This is the subtlest trick of “collectivization.” The very country that opposed and martyred a genius becomes the proud author of his achievement. It starts by using his name as the proof and basis of its glory—and ends up by claiming credit for the achievement. It was not Goethe, Tchaikovsky, or the Wright brothers who were great and achieved things of genius—it was Germany, Russia, and the United States. It was “the spirit of the people,” “the rhythm of the country,” or whatever. The great man was only the robot—he “expressed the aspiration of the people,” he was “the voice of the country,” he was “the symbol of his time,” etc.

  The intent in all this is single and obvious: the expropriation of the great man’s credit. After taking his life, his freedom, his happiness, his peace, and his achievement, the collective must also take his glory. The collective wants not only the gift, but the privilege of not having to say “thank you.” The collective hates the man of genius—because he is a man of genius. It wants to torture him and expects him to struggle against [the collective] —in order to bring it the gifts, without disturbing its vanity and inferiority. Then it wants to steal the gifts and the giver’s glory—so that it would not have to admit to its own filthy, petty, twisted mind that it is an inferior, a charity object, a debtor, a beggar.

  (Good examples of this: the Wright brothers against the Smithsonian Institution; any country’s boasting of the great artists it martyred, such as France and Victor Hugo; the radio program’s slogan—“In a democracy art belongs to all the people”; the Soviet boast about its miserable North Pole expedition being greater than the achievements of individual enterprise, i.e., greater than the man who first discovered the North Pole, and greater than the Wright brothers who created the airplane; the “Zola” movie—where you see France putting Zola through hell for fighting against the collective France of his time, then hear it said at his funeral that Zola represented “the heart of France.” This is how the genius is made the victim of the collective’s crime and the whitewash for that crime.)

  Such is the relationship between the prime mover and the collective. It has been such all through history—and it is sanctioned, demanded, expected, held to be virtuous by mankind’s moral codes and philosophies. It is against this that the prime movers go on strike in my story.

  This part has to be kept in mind clearly and covered thoroughly. This is the basis of the whole story. I must decide in what way I present it—but it must be presented. (I’ll have to think over the prologue in this connection.) It is not just that the prime movers go on strike—it’s why they go on strike and against what. The “against what” must be made crystal clear—or the story is pointless.

  On the basis of this beginning, the story then proceeds like this: The prime movers say to the world, in effect: “You hate us. You don’t want us. You put every obstacle in our way. Very well—we’ll stop. We won’t fight you or bother you. We’ll merely stop functioning. We’ll stop doing the things you martyr us for. And see how you like it. ”

  The complete statement of the strike’s objective is: “We have had enough of your exploitation, persecution, insults, stealing, and expropriation. Go ahead and try to exist without us. We will not come back until you recognize and acknowledge the truth of the matter. Until you admit what we are, give us full credit for what we do, and give us full freedom from your chains, orders, restrictions and encroachments—physical, spiritual, political, and moral. Until you accept a philosophy that will leave us alone to function as we please. Until you take your hands off us—and keep them off. We ask nothing but the freedom to work and live as we please. You will get gifts and benefits from us such as you can never imagine. But you will not get them until you leave us alone. We are doing this in the name of all the great men whom you martyred in the past—and for the sake of all the great men you intend to martyr in the future. In the name of and for the sake of man’s greatness and man’s dignity. Once and for all, we will put an end to the torture of the best by [means of] their best—the penalizing of genius for [being] genius.”

  This is the theme of the novel.

  The story then shows what happens to the world when its heart stops. This point must be thought out carefully, in every detail, in every aspect. In a general way, what happens is total paralysis. Spiritually and physically. The wheels stop—and thought stops. All life, hope, and joy go with them. All energy, fire, color, imagination, enthusiasm. It is a kind of slow, creeping, progressive “rigor mortis.” Not horror and violence—but slow disintegration. Slow rot. The gray horror of dullness, stupidity, incompetence, inertia. Most particularly inertia.

  Show how the world stops entirely. And when it has stopped, when the collective has destroyed itself—the world learns its lesson. The prime movers can come back.

  To be thought out in detail: (1) every representative aspect of the prime mover who is martyred or stopped by society; (2) every representative aspect of the different way in which prime movers stop and go on strike—the kind of people they are and how they do it; (3) every representative aspect of the way in which the second-hander cannot function by himself and paralyzes the world. Every aspect of how and why and in what way the world has to stop without the prime movers—and does stop.

  Disconnected bits:

  John Galt

  Dagny Taggart

  Francisco d‘Anconia

  James Taggart

  Eddie Willers

  The opening of the story proper with: “Who is John Galt?” The bum in a desolate city street at twilight. The first signs of a city’s disintegration. The “afternoon” uneasiness. The calendar on the tower. Eddie Willers thinking of the great oak stricken by lightning, hollow inside—as he comes to the great building of Taggart Transcontinental. The marvelously efficient offices—and the heart of the building, the office of James Taggart. “Don’t bother me, don’t bother me, don’t bother me,” said James Taggart.

  The introduction of Dagny Taggart as she walks through the offices like a gust of fresh wind.

  Dagny and Francisco d‘Anconia. “Who is John Gait?”—“Stop using that cheap figure of gutter legend!”

  Dagny and the engineer who quits mysteriously.

  The girl writer at the book store window: “No, it’s not in that window. It will never be in that window.” [The girl writer is the fishwife in the valley; AR initially planned a larger role for the character.]

  The radio talk: “Don’t bother trying to choke it off. It can’t be done. This is John Galt speaking.... How did I do it? You could have had that secret and many, many others.”

  About John Galt’s invention: “In the eighteenth century, it could have been the steam engine. In the nineteenth—the automobile. In the twentieth—the airplane. In our day—you’ll never learn.”

  John Galt’s answer to the offer of planned power over the world: “Get the hell out of my way.”

  The last scene: in the mountains of their valley, looking down at a wrecked road—like the roads left of the Roman Empire. A house with a roof caved in—the skeleton of an automobile with its wheels in the air—and in the distance the stubborn fire fighting the wind. John Galt said: “This is our day. The road is cleared. We’re going back.”

  June 26, 1945

  The key points which will have to be dramatized (in concrete events, not merely by implication and exposition):

  The nature of the prime movers’ martyrdom. That must be shown. (There must be some equivalent of the prologue—some figure such as the composer—either in action or in flashback, but preferably in direct action.) This is needed not only because it is such an important point, never before covered anywhere—but also because it gives meaning to the strike itself. It is the spirit of the strike—and the justification. It is the very thing that made me want to write this novel. Without that point, the story would become merely a recital of the physical aspects of the strike, just plot events of a struggle which could not interest us very much because we are not let in on its essential purpose and motive. It would actually feature the second-handers—what happens to them, not to the strikers. The predominant emotion left by the book would be contempt, hatred, ridicule, gloating over the second-handers and their plight—but no uplift to the spirit of the strikers. The strikers would become only a kind of plot means to expose the parasites.

  I must consider very carefully the statements I made in my [earlier] notes to the effect that the world is featured in the story, and the relation of society to its prime movers. There is a fine balance of theme and construction which I must achieve here. It is somewhat the same problem as in The Fountainhead: the second-handers must not be allowed to steal the show, to become the stars of the story. Even though I do not here treat of the nature of prime movers, but of their relation to society—it is still the prime movers who are to be the stars: it is still their story. The balance must be: what happens to the world without the strikers—but also, what happens to the strikers.

  The general scheme, then, is: society’s crime against the prime movers—the prime movers go on strike—society collapses—the prime movers come back.

  A question to decide here is: whether there should be a concrete act of repentance on the part of society, an act of acknowledgment, the issue understood once and for all—or whether the strikers win merely by default, coming back because their road is cleared. This last is what actually happens historically—but then the implication would be that once the strikers have rebuilt the world, the whole process would begin all over again. The first (the repentance) is difficult to conceive; who is to do the repenting? Are second-handers capable of such an act, of understanding and justice? This must be thought out.

  [In my notes of January 1], I have the sentence “the world learns its lesson.” As a possibility, I might have a specific villain in the story who symbolized the parasites and society, who exploits the prime movers—and who repents at the end. It might be James Taggart. Or it might be several men, each representing a key aspect of society and of the parasite.

  The theme stated in its simplest form: it is John Galt saying to an inefficient stenographer: “You presumptuous fool! I have no desire to work for you nor to be martyred for that privilege. You think I should and you think you can force me to. All right—try it.”

  (A possible lead in thinking out the construction: the story could actually be told in the terms of one life—the personal relationship of one creator to one second-hander. Try to visualize it as that—then translate it into a social picture, by individualizing the separate key aspects of the conflict.)

  Keep in mind throughout the story the realistic aspect of the fantastic theme—the actual ways in which prime movers do go on strike, though it is not a conscious, organized strike. By stressing that, keeping it as the foundation of the characters’ psychology, using it consistently for concrete cases, as illustration—I will make the story profoundly real, spiritually real. The plot device of the strike will then become only an exaggeration of that which actually happens, an emphasis for purposes of clarity and eloquence—not pure fantasy.

  The two realistic ways in which prime movers go on strike are: (1) what happens to talented and exceptional men under dictatorships; and (2) how sensitive, talented people stop functioning when they are disgusted by the society around them, as at the present time here in America.

  This last form of striking always happens when gifted men find themselves in a morally corrupt society. (And such a society is always collectivist, or on its way to collectivism, because morality and individualism are inseparable. The degree of individualism in a society determines the degree of its morality.) In effect, the gifted men find themselves dealing with men and conditions that they do not wish to deal with. So they do one of three things: (1) they do not function at all and become drifting, aimless bums; (2) they function in some field other than their proper one and produce only enough for their own sustenance, refusing to let the world benefit from their surplus energy; or (3) they function in their proper field but produce less than one tenth of their actual capacity—it is a strained, unhappy, forced effort for them—their natural desire and their energy demanding an outlet, in conflict with their disgust against the conditions under which their energy has to function.

  Examples to keep in mind: (1) Gus Vollmer, Linda Lynneberg (?); (2) Frank [O‘Connor], Pat’s publisher (Earle Balch), Dr. Kramer and all the doctors who wish to retire if socialized medicine is passed; (3) Pat.

  April 6, 1946

  Questions to think out

  1. The actual plot must contain emotional conflict. There is the danger of having mere action, without emotional content, if I start with the strikers already on strike. Their decision is then undrama tized, behind the scenes—and the story can become passive, like their action of just doing nothing. (Here—show that it is not easy for them to break the ties.)

  2. The strikers must have something to do more than just strike. Otherwise, the parasites will carry the story by carrying the action. It still must be the strikers’ story—they must carry and motivate the plot.

  For main line (plot)

  The main activities of mankind.

  The three attitudes [described at the end of the June 26, 1945, notes].

  The steps of growth—reverse [to find] steps of disintegration (and destruction). (Stress “purposelessness” in the progressive steps of

  TT’s [Taggart Transcontinental‘s] destruction.)

  The specific (concrete) form of the final catastrophe. (Specific second-handers, or is it beyond that point? Beyond that point—panic and collapse.)

  April 7, 1946

  John Galt tells one of those who is unconsciously on strike from bitterness and disillusionment: “You think the world is essentially a mixture of good and evil, and one must compromise with the evil, and you’re sick of that, so you’re giving up the world? Nonsense. Evil, by definition (if we have made the right definition), is the impotent, the impractical, the powerless, that which does not work. So it is no threat to us, it cannot stand in our way—unless we permit it and help it to do so. It cannot poison the world for us—unless we carry the poison and spread it. The parasites cannot exploit us or rule us—unless we voluntarily agree to be exploited and hand them the tools with which to rule us. Let us withdraw the tools.

  “We permit it, and we have suffered this long, for one essential reason: the generosity of the creator. It is our nature that we wish to give, prodigally, recklessly, because we know that the source—our creative energy—is inexhaustible. Being self-sufficient, we cannot conceive of dependence, so we are modest in relation to others, we never think that we are indispensable to them or superior, because we do not consider them indispensable or superior to us. We act as equals toward equals—and an exchange between equals is a proper, natural activity. We are glad to give because our creation is a discovery or embodiment of truth, and when others respond to truth we welcome their response, we are happy—not because of the good it does them, not because their approval gives us pleasure or is of any importance to us—but because their response is a victory for truth, and what we welcome is their entrance into our world, into that world which we know to be good and true.

  “We see no danger in giving—we think we’re giving to men as rich as we are; we think of it as gifts, not alms. And whenever we come up against an inferior—that he is an inferior is the hardest thing for us to believe; we see the evidence and we think it is a misunderstanding or a temporary misfortune that has affected the man; then we throw ourselves to the rescue, we give, we help, we let him lean on us and bleed us, we carry him—‘why not?’ we say, we are so strong, we have so much to spare. We are incapable of conceiving of the parasite’s mind, so we can never understand him. We are incapable of hatred and malice. We will not accuse him without cause or reason—and we can’t find the cause, since we can’t understand him.

  “So we become helpless and bewildered before him. We never accuse him, no matter what he does to us. He yells that we are selfish, cruel, tyrannical by reason of the very abundance and magnificence of our talents. And we almost come to believe this. ”Almost“—because no power on earth can really make us believe this; we are the men of truth, we cannot fall that far into lying; and since our talents, our creative energy, are our sacred possessions, the source of our joy in living, we cannot commit so great a sacrilege against them.

  “We allow ourselves to become torn. In a vague, unstated, indefinable way, we begin to feel that we must atone for something, make amends to someone, pay someone for something in some manner. What? We don’t know. We can never know. We refuse to admit to ourselves the truth in a clear statement: that we are being damned for the best within us, and that the creature making the accusation is small, inferior, and truly evil. We are generous, and we do not pronounce such a judgment upon a fellow human being. Hatred and anger are unnatural to us; contempt for a human being is totally unnatural to us, perhaps impossible—because we think and act as if we were dealing with men, and it is not proper to despise men, we are worshippers of man, because we are men and this is the logical implication of our self-reverence. One’s opinion of mankind comes from one’s opinion of oneself, which is the only first-hand knowledge of man one can have. The man who respects himself, will carry the respect to his species, to others. The man who despises himself, with good reason, carries the contempt, the malice, the hatred, the suspicion to all humanity. We, the creators, cannot conceive of this. We are bewildered by the parasite’s malice—we do not even recognize it as malice, because we don’t really know malice.