[arkis22]

I disagree.

In the book society was already collapsing. Plenty of regular people in the novel realized something was wrong and removed themselves from the looters' economy to roam the country.

Galt simply refused to be the one to prop up the looters failing economy.

Interesting that you see Galt as the one collapsing society. Rand's point was that the looters collapsed society and that they were too ignorant to understand why or how.

[holtalanm]

This.

Galt and the others that removed themselves from the collapsing society were not the ones that were collapsing society, nor was the collapse their end-goal.

In the story, the looters were causing the collapse, and were taking everything not nailed down in the process. Galt and the others simply decided to leave them to it.

[amptorn]

So in the metaphor of the story's title, Atlas, whose shrugging caused the collapse of society, is the looters? Not the successful entrepeneurial giants, Galt et al., who in their collective departure from the world leave it, figuratively speaking, unsupported?

[arkis22]

No, Atlas is people like Galt.

The point is that the looters pushed the weight of the world on to them, and that's the failure of their society.

[amptorn]

This is a terribly muddled metaphor.