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This is where we should wheel out Francisco's money speech in Atlas Shrugged: http://capitalismmagazine.com/2002/08/franciscos-money-speech/ http://capitalismma

by justsee 14y ago

This is where we should wheel out Francisco's money speech in Atlas Shrugged: http://capitalismmagazine.com/2002/08/franciscos-money-speech/ http://capitalismmagazine.com/2002/08/franciscos-money-speec... (I'm not an Ayn Rand fan and found lots of her ideas in Atlas Shrugged ridiculous, but thought that speech was rather good).

Prophasi 14y ago
Apropos citation. Would've been an even better one without the disclaimer. The money speech contains the essence of the overriding philosophy in the novel at large; I'm curious what you found ridiculous in the rest of the book that isn't stated here (at least in its logical precepts).
- justsee 14y ago
  The money speech helped me get over an irrational, subconscious distaste for money but at the same time I recognized it for the capitalist fairytale that it is. So I suppose it helped me in a way that "The Automatic Millionaire" and other books helped jaysonelliot. Gruseom has apparently never read Rand, but manages a brief, wonderful analysis of Rand's flaws and absurdities above that captures the essence of what I found more absurd as the novel progresses to its conclusion. However I still keep the concept of moochers and looters in my head, and think of them as we lurch from one global financial crisis to another.
  - seagreen 14y ago
    "The money speech helped me get over an irrational, subconscious distaste for money but at the same time I recognized it for the capitalist fairytale that it is." Funny, the best summary of Rand I've read (maybe on Samizdata - I can't find the exact quote though) is that her writing is a really good antidote to certain ideologies, but it shouldn't be mistaken for food. EDIT: s/Samizata/Samizdata
  - demigod 14y ago
    exactly!!! It helped me too, to put money in its place, I had a problem with spending money.
gruseom 14y ago
You got me curious. I don't have the fortitude to read through all of that but I dipped in here and there. What leapt out at me is how utterly Russian it is. The speech reads like an English translation of an ideological Russian novel, which I suppose in some sense it is. Rand comes across as a shrill and graphomanic anti-Dostoevsky. (Dostoevsky was a polar opposite kind of conservative to AR, if she can be called conservative, and boy would he have had a field day with this.) Rand's desire to take her idea as far as it can possibly go, in classic can't-make-an-omelette-without-breaking-eggs style, is as Russian as vodka. Think Bazarov the nihilist in "Fathers and Sons". Or better, Chernyshevsky's "What is to be Done?" which is famous for two things: having inspired generations of Russian revolutionaries and being a bit of a literary embarrassment. Here's an example. This is interesting and at least plausible: No other language or nation had ever used these words ["to make money"] before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity [...] Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. But she follows it with a non sequitur so stupid that one wonders whether it is parody: The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality. This kind of totalism isn't particularly American; there are no checks and balances for miles. Rather, it's a foreign species that has flourished in certain American soils. It's easy to see why the greed-is-good financialization crowd would go in for someone who writes things like "Money is the product of virtue". Much more interesting is the question of its popular appeal. There I think you have to look at what Steinbeck famously pointed out, that America doesn't have poor, it has temporarily embarrassed millionaires. There's an awesome novel to be written by someone with the ability to grasp all this at its root. Rand didn't write such a novel but she would make a great character in it.
- guscost 14y ago
  Ayn Rand was one hell of a romantic...
- adavies42 14y ago
  > The speech reads like an English translation of an ideological Russian novel, which I suppose in some sense it is. Rand comes across as a shrill and graphomanic anti-Dostoevsky. (Dostoevsky was a polar opposite kind of conservative to AR, if she can be called conservative, and boy would he have had a field day with this.) Rand was a fan of Dostoevsky (see The Romantic Manifesto http://www.amazon.com/dp/0451149165 http://www.amazon.com/dp/0451149165). (By comparison, she couldn't stand Tolstoy, and considered Anna Karenina one of the (morally) worst books ever written.) Sciabarra's Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical http://www.amazon.com/dp/0271014415 http://www.amazon.com/dp/0271014415 considers her from a perspective that sounds similar to yours. (I haven't read it myself.)

by justsee 14y ago

Prophasi 14y ago

Apropos citation. Would've been an even better one without the disclaimer. The money speech contains the essence of the overriding philosophy in the novel at large; I'm curious what you found ridiculous in the rest of the book that isn't stated here (at least in its logical precepts).

justsee 14y ago
The money speech helped me get over an irrational, subconscious distaste for money but at the same time I recognized it for the capitalist fairytale that it is. So I suppose it helped me in a way that "The Automatic Millionaire" and other books helped jaysonelliot. Gruseom has apparently never read Rand, but manages a brief, wonderful analysis of Rand's flaws and absurdities above that captures the essence of what I found more absurd as the novel progresses to its conclusion. However I still keep the concept of moochers and looters in my head, and think of them as we lurch from one global financial crisis to another.
- seagreen 14y ago
  "The money speech helped me get over an irrational, subconscious distaste for money but at the same time I recognized it for the capitalist fairytale that it is." Funny, the best summary of Rand I've read (maybe on Samizdata - I can't find the exact quote though) is that her writing is a really good antidote to certain ideologies, but it shouldn't be mistaken for food. EDIT: s/Samizata/Samizdata
- demigod 14y ago
  exactly!!! It helped me too, to put money in its place, I had a problem with spending money.

gruseom 14y ago

You got me curious. I don't have the fortitude to read through all of that but I dipped in here and there. What leapt out at me is how utterly Russian it is. The speech reads like an English translation of an ideological Russian novel, which I suppose in some sense it is. Rand comes across as a shrill and graphomanic anti-Dostoevsky. (Dostoevsky was a polar opposite kind of conservative to AR, if she can be called conservative, and boy would he have had a field day with this.) Rand's desire to take her idea as far as it can possibly go, in classic can't-make-an-omelette-without-breaking-eggs style, is as Russian as vodka. Think Bazarov the nihilist in "Fathers and Sons". Or better, Chernyshevsky's "What is to be Done?" which is famous for two things: having inspired generations of Russian revolutionaries and being a bit of a literary embarrassment. Here's an example. This is interesting and at least plausible: No other language or nation had ever used these words ["to make money"] before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity [...] Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. But she follows it with a non sequitur so stupid that one wonders whether it is parody: The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality. This kind of totalism isn't particularly American; there are no checks and balances for miles. Rather, it's a foreign species that has flourished in certain American soils. It's easy to see why the greed-is-good financialization crowd would go in for someone who writes things like "Money is the product of virtue". Much more interesting is the question of its popular appeal. There I think you have to look at what Steinbeck famously pointed out, that America doesn't have poor, it has temporarily embarrassed millionaires. There's an awesome novel to be written by someone with the ability to grasp all this at its root. Rand didn't write such a novel but she would make a great character in it.

guscost 14y ago
Ayn Rand was one hell of a romantic...
adavies42 14y ago
> The speech reads like an English translation of an ideological Russian novel, which I suppose in some sense it is. Rand comes across as a shrill and graphomanic anti-Dostoevsky. (Dostoevsky was a polar opposite kind of conservative to AR, if she can be called conservative, and boy would he have had a field day with this.) Rand was a fan of Dostoevsky (see The Romantic Manifesto http://www.amazon.com/dp/0451149165 http://www.amazon.com/dp/0451149165). (By comparison, she couldn't stand Tolstoy, and considered Anna Karenina one of the (morally) worst books ever written.) Sciabarra's Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical http://www.amazon.com/dp/0271014415 http://www.amazon.com/dp/0271014415 considers her from a perspective that sounds similar to yours. (I haven't read it myself.)