Still, we voted for the plan - and what we got, we had it coming to us. Well, how were we to know otherwise? Hadn't we heard it all our lives - from our parents and our school-teachers and our ministers, and in every newspaper we ever read and every movie and every public speech? Hadn't we always been told that this was righteous and just? Well, maybe there's some excuse for what we did at that meeting. They told us that this plan would achieve a noble ideal. And if anybody had any doubts, he felt guilty and kept his mouth shut - because they made it sound like anyone who'd oppose the plan was a child-killer at heart and less than a human being. None of us knew just how the plan would work, but every one of us thought that the next fellow knew it. The Starnes heirs made long speeches about it, and it wasn't too clear, but nobody asked any questions. 'We voted for that plan at a big meeting, with all of us present, six thousand of us, everybody that worked in the factory. 'The Twentieth Century Motor Company, ma'am, of Starnesville, Wisconsin.' 'What was the name of the factory?' she asked, her voice barely audible. We - what's the matter, ma'am? Why do you look like that?' The plan was that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his need. We thought that we were supposed to think it was good. They let us vote on it, too, and everybody - almost everybody - voted for it.

There were three of them, two sons and a daughter, and they brought a new plan to run the factory. It was when the old man died and his heirs took over. 'Well, there was something that happened at that plant where I worked for twenty years. I wish I knew why people are saying it and who started it.' 'Yes,' he said, and shook his head as if to dispel some vision, 'only I don't like to say that.' His voice rose: 'Oh God, who is-' and broke off.

Dagny atlas shrugged