Preface

*** SPOILER WARNING IF YOU HAVE NOT READ ATLAS SHRUGGED! ***


  The United States was falling. 

  Beginning with the nineteenth century conflict known variously as the War Between the States, the Civil War, or the War of Northern Aggression -- depending on the allegiance of the observer -- the nation had embarked upon a path which took it further and further from its philosophical underpinnings of personal liberty and individual rights, drifting oh-so-slowly toward a society rife with over-regulation and collectivism. Over the years, petty thieves, looters, and thugs assumed greater and greater control over the machinery of state, and with predictable results: More and more of the nation's productive output found itself routed into the pockets of those in power rather than those who had earned it. Unavoidably, the promise of tax-paid riches attracted the unscrupulous, much as a bright light draws noxious insects. Before long, leadership positions were increasingly awarded not to the most able, but rather to the most ruthless, in a cycle that rapidly worsened with each iteration. 

  Perhaps America would have realized in time the grave error she was committing and eventually returned to the moral code she had abandoned, if not for the deliberate efforts of one man: John Galt. 

  "Who is John Galt?," one must ask. John Galt was an engineer, inventor, and philosopher, a man of humble beginnings who ultimately graduated from the most prestigious academic institution in the nation. After earning a dual degree in physics and philosophy, he began a promising career as a researcher for the Twentieth Century Motor Company in Starnesville, Wisconsin, the best motor manufacturer in the nation at that time. After the company's founder passed away, his heirs forsook their father's individualist management style in favor of a blatantly collectivist approach, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". The inevitable result was the rapid decline of the firm, and within four years the Twentieth Century went bankrupt. 

  But there was one enduring legacy from the company's collectivist experiment. Upon hearing the unspeakable evil of collectivism spoken by the heirs in a tone of high moral righteousness, John Galt finally realized the root of the world's tragedy -- the moral code of collectivism -- the key to it, and the solution: a brand new moral code, one that was rooted not in some collectivist creed, but rather in individual rights. The summation of his new code fit neatly into a twenty-nine-word oath: "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." 

  John Galt did not stay on to witness the destruction of the Twentieth Century Motor Company. On the night the heirs took over the factory, at a massive meeting of the entire company, John Galt quit -- or, more precisely, commenced a one-man strike. As he walked off the job, he vowed to his collectivist co-workers, "I will put an end to this once and for all. I will stop the motor of the world."  

  His was no idle threat. Armed only with his unique philosophy, he set forth to scout out the men of ability, the men of the mind. When he found them, his message to them was always the same: Stop supporting your destroyers! One by one, one after another, John Galt convinced the nation's best and brightest to join him in his strike, to withhold from society the fruits of the superlative ability of their minds. Only by withdrawing their support from the collectivist society could they defeat it. Only by consistently treating their life as their own would they finally come to truly own it. Only by refusing to sanction the collectivist's moral code would the men of ability finally be free. And time after time, in one business after another, the call was heard; and as the years passed, his roster of recruits swelled from dozens, to hundreds, to thousands. 

  Although John Galt worked in secret, oddly enough the men of America well knew his name. Without conscious orchestration, whenever people saw the lights go out in one of the great factories, their gates closed and conveyor belts stilled, when the roads began to grow empty, or when they saw another collapse in the world which no one could explain, when they took another blow or lost another hope, they would habitually ask the rhetorical question: "Who is John Galt" that he could stop the motor of the world? The question was asked at first by John Galt's former co-workers at the Twentieth Century, but it soon spontaneously spread throughout the nation -- and the citizens of America were destined to have their answer.  

  With economic inevitability, as each man of ability joined John Galt's strike, the productive output of the nation declined, sometimes only marginally, other times quite significantly. But regardless of the size of the reduction, the result was always the same: fewer goods and services, and a greater strain on the nation's economy and on the poor souls left behind. Infrastructure -- and nerves -- became more and more frayed with each successive blow. 

  At long last, after twelve years of uncompromising effort, John Galt's dream of the total collapse of the collectivist state was finally poised to come to pass; and that collapse promised to be a horrible one, for the declining economic situation had attained dire proportions, and the nation found itself teetering on the brink of disaster and starvation. Armed fighting broke out between men, between cities, and between states as they battled over the last remnants of food and the hulks of abandoned factories. The greatest nation the world had ever known was about to come to a nasty, bloody end. 

  But at the last minute, John Galt was unwittingly betrayed by the woman he loved, and captured by government agents. They both flattered and tortured him in an attempt to break his will and force him to abandon his strike and rescue the crumbling nation. But before long, his fellow strikers staged a dramatic rescue and they escaped with John Galt to their secret stronghold high in the Colorado Rockies. 

  Safe in their mountain redoubt, the men of the mind waited patiently for the last remnants of the collectivist state to crumble before they could or would consider returning to the world Outside. But they did not have long to wait. With her last hope abruptly snatched out from beneath her, the United States of America entered her final death throes, and in a fury of fighting, finally perished from the face of the Earth. The once-great nation had been relegated to the dustbin of history, the last victim of her own flawed moral code.  

  With the complete collapse of the collectivists, the way was now clear for the strikers to return. But the world which they ultimately inherited was nothing at all like the world they had originally left behind. Nor was the reception they received quite what they expected, once they did return.  

  For among the survivors still clinging to life in obscure niches of the four corners of the world, there was one cliche which could not be uttered. No longer could people idly bear to hear the name, the phrase, the cry of despair: "Who is John Galt?"  

  Because now, they knew. 

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