Atlas Shrugged, Part 2 Chapter 2: The Aristocracy of Pull

Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago to Books
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Summary: September 2. “The destroyer” is taking more minds, but Dagny continues to work with Daniels on the motor. Dagny learns that the cigarette is extra-terrestrial. Rearden move forward with Metal for Danagger, then Lillian collected him to attend James Taggart’s wedding to Cherryl, a Cinderella story. James calls money the root of all evil. Cherryl confronts Dagny, the man of the family. Rearden pondered the meaning of life, as Lillian made an alliance with James. d'Anconia usurped the conversation, and spoke on the meaning and value of money, and then revealed part of his plan to Rearden.

Start by reading the first-tier comments, which are all quotes of Ayn Rand (some of my favorites, some just important for other reasons). Comment on your favorite ones, or others' comments. Don't see your favorite quote? Post it in a new comment. Please reserve new comments for Ayn Rand, and your non-Rand quotes for "replies" to the quotes or discussion. (Otherwise Rand's quotes will get crowded out and pushed down into oblivion. You can help avoid this by "voting up" the Rand quotes, or at least the ones you especially like, and voting down first-tier comments that are not quotes of the featured book.)

NB: I labeled d'Anconia's speech on money by paragraph, because I know these are going to get out of order as they are voted up or down. Some I thought worth splitting up, others I skipped. If you add one that I skipped, I recommend labeling it as I have.

Atlas Shrugged was written by Ayn Rand in 1957.

My idea for this post is discussed here:

http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...

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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 16: “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 him, 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.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 15: “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 hitch-hikers 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 disarmed victims – then money becomes its creators’ avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a 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 murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 14: “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… They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt – and of his life, as he deserves.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 13: “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.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 11: “Or did 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 passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men…. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 10: “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.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 9: “Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. Did you get your money by fraud? …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.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 6B: “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.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 5B: “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 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.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 5: “To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. 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.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 4B: “Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? ….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.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d'Anconia of Money 4: “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.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 3: “Have you ever looked for the root of production? …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.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 2B: “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 [i.e., that money is valuable as a tool for trade] which is the root of money.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 2: “When you accept money in 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 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 upon the energy of the men who produce.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 1B: “Money is not the tool of the moochers, 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?”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    d’Anconia on Money 1: “So you think that money is the root of all evil?” said Francisco d’Anconia. “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 for value.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    Francisco to James: “In an age when men exist, not by right, but by favor, one does not reject a grateful person, one tries to trap into gratitude as many people as possible. Don’t you want to have me as one of your men under obligation?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    Francisco to James: “I think it’s funny. There was a time when men were afraid that somebody would reveal some secret of theirs that was unknown to their fellows. Nowadays, they’re afraid that somebody will name what everybody knows. Have you practical people ever thought that that’s all it would take to blast your whole, big, complex structure, with all your laws and guns – just somebody naming the exact nature of what you’re doing?”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    “We are at the dawn of a new age,” said James Taggart, from above the rim of his champagne glass. “We are breaking up the vicious tyranny of economic power. We will set men free of the rule of the dollar. We will release our spiritual aims from dependence on the owners of material means. We will liberate our culture from the stranglehold of the profit-chasers. We will build a society dedicated to higher ideals, and we will replace the aristocracy of money by – ”
    “ – the aristocracy of pull,” said a voice beyond the group. They whirled around. The man who stood facing them was Francisco d’Anconia.
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    Lillian to Dagny: Lillian shook her head in smiling reproach. “Miss Taggart, don’t you think that this is a case where one cannot afford to indulge in abstract theory, but must consider practical reality?”
    Dagny would not smile. “I have never understood what is meant by a statement of that kind.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    Cherryl Taggart to Dagny: “I’m going to protect him against you. I’ll put you in your place. I’m Mrs. Taggart. I’m the woman in this family now.”
    “That’s quite all right,” said Dagny. “I’m the man.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    James Taggart to Cherryl Brooks: “It takes no kindness to respect a man who deserves respect – it’s only a payment which he’s earned. To give an unearned respect is the supreme gesture of charity… But they’re incapable of charity. They’re not human.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    James Taggart to Cherryl Brooks: “Everyone agrees that anything you do is good, so long as it’s not for yourself.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 9 months ago
    Danagger to Rearden: “The newspapers are yelling that coal is now the most crucial commodity in the country. They are also yelling that the coal operators are profiteering in the oil shortage. One gang in Washington is yelling that I am expanding too much and something should be done to stop me, because I am becoming a monopoly. Another gang in Washington is yelling that I am not expanding enough and something should be done to let the government seize my mines, because I am greedy for profits and unwilling to satisfy the public’s need of fuel.”
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