The tycoons in Atlas Shrugged went on strike because it was no longer moral for them to continue - which in Rand's context means it was no longer in their inter

The tycoons in Atlas Shrugged went on strike because it was no longer moral for them to continue - which in Rand's context means it was no longer in their interest to conduct their business with the American public. On other occasions Rand explicitly said the strike in AS was a 'if, and only if' situation and not applicable to the present world (ie. not justified. ie. not in anyone's interest). The point was that socialism/altruism had taken such a firm grip of the nation (and the rest of the world) that any grand enterprise that still existed merely prolonged the agony by feeding the ruling parasites. Once the protagonists finally realized this, they went on strike. The strike worked because society had reached a point where those producers genuinely were irreplaceable, in that their likes were no longer being bred/trained by the industries. The book (and history) is littered with examples of the types of laws/systems responsible for this talent drought, and the young people who find themselves on the resulting scrapheap.