The story starts with describing a very successful company, the Taggart Transcontinental, whose economic status is worsening. As Dagny Taggart, vice president in charge of operations, works to revive the company's crumbling status, her efforts are wasted due to the disappearance and retirement of the most talented businessman in the world. Whenever she needed a person who is most suited to help revive the company that person would mysteriously disappear. .
Dagny curious about the disappearance of many successful men tries to find out the reason behind it. Together with Hank Rearden, whom she met when trying to save the company, they have discovered that there is a strike of the mind. Great industrialists are disappearing form the world because of the corruption of the government. The strike of the mind, led by John Galt, eventually leads to the destruction of the society. .
When John Galt, the leader of the strike of the mind, made public the strike that is going on and the reasons behind the strike, the government unable to control the people suggested that they need John Galt to revive the world. When the "looters" captured John Galt they forced him to do whatever they want but John Galt refuses. He refuses to think for the "looters". .
On the course of the story, Dagny, up until the end, thinks that the "looters" or corrupt men are capable of reason and will understand their mistakes before it is too late. When she had finally realized that there is no hope for the looters, she eventually joined the strike. They rescue John Galt from the looters and escaped out of the country. .
With the complete collapse of the looters" way of life, the strikers are ready to rebuild a nation according to their own belief. A nation where corruption and greed is absent. .
The main theme of the story is the importance of the mind. Without the great thinkers, a society would be destroyed. Without the guidance of the mind, labor alone could not make a society thrive.
