'''John Galt''' (born 1980) 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.
John Galt resembles Henry Galt, the main character in a 1922 novel by a [[Garet Garett]] (1878–1954), a leading conservative economics writer of the day. It tells the story of a Wall Street financier, Henry Galt, a shadowy figure who stays out of the limelight as much as possible until he unleashes a plan that had been years in the making: he uses his extraordinary entrepreneurial talent to acquire control of a failing railroad.<ref> See [http://books.google.com/books?id=SoqU_RBwhNIC&dq=intitle:driver+inauthor:garrett&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&num=30&as_brr=0&source=gbs_navlinks_s ''The Driver'' (1922) online]; [ Jeffrey A. Tucker, "Who Is Garet Garrett?," [http://mises.org/story/2751 ''Mises Daily'' 10/25/2007]
]</ref>
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== Back story ==
John Galt was born in 19191980, in Ohio, in a nondescript town that [[Hugh AkstonOhio]] described as a "crossroads." His father was an automobile mechanic who worked at one of The novel does not give his birthdate. But given his future activities, the first automobile "service stationsmost appropriate date for someone like him to be born on would be [[Independence Day]]."
His birthplace was a nondescript town that [[Hugh Akston]] described as a "crossroads." His father was an automobile mechanic who worked at one of the first automobile "service stations." At the age of twelve he left home "to make his own way." How he came to the [[Patrick Henry]] University (not to be confused with the actual [[Patrick Henry College]] set up by [[Jerry Falwell]]), Akston does not tell, but Akston describes him as "out of nowhere, penniless, parentless, tie-less." 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 Sebastián 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 DanneskjoldDanneskjöld]], a [[Norway|Norwegian]] aristocrat. The three, remarkably, were sixteen years old.
Remarkably, ''all three'' pursued the double major in physics and philosophy. The three men also became fast friends.
The chairmen of the two departments they had chosen to major in—[[Robert Stadler]] of the physics department and Akston of the philosophy department—recognized at once the brilliance of these three students. Akston knew this when the three walked into a postgraduate philosophy course, and Galt asked a pointed question about Plato's metaphysical system that Akston would not have expected even one of his scholarly colleagues to be able to answer. Stadler and Akston allowed the three to pursue the double major, and suspended a number of rules that normally would have prohibited such a curriculum—but they gave the students to understand that they would have to work for it. Work they did, and graduated with distinction in both subjects.
In addition to his coursework, John Galt had to work to pay the tuition. He worked at a roundhouse in the [[Cleveland]] rail yard. (Whether this yard belonged to the [[Taggart Transcontinental Railroad]] is only an inference, based on the likely route for the TTRR's transcontinental traffic at the time.)
Not a man among the three suspected how closely they would be working together after they graduated.
John Galt stayed on at PHU after graduation, to begin postgraduate training under Stadler's advice. In two years he had his Master of Science degree, and he began working on his PhD. But in 2004, Stadler endorsed the establishment of a [[State Science Institute]]. Appalled, Galt asked for and got an appointment with Stadler in his office. Galt began at once to tell Stadler that he was making a very serious mistake, that "abstract" and "applied" science should never split, and that under no circumstances should the government fund scientific work. To his surprise and immense disappointment, Stadler was having none of this. The meeting turned more acrimonious with every passing minute, and finally Galt left the office. He also left PHU, never to return. Stadler's rejection of his advice was something that Galt would never forget or "get over." It was also something that he would never understand, not even later, when Stadler would try to explain himself to him. (See below.)
== Stop the motor ==
John Galt took his degree and signed on as a junior engineer with the Twentieth Century Motor Company, in 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 In 2007 he actually completed a prototypical electrostatic motor and prepared to demonstrate it to his employer, Gerald "Jed" Starnes. His boss, [[William Hastings]], would later provide the temporal clue to [[Dagny Taggart]] that Galt was twenty-six years old when he built his prototype.
Then disaster struck. Gerald Starnes died, and his three children—two brothers, Gerald Jr. and Eric, and their sister Ivy—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 first recruits ==
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 DanneskjoldDanneskjöld. He summoned them to his garret-like walk-up apartment in the run-down brownstone he had found. He told them the situation and his plan. Then he gestured out the window, toward the lights of New York. "When you see those lights go out," said Galt, "then you will know that our job is done."
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 Danneskjöld 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. In fact, Galt worried himself sick over Danneskjold Danneskjöld every year. But John Galt did not actively oppose him, either—for if anything, Ragnar Danneskjold Danneskjöld was an even more competent philosopher than Galt was.(Ragnar's seven years of graduate training in philosophy saw to this.)
Francisco gave Galt his answer on the morning of the day after their conversation. Ragnar gave his own answer a few hours later.
Ragnar did accompany John back to Cleveland. John asked him to, because he wanted Ragnar's help in recruiting Hugh Akston into the strike. Dr. Akston joined after one evening of conversation.
== Life in New York ==
He took all his meals in the underground cafeteria in the Taggart Building. Not long after that, he noticed a junior executive taking his meals in the same place. He didn't take long to cultivate that executive as a friend. His name, of course, was [[Eddie Willers]].
Two years into his strike, he saw recruited the manager of the Taggart Terminal into his strike. One week later, the replacement for that manager made some careless errors that snarled the traffic in and out of the terminal. [[Dagny Taggart]] came to the terminal, dressed in evening clothes, to straighten out the mess. And that is when John Galt saw her for the first time. He fell hard in love with her, and from that day forward would pump Eddie Willers for information whenever he saw him. He would maintain that contact until June of the last year of the strike2019—the last "vacation month." Every year in June, Galt would meet somewhere with Francisco, Ragnar, and all their recruits. He labored for a year to persuade [[William Hastings]], his former immediate superior at the [[Twentieth Century Motor Company]] to join the strike. Hastings joined in the springtime of 2008, the second year of the strike. Next he recruited a [[composer]] named [[Richard Halley]]. He joined about a month after Hastings joined. (He did not try to recruit [[Robert Stadler]]. Though he never understood Stadler's real motive, he understood Stadler well enough to realize that any effort by Galt to recruit Stadler would be worse than useless.) For three years, John Galt recruited relatively minor figures into his strike. Then he recruited a man who changed everything, and radically. == [[Galt's Gulch]] ==[[Midas Mulligan]], a banker by trade, 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]]) gave the jury a charge that was more like an argument for [[jury nullification]]. The jury found for Mulligan, but an appellate court reversed that judgment and remanded the case for a new trial, before a different judge. The jury in that trial found for Hunsacker. Naturally, John Galt approached Midas ''and'' Judge Narragansett and encouraged them to go on strike. Mulligan "took fifteen minutes" to join; Narragansett would join six months later. Mulligan's answer was to liquidate his bank totally, though he made sure that no depositor lost any money in the liquidation. But Mulligan had also bought out the entire town of Ouray, [[Colorado]], and several miles of the Uncompaghre River Valley, both upstream (south) and downstream (north) of Ouray. He did this after Ouray, having previously lost its mining trade, now lost its tourist trade in the gradual sinking of the American economy. Now Mulligan took the proceeds of the sale of his bank, built a home in what now became known as Mulligan's Valley, and sought to cut off most avenues of approach, and stock the valley with livestock and other supplies sufficient to let him retire there for life.
Every year in June, Galt would meet somewhere with Francisco, Ragnar, and all their recruitsBut Mulligan had a problem. He persuaded [[Professor]] Akston dared not hire anyone to join him, and labored for a year to persuade William Hastings, do any of this work who was not part of the strike. So John Galt now got his former immediate superior first job apart from his "strike job" at the [[Twentieth Century Motor Company]] TTRR: as general contractor to join Midas Mulligan to make the strike. Next he recruited a [[composer]] named [[Richard Halley]]first "improvements" to Mulligan's Valley.
Then he recruited Galt built a man who changed everythingrefractor-ray-based cloaking system to project a false image of the valley to any overflying pilot, and radicallythus conceal the valley completely. (By then, no one even remembered that Ouray had ever been a tourist trap, or even where it was located.) He also built a powerhouse to provide it and Mulligan's house with electric power. He based that powerhouse, of course, on a larger version of his electrostatic motor. He gave Francisco a sub-contract to cut off and obliterate the Million Dollar Highway, south of Ouray. (Francisco wanted to prospect in the Red Mountain Pass, so erasing the Million Dollar Highway would be incidental to his prospecting and mining operations.) Then Galt, Francisco, and Ragnar each built a house in the valley in June, the vacation month.
== Galt's Gulch ==[[Midas Mulligan]]That fall, a banker by tradeJudge Narragansett joined the strike, became embroiled in a lawsuit after he refused a business loan and Midas invited the judge to one Lee Hunsacker, who had bought the old Twentieth Century Motor Company come and live in a fire sale after the Starnes heirs finally ran that company completely into the ground. Hunsacker sued Mulliganhis valley permanently. The original trial judge ([[Judge Narragansett]]) found built his own house and also cleared enough land for Mulligan, but that judgment was reversed on appealfarming and set up a dairy and chicken farm. NaturallyRichard Halley then came to the valley, built a house for himself, John Galt approached Midas ''and'' Judge Narragansett and encouraged them to go on strikeplanted an orchard.
MulliganThe economy of the valley was very simple. Francisco's answer copper mine was to liquidate his bank totally, though he made sure the only industry that no depositor lost any money in the liquidation. He then took the proceeds valley had, other than agriculture and bought a secluded kind of tourism. Specifically, the strikers could come to the valley in June, take in a Richard Halley concert, and buy a pack of the best cigarettes available on earth: the dollar-sign brand of the Mulligan Tobacco Company (which "company" consisted of Mulligan and Hugh Akston as principal members). They would use only [[Rocky Mountainsgold]]. There he built a home and stocked it with supplies sufficient to let him retire there [[silver]] coin for lifetheir purchases. First Judge Narragansett, and then Richard Halley, asked Midas whether Mulligan produced both at a mint that he would be willing to rent some land to himestablished. He also re-established his bank, and Midas agreedinto which Ragnar would deposit the fruits of his "plunder" every year.
Apparently, John Galt built a much larger version did not act as any sort of his electrostatic motor "mayor." Instead, he, Francisco, and used it to drive Ragnar formed a three-man [[dynamoCommittee of Safety]] that was the closest thing to provide a state that the valley with electric powerhad. Now Midas asked (Strictly speaking, Galt to advertise leaseholds acted as Midas Mulligan's proxy in his valley to other strikersthis Committee. ) Galt did, and then called the strikers began to populate place Mulligan's Valley (because Midas Mulligan actually owned the valley and even turn land). The other strikers called it into a functioning society [[Galt's Gulch]] (because John Galt was still their spiritual and economy. Midas received rents from everyone political leader, as chairman of the Committee of Safety, and even reopened his bankbecause John Galt's electrostatic motor gave the valley an actual source of physical power).
John Galt did not act as any sort was also the chief utility provider—because his electrostatic motor was now the main power plant of "mayor." Insteadthe valley, which he, Franciscohoused in a blockhouse 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 Ragnar formed a three-man Committee my love of Safety it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.}}This blockhouse was the closest thing to a state temple that the valley had. Galt called the place Mulligan's Valley (because Midas Mulligan actually owned the land). The other strikers called [[Galt's Gulch]] (because John Galt was still their spiritual and political leader, as chairman of ever built—a temple to the Committee of Safetyhuman spirit, and because John Galt's electrostatic motor gave the valley an actual source of physical power)to human liberty and trade.
John Galt was also the chief utility provider—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. Legislation was nonexistent. The only by-laws were the lease contracts, or the occasional deed, that Midas Mulligan signed.
So now, joining John Galt's strike meant leaving a punitive political and economic system, and joining a true [[republic]] (actually a voluntary association of a landlord and his tenants) in which [[capitalism]] and property rights were paramount.
Yet John Galt did not spend all or even most of his time in the valley. He did built a cabin there, and declared that every recruit who did ''not'' have a permanent situation in the valley should nevertheless convene there for spent the month of June of every yearin the valley, like everyone else except for Midas, Richard, and the judge. He spent the other eleven months of the year in New York, pumping Eddie Willers for information (while never letting Willers suspect him of doing anything but letting Willers talk), and watching Dagny.
In the last three years of the strike, he would find an even more lucrative, and consequential, use for those eleven months.
== The last three years ==
John Galt's last three years , beginning in 2016, 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.
The ninth year of the strike 2017 saw the passage of the Equalization of Opportunity Act, the last consequential thing that the unicameral Legislature (which had replaced the [[United States Congress]] after the runaway [[Constitution]]al convention of 2000) actually did. Nevertheless, [[Dagny Taggart]] and [[Henry Rearden]] went forward with their plans for building "The John Galt Line" in Colorado. When the Line opened(July 22, 2017), businesses began to relocate there. But then Congress the Legislature empowered the Bureau of Economic Planning ana and Natural Resources to issue directives, with the force, not only of Presidential [[Executive Order]]sfrom the Head of State, but of law. The BEPNR issued several directives that effectively destroyed the economy of Colorado. They included:
# A speed limit of sixty miles per hour on all trains, even though the John Galt Line could easily handle trains moving twice as fast.
# A Fair Share Directive forbidding any one customer to receive any order larger than any other.
Those directives came down in November 2017. In response, [[Ellis Wyatt]] blew up his shale-oil fields and joined John Galt's strike on the very day that the news broke. [[Andrew Stockton]] followed. [[Lawrence Hammond]], the automaker, was third. Several other [[Colorado]] businessmen followed. ([[Ken Danagger]] would quit in the eleventh year of the strike2018.) The Colorado strikers converted everything they could into gold and/or machinery, and brought these to Mulligan's Valley. ''Now'' the valley became a thriving economy. The next time John Galt's long-term strikers came to the valley on vacation, many of them stayed to work for Wyatt and the others. One of them was the actress Kay Ludlow, who had married Ragnar in 2015; she now lived in Ragnar's house full-time and opened a restaurant.
Andrew Stockton opened a foundry in the valley, and that gave Galt an idea. He designed several pieces of laboratory equipment, and asked Stockton to make them. These he moved into his New York apartment, where he outfitted a complete physics laboratory. He installed one of his electrostatic motors for electric power, so that no one need question why the tenant of such a run-down apartment was using so much "juice." And so for eleven months out of the year, John Galt would extend the body of knowledge of physics as much as he could by running a one-man laboratory. Then, every June, he offered a course of lectures, at ten dollars (in gold) per person, to men whom he could be sure would apply his knowledge most effectively in their own designs.
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 had now been in love for ten years, 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 Danneskjöld shelled , or more likely bombed, his factory to ruins by an offshore bombardment.)
== The scab Recruitment of Quentin Daniels ==In June of On or about the last year night of the strikeMay 22, 2019, Eddie Willers let slip to Galt that an engineer named Dagny Taggart had abruptly quit the railroad following the promulgation of [[Quentin DanielsDirective 10-289]] was attempting to reverse-engineer his electrostatic motor. Galt also discovered that Daniels had abruptly refused pumped Willers further and from him learned Dagny's precise location. Galt passed this on to accept any remuneration for any continued workFrancisco d'Anconia, because any remuneration he received would merely be subject to [[tax]], and he saying that Francisco had no wish to support "the lootersearned" by paying any more taxesthe chance to rekindle his old romance with Dagny, a thing that Galt had learned from Francisco twelve years earlier.
On May 28, Dagny was back at her office in New York. Galt waited in the Terminal cafeteria for Willers to appear, and had to wait unusually long—because Willers had seen Dagny off on the Taggart Comet. Willers revealed the reason for Dagny's abrupt departure: an engineer named [[Quentin Daniels]] had attempted to reverse-engineer his electrostatic motor, but now had abruptly refused to work on the motor any further. His reasons: he did not wish to work for a society that regarded him as a slave, and would not martyr himself to a society to whom he might give an "inestimable benefit." When Galt heard those words, he laughed. Willers asked for an explanation, and he gave it: that Quentin Daniels had figured out, for himself, "the whole secret." By which Galt meant (though he did not say this out loud to Willers) that Daniels had worked out, independently of Galt, the very reason that Galt had called his strike. But that was not what was clearly troubling Eddie Willers. Galt pressed further, and then learned something else in that conversationdevastated him: that Dagny Taggart had been having an affair with [[Henry Rearden]]. At that news, Galt abruptly stood up and left the cafeteria without finishing his meal. He would never see Eddie Willers again.
Galt first waited outside the Wayne-Falkland Hotel to spot Rearden coming out of a meeting of the nation's industrialists. Galt watched Rearden, saw his supreme self-confidence, and for a split second saw the scene out of context and wondered whether he, Galt, had made a mistake in calling the strike. The moment swiftly passed, and Galt recognized again that Rearden was still soldiering on, as far as ever from realizing that going on strike would be the best thing he could do. Still, Galt was determined to recruit him. Galt also put aside his envy of Rearden's intimacy with Dagny. Indeed, Dagny Taggart would never have chosen any other man to have an affair with.
Galt then set out toward Afton, [[Utah]], to recruit Daniels in earnest. He was in a hurry—he had to get there before Dagny Taggart did. As Galt He flew to Afton, landed there, and set out for the long-defunct Utah Institute of Technology. He found Daniels still trying to scratch out a solution to the motor. Galt took off an eraser and rubbed out much of what Daniels had written, equations that were the same blind alleys down which Galt himself had blundered, twelve years ago. He then wrote the one equation that, for Mulligan's Valleyhim, had been the key. A shocked Daniels cried out, "You found it! How?" Galt answered, "I'm the man who built it in the first place." Daniels eagerly signed on with Galt within a few minutes' conversation. The two men drove out to the airport and took off. Galt watched another aircraft circle for a landing. He would not realize until too late that that same aircraft would take off again and latch onto his "six-o'clock." He flew to the valley, as usual, and ducked behind the refractor-ray screen, at an altitude of 700 feet above ground level (8700 feet above sea level). During the entire flight, he and Daniels "talked physics all the way down," as he would later explain. (In fact, he would not only enroll Quentin Daniels in his lecture course, but would also give him a time-payment plan, the first and perhaps only time that he would do this for any student.) Perhaps the animated conversation caused Galt to fail to notice that any aircraft was following him. == The scab ==He landed, met Midas Mulligan at the airfield that an earlier recruit, Dwight Sanders, had built, and asked Mulligan to take charge of Quentin Daniels. Unique among his recruits, Quentin Daniels would not need to spend the night in the "anteroom," the special guest room in Galt's cabin where all recruits passed their first night in Mulligan's Valley, so that he could reassure them that they were making the right choice.
He flew to Midas dropped Galt off at his cabin, which was located on the southern or upstream end of the valley, as usual, and ducked behind slightly downstream of the waterfall by which the refractor-ray screen that he had installed, at an altitude waters of 700 feet above ground level (8700 feet above sea level), to project a false image in the sky and make Uncompaghre River entered the valley look rocky instead of green and lush. During the entire flight, Then he and Daniels "talked physics all the way downnoticed," as he would later explain. (In factto his horror, the aircraft he would not only enroll Quentin Daniels had originally seen back in his lecture courseAfton, but would also give him now spiraling down in a time-payment planflat spin. He called Midas at once, told him what he'd seen, the first and perhaps only time that then, because he would do this for any student.) Perhaps was closest to where the animated conversation caused Galt pilot was about to fail to notice that any aircraft was following himcrash, set out upstream and up-slope on foot.
He landed, met Midas Mulligan at the airfield, and asked Mulligan to take charge of Quentin DanielsThe pilot made one last desperate control input before crash-landing in a pasture. Unique among his recruits, Quentin Daniels would not need to spend the night in the "anteroom," the special guest room in To Galt's cabin where all recruits passed their first night in Mulligan's Valleyfurther horror, so that he could reassure them that they were making Dagny Taggart was the right choicepilot. To his immense relief, she survived with nothing more serious than a broken ankle.
Having little choice, John Galt set out toward his cabin, when he noticedhand-carried Dagny down a winding dirt trail from the crash site to the roadhead, where Midas and Hugh Akston drove up to meet them. He did not delude himself into thinking that she would join his horrorstrike immediately, and so he introduced her as "the aircraft [[scab]]." He consulted Dr. Thomas Hendrix, whom he had originally seen back in Aftonrecruited six years earlier, now spiraling down in a flat spin. The pilot made one last desperate control input before crash-landing in a pasture on the valleyto treat Dagny's far sideinjuries. Galt was closest to the crash site, Then he rented Midas' automobile and rushed to it. To Galt's further horror, gave Dagny Taggart was a tour of the pilot. To his immense relief, she survived with nothing more serious than a broken anklevalley and its town.
Having little choiceThat evening, John Galt hand-carried he brought Dagny into the center of the little town and introduced her to the members of his communitya dinner party at Midas' house. 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 There Galt 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. Galt and Mulligan also shared with Dagny a short history of the strike and the valley.
Ragnar Danneskjold Danneskjöld came to the valley on time. Galt ''always'' worried about Ragnar, though Ragnar told him not to. Galt would not allow Ragnar to speak, in front of Dagny, about his meeting with Henry Rearden after the passage of Directive 10-289. 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 DanneskjoldDanneskjöld'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.
Francisco d'Anconia came late to the valley that year, so late that Galt worried about him. When Francisco showed up, he was extremely careworn. Galt told Francisco that he had a scab staying in his house. Francisco, his curiosity thoroughly piqued, forgot his troubles and went in to see the "scab." That person was, of course, Dagny. When a very relieved Francisco came out, with Dagny in tow, and told Galt that he had been searching for Dagny outside (thinking that she had crashed in the mountains), Galt was not surprised.
The valley dwellers had one occasion to be alarmed about three 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—but in any case he would obviously learn later that the pilot of this search aircraft was Henry Rearden.
In the end, Dagny Taggart did not consent to remain in the valley. So John Galt took her out to the nearest airport—blindfolded, so that she would not be able to find the valley again.(The most likely airport where he dropped her off was that of Melrose, CO.)
== The consummation ==
On September 2 of that year, 2019, the parliament of the People's State of [[Chile]] 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. John Galt would learn of this much later.
On the night of October 15, the signal interlocking system in the Taggart Terminal failed. Dagny rushed to the terminal, still in evening clothes, and gave orders to the unskilled labor force to move the trains in and out using hand-held signal lanterns. That was when John Galt took his chance. Pushing his way to the front of the crowd, he let Dagny see him. As he expected, Dagny finished giving her orders, and then walked down an abandoned tunnel (where, Galt knew, she had stored his own abandoned prototype that she had recovered from the ruins of the [[Twentieth Century Motor Company]]). There the two lovers consummated their relationship. Galt knew as he did this that he was putting his life on the line from that day forward. He took a calculated risk for commensurate gain: he wanted to win her heart, and this was part of his plan.
Francisco kept Galt posted on the doings at Rearden Steel. So Galt knew when the union local had petitioned the Unification Board, and not Rearden himself, for a raise. He knew when the Board rejected the request. He read the same papers that everyone else read, full of pity-party stories about Rearden's workforce. And he knew, almost as well as Francisco did, that several workers had joined who had no business working at a steel mill; they were shills for the Unification Board.
Then on the evening of November 4, Rearden met five government men at the Wayne-Falkland in New York. Galt knew about the meeting, and knew (possibly from spies working for Francisco, Ragnar DanneskjoldDanneskjöld, or both) that those government men would try to force Rearden to accept participation in a Steel Unification Plan, by which all the steel producers would work according to their ability but be paid according to their needs. Galt did not doubt for one second that Rearden would definitely refuse, just as Galt himself had refused to sign on to a similar plan at the old Twentieth Century Motor Company. So Galt rushed, as fast as he could, to Pennsylvania and the Reading Airport, where Rearden kept his personal plane. And there he waited.
He did not have to wait long. A staged riot broke out at Rearden Steel, and Francisco led a contingent of regular workers to defeat the rioters. 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.
Francisco notified Galt immediately, and Galt signed out Rearden's aircraft, had it fueled, and waited on the taxiway. Rearden's car, with Rearden as a passenger, arrived at about midnight. Galt greeted Rearden for the first time, sent the driver of the car on his way to the valley (with some of the last of the cash that Rearden had on him, to buy fuel en route), and helped Rearden aboard his plane. Rearden thanked Galt, who then said that because he, Galt, had acted in furtherance of his own plans, no thanks from Rearden was necessary. Rearden then said, "That is ''why'' I thank you."
Galt flew Rearden to the valley, summoned the valley's physician (who happened to be a famous neurosurgeon, another of Galt's recruits) Dr. Hendrix to tend to Rearden, and let him rest in the "anteroom" of his house. Rearden did not pass a sleepless night, as so many of Galt's recruits had done. He was ready to join the strike and start at once to rebuild Rearden Steel—in Mulligan's Valley.
Galt introduced Rearden to Midas Mulligan's traditional "welcome home" dinner. Rearden did not disappoint; he spent about half his time taking orders for the first heats of Rearden Metal that he would be able to pour from his new installation, as fast as he could build it and bring it on-line.
Galt then announced a special edition of his physics lecture series, and enrolled a class consisting of Henry Rearden, Ellis Wyatt, Andrew Stockton, Dwight Sanders, Owen Kellogg, Quentin Daniels (who by now had earned enough money to pay tuition up-front), and a few others. After ten days (and five lectures), Ragnar Danneskjold returned to the valleyHe also, with a cargo of goldFrancisco's help, as usual. Ragnar was furious to find out that Henry recruited Rearden had been injured. He then turned to Galt and said, "You see, John? I recall telling you that I was safer at sea than a corner druggist under [[Directive 10-289]]. It turns out that even Henry into the Committee of Safety after seeing the kind of defenses Rearden was not as safe as Iset up on his new leasehold."
Then After ten days (and five lectures), Ragnar Danneskjöld returned to the valley, with a cargo of gold, as usual. Ragnar was furious to find out that Henry Rearden had been injured. He then turned to Galt and said, "You see, John? I recall telling you that I was safer at sea than a corner druggist under [[Directive 10-289]]. It turns out that even Henry Rearden was not as safe as I." But Ragnar was pleased to hear that Rearden now served on the Committee of Safety. That Committee met that very night, at Rearden's leasehold (with Gwen Ives, Rearden's long-time secretary, now taking the Committee's minutes). At that meeting, Ragnar gave Galt a sobering piece of intelligence: [[Mr. Thompson]] was going to make a speech to the country "on the world crisis" on November 22. Galt then made a snap decision: he would pre-empt Mr. Thompson's time and deliver his own speech.
But that speech would be more than a manifesto. He would be crying out his love for Dagny Taggart, in a form that only she would recognize.
== The great speech ==
The [[President Mr. Thompson, the Head of the United States]] State, prepared to make a "report on the world crisis" on every [[radio]] and [[television]] channel, on November 22. But at about 5:45 p.m., John Galt simply jammed the airwaves with his own signal that overrode every carrier wave. Then, promptly at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time (or 6:00 p.m. Mountain time), 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 speak 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 deprived you of 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.''
John Galt now made his almost-fatal mistake. He could have stayed in Mulligan's Valley and relied on Francisco, or Ragnar, or both to watch for signs that Dagny was ready to quit, and bring her to him. But he had promised Dagny that all she need do was draw a dollar sign in chalk on the plinth of Nathaniel Taggart's statue in the Terminal, and he would come for her that evening. True to his promise, and perhaps not willing to hire either of his friends to do what was his own private business, he returned to New York City and stayed long enough for Dagny Taggart to come to him. (Before he did, he retrofitted Hank Rearden's aircraft with an electrostatic powerplant. He couldn't have known how valuable that would be, but he would want to be prepared. Besides, Rearden would certainly have ordered such a retrofit.)
He waited for nearly three months, during which time Rearden Steel of Berks County, Pennsylvania, deteriorated under successive mismanagement (not to mention embezzlement) and finally died in an act of sabotageon January 22, 2020. Galt passed the information back to the valley, via short wave. Hank Rearden had to know about it, per Galt's own rigid code. The word he got back was that Rearden took it all in stride.
At lastOn February 22, 2020, Dagny Taggart did 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 steady stream of Mr. Thompson's hangers-on, including [[James Taggart]], [[Chick Morrison]], and [[Fred Kinnan]], tried to plead with Galt, 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.}}
He did not have long to wait. Fifteen minutes later, he heard gunfire and the sound of crashing glass on the floor above, echoing down the single stairwell. Then he heard a voice he recognized as that of Francisco d'Anconia ordering a guard to surrender himself. Then the hurried footsteps of four people pounded down the stairs to the single door. Galt heard several knocks on the door, and sounds of someone picking the lock.
Then the door flew open. Francisco d'Anconia rushed in, held his arm out to bar the entry of those behind him, and surveyed the scene. Galt caught his eye and smiled at him. Francisco lowered his arm, and then Dagny Taggart, Henry Rearden, and Ragnar Danneskjold raced in. Dagny rushed to his side and embraced him, while Ragnar and Henry cut him loose. Francisco offered him brandy, and Galt asked for a cigarette. (Midas Mulligan made the best cigarettes in the world, all bearing a dollar sign as their trademark.)
He and Dagny understood one another well enough for her to know that he was unharmed. Francisco needed a bit more reassurance, and Galt gave it to him. Francisco then threatened to hunt down Galt's torturers and kill them, but Galt told him,
Galt returned to Mulligan's Valley and finished out the winter there. He married Dagny, with Judge Narragansett presiding. He watched with pride as she built the narrow-gauge railroad for Francisco, and even accepted an order to build the world's first electrostatic locomotive for it.
In the next Eventually, springcame, and the last of the government radio and television stations fell silent. John Galt would declare then declared that the world couldn't threaten them anymore, and it was time to come back.
{{endspoiler}}
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. The most salient case-in-point today is the finding, published in ''Investors' Business Daily'', that forty-five-percent of [[doctor]]s surveyed would seriously consider quitting their profession if the [[Obama Administration]]'s proposed socialization of health care were to be enacted into law.<ref name=ibd>Jones T, "[http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=506199 45% Of Doctors Would Consider Quitting If Congress Passes Health Care Overhaul]," ''Investors' Business Daily'', 16 September 2009. Quoted in "[http://www.stoptheaclu.com/2009/09/16/doctors-threaten-to-go-galt-if-obamacare-passes/ Doctors Threaten to Go Galt if ObamaCare Passes],", ''Stop the ACLU'', 16 September 2009.</ref>
Regardless of multiple accusations in the [[liberal]] media, no one has—yet—proposed to "go DanneskjoldDanneskjöld", i.e. turn privateer and make an active, not merely a passive, war.
== Feasibility ==
However, no engineer has yet proposed to build an electrostatic motor that would be nearly as powerful as Ayn Rand suggested.
==== The quantum motor ====
The [[motion picture]] adaptation, ''[[Atlas Shrugged, Part 1]],'' proposed an entirely different sort of revolutionary motor. In the film, Henry Rearden and Dagny Taggart mention the Casimir Effect, which classically is an attraction between two metal conducting plates brought close together in a ''quantum vacuum.''
In fact, Alexander Feigel, of the Soreq Nuclear Research Center, Yavne, [[Israel]], actually proposed building a "quantum propulsion engine" that employs the Casimir Effect, or something close to it.<ref name=casimir>Feigel A, "[http://arxiv.org/abs/0912.1031 A magneto-electric quantum wheel]," ''Quantum Physics'', 5 December 2009. Cited in "[http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24499/ A Blueprint for a Quantum Propulsion Machine]," ''Physics ArXiv Blog,'' 9 December 2009. Cited in turn in Dillow C, "[http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-12/quantum-propulsion-machine Practical Steps Toward a Quantum Propulsion Machine]," ''Popular Science'', 9 December 2009. Retrieved 26 November 2011.</ref> To be more specific, Feigel proposed introducing an array of nanoparticles into a quantum vacuum and rotating them at critical moments. Usually, the Casimir Effect is too small to be of practical consequences, and the related Lorentz forces cancel one another out. Feigel's proposed nanoparticle-rotation scheme would cause the Lorentz forces to add up to a resultant that would be strong enough to do useful work.
Feigel used the phrase "quantum propulsion machine." A more compact term would be a quantum ''motor'', because it uses quantum forces to move things.
Some of the terms that the film's script uses are wildly inaccurate, and are probably a weak attempt to conflate the concept of an electrostatic motor with that of a quantum propulsion motor of the type that Feigel proposes. But their use of the term "Casimir Effect" provides the clue to what they actually propose. (Perhaps the oversimplified explanation that Dagny Taggart and Henry Rearden give in the film would be an accurate portrait of an attempt by any layman, not familiar with quantum mechanics, to explain what would be, to them, a shocking discovery.)
The model that Feigel proposed, and others have elaborated on, does appear to be quite feasible. The references describe a practical application in outer space, to replace the classic "reaction control"-based attitude systems on spacecraft with quantum thrusters. But this does seem to have a down-to-earth application as a replacement for any engine that relies on turning a shaft to provide motive power. Such an engine could replace those in automobiles and locomotives, and could also replace the turboprop engines in slower-moving aircraft. It could possibly serve to design a more-efficient turbofan jet engine, thus extending the range of current jet aircraft. (It could also replace the "auxiliary power units" that current jet transports carry. These are miniature turbofan jet engines that provide no motive power to speak of, but serve only to provide electric power while the aircraft loads, until the pilot starts his main engines. A Casimir-Lorentz quantum engine would be a logical replacement.)
=== The strike as a political movement ===
Thus, in the Ayn Rand system, "spinoffs" are the natural product of any research program, and are in fact its ''object.'' Rand refused to distinguish between "pure" and "applied" science. She reminded her readers rather sharply that even "pure science," in the hands of the government, often finds very dire applications.
In fact, John Galt imitates another very prolific inventor in American history: [[Thomas Edison]]. Edison invented the mechanical stock ticker, sold the rights to it, and used the proceeds to build a laboratory. He gathered a staff of experimenters. Their ceaseless experiments, under his guidance and supervision, produced the plethora of inventions history credits him with, from recorded [[sound]] to the first electric lamps. John Galt simply applies Edison's laboratory and business practice at a more abstract level than Edison dreamed of working at, and achieved breakthroughs of which Edison could scarcely dream as a result.
=== 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. One observer in fact says collective institutions are never even as strong as the sum of their members, and are only as strong, at any one job, as the particular member tasked to do that job. That demonstrably includes the care and treatment of military [[Department of Veterans Affairs|veterans]] in a government-run integrated hospital and clinic system. It also includes surveillance, even on a national scale.<ref name=overmanwarrior>"Ragnar Danneskjöld played by Eric Allen Kramer: Why the modern pirate never gets caught," ''[http://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/ Overmanwarrior]'', 31 March 2014. Retrieved on date of publication. <http://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/16776/></ref> Perhaps, then, a modern-day John Galt, perhaps having able to build a command of [[cold fusion]] technology instead of something as problematic as an electrostatic quantum motoras described above, 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 ==
{{nb Atlas}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Galt, John}}
[[categoryCategory:Literary Figures]][[Category:Libertarianism]][[Category:Libertarians]][[Category:Anti-Communism]]