Here of late the famous classic novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand has become more popular that ever in its entire 52-year published history. I myself have read Atlas Shrugged many times over the past 30 years. It is not only an engaging fiction novel that grabs the reader’s attention from start to finish, but also an amazing philosophical accomplishment -– and I think one that started a new intellectual revolution of ideas. It is a story of what happens to the world when the mind of man goes on strike.

In this context, Atlas Shrugged has many, many messages to offer to the reader. Volumes could be written regarding the meaning and impact of these messages. But for the space of this blog, I will focus briefly on two of my favorite messages, with my own commentary: who actually went on strike, and John Galt’s final message to the world (Galt being the novel’s hero).

The first message deals with who actually went on strike. While most favorable book reviews and commentary of Atlas Shrugged tend only to focus on the businessmen, the entrepreneurs, and the industrialists who were the “strikers” against a world that was enslaving them, there was so much more to the makeup of the actual striker. Exactly who was the striker?

I think that many reviews, readers, and even admirers, of Atlas Shrugged tend to forget that it was not only the entrepreneurs, industrialists, and prominent businessmen that went on strike, but also the philosophers, historians, doctors, engineers, scientists, teachers, writers, poets, artists, music composers, including many of the common laymen (laborers, truckers, secretaries, etc.). I think it is equally important to recognize that it was not only single individuals that went on strike, but also many couples (married or not), including couples with children, all of whom went on strike. In short, it was the thinkers, i.e., the producers, who went on strike, from every section and part of the economy and society, from every walk of life.

They all went on strike so as not to provide, or leave to, any part of their lives, work, wealth, efforts, and ideas (their minds) to the “moochers and looters” of any section and part of the economy and society (including especially the crony capitalists, the unions, the special-interests groups, the statists from all walks of life, all government leeches, and the government power-lusting politicians and bureaucrats). Remember, Galt said he would stop the motor of the world: he meant he would stop the creative, thinking mind of the world –- from every section and part of the economy and society. In the end, most strikers where ordinary people who just quit on their own accord without Galt’s influence.

It is also interesting to note that Ayn Rand purposefully withdrew first such thinkers and workers as the philosophers, the historians, the doctors, the engineers, the scientists, the teachers, the writers, the artists, and music composers. Ms. Rand than began to withdraw secondly the entrepreneurs, the businessmen, and the industrialist. If you recall, for example, it was a sculptor who set up a simple foundry in Mulligan’s Valley -- before another businessman, who went on strike and came to the Valley, took over the foundry and hired the sculptor to work for him -- and then Hank Rearden took that business over, after he himself went on strike and arrived in the Valley, hiring both the previous owner and the sculptor to work for him.

In addition to the above example, here is an excerpt from the conversation between the novel’s heroine, Dagny Taggart, and the great composer, Richard Halley, who is on strike, and whom Ms. Taggart eventually meets in the Valley, after she crashes her plane there. Mr. Halley speaks to her about the nature of the artist, and he concludes:

“…For if there is more tragic a fool than the businessman who doesn’t know that he’s an exponent of man’s highest creative spirit – it’s the artist who thinks that the businessman is his enemy.”

As an artist and composer, I personally have no desire to start or run my own business, nor to own or even manage a company. Yes, the idea has been tempting to me in the past. But though I choose art and music, I am very glad and even grateful that there are those men and women –- those individuals –- who are willing to take the risks and have the true desire to start and run their own businesses, or to own and manage a company. I am glad that there are those people who want to be publishers, gallery owners, or artist agents. I admire that. I also admire those incredible entrepreneurs and industrialists of the world who are the true driving forces of a free-market social system, not some statist deadwood in Washington, D.C.

I want businessmen, businesswomen, entrepreneurs, and companies of every kind imaginable -– from the small business to the giant corporation -- to have complete, unhampered, unregulated individual and economic freedom, the freedom to compete to the greatest extent of their abilities and to succeed at the highest levels they are capable of. I do not envy or hate their lives, their abilities, their success, or their wealth. I cheer it on. I, like anyone else, can only benefit and prosper from complete unregulated economic freedom for everyone.

The true businessman is not my enemy; he is my ally in freedom and prosperity. It is coercive government force and control, along with the crony capitalists, crony businessmen, and special-interest groups who favor government interference and manipulation for their own benefit, that are the true enemies of our freedoms and liberties, our individual rights and property rights, our work and relationships, our prosperity and wealth, our dreams and happiness. In short, they are the true enemies not only of our individuals lives, but the true enemies of life itself.

The other message from Atlas Shrugged deals with John Galt’s final message to the world.

Towards the end of the story, Galt delivers his famous “This is John Galt speaking” radio broadcast. He points out what is causing the world’s social and economic crisis and chaos, and makes very clear what is philosophically necessary to rid the world of its corruption and chaos, as well as what will bring back freedom, economic prosperity, and social peace. Not long after his speech, John Galt is captured by the American corrupt statist government.

The corrupt government imprisons Galt, trying desperately to convince him to tell them and the world how to fix America’s social and economic crisis and chaos. They believe Galt has some “secret formula” that will fix everything. But of course, he doesn’t. But what Galt does have is a message for America that will solve its social and economic crisis and chaos. The corrupt government sets up a plan to have Galt speak to the nation via TV, to force Galt to offer his solution and message of hope. They force Galt to the TV studio at the point of a gun. At the part where Galt is to appear on national TV and deliver his message, he stands up and moves to the side, exposing the gun aimed at him for all of America to see on national TV. Then Galt says this:

“Get the hell out of my way.”

One cannot enslave another man and force him to be a productive, prosperous individual; one can only force another man to produce enough to survive and exist like an animal in chains, or die. One cannot force another man to think nor to be free (either is a contradiction); one can only force another man either to blindly follow orders, rot in slavery, or die. This is the difference between Capitalism (where there is the recognition and protection of individual rights and property rights, where all property is privately owned, where there exists individual freedom, and a free, peaceful division of labor society), versus that of Statism (where man’s life belongs to the state, where the government controls the economy using force and tyranny, and everyone lives in the collective rat’s nest of feudalism).

It’s either one or the other: Capitalism or Statism, individual freedom or collective slavery, individual rights and liberty or coercive government force and tyranny, freedom of thought or forced indoctrination and censorship, economic freedom or labor-camp enslavement, productiveness or stagnation, prosperity or impoverishment, abundance or starvation, happiness or misery, life or death.

These are our only choices. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration, along with most of the U.S. Congress and our Judicial System, all support the latter, i.e., Statism and force. So does the supposed G-20 nations. But it will only be to our demise, our peril, and our destruction, whether they know it or not. I fear they know it, and our impoverishment, our starvation, and even our deaths are the price they are willing to pay to maintain their political power over free individuals. Period.

However, the true thinkers and producers of the world -- from all walks of life -- are waking up to this madness. They no longer feel guilty for wanting to live as free individuals, for wanting freedom and liberty, for wanting their rights and property protected, for wanting prosperity, for wanting wealth, for wanting happiness, for wanting life! They are becoming proud for wanting to live as free individuals. They are no longer willing to be the victims that continue to sanction the very hatred and tyranny against them. At some point the true thinkers and producers of the world, each as individuals and together as a group of individuals -- which will hopefully include much of the American public -– will reach the same conclusion that John Galt did, and openly stand up to the statists, the socialists, the environmentalists, the crony businessmen, the unions, the government leeches, the government power-lusting politicians and bureaucrats, and all the other “moochers and looters,” and loudly proclaim:

“Enough is enough! You have no “right” and no claim to our individual lives, our liberty, our freedoms, our individual rights, our property rights, our property, our work, our productivity, our money, our wealth, our happiness! Our individual lives, our freedom, our rights, our property, our work, and the economy do not belong to the state or the government, nor to any other group, nor to any of you statist zealots! The state, the government, does not own man’s life, or any part of it! The state, its politicians, and its cronies do not own our individual lives, our freedom, our rights, our property, our work, our wealth! In addition, you statists and socialists do not own our individual lives, our freedom, our rights, our property, our work, our wealth! Only we, each as free individuals, own our individual lives, our freedom, our rights, our property, our work, our wealth! Our lives, our freedom, and our rights belong only to each of us as free individuals by birthright, by the very nature of who we are individually as conceptual human beings, and do not require any government’s or anyone else’s permission or decree! Our property, our work, and our wealth belong only to each of us as free individuals who have acted and produced such, for our own voluntary and peaceful use, action, consideration, and exchange! We create the government, and it exists only to protect our freedom, our rights, and our property! The government does not exist to enslave! We recognize now that you desperately need our individual lives, our minds, and our productivity, and you will take them at the point of any coercive government force and gun necessary. But your statist game is up. We do not need you or your cronies! You need us, but we do not need you! Therefore, we send this message to you…"

“Get the hell out of our way!”