Real

Atlas

Shrugged this is a novel by Ayn

Rand and it's probably one of the most

important novels ever

written She is hands down more manly then 99% of you boys ou=t there.

I

recently stumbled across What's called

the money

speech and I think it is one of the best

descriptions of money I have ever heard

so I thought it would be useful for me

to come on the show today and just read

it in at full it's about a 15minute

speech roughly five pages in the book in

this version of Atlas Shrug is between

Pages 410 and 415 it's a fiction novel

there's a conversation going on between

a few of the

characters and uh I'm just going to jump

into this it's out of context but this

is a long di tribe by one of the main

characters named Francisco Dan conia and

so you think that money is the

root of all evil said Francisco Dan

conia 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

principle that men who wish to deal with

one another must deal by trade and give

value or

value money is not the tool of the

muchers who claim your product by Tears

or of the looters who take it from you

by

force money is made possible only by the

men who

produce is this what you consider

evil when you accept money and payment

for your effort you do so only on the

conviction that you will exchange it for

the product of the effort of

others it is not the Moochers or the

looters 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 upon 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 for the root

of

production take a look at an electric

generator and dare tell yourself that it

was created by the muscular effort of

unthinking

brutes try to grow a 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 but physical motions and you'll

learn that man's mind is the root of all

the goods produced and of 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 a man's

capacity to

think then is money made by the man who

invents a motor at the expense of those

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

looted or mooched made by the effort of

every honest man each to the extent of

his

ability an honest man is one who 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 axom 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 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 own injury or

their gain not their loss the

recognition that they are not beasts of

Burden born 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's stupidity but

your talent to their

reason it demands that you buy not the

shoddiest they offer but the best your

money can

find and when men live by trade with

reason not force as their final Arbiter

it is the best product that wins the

best

performance the man of the 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

whose tool and symbol is

money is this which 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

[Music]

desires money is the scorge of The Men

Who attempt to reverse the law of

causality the men who seek to replace

the Mind by seizing the product 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 or admiration for the coward or

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 by 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 discovered that no man may be

smaller than his

money is this the reason why 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

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 that

it should have been d distributed among

you loading the world with 50 parasites

instead of one would not bring back the

dead virtue that 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 upon the source of

your 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

men's

stupidity by catering to fools in the

hope of getting more than your ability

deserves by lowering your standards by

doing work you despise for purchasers

you

scorn if if so then 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 in matter nor in spirit

is this the root of your hatred of

money

[Music]

or do you say it's the love of money

that's 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 loudest in

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 dams money has

obtained 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 lepers Bell of an

approaching

looter so long as men live together on

Earth and need means to deal with one

another their only substitute if they

abandon money is the muzzle of a

gun but money demands of you the highest

virtues if you wish to make it or to

keep

it men who have no courage Pride or

self-esteem men who have no moral sense

of their right to their money and are

not willing to defend it as they defend

their life men who apologize for being

rich will not remain Rich for

long they are the natural bait for the

Swarms of looters that stand under rocks

for centuries but come crawling out at

the first smell of a man who begs to be

forgiven for the guilt of owning

wealth they will hasten to relieve him

of the guilt and of his life as he

deserves then you will see the rise of

the men of the double standard The Men

Who live by force yet count on those who

live by trade to create the value of

their looted

money the men who are The Hitchhikers of

virtue in a moral Society these are the

criminals and the statutes are written

to protect you against

them but when a society establishes

criminals by right and looters by law

men who use Force to seize the wealth of

disarm armed victims then money becomes

its Creator's

Avenger such looters believe it safe to

Rob defenseless men once they've passed

the law to disarm

them but their loot becomes the magnet

for other looters who get it from them

as they got it then the race goes not to

the ablest at production but to those

most ruthless at

brutality when force is the standard the

murder murer wins over the pickpocket

and then that Society vanishes in a

spread of ruins and

Slaughter do you wish to know whether

that day is coming watch

money money is the barometer of a

society's

virtue when you see that trading is done

not by consent but by

compulsion and 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 pull than by work and

your laws don't protect you against them

but protect them against you you see

corruption being rewarded and honesty

becoming a

self-sacrifice you may know that your

Society is

doomed

money is so Noble a medium that it does

not compete with guns and it does not

make terms with

brutality it will not permit a country

to survive as half property half

loot whenever destroyers appear among

men they start by destroying money for

money is men's protection and the base a

moral

existence destroyers seize gold and

leave to its owners a counterfeit pile

of

paper this kills all objective standards

and delivers men into the arbitrary

power of an arbitrary Setter of

values gold was an objective value an

equivalent of wealth

produced paper is a mortgage on wealth

that does not exist backed by a gun

aimed at those who are expected to

produce

it paper is a check drawn by legal

looters upon an account which is not

theirs upon the virtue of the

victims watch for the day when it

bounces marked account

overdrawn when you have made evil the

means of survival do not expect men to

remain

good do not expect them to stay moral

and lose their lives for the purpose of

becoming the fodder of the

immoral do not expect them to produce

when production is punished and looting

rewarded do not ask who is destroying

the world you

are

you stand in the midst of the greatest

achievements of the greatest productive

civilization and you wonder why it's

crumbling around you while you're

damning its lifeblood

money you look upon money as the Savages

did before you and you wonder why the

jungle is creeping back to the edge of

your

cities throughout men's history money

was always seized by looters of one

brand or another whose names changed but

whose method remained the

same to seize wealth by force to keep

the producers bound demean defamed

deprived of

Honor that phrase about the evil of

money which you mouth with such

righteous

recklessness comes from a time when

wealth was produced by the labor of

slaves slaves who repeated the Motions

once discovered by somebody's mind and

left unimproved for

centuries so long as production was

ruled by force and wealth was obtained

by Conquest there was little to

conquer yet through all the centuries of

stagnation and starvation men exalted

the

looters as Aristocrats of the sword as

Aristocrats of birth as Aristocrats of

the bureau and despise The Producers as

slaves as Traders as shopkeepers as

[Music]

industrialist to the glory of mankind

there was for the first and only time in

history a country of money and I have no

higher more reverent tribute to pay to

America for this

means a country of Reason Justice

Freedom production achievement

for the first time man's mind and money

were set free and there were no fortunes

by Conquest but only fortunes by work

and instead of Swordsmen and slaves

there appeared the real maker of wealth

the greatest worker the highest type of

human

being for the first time man's mind and

money were set free and there were no

fortunes by Conquest but only fortunes

by work and instead of Swordsmen and

slaves there appeared the real maker of

wealth the greatest worker the highest

type of human being the self-made man

the American

industrialist if you ask me to name the

proudest distinction of Americans I

would choose because it contains all the

others the fact that they were the

people who created the phrase to make

money no other language or Nation had

ever used these words before men had

always thought of wealth as a static

quantity to be seized begged inherited

shared looted or obtained as a

favor Americans were the first to

understand that wealth has to be

created the words to make money hold the

essence of human

morality yet these were the words for

which Americans were denounced by the

rotted cultures of the lutters

continents Now The lutters Credo has

brought you to regard your proudest

achievements as a Hallmark of Shame your

Prosperity as guilt your greatest men

the industrialists as black guards and

your magnificent factories as the

product and property of muscular

labor the labor of whip driven slaves

like the pyramids of

Egypt the Roder who simpers that he sees

no difference between the power of the

dollar and the power of the whip ought

to learn the difference on his own hide

as I think he

will until and unless you discover that

money is the root of all good you ask

for your own

destruction when money ceases to be the

tool by which men deal with one another

then men become the tool tools of men

blood whips and guns or dollars take

your

choice there is no other and your time

is running

out