The story of the Twentieth Century Motor Company from Atlas Shrugged:

The story of the Twentieth Century Motor Company from Atlas Shrugged: 

His voice rose: "Oh God, who is--" and broke off.
"-- John Galt?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, and shook his head as if to dispel some vision, "only I don't like to say that."
"I don't, either. I wish I knew why people are saying it and who started it."
"That's it, ma'am. That's what I'm afraid of. It might have been me who started it."
"What?"
"Me or about six thousand others. We might have. I think we did. I hope we're wrong."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, there was something that happened at that plant where I worked for twenty years. It was when the old man died and his heirs took over. There were three of them, two sons and a daughter, and they brought a new plan to run the factory. They let us vote on it, too, and everybody -- almost everybody -- voted for it. We didn't know. We thought it was good. No, that's not true, either. We thought that we were supposed to think it was good. The plan was that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his need. We -- what's the matter, ma'am? Why do you look like that?"
"What was the name of the factory?" she asked, her voice barely audible.
"The Twentieth Century Motor Company, ma'am, of Starnesville, Wisconsin."
"Go on."
"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 Starnes heirs made long speeches about it, and it wasn't too clear, but nobody asked any questions. None of us knew just how the plan would work, but every one of us thought that the next fellow knew it. 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.

They told us that this plan would achieve a noble ideal. 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. Still, we voted for the plan -- and what we got, we had it coming to us. You know, ma'am, we are marked men, in a way, those of us who lived through the four years of that plan in the Twentieth Century factory. What is it that hell is supposed to be? Evil -- plain, naked, smirking evil, isn't it? Well, that's what we saw and helped to make -- and I think we're damned, every one of us, and maybe we'll never be forgiven...
"Do you know how it worked, that plan, and what it did to people? Try pouring water into a tank where there's a pipe at the bottom draining it out faster than you pour it, and each bucket you bring breaks that pipe an inch wider, and the harder you work the more is demanded of you, and you stand slinging buckets forty hours a week, then forty-eight, then fifty-six for your neighbor's supper -- for his wife's operation -- for his child's measles -- for his mother's wheel chair -- for his uncle's shirt -- for his nephew's schooling -- for the baby next door -- for the baby to be born -- for anyone anywhere around you -- it's theirs to receive, from diapers to dentures -- and yours to work, from sunup to sundown, month after month, year after year, with nothing to show for it but your sweat, with nothing in sight for you but their pleasure, for the whole of your life, without rest, without hope, without end... From each according to his ability, to each according to his need..."