
"Francisco's Money Speech" by Ayn Rand - Anon84
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1826
======
unalone
This is one of my favorite speeches from that book. It doesn't make false
assumptions like many of the other speeches and plots do - it stays focused on
debunking the idea of money as bad, and as such while a lot of the rest of the
book seems slightly ridiculous, this speech remains quite powerful.

~~~
maxharris
What about the rest of the book seems ridiculous to you? The first time I read
it, I thought that everything in Atlas Shrugged was perfect. Even with
repeated readings, I never once thought anything was ridiculous. Be specific
in your answer.

~~~
jacoblyles
Ayn Rand often overstates her case for the sake of art (her evil characters,
for example, are mostly shallow caricatures). I find that people who don't
share her views often mock her works and call her "ridiculous" because she
treats some ideas that they hold completely without nuance or sympathy.

I can see why they do this, but I think Ayn's detractors overstate their case.
She is valuable because she is the only major author that writes from her
point of view. I read many books in high school with a feminist or socialist
moral, I read many literary triumphs that exposed the "failure" of capitalism,
only Ayn dared to be different. I think every teenager should have a run-in
with Rand, if only to begin the process of developing critical thinking.

However, I do think her complete philosophical system has many more flaws then
she would care to admit (the one laid out in the "BFS", "Big Frackin' Speech",
at the end of Atlas Shrugged). She tries to lay out a case for the absolute,
unassailable truth of her ethics, but absolute truth shall ever elude humans
in this complex world.

~~~
maxharris
"but absolute truth shall ever elude humans in this complex world."

Why?

Do you think a grand unified field theory is impossible? Do you think that
quantum mechanics is the final word in physics? Do you suppose that that truth
is knowable to some hypothetical race of aliens? (You specifically say that
humans can't attain any absolute truth.) Or do you simply think that some
truths are unknowable, such as distant historical events?

Do you hold any superstitions (religious or otherwise)? (You probably don't,
but it helps to cover all the bases.)

~~~
jacoblyles
Physics is the crown jewel of human knowledge. But even there, the theories of
Physics are mere approximations to the actual phenomena that occur in the
world. If you are familiar with Physics, then you know how almost-correct
theories have been discarded for even more almost-correct theories throughout
history.

If our knowledge of as objective a field as Physics is so uncertain, then it
makes sense that the state of knowledge in a much more nuanced field like
Ethics is near hopeless.

I suspect aliens would run into the same problems as we do, even if they were
much smarter than us. I suspect perfect knowledge is unattainable.

Lastly,

>"Do you hold any superstitions (religious or otherwise)? (You probably don't,
but it helps to cover all the bases.)"

I don't think the religious would appreciate your reference to their beliefs
as "superstition". And no, I am not religious.

However, _I_ don't appreciate your last parenthetical, which implies that I
would be offended if you assumed that I was religious. Just yesterday I
discovered among Donald Knuth's publications an illustrated book of Bible
versus. I have thick enough skin to be lumped among simpletons like Donald
Knuth.

~~~
murrayh
Our knowledge of physics is uncertain, but it is not inaccurate. Perhaps
absolute truth is unattainable, but we can achieve enough truth that it
becomes practically equivalent to absolute truth. I haven't read any of Rand's
arguments, so it is difficult for me to understand the context, but dismissing
an argument on the basis of absolute truth not existing seems a little too
convenient.

------
sgharms
I read _AS_ when I was 18 and I've thought about this quotation a lot through
the last 20 months, as Reddit frothed about Ron Paul, Gold Standard, Banking
collapse, etc.

As I've thought more and more about it, something seems off about Francisco's
speech, namely: Money is _no longer_ the representation of value in green
paper; no, it is the representation of transferrable obligation, i.e. debt.

<http://bit.ly/14idwP>

Rand's philosophical position, expressed through D'Anconia, is that money is
an expression of _value_, created by a man through his labor and that through
its exchange, a rational process, a rational means for motivating and
directing men's labor exists, "their only substitute, if they abandon money,
is the muzzle of a gun."

I don't think this works quite as cleanly if you start consider that you're
selling tokens of servitude, or indebtedness.

~~~
jfarmer
Ayn Rand was opposed to the labor theory of value, which is a central tenant
of Marxism.

~~~
ojbyrne
While I'm not a marxist, I think she goes too far in her opposition to this.
All of the protagonists are capitalists (mostly with inherited money) and
those who actually work to advance the cause of the "great men" - i.e. Eddie
Willers - are given short shrift, and little chance to advance. Instead we
have great men with inherited fortunes, doing very little actual work,
preferring whining about "looters" and in one case (Hank Rearden) spending a
month flying a plane over the Rockies looking for another great person.

~~~
dualogy
"who actually work to advance the cause of the 'great men' - i.e. Eddie
Willers - are given short shrift, and little chance to advance"

That's because he's never advancing much by himself beyond that which he is
'given'. Eddie is definitely an interesting character in the book. Like the
'man of not so great ambition' who still knows that he will, materially and
spiritually, be better off by not looting those who made their fortunes
exclusively through voluntary exchanges of their own successful products,
efforts and work.

Yeah, in the book he lacks their talent but shares their code of value. He's
like the character introduced just so that you can't complain 'there's only
great men in this book, how unrealistic'.

~~~
ojbyrne
How does he "lack their talent?" I see little talent on display. Though
perhaps that's Rand's poor writing ability - not much is ever described to the
reader, she just says "talented" or "great" about her protagonists, and
expects us to accept it.

~~~
dualogy
It's a work of fiction, by the way. But each of the characters has their own
sets of talents and strengths and they are described rather than asserted
throughout the book.

The question of whether these descriptions are 'true' is quite pointless in an
entirely fictional setting.

> not much is ever described to the reader > she just says "talented" or
> "great" about > her protagonists

It's only fair to say you failed to sum up these 1000 pages accurately.

~~~
ojbyrne
It's not the best written work of fiction, by the way. I'm around page 900 or
so, and most of it seems to be thinly disguised rants by the author,
interspersed with laughable descriptions of sex, and a really nasty strain of
Social Darwinism. If this had been written by a German in 1934 it would
probably be recognized as thinly disguised National Socialist Party
propaganda.

~~~
dualogy
That's a pretty silly thing to say. The prose may not suit your literary
tastes, fine. But you will still agree that the Nazis and the Soviets were
both the real templates for her 'evil collectivists'.

And collectivists they were, not just in their party name ('national
socialists'). They more or less nationalized most of Germany's industrial
private properties, some of it sooner, the rest of it later. They implemented
most bullet points of the Communist Manifesto, only in a brown flavour and
with a lot of add-on horrors on top of it.

Yeah, her 'heroic romanticism' _style_ may resemble some of the red and brown
'romantic' literature. But her content is vastly opposed to theirs. If
anything, she took a style that appealed to the masses in the 30s and 40s
(including America) and showed that the same devices can be used to convey the
opposite message, radical individualism and libertarian capitalism.

------
apstuff
I read the full article, understand the point, and get its relevance to
today's circumstances.

That said, I have to admit (and I'm sorry for being way off topic here) I
found myself being drawn instead to the overall simplicity of the layout and
ease of readability than to the actual message.

It's probably because I'm working on my own stuff and appreciate it when pages
are done well (i.e. hacker news).

I looked at the style sheet and it's also very concise.

I know they're using .asp but I'm led to believe capmag.com is fairly easy to
maintain.

Please continue using Hacker News to discuss Ayn Rand if you like, but as a
developer I thought I'd throw a couple of pennies into the design fountain.

------
nazgulnarsil
Private property is the foundation of peace. Without it who gets what can only
be decided by force and coercion. Allowing people to keep the fruit of their
labor is a necessary condition for those people to bother producing anything
that they don't need immediately (consumable goods).

------
gyeh
The Economist has an article regarding the recent resurgence of "Atlas
Shrugged" sales:
[http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1...](http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13185404)

------
olavk
If this is supposed to be a rebuttal to the quote from the new testament, then
it's a major strawman. The quote from Timothy 6:10 is "the _love_ of money is
the root of all evil." (my italics)

~~~
twoz
The "love of money" is also dealt with in the article:

 _"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. It's the person who
would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of
money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to
work for it. They know they are able to deserve it."_

To see men perform the most immoral of acts for money, it becomes easy to
believe money to be a wretched thing.

Thus, it's not a far leap to consider the love _(or insane lust)_ of money as
evil.

Hence, the quote from the bible is there to protect men from performing acts
of evil in the search for or in the name of money.

~~~
Eliezer
"No True Scotsman" fallacy, "the love of money" has a standard meaning quite
apart from "the love of traditional capitalist values".

~~~
ellyagg
"[T]he love of traditional capitalist values"! The meaning of money, which she
explained, is the same quite apart from your "traditional capitalist values"
-- didn't want to let that rhetorical slap zip by unchallenged.

If you can understand the meaning of money and claim that love of money, which
embodies that meaning, is the root of all evil, fine. But then, you might as
well say that love of ANYTHING that's good is the root of all evil. In the
same way that this maxim exaggerates its claim, I can plausibly argue that
love of sex with women is the root of all evil, because men commit most evil
and, one way or another, most of it has its roots in pursuing women.

~~~
olavk
I pretty sure Paul would agree that love of sex with women is a root of much
evil (not to mention love of sex with men which is even worse!).

------
sridharvembu
I read this last time 20 years ago as an undergraduate student in India, and I
still find it inspiring after all these years.

I find it particularly relevant today, when the Federal Reserve and the
government are intent on destroying the moral foundation of money. I expand on
it at: <http://blogs.zoho.com/general/money-as-a-moral-institution>

~~~
dualogy
Wow! Using your corporate blog to dispense your opinions on economics (which I
share!) is rather 'heroic' in Ayn Rand's sense of the word. I'm not sure I'd
do it, but now I wonder why... ;)

~~~
mistermann
Or, you could just read what he wrote. Maybe I missed it, but was he selling
something? But then I didn't spend 5 minutes looking for a conspiracy.

------
niv
THE STRENGTH OF THE STRONG by Jack London
<http://www.trussel.com/prehist/strength.htm> Basically, the story tells that
a tribe figured out that the basic "law" was that no man should use his
strength to abuse others, so whenever one would abuse his strength, the others
would kill him as to not weaken the tribe. Much later in the story, they
figured out that money (among other things) also was a strength that you can
use to abuse others.

This is why (more or less) I don't agree with Ayn

~~~
dualogy
How so? 'Abusing others' was certainly nothing she was advocating. Her point
was that simply earning money or being good ('strong') is not at all an abuse
of poorer or 'weaker' people. While one may get 'rich' by abusing 'weaker'
people (i.e. robbers or slave drivers), that is exactly the kind of person she
is up against. More specifically, against the kind of robber or potential
slave driver who seeks to gain support and assistence of one group to rob or
enslave another -- by denouncing the latters as the 'actual robbers and slave
drivers' when all they did was voluntary exchanges and independent creation
etc etc. Now, that I'm sure we can agree on, _does exist_ and _did happen_ in
reality and history. Anything I'm missing?

~~~
jibiki
How do you feel about things like sweatshops and sharecropping? (Personally,
I'd rather be a debt slave than starve to death, but many people see these
sorts of businesses as abusive.)

~~~
mistermann
Rand excessively spoke about freedom, and free competition. "Sweatshops", as
we see them today, would not occur in an ideal Randian world, as, in free
economies, competitors inevitably arise and are more than happy to take your
underpaid employees off your hands.

The fact that sweatshops _do_ exist does not prove this false...you'll notice
that almost all sweatshops exist in third world countries that are notorious
for government corruption. When Rand spoke of freedom, she wasn't joking, she
meant real freedom, meaning politicians that are _not_ on the take, that
couldn't yank an operating license from a competitor who chose to offer better
working conditions.

If you want to speculate and say honesty is literally impossible in human
society, feel free, but that is something entirely different than saying that
freedom leads to sweatshops.

~~~
niv
but the world is not ideal, and if money is a strength that can be abused,
should you allow anything, without restriction, to be done with it? I believe
totaly free economies lead to abuses. It happened in the past.

------
rw
Could we stop believing in free will already?

~~~
thaumaturgy
I choose not to.

------
nwjsmith
Absolutely my favourite bit of Ayn Rand. This speech can single handedly
change the way people think about money and their own worth.

~~~
gnaritas
Only if they don't think about it too much, I'm amazed people find this
selfish drivel so influential.

~~~
mistermann
Feel free to point out the logical inconsistencies.

~~~
gnaritas
No need to, anyone who believes this crap isn't looking to be converted.
Humans don't tend make decisions logically, they make them emotionally and
then use logic to justify those decisions.

I've yet to meet a Rand follower who wasn't really just a selfish emotionally
stunted ego maniac who thought they were totally self sufficient and society
was mooching off them, especially those lazy poor people. Generally a complete
lack of awareness of the interdependence of all men on our societies and forms
of government.

You can't get past the first paragraph without noticing that Rand doesn't even
know what the phrase "money is the root of all evil" means. It certainly
doesn't mean money is evil which is how she interprets it and spends the whole
rest of the article knocking down this absurd strawman.

Anyone with half a brain knows "money is the root of all evil" means the love
of material possessions has caused much evil in the world.

------
maxharris
Atlas Shrugged is my favorite book! I am very pleased to see it being quoted
here.

------
thras
Wow. Are people impressed by that article because of the sonorous prose?
Because the content definitely isn't impressive.

Rand's first mistake is not realizing that the love of money quote speaks to
individuals and not to societies. An individual who loves the material world
more than the spiritual world (not god necessarily, maybe just the world
inside his own head), is pitiable.

The saddest thing I've ever heard was from a friend who told me that his main
goal in life was making money -- he wanted that more than anything. I asked
him if I wanted the money for anything in particular, and he couldn't answer
me.

~~~
jacoblyles
There is some cleverness in there, and, I believe, some truth. Here is a quote
that I liked:

"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who
would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to
his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry
that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a
worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with
it."

Besides, wealth is often demonized by egalitarians. They see its distribution
as a random function of the universe, and not as a function of the productive
efforts of the earners. For one person to have more money than another is
considered unjust. We hear so much about how the wealthy are evil, it is nice
for a different point of view to be aired every now and then.

>"The saddest thing I've ever heard was from a friend who told me that his
main goal in life was making money"

It would not be so sad if he said that his goal was producing something of
value, which often results in making money. As Ayn says, "Money will not
purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will
not give him a code of values".

> "Are people impressed by that article because of the sonorous prose?"

Yes, I do think the prose is quite nice. When Ayn hits a good stride, she
reaches a style that is all her own. I think her talents are often under-
appreciated because the literary establishment is very much opposed to her
political views.

~~~
andreyf
_It would not be so sad if he said that his goal was producing something of
value, which often results in making money._

If one's goal is to maximize the value humanity creates, she should probably
become an elementary school teacher. If one's goal is to make money, she
should get an MBA or financial degree.

The former, to me, is significantly nobler.

~~~
jacoblyles
It is less sexy and less popular, but the engineer that invents a more
efficient manufacturing or distribution process that slightly reduces the
resources used in products enjoyed by millions of people, perhaps becoming
rich in the process, does far more good for the world than an elementary
school teacher. Sam Walton did more good for humanity than any thousand
average teachers combined.

~~~
andreyf
Had Sam Walton been a teacher, teaching thousands of children throughout his
life, what are the chances he would have inspired some them to be great
engineers?

~~~
SapphireSun
If becoming a teacher is the ultimate instrumental good, then we would all
become teachers, then nothing would get done.

Since that is obviously the worst of all worlds, it tells me that teachers do
a good thing, but not the greatest thing.

However, without teachers, few things would get done as everyone would
reinvent the wheel. This is also, while not the worst scenario, it is far from
the best.

Thus, the best scenario seems to be that people should try to accomplish
something, then go back and teach the next generation. The bonus is that these
people will know how to get to the top.

However, people who are good at getting things done are not necessarily the
best teachers, and for the people that are...

Perhaps, like we have today, those who are good at teaching and want to should
teach, and those who want to produce should produce (and then later teach).
The whole system relies on there being a good balance between the two. How to
calculate the balance is very hard.

~~~
andreyf
Well, of course you are right that everyone can't be a teacher. However,
realistically, I think we are very much on the opposite end of number-of-
great-people-who-are-teachers spectrum.

Also worth pointing out that this isn't necessarily true for secondary
education - Universities are institutions which allow great teachers to both
do great work and teach. I'd hypothesize that if the same were extended to
other institutions, and also to younger students, much value would come of it.

