Atlas Shrugged

"Watch money. Money is the barometer of 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." - The great Ayn Rand

Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all 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 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' - Ayn Rand

One of the most important book ever written in the history of mankind



Atlas Shrugged and The Wall Street Journal