STREET DOGS: Ayn Rand on wealth
Ayn Rand on how the producers run the risk of surrendering to the looters, writes Michel Pireu
From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand:
[If] you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak, what strength do you mean?
Is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? 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. Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with 50 parasites instead of one would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. [And] men who apologise for being rich will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will haste...
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