“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—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 pull than by work, and your laws don’t 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. 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 of 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.”
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American philosopher and novelist, known for her philosophy of Objectivism and her novels including "Atlas Shrugged."
This quote reminds us how crucial money is as a mirror of societal morality. It warns against corruption and encourages vigilance towards the decay of values.
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Ayn Rand on Money, Morality, and Society's Demise – The Key Quote from Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand reveals in Atlas Shrugged how money is society's virtue barometer and warns of corruption as societal downfall.
Ayn Rand (1905–1982) was a Russian-American writer and philosopher. She developed the philosophy of Objectivism, which emphasizes reason, individual happiness, and free-market capitalism as ethical principles. Her most famous works are "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged," which present her ideas in literary form.
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