John Galt and the others who dropped out did just that. They decided it made no sense to continue to support the very collectivists who were enslaving them.

The desire for collectivism continues, you are right. But as they say”socialism only works until the other guys money runs out”. John Galt made that money run out

The ideas of capitalism were there, resident in the producers during the period of the plot. Anyone could see what those ideas were, but the masses specifically rejected them, preferring instead receiving the “freebies” offered by collectivism. When those freebies were no longer available, the freeloaders were forced to look elsewhere for freebies. Not to say they would select capitalism automatically, as you have mentioned

It was pleasant today to get past a major sticking point in my project toward making a higher resolution 3D printer. I plan to make as much money off of that as possible when it is ready. If I get sued for having a monopoly, it will be an honor to be the next Roark. It would be a tribute to my success. I can hope, but that will take a few years.

The altruism of producers is a point in AS, but ewv nails it with regard to the point of AS.

Reducing the punishment is why people cut back or drop out of what they are punished for. If that is what you want and can afford to do then do it, but that is all it is. Have no illusions.

Withdrawing support does not hinder the collectivist control. It only limits, if at all, what they spend. If you disappeared from the face of the earth and there was nothing more to take from you, it wouldn't make blip in what they do. With borrowing even a large scale reduction in taxes taken doesn't curtail the spending. Regardless of the spending they continue to control people.

The few in Atlas Shrugged made a difference because the novel was an abstraction in fiction focusing on the key producers as individuals. That represented, in fiction, the withdrawal of the mind from human society, leading, in fiction, to a collapse showing, in fiction, the role of the mind in human life. You continue to confuse a theme in romantic fiction with a strategy, let alone your ability to cause a crash or anything else by stopping. That is not rational.

No, it doesn't. The collectivism continues.

But in AS the withdrawal of a few did make a difference. Giving the fruits of your labor to collectivists just perpetuates it. Therefore withdrawing support hinders it

But it reduces the punishment

Ceasing funding collectivism doesn’t change people’s philosophy, but it does curtail their ability to get away with collectivism

It seems the recent HS graduates can paraphrase Karl Marx and quote the latest PC bromides, but can't balance a check book or turn a screwdriver. Not entirely true, I know, but it's looking like that.

In the novel there had been capitalism from the 19th century (e.g., Nat Taggert) prior to the plot. During the period of the plot the ideas were not "there all the time". Where is "there"? Ideas do not sit around in the ether waiting to express themselves. They are held in the minds of people and most did not understand them.

Some people had a better sense of life and rejected the government leadership, and no more. Only a few knew the right ideas, having extended and formulated a philosophical basis for the first time in the explicit form required.

The plot was not about a "rise of capitalism" following a collapse and described nothing of the kind. The novel ended with the protagonists on an airplane headed back to the Valley, anticipating a return to the world at an unspecified time and manner. The characters had previousl referred only to the ideas that would be required.

If you want to know what Ayn Rand thought was required for reform and the role of fundamental ideas in that, she wrote a lot about it subsequent to the novel, which we have discussed here previously. She rejected the anti-intellectual notion of a "strike" or a collapse as the means to reform and rejected the notion that a disaster is even required for it.

Imagining a "rise of capitalism" by no means simply by projecting a fictional followup to the fiction in the plot of a novel is wishful thinking simultaneously misrepresenting "the point of Atlas Shrugged". It is not an understanding of what is required for fundamental reform or a strategy for achieving it.

May not be the main purpose if AS, but she specifically portrayed a collapse and only then the subsequent rise of capitalism even though the ideas behind capitalism were there all the time in restdens speech

How? In a fictional world? What utility? If you stopped producing few would notice, let alone the world. It would do nothing to stop or reverse the spread of collectivism.

Even in the fictional plot John Galt did much more than stop funding collectivism. He used his mind to formulate proper philosophical ideas required in place of it, and rationally communicated them to those who could understand.

People have always cut back or stopped producing for punishment, but it does nothing to change the cause of the punishment.

Like a catch 22.

I think I see more utility in not funding or helping collectivism like John Galt

You are right, and it seems to be basic hunan nature to accept and become addicted to freebies. I have to specifically reject them if they are forcibly obtained from someone else. This is made very difficult if I am being stolen from by an amorphous government to pay for someone else’s freebies, and then I get a chance to have some of my stolen money returned by accepting some other freebie offered by that amorphous government.

Nazis as the "right" https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

No, ceasing to fund collectivism was not the point of Atlas Shrugged. With collectivist ideas dominant throughout society, including producers and semi-producers, there is no way to cease to fund it, nor would withholding funding change what people already believe. The point of Atlas Shrugged was to portray the role of the mind in human life by showing in a fictional plot what happens when the mind is withdrawn.

Somehow the collectivists very effectively rewrote that part history and fit it into their made-up narrative.
How many times have you heard it claimed that the Nazis were right wing? That Nazism is yet another alternative, exclusively to the right?

Funding collectivism is what mandatory progressive taxation is all about. All the average person can do is resist supporting it.
But like a psychotropic drug, it is so addictive once taken, to the point you believe you are entitled to it.

That has been the mantra of the left for 100 years now! Unfortunately, they usually finish with "We have always had the wrong leaders and with the RIGHT leadership, Socialism (actually Communism) will succeed".

That is patently incorrect! There is now such thing as a "Democratically" elected leader that would succeed. Socialism (or more realistically, Communism) will only succeed for a period of time under the "benign" rule of a dictator/tyrant.

In addition, Socialism (lets take the way station to Communism first) can only work as long as there is someone who can or will pay for it. Afterall, there is no such thing as "free" because everything in life has an associated cost. Even the air that we breath if you ask an environmentalist. These two simple facts highlight what can only be described as "insurmountable" flaws in the Socialist design.

I guess my question to all who subscribe to Socialism, Democrat Socialists or outright Communists (and everything in between) who is the tyrant that you want to surrender your freedom and opportunity to that you would trust with your life, your family's lives and those of your fellow citizens?

In closing, even those places that have been held up as "models" of modern socialism are in retreat because now (Europe, etc.) they must pay more of their own way since the US has been withdrawing its financial support (NATO, World Bank, etc) and those Socialist democracies must now take on that burden. Things are no longer quite so free and are getting more expensive by the day. How is that working out? Just a rhetorical question.......

I have yet convince someone to drop collectivism ( not that I claim to be particularly effective at that). What’s going to accomplish that I think is the producers ceasing to fund collectivism. Wasn’t that the point of AS?

Egoistic producers are on kangaroo trial of that kind in the media and in politics every day now, exemplified by whatsername Cortez and Milli Pocahontas, but no one is speaking in defense the way Rearden (or Roark) did. It would not require an inventor (like you) to do that, only a rational, productive person who "did built that". But business is the last to defend freedom, let alone egoistic ethics.