Atlas Shrugged Analysis

Ragnar Danneskjöld said that he loved that which had rarely been loved, namely, human ability. When he said this, he could have meant that human ability is taken for granted, which is shown by the fact that several business plans in the book follow the idea of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” This idea took what men were able to complete and compensated them their need. When they are compensated for their need, and are not fired for their lack of ability, then they can show that their ability is lower than it really is and still receive pay to sustain them. They could then receive pay according to their supposed needs, which may or may not be real. In the Atlas Shrugged, Jeff Allen explained the effects this

Since they made that money through their ability and thus Danneskjöld believed they should have a refund. However, he did not refund Dagny’s taxes on her stocks in Taggart Transcontinental as her brother Jim, who was part of the looters side, made much of that possible and thus, the money was not made honestly. “Taggart Transcontinental has taken its share of the looting, it has made profits by force, by means of government favors, subsidies, moratoriums, directives,” (705). Danneskjöld says that if Taggart Transcontinental had been under the management of Dagny’s father, “(he) would have refunded every penny of (her) profit” (705). This was due to the fact that not only was her father a man of ability; he had the moral standards that were common among the inhabitants of Galt’s

He started by taking his friends with him and then he took his teacher, Dr. Akston. He then proceeded to take other men and women of ability from the world, so that the looters would not gain unearned profits. Galt told others that the looters were receiving unearned income and that by letting the looters destroy the world, the people of ability would be able to go back and start the world over in a way that people benefitted from their ability, not from the ability of others. Dr. Robert Stadler had the brains, but he did not have the moral standards that would have led to his acceptance into Galt’s Gulch. This made him part of the side of the looters who wanted to destroy human ability. While Galt was taking away the people with ability, Danneskjöld was taking away the looted products made by the people of