Robert Stadler...he knew the difference.

James Taggart, because he willingly sold out and prostituted TT to the looters. He was the lowest scum, because he was a toady and sycophant to keep his head out of the line of fire. He felt that he would be spared the unpleasantness that would follow because he betrayed Dangny, and therefore was absolved of any punishments being meted out by the moochers and looters headed up by Thompson.

The banksters that Ayn didn't include because they were invisible, even to her. They were there, manipulating events from behind the curtain, just as they do in real life.
I admire Rearden more than Galt.

Wesley Mouch. An unaccountable bureaucrat who thinks he can manage an economy. He is the worst kind of scum. He also took Reardons money and showed no signs of loyalty.

I thought that I would be adding to others' point totals for the most villainous character in AS. It is hard to believe no one has nominated Floyd Ferris yet.

"We're after power, and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real
trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men."

I choose Mr. Thompson because of current events. When an honest man accepts a leadership role it entails a responsibility commensurate to the power of the office and to abuse that power is the crime that has haunted man throughout history. Mr. Thompson only cares for the power and knows that his actions will lead to a disaster for all mankind but only hopes that retribution will not come until after his death. That is the ultimate evil to me but unfortunately, very common.

To begin with, while I might agree John Galt is the foremost protagonist, I would not use the word "hero" to describe him. A hero must make a life-altering decision in the course of the narrative. That applies, not to John Galt, but to Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden. John Galt is an anti-villain: "villain" because he is on a single-minded quest and stops at nothing, and "anti-" because he serves a just cause, not an evil one.

That said: you ask who is the foremost antagonist in Atlas Shrugged--the worst villain in every sense of the word.

True enough, John Galt identified Robert Stadler as the one man he condemned most of all. He gave away the idea that became the heart of Project X. But even if he hadn't given it away, Floyd Ferris might have stolen it. It would be in keeping with his character.

No, I say the foremost villain in this piece, the one who had the most dangerously spiteful motive, was James Taggart. We find out, in the torture scene, what drives him. He does not want to live. He wants others, who achieve more than he does, to die. This is his goal: to get one of those high achievers onto the rack and make him scream. And he finally realizes what a monster he is, at the end. The realization reduces him to a quivering mass of jelly.

Compared to him, Robert Stadler has it easy. He goes out to try to seize Project X, only to find someone else occupying it ahead of him. They fight, and the fight kills them both.

I think Hank Rearden is a better hero than John Galt, regardless of A.R.s intent. Stadler -- no question is the most insidious villain.

Mooch

Robert Stadler.
He knew the truth. He knew reality. He knew how to reason. He understood proper human relationships. He knew the difference between right and wrong.
He chose to deny all of that in favor of "personal comfort" at the expense of the taxpayer...hence his denial makes him the most evil person.
Ayn said that lack of knowledge wasn't evil. It is when you know the truth and refuse to stick with the truth that you harbor evil.
I agree.

Cuffy Meigs - He killed the harvest and then killed the line to Wisconsin acknowledging that he had the power of life and death and that many would starve to death.

Paul Larkin

The dagger in the back slime.

The most villainous character in Atlas Shrugged is exactly the same as that most villainous character in real life - the faceless, conforming mind-slob of an apathetic sense-driven superficial douchebag who just goes with the flow, believing what s/he is told, never questioning, never voicing his/her opposition to anything and (these days) not even bothering to vote.

In the words of Albert Einstein, "He has been given his big brain by mistake. Unprotected spinal marrow was all he needed".

Without such a faceless jellyfish existing in countless numbers, Wesley Mouch would rise no higher than a filing clerk. TT's executives and top workers would walk out, start their own rail company and crash TT's stock price to pennies, then buy out Jim's controlling share and regenerate TT with Dagny as CEO.. Robert Stadler would be back teaching at Patrick Henry University, carefully toeing the line, having given up on any idea of funding scientific research at the point of a gun.

I vote for Mouch

Mouch

Agree that Stadler tops the list, but what about Margaret Rearden...she pulled some pretty dirty and significant tricks...

Mouch takes the cake in my book. He manipulates to gain power. We already know that elected officials do this, but voters carry some responsibility by enabling them to do it. Bureaucrats are in my mind a whole other evil.

1) Robert Stadler
2) Hank Reardon.

I list Hank as villainous because he continued to support the ungrateful, (family) even though he received NO value at all from them of any kind. His actions in keeping them around are the epitome of Altruism. Self Sacrifice for no personal gain or benefit.

My #1 Most Loathsome AS Character:
My most loathed character is the woman who doled out benefits at the motor company. She could see that the system was pitting workers against one another, encouraging them to strive to have the best sob story so they could provide for their families. She got some perverse pleasure out of workers competing for her favor, so they could get money for their kid's operation or whatever it was. To top it off, she patted herself on the back for all the good deeds she was doing with other people's money.

Mouch was Dodd-Frank and yes, the most villainous. I can hear Frank quoting Mouch, "to solve this problem I created, I need more money and more regulation latitude and authority". And he got it and made the problem worse. And so it goes. Layer upon layer of more and more oppressive regulations on all of us. Evil villainous defined.

if we can expand our view a bit, the worst villain
is the reader who intentionally mis-understands
and damns AR as a vile advocate of unmitigated
greed, unprincipled money-grubbing and selfish
personal aggrandisement. . there are so many
who do this, I believe, while harboring a silent
understanding of the a is a, value for value tenets
which are the foundations of objective living. -- j

p.s. OK, Emma?
.

To davidmenabb, I agree with the first part of your comment.. However., the most vile does vote here in my corner of the left coast.

Thanks, everyone, for some GREAT comments! As always, Gulchers are amazing .

great post mama. giving out lots of points for good points! :)