+ “Mr. Rearden,” said Francisco, his voice solemnly calm, “if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the
+ world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees
+ buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his
+ strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders—what would
+ you tell him to do?” “I … don’t know. What … could he do? What would you tell him?” “To shrug.”
+
+
+In _Atlas Shrugged_, the methods by which people go on strike vary significantly. Some, like Ken Danagger, resign quietly without explanation. Others take drastic measures, such as destroying their factories, mines, inventions, or other productive assets to prevent their use by the government or looters. For instance, Ellis Wyatt, the head of Wyatt Oil, sets fire to his oil fields, leaving a message: “I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It’s yours.” Midas Mulligan and Hugh Akston resign from their high-profile positions and refuse to participate in government committees or public events. Some individuals stop producing or creating but remain physically present, while others reject lucrative contracts and offers from the government or withdraw their patents and inventions.
+
+The core of the story is “Galt’s Gulch,” a secret valley in Colorado where the strikers retreat to escape the oppressive world outside. It serves as a haven for the productive, allowing them to live freely and pursue their passions without government interference or looters. The valley symbolizes individualism and self-sufficiency, enabling the strikers to thrive without the burdens of collectivism. Hidden from the outside world, it is protected by geographic isolation, camouflage, and an optical illusion. Entry to the valley is by invitation only, and its members are sworn to secrecy, ensuring that its existence and location remain undisclosed to outsiders.
+
+A faction led by Ragnar Danneskjöld, a pirate, aims to liberate the country from looters by attacking government ships and seizing their cargo. He deliberately targets resources that are being forcibly redistributed. His goal is to return wealth to its rightful owners, much like Robin Hood. He believes that by destroying the looters’ wealth, he can compel them to confront their own moral bankruptcy, ultimately leading to their downfall.
+
+Today, Europe, particularly Germany, is experiencing a real-world echo of this fictional exodus. Entrepreneurs, professionals, and capital are fleeing due to burdensome regulations, high taxes, soaring energy prices, and an increasingly hostile environment for innovation. A striking survey by “Die Familienunternehmer” (The Family Entrepreneurs) reveals that 46% of Germans aged 18–25 have considered emigrating, highlighting the depth of disillusionment among the nation’s youth. Who could blame them? They contribute to systems like the retirement Ponzi scheme and a failing healthcare system, yet they will receive less than they pay in over their lifetime. Politicians have further burdened their future with an additional debt of €1.5 trillion, and there is no end in sight for rising taxes. But not only the young think about leaving. A recent YouGov survey published this month reveals that 58% of Germans could see themselves emigrating if they were fully independent in their professional, personal, and financial lives. Among the respondents, 31% indicated they would emigrate “definitely,” while 27% said “probably.” Additionally, 22% stated they would “probably” not emigrate, and 15% responded “definitely not.”[^dpajm2025aa]
+
+Germany has around 84 million inhabitants. Over 20 million are pensioners, making up a quarter of the population. Nearly 20 million public sector employees work in areas such as the police, fire service, and education. Fifteen million people receive social benefits, including working single mothers who do not earn enough. Approximately 13 to 14 million children and young people rely on state benefits, such as child benefits. In total, about 69 million people live partially or entirely at the expense of the remaining 15 million who are actively working and contributing to the financing of the system. The burden on these “Atlases” is becoming too heavy.
+
+European citizens are trapped in a state of slavery due to inflation, taxes, and regulations. They constantly battle against politicians, mainstream media, churches, unions, and NGOs that attempt to justify the theft. This struggle is not just about escaping; it is about reclaiming agency and creating new worlds.
+
+## Modern Forms of the Strike: How People Are Already Shrugging
+
+### Emigration (“Voting with Your Feet”)
+
+The flight of Germany’s entrepreneurial talent is a vivid manifestation of “Atlas Shrugged.” [A panel discussion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH9FT0ldHQY) hosted by Mark Friedrich, featuring four prominent German entrepreneurs—Prof. Dr. Richard Werner, Dr. Markus Krall, Dr. Andreas Beck, and Friedrich himself—reveals a stark reality: three of the four have already relocated to Switzerland. Their reasons are telling: lower taxes, reduced regulatory burdens, and a stable environment that respects individual achievement. Switzerland, with its decentralized governance and economic freedom, has become a beacon for those escaping Germany’s stifling bureaucracy.
+
+Or consider the podcast duo [Hoss and Hopf](https://hossundhopf.podigee.io/) as further evidence. Hoss has settled in Dubai, drawn by its business-friendly policies and minimal tax regime. He cites the emirate’s streamlined processes and lack of personal income tax as critical factors, allowing him to focus on growing his ventures rather than navigating red tape. Hopf, meanwhile, moved to Switzerland in 2024, seeking not just economic advantages but also safety and relief from what he perceives as oppressive ideological pressures, such as Germany’s growing emphasis on progressive social policies like LGBT ideology and unsafe streets for his children. These individual stories reflect a broader trend: Germany’s entrepreneurs are voting with their feet, abandoning a nation that once nurtured industrial giants for destinations that reward initiative.
+
++ You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state. […] As long as you have a + welfare state, I do not believe you can have a unilateral open immigration. ++ +Any other concept of a multi-ethnic nation with a welfare state, tried in many European countries, is doomed to fail. Countries like Korea and Japan have recently learned that their societies struggle with a significant number of foreign individuals who do not respect their culture and customs. Japanese people are becoming increasingly upset with tourists who do not behave. In South Korea, Johnny Somali, a controversial American live-streamer, has been charged with causing a “commotion” at a convenience store and is banned from leaving the country. Facing up to five years in prison, Somali is known for provocative stunts that include confrontational remarks, racially insensitive comments, and disruptive behaviors, such as interrupting performances and harassing pedestrians. He has been banned from multiple social media platforms and currently streams on Rumble. On March 12, 2025, Somali pleaded guilty in a Seoul court to multiple charges, drawing widespread condemnation for his offensive and disrespectful antics abroad. + +While emigration offers a clear and decisive way to “shrug”—to withdraw one’s productive energies from a system perceived as hostile—this path is not available or desirable for everyone. The reality is that most people, for reasons both personal and practical, remain rooted in their home country. Family ties, financial constraints, cultural attachment, or a desire to improve conditions from within can keep individuals from joining the exodus. Yet, the impulse to reclaim autonomy and resist encroaching controls is not limited to those who leave. For the many who stay, a quieter, but equally significant, form of withdrawal is underway: the creation of parallel structures and self-reliant communities within the existing system. + +### Internal Exit: Parallel Societies and Self-Reliance + +Those who wish to stay must navigate a world filled with corrupt government institutions, compromised gated organizations, a legacy media that acts as the state’s propaganda arm, and politicians who exploit the state for personal gain. Fortunately, a viable method already exists, one that was previously employed in the oppressive Soviet Union. + +
+ If it proves impossible legally to compel the ruling power to change the ways it governs us, and + if for various reasons those who reject this power cannot or do not wish to overthrow it by force, + then the creation of an independent or alternative or parallel [society] is the only dignified + solution […] ++ +Vaclav Benda recognized the significance of this idea. He saw in it the seeds of a non-violent solution to the destructiveness of Communism. He aimed to extend this concept beyond music and the arts. + +The term “Parallel Society” encompasses independent social, cultural, and economic structures outside state control. This concept advocates for alternative systems in education, science, scholarship, politics, information networks, and free markets—essentially creating a comprehensive parallel economy. + +
+ The ultimate phase of this process is the situation in which the official structures […] simply + begin withering away and dying off, to be replaced by new structures that have evolved from + ‘below’ and are put together in a fundamentally different way. ++ +By the late 1980s, the parallel society in Eastern Europe had grown strong, decentralized, and disconnected from the state, causing the Communist authorities to lose their grip on power. + +What can we learn from this? The parallel society is not just a theoretical concept; it is a practical strategy for resisting totalitarianism. It involves creating independent structures that operate outside the state’s control, allowing individuals to thrive without relying on the oppressive system. + +This could mean starting to consume alternative media, listening to alternative podcasts, or joining local meetups. You might begin a local food cooperative, a homeschooling group, or a Bitcoin circle. It could involve using other mediums of exchange instead of government-backed fiat currencies, such as [Bitcoin](https://bitcoin.org/), and the [Lightning Network](https://lightning.network/). You could start using decentralized social media like [Nostr](https://nostr.com/) that promotes freedom of expression, and use encrypted chat messengers like [Session](https://getsession.org/), which use onion routing and where you own the private keys. You could create self-sustainable communities, conduct scientific research or scholarship free of institutional pressure, and consume or create educational resources, music, or literature. + +### Civil Disobedience and Non-Compliance + +Henry David Thoreau, a foundational thinker on this subject, observed that those who, by default or routine, “yield to [government] their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform.” + +
+ Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, + that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn. ++ +He stated that the minority remains powerless as long as it conforms to the majority. However, once it begins to disrupt the system, it transforms into a powerful force. Civil disobedience and non-compliance are not just options; they are a moral duty, as Martin Luther King Jr. noted: + +
+ Civil disobedience is the refusal to abide by an order of the government or of the state or even
+ of the court that your conscience tells you is unjust. Civil disobedience is based on a commitment
+ to conscience. In other words, one who practices civil disobedience is obedient to what he
+ considers a higher law.
+
+
+The methods of sabotage are varied, and no limit is set to creative ideas on how to disrupt the system. Chinese democracy activists, for instance, have used a strategy of accelerating the CCP’s authoritarianism ad absurdum by flooding official lines with minor complaints, overwhelming the state’s capacity to enforce its own rules and thus exposing the absurdity and limits of authoritarian control.
+
+In response to a significant [doxing scandal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVXAhTd0sbI) involving Jan Böhmermann, a state-funded late-night show host, who disclosed the private information about an anonymous right-wing YouTube influencer and visited the influencer’s parents late at night, creative ideas to sabotage the system were shared on 𝕏. Individuals proposed various strategies to increase the cost and effort for the fee collection center that is collecting the extorted money for the state-funded broadcasting. Some people send their payments in small amounts, either overpaying or underpaying, and wait for multiple reminder letters before settling the bill. Some don’t pay at all and start legal battles that can take years. Others send their payments to an address in a different state, which requires the funds to be manually reassigned to the correct state, taking 15 minutes of manual work per payment.
+
+Another idea is to overwhelm the telephone hotlines and email inboxes of newly established reporting centers for hate and incitement in some states with false reports.
+
+
+ For while the assassination of a tyrant is simply an isolated individual act within an existing
+ political system, mass civil disobedience, being a direct act on the part of large masses of
+ people, is far more revolutionary in launching a transformation of the system itself. […] For
+ then, the remedy to power is simply to withdraw that consent.
+
+
++ We must learn to treat the demagogue and aspirant dictators in our midst (…) with the weapons of + ridicule. The demagogue himself is almost incapable of humor of any sort, and if we treat him with + humor, he will begin to collapse. ++ +With the internet and social media, we live in the best time to follow this advice. While individuals like Joost A. M. Meerloo, an active member of the Dutch resistance during World War II, had to print and distribute pamphlets to mock their oppressors, we can achieve this with just a few clicks. The internet is a powerful tool for spreading ideas and memes that can challenge the authority of tyrants and demagogues. The power of ridicule is amplified by the speed and reach of social media, making it a potent weapon against authoritarianism. + +
+ You have this Anti-System Movement. What we are seeing is a revolution against the system. So + fixing the present system is not enough. Now, there is, of course, an anti-system called + libertarianism, which means tearing down everything that creates some kind of influence of + government in private lives. It’s dismantling the system. ++ +In one thing, he is right: we are going to destroy the influence of the state over our lives. We want to be free and self-sufficient. We want to be able to choose how we live our lives without interference from the state. + +
+ The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. ++ +To build resilience, do things that are hard. This could mean lifting weights, running, taking cold showers, fasting, and practicing delayed gratification. Practice [stoicism](/interpretation-if/), the APA (American Psychological Association) [thinks it is harmful](https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner). + +They want you to be weak, dependent, and obedient. Take your pills, get your yearly booster, take your sun blocker, stay inside, smoke your weed, go to therapy, cry, stay woke, and remain passive, feeble, and harmless. Instead, do the opposite, and you’ll lead a fulfilling life. Read the Stoics, such as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus. Build resilience and anti-fragility, and most importantly, “do things they hate.” + +## The Hopeful Vision: Why the Strike Is Not the End, but a Beginning + +The future is unclear, and we can still hope that people wake up before it is too late. We can either take the decision to bring back more economic and personal liberty and freedom to the people, or the decision will be made for us. If the people choose socialism a third time, they will have to pay the price. The state will fail and dissolve into mob rule and civil war, robbing the people of everything they have, and the looters will be left with nothing. Like in every totalitarian socialist utopia, at some point the money runs out. + +But history teaches us a relentless lesson: when a society chooses coercion over liberty, it is not just prosperity that withers—it is the spirit of the people themselves. The cycle repeats until the system, built on plunder and sacrifice, collapses under the weight of its contradictions. In that darkest hour, when the old order crumbles and the looters are left with nothing but the ashes of their making, a new opportunity emerges—a return to the principles that once made greatness possible. It is at this moment of reckoning that the vision of a different future, founded on reason and individual sovereignty, can be reclaimed. + +
+
+ When the looters’ state collapses, deprived of the best of its slaves, when it falls to a level
+ of impotent chaos, (…) and dissolves into starving robber gangs fighting to rob one another—when
+ the advocates of the morality of sacrifice perish with their final ideal—then and on that day we
+ will return. We will open the gates of our city to those who deserve to enter, a city of
+ smokestacks, pipe lines, orchards, markets and inviolate homes. We will act as the rallying
+ center for such hidden outposts as you’ll build. (…) Those who choose to join us, will join us;
+ those who don’t, will not have the power to stop us; hordes of savages have never been an
+ obstacle to men who carried the banner of the mind.
+
+
+ Then this country will once more become a sanctuary for a vanishing species: the rational being.
+ The political system we will build is contained in a single moral premise: no man may obtain any
+ values from others by resorting to physical force. Every man will stand or fall, live or die by
+ his rational judgment. If he fails to use it and falls, he will be his only victim. If he fears
+ that his judgment is inadequate, he will not be given a gun to improve it. If he chooses to
+ correct his errors in time, he will have the unobstructed example of his betters, for guidance
+ in learning to think; but an end will be put to the infamy of paying with one life for the
+ errors of another. (…)
+
+
+ Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of
+ that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the
+ absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle
+ for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on
+ this earth. You will win when you are ready to pronounce the oath I have taken at the start of
+ my battle—and for those who wish to know the day of my return, I shall now repeat it to the
+ hearing of the world: I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake
+ of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
+
+
+
+The collapse of an old, oppressive order is not merely an end—it is the fertile ground from which renewal can spring. Just as Rand’s heroes retreated to Galt’s Gulch to build anew, today’s pioneers are forging parallel worlds: from digital frontiers, to private cities, to [network states](https://thenetworkstate.com/), from open markets to unstoppable code. The same principles endure—self-ownership, property, freedom, responsibility, and the dignity of voluntary cooperation. In our time, the question echoes in a new form. “Who is John Galt?” once captured the longing for a world shaped by reason and liberty. Today, we ask, “**Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?**” The answer is not just a name, but an invitation—a challenge to join the ranks of the builders, the creators, the defenders of human sovereignty. The future belongs to those who choose to think, to act, and to build. Will you be among them?
+
+[^dpajm2025aa]: Welt, dpa/jm (2025): [Für gut jeden Zweiten ist Auswandern ein reizvoller Gedanke](https://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article256134016/Auswandern-Deutschland-verlassen-Fuer-jeden-zweiten-ein-reizvoller-Gedanke.html)
+
+[^lindsay2021ss]: James Lindsay (2021): [A Manifesto for the Based](https://newdiscourses.com/2021/05/manifesto-for-the-based/)