Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideasexplored in a literary work.The Importance of the Mind

The strike of the mind led by John Galt demonstratesthis central theme of the novel. When the best creative minds aresystematically removed from the world, their importance is laidbare. Without the great thinkers, society spirals quickly downward.The economy collapses, and irrational looters seize power. Randsbelief in the central importance of the mind opposes the prevailingwisdom that labor is responsible for prosperity. As the events ofthe novel show, the mind enables creation and innovation and powersthe engine of the world. Labor alone cannot achieve productivityand prosperity without the guidance of the mind.

Rand sets out to demonstrate through the novels actionwhat happens when governments follow socialist ideas. She arguesthat when men are compelled, through collectivisms forced moralcode, to place the needs of their neighbors above their own rationalself-interest, the result is chaos and evil. Incentive is destroyed,and corruption becomes inevitable. The story of the Twentieth Century MotorCompany illustrates this brilliantly. After the plant adopted amethod in which workers were paid according to perceived needs andordered to work based on perceived ability, the workers became depravedand immoral, each seeking to show himself or herself as most needyand least skilled. The plant failed, and the community was destroyedby mistrust and greed. For Rand, any economic or political planbased on sacrifice of the individual for the group leads to chaosand destruction.

Rand rejects the mind-body dichotomy that is central tomany philosophies and religions. She opposes the idea that the thoughtsand achievements of the mind are pure and noble, but the desiresof the body are base and immoral, and she presents Dagny as a character whoalso rejects the idea. Dagny is proud of her sexuality and sees herphysical desires flowing logically from the evaluations and rationalityof her mind. At first, Rearden accepts the mind-body split. His transformationoccurs when he comes to integrate the two facets of himself intoa rational whole.

Dr. Stadler represents another aspect of this mind-bodydichotomy. He sees the pure science of the mind as removedfrom practical affairs and wonders why the mind that made the motorwould bother with practical applications. For him, the mind is cutoff not just from the body but from practical life. Again, Dagnyrepresents the integrated whole when she concludes that the motorsinventor worked within the reality of practical life because heliked living on earth.

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SparkNotes: Atlas Shrugged: Themes