Rand on "the barometer of a society's virtue"

"When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.
Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsionwhen you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice you may know that your society is doomed."

OK, it's no surprise I'm a fan of Rand, right? You know what attracted me first to Rands ideas? They have the same feeling as the words "The emperor has no clothes!" in that old tail. Nobody had uttered them before, but everyone thought it was the case. But now that theyre in the air, and the truth is plastered on the world, there's no escaping it. Kind of like the law of gravity. It was there all along, only Newton pointed to it, described it, and named it.