Verified Document

Capitalists Of The World Unite You Have Term Paper

¶ … Capitalists of the World Unite! You Have Everything to Gain -- profit, individual excellence, and personal appeal! In her fictional work of philosophy entitled Atlas Shrugged, one of Ayn Rand's central characters, Francisco d'Anconia, expresses outrage at the expressed ideal that "money is the root of all evil." He argues instead that money is the root of all human advancement and gain. Money provides motivation for humans to rise above the level of beasts and create unique works of human production and the imagination. Money is an objective standard of valuation, unlike airy systems of merit that are open to bias. It is for this reason, d'Anconia ominously says, why the systems of money evaluation and money production is one of the first things that are attacked by invaders, when attempting to destroy a country.

Rand's protagonist accuses those that spout "that phrase about the evil of money," as being aristocrats. She states that such an idea comes "from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves -- slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries." In other words, before capitalism, individuals labored at brute tasks for no reward, other than not to be lashed to death by their masters. Even today, the only people who really despise money are those who gain it by corruption, pandering, and fraud, for if the "source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence ... Then...

Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil."
But merely because an individual is rewarded with money for subordinate or slavish actions today does not mean that money is intrinsically evil. Now there is another option other than slave labor, or to labor slavishly for money -- one can become an entrepreneur, work independently and creatively, and receive remuneration for this. "The words to make money hold the essence of human morality," states this philosophical advocate of unchecked capitalism. He states the American self-made man, often despised because such an individual is an unglamorous industrialist or a shopkeeper, is in fact a hero because his money is hard and honestly won.

One of the central problems in Rand's argumentation, however, is that the love of money is conflated in this argument, with the love of material goods. The argument that "money is the root of all evil" is really a spurious argument, advanced by a straw man created by the author. Few people would suggest that money is actually evil. Most would agree, even Karl Marx that the function of money is merely to act a placeholder, as schema of establishing value within a particular society. The system of barter and exchange, for money and for goods, cannot be really destroyed by looters, as her protagonist alleges. True, it can be used as a barometer…

Sources used in this document:
Work Cited

Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. 1946
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

World Regional Geography
Words: 1682 Length: 5 Document Type: Term Paper

postindustrial transformation of the United States and Canada? What are its impact on the human geography of this realm? The term "postindustrial transformation" can be thought of as the alteration of an area in response to an ending of the age of industry. This postindustrial age is dominated by the production and manipulation of information, technology, and highly skilled workers. This age indicates that the area manufactures and operates on

UN Peacekeeping Limitations After Five
Words: 6252 Length: 20 Document Type: Thesis

Thus, "by late 1992, the catastrophic situation in Somalia had outstripped the UN's ability to quickly restore peace and stability, mainly because the UN was hamstrung by insufficient forces and UN peacekeeping principles and methods could not cope with the need to use force in such complex situations. On 3 December 1992, UN Security Council Resolution 794 authorised a coalition of UN members led by the U.S. To form

USA Hegemony
Words: 2659 Length: 7 Document Type: Term Paper

USA Hegemony There are no fundamental differences between now and what international politics used to be in the first half of the 20th Century. It is true that the post-WWII period has been more peaceful, but it is not because of a fundamental transformation in the way international politics works. To state that there are no fundamental differences between international politics in 1900-45 and afterwards would be to carry the argument to

Us Vs. Them It Is
Words: 728 Length: 2 Document Type: Term Paper

Just as the straight world misreads Brownworth, the existence of many different identities of class as well as gender and race further contemplates the division of society in to us vs. them, based upon appearances. Lucy Grealy, unlike Brownworth, does not find herself part of many 'us' categories -- rather, because of her unique facial deformity, born of a long struggle with childhood cancer of the jaw, she feels ostracized

United States History: The 1950s
Words: 923 Length: 3 Document Type: Research Proposal

" (Gilmore, 2008) in fact, it was communists "who promoted and practiced racial equality and considered the South crucial to their success in elevating labor and overthrowing the capitalist system. They were joined in the late 1930s by a radical left to form a southern Popular Front that sought to overturn Jim Crow, elevate the working class, and promote civil rights and civil liberties." (Gilmore, 2008) This is unknown even

UK Social Policy
Words: 1208 Length: 3 Document Type: Term Paper

UK Social Policy Compare and contrast the trends in the 'settling' & 'unsettling' of the political, economic & social settlements for the UK social policies relating to health care and social housing. (Approx 2 pages) Explain and illustrate the broad nature of the UK post-war welfare settlements (namely political, economic, social & organizational) and their reconstruction in the 1980s and 1990s. In what ways has the discourse of management affected the

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now