Galt shared this message with each person now living in the valley, but only when each was prepared to accept his idea. As a result, Galt has orchestrated a strike unlike any other in human history. Obviously, this isn't the first group of people to go on strike while claiming to be indispensable to human well-being. Striking workers have often accused wealthy entrepreneurs and industrialists of exploitation — of gaining profit by robbing the true producer of wealth, the manual laborer. But Galt's strike is designed to show that the mind — not physical labor — is the fundamental source of wealth, and that the men and women who perform intellectual work are the true creators of value. Galt insists that the thinkers — the inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs who plan a company's long-range policies — are fundamentally responsible for prosperity. Galt intends to prove that when the thinkers participate in the economy, the standard of living is high, but when the thinkers withdraw, the standard of living plummets. The manual laborers stay on the job, and they undeniably do constructive work that aids the production of goods and services. But their work alone, without the guidance of the mind, cannot move the economy forward.
The reader learns something in this chapter that Dagny doesn't know yet: John Galt works as a laborer for Taggart Transcontinental. He is the nameless worker who pumps Eddie Willers for information in the Taggart cafeteria. We first make this connection when Dagny recognizes the lack of pain, fear, and guilt in his face, because the description matches Eddie's description of the Taggart worker. Galt reveals that he has watched Dagny closely for years, and we now realize from which vantage point.
