A world where bit by bit everything in life is more and more controlled by the government, and the most brilliant minds in industry and science are vanishing. The mystery unravels through the eyes of Dagny Taggart, a railroad executive in continuous struggle to keep afloat the business, which seems to drown in such chaotic elements. The issues that are taken up by the plot include individualism, freedom, and the human mind in the course of existence. Who is John Galt? That was the question the whole world found on its lips as it collapsed under the load of regulations and the mediocrity this breeding ground fostered. This becomes the key to the discovery of a mass exodus of the world's innovators, and the road to a new way of life.