of Physics at the [[Patrick Henry]] University. Then he effectively sold his soul for government grants, by endorsing, and then accepting the directorship of, the [[State Science Institute]]. Sadly for him, he would discover that he was a mere figurehead, and that the State Science Institute was actually in the hands of a fellow scientist who had planned for a long time to pervert the use of [[science]] in the search for political power. He ended up striving for physical control of a [[weapon of mass destruction]] and dying in agony.

{{spoiler}}
== Back story ==
The novel tells nothing of Robert Stadler's childhood, adolescence, or [[education]]. It says only that he was professor and chairman of physics at the Patrick Henry University (not to be confused with the real-life [[Patrick Henry College]]), which was located in [[Cleveland]], [[Ohio]]. In his last years at that institution, he had three extraordinary students who he was never to forget. They majored in physics and in [[philosophy]], a demanding double major and a highly unusual choice.

As the three students explained it to him (and to [[Hugh Akston]], chairman of the [[philosophy]] department), physics was the study of the natural world (from the [[Greek]] ''physis'', literally "nature"), and philosophy was the proper study of how to approach that world. The three would very often spend hours at a time, after teaching hours, with Dr. Stadler and/or Dr. Akston, discussing some arcane point of their respective disciplines.

It was the most rewarding experience that Robert Stadler ever knew. He would later describe these three as "the kind of reward a teacher prays for."

Those three students were, of course, [[Francisco d'Anconia]], [[Ragnar Danneskjold]], and [[John Galt]].

== The State Science Institute ==
As those extraordinary three students prepared to graduate, the [[United States Congress]] began its debate on the establishment of a government-funded institute dedicated to the sciences. Dr. Stadler saw this as a unique opportunity. Like virtually anyone working in "pure" or "abstract" science (as distinct from [[engineering]], often called "applied" science), Dr. Stadler always felt limited in the amount of private grant moneys that he could attract. A stable source of grant money definitely had its appeal.

Furthermore, an institution devoted to the pure sciences seemed to Stadler the most noble possible use of public money. But what drove Stadler even more than this consideration was his confirmed opinion that the "pure" sciences were "pure" precisely because they had no immediate commercial application, and that engineering was somehow "dirty" or at least mundane.

John Galt was appalled. When Stadler endorsed the establishment of the future Institute, John Galt criticized him severely, and indicated that their friendship was at an end. Galt's criticism was twofold: that the science/engineering dichotomy was false anyway, and that scientific research was not a proper function of government. Stadler was devastated at losing John Galt's friendship, but still felt that he was right. (If Francisco d'Anconia or Ragnar Danneskjold said anything to him on the subject, they never discussed that with any other character, including Hugh Akston.)

Later, Stadler would claim vindication of his stance, after hearing what became of two of his former students. Francisco d'Anconia became, to all appearances, a [[playboy]] and a subject of [[gossip]], chiefly about how many women he was intimate with. (He would have been surprised to learn that Francisco never was actually intimate with more than one woman in his entire life.) Ragnar Danneskjold became the notorious [[pirate]] who seized government relief cargoes bound for foreign countries. John Galt vanished completely, and now was the subject of a repeated question by laypeople: "Who is John Galt?"

Robert Stadler never admitted to anyone that he could tell them who John Galt really was. If he connected the first instances of the repetition of that question with the accelerated breakdown of the American economy, he never told anyone. He once told [[Dagny Taggart]], when she came to see him, that he suspected that his third student (whose name he did not mention) might have become a "second assistant bookkeeper."

But of course, Robert Stadler knew better. But he would not have hard evidence that John Galt was anything more than a student who had called him a traitor to his own intellectual capacity until many years later.

== The Rearden Metal Incident ==
When [[Henry Rearden]] introduced his new Metal, an alloy of [[iron]] and [[copper]] (and other traditional constituents of [[steel]]), his opponents (chiefly [[Orren Boyle]] of the Associated Steel Company) sowed [[FUD|fear, uncertainty, and doubt]] about the utility of the metal. The State Science Institute tested the metal and then issued an unfavorable, or at least an inconclusive, report on it. Robert Stadler added his signature to it, at the urging of his associate director, [[Floyd Ferris]].

[[Dagny Taggart]] then came to see him and tried to persuade him to reopen the investigation. He was forced to admit that they had never seen a metal so strong, lightweight, and easy to work as Rearden Metal, but refused to reopen the investigation. (Perhaps he knew even then that he could never have done so even if he had so desired.) This was the occasion in which he told Dagny Taggart about his three prize students and what had happened to them. In fact, he blamed the destinies (as he incorrectly understood them) of Francisco d'Anconia and Ragnar Danneskjold for his disillusionment.

He would, however, hear from Dagny Taggart once more. She called him and asked his help in trying to understand, and reconstruct, what apparently was a [[prototype]] of an [[John Galt#The electrostatic motor|electrostatic motor]]. Stadler was amazed that anyone could have invented such a thing, and indicated that such an inventor belonged in "pure science," not building motors, electrostatic or otherwise. Nevertheless, when Miss Taggart ask for his recommendation of an engineer who might be competent to reconstruct the prototype, he made one. He gave her the name of [[Quentin Daniels]] and his contact information.

He would not hear from Dagny Taggart again, nor see her, until the late fall of the last year of the [[strike]].

== The figurehead ==
Two incidents connected with his job at the State Science Institute, occurring following the collapse of the economy of [[Colorado]], made him realize that his post as Director was a sick joke. Though he had a budget for virtually any line of experimentation he wished to pursue, and was nominally in charge of the Institute's budget, he discovered that at least one project was unaccountable to him and even hidden from him, in the sense that he never once saw an itemized statement from the officer(s) in charge of that project or even any statement of what the project was about. That project was [[Project X]]. When he later asked Floyd Ferris about it, Ferris was evasive. Ferris said only that the letter ''X'' stood for ''Xylophone'' and that the project had to do with [[sound]].

Worse than that incident was Floyd Ferris' publication, through the State Science Institute Press, of a book of practical philosophy titled ''Why Do You Think You Think?'' In it, Ferris urged his readers to forget any notion that they were actually capable of independent thought, and learn to accept the pronouncements of those superior to them in their understanding of the physical or political world.

Stadler was appalled. Critical thinking is a necessary faculty in any scientist, a principle that Stadler had lived by at PHU and never thought to see questioned, much less directly contradicted. As he later said indignantly to Ferris, he would sooner have expected to see such a book written by "a drunken lout" than by "a man of science," and worse yet, under the ''imprimatur'' of the State Science Institute.

But when Stadler threatened to withdraw the book from circulation and disavow any connection with the official opinion of the Institute, Floyd Ferris quite calmly told Stadler that he was in no position to do any such thing. In brutal fact, Ferris had always been the political animal, and the liaison between the Institute and the [[Executive Office of the President]], where the Institute's funding came from. Stadler, in contrast, had ''no'' friends either in the [[Mr. Thompson|Thompson]] administration or on Capitol Hill.

Stadler could, therefore, do no more than accept his role as a mere figurehead. His filing of his copy of Ferris' work in the "circular file" was, at best, a petulant gesture, and he knew it even as he made it.

== Project X demonstrated ==
In July of either 1929 or 1930 (the last year of the [[strike]] of the men of the mind), Dr. Stadler found himself at a remote location in [[Iowa]], ostensibly to attend a demonstration. But he had not even been told ''what'' would be demonstrated. His first clue came when a reporter asked him about his role in the recently completed "[[Project X]]." Immediately Stadler rushed to Floyd Ferris' side and demanded to know what Project X was all about. Ferris replied cryptically that he would find out soon enough.

And find out he did. [[Mr. Thompson]], the [[President of the United States]], was also at the demonstration, as were several other senior Administration officials and Members of Congress. They made the first speeches, and announced the completion of a new device that they called the "Thompson Harmonizer," named after the President.

Then came the moment of the demonstration. As one of the officials worked several levers on a small console, Stadler watched in horror as a tethered goat, a wooden shack, and a section of [[railroad]] trestle all were knocked flat to the ground, seemingly without being touched. This was the effect of the Harmonizer, or the Xylophone as it was also called: it used [[ultrasonic]] beams to weaken or even pulverize any object at which they were directed.

Stadler asked Ferris, "Who invented that ghastly thing?"

And Ferris answered, "You did." Ferris then explained: Project X had grown out of Robert Stadler's own pioneering work on the physics of sound, work he had begun at the University and then brought to perfection at the Institute. Then, before Stadler could protest further, Ferris handed him a speech to make to the millions of people listening on the [[radio]].

As Stadler approached the microphone, listening to speech after speech making eerily absurd claims of how "good" and "friendly" the Xylophone would prove to be to humanity, a reporter called upon Stadler to denounce the project and tell the truth about it in order to save the country from becoming a dictatorship. Stadler shook the man away, and Ferris demanded the reporter's press credentials and work permit. Then Stadler began his speech:{{cquote|I am humbly proud that I have been able to place into the hands of Mr. Thompson a device that will prove a salutary liberating influence on the mind of man.}}

== John Galt makes a speech ==
On November 22 in the last year of his life, Robert Stadler found himself at [[Madison Square Garden]] to attend a live broadcast, on [[radio]] and on the still-new medium of [[television]], of a speech to the nation that Mr. Thompson had scheduled. But at five minutes to the scheduled airtime (8:00 p.m.), the technicians announced that all the radio and television stations were jammed. Mr. Thompson and several other officials started threatening mass firings if the problem was not corrected, all to no avail. Then, abruptly, a man's voice began to speak:{{cquote|Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Thompson will not be speaking to you tonight. His time is up. I have taken it over. You were to hear a report on the world crisis. That is exactly what you are going to hear. For twelve years you have been asking, "Who is John Galt." This is John Galt speaking...}}

Robert Stadler gasped in horror as he recognized that voice: it was the voice of his third student. And even if Stadler had not been able to make the instant intuitive leap of realization that this same John Galt was responsible for the disappearances of men of the mind, and the overall breakdown of the national economy, John Galt fairly ''boasted'' of playing exactly that role, and gave his reasons for so acting, for the next three hours. He also boasted that he had invented an electrostatic motor, and perhaps then Stadler realized that this could only have been the prototype that Dagny Taggart had asked him about.

When John Galt had finished speaking, [[Dagny Taggart]] raised her voice, telling the assembled officials to "give up and get out of the way" and "leave men free to exist." Stadler knew then that Dagny Taggart was actively in league with John Galt. He also was very much afraid of the fate that John Galt had in store for him and for the government he served, though he had long since allowed his ability to think that problem through to atrophy from disuse.

So instead of delivering a thoughtful reply, he cried out, "Don't listen to her!"

Dagny Taggart repeated her admonition and left the Garden. Stadler then turned to President Thompson and actually called him a "bloody fool," saying that John Galt was manifestly guilty of treason, and that Dagny Taggart was in league with him. Stadler spoke bluntly: John Galt needed to be taken and executed.

The President ordered that Dagny Taggart be placed under covert surveillance. But he would not accede to any order for Galt's execution. The President actually thought that he could negotiate a deal with John Galt and induce him to "sell out" those who had followed him on his strike of the men of the mind, as he had called it. Stadler knew better: that not only would John Galt never sell anyone out, but also&mdash;and more direly&mdash;John Galt was their implacable enemy.

== Stadler v. Galt ==
Not long after that, the authorities were indeed able to capture John Galt. Dagny Taggart was involved in that capture, and was widely quoted as saying that she had assisted in his capture because he was inevitably out to destroy her [[railroad]] (the [[Taggart Transcontinental Railroad]]) and would do so unless she acted to stop him forcibly. But one may safely infer that Robert Stadler did not believe a word she said, and considered John Galt far more dangerous than anyone was willing to admit.

And so he was surprised, and even terrified, to receive a summons from the President to New York's Wayne-Falkland Hotel, where John Galt was being held in the penthouse suite. Mr. Thompson said that John Galt had actually told him that he wished to see Stadler.

When Stadler was ushered in to the penthouse suite, he saw John Galt sitting casually on the sill of one of the windows. John Galt said nothing; he simply looked at Stadler. And then Stadler, unable to contain himself, began to talk, or rather, to babble disconnectedly. He talked about wanting and needing a laboratory, he talked about who it actually was who set the rules of the games of life and politics, and he said a great deal about "living and working in the real world." And as he talked, he realized instinctively that he was making no impression on Galt, except to make Galt more implacably cold toward him than ever.

Finally Stadler blurted out that Galt was the one who had to be destroyed. As soon as he said that, he tried to take it back. But Galt said,{{cquote|You have said everything that I wanted to say to you.}}

Stadler rushed to the door, raised his doubled-up fists, and banged on the door until Mr. Thompson's guards let him out. He would never see John Galt again.

== Death ==
Robert Stadler did not wait to see what the authorities would do next. He jumped into his [[automobile]] and drove across country, toward Iowa and the site of Project X. As he drove, he heard that the authorities had managed to negotiate with Galt, and that those negotiations had produced "The John Galt Plan," which they would announce at an upcoming broadcast from the grand ballroom of the Wayne-Falkland. Stadler tuned this program in, but even before John Galt said, "Get...out of my way," and the broadcast was cut off, Stadler knew how it would end.

Stadler drove on, muttering to himself, "I'll show them. I'll show them." His intention was to seize control of Project X and rule the area of its influence as his private feudal domain. He had no plan in mind of how to make this happen, other than to walk onto the project campus, drop his name, and start barking out orders.

He arrived at the Project site to find it occupied by the sort of persons, commonly called "goons," with whom he had never before had the misfortune to deal. In a blustering, imperious tone, he demanded entry and was admitted. He would repeat his name, thinking that his name alone would open doors for him. Yet no one seemed to know his name, a situation that angered him. At every step, he found himself demanding to see the next higher person in command, and kept trying to assert his own authority:{{cquote|I'm the boss around here. I give the orders. I'm Dr. Robert Stadler, and if you don't know ''that'' name in ''this'' place, you've got no business being here.}}

Then it hit him: these men had taken the project over for themselves! Incredulous, he asked sarcastically whether these untrained and uneducated men actually thought that they could "handle a high-precision instrument of science." Then he demanded to see the leader of what he now regarded as he would any gang of robbers or burglars.

The leader turned out to be [[Cuffy Meigs]], whom Stadler knew to be a thoroughly corrupt functionary, famous for enriching himself while holding such posts as Director of Railroad Unification. Stadler found Meigs in the central control room of the Xylophone. Meigs was obviously [[alcoholic drink|drunk]], almost too drunk to stand, and was barking out instructions for proclamations and tax demands as Stadler burst in.

Stadler still tried to play on the strength of his name, and imperiously demanded of Meigs what he thought he was doing, and what he was doing in that place. Meigs scoffed at Stadler, at least when he could concentrate on him. What appalled Stadler even more was when Meigs would sway about and then grab a control lever to steady himself. Stadler blurted out, "Don't touch those levers, you fool." This at first made Meigs recoil from the levers, but then made him roar out defiantly that he now owned the Xylophone and could do with it as he pleased. Stadler tried to assert his own ownership over the Xylophone, saying that he had "invented" and "created" it and "made it possible." Meigs sarcastically "thanked" him and said that he had his own mechanics.

Stadler was even more appalled. As he spoke, he realized that he had sold his soul, and also realized that Cuffy Meigs was, in essence, here to collect it. In a last gesture of defiance, Stadler roared at Meigs not to touch the levers and tried to push him away from them. Meigs knocked Stadler down and then yanked a lever at random.

The result was catastrophic. The Xylophone, activated at full gain, destroyed itself, its own blockhouse, Stadler, Meigs, Meigs' crew, and every structure within a hundred miles. Stadler would never know it, but every man, woman and child in that radius was killed almost instantly&mdash;and, worst of all, the Taggart Bridge across the [[Mississippi River]] was cut in half.

Robert Stadler survived the initial blast, only to die in agony within about five minutes.
{{endspoiler}}

== Typology ==
Robert Stadler is a distinctly minor [[Literary type#Villain|villain]]. His more important function is as an [[Literary type#Allegorical types|allegorical type]] of every scientist who convinces himself that he can best serve the "cause of science" by securing a "stable" source of grant moneys, and is not loath to accept government grants. Such grants often come at a price, and the price, according to Rand, is the scientist's soul. When the government funds something, that something becomes politicized.

We see this in the [[United States]] today, whenever [[Barack Obama]] speaks of "putting science back in its rightful place" by providing unlimited and unrestricted federal funds for [[embryonic stem cell]] research, for example. But Ayn Rand had a more dire fear: that science in the hands of the government could and probably would inevitably find itself used in the service of tyranny, and the creation of weapons of mass destruction.

In addition, Ayn Rand saw the apparent dichotomy between "pure" and "applied" science as a false one, and suggested that if any principle of science could be valuable to man, then some ''private'' individual or group would be willing to fund it. Robert Stadler is a type of any scientist who fails to realize that, who thinks that private funding is somehow dishonorable merely because it ''is'' private, and furthermore, that applied science is somehow dishonorable because it ''is'' applied to the problems that real human beings deal with every day. Such a person very often forgets that public funding can often lead to the creation of instruments of tyranny and death, because after all, the government is that institution having a monopoly on the initiation of force.

Ayn Rand also made a minor point, and a scathing one, against scientists who try to get their way through name-dropping. In virtually any Western country, untold numbers of scientific institutions, and especially [[hospital]]s and various lecture and [[laboratory]] halls in medical schools, often sell or offer to a "prominent" physician or a member of the "generous community" the privilege of having his or her name on a building wing and his or her portrait in oil in the hallway. Indeed, many such institutions build veritable [[shrine]]s to such people. While some of these people deserve some recognition for some extraordinary discovery (like the techniques of [[aorta|aortic]] [[aneurysm]]al repair and other even more breathtaking techniques of cardiovascular [[surgery]] developed by [[Michael E. DeBakey]]), or even for years of service, other such people win this recognition merely by paying for it. Ayn Rand perhaps sought to illustrate what would happen when an institution, ostensibly dedicated to science, might be taken over by a group of people who would ''not'' respect the owner of that name. In such a situation, all the name-dropping that the person could do would avail him nothing.

{{nb Atlas}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stadler, Robert}}
[[Category:Literary Figures]]

WHAT WOULD ZIZEK DO?

Dagny Taggart

2009-06-09T00:25:14Z

LaxmanGurung: What would ZIZEK do?

'''Dagny Taggart''', in [[Ayn Rand]]'s [[novel]] ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'', was the Vice-President in Charge of Operations of the [[Taggart Transcontinental Railroad]]. More than any other single person, she tried to keep the railroad, and the larger society, moving when it was suffering from the double threat of crippling regulation and a "brain drain" of the best and brightest minds in industry and engineering. Yet, in the end, she joined that "brain drain," otherwise known as the [[strike]] of the men of the mind called by [[John Galt]]&mdash;a man she once swore that she would kill on sight.

{{spoiler}}
== Childhood and adolescence ==
Dagny grew up in the family compound in up-state [[New York State]]. Her brother, [[James Taggart]], was the one whom the family always assumed would become President of the [[railroad]], which he did. But even he noticed something unusual about her: though she was named for the wife of the founder of the TTRR, Nathaniel Taggart, she reminded people more of Nathaniel than of Dagny Taggart the Elder. Dagny regarded that as a compliment.

Dagny and James did not play together often. On the one occasion that the novel records that they did play together, James Taggart was given a small motorboat to play with. His first lesson in driving it did not go well. In frustration, James turned the vessel over to a visitor to the compound&mdash;[[Francisco d'Anconia]]. Francisco, in sharp contrast, handled the vessel as easily as if he had been trained in it, though he had never before handled a similar vessel. The purposive manner in which he steered the tiny vessel impressed Dagny, who had been watching the entire drama.

From that day forward, Francisco became a regular visitor to the Taggart family compound, and he and Dagny played together often, along with one other child, a younger boy named [[Eddie Willers]]. The three would often build some simple structures, and Francisco always took charge.

As they grew older, Francisco and Dagny grew romantically interested in one another, and eventually became lovers.

== The first break ==
Francisco went away to the [[Patrick Henry]] University in [[Cleveland]], [[Ohio]] (not to be confused with the real-life [[Patrick Henry College]] in northern [[Virginia]]) and earned a degree in [[physics]] and [[philosophy]], an unusual double major. When Francisco returned from college, he was very enthusiastic about his plans for the family [[copper]] [[mining]] combine that he would inherit, the D'Anconia Copper Company.

But then, Francisco's entire demeanor changed. On one night that Dagny was never to forget, Francisco talked very urgently, even tearfully, of a meeting he had had with another man whom he would not identify. He begged Dagny to give him a reason to say that this man was wrong, but would not say what the subject was, or ''how'' that other man might be right or wrong. Then, suddenly, he changed his mind again and said that he had only to look at Dagny to understand that the other man was right (again, without saying about what) and that he would have to do what he would now do.

Dagny would not see Francisco d'Anconia again for many years. But very soon she would hear shocking gossip about him, to the effect that he had become, quite simply, a [[playboy]], and his company was beginning to suffer from a lack of leadership that she would never expect from him.

== The Rio Norte Line ==
In the fall of what was probably the year 1927, Dagny Taggart, now the Operating Vice-President of the TTRR, took in hand the renovation of a railroad line that had fallen into severe disrepair, the Rio Norte Line in [[Colorado]]. After personally inspecting the line, she conceived a twelve-month plan to restore it to proper operating condition. As part of that plan, she ordered new rail from [[Henry Rearden]]'s Rearden Steel Company, and indeed took another, more radical step in that order: she ordered rail made of Rearden Metal, a new [[alloy]] of [[copper]] and [[iron]] that Henry Rearden had recently invented and announced.

James Taggart was appalled, chiefly because no one had used Rearden Metal before, and no one believed that any metal as lightweight as Rearden Metal would be, would also be as strong as conventional [[steel]]. He was also upset because Dagny had taken it upon herself to place an order with Rearden, when James wanted to reserve his business for the Associated Steel Company, run by Orren Boyle. But not only was Dagny impatient with Orren Boyle's chronic inability to fill any sort of order, but she was also eager to try Henry Rearden's new Metal that would actually save the railroad a lot of money while also being easier to work with and better able to perform under the stresses required of it.

=== The Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule ===
James probably thought that he could forestall the project by rendering it unnecessary, so he personally lobbied his friends in the National Association of Railroads in [[Washington, DC]] for the passage of a new industry regulation, known as the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule, under which a competitor would not be allowed to take "unfair" advantage of another competitor who was already the first to provide service to any given region. In short, the first railroad in any region would be the guaranteed [[monopoly]], and [[rate war]]s (which in real life led to Pyrrhic victories of some railroads over others) would not be allowed.

The passage of that Rule forced Taggart Transcontinental's one remaining competitor along the Rio Norte Line, the Phoenix-Durango Railroad, to cease operations within nine months. Dagny encouraged the owner of the PDRR to fight the Rule, but he would not, and even suggested that he was going to retire.

Not long after that, [[Ellis Wyatt]], owner of the Wyatt Oil Company, famous for extracting oil from shale, came to see Dagny. In a very angry mood, Wyatt told Dagny that if he did not get the transportation he needed within nine months, he was quite prepared to "take all the rest of you down with me." Dagny did not bother to ask what he meant or even whether his threat was credible. Instead she assured him that he ''would'' get the transportation he needed, and on schedule.

Dagny went to explain to Henry Rearden that she would have to rush the order, and told him why. Rearden charged her twenty dollars extra per ton, and Dagny accepted that as a required cost of business. She realized at once that she had earned his respect by so acting.

== The San Sebastian Line ==
In the meantime, Dagny had another problem to deal with: the San Sebastian Line into [[Mexico]]. James Taggart had opened that line after Francisco d'Anconia had driven a mine into the [[Sierra Madre]] range. Dagny knew full well that Mexico, which now called itself the ''People's State'' of Mexico, would soon [[nationalization|nationalize]] the mine and the railroad line. In anticipation of that, she started moving as much rolling stock and as many locomotives out of Mexico as she could. She cut service to one passenger train a day (pulled by a [[wood]]-burning [[steam]] [[locomotive]], not a modern [[Diesel]]-electric locomotive) and one freight train every other day. Jim found out about these service cuts on one of his Washington political trips, and tried to order Dagny to rescind the cuts, but she refused.

Not long afterward, the People's State of Mexico did indeed nationalize the mines and the line. James Taggart's response was to take personal credit for the service cuts and the withdrawal of locomotives and rolling stock, and to call for the resignations of the two officials who represented the TTRR in Mexico, this although whether they could have done anything to stop the [[nationalization]] was debatable at best.

Though the nationalization did not surprise Dagny in the least, the next revelation did: that the San Sebastian Mines were worthless. Francisco d'Anconia had in effect driven his mines into a mountain that yielded nothing of value. Dagny went to see Francisco at the Wayne-Falkland Hotel in [[New York City]], where he had a permanent hotel suite. Francisco refused to explain his seemingly negligent action, and instead talked airily of how surprised and embarrassed the Mexican authorities must have been when they discovered the truth. He then left her with this clue:{{cquote|Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you find yourself faced with an apparent contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.}}

That statement, however, left Dagny as puzzled as she had been before, because Francisco simply would not explain his behavior.

== The dinner party ==
Henry Rearden's wife [[Lillian Rearden|Lillian]] gave a dinner party at their home in honor of their wedding anniversary. Dagny was invited, and attended. That occasion was memorable to Dagny for two reasons:
# Several of the ladies discussed a series of loud noises coming from the [[Delaware Bay]] region, noises that had been reported as thunder. At least one lady was convinced that the noises were not thunder at all, but Naval gunfire. The [[United States Navy]] had spotted the ship commanded by the notorious buccaneer [[Ragnar Danneskjold]] in Delaware Bay and were trying to capture him, but he escaped.
# Lillian appeared wearing a chain-link bracelet made of Rearden Metal. Dagny overheard Lillian saying that she would gladly sell the bracelet if someone were to offer her a more valuable bracelet in exchange. Dagny, irked at Lillian for not showing more appreciation for her husband's work and invention, stepped forward and offered her own diamond-studded bracelet. Lillian was too shocked to refuse, and the bracelets changed hands. Henry Rearden, in a tight-lipped manner, said that Dagny's gesture was unnecessary, but Dagny felt no regret.

== The Rio Norte Line, continued ==
Dagny continued to press forward on her plan to renovate the Rio Norte Line. The controversy went from bad to worse, especially when Henry Rearden convinced her that instead of shoring up a tottering steel bridge, she should knock it down entirely and build a new bridge entirely out of Rearden Metal.

The controversy grew from the mildly annoying to the absurd. Finally, the [[State Science Institute]] issued a report that effectively damned Rearden Metal with faint praise, as "unproved." Dagny traveled to Washington to speak to the Institute's director, [[Robert Stadler]], and urge him to reopen the investigation. Stadler admitted that Rearden Metal was everything that Henry Rearden said it was, but said that in "matters of state," the report should read as it was. On this occasion, Stadler told her a story that made little sense then, but would make perfect sense later on: that while he was chairman of [[physics]] at Patrick Henry University, he had had three pupils who "were the kind of reward a teacher prays for." But two of them, [[Francisco d'Anconia]] and [[Ragnar Danneskjold]], had disgraced themselves; one was now a playboy, and the other was a bandit. She asked Stadler what happened to the third student, and Stadler replied that perhaps he was a "second assistant bookkeeper somewhere."

When Dagny realized that she had lost the support of the TTRR board of directors, she announced her intention to complete the Rio Norte Line personally, by buying the right-of-way from the TTRR and setting up her own railroad firm to complete the project. She called this project the John Galt Line, after a name that she had heard repeated often as a question without apparent meaning. To her pleasant surprise, she found the money easy to raise. Much of it came from Ellis Wyatt and other Colorado businessmen who looked forward to the renovation and were very much intrigued by Dagny's penchant for innovation. But Henry Rearden became the largest single investor in John Galt, Incorporated, despite Dagny's protests.

But even by organizing her own railroad, she could do nothing about another problem that kept frustrating her plans. Every time she tried to subcontract a key portion of the work she needed to have done, the subcontractor would quit doing business, and usually vanish without a trace. She also lost one of her own executives, Owen Kellogg, the same way: he said that he was quitting and refused to say where he was going. Dagny gradually came to conclude that this raft of people quitting and vanishing was not coincidental. Some unknown person was ''telling'' those people to quit and vanish. She came to call this person "The Destroyer" and swore to kill him if she ever found him.

== The opening ==
Eventually the time came to open the John Galt Line for regular service. As the day approached, Dagny and Henry Rearden held a press conference, in which they both pledged to ride in the [[locomotive]] that would pull the very first train to travel the new line. She had no problem finding customers to place cargoes on that train.

The day came, and the first train made the run successfully. This brought an instant change of attitude in the whole country. Whereas first people had been afraid that the rails and bridge of Rearden Metal would fail, now they couldn't get enough of Rearden Metal.

That night, Dagny and Henry stayed together at Ellis Wyatt's house. And on that occasion, the two began what would be a long and passionate love affair.

== The motor investigation ==
The opening of the John Galt Line started a boom in Colorado. Many businesses relocated there, lured by the presence of a reliable railway line and by the very limited government that Colorado had at the time (at least, in this [[alternate history]] of America). That prompted the nation's unions and political lobbies to consider certain acts of legislation and regulation that would essentially destroy the incentives that Colorado now represented.

In the middle of these events, Dagny and Henry took a driving vacation to [[Wisconsin]]. There, Dagny spotted the remains of the [[Twentieth Century Motor Company]], which once had had a branch line served by the TTRR, and suggested that they stop there. They did, and Dagny strolled through the desolate and abandoned factory. But she soon was calling excitedly to Henry to join her, after she had found the wrecked prototype of what could only be an [[John Galt#The electrostatic motor|electrostatic motor]].

Dagny sought to track down the inventor of this motor, because she knew that such a motor would revolutionize railroading (and stationary power generation, and shipbuilding, and many other industries besides). But the trail of the inventor seemed hopelessly tangled. Dagny and Henry first visited the current owner of the building, who was the [[mayor]] of the neaby town of Rome. From him they learned the name of the last banker to lend money to the last owner.

Henry Rearden returned to his mills, and Dagny traveled to Washington. There she saw the former banker, Eugene Lawson, now an official with the Bureau of Economic Planning and Natural Resources. He referred her to the last owner of the plant, one Lee Hunsacker, a man now reduced to penury and working (though not very conscientiously) as a live-in cook for an elderly couple. That man mentioned that he had taken over the plant after the original founder, Gerald "Jed" Starnes, had died, and his three children "ran it into the ground pretty fast." He also mentioned that before he had gotten a lone from Gene Lawson's bank (the failure of which had destroyed the factory town), he had applied for a lone from [[Midas Mulligan|Michael "Midas" Mulligan]], a famous [[Chicago]] banker. Mulligan had refused the loan, and Hunsacker had sued him. The trial judge had found for Mulligan, but had been reversed on appeal. The trouble was that after Hunsacker had won the judgment, the Mulligan Bank had wiped itself out in what was remembered as a "controlled run," and Midas Mulligan had disappeared.

Dagny went on to search for Gerald Starnes' children. One of them was dead, a suicide. Another was in jail, and in fact in a holding cell for men arrested for drunkenness and disorderly conduct. Their sister, Ivy Starnes, lived alone and affected a very imperious attitude concerning redistribution of wealth. But none of them knew anything about any motor.

But finally Ivy Starnes gave Dagny the name of the chief engineer at the Twentieth Century William Hastings, but mentioned that Hastings and his assistant had quit the company shortly after the Starnes heirs had taken it over. Dagny next learned that Hastings was dead, but his widow told Dagny that the actual inventor of the motor was Hastings' young assistant, who had urged him to quit the firm and to quit working in general.

The last person whom Dagny spoke to, in trying to find the young engineer, was the operator of a short-order diner in [[Wyoming]], recommended to her by Mrs. Hastings. To her amazement, the owner of the diner was none other than [[Hugh Akston]], who had been Chairman of [[Philosophy]] at PHU and who also remembered the "three pupils" that Robert Stadler had spoken of. He said nothing else, except to make the same statement that Francisco d'Anconia had made earlier: "contradictions do not exist."

== The destruction of Colorado ==
Dagny's travels took her back to [[Denver]], Colorado, and to her horror she learned that all of the laws and regulations, or "directives," that James Taggart had boasted to her about, were in force. Quickly she boarded the next westbound train, hoping to see Ellis Wyatt before the story reached him. Fifteen minutes into the journey, the train stopped. Dagny got out and beheld a horrifying sight: the entire face of a mountain, the very mountain that Ellis Wyatt owned, was a sea of flame. This came to be known as Wyatt's Torch, after it proved impossible to extinguish. She learned later that only one artifact remained on Ellis Wyatt's property: a sign that read,{{cquote|I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours.}}

== Reverse-engineering the motor ==
Dagny returned to [[New York City]] to continue to do her job as best she could. She and [[Henry Rearden]] continued to see one another in Dagny's apartment in the city.

Colorado was collapsing, of course, so Dagny pinned most of her hopes on reverse-engineering the electrostatic motor she had found in Wisconsin. She called Robert Stadler, described the motor to him as best she could, and asked for his recommendation. Stadler professed amazement at the concept of an electrostatic motor and suggested that a mind that could invent such a thing belonged in "pure science," a declaration that might not have made much sense to Dagny at the time. Stadler then gave her the name and contact information of an engineer, one [[Quentin Daniels]], who might be able to reconstruct the motor.

Dagny contacted Daniels and turned over to him the ruined prototype and such notes as she had.

== The D'Anconia Copper Crash ==
Dagny and Henry attended the wedding reception for her brother Jim and a young woman named Cheryl Brooks. That reception broke up early when Francisco d'Anconia made a shocking display of desperation and revealed that his company was in an unsound financial condition, because several mines had suffered a series of accidents and were no longer productive. Jim, his friend Orren Boyle, and most of the male guests rushed from the reception in a panic, and it was very clear to Dagny that all those men had been invested in D'Anconia Copper and were about to lose a lot of money. The hypocrisy of their positions made for delicious irony, certainly, but that did not explain why Francisco would allow his company to get into such deplorable condition. She would learn the truth of the matter only later.

== The Rearden-Dannager Incident ==
In the spring of that year, Henry Rearden and [[Ken Dannager]] were indicted for a violation of the Fair Share Statute, by which no one was to receive any more Rearden Metal (or any other product) than anyone else, without the proper clearances. Dagny was confident that Henry would fight the indictment in the special court that would try him. But Ken Dannager might decide to quit and vanish.

So Dagny rushed to Ken Dannager's office to see him. She found him in conference with a visitor, who left by a private entrance that Dagny never knew that Dannager's office had. Then when Dannager agreed to see Dagny, he announced that he was going to retire. He said that his visitor had told him that he had "a right to exist," and that was the most important reason why he would listen to that visitor and quit business. The last thing he told Dagny was that, someday, Dagny would join him. Dagny, of course, found that proposition incredible.

Henry did appear at his trial. Instead of offering a formal defense, he rebuked the court directly and said that he did not consider what he had done to be a crime. The court fined him $5000, and then suspended the sentence.

== Directive 10-289 ==
The next significant event that affected Dagny was the promulgation of [[Directive 10-289]], on May 1 of what would be the last year before history as she knew it would stop. Dagny learned of it first from Francisco, who called her at her office and asked her, "Well, what do you think of the moratorium on brains?" Francisco would not elaborate, so Dagny ordered someone to bring her a morning newspaper. [[Eddie Willers]], with a pained expression, brought her the paper and said that none of her employees had wanted to be the one to break the news to her.

What Dagny read filled her with shock and anger. According to this Directive, all persons were legally attached to their jobs, and furthermore, all inventions were to be placed in the public domain, and no more patents or copyrights would be granted.

Dagny marched to her brother's office, folding the paper into a tight roll as she walked. She threw it in Jim's face, and said,{{cquote|There's my resignation, Jim. I will not work as a slave, or as a slave driver.}}

She then returned to her own office and announced her resignation to Eddie. Eddie said that he wanted to resign, too, but could not bring himself to do this. Dagny then told Eddie that she would take a cabin at a mountain retreat in the Berkshire Mountains. The last other person she called before she left was Henry Rearden, who said that he would wait for a Washington representative to come to collect his signature on a public-domain release, refuse that signature, and then join her.

Henry Rearden did not join her. But Francisco d'Anconia did. And on that occasion, Francisco told her an incredible story.

Dagny had suspected for some time that Francisco d'Anconia's persona as an irresponsible playboy was a sham. Now Francisco admitted it. He then said that he was destroying D'Anconia Copper, and doing so deliberately. He said,{{cquote|I am not leaving it as I found it; I am leaving it as Sebastian d'Anconia found it, and then let the world try to get along without him or me.}}

Dagny was horrified, more for Francisco's sake than anything else. Then Francisco told her something else: that he had been acting under the orders, as it were, of the very "Destroyer" who had been encouraging people to quit and vanish for so many years. Now Francisco invited Dagny to come away with him.

Dagny was torn between Francisco and Henry, and perhaps one cannot infer what decision Dagny would have made, had not a breathless special [[radio]] bulletin interrupted them. That bulletin was the announcement and description of the destruction of the [[Taggart Tunnel]]. "Gross violation of safety regulations...[[coal]]-burning [[steam]] [[locomotive]]...overcome by the fumes...crashed into the rear...explosion..." The description filled Dagny with horror and revulsion. She knew that she had to go back, to untangle the mess that had been made. Francisco tried to tell her, "In the name of anything held sacred to you, don't go back!" But she went back anyway.

She found her brother haranguing Eddie Willers to force him to confess her whereabouts, and also found her office decorated with a lot of magazines with distinctly [[liberal]] content, all of which she threw away. Then she got down to business. She served notice on [[Wesley Mouch]] and his people that she would have none of their regulations, and would do what was necessary. Then she telephoned Henry Rearden to tell him that she had returned, and to place an order for steel rail to re-lay the long-abandoned line through the mountain pass that the Taggart Tunnel had originally made unnecessary.

== The clue ==
The end of May of that year found Dagny traveling westbound on the Taggart Comet, the TTRR's signature coast-to-coast express, in an effort to stop Quentin Daniels from quitting and vanishing. He had called to tell her that he was not going to do any useful work anymore. He would work on the motor, but accept no remuneration, so that he would owe no [[tax]] on it. Dagny reasoned that he was ready to quit completely, and she might dissuade him from that&mdash;but only if she could reach him before the mysterious "Destroyer" could. She was, of course, convinced that the Destroyer was on his way to visit him, as he had visited Ken Dannager.

On the way, Dagny spotted the conductor as he was about to order a hobo to jump from the train. Something about this hobo convinced Dagny that he was not an ordinary bum, so she invited the man to stay and have dinner with her in her private car.

This man was Jeff Allen, who had once been a skilled lathe operator, and last worked that job in Colorado for the Lawrence Hammond Car Company, until Lawrence Hammond had quit and vanished. But he had held his very first job for twenty years, and had held it at the Twentieth Century Motor Company. In fact, he had worked sixteen years under Jed Starnes, and the last four under the administration of the Starnes heirs. In the course of half an hour, he told Dagny the story of what working at a factory was like where the people worked according to their abilities but were paid according to their needs. As Dagny expected, it was not pleasant. Nor was it successful, because in this manner the Starnes heirs had run the company into the ground.

Then the man gave Dagny an electrifying clue. On the day that the new business plan was inaugurated, Gerald Starnes, Junior, had told all the employees to:{{cquote|Remember that none of you may leave this place, for you are all bound here by the moral code which we all accept.}}

One young engineer had stood up to say that he did not accept this code, and furthermore that he would "put and end to this once and for all." When Gerald Starnes asked him how, he said,{{cquote|I will stop the motor of the world.}}

The name of that engineer was [[John Galt]]. And from that, Jeff Allen was convinced that he and his fellow employees had been the source of the half-cynical, half-fearful question, "Who is John Galt?" that everyone was now asking. They had started asking that since they realized that the Twentieth Century Motor Company was not the only company that was failing, and that other "prime movers" were quitting their jobs just as Galt had.

Dagny was probably convinced that at last she had a clue, not only to the electrostatic motor, but also, and more importantly, to the Destroyer. She might have realized, though the novel does not make this clear, that if Destroyer and inventor were one and the same man, then that man somehow knew that someone was reverse-engineering his invention, and would seek to stop him from doing that, for the same reason that he had wrecked his own prototype to begin with.

== A frozen train and an air crash ==
That night, the train stopped unexpectedly. She realized at once that she was on a "frozen train," whose engineer, fireman, conductor, and trainmen had simply stopped and abandoned. She recruited Jeff Allen to take over the situation as "deputy conductor and proxy-Vice-President for Operations," and then walked forward to a track telephone, accompanied by none other than Owen Kellogg, who had also been on the Comet when it stopped. At one point she saw Kellogg smoking a brand of cigarettes that she had never seen before: its filters carried the sign for the United States [[dollar]]. He would not offer her a cigarette for free, but suggested that she might buy it for five cents&mdash;payable in [[gold]].

Dagny concentrated on getting the Comet moving again. After much almost fruitless discussion she managed to convince, or rather threaten, someone to get a relief crew to take the Comet on to its destination. She found this activity distasteful, because she was not used to having men work for her who would respond only to threats.

That left the question of her own trip. As she walked on, she came to a small airstrip, the proprietor of which had a modern monoplane to rent to her. She took off in this aircraft to the town that had been her target. Upon arrival, she found out that another pilot had flown in shortly before her, and had taken off again&mdash;with Quentin Daniels as a passenger.

Furious, she took off again, caught sight of the other aircraft, and gave chase. Her quarry headed into the mountains, then started to spiral down into what looked like a rocky valley. And suddenly that aircraft was no longer visible.

Dagny did not understand how this could be, but she was not willing to abandon the search. She, too, started to spiral down. At an altitude of 8700 feet, a bright flash of light filled her cockpit, and her aircraft's motor cut out. Now she was in a tailspin and was descending&mdash;but not into a rock tumble, but into a valley that was suddenly green and in fact gave every appearance of a small farming community. She did not have time to sort out the incongruity of what she saw on the ground, not when that ground was rushing up at her at a dangerous speed. She fought desperately to bring her aircraft down in a soft landing, but still crashed and lost consciousness.

== John Galt ==
She awoke lying on a soft patch of grass, with a relieved-looking man smiling down at her. Without thinking, she looked up into that face and said, "We never had to take any of it seriously, did we?"

The man answered, "No, we never did."

Then she came to her senses and tried to move, but the man cautioned her not to. Then he told her his name: John Galt.

The man picked her up and carried her into the center of what turned out to be a small town with a thriving industrial district. The inhabitants of that town were all famous businessmen that she knew about&mdash;famous for quitting and vanishing from their businesses. One of them was Midas Mulligan, who dumbfounded her by calling her "the first [[scab]]."

John Galt then explained what had happened to her aircraft, and why such a green valley had looked rocky until her descent. The valley floor was at an elevation of 8000 feet. At 8700 feet, John Galt had installed "refractor ray" projectors to create a one-way mirror in the air. Dagny had descended to that level, a result that John Galt had never predicted, and the rays had shorted out her motor.

Dagny spent the night alone in a room in what turned out to be John Galt's house. She noticed that the walls of the room were richly inscribed with cryptic messages, and signed by more of the vanished ones. Later that night she received a visit from Francisco d'Anconia.

In the morning, she received an even stranger visit: from Ragnar Danneskjold. Mr. Danneskjold took this opportunity to explain what his [[privateer]]ing activities were all about: he was seizing government "global relief" cargoes and selling them to smugglers, and bringing the [[gold]] they paid him back to this secluded valley. He deposited this gold in the bank that Midas Mulligan had re-established in the valley, which he actually owned. (This is why John Galt called the place Mulligan's Valley, though the others called it [[Galt's Gulch]].) Ragnar went on to explain that he intended to refund the income-tax payments of the vanished ones and of a few people, including Dagny and Henry Rearden, who had not yet quit. But Dagny's refund would be less than that of the others, because Ragnar could not refund to her the taxes paid on the dividend from the stock of Taggart Transcontinental, since her brother had run the company in an unwholesome alliance with the government. She therefore would expect a reimbursement of the taxes on her salary as Operating Vice-President.

Ragnar went on to describe a meeting he had had with Henry Rearden, but John Galt stopped him before he could finish describing it.

Dagny furiously declared, when Ragnar had left the house, that she would never accept money taken, as she saw it, through brigandage. John Galt said that he would draw on her account to pay for her room and board, and then Dagny offered to work for her room and board as his cook and housemaid. For a reason that she would not fully appreciate until much later, that proposal struck John Galt as uproariously funny. Nevertheless, he accepted it.

Later, Dagny attended a meeting with all the leading citizens of the little community. Each of them told of something new that he or she had invented, but also that they would not be sharing it with the outside. Dagny asked them what they were all doing, and finally John Galt explained:{{cquote|We are on strike.}}

John Galt then confirmed that he had been the inventor of the static-electricity motor, and he had called the great strike after the Starnes heirs had put in place a business plan modeled after [[The Communist Manifesto]], which he could never accept. He and the others gave Dagny a brief history of the valley and of their own reasons for joining the strike.

== Galt's Gulch ==
Dagny spent a month in the valley and learned all about how its society ran. A few days after her arrival, Owen Kellogg came to the valley and informed her that everyone outside the valley believed her dead, including [[Henry Rearden]]. John Galt would not allow her to send any messages outside.

She had two heart-rending moments during her stay. One of them occurred after two weeks had passed, when another aircraft started to descend and circle above the valley before finally pulling up and leaving. Dagny knew, almost without looking, that Henry Rearden was the pilot of that craft, and could only imagine the pain he must feel.

The second occurred at the site of "D'Anconia Copper No. 1," a mine that Francisco d'Anconia had driven into one of the mountainsides that ringed the valley. Dagny told Francisco that he was wasting a great deal of time hauling his copper ore to the valley floor on [[mule]]back, and offered to build him a railroad to the valley floor. But then she said that she could not lay a mile or two of rail and abandon a transcontinental system. At this point John Galt told her that, if she decided to stay, she would hear all of the details of the eventual demise of the Taggart Transcontinental Railroad.

On that same occasion, Francisco offered to have Dagny stay with him, instead of with John Galt. Dagny protested that John Galt was her employer, and she could not leave without at least giving notice. When John Galt said that it was actually her decision, she declared that she wanted John Galt to make that decision himself. He refused Francisco's offer, and then laughed again, saying that Dagny had put him to a test to see whether he would actually practice "the lowest form of altruism."

Finally, the end of June arrived, and Dagny needed to decide. Dagny decided to return to the world. She told the assembled strikers that she would fight for their ideals on the outside, and try to convince the authorities to "give up and get out of the way." John Galt regarded that plan as futile and told her so. Nevertheless, he would not hold her against her will. Accordingly, the next day he put a blindfold on her and took her out of the valley in his own aircraft.

== End of summer ==
Dagny returned to the Taggart Terminal and learned, first of all, that Taggart Transcontinental now operated under the so-called Railroad Unification Plan, under which all the nation's railroads would "work as a team," pool their revenues, and be paid according to the track they owned. Dagny was disgusted with the plan, primarily because it meant that Taggart Transcontinental was essentially stealing from other, more efficient railroads. The cost to the company was that the Director of Unification, one [[Cuffy Meigs]], could peremptorily order service cancellations in order to prepare special trains to haul, among other things, [[grapefruit]].

Later in July, Dagny was asked to participate in a special [[radio]] program, hosted by the noted radio host Bertram Scudder, to assure the public that she had not been among the vanished ones, and extol the "noble decision" by Henry Rearden to sign away his rights to Rearden Metal. Actually, she was peremptorially ordered to do so by Lillian Rearden, who said that if she did not appear, then Lillian would reveal to the world that Henry and Dagny had been lovers. Dagny was not surprised, because by that time, she had learned the real reason for Rearden's action: the government had learned, from Lillian Rearden through James Taggart, all about Dagny and Henry's affair.

Dagny attended the program, but decided to avenge herself and Rearden by describing their affair in detail, and telling the radio listeners that Henry Rearden had been forced by blackmail to place his invention in the [[public domain]]. Scudder threw the microphone to the stage when she said that, but the damage was done.

She returned to her apartment to find Henry Rearden listening to the now-silent radio. He thanked her for her performance, and then noted that she had used the "past" (actually, the pluperfect) tense to describe their affair. This indicated to him that their romance was over. He politely asked who the new man in her life was, and she sardonically asked, "Who is John Galt?"

Rearden realized at once that the "John Galt" that everyone had been asking about was a real man, and furthermore that he must have been "The Destroyer" who had encouraged all those brilliant people to quit and vanish. Dagny knew that she could never reveal to Henry the secret of Galt's Gulch. But she could illustrate her problem, and she did, by asking him whether he could give up Rearden Steel. With a look of pain he admitted that he could not&mdash;at least, not yet.

== Suicide of Cheryl Taggart ==
In August, Cheryl Brooks Taggart paid Dagny a visit, and told Dagny how unhappy she was being married to James Taggart, a result that Dagny might have predicted. Dagny tried to persuade Cheryl not to return home, but Cheryl returned anyway. Dagny never learned the full particulars, but apparently Cheryl had a humiliating scene with Jim, in which Cheryl somehow realized that she was married to a spiritual "killer." Cheryl Taggart walked out of the townhouse, ran to the shore of [[Manhattan]], and threw herself into the [[East River]]. Dagny found about it from Jim and told him that she did not want him to tell her his troubles, especially since they had cost a young woman her life.

== "Brother, you asked for it!" ==
On September 2, Jim Taggart asked Dagny to his office for a discussion. He spoke ramblingly and disconnectedly about the unprofitability of the railroad and the untenability of the situation. Jim then said that Dagny must "do something" to prevent almost certain disaster, and even suggested that she somehow owed him this as a favor because he was her brother.

In the middle of this conversation came an announcement on the [[radio]]. At first Jim asked Dagny to stay, saying that this was the announcement he had wanted her to hear. But as the announcer went on, Jim became horrified. The announcement was about the attempted [[nationalization]] of D'Anconia Copper by the People's State of [[Argentina]]&mdash;and the discovery that the D'Anconia Copper Company was now totally worthless. Francisco d'Anconia had destroyed every remaining asset in the days leading up to the nationalization.

The last thing Dagny heard as she left Jim's office was Jim calling someone named "Rodrigo" and protesting about having lost a lot of money, while at the same time yelling at Orren Boyle on another telephone to "shut [his] trap." Dagny probably never learned the full particulars of those conversations, but she might have guessed that Jim had bought into the government holding company that had been set to receive the nationalized assets of D'Anconia Copper SA, and now those assets amounted to zero.

That evening, Dagny and Henry discussed that disaster over dinner. Henry remarked casually that he had met Ragnar Danneskjold. Dagny remembered Ragnar's remark about that meeting and said so. Henry then said that he had "met one of their agents," and Dagny said that he had met two of them. Henry realized that she was talking about Francisco.

At that momemt, the city's scrolling calendar rolled to the next day&mdash;except that instead of September 3, the display read,{{cquote|Brother, you asked for it!}}
It was signed with all of Francisco's names in full.

== The harvest debacle ==
Later that month, Dagny received a call from a track walker in [[Minnesota]], saying that several freight cars, which should have been sent to Minnesota to pick up the nation's [[wheat]] crop, had not been sent. She learned quickly that Cuffy Meigs had diverted the freight cars to [[Louisiana]] to pick up a crop of [[soybean]]s from an experimental project by Emma Chalmers, also known as "Kip's Ma," the mother of the late Congressman Charles "Kip" Chalmers, who had died in the [[Taggart Tunnel]] disaster. The wheat perished in its fields, and in spite of the special treatment, the soybeans turned out to be moldy and unfit for human consumption.

== October ==
In October, the Terminal's signal interlocking system failed. Dagny rushed to the terminal, arranged to hire an engineer from a rival line, and then organized the track walkers and other unskilled laborers into a lantern brigade to move the trains in and out of the Terminal by hand. On that occasion she discovered that John Galt was a Taggart Transcontinental employee, and furthermore was employed in the lowest possible capacity.

Toward the end of October, Jim awakened her in the middle of the night to tell her, breathlessly, that Henry Rearden had quit his mills and vanished&mdash;and that hundreds of his employees had vanished after him when his disappearance became known. Jim begged Dagny to somehow bring Henry back, but Dagny said that she could not bring him back, and wouldn't if she could.

Not long after Rearden's disappearance, Dagny received a cryptic note from him. It read only, "I have met him. I don't blame you." Dagny realized at once that Henry Rearden could only have been talking about [[John Galt]]. She little realized that the entire country would soon "meet" John Galt, if only at a distance.

== The great speech ==
In November, [[Mr. Thompson]], the [[President of the United States]], announced that he would deliver a "report on the world crisis" on November 22, on every radio and [[television]] station. On that night, Jim asked her to accompany him to the New York broadcasting station (probably [[Madison Square Garden]]) where Mr. Thompson was to deliver his speech. [[Eddie Willers]] accompanied her, and she noticed several Washington men present, including, oddly enough, [[Robert Stadler]].

Dagny announced her refusal to participate, but before anyone could say anything about compelling her to participate, the broadcast engineers announced that every frequency was suddenly jammed, and that Mr. Thompson could not get on the air. Mr. Thompson started threatening to fire everyone in sight, and then everyone present heard a man's voice:{{cquote|Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Thompson will not be speaking to you tonight. His time is up. I have taken it over....}}

Dagny recognized that voice immediately as that of John Galt. She noticed that Robert Stadler and Eddie Willers recognized that voice also. Robert Stadler she could understand, because Hugh Akston had told Dagny all about John Galt's former relationship with Stadler, and how it had soured when Stadler had endorsed the establishment of the [[State Science Institute]] that he supposedly headed. But why Eddie Willers should recognize John Galt's voice remained a mystery for now.

For three hours, John Galt explained, in a cold and implacable manner, who he was, why he had called the strike of the men of the mind, and a primer on philosophy. He gave no terms for negotiation. Instead he encouraged all his listeners to "stop supporting [their] own destroyers."

Dagny took that occasion, probably the last that she would ever have, to tell the Washington men to "give up and get out of the way." They would not listen, of course, but Robert Stadler communicated his own refusal in a tone that showed that he, unlike the overconfident politicians, was very badly frightened.

Dagny would never see or speak to Robert Stadler again. But Eddie Willers revealed to her that John Galt was the same man as a track walker with whom Eddie had shared lunch many times in the Terminal, and to whom he had given every move that Dagny had made. Now Dagny knew why so many men had quit after Dagny had started reaching out to them: John Galt had been spying on her all this time.

In the days that followed, even more people quit their jobs and vanished. From the fragmentary accounts that reached her, Dagny realized that most of those people had set up their own versions of Galt's Gulch, chiefly armed camps in nearby forests.

== The Arrest ==
Now Dagny made a major mistake. Using the personnel records, she traced John Galt to his walk-up apartment in New York. John received her, embraced her, and then told her that he fully expected to be arrested, because Dagny was almost certainly being shadowed. He then told her to pretend to be cooperating with the authorities, and that at the first sign of any threat against her, he would kill himself to make the threat moot.

The last thing he did before the authorities arrived was to show Dagny the small physics laboratory that he operated in the apartment. He could run such a laboratory because, with his electrostatic motor, he could provide his own electric power and draw exactly as much current from the municipal grid as anyone would expect&mdash;no more and no less. He also revealed that he had kept the news photograph of Dagny posing next to the locomotive that had made the opening run on the old John Galt Line, now long since closed.

When the authorities did arrive, they took him into custody and then tried to force their way into the laboratory, because he had closed and locked the door. Before they could get into the room, everything within it had dissolved to ashes. John Galt, determined never to let anyone take any part of his talent by force, had rigged his laboratory with a self-destruct mechanism.

== The Defection ==
Shortly after the arrest, Dagny heard from Francisco. He gave her the telephone number of a direct line that would reach him, and asked her to call him the moment she had reason to believe that John Galt was in danger of his life. (That Dagny really was the sole "agent on the ground" that Francisco had in [[New York City]] at the time is unlikely; more likely, Francisco offered Dagny this opportunity to participate as his spy as a means by which to complete her recruitment.)

Dagny would not see John Galt again until much later, when Mr. Thompson announced the inauguration of the "John Galt Plan for Peace and Prosperity." Dagny suspected that John Galt would never go along with such a plan, but she still attended the broadcast where the Plan would be announced. Sure enough, when John Galt's turn came to speak, he moved rapidly enough to reveal that someone was pointing a gun at him. Then he gripped the lectern with both hands and said, "Get...out of my way." Dagny covered her mouth to stop people from seeing that she was ready to laugh out loud. No one paid her any heed, though; they were too busy smashing and sweeping down the microphones and cameras.

Dagny remained at the Wayne-Falkland long enough to overhear the Washington men talk about their next plans. Most of these men wanted to do nothing but cry. Then Floyd Ferris proposed putting John Galt to torture at a secret installation of the State Science Institute. Mr. Thompson helplessly said, "I can't help it. Do whatever you want."

This was enough for Dagny, who managed to walk away unnoticed. She called Francisco and gave him all the intelligence she had. Then she went straight to her apartment and packed a bag, and then went to the Terminal to recover two pieces of jewelry that she would take with her: the bracelet of Rearden Metal that she had bought at that long-ago anniversary party, and a gold five-dollar piece that was part of her wages as a cook and maid in John Galt's house in Galt's Gulch.

While she was gathering these items, an employee rushed in to report that the [[Taggart Bridge]] over the [[Mississippi River]] had been destroyed in one second, apparently by a malfunction (or so the employee half understood) at [[Project X]]. As she had when she had heard about the [[Taggart Tunnel]] disaster, she thought first about taking command and perhaps commissioning some kind of ferry service across the Mississippi. But this time she forced herself to put down the telephone that she had snatched up almost by instinct, and declared that this time, even she did not know what to do.

As soon as she was left alone, she left the Terminal for the last time. She stopped briefly at the plinth of the statue of Nathaniel Taggart that commanded the courtyard. Using a lipstick, she drew a dollar sign at the foot of the statue in a final salute. Francisco d'Anconia met her there, and she raised her right hand and swore the oath that John Galt had written thirteen years before:{{cquote|I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.}}

== Epilog ==
Almost at once, Ragnar Danneskjold laid on a commando-style raid on the [[State Science Institute]] facility where John Galt was being held. At least half the male population of Galt's Gulch participated, along with Dagny, Henry Rearden, and Francisco d'Anconia. Dagny drew the first blood in that attack, which succeeded easily because the men who guarded that facility were not only incompetent but also afraid to decide even the simplest things. They found John Galt lashed to a mattress and connected to an electroshock generator that had, happily, broken down. John assured them all that he was unharmed, and that he had known all along that his torturers would never deliver a lethal shock. Hurriedly they unbound him, allowed him to dress, and took him to Francisco d'Anconia's aircraft, which Ragnar had landed nearby.

As they overflew the Eastern seaboard, Dagny gasped as she beheld it plunged into darkness. John told her sternly not to look down, but Dagny had already seen. The lights had gone out, and were not likely to come back on until the society was totally collapsed.

Dagny spent the winter in the Gulch, now as John Galt's wife; presumably they were married in a civil ceremony presided over by [[Judge Narragansett]], the original trial judge in the case of Hunsacker v. Mulligan. (He had joined the strike after being reversed on appeal in that matter.) But now Dagny built the railroad that she had said that she could build for Francisco d'Anconia's [[copper]] mine. Presumably she used rails of Rearden Metal, and ordered the first-ever electrostatic [[locomotive]]s from a company that John Galt could at last build.

In the following spring, John took Dagny on a hike to the lip of the ring of mountains around the valley. As they surveyed the now-desolate landscape, John Galt said,{{cquote|The road is cleared. We are going back to the world.}}
So saying, he traced a dollar sign in the air before them.
{{endspoiler}}

== Typology ==
Dagny is the true [[hero]]ine of the novel. At first she regards John Galt, or, as she knows him, "The Destroyer," as a [[Literary type#Villain|villain]]. But by the end of the story, she has re-evaluated all her notions of where her duty lies, and realizes that she cannot do the work she loves, and keep loving it, if she is not free to exist. Of course, her success does not come without cost: she must abandon the railroad system that her ancestor built and start practically from scratch.

In addition Dagny Taggart is [[Ayn Rand]]'s idealized version of herself. To be sure, Ayn Rand never did anything remotely similar to running a railroad. Nevertheless, Dagny Taggart is the woman that Ayn Rand herself wanted to be, just as [[John Galt]] and [[Henry Rearden]] are two versions of the ideal man whom Ayn Rand always wanted to fall in love with. Rand would later say that Dagny Taggart was herself without her tiredness or snappishness or other flaws. (Rand did not explicitly say this, but Dagny Taggart was also a trim-and-slim version of Rand.)

== Criticism ==
[[Nathaniel Branden]], in his essay "The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand," criticized Rand for creating such "over-the-top" characters as Dagny Taggart and John Galt&mdash;characters who, furthermore, never seem to speak to one another on a simple human level, apart from a slavish attention to the philosophical implication of every thought, word, and action. Among other faults, Branden noted that when Dagny discovers John Galt working as an unskilled laborer in the Terminal, the two of them have a brief tryst&mdash;and then immediately afterward, John Galt is talking like a philosopher again.{{cquote|I have reason to believe that Galt has a great many imitators around the country, and I also know that it is driving wives and girlfriends crazy!<ref name=branden>Branden N, "The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand," audio presentation, 1984. Transcript hosted at <http://www.nathanielbranden.com/catalog/articles_essays/benefits_and_hazards.html>.</ref>}}

[[Whittaker Chambers]], in his review of ''Atlas Shrugged'' published in ''[[National Review]]'', criticized Rand on a much simpler and perhaps not well thought-out ground: simply for creating in Dagny Taggart a character who was impossibly beautiful.<ref name=chambers>Chambers W, "Big Sister Is Watching You," ''National Review'', December 28, 1957. Hosted at National Review Online, published January 5, 2005. Accessed May 1, 2009.<http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback200501050715.asp></ref>

In her own defense, Rand often fell back on her understanding of what constituted good novelist's craft. This included creating characters that were somewhat larger than life. Rand complicated the matter by using the novel form to communicate her philosophical ideas. This, of course, results in a character who makes a three-hour speech and who talks like a philosopher even in an intimate moment, and another character who accepts such behavior. For that matter, it results in two characters who have an affair and take time to discuss all its moral and philosophical implications.

== References ==
{{reflist}}

{{nb Atlas}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taggart, Dagny}}
[[Category:Literary Figures]]

WHAT WOULD ZIZEK DO?

Strike

2009-06-09T00:24:47Z

LaxmanGurung: What would ZIZEK do?

To '''strike''' (''v.'') something is to hit it with force. A strike (''n.'') is the act or condition of being hit, such as an air-strike where a military target is hit with bombs or missiles from the air.

A '''strike''' may also be a workers' action to stop working until their demands are satisfied by their employer. The workers usually form picket lines to prevent replacement workers, whom they call "scabs" in order to insult them and make violence against them more palatable.

While most strikes are non violent and resolve themselves peacefully, a number of strikes have escalated to verbal and even physical attacks, requiring business owner to call police to protect the safety of workers and property

[[Labor union]]s frequently threaten to hold strikes as a way of bargaining with employers for special benefits for workers.

==See also==
* [[American Federation of Labor]]
* [[Samuel Gompers]]
[[category:Business]]
[[Category:Labor Unions]]

WHAT WOULD ZIZEK DO?

Atlas Shrugged

2009-06-09T00:24:21Z

LaxmanGurung: What would ZIZEK do?

[[Image:Ghfut674.jpg|right|175px]]

'''''Atlas Shrugged''''' is a [[novel]] by [[Ayn Rand]], first published in 1957 in the [[United States of America|United States]]. It was partially an allegory to promote the author's philosophy of [[Objectivism]], and initially intended to suggest that pure reason ought to be rated superior to emotion. The plot concerns the crumbling of the United States economy due to [[collectivism]] and [[altruism]], which Rand considered detrimental to society, and the identity of [[John Galt]], the mysterious protagonist of the story, a man whose name is spoken chiefly in slang.

== History and development ==
Ayn Rand would later say that she had in mind to write a novel on the theme of the tension between the mind and the heart, and the inherent superiority of reason to emotion.<ref name=history>"History of Atlas Shrugged," The Ayn Rand Institute, n.d. Accessed May 5, 2009. <http://atlasshrugged.com/book/history.html></ref> In 1943, while she was considering how she could develop this theme, she had a conversation with her friend Isobel Paterson.<ref name=BBranden>Branden B, ''The Passion of Ayn Rand'', ca. 1985</ref> Paterson suggested that Ayn Rand ought to write a non-fiction expository book on her philosophy, a thing that Rand did not wish to write. Paterson then said that her readers "needed" such a work. Rand became incensed at this mode of expression, and replied:{{cquote|Oh, they do? What if I went on strike? What if all the creative minds of the world went on strike? That would make a good novel.}}

Rand finished her conversation with Paterson. And then her husband, Frank O'Connor, who had been listening to her side of the conversation, said to her, "You know, it ''would'' make a good novel."<ref name=BBranden/>

This was only the beginning, of course, for now Rand turned her full attention to the thing that she would later describe as the novel's primary theme: ''the role of the mind in man's existence.'' She asked herself what would happen to any society if "the creative minds of the world went on [[strike]]," which is to say, withdrew their talents from the world.<ref name=history/> She then asked herself what would ''drive'' them to call such a strike. This process carried through to the development of all the various [[Literary type#Hero|heroes]], [[Literary type#Villain|villains]], and [[Literary type#Anti-villain|anti-villains]] in the story.

The Ayn Rand Institute suggests that the two heroes of the novel were [[Dagny Taggart]] and [[John Galt]].<ref name=history/> This is not actually in accord with literary convention. Dagny Taggart certainly is the novel's heroine, but the other hero is [[Henry Rearden]]. They are heroes precisely because each must make a life-altering re-evaluation and decision in order to serve the causes that motivate them, a thing that John Galt does not do.

John Galt is actually an anti-villain: one who pursues the cause of justice with the same single-mindedness of purpose with which a classical villain might pursue his own greed or an insane desire for vengeance. His major decision to call the great strike is a decision he makes ''before'', not during, the time frame of the novel's action.

{{spoiler}}

== Characters ==
* The [[Taggart Transcontinental Railroad]]
** '''[[James Taggart]]''', President
** '''[[Dagny Taggart]]''', his sister, Vice-President in Charge of Operations
*** Edward "Eddie" Willers, Miss Taggart's special assistant
** A track walker in the [[New York City]] terminal, unidentified until near the end
** Clifton Locey, a temporary VP-Operations
** David Mitchum, superintendent, Ohio Division
** William "Bill" Brent, a dispatcher
** Various conductors, brakemen, track walkers, etc.

* Rearden Steel
** '''[[Henry Rearden|Henry "Hank" Rearden]]''', founder and President
** Lillian Rearden, his wife
** Philip Rearden, his ne'er-do-well brother
** Henry Rearden's mother
** The Wet Nurse, aka "Non-Absolute," a government bureaucrat who has a change of heart and dies trying to protect Rearden from a staged riot at the mill

* Associated Steel
** [[Orren Boyle]], President

* [[Twentieth-Century Motor Company]]
** Gerald "Jed" Starnes, President (deceased)
** His children:
*** Gerald Starnes, Jr.
*** Eric Starnes
*** Ivy Starnes
** William Hastings, former chief design engineer (deceased)
** Jeff Allen, former shop foreman

* Amalgamated Labor of America
** [[Fred Kinnan]], President

* The United States government
** Executive Branch
*** [[Mr. Thompson]], [[President of the United States]]
*** [[Cuffy Meigs]], Director of Unification (Railroad Unification Plan)
*** Charles "Chick" Morrison, a senior administration official
*** "Tinky" Holloway, another senior administration official
** The [[United States Congress]]
*** Kip Chalmers, a Representative
**** Emma Chalmers, his mother, who conceives her own government program after her son dies
** Bureau of Economic Planning and Natural Resources
*** [[Wesley Mouch]], Senior Co-ordinator (formerly the Washington lobbyist for Rearden Steel)
** [[State Science Institute]]
*** [[Robert Stadler]], PhD, Director (formerly Chairman, Department of Physics, Patrick Henry University)
*** [[Floyd Ferris]], PhD, Associate Director

* Various "vanished" or "vanishing" persons:
** [[Hugh Akston]], PhD, former Chairman, Department of Philosophy, Patrick Henry University
** [[Kenneth Dannager]], President, Dannager Coal Company
** [[Richard Halley]], composer
** Lawrence Hammond, President, Hammond Car Company
** Owen Kellogg, former railroad executive in Dagny Taggart's department
** Kay Ludlow, a stage actress
** [[Midas Mulligan|Michael "Midas" Mulligan]], a banker
** [[Judge Narragansett]]
** Andrew Stockton, a foundry operator and maker of coal furnaces
** [[Ellis Wyatt]], President, Wyatt Oil Company
** [[Quentin Daniels]], an engineer who tries to reverse-engineer an electrostatic motor from a ruined prototype

* Two notorious men to watch:
** '''[[Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia]]''', current head of D'Anconia Copper SA of the Republic (later "People's State") of [[Argentina]], who has developed a reputation as a playboy
** '''[[Ragnar Danneskjold]]''', a [[privateer]], i.e. a "[[pirate]]."

* The man behind the apparent economic collapse and raft of "vanishings":
** '''[[John Galt]]''', known only by the appearance of his name in a question&mdash;"Who is John Galt?"&mdash;asked sometimes in cynicism, sometimes in fear.

== Plot ==
=== Non-contradiction ===
Dagny Taggart is an unusual woman. Though she is named after the wife of the founder of the Taggart Transcontinental Railroad (Nathanial Taggart, whose statue still stands in the New York Terminal), her brother once said that she reminded people more of Nat Taggart than of his wife&mdash;a comparison that she has always taken as a compliment. Her brother is the current president of the railroad, but Dagny, as Vice-President of Operations, is the one who keeps the trains running, and they both know it.

Henry Rearden is more than the head of the most successful steelmaker in America. He has invented a new [[alloy]] that, like [[steel]], contains [[iron]], but also contains [[copper]]. This metal is so much stronger (yet lighter) than steel that it actually has its own name: Rearden Metal.

But for all his success, Henry Rearden is unhappy at home. His wife does not begin to appreciate the significance of his work, and neither does anyone else in his immediate family.

Henry Rearden and Dagny Taggart meet when Dagny has embarked on a great project: to reclaim a railroad line that has fallen into shocking disrepair, and to lay rail made of the new Rearden Metal. While James Taggart prefers to use political lobbying to further the interests of the railroad, Dagny is determined to lay rail and make trains run the old-fashioned way. She and Rearden both face political obtacles&mdash;Dagny must overcome the rumors that Rearden Metal is not as claimed, and Henry Rearden finds his business hampered by legislation. But Dagny also faces another obstacle: nearly every good businessman to whom she sends a request-for-proposal suddenly quits business and vanishes, leaving no forwarding address or even any practical trace.

While this is happening, Dagny reduces service and moves rolling stock out of a line that extends into [[Mexico]], because she anticipates that the Mexican government, or "People's State," will [[nationalization|nationalize]] it. As she predicted, Mexico does nationalize the line, and the [[copper]] mines that it was intended to serve&mdash;but then the Mexicans discover that they have nationalized a worthless mine. What shocks Dagny more is that the mines were a project of an old childhood friend of hers: [[Francisco d'Anconia]], head of D'Anconia Copper SA of [[Argentina]]. Dagny goes to see Francisco and demand an explanation. He offers none beyond this cryptic clue: that "contradictions do not exist," and that if she finds his behavior strange, she should "check [her] premises."

Despite all the obstacles, Dagny and Henry complete their project, and together they ride in the first locomotive to make a run on the new line (which also contains a new bridge made entirely of Rearden Metal). After that, they begin an often tempestuous romance.

Shortly after that, they drive together to a deserted factory town in [[Wisconsin]], to see a factory that had once had a branch line from Taggart Transcontinental, until Dagny had ordered it discontinued. There Dagny finds the remains of a prototype of an [[John Galt#The electrostatic motor|electrostatic motor]], one that runs on static electricity from the atmosphere. Together Dagny and Rearden try to track down the engineer who built this motor, but no one seems to remember anything about the motor. They remember much, however, about the Twentieth Century Motor Company and its decline. Dagny interviews several people, including two of the surviving children of Gerald "Jed" Starnes, the founder of the Twentieth Century, and Hugh Akston, once a philosophy professor and now a short-order cook.

Then Congress passes a set of new laws that will make doing business next to impossible for some of the customers on the refurbished railroad line. Those laws prompt most of those companies to join the ever-swelling ranks of businessmen who have quit and vanished. One of them&mdash;Ellis Wyatt, who extracts oil from shale in the mountains of [[Colorado]]&mdash;not only quits and vanishes, but also burns his oil fields and leaves a sign on the border of his property:{{cquote|I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours.}}

The fire that he lights, thereafter known as Wyatt's Torch, will not be extinguished until long after the action in the novel is finished.

=== Either-or ===
The United States government is doing more than pass bad laws. [[Robert Stadler]], director of the [[State Science Institute]], tries to call his associate director on the carpet with regard to a book that tells its readers that they ought to stop thinking or even believe that they are thinking. Stadler also wants to know about a mysterious "[[Project X]]" that has a large budget but no apparent accountability. The associate refuses to answer, and one gathers very quickly that Dr. Stadler is a mere figurehead, chosen for his reputation, and that Dr. [[Floyd Ferris]], the nominal associate, is the real director.

Meanwhile, Dagny and Rearden each continue as best as he or she can. Rearden must accept a low-level bureaucrat, or "Deputy Director for Distribution," to ensure that he never delivers more than anyone's "fair share" of Rearden Metal to any one customer&mdash;except those who can wangle special exceptions from Washington. The workers at the plant call this man the Wet Nurse; Rearden takes to calling him Non-Absolute because his favorite thing to say seems to be that "there are no absolutes." Dagny, for her part, hires a consulting engineer, one Quentin Daniels, to attempt to reverse-engineer the mysterious electrostatic motor that she discovered at the Twentieth Century plant. Ironically, Daniels comes recommended by Robert Stadler, though Stadler said that a mind that could produce a working electrostatic motor belonged in "pure," that is to say abstract, research and not on something as "mundane" as motors.

Politics aside, Dagny is now convinced that some person or persons unknown is/are deliberately destroying the American economy by encouraging its most talented movers to quit and vanish. When [[Ken Dannager]] abruptly retires from the [[coal]] business, after being indicted for exceeding his "fair share" of Rearden Metal, he lets slip that he had had a visitor who was that very "destroyer." Dannager gives her one clue: that his visitor had told him that he had a right to exist. He also predicts that Dagny will someday join him.

Rearden goes to trial for his part in the fair-share violation. He defiantly tells the court that he will not honor the proceedings, nor recognize the court's authority. The court imposes a $5000 fine and then suspends the sentence, a spectacle that provokes laughter among the spectators.

The political situation continues to worsen. The apparent culmination is [[Directive 10-289]], an attempt to "freeze" the economy in place and forbid people to quit or change their jobs. In response, Dagny announces her resignation and retires to a summer home in the Berkshire Mountains. Francisco d'Anconia visits her there. And now he reveals that the "playboy" persona that he has cultivated over the last twelve years has been a careful disguise for his real activity: to destroy his old family firm, so that when the Argentine government nationalizes it, as he predicts that they inevitably will, they will have nothing to work with.

Their conversation is interrupted by a shocking report: a catastrophic explosion involving the Taggart Comet (the premiere coast-to-coast express) and a special ammunition train has collapsed the eight-mile [[Taggart Tunnel]] through the Rocky Mountains. Against Francisco d'Anconia's fervent protests, Dagny returns to work.

Dagny Taggart is not Francisco d'Anconia's only target. He has been trying to cultivate a relationship with Henry Rearden, not knowing that he and Rearden are in essence pursuing the same woman, i.e. Dagny. When the two men discover their mutual interest in her, Rearden strikes d'Anconia, but d'Anconia refuses to strike back. In fact, d'Anconia's interest in Rearden is far more important than any such consideration: he is trying to induce Rearden to quit his business and vanish, by reminding Rearden that he is no longer his own master and is serving the interests of those who must ultimately destroy him.

Rearden has his own crisis with Directive 10-289. Among its provisions is one that sets aside all intellectual property law and forces everyone to release all inventions, writings, etc. into the [[public domain]]. Rearden is forced to release Rearden Metal into the public domain by a threat of blackmail in connection with the driving trip that he and Dagny took to Wisconsin. But the first company to attempt to make Rearden Metal without Rearden's help (Orren Boyle's Associated Steel company) has its blast furnaces shelled to bits by long-range naval guns, after a voice identifying itself as that of Ragnar Danneskjold warns all the workers to evacuate. Ragnar Danneskjold is now the most notorious pirate of the high seas, seizing "humanitarian" cargoes and destroying other cargoes, i.e. the copper cargoes of D'Anconia Copper. As Rearden walks home one evening, brooding on his political reverses, Ragnar Danneskjold actually confronts him on the road and hands him an ingot of [[gold]], which he describes as "a small payment on a very large debt" which is "the money that was taken from you by force."

Shortly afterward, Dagny Taggart travels westward in her private railcar, attached to the Taggart Comet which must now cross a new line through a previously abandoned mountain pass. She is trying to reach Quentin Daniels, because his last communication indicated that he might be ripe for quitting and vanishing. When a conductor finds a stowaway (Jeff Allen) on board, Dagny abruptly invites him to stay with her. She learns that he was once a skilled lathe operator who once worked for twenty years at the Twentieth Century Motor Company, until "the owner of the plant died, and the heirs that took it over, ran it into the ground." From him she obtains a description of the way the heirs destroyed the company: by introducing an explicitly [[Karl Marx|Marxian]] system of compensation, or "distribution of alms." Then he provides the first clue she has had in a long time to the raft of vanishings of gifted individuals: that on the day of the inauguration of that plan, a young engineer had stood up and announced his intention to "stop the motor of the world." The engineer's name was John Galt&mdash;a name she is used to hearing as a slang phrase, but a name that for the first time she realizes belongs to a real person.

That night the train stops. It has become a "frozen train," whose conductor, trainmen, and crew have simply stopped and abandoned. Dagny appoints the former lathe operator to take charge of the restive passengers while she walks forward to try to get another crew out to move the train. Then she travels on her own, eventually renting a private plane to continue her search for Quentin Daniels.

When she discovers that Quentin Daniels has climbed into another aircraft that has only recently taken off, Dagny takes off in pursuit. As she follows the fleeing craft, that craft suddenly vanishes into thin air over a valley that looks entirely rocky. Not believing that a plane could simply disappear, she starts to descend. Then a bright flash of light blinds her, and when she recovers her eyesight, she realizes that her plane's engine has stopped and that she is almost in free fall. Defiant to the end, she fights to regain some semblance of control before she crashes.

=== A is A ===
The first person she sees on awakening is the face of a smiling man, a man of commanding presence. He shocks her by telling her his name: John Galt. Gently he picks her up from the green grass onto which she has fallen, and she barely perceives the wreck of her plane (badly damaged, but still reparable) before he carries her into the center of a town bustling with activity. She is surprised to see several men whom she knows from her list of the "vanished ones," including Michael "Midas" Mulligan, famous for vanishing and orchestrating a "controlled run" on his own bank. Those men speak to Mr. Galt in a curious code, using the word ''[[scab]]'' to describe her.

She is also told the secret of the seclusion of the valley: a screen of "refractor rays" that create a mirror in the sky for any passing aircraft, at an altitude of 8700 feet (700 feet above the altitude of the valley). Dagny Taggart is the first pilot brave (or foolhardy) enough to descend to that altitude, and the rays destroyed the electronic systems and shut down the aircraft's motor, causing the crash.

John Galt takes her to his house, and gives her a room he describes as "the room I never meant for you to occupy." The wall of that room is filled with short messages of encouragement, signed by the vanished ones, including Ellis Wyatt, Ken Danneger, and others. Later that evening, [[Francisco d'Anconia]] comes calling on her, and that only deepens the mystery.

She receives an even greater shock the next day when the notorious [[Ragnar Danneskjold]] comes calling and describes the true intent of his privateering activities: to seize government "humanitarian" cargoes, sell the goods for gold, deposit the gold with Midas Mulligan's bank, and have the gold credited to various accounts in the names of the vanished ones and of prospects like Dagny herself, and Henry Rearden. Simply put, Danneskjold proposes to refund all income taxes paid by the vanished ones over the previous twelve years&mdash;the length of time that people have been vanishing.

She remains in the secluded town&mdash;a town known as "Mulligan's Valley" to Galt and "[[Galt's Gulch]]" to every other inhabitant&mdash;for a month, working as Galt's cook and housemaid in order to earn her room and board. During that time she observes a copper mine that Francisco has started in the side of one of the mountains. She at first proposes to build a railroad to carry the copper to the valley, but then despairs of laying such a short line and "abandon[ing] a transcontinental system." At the end of a month, she is not prepared to give up that system, and John Galt reluctantly takes her out of the valley and leaves her at the nearest airport.

When she returns, she finds that [[James Taggart]] has brokered a cynical deal called the "Railroad Unification Plan," under which all the railroads "pool" their resources and receive revenue according to the track they own (productive or not). She comments drily that that situation cannot last, but throws herself into the apparent mystery of frequent train wrecks.

One event that she has not witnessed is the actual demonstration of "[[Project X]]," which turns out to be a sonic weapon that can flatten any desired target within a very long range. [[Robert Stadler]] does attend the demonstration, and [[Floyd Ferris]] actually hands him a speech to deliver on that occasion.

Dagny is asked to speak at a special radio show to celebrate the "generosity" shown by Rearden when he signed the release of Rearden Metal into the public domain. (Signature or no, no one else dares attempt to make Rearden Metal without Rearden, for fear that Ragnar Danneskjold will blow up their furnaces as he did Orren Boyle's furnaces.) Dagny shocks her audience and the engineers by telling them the real reason for Rearden's action: that she had been his mistress, and that the governmental authorities had used that fact as blackmail. Rearden, noting her use of the pluperfect tense, acknowledges that he has lost her affections to another man, and is astonished to find that that other man is the mysterious John Galt.

Toward the end of summer, the Argentine government announces its intention to nationalize the D'Anconia Copper company. The legislative session for passing the nationalization act is set for September 2. But as the speaker of the Argentine parliament strikes his gavel, an explosion destroys the D'Anconia docks. The Argentines later find that they have nationalized a pile of junk, because Francisco d'Anconia blew everything up on the last second that he actually owned it. To boast of his act, Francisco alters the message on the scrolling calendar display in New York City, to read:{{cquote|Brother, you asked for it!}} That message is signed by all his names in full.

A month later, the government attempt to persuade Rearden to sign on to the Steel Unification Plan, similar to the Railroad Unification Plan. Rearden refuses and returns to his mills. There he finds a riot in progress, and a dying man tells him that the riot is staged and is being carried out by infiltrators who were never really Rearden's employees. Rearden's regular workers, led by the recently hired furnace foreman, beat back the rioters and stop some of them from killing Rearden. The furnace forman is in fact Francisco d'Anconia, who now persuades Rearden to quit business. When he quits, several other regulars quit with him.

Dagny is then asked to participate in another radio program in which President Thompson will deliver "a report on the world crisis." But when the appointed hour falls, the government engineers have lost control of the airwaves and are off the air.

Then a voice begins to speak:{{cquote|Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Thompson will not be speaking to you tonight. His time is up. I have taken it over. You were to hear a report on the world crisis. That is exactly what you are going to hear.}}
Three people recognize the voice at once: Dagny, Dr. Robert Stadler, and Dagny's assistant, Edward "Eddie" Willers. The voice in fact belongs to John Galt, and identifies itself as such. But Robert Stadler remembers John Galt as one of three students who once majored both in physics and philosophy at his old university&mdash;and the other two were Francisco d'Anconia and Ragnar Danneskjold. Eddie Willers remembers the voice as belonging to an anonymous track walker whom he used to tell his troubles to over lunch in the Terminal. What becomes clear now is that John Galt was spying on Dagny Taggart for twelve years, and sometimes when Eddie Willers would foolishly drop a name to Galt (whom he never identified until this occasion), the owner of that name would "vanish."

For three hours, John Galt expounds on his actions: that he and the vanished ones are "on strike" and will settle for nothing less than a system in which the government never interferes with anyone.

Dagny then does a foolish thing: she tracks down John Galt to his apartment in New York. The federal authorities have her watched, and thus are able to arrest John Galt. For about a week they attempt to persuade John Galt to become the "Economic Dictator" of the country, but he refuses, after demonstrating that no person in any such position could possibly make the broken-down system work. Nevertheless the authorities insist on announcing the "John Galt Plan for renewed prosperity" and even try to have Galt address the nation&mdash;at the point of a gun. In reply, Galt waits until the last second, and then says, {{cquote|Get...out of my way.}}

Robert Stadler has known all along that Galt would never cooperate, so he rushes to the site of [[Project X]], intending to seize control of it for himself. But another government operative named Cuffy Meigs has beaten him to it. The two men then struggle over the controls of the so-called Xylophone, and when Meigs pulls one lever too many, the weapon destroys the complex and everything within a hundred miles, including the one remaining railroad bridge across the [[Mississippi River]].

Dagny watches as Galt is led away, and is now determined to quit the world herself, before anyone suspects her true feelings for Galt. She packs very light, and receives with indifference the report that the Taggart Bridge has been destroyed by sound rays from Project X and that the two halves of the country are now cut off. She leaves her headquarters for the last time and meets Francisco d'Anconia, to whom she finally swears the oath that John Galt wrote twelve years before:{{cquote|I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.}}

In the final scenes, Floyd Ferris, Wesley Mouch (Coordinator of Economic Planning and Natural Resources), and James Taggart take Galt to the secret laboratory of the State Science Institute and try to torture Galt into cooperating. When the torture machine malfunctions and only John Galt knows how to repair it, the technician flees the scene, Wesley Mouch loses his nerve, and James Taggart goes insane with the realization that all he has ever wanted to do was to make better men than he suffer. Shortly afterward, Dagny, Francisco, Hank Rearden, and Ragnar all descend on the secret laboratory, kill most of its personnel, and rescue Galt. As the rescue plane heads west, the entire eastern seaboard is plunged into darkness.

Eddie Willers, who has traveled westward to negotiate a settlement with a radical faction who has seized power in California and imposed a "departure tax" on trains, is aboard the Comet when it breaks down for the last time. No one is able to start the train again, and Eddie finds himself left alone with the abandoned train as a wagon train takes all the passengers and crew off.

Eventually, the people of Mulligan's Valley realize that the American economy, the last of the world's economies, has collapsed totally and that the federal government essentially has nothing to govern anymore. John Galt declares that "the road is clear" and that his people will emerge from their valley and rebuild the economy on their own terms.
{{endspoiler}}

== Historical parallels ==
* When [[Richard Nixon]] began his "four-phase program" of economic controls, beginning with his ninety-day wage-and-price freeze, Miss Rand commented tartly that she had anticipated that very sort of program in her work.
* Miss Rand chose November 22 for the date of the "report on the world crisis." On that very date, six years after the publication of the novel, [[Lee Harvey Oswald]] shot and killed [[John F. Kennedy]].
* When the [[Northeast Blackout of 1965]] occurred, many students of Objectivism remembered tuning in their radios and half expecting someone to say, "This is John Galt speaking...."

==Time setting==
The novel gives no clue to its setting in time. Current plans for the film adaptation (see below) call for it to be set during the middle of the 1920s.<ref name=imdb>"Entry for ''Atlas Shrugged''," Internet Movie Database, accessed April 21, 2009. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/></ref>

The novel provides these clues to deciding what were the most likely years during which the action takes place:

# The novel depicts the first use of [[Diesel]]-electric [[locomotive]]s in [[railroad]]ing. This is the clue that the International Movie Database mentions.<ref name=imdb/>
# Railroads are the primary mode of overland transport.
# [[Airline]] service is still a projected service of the novel's future, and [[monoplane]]s are something new.
# [[Telephone]] service was well-established in this era, but had not achieved universal penetration. In one key scene, a low-level foreman complains to Dagny Taggart that most of the men whom she orders him to contact do not have telephone service where they live.
# [[Radio]] was the ubiquitous mass medium of the day. [[Television]] was something new and exotic, and had not achieved anything remotely approaching universal penetration. If this seems an anachronism, it was not: some inventors had actually experimented with television prior to the [[Great Depression]], but obviously could not sell something as new and expensive as television when the country was, quite simply, "broke."
# [[Telegraph]]y, being much cheaper than full-duplex long-distance telephony, was still a prominent method of communication.
# The [[United States Navy]] is definitely not the powerful presence on the high seas that it is today, because the combined forces of the Navy are powerless to stop a single [[privateer]] from hijacking every government-ordered relief cargo sent to various "People's States."
# Every nation in the world, except the United States of America, is called "People's State of" whatever.
# The great "strike of the men of the mind" begins with a single engineer at a plant whose new owners abruptly decide to manage it according to the principles, such as they are, set forth in [[The Communist Manifesto]].
# The government develops a [[weapon of mass destruction]] ("[[Project X]]", "Project Xylophone", "The Thompson Harmonizer"), intended to assert its authority by main force. This weapon is not nuclear, nor chemical, nor biological, but apparently is ultrasonic in nature.
# No such thing as [[gun control]] exists, or if it is attempted, it fails. The spontaneous strikers who take their inspiration from John Galt's speech set up armed camps in various forest regions.

The most likely span of the years of the great strike is 1917-1929, with the novel's major action taking place in the last three years of this period. This novel, then, qualifies as an [[alternate history]] of the United States of America, and of the civilized world. In this version of history, the United States did not intervene in the War of the Reds and the Whites in [[Russia]], and probably did not participate in the [[First World War]]. That War probably ended with every country on earth, except America, becoming a [[Communist]] state. In addition, [[prohibition]] cannot have occurred, because [[alcoholic drinks]] flow freely in many settings.

Politically, the United States would have been in the hands of the proponents of [[Progressivism]], which was in fact a potent-enough force in the election of 1912 to field a [[third party]] candidate for President ([[Theodore Roosevelt]]) who actually out-polled the losing major-party candidate in that race, [[William Howard Taft]]. In this version, perhaps, [[Woodrow Wilson]] does not have his stroke, or if he does, the [[Republican Party]] does not succeed in having a man as President for more than a single term, and their un-named incumbent loses to [[Mr. Thompson]], who is still serving as President when the "looters' system" fails. (Mr. Thompson does not appear to be a parody of [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] or any other known American political or other historical figure; he is merely a type and in fact is described as almost deliberately nondescript.)

[[Tax]]ation during this period consisted primarily of the [[income tax]], which in actual fact had recently been ratified as a valid [[Constitution of the United States|Constitutional]] option. Though the confiscatory (up to 94%) tax rates of the Great Depression era would await the administration of [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], they could easily have been enacted into law earlier, during the hypothetical Thompson administration. Many other taxes, some of them completely ''ad hoc'', are applied at one time or another in the course of the novel.

==Criticism==
: ''Main Article: [[Atlas Shrugged (criticism)]]''
''Atlas Shrugged'' has never been a critical favorite. Indeed, [[Barbara Branden]], as quoted by Harold Leiendecker,<ref name=Leiendecker>Leiendecker H, "Atlas Shrugged," ASPEC Writers' Workshop, n.d. Accessed May 5, 2009. <http://www.eckerd.edu/aspec/writers/atlas_shrugged.htm></ref> summed up the criticism thus:{{cquote|The reviews of ''[[We the Living]]'' had been bad. The reviews of ''[[The Fountainhead]]'' has been worse. The reviews of ''Atlas Shrugged'' were savage.}}

Not all the reviews were savage, but most of them were. Even some [[conservative]] reviewers spoke scathingly of it. The most infamous of these reviews came from [[Whittaker Chambers]], who said of the novel in ''[[National Review]]'' that every page screams, "To a gas chamber&mdash;go!"<ref name=chambers>Chambers W, "Big Sister Is Watching You," ''National Review'', December 28, 1957. Hosted at National Review Online, published January 5, 2005. Accessed May 1, 2009. <http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback200501050715.asp></ref> [[Nathaniel Branden]] said of it, among other things, that it taught emotional repression as a virtue.<ref name=branden>Branden N, "The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand," audio presentation, 1984. Transcript hosted at <http://www.nathanielbranden.com/catalog/articles_essays/benefits_and_hazards.html>.</ref>

Leiendecker, however, reminds us that many of the nefarious laws and "directives" that the novel mentions have in fact come to pass. His chief criticism was that the dialog (and in [[John Galt]]'s memorable case, monolog) of the heroes and anti-villains of the work often sounds "stilted," while the words of the villains ring true to their respective real-life anti-types.<ref name=Leiendecker/>

As might be expected, the [[Roman Catholic Church]] and its various organs found fault with the explicit [[atheism]] of the novel, and especially John Galt's specific rejection of the notion of original sin, and Francisco d'Anconia's statement that a rational man does not "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's," because "he permits no Caesars."<ref name=history/>

==Film Adaptation==
Almost since the initial publication of the novel, the most avid followers of Ayn Rand, who called themselves "students of Objectivism," have wished to see the novel adapted as a [[motion picture]]. To date only one of Ayn Rand's novels has been adapted for film: ''[[The Fountainhead]]''. Ayn Rand herself wrote the screenplay for that film, in which [[Gary Cooper]] portrayed the leading protagonist, Howard Roark.

The major difficulties with adapting ''Atlas Shrugged'' to film were twofold. One, the story was simply too long for any one film to do it justice. Two, [[Hollywood values]] were already beginning to diverge from American values, and the prospect of a film that would be remotely faithful, either to the novel or to Ayn Rand's original motivation for writing it, always seemed rather remote.

Yet different producers have attempted a film adaptation for a long time. At one point, according to the trade paper ''Variety'', Alfred S. Ruddy attempted for several years to do his own adaptation. Among the names of actors and actresses that were mentioned in connection with Ruddy's efforts were those of [[Clint Eastwood]], [[Robert Redford]], and [[Faye Dunaway]].<ref name=imdb/>

Now an independent film company, Baldwin Entertainment, is now trying to produce an adaptation, currently rumored to release in 2011.<ref name=imdb/> Writer Randall Wallace has been hired to write the script. For years, persistent rumor had it that [[Angelina Jolie]] would appear as Dagny Taggart, but today multiple actresses' names are in circulation, including [[Charlize Theron]], [[Julia Roberts]], and [[Anne Hathaway]]&mdash;though some fans of the novel insist that [[Cate Blanchett]] would be the best actress to interpret that role. Karen Baldwin, the head of Baldwin Entertainment, is quoted as saying that the novel is more timely than ever, though she would not elaborate on the reasons for that assessment. Current budget estimates run as high as $50 million US.<ref name=brevet>Brevet, Brad, "Will Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’ Finally See the Big Screen? And Who Will Star?", RopeofSilicon.com, 1 April 2009. Accessed 21 April 2009. <http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/will-ayn-rands-atlas-shrugged-finally-see-the-big-screen-and-who-will-star></ref><ref name=risky>Zeitchik, Steven. "With 'Atlas Shrugged,' Hollywood may have its first anti-bailout movie." ''The Hollywood Reporter'', April 1, 2009. Accessed April 26, 2009. <http://www.riskybusinessblog.com/2009/03/with-atlas-shrugged-hollywood-may-have-its-first-antibailout-movie.html></ref>

As might be expected, several minor characters in the novel will not appear. They include Robert Stadler, the nominal head of the State Science Institute, and Cheryl Taggart, an impressionable young woman who marries James Taggart and then commits suicide on the strength of her realization of what sort of man she married.<ref name=imdb/>

==Recent popular mention==
[[File:AtlasshrugsatMorristown.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Protest sign at [[TEA Party]], Morristown, [[New Jersey]], April 15, 2009]]
In the context of the massive taxation and spending policies proposed by [[President of the United States|President]] [[Barack Obama]] and the [[United States Congress]], ''Atlas Shrugged'' has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. Activists have mentioned the name of the novel, and of its primary [[Literary type#anti-villain|anti-villain]], in commentaries and on placards. Many [[liberal]] commentators in fact have asked scathingly whether certain persons allegedly threatening to "go Galt" mean what they say, and from the tone of their remarks, they seem quite prepared to bid such people "good riddance."

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://atlasshrugged.com/ Atlas Shrugged] Official site designed and published by [http://aynrand.org/ The Ayn Rand Institute]
* [http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/atlasshrugged/ Atlas Shrugged] Student's notes by SparkNotes.
* [http://www.atlasthefilm.com/ Atlas Shrugged Movie News] Clearinghouse of fact and rumor concerning a planned motion-picture adaptation of the novel.

{{nb Atlas}}
[[category:Novels]]

WHAT WOULD ZIZEK DO?

Novel

2009-06-09T00:24:03Z

LaxmanGurung: What would ZIZEK do?

A '''novel''' is a long, fictional [[book]], almost always divided into smaller units, or chapters.

A very short novel is sometimes called a Novella.

[[category:literature]]

WHAT WOULD ZIZEK DO?

Ayn Rand

2009-06-09T00:23:57Z

LaxmanGurung: What would ZIZEK do?

[[Image:Jhyu65.jpg|right|thumb]]
'''Ayn Rand''' ("Ayn" rhymes with "mine"), born '''Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum''' (1905-1982) was a [[Russian]]-born [[philosopher]], screenwriter, and novelist, who began her career in Hollywood. She used her novels to promote her philosophy, known as [[Objectivism]]. Her best-known novels are [[Atlas_Shrugged|''Atlas Shrugged'']] and ''[[The Fountainhead]]''.
==Her views==
{{Main|Objectivism}}

Ayn Rand attracted a following based on her opposition to [[collectivism]], as articulated in her novels, particularly ''Atlas Shrugged''. Her followers today tend to be [[libertarians]] and predominantly unmarried men, many of whom are drawn to a self-indulgent lifestyle consistent with Rand's philosophy. Rand often called herself a "radical for capitalism," by which she meant the pure, ''laissez-faire'' variety.

Rand's philosophy was anti-Christian to the point of even declaring that "faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason."<ref>http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_topic_religion</ref> The movement she founded supports an "absolute right" to [[abortion]] at any time during pregnancy,<ref>http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5105</ref> including partial-birth abortion.

Ayn Rand's philosophy and followers also support a "right" to have same-sex marriage, and opposed California's [[Proposition 8]] defining marriage as between one man and woman.<ref>http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=21821</ref>

Rand had very little in common with [[conservatives]] except for a mutual opposition to communism and socialism. Rand was an [[atheism|atheist]] and opponent of traditional [[family]] values, who personally adhered more to [[Hollywood Values]] than conservative ones.<ref>http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/bio/biofaq.html</ref> She was a strident opponent of altruism.

==Quotes==
"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: The stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission – which is the stage of the darkest periods of [[human]] history, the stage of rule by brute force."<ref>http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45735 WorldNetDaily.com Should Democratic Party merge with Communist Party?, August 12, 2005</ref>

==Books Written==
*''We the Living''
*''[[Anthem (book)|Anthem]]''
*''The Fountainhead''
*''Atlas Shrugged''
*''Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal''
*''The Romantic Manifesto''
*''The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution''
*''[[The Virtue of Selfishness]]''

==References==
Doherthy, Brian. 'Radicals for Capitalism a Freewheeling History of the Modern Libertarian Movement.' New York: Public Affairs, 2007.
<references/>

==External Links==
*[http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer Ayn Rand Institute]
*[http://www.ARIwatch.com ARI Watch] — argues that the above misrepresents Ayn Rand.
*[http://www.ios.org/ The Atlas Society — home of The Objectivist Center]
*[http://wiki.objectivismonline.net/wiki/Main_Page Objectivism Wiki]
* [http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDY2MzRhNmNmNWM1Njg0N2ZhMjFhMGZhNzY1NDM5MzU=&w=MA== Going Galt: Ayn Rand’s books are booming — but what about her ideas? A ''National Review'' (NRO) Symposium with comments by leading conservative scholars, most of whom consider Rand's books childish]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rand, Ayn}}

[[Category:Women Authors]]
[[Category:Atheists]]
[[Category:Libertarianism]]
[[Category:Conservatives]]

WHAT WOULD ZIZEK DO?