So what happens when Atlas shrugs?

Ardi has a great answer. Where that symbolism about Atlas comes in is during a conversation between someone who has already gone on strike and someone who hasn't yet done so. The striker asks the non-striker "If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders—what would you tell him to do?" The non-striker says that he doesn't know, that nothing could be done. To which the striker replies: "To shrug".

The idea is that the mythological Atlas is being punished, he's being insulted, derided, condemned, all while it is his strength that holds the world up, it is his strength that makes life possible. This is used as a metaphor; Atlas represents the businessmen, the industrialists, the inventors, the scientists, who make our standard of living possible, but are condemned for being greedy and heartless, and then overtaxed. The idea is that they shouldn't have to put up with it, that instead of bearing the insults and sneers, the people who hold the world on their shoulder should shrug, to show everyone just what life without them is like.

Rand stated that the idea for Atlas Shrugged came to her after a 1943 telephone conversation with a friend who asserted that Rand owed it to her readers to write a nonfiction book about her philosophy. Rand replied, "What if I went on strike? What if all the creative minds of the world went on strike?"[9] Rand then set out to create a work of fiction that explored the role of the mind in man's life and the morality of rational self-interest,[10] by exploring the consequences when the "men of the mind" go on strike, refusing to allow their inventions, art, business leadership, scientific research, or new ideas to be taken from them by the government or by the rest of the world. Leonard Peikoff noted that "Atlas Shrugged did not become the novel's title until Rand's husband Frank O'Connor made the suggestion in 1956." The working title throughout her writing was The Strike. According to Barbara Branden, the change was made for dramatic reasons––Rand believed that titling the novel "The Strike" would have revealed the mystery element of the novel prematurely.[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged

Wikipedia is correct. Having read the book nearly 20 times, the answer to your question becomes what is called the 'brain drain'. It is what happens when the "men of the mind" leave, and those who are left behind to cope can't cope, so the system collapses.

The first "brain drain" I remember was all the doctors and others who left England during the 1960 when socialism drove them away. PM Margaret Thatcher reversed the socialism, but now the people leaving England are those who are afraid of the strong Muslim presence, because the government allows for limited Sharia law in England, and it threatens British society.

Canada also had a brain drain of doctors, when their medical system went to socialism.

"Today, while many of these conditions still apply, Americans are starting to hear a new term: "reverse brain drain." What it suggests is the United States is pursuing government and private-sector policies that, over the long run, could lead to a significant shift in the world's balance of brainpower." http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/20...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story...

http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid...

But in Atlas Shrugged, the "brains" simply go on strike, to a place set up for them by the first striker and his intellectual college friends, the world's wealthiest man who is a playboy (we are led to think), and a pirate no one can catch who sinks only government ships after letting the crews go.

The strikers go there because they are allowed to work in freedom and there is no place else on earth--literally--left for them to go to. Every nation has fallen like Greece just did, like England could soon, into the dust of collectivism. The strikers want the US to fall more quickly, so that the collectivists get out of the way when the strikers come back to lead the world into the new freedom that was promised by the US Constitution but never completely provided.

That is the story today with Obama's Progressivism. Sales of Atlas Shrugged have gone through the roof again after 50 years. http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/books/04/27/ayn.ra...

This year the book is selling at a faster rate than last year. Last year, sales were about 200,000, higher than any year before that, including 1957, when the book was published. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&si...

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You really have to read the book. No one could possibly answer your question untill you did. In fact you would only be cheating yourself by not reading it.