Dagny and Rearden in conflict with the Galt and the strike even though they all agreed on the end goal was a source of tension and suspense in the novel. They believed they could win without giving up everything they had accomplished.

A fictional plot is not a standard for a political strategy. The goal now is not to create more chaos, deprivation, and destruction, shortening and wrecking all of our lives, for a fantasy belief that collapse would result in fundamental reform in a society driven by altruism and collectivism.

Rearden's answers to the court were based on his right to his own property versus the "public good", refusing to grant the sanction of the victim, not a systematic or comprehensive philosophical defense of capitalism. It did not mention egoism versus the altruism that drove his enemies. It had an immediate effect based on sense of life, but aside from the court backing down, was followed by silence until apologetic businessmen denounced his statements.

Rearden knew it was not enough and that he did not know the answer:

"They had cheered him today; they had cheered him by the side of the track of the John Galt Line. But tomorrow they would clamor for a new directive from Wesley Mouch and a free housing project from Orren Boyle, while Boyle's girders collapsed upon their heads. They would do it, because they would be told to forget, as a sin, that which had made them cheer Hank Rearden.

"Why were they ready to renounce their highest moments as a sin? Why were they willing to betray the best within them? What made them believe that this earth was a realm of evil where despair was their natural fate? He could not name the reason, but he knew that it had to be named. He felt it as a huge question mark with
in the courtroom, which it was now his duty to answer."

Francisco's money speech at a party addressed a principle of capitalism, but was not public and had no impact on those opposed to him.

Galt's speech was a philosophic statement but came at the end of the novel as a fundamentally new formulation, not something that was already "there". There was no public intellectual moral argument for capitalism or assumption that one was already "there" as part of the plot action through the novel.

Good idea. Utopian systems like socialism run by imperfect humans can’t stay utopian for long

AR wrote a great and inspiring story. If a story like that can’t change peoples minds, intellectual talk about premises will just not work

I am thinking the appeal of collectivism is not through consciously accepting “premises”. I think it’s accepted emotionally without thought

We agree on a lot of what you say. If a 10% reduction in output was advertised as a goal, the collectivists would use that as an excuse to fight the producers. But I think the 10% reduction would happen by itself because people would just get tired of working so hard. And government collections and their ability to hire people and control things would diminish

Such people do not think beyond that particular day. By stark contrast, Rand correctly describes industrialists as "planning in terms of decades". We need to co-opt the millenials' idea of sustainability so as to refer to financial sustainability.

Mixed premises - yes. It is refreshing to see someone without such mixed premises and with such clarity and confidence as either Roark or Galt.

Ayn Rand was dismayed when the novel did not have the immediate effect she anticipated. She came to see that it is a much longer process and that is requires non-fiction intellectual battles. She did not (and I do not) "miss the appeal of collectivism" -- it is based on the false premises widely accepted, and the lack of knowledge of what is right.

She has had an effect on the culture, but it has not yet "stemmed the tide" and will not any time soon.

Collectivists don't have to collect what isn't there to remain collectivists in power, just like the Church could remain in power for over a thousand years along with and following the collapse into the Dark Ages.

Good points. I never actually thought that Galt would succeed at stopping the motor of the world. It stopped of its own weight by the nature of the effects of collectivism on the human mind. All Galt did is helped the producers to understand what they were facing.

I can sympathize with the disgust of feeding collectivism. Emotionally I want to stop producing and feeding the collectivists. To actually do this requires that either I accumulate enough wealth to just drop out, or endure the sacrifices of not having money to live like a regular person. I dont think that my actions make one iota of difference in the rest of the world, so whatever I do wont be to change the world.

I agree that looting and mooching are easier choices, and that probably accounts for the prevalence of both of those things. One would have to at least think of why it was a better idea to adopt calitalism in the long run. If all one wants is to feed off other people, eventually everyone will be feeding off everyone else and the net gain is less than zero

Along with a larger number with mixed premises.

collectivist principles survive the failure of a particular collectivist regime. I agree with that. BUT, running out of money DID stop the Soviet Union and its horror show, and it will stop the Maduro experiment in Venezuela. But icollectivismstarted up again in Russia, and will undoubtedly start again in Venezuela without massive change in philosophical orientation of the citizens. BUT, there is some relaxation in collectivist policies for a time. Thats what I wanted from Trump, although I suspect there wont be as much slowing as I had hoped, given the attitude of the RINOs and the Dems.

Atlas Shrugged did relate to reality in mirroring the kind of failures, the excuses given for them, and the moral injunctions demonizing the successful while calling for their control and punishment that we have seen for decades.

Ayn Rand saw that clearly while she was writing it as she read the latest news. She said that to keep going she told herself that it was to prevent the outcome she saw in progress. It also mirrored reality in abstracting the essence of the best in man -- she wrote it to portray in fiction her idea of the "ideal man".

What the fictional plot does not do is provide a strategy of a 'strike' by the best producers as a way to cripple the statists, or as a way to institute reform. Producers in fact are much larger in number and much more mixed (or worse) in premises. Even the collapse in the plot was (deliberately by Ayn Rand) artificially speeded up as it abstracted the role of the mind through a relative handful of producers.

Your dropping out would not "curtail the collectivist control only a tiny degree". It would do it to no degree. It's economic effect would not be noticed, but more, it would do nothing to curtail their control.

Neither would a 10% reduction in economic output, planned or not. If anything, economic hardship tends to be demagogued by the collectivists to increase their power over people who don't know any better. A failing economy is a failing economy, not a reduction in collectivism and its control.

What about Rearden in his court case. Sure sounded like moral principles to me. Dagny and Rearden actually helped the collectivists to survive longer, even when they were told what the results of their work actually were.

One or two bad choices allow an Ellsworth Toohey to "own" a Peter Keating. Being a Howard Roark is the effort of a lifetime. d(looters)/d(time) and d(moochers)/d(time) = very positive.
d(producers)/d(time), even when it was positive, was not sufficiently positive to forever enshrine production in the society.
Looting and mooching are such easy choices.

Productive individualists for eons have cut back or dropped out because working for punishment made no sense. But they have not typically thought of it in terms of stopping "supporting" anyone, either morally or economically.

In the plot of Atlas Shrugged, many dropped out in despair, but Galt and a few others did more than just avoid punishment. They recognized the injustice for what it was -- withdrawing the sanction of the victim -- and actively sought to bring down the corrupt society by "stopping the motor of the world" -- withdrawing the mind

Outside of that fictional context you can personally reduce your punishment, and you can personally withdraw the sanction of the victim, but you won't stop the motor of the world, let alone create a proper society through a 'strike' alone.

The megamillionaires who think it is necessary to "give back" are what I mean by the altruistic producers. You interpreted what I wrote correctly. Obviously not all producers are altruistic, but a surprising number are.

The "desire" for collectivism is not all that continues; collectivist premises ensure that collectivist control continues with or without any semblance of a functioning economy. Money running out didn't stop the collectivism in the Soviet Union for over half a century or since, and hasn't stopped it in Venezuela. The economy and the regimes collapsed in both but that didn't stop the collectivism. Individualism did not reign in Russia and there is no sign of it being advocated in Venezuela even as the interim leader may take over.

Producers like Dagny and Rearden were not espousing the moral principles on which capitalism is based, nor in their situation would it have stopped the others. All the rest could see is that people like Dagny and Rearden were "somehow" succeeding. When they finally left near the end, the economy was already over the edge and there was no one else left to take their place either for production, even with mediocrity, or to loot.

It would be a "badge of honor" but I don't think that in this culture and legal system a Rearden defense would succeed in stopping a tribunal.

What do you mean by "the altruism of producers"? Those who accept the altruist premise?

Doesn’t it sound like that’s why AS FAILED to educate people into not being collectivists. Not intending any disrespect to ewv, but his arguments miss the appeal of collectivism, and therefore will fail to stem the tide during any of our lives. And he misses the power of removing the fruits of producers from the grasp of collectivists to enact real changer. Collectivists CANT collect what isn’t there

I think AS has much more to do with practical reality than you are giving it credit for. So many things in AS are coming true today

I agree that me dropping out will curtail the collectivist control only a tiny degree. But if the producers , thru being tired of working and having their work given to other people, cut back their work output by 10%, don’t you think that would create a recession and substantially cut the take of the collectivists? Less money to collectivists means less control over the producers- don’t you think?