Monday 1 December 2008

Quote of the hemidemisemisecond

"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 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."

Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

For anyone who has not read Atlas Shrugged there are 2 options:
1) Don't read it and continue in blissful ignorance of what is going on now and what lies in store, or
2) Read it and be very afraid.........

Nick von Mises said...

I suspect lots of people are suddenly picking that book up. Just saw someone 100 pages into it in a Starbucks last weekend. I felt it my duty to have a quick word to encourage him to finish it.

AntiCitizenOne said...

Is it a good read?

I hate people of any persuasion trying to change my mind.

Martin said...

As a novel, I prefered the Fountainhead. That was a damn good read. For philosophy, Atlas wins. Atlas could have been several hundred pages shorter, it was just a bunch of quite good speeches with page upon page of boring dialogue in between.