become the tools of men

money is a barometer of a society's virtue, when you see that trade is done

not by consent but by compulsion

when you see that in order to produce you need to obtain permission from men

who produce nothing, when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not

in goods but in favors, when you see that men get richer by graft and by pole

than by work, and your laws do not protect you against them but protect

them against you, when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a

self-sacrifice

you may know that your society is doomed

So I'm going to read to you a bit of Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand, the author,

was born in 1905 on st. Petersburg, Russia

she was somewhat upper-middle-class, her father was a pharmacist that owned the

building that housed the pharmacy

during the time of the Russian Revolution she was 12 when her father's

business was confiscated, and they fled to Crimea

when they returned to st. Petersburg they faced nearly starving conditions and

she eventually came to hollywood in 1925 and she wrote screenplays and novels in

Hollywood all through the twenties, thirties and on in to the sixties

actually I believe that with her background there's no greater authority

to speak on the virtues of capitalism versus the evils of collective

collectivism, and this is a theme that ran all through her work. In the Great

Depression socialist values had become quite popular in the United States and

against that social backdrop all of her works idealized cap-capitalism so it was

something very unpopular, yet

her book has become one of the best --- the Atlas Shrugged has become one of the

best-selling books of all time

and so I'm going to read a masterpiece within a masterpiece, when you read Atlas

Shrugged

it's a little bit dated and boring and you wonder why you're reading it for the

first four hundred pages but then right about page 400 you go

"Holy molly!" well you can't put this.... this little speech at a party

pops up and then you realize why you're reading this thing

standing unnoticed on the edge of the group, Rearden heard a woman who had a

large diamond earrings in a flabby nervous face

ask densely: "Signore D'aconia, what do you think is going to happen to the world?"

"Just exactly what it deserves"

"Oh how cruel". "Don't you believe in the operation of the moral law madam?"

Francisco ask greatly

"I do". Rearden heard Bertram scatter outside the group say to a girl who made

some sound of indignation

"Don't let him disturb you, you know money is the root of all evil and he's the

typical product of money". Rearden did not think that Francisco could have heard it

but he saw Francisco turning to them with a gravely courteous smile

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco

"Have you ever asked what is the root of money? money is a tool of exchange which

can't exist unless there are goods produced and Men able to produce them

Money is the material shape of the principal the men who wish to deal with

one another must deal by trade and give value for value money is not a tool of

the moochers who claim your product by tears or the looters who take it from

you by force

money is made possible by the men who produce is this what you consider evil?

when you accept money in payment for your effort you do so on the conviction

that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others

it is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money not an ocean of

tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your

wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow

those pieces of paper which should have been gold are a token of honor your

claim on the energy of the men who produce your wallet is your statement of

hope that somewhere in the world around you

there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root

of money

is this what you consider evil?

have you ever looked at the root of production take a look at an electrical

generator and dare tell yourself that was created by the muscular effort of

unthinking brutes, try to go grow seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you

by men who had to discover it for the first time

try to obtain your food by means of nothing that physical motions and you'll

learn man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and all the wealth that

has ever existed on earth. But you say that money is made by the strong at the

expense of the weak?

what strength do you mean? it is not the strength of guns or muscles.

Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think, then is money made by the man

who invents a motor at the expense of those the who did not invent it? is money

made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? by the able at the

expense of the incompetent? by the ambitious at the expense of the lazy?

money is made before it can be mooched or looted, made by the effort of every

honest man

each to the extent of his own ability and honest man knows that he can't

consume more than he has produced. To trade by means of money is the code of

the men of goodwill. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his

mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of

your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you

his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor

that which they are worth to the men who would buy them but no more. Money permits

no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders

money demands of you

the recognition that men must work for their own benefit

not for their injury, for their gain not their loss.

The recognition that they are not beasts of burden borne to carry the weight of

your misery, that you must offer them values not wounds, that the common bond

among men

is not the exchange of suffering but the exchange of goods. Money demands that

you sell not your weakness to men stupidity but your talent to their

reason.

It demands that you by not the shoddiest they offer but the best your money can

find, and when men live by trade with reason

, not foce, us as their final arbiter it is the best product that wins, the best

performance,

the man of best judgment and highest ability, and the degree of a man's

productiveness is the degree of his reward.

This is the code of existence who's tool and symbol is money

is this what you consider evil? but money is only a tool, it will take you wherever

you wish but it will not replace you as the driver.

it will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will

not provide you with desires

money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality

the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind

Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he

wants, money will not give him a code of values if he's evaded the knowledge of

what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose

if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for

the fool, nor admiration for the coward, nor respect for the incompetent,

the man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him

,with his money replacing his judgment, ends up becoming the victim of his

inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him but the cheats and the frauds come

flocking to him drawn by a law which he has not yet discovered, that no man may

be smaller than his money.

Is this the reason you call it evil?

Only the man who does not need it is fit to inherit wealth

the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started

if an heir is equal to his money then it serves him, if not it destroys him but

you look on and you cry that money corrupted him.

Did it? or did he corrupt his money?

do not envy a worthless heir, his wealth is not yours and you would have done no

better with it.

do not think it should have been distributed among you, loading the world

with 50 parasites instead of one would not bring back the dead virtue which was

the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root, money will not

serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

money is your means of survival

the verdict you pronounce on your source of livelihood is the verdict you

pronounce upon your life

if the source is corrupt you have damned your own existence

did you get your money by fraud? by pandering to men's vices or stupidity? by

catering to fools in hope of getting more than your ability deserves?

by lowering your standards? by during doing work you despise for purchasers

you scorn?

if so your money will not give you a moment's or a Penny's worth of joy

then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach, not

an achievement but a reminder of shame

then you'll scream that money is evil. evil because it would not pinch-hit for

your self-respect, evil because it would not let you enjoy your depravity, is this

the root of your hatred of money? Money will always remain an effect and refuse

to replace you as the cause

money is the product of virtue but it will not give you virtue and it will not

redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither and matter nor

in spirit, is this the root of your hatred of money? or did you say that it's

the love of money that is the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and

love its nature, to love money is to know and love the fact that money is the

creation of the best power within you and your pass key to trade your effort

for the effort of the best among men

it's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel

who is the loudest at proclaiming his hatred of money, and he has good reason

to hate it

the lovers of money are willing to work for it, they know they are able to

deserve it

let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters

the man who damns money has attained it dishonorably, the man who respects it has

earned it

run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil

that sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter

so long as men lived together on earth and need means to deal with one another