John Galt's Speech
mini-version
[ 964 words ]
For twelve years
you've been asking "Who is John Galt?" This is John
Galt speaking. I'm the man who's taken away your
victims and thus destroyed your world. You've heard
it said that this is an age of moral crisis and that
Man's sins are destroying the world. But your chief
virtue has been sacrifice, and you've demanded more
sacrifices at every disaster. You've sacrificed
justice to mercy and happiness to duty. So why
should you be afraid of the world around you?
Your world is only
the product of your sacrifices. While you were
dragging the men who made your happiness possible to
your sacrificial altars, I beat you to it. I reached
them first and told them about the game you were
playing and where it would take them. I explained
the consequences of your 'brother-love' morality,
which they had been too innocently generous to
understand. You won't find them now, when you need
them more than ever.
We're on strike
against your creed of unearned rewards and
unrewarded duties. If you want to know how I made
them quit, I told them exactly what I'm telling you
tonight. I taught them the morality of Reason --
that it was right to pursue one's own happiness as
one's principal goal in life. I don't consider the
pleasure of others my goal in life, nor do I
consider my pleasure the goal of anyone else's life.
I am a trader. I earn
what I get in trade for what I produce. I ask for
nothing more or nothing less than what I earn. That
is justice. I don't force anyone to trade with me; I
only trade for mutual benefit. Force is the great
evil that has no place in a rational world. One may
never force another human to act against his/her
judgment. If you deny a man's right to Reason, you
must also deny your right to your own judgment. Yet
you have allowed your world to be run by means of
force, by men who claim that fear and joy are equal
incentives, but that fear and force are more
practical.
You've allowed such
men to occupy positions of power in your world by
preaching that all men are evil from the moment
they're born. When men believe this, they see
nothing wrong in acting in any way they please. The
name of this absurdity is 'original sin'. That's
inmpossible. That which is outside the possibility
of choice is also outside the province of morality.
To call sin that which is outside man's choice is a
mockery of justice. To say that men are born with a
free will but with a tendency toward evil is
ridiculous. If the tendency is one of choice, it
doesn't come at birth. If it is not a tendency of
choice, then man's will is not free.
And then there's your
'brother-love' morality. Why is it moral to serve
others, but not yourself? If enjoyment is a value,
why is it moral when experienced by others, but not
by you? Why is it immoral to produce something of
value and keep it for yourself, when it is moral for
others who haven't earned it to accept it? If it's
virtuous to give, isn't it then selfish to take?
Your acceptance of
the code of selflessness has made you fear the man
who has a dollar less than you because it makes you
feel that that dollar is rightfully his. You hate
the man with a dollar more than you because the
dollar he's keeping is rightfully yours. Your code
has made it impossible to know when to give and when
to grab.
You know that you
can't give away everything and starve yourself.
You've forced yourselves to live with undeserved,
irrational guilt. Is it ever proper to help another
man? No, if he demands it as his right or as a duty
that you owe him. Yes, if it's your own free choice
based on your judgment of the value of that person
and his struggle. This country wasn't built by men
who sought handouts. In its brilliant youth, this
country showed the rest of the world what greatness
was possible to Man and what happiness is possible
on Earth.
Then it began
apologizing for its greatness and began giving away
its wealth, feeling guilty for having produced more
than ikts neighbors. Twelve years ago, I saw what
was wrong with the world and where the battle for
Life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an
inverted morality and that my acceptance of that
morality was its only power. I was the first of the
men who refused to give up the pursuit of his own
happiness in order to serve others.
To those of you who
retain some remnant of dignity and the will to live
your lives for yourselves, you have the chance to
make the same choice. Examine your values and
understand that you must choose one side or the
other. Any compromise between good and evil only
hurts the good and helps the evil.
If you've understood
what I've said, stop supporting your destroyers.
Don't accept their philosophy. Your destroyers hold
you by means of your endurance, your generosity,
your innocence, and your love. Don't exhaust
yourself to help build the kind of world that you
see around you now. In the name of the best within
you, don't sacrifice the world to those who will
take away your happiness for it.
The world will
change when you are ready to pronounce this oath:
I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will
never live for the sake of another man, nor ask
another man to live for the sake of mine.
Text courtesy of
Daryl J. Sroufe
Hear the speech in it's entirety on YouTube
compliments of XCowboy2
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