Summary—Chapter VII: “This is John Galt Speaking”
Centuries ago, the man who was—no matter
what his errors—the greatest of your philosophers, has stated the formula
defining the concept of existence and the rule of all knowledge:
A is A. A thing is itself. You have never grasped the meaning of
his statement. I am here to complete it: Existence is Identity,
Consciousness is Identification.
(See Quotations, p. )
Rearden vanishes, sending Dagny a note that says only,
“I have met him. I don’t blame you.” Without him, the output of
the steel industry shrinks. The country is panicky, and violent
gangs gain control. Newspapers tell conflicting stories, mostly
in the form of denials, but everywhere the collapse of society is
obvious.
In an attempt to calm the public, the government announces
that Mr. Thompson, the Head of State, will give a speech on all
stations to address the crisis. The date and time are announced
repeatedly for a week. At the moment the speech is to begin, the
airwaves are taken over, and John Galt addresses the public instead.
Galt delivers a long, detailed speech about the state of the nation
and the strike of the mind and its reasons.
He denounces the mystics who claim God as the highest
moral authority, and the socialists, who claim one’s neighbors as
the highest moral authority. He argues that morality is not an arbitrary
system imposed from the outside, but an integral part of man himself. Man’s
reason, Galt says, is his moral faculty. Serving himself is the highest
goal of the moral man. He describes the principles under which every
man must live: reason, purpose, and self-esteem. These principles,
he declares, imply and require all of man’s virtues: rationality,
independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, and pride.
He calls for a general strike, asking those with any shred of reason
left to withdraw their sanction and stop supporting their own destroyers.
He urges people to accept reality and to stop shrinking from knowledge,
but accept it and reclaim the concept of an objective reality.
Summary—Chapter VIII: The Egoist
After the speech, Mr. Thompson and the other Washington
men are terrified and desperate. Dr. Stadler suggests coldly that
they should kill Galt. Mr. Thompson thinks that Galt is a man of
action, precisely what the nation needs, and that he can get the
retired industrialists back. Thompson wants to negotiate with him.
After the broadcast, Eddie tells Dagny that he knows John
Galt, that for years he has talked to him at the Taggart cafeteria.
He wonders if he was helping to save or to destroy the railroad.
Dagny asks him to keep his knowledge of Galt’s employment secret,
because the government is desperate to find him.
The country falls deeper into chaos. The government
searches for Galt, while a steady flow of broadcasts announce that
John Galt will solve the country’s problems. Thompson asks Dagny
if she knows where to find Galt. He hints that the situation is
now desperate. He can no longer control the government’s dangerous
faction, and if they were to find Galt first, they might kill him.
She tells Thompson that she does not know where Galt is. After her
conversation with Mr. Thompson, Dagny is so afraid for Galt that
she rushes to his apartment. When she reaches him, he tells her
that she was followed by government agents, and in a short time
they will storm the apartment. He tells her that she must pretend
to be against him. If they realize the nature of Galt and Dagny’s
relationship, they will use her to torture him. When the agents appear
to arrest him, she pretends he is her enemy.
The looters hold Galt prisoner while they try to convince
him to become the country’s economic dictator, but he refuses. Since
he is literally at gunpoint, he agrees to perform any task they
tell him to do, but he refuses to think for them. His mind cannot
be compelled. Several men attempt to convince him, appealing to
his sense of pity, greed, or fear, but Galt is unbreakable. He asks
to see Dr. Stadler, who is deeply shaken by the encounter. Meanwhile,
the newspapers declare that Galt has decided to help the government
and that he is currently conferring with the nation’s leaders. No
one on the street believes the articles, and most do not believe
that Galt has been found at all. To reassure the people, the looters
announce the unveiling of the John Galt Plan for the economy, but
at a television appearance to announce it, Galt reveals to the cameras
a hidden gun pointing at him. He says to the cameras, “Get the hell
out of my way!”
Civil war breaks out in California, and the Comet is stranded. Eddie
leaves to try to restore Taggart’s transcontinental service. Dagny
receives a letter from Francisco telling her to contact him if Galt
is in danger.
Analysis: Part Three, Chapters VII–VIII
The John Galt speech, like Roark’s speech in Rand’s other
major novel, The Fountainhead, forms the philosophical
heart of the novel and the basis for much of Rand’s philosophy.
The central tenet is that reason, not faith or emotion, forms the
basis of human prosperity. Men must choose the rational over the
irrational and accept objective reality, since, as Galt says, existence
exists (“A is A”). Furthermore, men must live for their own self-interest,
pursuing their own values, and not for others. To do so, they must
be free of any interference from the government or other institutions
that might seek to enslave the mind. The mind, as the motive power
of the world, must be free. Most of the ideas presented in the speech
have appeared before, in pieces of conversations, but here they
are integrated into a single, comprehensive statement. Galt’s speech
is an ultimatum for the men in power and a call to arms for their
victims.
In believing Galt will negotiate with the government,
the looters seriously miscalculate. Thompson assumes Galt can be
tempted by power for its own sake. He imagines Galt will compromise
his ideals in exchange for a role in the government. Dr. Ferris
and Cuffy Meigs, meanwhile, understand that Galt is their enemy
and that his position is not negotiable. If he is put in charge,
the looters will no longer be able to exist. They see killing him
as their only means of self-preservation, though they may be wrong
to assume they will survive at all in the spiraling chaos that engulfs
the country. Dr. Stadler agrees that Galt threatens his existence,
and his meeting with Galt destroys what little remains of his self-worth.
He has worked hard to avoid objective reality, and Galt makes the
avoidance impossible. Stadler must confront what he has become and
the world he is in, and this is more than he can bear. Where men
like Stadler and Jim remain dark and unknown to themselves, Galt
possesses the light of self-knowledge, which cannot help but illuminate everything.
In the world of Rand’s philosophy, nothing is more deadly to a creature
of illusion and obscurity than light and clarity.
The clash between Galt and the looters is the battle of
mind versus muscle. The looters have only brute force as a tool,
while Galt has his mind. Although the looters can use force to command
him physically, they are powerless to coerce his mind. The notion
that they can compel him to think for them, in fact to want to think
for them, is preposterous. Yet they cannot imagine a man so completely immune
to compulsion and corruption that he would refuse to accept the
power they offer him, even at gunpoint.
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