Favorite Excerpts & Quotes from Atlas Shrugged...

Words from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

"So you think money is the root of all evil? 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 priniciple that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of looters who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is that what you consider evil?"

"An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced."

"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 or in spirit."

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one MAKES them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

"A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in of his own will, and that he build the furnace besides."

"I work for nothing but my own profit -- which I make by selling a product they need to men who are willing and able to buy it. I do not produce it for their benefit at the expense of mine, and they do not buy it for my benefit at the expense of theirs; I do not sacrifice my interests to them, nor do they sacrifice theirs to me; we deal as equals by mutual consent to mutual advantage..."

"...the purpose of a military fleet is to protect from violence the citizens who paid for it, which is a proper function of government."

"There was an air of luxury about the room, but it was the luxury of expert simplicity...This was Mullingan's concept of wealth, she thought -- the wealth of selection, not of accumulation."

"Mr. Rearden," said Francisco, his voice solemnly calm, "if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling, but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort, the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders -- what would you tell him to do?
          "I...don't know. What...could he do? What would you tell him?"
"To shrug."

Part II: The Sanction of the Victim

The second theme from Atlas Shrugged that has occupied my thoughts is the concept of “the sanction of the victim”.

There are many pages of dialogue explaining to the wealthy steel magnate,  character Henry Reardon, that his indifference to the increasing taxation and intrusion of his business by the government had made him complicit in the final takeover of his company. In effect, his passivity was a sanction to those who were abusing his rights.

Reardon’s friend admonishes: “By their {the government} own statement, it is they who need you and have nothing to offer you in return. By their own statement, you must support them because they cannot survive without you. Consider the obscenity of offering their impotence and their need – their need of you – as a justification for your torture. Are you willing to accept it? Do you care to purchase – at the price of your great endurance, at the price of your agony – the satisfaction of the needs of your destroyers?”

Wow! I had to ruminate over this. The inevitable question is: How am I sanctioning my own victimization? What should I be doing to avoid giving sanction to the government when they diminish my rights?

I have to admit that after all these months of consideration, I don’t have many good answers. But – I do see many regulations and government requirements in a new light, and take time to examine my response to them. I do not want to be giving the sanction of the victim. I believe, as God says, that I am subject to the governing authorities, and respect that God has put them there. However, I will not be passive or silent any more in my response to any attempt to diminish my rights as a citizen.

And that conviction to action does scare me, but I feel it very strongly, and even more so after the revelations of the 2012 election.

I think this is the most valuable concept I learned from Atlas Shrugged, though there are many more that have become part of my thinking as well. It’s a very good book, worth the many pages of reading, and the discipline of thinking through the principles therein. My only wish is that it was written with a underpinning of belief in God. Ayn Rand, the author, was an atheist, and so it makes for some curious reading when she writes of “motive power” as your moral code. A moral code based on what? Character John Galt describes that moral code “which holds that man is an end in himself and not a means to any end of others”.

I couldn’t disagree more…and I think how much greater this story would be with the inclusion of grace and redemption. Ayn Rand missed out on the beauty of that – but nonetheless, it is a book that has informed my beliefs and convictions, and has made me a better thinker.

It has also given me a vision of where our country may be going, that is, the consequences that may be ahead. While the possibilities frighten me, again I take inspiration from the Tramp’s words: “…I think it’s a sin to sit down and let your life go, without making a try for it.”

Or to let your country go…I’m more determined than ever to protect our right to freedom, and the country that is the freest in the world.

BOOK REPORT: Atlas Shrugged

It took me three months to read through Atlas Shrugged -- so many pages, so much to think through. When I got to John Galt’s 60 page monologue I almost gave up…but it was too close to the end. I couldn’t quit then!

I am glad that I persevered as I learned so much, and continue to think about it often. Every week, I see something in the news that reminds me of the world of Atlas Shrugged. We are on our way there, and the election confirmed that.

I wanted to write a book report back in June when I finished the book but couldn’t face the multitude of ideas and philosophies that I would have to describe, and the multitude of words it would take. I just felt I would need to tell it all, and how do you do that?

There is so much good in the book, but as time has passed, the message of Atlas Shrugged has distilled down to two things for me.

1) Beware the philosophy of “fairness”.

In the world of Atlas Shrugged, fairness came to mean that all would work to their ability, but would be rewarded according to their need.

The first application of this belief was higher taxation of the rich, to supply the needs of the government, who supplied the needs of the poor. Then it moved to the government trying to redistribute the resources and productions of larger corporations to smaller struggling ones, to make it “fair”. Finally, it moved to businesses themselves where “work according to ability; paid according to need” resulted in workers competing to be the least productive. Why should any one work harder than the next guy? They would all be paid the same –unless you were needy. The needy were expensive, and as productivity declined, the fulfillment of needs reduced the amount of pay available for those without needs. Babies were resented; sickly old women died the night before expensive treatment. Workers could not take the despair of this system and just disappeared.

On a larger scale, factories and businesses could not produce enough goods to stay in business, and closed. In time, people had cars but no fuel to run them. Trains ran fewer and fewer routes per day. The economy was slowly dying and the staples of living became scarce, and difficult to procure.

Of course, this anecdote is from a novel – but take a minute to think about how much “fairness” is talked about in our society. “It’s not fair that corporations make so much money. They should be forced to pay more taxes.” “The rich don’t deserve what they have.” “We should all have our medical expenses taken care of. It’s not fair that anyone should suffer from unexpected needs.” “It’s only fair that a business pay its employees at least a minimum wage.”

We are already a ways down the road of Atlas Shrugged; and the election results seem to make it clear that many Americans want to go there.

I think what the Tramp (in the novel) said to character Dagny Taggart is exactly true: “There wasn’t a man voting for {The Plan to work to ability, paid as to need} who didn’t think that under a set-up of this kind he’d muscle in on the profits of the men abler than himself. There wasn’t a man rich and smart enough but that they didn’t think that somebody was richer and smarter, and this plan would give him a share of his betters wealth and brains. But while he was thinking that he’d get unearned benefits from the men above, he forgot about the men below who’d get unearned benefits too.”

The needy can point to the greed of the rich, but often, their desire is based just as much on the greed they say they despise.

We need to be cautious about fairness, and examine more deeply and thoroughly where a call for fairness will lead. True fairness is rooted in my right to freely possess myself and my efforts. It should be based on equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. If I work harder than the next guy, is it not fair that I am rewarded more than he is?

The people of our nation are embracing, as character Danneskjold says “...the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights; that we don’t have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does...” “…practicing charity with wealth that {we do not} own, by giving away goods which {we} have not produced, by making others pay for the luxury of {our} pity.”

Tomorrow: Part II