So You Think Money Is The Root of All Evil?
In her book Atlas Shrugged, one of Ayn Rand’s famed characters Francisco d’Anconia counters the assertion that “money is the root of all evil”. Against the backdrop of a party, Francisco argues that money is merely a symbol- a symbol of exchange, of value, of man’s mind and, of honorable and honest trade. He says, it is ‘the moochers and the looters’ who corrupt the morality of money when they try to seize it without comprehending or paying heed to the essentiality of man’s mind, his ability to produce, reason and provide value. Money is, thus, not of the moochers or the looters; money is of the trader, of the industrialist, of the shopkeeper, and above all, of a producer. And so, in the following excerpt of the speech, Francisco states that the virtue of society rests on how money and those who produce it are treated.
“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 is 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.
“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 tools of men. Blood, whips and guns–or dollars. Take your choice–there is no other–and your time is running out.”
