 All right guys, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to welcome someone to the rebel capitalist show that I have a tremendous amount of Respect for someone. I've really looked forward to talking with he was the head of the Ein Rahn Institute he is a champion for capitalism free markets and Personal liberty his name is yarn Brooks yarn. Welcome to the rebel capitalist show. Thanks having me on it's a real pleasure Now yarn for some of my viewers who might not know your full backstory. Can you get us up to speed there? Full backstory. That's a long story. And it's the reader's digest version She raised in Israel 70s really army Undergraduate engineering out of Israel came to the US in 1987 a long time ago Got him MBA and PhD in finance was a finance professor for seven years started a Basically a hedge fund 1998 and went to went full-time at the Ein Rahn Institute in 2000 Today I'm chairman of the Ein Rahn Institute. So switch to be chairman away from CEO in 2017 Move to Puerto Rico in 2018 January 1st And and I now spend my time on the hedge fund side and I've got a YouTube channel your own book show and your own book show calm and Spent a lot of time just advocating for all those ideas you mentioned a font and then of course still involved with the Institute as chairman of the board Yeah, you've got some incredible insights into just Obviously Atlas shrugged and Ein Rahn and her views before we get there I'd love to hear your take on what's going on in the United States right now Where do you start exactly I mean, it's a complete another disaster You know, we're I don't know exactly what the nature of the disaster is gonna be but Nothing good is coming out of the world. We live in right now. We've got a We've got a president with a character that I would never believe could ever become president of the United States Who is it who has the most authoritarian tendencies of any presidents ever and We've got a left which is authoritarian and barbaric and Anti-individualism and anti everything we believe in left and right have become the worst versions of themselves possible There is no alternative to that President the US. There's no better right. There's no pro-capitalist right. There's just nationalism and authoritarianism of the right and Socialism and authoritarianism of the left and that's it. That's the that's the entire spectrum. I think most American people still fall I won't say in the middle, but somewhere better than either one of those alternatives, but they have nowhere to go So politically it's a it's a complete disaster and of course culturally the left has dominated the culture For a hundred years, they've slowly increased their influence We're seeing the call the the manifestation of that today the the hippies the new left of the 60s Today's university professors that the leaders that the people look people look up to and they have created a kind of a complete Subjectivist more relativist racist horrific culture in among young people anti-thinking pro-emotion and the consequence of that are again, but the rise of Nutty left and the nutty right and again, those are the only voices out there. There's very little Of the individualism the capitalism the the pro free markets the poor American founders That voice is silent today in America, so I'm I don't know where we go from here. I'm quite pessimistic, unfortunately You layer that on top of these corporate bailouts that we've had, you know, the start of Yes, we haven't got economic issues right the Fed was Bailing everybody out, you know buying individual corporate bonds now not even just ETFs. Yeah, right They would buy ETFs is horrific Bailing out municipalities few municipal bond purchases bailing out at the stock market ultimately by providing unlimited liquidity and hinting that maybe one day They will buy stocks You know and then at the federal government level corporate bailouts, which of course we've seen for quite a while I remember Ronald Reagan bailed out Chrysler and And of course Bush and Obama both bailed out the the car companies auto companies and now that's on steroids So we've got a completely dysfunctional economy, you know Trump used to say the best economy ever that was complete nonsense. I mean the economy was early growing at 2% It was struggling and you know innovation is down productivity is not rising at any way near the levels you would expect We have a Economy that in a sense never recovered from 2008-9 And now has received this shock and given what the government is responding, you know printing basically six trillion dollars out of thin air I don't see how we recover out of this shock that we just got that is I I predict stagnation You know for for for the next couple of decades I just don't I think a lot of people been focused on the money printing in the Fed's balance sheet yarn But I I see this I see the obviously the bad side there But I get really worried about more and more government intervention And so we've got these bailouts. So the Fed is let's say intervening but but really it's it's the government as well And now we've got the stimulus checks. We've got the PPP program. Yeah, I mean you go down the the laundry list it just means more and more government and I don't see how the economy is supposed to be increasingly dynamic more dynamic To grow while we're burdened with with government and it goes back to Atlas shrug And if any of the the viewers haven't read the book or even watch that they've got a couple movies as well Movies don't watch it. Well, it still gives you an idea of kind of read the book read the book Read the book, but you'll see that that Rand was talking about this. They had literally exact same things that are going on right now in 1957 and in fact Yarn, I want to show this to you, buddy I bought this hat probably you can tell how old it is like I worked the gym all the time But I don't know if the viewers can see it there Atlas shrug now nonfiction I mean that had might have sold in 2008 9 when you know, everybody said look Atlas shrug That's happening right now during the financial crisis in a sense It was and you could have even bought that had in the 1970s When there was a sense that American society was falling apart and even I ran thought that Atlas shrugged in a sense was happening all around her And it just gets worse because today it certainly is going again and look I agree with you about everything you said You know when the government starts bailing everybody out when the government starts deciding who the winners and losers are when they distort prices When they distort the allocation of capital You you don't get the kind of creative destruction the Schumteter talked about you don't get Capital flowing to the most innovative to the people who actually create growth people don't talk about this But the people who create economic growth entrepreneurs the business people the people who create the jobs and new products then The more so even small and mid-sized business not just these giant corporations the entire spectrum of it And I'm not again giant businesses I think giant businesses used to be small and they were successful so good for them as long as they don't lobby government to protect themselves good for them Right, so I think every small businesses who's ambitious wants to be a big business I just think business across the board is disincentivized from investing innovating producing and then of course We have an education system that destroys the minds of young people So how are they going to innovate when they can't think themselves out of a paper bag? And then if you if you but then I don't want to give the Fed to get the Fed off though because the Fed is doing the same thing Right, what does it mean that the Fed is putting money? It's if it was putting money and dropping it from helicopters, you know, I wouldn't care that much I mean, it's okay, right, but it wouldn't be that distorted. But what are they doing? They're buying specific assets that destroying the most important price in the economy The most important price in the economy is the interest rate There's no more important price than interest rate That's the the price of time and the price of money and that every other price depends on interest rates Yet, they destroyed the the risk premium. They made all risky assets equal to a very similar to risk-free assets There's no premium for riskiness. They've destroyed what it means to be a bond versus an equity They destroyed what it means to be a treasury versus a corporate bond versus a high yield bond So they are unbelievably destructive not only because they're printing money. The printing money is the least of the problem It's how they're distributing that money and again bailing out because what is what do they do when they buy junk bonds? They're bailing out what we call zombie companies companies that should be dead And now can raise money in the bond market because the Fed will buy it They they you know, so they are literally the Fed is is is propping up the bad and preventing the good from growing so yeah and pushing everyone further out the risk curve I mean pension funds that now what they have to do to get yield is they have to go into private equity They have to invest in companies like Nikola, which is infinitely worse that even Tesla they have to go into we work They have to go into soft bank or whatever these things just to get a decent yield Yeah, perverts and destroys everything financial and look you cannot have a thriving economy you cannot have economic growth and and and Innovation and prosperity without a robust free Financial market and the more controlled finances the more controlled interest rates yields Bond markets stock markets and and corporate finances The less able an economy is to grow properly So so the destruction is all around us and it's again It's very depressing to look around and see where do we go from here because there's no voice not on the right Not on the left. There's no voice who's actually articulating the case for free market for for for more freedom not less for you know And now I'm not talking about dismantling the Fed, which is my ideal just Return it to the old days when it all it did was you know, you know The old days when they they used to control the discount rate and you know That was an affid fund rate and that was it now they control the entire yield curve Yeah, yeah, you know, well a few things I want to mention there first and foremost for the viewers that the main problem with communism from an economic standpoint, obviously there's just a There's infinite problems with communism But from an economic standpoint is there's no price signal Yes, and so what yarns talking about is the Fed is destroying the the price signal of money Which is one half of every single transaction So we're going we're doing all the bad things economically Of of of communism. That's really the the main thrust right there But uh, also, you know yarn, I did a video the other day Where I used some charts and I went back I think, uh, you know to the early 1900s when government spending Was eight percent eight percent of GDP. So in other words the private sector The private sector was 92 Now government spending when you include state spending is over 40 percent of GDP So by definition the private sector has shrank to only 60 percent of GDP Yes, and we know the government doesn't produce anything. It doesn't create anything Right, it has one function and only one function, which is the protection of individual rights and to do that you don't need more than Two three four percent of GDP you could cut government spending by 80 to 90 percent tomorrow and we'd be We'd be richer more prosperous and and actually safer Uh, if the government actually focused on what on protecting us rather than on regulating us and controlling us and and dictating to us, but absolutely the difference between The level of freedom that we have today in america and the level of freedom We had and let's say the late 19th century is is astounding and it's reflected in those numbers And again, it's not just a federal government. It's state governments. It's local governments It's local city councils that now feel like they have the authority to regulate your life and what you can do with your property And what color you can paint your home and what tree you could chop down in your backyard Every aspect Is you know, I lived in california for many years every aspect in california of your life is regulated controlled and dictated to Um, and and uh, and the only reason they can get away with it going back to a la shrug Is because the great the producers The the people who actually innovate produce grow make stuff. Let's say silicon valley Actually go to work every day produce all that and get their money taken from them Call the taxes in order to subsidize control In order to subsidize the ability of bureaucrats to control our lives Uh, and in a la shrugged, I don't want to give it away, but think about what would happen If suddenly silicon valley disappeared just disappeared From california. I mean the state would be bankrupt instantaneously. Uh, it would be poor It would be declining. It would be crushed. It would be devastated and in a sense That happens in a la shrugged So i'll leave i'll leave for the novel to tell Yeah, yarn, let's think this through though because i've always Been of the opinion the only reason all those producers Let's call them are in silicon valley is because they make their money with capital gains All right, let's be honest, you know, they're paying themselves like a dollar a year Maybe 200 grand a year or something call the programmers who make two three four hundred thousand a year Think of all the middle managers think of all the networking effect. Yeah Yeah So I think they're in silicon valley Because of the networking effect. There's no question. You've got you've got bookly And once hp started there and then you had intel remember venture capital in a sense was invented in in silicon valley Once you got the infrastructure It's very difficult to leave that infrastructure And if you're a programmer and you want to make it you go to silicon valley You don't think about capital gains taxes. You just want to make it. You're a young kid You just want to get a job at the best company in the world or start a company and you want to go in front of vcs you're more likely to get capital in in in In silicon valley than you on austin texas as great as austin is yeah, and of course They pay a lot of capital gains taxes, you know capital gains in california is taxed like regular income In the state of california. I didn't know that yes for the for the state tax state tax So I was talking federal the california california tag california government Lives off of silicon valley capital gains taxes, right, right? Yeah, but then let's talk about portorico because when I was there back in 2013 14 I remember I mean, i'm sure you've gone through this process where you've got to go register to vote You've got to get your driver's license and and back then it was kind of a new thing And I remember being in line at the dmv, which you know takes six hours But every word is to stay in the line for me She called me up 10 minutes before she reached the front of the line and I drove over and Well, that's the way to do it That's the way to do it But every place I was in line you can tell who the gringos are and and they're there for act 2022 Which is for those of you who don't know is uh portorico has this This tax setup where it's the only place in the entire world quite literally Where us citizens don't have to pay us tax so you can lower your cap gains tax on on few things down to zero In your business income down to uh four percent if not lower So anyway, when I was in all these lines, you know, I talked to everyone say, yeah, where are you from? Where are you from you're from act 22 or act 20? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah And probably 95 of the people that I spoke with were from california And now you look at guys like schiff like yourself Mike maloney harry dent Simon black was sovereign man. All of these people these producers have now gone to portorico I don't know if I maybe put myself in that ring as well. But you know, but in portorico Great example of this, you know, this who is john galt, you know, we're we're getting out of the united states We see the riding on the wall and it's like listen. I'm fed up with it. I'm done Do a cost benefit analysis and the juice just isn't worth the squeeze. Absolutely. But on the other hand With small fry Yeah, I mean when when when when apple shuts down in california and moves out of portorico That'll be a game changer, but Now we're just too it's too small fry. It's it's a lot of it's motivated by ideology and by all You know, we're not quite rich enough like like the super rich don't seem to care about taxes as much And we're not and we're right in the middle there where we where we care a lot because it consumes a huge chunk Of a disposal of being disposable income. But no, I think that's right. I think people Are moving more with their feats not just to not just to portorico, but you see it to move to texas and to Arizona nevada You know, tennessee is a great place to live and has zero state taxes but It's more than the taxes and and it's hard to escape because you get that here in portorico I mean, it's great that we don't pay federal taxes and all that but then we have to tolerate Aspects of portorico that are problematic the six hour line at the dmv. Why is there a dmv? I still haven't figured out what the purpose of a dmv is. Why can't I sit at home? and You know have Have a have my my camera take a picture of me fill out a form And and just send it to the dmv and get my license downloaded onto my phone What is this thing that I have to I mean it the whole infrastructure In the world is pretty primitive in portorico, particularly so so there are pluses and minuses to living in portorico I think the pluses outnumber the minuses. That's why i'm here but It's at the end of the day And this is the point of a la shrugged right the end of the day The battle is an ideological battle Um, you know at the end of the day the only way to turn things around is with better ideas Gold's gold only succeeds because he has good ideas and he and he can convince people about those ideas not just That coercion And and and you know It's that ideological battle that we have to engage in if we're going to turn things around in in portorico in the united states in the world more broadly uh And until we convince You know if you've read out the shrug the the dagny taggats and the and the and the reedens The the giants of the giant entrepreneurs the real innovators the people who really move the economy forward Until we convince those people the great businessman of our era That they're being exploited by the system that they that they Need to take care of themselves that they need to be more self-interested that they need to be more focused on Their freedom and their liberty Uh until we convince them Yeah, a few of us will be in portorico and that's great But the world will not change because of that yeah, see Here what what comes to mind there is I think if you just pulled the majority of The americans in the united states they'd say who is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time that would be in that category And they'd probably all say elon musk not all but a lot of them would say elon musk I would say yeah, but but let's just you know a lot of americans would And so but then you look at musk and i'm not here to say he's great or bad or anything in between But he has achieved a lot of what he's achieved with the help of government And some of what he's achieved. Look, he made his money at paypal. There was no government involvement Beyond what government is involving any payment system, but but he there was no government involvement He made his money fan square. I agree tesla Is all government. He could have done nothing without government particularly the state of california Hundreds of Bill hundreds of millions of dollars went into that company from california and of course tax credits and all the other stuff His solar panel business all government. How can we get these people? These these producers these entrepreneurs like we read about and out of shrugged away from the system If they're so ingrained in the system and they've become dependent on it. That's real my question I don't think they become dependent on it They can't imagine an alternative. This is a this is all ideas in the end. Okay, it's not Money they have enough money forever. It's not about more market share You know and and the fact is that they can't imagine an alternative um And they are ideologically committed to it and this is again the point of alley shrug alley shrug is about a philosophy It's about a philosophy that says that the reason the businessman are tied to government Is because they feel guilty and and the character reared and is the most powerful character in that sense in atlas Because he has to move the biggest distance in order to In order to be redeemed if you will in order to gain access to the valley Right because he in the beginning of the novel is very conventional isn't ideas He's a great entrepreneur, but he's very conventional in his ideas and is is he basically feels The tug of guilt his family pulls at him. He thinks that that's what morality is taking care of others giving to others And he knows deep down that that's wrong, but he doesn't have an alternative So he doesn't know how to how to handle himself and he is Easy pray then now in the book. He's a hero. So he's not but in real life. He's easy pray to the Intellectuals who tell him he's a bad person who's just you know, you hear Bill Gates It's all luck He had the right genes at the right time, you know in the right computer in the right place in the right school and all this bs It's just luck And therefore he didn't build it. If you listen to obama, you didn't build that right? It's the your kindergarten teacher It's the government that produced the infrastructure and they they literally Buy into this stuff. I don't believe it's a it's a it's a it's a game I don't believe they're just putting on an act Although they might be in a sense that they think that's what this society expects of them But why would they think that they should do what a society expects from them? And that's also the ideological question So I think they bought into you know There's no question in my mind that somebody like bill gates has read John Rawls the famous harvard philosopher because he speaks like it's right out of John Rawls the steve of justice. He's bought into that philosophy until we can Show them the evil of that philosophy and how wrong it is And replace it in my view with iron man's philosophy We're doomed to continue this and I think they are legitimate Entrepreneurs out there. I mean, I you know, Steve Jobs did not go groveling to government for for any favors any goods He he played the game because the government was there Placing barriers in front of him and and he had to knock those barriers down So he played the game to try to do that bill gates is the same way If you look at bill gates's history, he tried to avoid government Until they came with the justice department knocking on his door and try to break up his company And then he realized he had to play the game and if you look at jeff bezos Jeff bezos has tried to stay away from government try to stay away from politics try to stay away from lobbying His reward by the way was that microsoft just got a big contract the defense department just gave a big contract to microsoft and not to amazon because trump hates amazon so It's all about I mean our politicians have Their tentacles in everything and you're a businessman and you want to survive You better play along now. Well, we need to give them is the backbone You know, one of the great tragedies in my view one of the most Disgusting things that I that I observe in the world out there is when congress brings in front of them a successful ceo Like aug zuckerberg Or in the past there was like CEOs of auto companies or the CEO of banks even banks, right? And they lecture them Yeah, and the derivatives put for you know on on derivatives when the congressman know Zero about any of the like they they'll ask them about cdo's or cmo's when just one of these ceos would turn around and say Congressman would you mind Telling me what a cmo or cdo is they have no clue what they're talking about They don't even know how to checking account work exact so These these people sitting up there who who have the power of the gun the power of government behind them Who have not employed a human being in their life who have not run a business who know nothing about running a business Who have produced zero actually negative because everything they do in government is a drain on production Lecturing to the most productive people in our society to the people who actually employ people create jobs build jobs Do the best that they can In a horrific environment and they're lecturing them and telling them what they can and cannot do what they shouldn't shouldn't do That is A massive injustice and again We will win when one of those ceos stand up and says you have no right to ask me these questions It's none of your frigging business Go away. You're unproductive. You're you're nobody's and I will not speak to you and walks out of that room When that happens, we'll know a revolution is starting Yeah, boy, wouldn't that be awesome? One thing that surprises me When you hear the the rhetoric for people who let's say Protest for lack of a better word on the left and and the right, you know going back to the tea party Is why everyone can't agree that smaller federal government is good because you hear on the left You know, we can't have these lobbyists that the the big corporations have too much control. They have too much power Yeah, but if you just reduced the size of the federal government and reduced how much power they had Then there you wouldn't really have crony capitalism because there's no politician to pay off because they don't have any power They don't have they don't have the ability to do that You assuming they care they care about cronyism Cronyism is a facade. It's an excuse for them. The left doesn't want smaller Left doesn't want lobbyists to go away. They want the lobbyists to be employed by the government They want full control over these businesses. They want to own the means of production And who and then and then the government is the lobbyist the government is the co the government is all these people And the right has never wanted the lobbyists to go away because they want the power They don't want to give up the power of being able to control I mean these congressmen love the fact that they can put in front of them these incredibly productive individuals And these individuals these co's of these companies have to grovel before them It it it gives them the reason for living they thrive off of power They thrive off of their ability to control and manipulate other people and ian ran again describes this Perfectly in atlas shrug. You know in wesley mauch and and the different Operatives in and and she also describes the kind of co Thrive's in this environment. She has many of the co's many of the businessmen in atlas shrug Other villains because they're the kind of co's that rise up in an environment Where you get favors from the government and they enjoy getting favors of government and it's this You know constant Hustrating between the politicians and the businessmen that the bad businessmen and the productive businessmen the real geniuses the real people are pushing civilization forward They are the ones everybody wants to exploit everybody wants to take advantage of and and The left and the right are not honest about not wanting cronyism. They thrive it. I mean Look at these politicians They enter politics poor And and you can what you'll see this with a o c or any politician. What was she a bartender when she came into politics? Something like that. She leaves politics. She will be wealthy Every single one of them when they leave politics are wealthy How does that happen because the salary is not high They're not they're not producing anything. They're not creating anything. So how do they get wealthy? Well, because people are paying them to buy favors now. It might not be explicit suitcases full of cash But as soon as they leave politics suddenly they'll offer 250 thousand dollars to speak at goldman sacks Why because goldman sacks believes that if you're in politics before You have connections you have a way in and you will you know, you'll you'll provide favors every single one of these congressmen Finds ways to leverage their political position to make a lot of money for themselves And not only did they get the kick Of having power over the people they also make the money out of it So they have no incentive zero incentive to reign in government to shrink it They thrive and control and on the power both financial and And and just power over people that they gain from having they want more lobbyists more lobbyists means more power Yeah, and see yeah, and see you're you're getting people I know that the pushback to that is always well. We just need to vote in the right people Well, what you don't understand is that if if someone's trying to get into this position in the first place By definition, they're going to be a very poor character because think of what it takes to be a good quote unquote good politician You have to be you have to have no ethics whatsoever. I mean zero You have to be able to lie. You have to be able to have no principles You just go with the wind whatever you whatever you think will get you the most votes That's what you're going to believe and that's what you're going to say And so you have you're drawing in the worst of our society to have the most control But it's worse than that because It is because what are the people want? It's not like the people who say we just need better leaders Know what a better leader looks like like if I rip people ask me you're on. Why don't you run for president? Now I wasn't born in the u.s. But let's say I could run for president I'd say because I would lose in a landslide. It would be a massive waste of time I would literally lose in a landslide because the fact is That nobody wants me as president. They're like 10 people on planet earth who want me as president it's not We get exactly the politicians we deserve as a culture Right people who complain about the quality of the politicians are the people who voted those politicians in And when somebody like me came to them with radical ideas, they said, oh, no, that's too radical Oh, no, no, that's too Crazy or what about old people? What about social security? What about mine? You remember the plaques that the tea party had, you know, we want to shrink government We want, you know, don't tread on me and then they'd have a plaque saying keep your hands off of my medicare You know the biggest Socialized health care system reward medicare. They want they think that's You know consistent with the constitution and consistent with free markets So it's not like any of these people including the tea party Know what a good politician would look like and it's not like any of them would vote for one if such a human being existed so It's they vote for the politicians that reflect their ideas when the culture is good When the culture believes in free markets, you know what will happen to politicians? They'll become true believers because that's the only way to get elected is to become a free market capitalist All right, but we don't believe in free market capitalism the people out there. So why would any politician advocate for that? Yeah, so well, let's talk about opportunity to to change the world here And I I think that it's definitely an uphill battle But with the internet and the kind of the the decentralization Of of the media now, maybe we've got we can it's kind of scrappy here and there But maybe we've got a little bit of A way to get the message out to where more people will see it more people will hear it and more people will start to see Hey, this is really what we need to start doing it. It's it's about less government not more government It's our only opportunity that we have there's so few of us and there's such a tiny voice Um, we have to start speaking up and and yes, I think the internet provides us with this amazing opportunity Marginal cost of zero for adding another person To watch your video And the challenge is of course to gain size and it's a numbers game at some point And the other challenge is to have the right message and I think that the challenge with the liberty movement is You know and and I know this is somewhat self-serving, but I think it's also the truth I think the biggest tragedy of the liberty movement is they don't take any man seriously enough I don't think unfortunately I don't think the great giants of the liberty movement of the past took her seriously enough The von Mises is the hyac's the Friedman's the the people of that Generation didn't take and I think the people the great economists of this generation don't take her seriously enough You cannot change a culture on economics alone. Nobody cares about economics People don't vote their pocketbook People vote what they believe is right versus wrong people vote Their morality people associate with the hearts, but it's really the mind They vote what they think is right where they vote what they think is small What einrann provides and she's the only one in the liberty movement to provide this and this is why She has to be adopted more broadly and has to be talked about more broadly She provides an actual philosophy of freedom Philosophy of limited government philosophy for individual living their lives Based on a new moral code based on a new approach to human life the individual human life and as a result of that a new approach to government But people you know if we want to change the world We have to challenge the left and the right the conventional left and right On their grounds and that means on their philosophical grounds. We have to challenge their philosophy. Look their economics is one big Believable failure if people cared about economics We would have won a long time ago Mises and freedmen are far better economists than anybody the left has they made better arguments more Articulately that actually matched reality. We would have won it by now The fact is that we haven't we're losing and losing fast It's because we've never taken up the philosophical argument Einrann was alone in taking that up and until the liberty movement pivots To become more objectivist more oriented around Einrann's ideas more oriented around the morality of liberty The morality of capitalism the morality of freedom the morality of individualism We don't have a chance and and that's the big weakness. We have we can go online and talk and talk and talk about economics But I think that only has a limited effect because people You know, is this people starving over there? What am I supposed to do about that? Yeah, well, let's go into that yarn. Why why is personal freedom and liberty morally correct? Well, because what is because morality should be about you Me right about the individual morality should not be about the other Your life is what's precious to you and your whole orientation as an individual should be How should I live the best life that I can live under what conditions in what environment? What might I do to make my life the best life that it can be every second Is precious every moment of your time you will never get back again Your life is all you have And and morality needs to be focused around that now you ask your question for an individual Who recognizes that to live well. He must use his mind to to think What kind of world what kind of a political system does he want to live under? Well a world that leaves him free to use his mind to discover the best values that can lead to his happiness Right, right. So what does he need politically freedom? He needs to be left alone to use his mind and we know that the biggest threat of force coercion Is that it stops the mind it restricts your options. It makes thinking impossible about those things that the gun Takes out of your other scope of thought So if you if you're a rational individualist a rational egoist what you want is Get rid of coercion Get rid of force and then you say okay to do that. I need to establish an institution call it government Who's so responsible lead only job? Is to is to get rid of the bad guys to eliminate force as a way in which human beings interact So not for the purpose of some social utility maximizing social well-being Good economics who cares about all that just for the purpose of that. I can pursue my values Use my mind free Of force so that I can live the best life that I can live That's orientation the orientation needs to be away from the others And respect you see I think Hayek makes a massive mistake by by Saying well central planning is bad because the central planner Um is not in a sense doesn't have enough information And if he did if you could create a supercomputer that did would it be okay then? No Central planning is bad because the central planner can never ever Metaphysically can never choose values for me because my definition of value is what I want Not what he wants for me Add is the essential so you have to orient everything to the individual To the individuals ability to think and pursue their own life I mean one of the big mistakes conservatives makes is they say Well people people are irrational and therefore we want small government because politicians are going to be irrational And uh, and we need to we need to have checks and balances to prevent irrationality from the government But if people are irrational then they can't take care of themselves And if they can't take care of themselves and what are you going to do somebody has to help them Right and again you have to Shift that focus no individuals are primarily rational We are brilliant to taking care of ourselves when allowed to do so and all of history suggests that that is the case So what we need is the freedom to be able to take care of ourselves And if there's some people under certain circumstances who can't take care of themselves That's not a problem We can help them easily, but the majority the overwhelming majority of people Have enough of uh Can be rational and when they are rational can thrive and flourish and achieve happiness So we need to be positive not negative We need to push for a positive view of man And a positive view of his abilities And a positive view of the morality of man seeking his own happiness Which is what this country's founded on right it's founded on two ideas reason Man's capacity to think for himself and to produce and to create and a pursuit of happiness Those are the two foundations for the declaration of independence Yeah, and ironically when you focus on those aspects you get better economic growth And then you get it's like the free hand, you know You get a lot better stuff by not trying to focus on that Let's use someone just to try to illustrate your point yarn Let's use someone like mother Teresa. She's just a stereotypical good person that was altruistic that helped others and So let's just start with answering the question Was mother Teresa from a moral standpoint looking at it from uh from from ein rands vantage point Would was that morally correct what the way she lived her life? And if so, why no absolutely not She it's a wait. She wasted her life. She was miserable. She was unhappy if you read her diaries you see how awful a life she lived She constantly questioned what she was doing why she was doing it You know what the reward was into some afterlife mythical afterlife. She had to create a fantasy to justify what she was doing I mean the world is Is heaven enough if you know how to live your life properly and that's what morality is about It's about living your life properly and creating heaven on earth Achieving your own happiness here on earth not about an afterlife. So no she lived an immoral life An immoral life and she helped very few people And and if you follow mother Teresa, you know that what she did is she helped people Who were starving not starve? But that's it She refused to help them succeed because she believed the meek shall inherit the earth. So you wanted meek people because they were good suffering Poverty was a good not a bad thing in the world But contrast to which I do in my talks to a bill gates Yeah, yeah, really changed the world helped Hundreds of millions of people if not several billions of people His computers today ubiquitous You can't get aid into the worst places in Africa without using a computer to make efficient the supply chain and reduce the cost of all the Goods that you're providing them Everything in the world today relies on some of the innovations that microsoft had in the early days And yet he helped many many more people than mother Teresa But also made a lot of money for himself while doing it As a as a value for value trade Lives a fairly what looks like a fairly happy life. He's successful and he's he seems to be happy and enjoying himself He's not considered moral. Why? Because he's not suffering. He's not in pain. He's not in anguish. He's actually happy so the culture views happiness and success as vices and suffering in anguish as as as virtues Einstein says the exact opposite if you have actually used your mind pursued your values Live the full life made something created something built something You're a good person That's what life should be about It's not about other people and by the way if you do that You'll help many many more people by orders of magnitude than the mother Teresa's of the world. Yeah Yeah, you know, let let me outline my kind of personal belief system or what I've You know what I've come to the conclusion. Obviously, I always keep an open mind But this is kind of the way I've always seen it and once I read Atlas shrugged and then I I retired in 2012 I was an entrepreneur for many years and I've had thousands of employees the last business I had had over a hundred employees So I've really seen it from both sides when I was in college I didn't have a you know, two nickels to rub together So I've been on an an employee an employer everything in between But and and then I was raised Christian. I still consider myself a Christian. So what I always The way I saw it was It starts with being honest with yourself You have to be honest with yourself on what your personal strengths and weaknesses are and this is if you're trying to do Good, let's say the the way the the typical or the proper definition of the word good If you're trying to do good, you got to start with being honest with yourself And if your skill set is that of bill gates And you want to do good you've got to do exactly what he did. Let's say to to start uh, Microsoft that he had like 400,000 I think he had 400,000 seed capital something like that if he would have given that away to charity Let's say everyone would have said, oh my gosh, he's doing good. Look at what a moral act But but he didn't do that. He pursued his own self interest and in doing so now He's worth. Let's say a hundred billion dollars where he can do far more good Now and plus he's you know changed the world. He's got all these You know employees Microsofty, you know, they're basically the entire state of washington buying to the mythology That leads us towards socialism, right? That that is yes, okay Tell me how how am I leading us towards socialism because the whole approach there is that good means to other people but that's wrong Bill Gates should have not given the 400,000 to charity because he wanted to have fun In other words, he wanted to enjoy his life He wanted to achieve something and make something not so he could give it away afterwards Who cares whether he does philanthropy afterwards? he has provided more good for himself by living a full life and More good to other people by employing them by creating Millions of jobs all around the planet and by every time somebody bought a microsoft product Was they like better or worse? Well, they're more productive, right, right? Well, then whatever reason they felt that a hundred dollars was better used buying a microsoft product than any other use They prefer the microsoft product on a hundred dollars. Their life was better Bill Gates is a moral giant for having created microsoft Forget his philanthropy his philanthropy is irrelevant to the equation of morality philanthropy is neutral morally in my view Or unimportant. It's a trivial issue. Yeah, then you want to give some money away. Fine. Who cares? You've already changed the world in deep meaningful substantial ways And by the way, you did it in the most moral way possible by making your life better at the same time Yeah, yeah, so yeah, I didn't say it the right way. We completely agree I was just trying to look at it from a standpoint of someone trying to do good But yeah, we yeah, definitely on the same page You're still buying into the idea that doing good means helping other people I say doing good is making your life the best life that it can be Right, whatever you could be a social worker. I've nothing against social workers So I don't have anything a bit philanthropy if you decide let's say you're born with a lot of money You inherited a lot of money and you decide that what you really enjoy doing what really gives you satisfaction What really rationally is consistent with your values is to in a rational systematic way given away And enable people to thrive through your giving the money away. Fine If you go through that pope, if you're not doing it out of guilt If you're not doing it because this is the only way to do good in the world So The focus needs to be on your values on what makes you happy and what will lead to your success in this world And I believe, you know, I don't believe in God But if I believed in a God, I believe that if you do good in this world He's going to reward you whether you follow this scripture that scripture you do this stuff Otherwise, he's a pretty nasty God if if if you're honest and you're doing good stuff here And and you don't give awarded unless you identify with a particular deity or not with another one So forget about the afterlife. I don't think it exists, but forget about it And just live The happiest most successful life you can right now on the planet and that I'm pursuing your own self-interest. Yeah It's not about being hedonist. It's not about momentary pleasures We know that you know, because we've lived a while right that real happiness comes from long-term thinking from long-term planning from execution From achieving meaningful values from the pursuit of something that has substance It doesn't come from just, you know, pleasure for the sake of pleasure Not that I'm against pleasure, but just that that is the guiding thing of your life So You know the whole way in which people think about morality needs to change And he's changed about thinking of the other altruism to thinking about self Egoism, which is as a long tradition going back to Aristotle and high in rand I think is is is the the the most important thinker in that tradition And until and then once you do that if what I care about is my own life Now I care about my own freedom It's obvious right and I want to produce. I want to make I don't want see if elon musk was an egoist He wouldn't take government handouts because government handouts undermine and undercut any achievement he makes And he knows it and it eats at him So if you really cared about his soul That he wouldn't do it. There's a there's a magnificent scene in the fountain head I ran I ran to the fountain it where this architect is designed this beautiful bank building And he's a starving artist. He has no money nothing and he presents the plans the board of this bank And they say great. We love it. We're going to give you million You know, whatever you we're going to give you a huge amount of money to build the building But we want to make a few changes And the changes they make are going to undercut his integrity And he says no And they say but you're going to get a lot of money He says the money's not worth it if I have to sell my soul for the money And he walks away and he goes works as a manual labor in a quarry You know digging up rocks in order to sustain himself, but he's willing to do that to fight for his integrity So being an egoist is not about the material things It's about your integrity. It's about your honesty. It's about your your your commitment to facts and reality and sticking to those and living through those and Somebody like that Does not want to be told what they can and cannot do what where they can and cannot open a business How much they pay the employees and what to build and what not to build Yeah, how does integrity and pursuing or being an egoist or pursuing your own self-interest? How does out of those two things intertwine? Because some would say yarn that they're antithetical Yes, well to to really Dig deep into that would require an hour, but You is to read the virtue of selfishness by iron man It's a little book and the first essay is called the objectivist ethics and she talks about why integrity is essential not just Nice, but essential for being an egoist And and i'll give you the outline Basically to be an egoist the most important thing one must respect is the mind You must respect The fact that your only means of knowledge Your only means of providing for yourself is by thinking emotions and our tools of cognition and revelation is not real So the only thing you have is your mind your reason your rationality Integrity is just an aspect of that if you think certain thoughts and you think those things are true And then you act against them You're negating the value of your own mind. You're negating the value of our own ideas You're negating the value of your own thinking Which then undermines your own life psychologically and ultimately Instantially as well and in iron man's in the book in the fountain it she's got two characters the one who sells out And does whatever people and the one who doesn't and you can see and a lot You know, it's a it's a fiction. So it's not a true story But you can see the trajectory of their lives and you know people who've lived those lives And you know that it's true. That is people with no integrity cannot be happy Elon musk deep down cannot be a hundred percent Whole with himself Even as much as he's achieved He cannot be completely whole with himself because he knows that he is sold out in Important ways in his life and that's sad because I think Elon musk deserves happiness given how productive of a genius He is I think the fact that he sold out and went for the government subsidies and the government goodies Is is truly sad Yeah, do you think there's an argument for a higher purpose like from his standpoint saying well If I take the government goodies, then I'm achieving Let's just say that His main goal and I'm not saying it is or isn't but his main goal is like global warming Is if I can conquer global warming by taking this government hand it then maybe it's justified Is is is that an argument or not? Suddenly? I think it's a way he rationalizes it to himself Yeah, and I think I'll go back to a point you made earlier about honesty I think I think if he was honest with himself a Is tesla really going to save the world from global warming? We all know it's not If global warming is real, we know it's not and if it's not real, it's it's just a way for him to Build his toys and I don't think he does it for the money. I think he does it for the toys at somebody else's expense So and and and build his prestige and and just have fun You know the the the fun of building an automobile the way he wants to see it But it's somebody else's cost So I think if he was honest he would realize that what he's doing is just rationalizing Not actually living by his principles and I think again to the extent that a person doesn't live by their principles To that extent they can't in the end be happy And and can't live the best life that they can live in this life Yeah, okay, so I've taken up a lot of your time. Yarn. I I sincerely appreciate it Let me just dive into one more thing here before I let you go because you touched and I'm reading from my notes You touched on being rational. We've got to use our mind And what I see the the biggest change that I see since Since when I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s compared to now Is back then people would always use the terminology as an example. I think Yarn, I think we should take a right here. Yarn. I think the weather it's 75 degrees now And it's just the way they talk, you know Yarn, I feel Like we should take a right here yarn. I feel Like it's about 75 degrees and I know it's a very subtle thing but it seemed my point is it seems like we've gone from a society of valuing thinking and intelligence and rational thought to a society that that puts feelings As priority number one and I know that goes into postmodernism and I and you don't have to expand on that But I'd just like to get your your brief thoughts on that Absolutely. No question. The biggest the biggest enemy we have today is is emotionalism The fact that emotions have been elevated to the most important thing in the world It's a consequence of John Dewey's theory of education, which has dominated our schools certainly since the 1960s Even before that to some extent. I think even the people in the 70s or 80s Were pretending that they cared about thinking but were actually already on the path to the feeling You saw that with the with the new left in the 1960s with the hippie generation and all that remember they're the They're my age now, right or even older than me right now So this feeling stuff has been around in american culture for a long time It's just and then the differences between the right and the left become what the right feels Versus what the left feels and it's the combat of feelings feelings Cultures that emphasize feelings always end up with violence Because once you abandon reason as the way in which we interact Facts and logic as the way to decide what's true. What's not Then how do you decide? Well at that point the only way to decide is who has bigger muscles Might makes right is the only way to make decisions in an emotionalist society And we're seeing that we'll see more of that the government is becoming more violent in a sense of imposing its control more People are demanding more violence from the government And people themselves I think are becoming You know more violent, you know in in in their respect to their tribe versus other tribes. Oh, yeah silencing speakers on campuses firing people From the tutorial board of the new york times because they published in our bed. Some people found offensive You know not publishing stuff on twitter because it's offensive because people's feelings are hurt People start using feelings It really is the end of civilization and it's it's this is the point that makes me so pessimistic Is it's very hard to reverse? Because it's so ingrained in our educational institutions Yeah, all right, yarn. We'll go ahead and leave it there boy This has been a just a fascinating conversation for my viewers and listeners who want to find out more about your content What you do? Where can they go? YouTube your on book show and Twitter you can follow me on twitter just your on book y a r o n b r o k and You know if you want to find out more about iron rand iron rand dot org a y n r a n d dot org All right, yarn. Thank you again, and I cannot wait to do this in the future Sounds good and we should do it in Puerto Rico next time If I can get out of lockdown, I'll join you there and we'll have a mojito on the beach and talk iron rand Fantastic. Look forward to it