Atlas Shrugged: A Summary
With the renewed focus this week on the works of Paul rAyn Rand, it occurs to me that there are many DUers who have been fortunate enough to never read Rand's works. For their benefit, here is a summary of her magnum opus that I wrote some years ago. It's on the lengthy side, but believe me, it's many orders of magnitude shorter than the book itself, and you get the drift just as easily.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (Random House, 1957) takes place in a universe where trucking, shipping and air freight are impractical, where hard alloys can be made of soft elements, where oil can be extracted from shale to any degree desired, where steam engines are incapable of out-pulling diesel, where gasoline does not evaporate over long periods of time, where sound waves can destroy structures hundreds of miles away without damaging the transmitter, and -- in a particularly important plot point -- where the laws of optics do not apply. It is a universe, in other words, that resembles our own so closely that the allegorical argument can easily be carried over to life in the real world.
Since the novel is for the most part character-driven, I will describe the more important characters as we meet them. Those we meet early on include:
* Dagny Taggart, an attractive, hard-working, creative, well-spoken, somewhat aloof railroad manager who is a hyper-capitalist.
* Hank Rearden, an attractive, hard-working, creative, well-spoken, somewhat aloof steel magnate who is a hyper-capitalist (but doesn't quite know it yet).
* James Taggart, a lazy, unreasonable, unproductive, whiny, hypocritical, communist, physically repugnant, grammatically challenged CEO who is desperate to kill your children and pets.
* Eddie Willers, a regular guy who works for Taggart Transcontinental, and who worships the ground Dagny walks on.
As the novel begins, Dagny, in order to preserve her flagship route's unbroken record of punctuality, orders the train's engineer to run a red light and assumes personal responsibility for the order. In this way, Dagny becomes personally responsible for a head-on collision of trains at eighty miles per hour killing hundreds of people.
Or would, if this were anything like the real world -- in this world, all goes well and the train pulls in on time.
Hank, a man who prides himself on always keeping his promises, invents a metal, which he modestly calls Rearden Metal, and which is virtually indestructible compared to Orren Boyle's Steel.
* Orren Boyle, a lazy, unreasonable, unproductive, whiny, hypocritical, communist, physically repugnant, grammatically challenged CEO who is desperate to kill your children and pets.
Dagny wants to build a new railroad out of Rearden Metal instead of Orren Steel -- since, as everyone knows, the brittleness of a material is inversely proportional to its owner's capitalistic tendencies. James refuses. Dagny goes to build it herself.
For a period of months, she works constantly, takes her type-A personality everywhere she goes, almost never sleeps, and lives pretty much on a diet of caffeine and nicotine. At the end of three months, she drops dead.
Or would, if this were anything like the real world -- in this world, she succeeds in building the railroad. Dagny and Hank celebrate by making the inaugural run of the new route to the oilfields of:
* Ellis Wyatt, an attractive, hard-working, creative, well-spoken, somewhat aloof oil magnate who is a hyper-capitalist.
They spend the night at Wyatt's pad, where Hank rapes Dagny. Kind of. Actually, she wanted it -- and will be the first to say so, as evidenced by a flashback to the first time she was kind-of-raped by her first lover:
* Francisco Something Something Something d'Anconia, an attractive, hard-working, creative, well-spoken, somewhat aloof copper magnate who is a hyper-capitalist.
Anyway, Dagny then begins a full-fledged affair with Hank, who prides himself on always keeping his promises. And who is married. Did I forget to mention that? Silly me. But don't worry, he's not breaking his marriage vows.
* Lillian Rearden, a lazy, unreasonable, unproductive, whiny, hypocritical, communist, physically repugnant, gramatically challenged housewife who is desperate to kill your children and pets.
Promises made to such people don't count.
Brother James, not wanting to feel left out, meets and marries a girl:
* Cherryl Brooks, a shop clerk who is completely irrelevant to the story of the novel, and exists only to prove a philosophical point, which she does by committing suicide about 600 pages later.
Meanwhile, the government seizes certain property, including Rearden Metal and Wyatt's oil. The hyper-capitalists believe that they have no right to do this; after all, their property is not legitimately their property because the government recognizes it as such and imposes limitations on property recognition, but because they created the land, metal and oil out of thin air, and patrol the boundaries every night with a rifle slung over their shoulder to keep out trespassers.
Hank strikes up a friendship with Francisco Something Something Something d'Anconia, who says that if he saw Atlas holding up the world, he would tell him to shrug. This is good novel titling, but bad mythology -- the Greek Titan Atlas did not, as Rand believed, hold up the world -- instead, he was holding up another Greek Titan -- namely, Uranus, the god of the sky. Hence, an equally appropriate title for this novel would have been, The Sky Is Falling.
Hank also meets a mysterious stranger:
* Ragnar Danneskjöld, an attractive, hard-working, creative, well-spoken, somewhat aloof pirate who is a hyper-capitalist.
Yes, I said pirate. In this world, piracy is perfectly acceptable, provided a hyper-capitalist does it for the purpose of furthering his political agenda.
Meanwhile, in Colorado, a Taggart train suffers various mechanical problems and is forced to take a diesel engine into a very long tunnel. Everyone on the train dies of asphyxiation. The author provides a very brief philosophical biography of all the waking passengers on the train, and makes it clear, as they go to their deaths, who they are.
* Every person who dies in the Winston Tunnel: a lazy, unreasonable, unproductive, whiny, hypocritical, communist, physically repugnant, grammatically challenged something-or-other who is desperate to kill your children and pets.
Yes, including the children on the train. The obvious implication is that they deserved their fate, and the author even suggests that they somehow caused it.
After dealing with the ensuing crisis the way only a hyper-capitalist can, Dagny meets a hobo who tells her about John Galt, an engineer who, when his company adopted some liberal policies, quit in protest and found work somewhere else.
Or would have, if this were the real world -- in this world, the company in question adopted full blown Marxism, and in response, Galt made a vow to destroy all of civilization.
Dagny comes to suspect that this John Galt is responsible for the rash of unexplained disappearances of hyper-capitalists around the country. She buys a plane, takes off in search of him -- somehow, in the midst of working herself to death keeping the railroad afloat, she found time to get her pilot's license.
Or not; she crashes.
When she comes to, she is looking at . . .
* John Galt, an extremely attractive, very hard-working, unbelievably creative, spellbindingly well-spoken, very much aloof engineer who is so hyper a hyper-capitalist that before long, Dagny dumps Hank and starts fucking John.
He's living in a cloaked valley with all the other hyper-capitalists that he persuaded to join him. Everything here is powered by the Galt Engine, a device that extracts energy from ambient static electricity -- literally drawing energy out of thin air. (Because they're in the mountains, ha ha.) They have their own little hyper-capitalist society, complete with currency in the form of gold.
They come here because John has talked them into going on strike from society -- in this world, it's appropriate to strike from society if you're a hyper-capitalist, but not if you're a teacher or a nurse. Dagny sympathizes, but goes back to the world because she loves her railroad.
Meanwhile, James Taggart and Lillian Rearden engage in a contemptible repudiation of life and existence: they have sex. You see, it's contemptible when communists commit adultery, but a grand, life-affirming act when hyper-capitalists do it.
Anyway, Cherryl catches them in the act, realizes that James is a communist -- something which he has remarkably kept secret from her during their entire marriage. She further realizes that the world is chock full of communists and, as noted earlier, promptly commits suicide to prove a philosophical point. This is tragic because she wanted to be a hyper-capitalist when she grew up -- as opposed to the children on the train in the tunnel, who of course were fully capable of understanding and willfully adhering to communism, and therefore deserved to die.
Well, with all the hyper-capitalists disappearing, civilization is beginning to fall apart piece by piece. Fortunately, there are intelligent and creative people who are not hyper-capitalists, who still give a damn about their fellow man, and who, with time, effort and teamwork, manage to put it all back together.
Or there would be, in the real world; in the world of the novel, no such luck. So it is that we meet . . .
* Mr. Thompson: a lazy, unreasonable, unproductive, whiny, hypocritical, communist, physically repugnant, grammatically challenged head of state who is desperate . . . yeah I know, you get the idea by now, but I had to suffer through more than eleven hundred pages full of tiny little words of this shit, and I want you to feel some of my pain, okay?
With the crisis deepening, he prepares to make a nationally broadcast speech on the radio -- but John Galt jams the signal, everywhere in the country, and gives a speech of his own.
The speech is sixty or seventy pages long, takes about three hours to read if you read it aloud, and constitutes the nucleus of Ayn Rand's philosophy. I will condense it here to twelve words: A equals A; therefore if you're not selfish, you deserve to die.
The government locates Galt and kidnaps him. Mr. Thompson and others try to persuade him to help repair things; Galt refuses. They torture him. It doesn't work; Galt is simply too fucking handsome to be tortured. Discovering this, James Taggart realizes for the first time that he is a communist asshole, and promptly goes catatonic.
This gives Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, Francisco Something Something Something d'Anconia and their buddies a chance to rescue him -- which they do, killing those who stand in their way, which is justified because they chose to stand in their way.
As they fly away, the cities go dark. Everything stops. (Eddie, the regular guy who worshiped the ground that Dagny and her buddies walked on, is on a train that breaks down at the time, and is abandoned in the middle of nowhere. There's probably a lesson there.)
And then all is well. The hyper-capitalists settle down to a simple but well-electrified life in Galt's Gulch, waiting for the day when the masses will beg for them to come back to the world. The book ends with John Galt standing and gazing out at the landscape, majestically tracing the sign of the dollar in the air.
There's no joke here -- that's exactly how the book ends.
= new reply since forum marked as read
YES INDEED 
It's the only one you got and you might needed it some day.
taggert works with smaller business "I need him he needs me" = bad
dagney works with monopoly "I need him he needs me" = good
reardan steel is scientifically unproven = bad
reardan steel is good, intitutionally speaking = good
reardan canceling all contracts with those who want to do business with him (having his secretrary throw their offers into the trash) if they are perceived as egalitarian = good
reardan not charging dagney 40k when she admits he can, and instead charging her 20k = good
reardan giving money to his friend (brother?) for social causes = bad, but he does it anyway because...?
mexicans are trying to develop their resources but they are going toward nationalization = bad
the US is in a very very dire situation with regards to iron reserves, and thus not doing business with the mexicans, who would sell those reserves regardless as to whether they are nationalized = good!
government of mexico nationalizes the taggart railroad line = bad
reducing taggart mexican railroad line traffic to nearly zero before the fact = good! (could it be that the railroad wasn't being properly utilized as the reason for the nationalization?)
san sambation uses fraud (selling empty mines) to get investors to buy into a scam causing billions of losses to taggart railroad = bad but borderline awesome ("you'll figure it out in time" "who's john galt?" = good! ) dagney just doesn't understand!
reardan is supposedly an engineering genius but is married to a "high maintenance" snobbish woman who simply cannot appreciate his ugly steel bracelet = bad
dagney, who took engineering in school and intuitively understood that the scientifically impossible reardan steel was awesome, loves the ugly bracelet, while herself wearing clothing throughout the movie that makes her "high mantainance" as well = good (she can't even put on a pants-suit? c'mon! )
reardan, the individualist, who refuses to do business with anyone who doesn't support his ideals, is happily served by servants at a party = good
reardan not going to the mexican copper mine owner to make a good investment = good
reardan working for his self interests, not 'others' = good (but don't forget those servants, steel workers, etc, who he pays to do his bidding)
dagney tries trading her diamond and platinum (?) necklace for a reardan steel necklace = good! (theft of trade secrets = good! )
railroad lines hadn't been replaced in a HUNDRED years! wow! = bad (WTF they let the lines be in a state of disrepair for 100 years!!?)
reardan steel magically fixes this problem of a HUNDRED YEARS OF DISREPAIR! = good
125 miles of track replaced in one month, with hard to refine, expensive, reardan steel = good (uh, how about use regular iron and fucking REPAIR your tracks, idiots! )
quark, the capitalist on star trek, arguing against capitalism, arguing against reardan metal! "if it *is good, it poses a social danger*" ( WTF!! mind blown, Shimerman must have been desperate! ) lol, mind fucking blown!
reardan keeping his magical metal a trade secret, and not licensing the technology to anyone who asks = good! (what the fuck, no patent licencing!? only exclusivity? ridiculous)
state science institute warning against magical reardan metal = bad (science = bad, the scientists conspire against the strength and wonder of the metal! )
science institute relies on public money and therefore must lie about the scary reardan metal = bad (WRONG, science CANNOT be manipulated by public money, it is an impossiblity, because science relies on reproducibility! )
in order to save the family business, abandon it = good!
dumping the taggart railroad line, setting up a fake company to restore it (renaming the temporary line to the "john galt line" ) = good
this deal, require the politicians to get behind it! the very politicians who have tried sabotaging everything at every move = good (I thought paying off politicians was bad? I probably left that part out, before, but I'm too lazy to rewind)
pimping out ones body = good
calling the new line the "john galt line" = good and doesn't necessitate pimping out ones body (total deviation from the book since in it dagney got RAPED)
bankers not investing in the new line = bad
financing from top CEOs who have monopolies and going to another CEO for the difference (ie begging for investment money) = good
equalization of companies (one company per owner) = bad, but signing over the companies to friends and family in a true case of cronyism = good management!
a union leader not wanting their people to run people on untested, unscientifically proven technology = bad
telling union members they're out of a job to run on unscientifically proven technology = good (don't worry, I expect the "maiden run" of the train will succeed, despite being unscientifically proven, "Mrs. Taggart, who is John Galt?" "We are!" )
train successfully runs on unscientifically proven technology which defies the laws of physics in every way and works perfectly = good
250 mph on metal tracks = good (but impossible, of course, especially considering the curves that the train is being forced to take! magic motherfuckers!!!!! omg, I'm actually sick watching this part! madness)
state science institute actually predicts failure of the magical reardan steel line resulting in 300 miles in less than 90 minutes averaging a whooping 200 mph on a METAL TRACK = bad (disproving that they're scientific, or proving that this entire movie is totally bonkers! )
the success of the magical metal can work to the advantage of the dirty socialists! = bad (what the fuck! I can't wait to see how they explain that one! )
adultery = good (in the book it was RAPE)
company with amazing motor innovation collapses because it paid the staff according to their "wages" and not their "needs." quality dropped, company went under, despite the revolutionary engine designs = bad (what the fuck! if you have revolutionary designs, it shouldn't matter how the employees are paid! )
feynman diagram on the chalkboard, lol. how many people actually recognize that? it's a relatively basic diagram, but I laughed. 
(they're in the "magic engine factory" which was shut down because the employees were supposed to get the "equal product of their labor," omg, I hate Ayn Rand, seriously, what.the.fuck).
lol, magic energy engine discovery, without knowledge of the designer, and actually looking for the designer as opposed to stealing the magic technology as was established a good idea earlier = good (we gotta find out who designed it, that nice, awesome person, fuck developing it! )
we need to get the designer of the magic engine to help us get it up and running despite that we have a fucking WORKING PROTOTYPE = good
evil government worried about the abilities of magical reardan steel which isn't scientifically established, reducing speeds to 60 mph = bad
tipping 150% = good (wtf? this movie only takes place 4 years from now, what a ridiculous tip! it wasn't a starbucks, either. I thought dagney was supposed to be a genius capitalist? and yes, I just checked, that was a $5 that she left! assuming a $1.50 cup of coffee the highest tip would've been $0.45, or basically $2! I thought these were genius capitalists! )
driving very fast on a really crappy road = good (I hope dagney crashes)
making it so that all companies have equal access to resources (ie anti-competitive laws which are already in place) = bad (dagney has yet to crash, sadly, even though she's driving on a dirt road at this point)
john galt sounds like jesus = good (OK, I want to meet this wonderful John talk to John Wyatt, who is now on "strike" )
I was drunk when I wrote it and would stop to write a bit. I had to clean it up because it was posted on FB and I'd get flamed here for some of my drunken statements. 
Is there a cliff notes version of your summary for us lazy, unreasonable, unproductive, whiny, hypocritical, communist, physically repugnant, grammatically challenged readers who are desperate to kill your children and pets?
TlalocW
my bad
That was fucking awesome. 
Inform the sellers it will soon be processed in my recycling bin. 
"the mutant cockroaches eat them all."
You sacrificed a small chunk of your life to spare the rest of us from having to wade through several inches of ayn rand's paper-bound door-stop diarrhea! One hell of an effort!