Atlas Shrugged Chapter Summary & Analysis - Part 2, Chapter 10 "The Sign of the Dollar" Summary

Part 2, Chapter 10 "The Sign of the Dollar" Summary

Dagny is on the Comet headed towards Utah and Quentin Daniels. She goes to the diner and sees the conductor trying to throw a vagrant off the train. She asks the man to join her for dinner. He is in his early fifties and is going anywhere he can find work. On the West Coast there are fewer people, and there is less law. On the East Coast, he cannot get work except through the Unification Board. He keeps moving because it is something to do. He was a skilled lathe operator for the Hammond Car Company in Colorado. Two weeks after he got the job, the owner disappeared. Before that he worked in every eastern state for different plants until they closed.

The vagrant held his first job for twenty years and became shop foreman. The owner died, and the heirs ran the plant into the ground. It was...
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