 Thank you, Victoria. Thanks to the Domit libertarian club for inviting me. It's great to be on campus It's always fun to be talking at universities so You know the probably the biggest mystery in the world today in my view at least right of all the mysteries out there The biggest mystery in the world today is the popularity of socialism and the unpopularity of capitalism it Is truly mind-boggling That a system that everywhere it is tried to the extent that it is tried has failed is today popular and A system that everywhere that it is being tried To the extent that it is being tried is a massive success is Unpopular it's as if the human race is on a suicide mission To choose the worst system and to go for it Rather than to choose the best the one that is promoted human life the most the one that is created The highest standard of living the highest quality of life the highest amount of wealth of any other system in all of human history There really is no competition and the very the very idea that we have to even debate this is not If you know just a little bit of history How many people were poor? I mean really poor what the United Nations called extreme poverty What percentage of the world population was extremely poor? 250 years ago pretty much everybody 90 plus percent Right two dollars a day or less. That's how they measure it But you could argue that a hundred percent because hey, they didn't have running water No toilets the flush We take for granted no electricity and no iPhone So you're poor by definition right if you don't have those things But 90 plus percent lived on two dollars a day or less Pretty much since the beginning of time or since the beginning of the human race So if we do a little I could do it on the board, I guess. Oh, wow great I get to use I get to use the chalk. I haven't done that in years But it's a bad. It's really bad. All right. Here we go. Can you see that? This is time This is income or wealth or per capita anywhere you want to look at it, right? This is the graph of human wealth You know about 100,000 years ago it starts somewhere here on two dollars a day It goes up a little bit during Greece and Rome goes back to two dollars a day or less And then it goes this and it goes there and I'd have to keep going What is that? The inflection point where everything starts happening. When is that? Yeah, the beginning of the industrial evolution One way to think about it. Anybody have a date for the beginning of the industrial evolution? I Mean in a sense, there's no one date, but you know, it's easy if we think of one date as the beginning. It's a range 19th century a little late in my thinking right 19th century is already we're really into the industrial evolution We're going at it, but what's the date where it all changes where everything changes? 17 yeah, you've seen this right It's 1776 is my favorite date For three reasons you guys probably think of one, but they're three first is It's the that year is the first time the steam engine is used for commercial purpose So in that sense, it's the beginning of the industrial evolution. We're industrializing. We're using an engine in Business to create stuff Second famous book is written in 1776 or published in 1776. What's that? What's the nations by Adam Smith important book in terms of the history of markets and economics? But third and by far most importantly is It's the year the most important political document in all of human history is written and that is the Declaration of Independence and it's That document is it's not out of no way It's a culmination of a whole set of ideas and what are those ideas? What is that period before the founding of America? What do we call that period the enlightenment the age of reason, right? This is an age in which we discover rediscover what do all of what in human life the mind reason enlightenment Enlightenment not in a mystical sense enlightenment in the sense of the power of reason to know reality To know truth it starts with Isaac Newton. It starts with the scientific revolution and It's it's turned into a political idea which on lock But the idea is the same the idea is in every individual Has the capacity to understand reality to know truth to reason to think for themselves They can discover truths about the world. They're not in an ancient book these truths they're not in The you know the power of Philosophic kings They've been every individual's ability to know reality to know truth and People start asking these questions about well, okay If I can actually understand the laws of motion as Newton has taught me Why can't I choose who to marry? because they didn't in those days or Why can't I choose my profession? Who chose your profession in those days? Inherited it whatever you're born into you're part of a guild Suddenly you can make choices for yourself and they said wait a minute if I can do all that stuff. Why can't I choose? who should govern and that's Ultimately the declaration You can and the idea that each individual has a right. What does rights mean? What do rights mean? It's mean freedoms freedoms of action It means that nobody can use coercion or force against you as you pursue Your life as you pursue the values necessary for your life You pursue the judgment of your reason Nobody has a right to interfere because you have capacity to think for yourself. Your life is yours It doesn't belong to the tribe the group the king or anybody else. That's what the declaration tells us Based on the thinking of philosophers leading up to that So for the first time in human history really there's a document that expresses the idea that as individuals We are free free to pursue our values free to pursue the conclusions of our own mind and that unleashes a revolution Not just a political revolution in a sense that we're not politically free Or at least most of us are Declaration of course is full of the contradiction of slavery, but most of us are free Not just that we are free politically, but suddenly it unleashes the mind It's not an accident the industrial revolution follows because suddenly entrepreneurs think I've got an idea and For the first time in history. I don't need to ask anybody for permission. I Don't need to get anybody's approval. I can just go into it. I Can try fly I can see what electricity does. I don't have to wear goggles I mean imagine Thomas Edison today doing the experiments that he did I mean he would be thrown out for all the safety violations he committed never mind the right brothers trying to fly Right without a helmet you fly without a helmet. They just did They went out and pursued their mind the conclusions of their reason and And they did it without needing permission of a king without needing permission of a church without needing permission from an authority All of human history. We have been almost of human history with exception Maybe of ancient Greece. We have been dependent on authorities To approve what we did to tell us it's okay And suddenly we were freed up and we went out and we built we created we made and this is the result a massive increase in human wealth a Massive increase in income a massive increase in life expectancy. What is life expectancy in 1776? 39 in in in you know England and the United States 39 by the end of the 19th century by the end of the That hundred years. It's already getting close to 60 and today Students among you, you know, you probably have a life expectancy realistically of a hundred many of you will live well into your hundreds It's stunning the success we've had it's stunning How good life is and how good life has been compared to all of human history? it's not even close and what this spot is Basically the fundamental ideas of a system called capitalism Because what is capitalism capitalism as a word everybody throws around out there? Elizabeth Warren by the way claims to be an advocate of capitalism if that's capitalism then I have no idea what it means, right? capitalism is a system in which All the government does is protect your rights in other words. It protects your freedom to act Your freedom to pursue your values it protects your property rights and Otherwise leaves you alone It's a system in which all business all property is basically owned by private individuals not by government That's what capitalism is that's what the founders without even having the word without even having the concept That's what the founders created they created a system of limited government where the government basically protects your rights and leaves you alone. Otherwise and All of this is a consequence of capitalism It's a consequence of leaving people free of not asking for permission of not having an authority of not Controlling dictating every human action and if you go culture after culture after culture country after country after Country when they adopt even a little bit of these ideas because nobody's adopted them fully Even the United States America never really took its own idea seriously right again Slavery later on all kinds of regulations and colonialism and all kinds of stuff But to the extent that some country takes these ideas seriously To that extent it is successful To the extent that it doesn't to that extent it is a failure So this graph is primarily Western Europe and the United States. What happens in Asia? Well Asia stays poor and Then it goes like that and wins that Wins inflection point in Asia all different countries are gonna be a little different right but approximately 50s, you know, maybe It's a little early 60s for South Korea, Taiwan Hong Kong Singapore why what is was unique about those countries Asian Tigers they were called? They adopted what? Freedom at least in the economic space. They said in economics in economic activity generally not perfectly unfortunately You can basically do what you want. You don't have to ask permission. You can use your mind You can follow your values go do it and they took off every single one of those countries India but you know what inflection point in India 91 They basically take took away a lot of the controls a Lot of the kind of the the socialist policies that it that had been part of Indian economy Up until that point they were adopted by the founders of the Indian state in 48 What's the date for China? No earlier than that. This is 1978 Mao's dead. That's a prerequisite It is and don't you think comes to power and don't you're paying is a is a pragmatist and he says let's see what works Let's test stuff out. Right. I mean, he's a bad guy Responsible for gentlemen square, but of all he's he's willing to experiment So he says oh the province next to Hong Kong will leave you free. We want intervene. We'll see what happens I don't know what will happen. Hopefully it'll become like the West boom It becomes like the West growth. So he says, okay, let's try the same thing Shanghai And when he tries the same things same thing happens. So he starts expanding this throughout China and There's still very very poor areas in China primarily those places where they have an implement this principle of freedom Leave people free And what happens is you get massive wealth creation and we've also so we've tried this and we know exactly what happens we do and We've also tried the opposite We've replaced the king and the tribal leader and the witch doctor and the church With a new authority call it the proletarian or Race tried that under fascism or Government just broadly some authority the bureaucrat whatever and to the extent that we practice that we get this You know the latest example is Venezuela where they tried to restrict freedom take away private property nationalized industries and The result was The same thing happened there that happened every other country that's ever tried that methodology poverty and destruction and Don't let anybody tell you that Venezuela is not did not attempt socialism They did they didn't do it all the way to there was still some private property in Venezuela, whatever that's worth But they think they nationalized were Agriculture and the whole supply chain of agriculture and oil and all the supply chain of oil well Those are the places where you got complete devastation Then it's really used to export food now. It can't produce enough to feed itself Then it's really used to export oil largest oil reserves in the world more than Saudi Arabia and Yet now they can't even produce enough oil to consume themselves never mind export it It's devastating. You've all seen the photographs the satellite image. I assume of North Korea and South Korea Right. I mean there's the stark difference at night. North Korea is completely dark South Korea is completely lit up one is basically free Somewhat capitalist a little bit and the other has nothing no capitalism no freedom no private property And you see the contrast After a mind students that the building wall was not built to stop young people escaping capitalism Because I think people today have such a negative view of capitalism They think yeah, we built the wall to save this the socialists from all this You know Immigrants from the capitalist countries out of the way round people were fleeing communism Just like they flee Cuba. I was debating a socialist in England a few about a year ago and That moderate asked what is the what is the country the most best represents your like your idea of what our what our the world would look like right and we both said well There's no countries in the world today that really better. You know the caveats and then I said Well, if I had to choose of all the countries you look at the economic freedom index and New Zealand sounds pretty good Just thought of business New Zealand takes four hours and The guy the socialist guy says Cuba I almost fell over You mean the country from which people are willing to swim in salt shark infested waters in order to get out of That's your ideal. I mean Okay, well, we know exactly what that means death and destruction. It means this Because that's what socialism means everywhere always All right, so all of this you can go test you can go look in the world You can check it out. This is all just factual data. There's no interpretation here All you have to do is go to Havana and go to Hong Kong and look at the difference One is communist or socialist and the other is as close to capitalism as we've come or at least in the 20th century we came to One has a population seven and a half million with skyscrapers Every modern convenience. It's an unbelievably dynamic exciting place and I recommend everybody visit Hong Kong before it's over Havana is dead. They drive automobiles in the u.s. In 1950s Not because they're all car collectors But because they can't afford anything newer because they're poor. There are no restaurants Other than all serving the same food at basically the same price. There's nothing In terms of human life, there's nothing That's why they're willing to swim to escape And don't believe the Michael Moore myths about healthcare. Oh my god I mean I can't imagine You know anybody going to hospital in Havana anything more scary than that than having to do that All this is testable all this is to me and I think to anybody Who's really willing to look at the data willing to use their eyes using to use their mind just a little bit not even a lot This is pretty self-evident This is not hard And you visit these places you see it it's obvious so why Do we hate capitalism which we do as a culture? And love and a falling in love if you will with socialism I mean we might have for the first time in american history a socialist as The nominee of a major political party for president of the united states Which will be perfect because the democrats have become socialist over time. So it's You know, he really represents them I mean it's shocking That just the word socialism doesn't cause everybody to run in the other direction fast It's an evil ideology with evil results So what is it about capitalism? We hate so much because we hate capitalism and I think it's that we hate capitalism more than we love socialism I think we're just looking for something other than capitalism. We're looking to escape this system I don't know why but we are So let's dig a little deeper into the characteristics of capitalism and we figure out what's going on So what's capitalism about what are markets about does capitalism in this context we're going to talk about right now Is we're going to talk about in terms of free markets markets in which people can interact freely in exchange in trade and in production Free of controls and regulations and people intervening. What what are people doing when they go into the marketplace? Why do we go into the marketplace? So why does why does steve jobs make this? To make money Right make money and you know usually the person who says that I'm not sure in your case They feel a little uncomfortable because we don't like to admit that we actually do stuff to make money, right? Great value for whom For the people so steve jobs woke up every day and I was like you said I want to make your one happy I want to make those students at dawn with happy. Is that what steve jobs did you think? I don't think so I think steve jobs woke up every morning. He said I want to make something beautiful I want to make something that I'm proud of I want to make something that I would enjoy using I want to make something that I steve jobs not me. I Reflects me reflects my values reflect what my aesthetics My view of what the world should look like and yeah people will benefit from it But that's not what drives creative talent other people What drives them is them How many focus groups does steve jobs do? Anybody anybody here do marketing? Zero exactly zero. It doesn't care what we think He knew exactly what he wanted to create and he created for whom who did who did steve jobs build this for? by himself He loved us. This is not a pure pleasure and pure love And yes We all love it too because he was a genius But entrepreneurs don't go up in the morning and say what do my customers want? We all entrepreneurs get up in the morning and say what should they want? What am I going to teach them that they want? great entrepreneurs Create demand for their product. The demand is not there before the product is created Steve jobs makes this producers make stuff for themselves. They're trying to make a living They're trying to you know people go to work every day. What do you go to work for? Because you love mankind Oh because you're trying to make a living And hopefully you really love what you do and you enjoy it and it's fun and it's great Right, and yes people benefit. We'll get to that. But at the end of the day, you're doing it for you So producers produce for themselves Now I know you guys When you go shopping You go shopping because you care about your fellow man You've read your canes and you know the consumption drives the economy And you want to make sure everybody has a job and the gdp grows So you consume for the benefit of mankind I'm not going to ask how many do that because there's usually one and I feel sorry for them Why do you consume personal pleasure or personal benefit in some way? It's not just emotional pleasure Sometimes you consume and it's not very pleasurable but we need it So we consume in order to make our lives better Markets and places in which traders meet buyers and sellers meet producers and consumers meet in order to do what? Change value for the purpose of what? Making their own lives Markets are inherently self-interested They're inherently about yourself The producer is producing because he's trying to make a living and he loves it The consumer is consuming because he's trying to make a better life and they love it Some of us some of you probably are professional consumers and you love just consuming And that's great. That's what it's about Well, we have the freedom to pursue our own values the judgment of our own mind Everything about capitalism everything about capitalism smacks of people pursuing their self-interest People doing what they want to do for themselves For their own pleasure for their own Needs for their own life What have we been taught since we were this big? About self-interest bad stuff You gotta share Right self-interest is bad. I mean my I grew up in a good Jewish, you know good Jewish mother And and she taught me Always think of yourself last Think of other people first If we think about morality not economics Not politics morality ethics We think about what is noble what is good? What is virtuous? We think of what? Sacrifice being self-less Thinking of others first Now nobody actually acts this way and no mother actually believes it when she tells her kids But that's not the point The point is that what activates This idea of morality goodness virtue is self-less ness It's sharing It's caring for others and ultimately it is sacrifice above all else Self-sacrifice giving up stuff that you have and getting what in return Nothing Nothing in this life. It's the only one we have so it's nothing And we're taught that being self-interested or selfish is what what is that associated with? What's that greed which means what? Evil, but what does that manifest itself? How does the evil express itself? Lying cheating stealing just being an SOB Right, that's what we learned itself. If you point to the kid in the backyard in the in the schoolyard and he says he's being selfish You don't mean he's taking care of himself Providing value to other people in the trade, you know, that's not what you mean You mean he's a lying cheating stealing SOB who walk on corpses to get his way. He doesn't care about other people one aorta That's what we're taught. We're presented with this, you know, two versions of ethics two options in life. You can either be Mother Teresa Suffer Sacrifice help other people be miserable in life and the more miserable the better That's you know, how you get saying to it Or you can be a lying stealing Cheating SOB those are the two options that's The way it's presented to us as kids and you can see it all the way grown up The real good stuff is to be selfless As if the basketball player passing the ball is being selfless because he wants to win the game I mean selflessness would mean the other team should win No, it's amazingly selfish for him to pass the ball because he wants to win That's the high value think of um And notice Well, I will make the case that this is not about helping other people. It's not about making the lives of other people better That's not what virtue is about Virtue at the end of the day is you being worse off helping other people I'll give you an example Take bill gates one of my favorite examples I mean bill gets a pretty amazing guy in my view And he built up Microsoft from nothing And how did he become a billionaire? How did generally how do people become billionaires? How do you become a billionaire? Secret for success. How do you become a billionaire? How do both gates become a billionaire? What's that? Yeah, you innovate but lots of people innovate. They don't become billionaires. What does it take to become a billionaire? What's that? He had a nice IPO. Why did he have an IPO? That's just begging the question, right? So what led the IPOs are not just random. They're not just arbitrary There's a reason why some people IPO and some people don't why did he get an IPO? What did he have to do to become a billionaire? What's that? Pursue a dream. Yes, again most a lot of us pursue dreams. We don't become billionaires There's something unique about being a billionaire, right? Somebody said created a lot of value For whom? Pretty much for everybody Right, so here's a secret to becoming a billionaire I hear look I'm an apple guy as well, but the fact is the world has changed, right? Me too. I hate to admit it, but it's true How do you become a billionaire? You produce a product That everybody wants Everybody wants And is willing to pay you more than it costs you to produce pretty simple Why does everybody want it? What does everybody want? The iPhone, what does everybody want? Word, why does everybody want it? What's it going to do to their lives? You're better So if I pay a thousand dollars for an iPhone I mean it's hard to believe but this thing costs a thousand dollars But actually if you think about what this thing does a thousand dollars is like the bargain of their last hundred thousand years Best bargain you've ever had And we're not going to go into all the things this does because you guys know But you should sometimes just make a list on a piece of paper all the things that this guy's does And think those of us who are old enough maybe what it would take 20 years ago to produce what this thing does You'd have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and you still couldn't do it Certainly not for the size and the convenience But anyway, I pay a thousand dollars for this because this is what to me how much More than a thousand dollars otherwise I wouldn't bother right? So is my life better or worse off just based on my action without knowing me at all for buying this or is it better or worse It's better because I exhibited that I gave up a thousand dollars something I think of last and got something that's more valuable to me an iPhone The way to become a billionaire is to get hundreds of millions of people to do that To buy your stuff In an effort to make their lives better So the only way to become a billionaire Is to make the lives of hundreds of millions indeed billions of people better And if you can do that over and over and over again It's easy to be a billionaire the only way to become a billionaire is to make the world a better place for other people Whether it's your intent on a How much moral credit so go gates for example, I think change the world. I don't think there's a human being on planet earth Maybe with some exception of some tribe in the middle of the amazon But there's a no human being on planet earth who has not been touched by microsoft for better even You know places in africa that might have never seen a computer the aid that gets to them The logistics of that are managed by computer systems that would not exist if not for what bill gates did 20 30 years ago How much moral credit how much moral ethical credit does bill gates get From making the world dramatically better for making the lives of billions of people better How much moral credit does he get in microsoft? None zero negative We we all cheered when the justice of honor went after him. Yes, go get those bastard billionaires, right? We still do i mean look at the world around us There's whole questions that people are posing aoc and bony, you know, should they be billionaires, you know Should they be jews should be this i mean it's Who the hell is any of these people to decide who should be and who should not be but should they be billionaires, right? Unbelievable, but billionaires make the world a better place through trade But why don't they get any moral credit for making the world a better place? Because they dare to benefit from it Because they're obviously self-interested And they're making a lot of money while making the world a better place Mother Teresa who did not do anywhere close to the good that bill gates has done Who did not improve the world? Well, you could argue how much but i would argue almost nothing Is a saint a moral saint why Because she didn't benefit from it indeed if you read her diary she suffered for it So let's say bill gates bad guy ran microsoft made the world a better place When does he become a good guy? Yeah, he leaves microsoft god forbid you make money god forbid you create anything god forbid you build a business you change the world No, he leaves microsoft starts a foundation starts giving the money away now. He's a good guy now We like him now. He makes all the talk shows and everybody thinks oh Bill Gates is this cool guy not a saint Not a saint what would it take for bill gates to be a saint to be a real moral hero named boulevards after and built statues What would it take? Give it all the way move into a tent And if you could bleed a little bit for us We need a little bit of blood you need a little bit of suffering in order to really be a moral saint in the world in which we live If you go to museums, I don't know if there's an art museum here at darkmouth. It probably is Look at paintings of saints. You ever see a saint smiling The whole point of sainthood is suffering The whole point of our morality of our moral code is to suffer It's to be worse off We've had philosophers the the guy who termed who coined the term altruism Was a philosopher the 19th century augustin compt c-o-m-t-e And augustin compt says a moral action is only moral if you separate yourself from it If you do it for the sake of the other without any consideration on its effect on you If for example, you give charity and you say i'm gonna feel good by giving this, you know This guy 10 dollar bill. I'm gonna feel good. So i'm doing it to make myself feel good not moral anymore Because you benefited from The whole idea of altruism is about Sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice suffering for the sake of suffering Not the benefit you give other people because if the standard in morality was the benefit you give other people capitalism would be the most University identified as the most moral system ever created because it's the only system that's benefited anybody Bill Gates would be a saint for microsoft We'd be naming streets and building sculptures for him for being a ceo for being a billionaire as would Jeff Bezos and bill and the steve jobs and all these guys they'd be saints in our culture But they're not Because we resent the fact that they benefit off of helping other people because in our moral code in our moral perception You cannot benefit if you benefit. It's not moral. It's not ethical think of You know the symbol Of what's considered the most moral man in history or what jordan peterson calls a superhero the original superhero jesus christ on a cross suffering for sins Who committed Other people not his sins I can't think of a more unjust thing I can't think of a more horrible thing than an individual suffering for sins other people commit And yet that is the ideal of morality To be willing to sacrifice for the sins of other people So we willing to sacrifice your own life your own possessions your own being for other people And we internalize that we reflect that to our kids somebody mentioned sharing before like johnny's playing in the sandbox With his truck and peter comes around and says hey, I want to play with that truck And what do we as parents say immediately johnny you've got to share It's like really I mean if if johnny had words he would say What about my property don't I get to make a decision or you would say hey mom Would you give away keys to a stranger? of the car Why should I share But we teach them they have to share because we're all communists really deep down We reflect that on our kids And then we become cynical as adults we're cynics as adults we don't share as adults But that's because we're cynical the ideal is sharing no This wasn't a result of sharing Wasn't a result of community service. This wasn't a result of charity And there was some charity some community service some sharing there, but it's not a result of that It's a result of trade Why we teach our kids to trade? Hey, peter. What do you have? I've got the truck. What do you have? Let's figure this out Now that would be training capitalists But we're training socialists By emphasizing sharing rather than trading And notice that socialism is a system completely consistent with our moral code It's about sharing It's about sacrifice. I mean socialism is really big on sacrifice It's about Being selfless It's about not doing what's in your interest But in doing what you're told or in doing what somebody thinks is in the good of society In a common interest Where private property is viewed as overly selfish overly self-interested we shouldn't have it Yeah, we have some of it because you know, you know, the socialists are not idealists They they want to they allow you to have a little bit of private property just not too much It's ideal for our current system and we get to be poor which is virtuous, right? So our ethics a moral code For the last 2000 years religious and secular Is incompatible with capitalism Capitalism the political system the economic system is way ahead Of where our more ethical code is where our morality is And in my view, Ayn Rand's biggest contribution Philosophically ideologically Is to catch us up It's to provide us a moral code that is consistent with human life It's consistent with wealth creation with productivity. I mean, it's not surprising that over the first 100,000 years We didn't have a proper moral code because you know what what at Hobbes described life as short British Nasty brutish and short nasty brutish and short and it was right So, you know It's understandable that you couldn't think about self-interest and what that led to and what billionaires do But we've just lived through an industrial revolution. We've lived through a second industrial revolution a third one We we see the what technology does. We've seen the world under freedom. We can see the contrast What we need now is a moral code that fits a moral code that actually fits human life the moral code that the founders Should have had when they founded this country because implicit. It's implicit in the idea of the founding Because the founding is not the declaration of independence is not an altruistic document There's nothing about social well-being or the common good It's all about what? Your inalienable right inalienable nobody can take it away to pursue whose happiness You're wrong pretty selfish They didn't have the morality the moral code to defend that And that's to a large extent white all went away was going away as we speak What we need is a new moral code a moral code that defends the idea of self-interest That asked the question a simple question about all these other moral theories One word question Why why should I sacrifice for you? Why is your life more important than mine to me? Why are your values more important than my values to me? That's it. There's no answer to that Other than somebody said so fill in the blank on who the somebody is the dictator the god political leader the tribal leader the witch doctor whatever but there's no Rational logical explanation for why I shouldn't live for me It's my life after all it's your life after and you got one shot at it. There's no second try You know if incarnation is real you might not be rinked out. It is a human being so it's irrelevant only one shot So why shouldn't I live for me? Why shouldn't I live for my happiness my success? And then of course you have to answer the question was well, does my success does my happiness Does being truly self-interest really require that I lie steal cheat? That I be an sob is I really the the recipe for success in life If you look around the world That's pretty obvious. No So maybe there's not just two alternatives. Maybe there's a third Which is living a life for yourself Long term thinking about what makes your life the best that it can be We're lying cheating and stealing along Not just because they hurt other people but primarily because they hurt you yourself They undermine who you are your own integrity your own values your own virtues And that's what rand is really presenting us and the book to read there is the virtue of selfishness Where she talks about the virtue of living for yourself and why it's right and what it requires Now we don't have time to go into the whole thing But that's just one basic idea of what a life if you were truly self-interested all you cared about all you cared about emphasis on all Was yourself was your own life What would be the most important thing to you? What would be the number one value and virtue for you? Happiness peace of mind are the end result. That's what you want to achieve But what do you have to pursue in order to achieve happiness and peace of mind? Freedom is a very far removed abstract concept before you get there freedom to do what? To live what is life a choir? So look at this room We've got a pretty pretty cool room, right What is everything in this room depend on every single thing in this room that was built created made Is a product of one thing The human mind human reason human rationality, you know, we're pathetic animals. Just look around the room pathetic Well weak We're slow We have no claws. We have no fangs I mean try running down a bison and biting into it But there's probably a place here in darkness and Hanover where you can get a bison burger How come? Or think about you and a saber-two tiger Who's going to win that? I'm a saber-two tiger yet the last time I saw a saber-two tiger It was in a museum and it was just a skeleton And here you are sitting comfortably In a heated room With all kinds of technology that were just unimaginable even 150 years ago never mind today some stuff Unimaginable even 50 years ago How did that happen? How do we beat the saber-two tiger and get to where we are today build skyscrapers? The use of the human mind Human reason Rationality is what makes us human. It what makes every value we pursue possible It is the most important thing in our lives. There is nothing more important than your mind There's nothing more important than taking your mind seriously and taking reasons seriously and figuring out what it means to think and how to think Be able to control your emotions when you're thinking be able to only deal with facts and not ignore relevant facts Doing logic doing real thinking real reasoning real rational thought observing integrating facts Only letting facts into the equation not your wishes not your whims not other people's wishes not other people's whims But treating your life like it was science That's the number one pursuit of a selfish human being because that's where values come from They come from your mind So far and to be an egos means to be a rational egos She would view that as redundant to be an egos means to be rational and to be rational means that your long term So to be an egos means a long term Rational human being That's what I mean. That's an achievement We're not all rational automatically Most people are not rational at all You have to make an effort to be rational You have to make an effort to think clearly you have to make an effort to control Your emotions for example or to be willing to look to places where It might be uncomfortable to look So far and Your own self-interest and ultimately your own happiness Is what life is about It's about thinking and acting in pursuit of what you believe will lead to your own success Not sacrificing yourself to other people But not asking other people to sacrifice to you either not exploiting other people They have the same right to pursue their happiness as you do to pursue yours And if you're gonna live you should live on your own terms not dependent on other people So a human being that is focused on their own interests that's focused on their own happiness That wants to live a good life That wants to be happy ultimately what do they require in order to achieve that politically Freedom They don't want mother, you know mother government sitting on their shoulder Don't drink that coke. It's too big So that's Bloomberg a Bloomberg joke, right? Don't start that business You can't pay your employees that You have to negotiate there. You have to do this. You have to do that They want to be left off If you're really pursuing your own values your own life You want to be left free to try stuff to fail sometimes to explore to test To pursue your dreams To pursue your values To live for yourself for your happiness Free of intervention free of force free of coercion free of people sticking their guns in your head Because what is the enemy of reason? force coercion If I put a gun to your head, you can't think you can but it's irrelevant You have two options do what I tell you or die Your thoughts are irrelevant When Galileo is putting in a house arrest because he did contradict an ancient book by saying that the earth goes around the sun He didn't go into house arrest saying okay now I sit down and come up with new theories in physics No, that's shut down that option was gone He couldn't publish it. He couldn't communicate it couldn't talk about it. Why think it? The enemy of thought the enemy of reason the enemy of rationality is The gun it is coercion So somebody who values his own mind Values his own values Values his own life Resists force resist coercion resist authority Resist having to ask for permission in life And therefore my definition is a capitalist So the morality of self-interest Rand's rational morality of self-interest Is I believe the only moral theory that we have today consistent with capitalism Now I don't advocate for the morality because it's consistent with capitalism I advocate for the morality because It's good for me And it's good for each one of you to live your life Capitalism is an outcome because we're all we would all demand freedom So if we care about Our own freedom our own lives If we care about prosperity if we care about the world Then the real revolution that has to happen and this is why it's so difficult Is a moral revolution We've won the economic debates. Sorry paul krugman, but we won those debates long time ago got great economists They won Nobel prizes. We got plenty of economists on the free market side They can rip these guys to shreds on the facts. We won the historical debate History is on the side of capitalism unequivocally Fact, history, economics are all on our side The only thing that's not is the most important thing of all And that is morality What we need is a moral revolution We need to trash the old morality of altruism the old morality that keeps us down That requires us to ask permission And we need to assert a new morality A morality of self-interest a morality of self-esteem A morality of the pursuit of happiness a morality that implicitly the founders understood When we can stand up and say That it's truly an inalienable right of every individual to pursue their own happiness That not only is that a good political goal, but it's a good moral goal That's when we win the battle for capitalism and we don't until we do that Thank you all. All right. I think we got time for questions We have a microphone. It's traveling around So it's starting the back and we'll move forward What do you have to say to people with mental or physical disabilities who can't work the same way the rest of us can And therefore wouldn't survive under a completely capitalist system So people who can't survive on their own first, let's be clear It's a tiny fraction of the number of people on planet earth Right. It's well less than one percent. It's a tiny tiny fraction of people People who can't survive through their own means depend on other people So there are only two options they have They can force other people to help them Which I think is bad for them and bad for the people who they're forcing or they can ask for the help and get voluntary assistance I am Against force. I think it's wrong. I think the person who's getting the help Knows that they had to force it upon somebody. It creates resentment there. It creates It creates resentment across the entire system And at the end of the day if they just ask for help I always ask audiences in every audience anywhere in the world you can ask the question How many of you would be willing to help? People who truly cannot help themselves for whatever reason they cannot help themselves for no fault of their own How many of you willing to voluntarily help them? Every hand in the room goes up So why do I need a government with a policeman to to come to my door and take my money away To support them. Why can't we just form charities? Maybe the charities can compete on who's going to be more effective helping them all kinds of things you can imagine But it's not no I can't imagine a world in which that would be a problem Oh, I thought there was a There's plenty in the middle here as well Um, thank you for your talk. I have a question like when you say that um That we everybody should be equal in pursuing the right to freedom, right? Um, there's an implicit uh assumption there that says that we are all at equal footing But people who are born in poverty they're not right. So how do we address that? We don't I mean I don't uh, yeah, we're not equal. Look around we're not equal We're not equal in looks We're not equal in intelligence. We're not equal in height. We're not equal in the ability to play basketball We're not equal in anything. So what should we do? Should we take intelligent people and make them dumber? Should we take LeBron James and break his leg so I can play basketball with him? No, no, I mean I'm serious here, right? So we have this idea that equality is an ideal when it comes to outcomes or when it comes to so-called opportunities Which is just other forms of outcomes the only quality the only The only meaning equality has Is equality of rights equality of liberty equality of freedom equality before the law And I would fight that a pro person and rich person are treated the same by the law They have the same right to life liberty and pursuit of happiness It doesn't mean that they're starting in the same place. They're not but none of us started the same place Again some of us are more intelligent than other people So inequality is metaphysical It's part of life to fight inequality is to fight the very nature of existence And that's why it always any fight against inequality leads to disaster and destruction I just watched a movie Which I recommend because it shows the horror of these things, but it's a pretty depressing movie Uh, I think it's called they first killed my father and it was made by Angelina Jolie It's a very slow movie movie, but it shows the horror of trying to achieve equality right so I don't know if you know this movie, but it's it's um Quick story. Okay, so true story So once upon a time there was this group of intellectuals who went to paris and studied in paris with the best philosophers at the time They studied that the so-born at the best universities and they learned what did they learn they learned equality They learned that we should all be equal that we should we should have an equal egalitarian society So they said okay one day we'll get it we'll get political power and we'll implement this So they they went back to their homeland and they did they got political power and they started implementing it But first they saw this is a problem Some people live in the city and that gives them huge advantages and other people live in the countryside And that's a huge disadvantage. So how do we make them equal? We empty the city We get rid of everybody we force everybody to go in the country side and watch the movie because the movie starts As the people are leaving the city truth. It's a true story Everybody the city was basically emptied of human beings. Everybody went to countryside Now You still have a problem Because some people can read Some people are good farmers some people are good foragers Some people are good workers. Some people are strong some people are weak. You still have lots of inequality. What do you do? What do you do when you have some people who are educated some people are not some people are smart Some people who are not some people are good at they work and some people are not what how do you get equality? Well, basically you kill everybody who stands up So if they wore glasses it was a sign that you probably read or you probably Lived in the cities. They shot you if you had a college degree a high school degree. They shot you If you exhibited any outstanding ability in any field they shot you This is a true story They ended up killing 30 to 40 of their entire population In the name of equality Because it's the only way to get it to keep chopping people down keep chopping people down So you get everybody down to the lowest common denominator If you're curious about it watch the movie and read about it. It's Cambodia. It's the kamerouge It happened not that long ago. I was alive. It was in the 70s And it was it was literally they killed between 30 Not even he knows exactly somewhere between 30 to 40 percent of their own people were slaughtered in mass graves In the name of equality so equality to me the idea that we're going to be equal Is horrific. We're unequal just embrace it accept it. It is some kids are born poor And I know kids who are born poor do very well in life. I know other people who don't and the freer a society is The more opportunities they are not equal, but the more opportunities are the more likelihood there is that poor kids do well we've got Hi, um So you talked about how like the only way you said the only way a billionaire can become a billionaire is by helping A million people are not the only way the only way in a free market. Yeah, okay Yeah, just I have a bit of an issue with that in terms of like arms dealers or in global warming for example like In global warming. Yeah Like ExxonMobil sure that a million people that they're doing business with might be benefiting from their business with them What happens to the seven million people in the world that are being disadvantaged? So so let's take mobile because it's a great example But I do want to get the arms dealer as well because I think it's more relevant I mean all of us are better off because of mobile I I know you guys believe That the greatest evil in the world is fossil fuels But the reason you're alive right now is because of fossil fuels The reason you can have this heating is because of fossil fuels The reason that fewer people every single year die from weather related events is because of fossil fuels It's because of the energy they produce and therefore the quality of life that we have So whether the world globe is warming or not Demonizing fossil fuels cannot be the answer because half south fuels is what gives you life There is no Civilization today on planet earth Without fossil fuels. So mobile is one of the greatest companies I mean, I'm mobile the oil industry is one of the greatest industries in all of human history It has contributed more to this than any other industry and there's nobody on the planet who hasn't benefited from So I mean, it's again, it's If you if you look at weather related deaths That's the trend Whether the more hurricanes or not fewer people are dying from hurricanes Whether the more tornadoes or not fewer people are dying from tornadoes. Why? Because we have the capacity to protect ourselves. How do we have the capacity to protect ourselves because of energy Where does the energy come from? At least today it all comes from fossil fuel pretty much and the idea that that can be replaced like this Without millions of people dying. I mean hundreds of millions of people dying if you replace the fossil fuels today with anything else I mean, that's the cost and that's evil So Yeah If there are better sources of fuel nuclear comes to mind, but it's the one fossil fuel The activists don't want the one fuel that activists don't want Nuclear might be able to replace a lot of fossil fuels, but other than that everything has a fantasy Yeah solar wind off fantasies that will never contribute more than 10 maybe 20 of the energy requirements that human people need More than that take Africa Where people are still poor very poor How are they going to get rich Part of how we got rich is by using cheap sources of energy The only way Africa is ever going to get rich is by using cheap sources of energy, which means fossil fuels So by denying them fossil fuels you're basically saying you're going to be poor forever. How's that right? Sort of warm a little bit No, I'm serious sort of warm a little bit We're human beings. We'll figure it out Well, by more air conditioning we'll build better dykes. We'll we'll create systems that preserve human life In spite of the fact that it's warming We don't the thing that makes us human is we don't let the environment kill us We actually figure out ways and how to live no matter what the environment is we came out of Africa yet. We live in iceland We live in Siberia We live in the Sahara desert I don't know how to live in the Sahara desert Way too hard But that's what it means to be human. We can use our minds to adapt our environment to whatever the weather produces Yes, there are people out there who are billionaires because they've stolen it They've lied cheated for it. They've engaged in Illegal activity or immoral activity from drug dealers to arms dealers to To cronies to people who've bribed the government to to prude First that is the minority of billionaires if you look at the list Almost all of them actually created value and you can identify the value of microsoft apple Walmart's real value that they've created they've made lives of people much better off It's a minority and second In a true free market What happens to cronyism what's cronyism is cronyism is to appeal to government to give you favors What happens to cronyism in a true for true free market? It disappears because government has no favors to give The essence of capitalism is a separation of state from economics Where government doesn't control economic stuff doesn't have economic policy and therefore has no favors to give And therefore nobody lobbies them Because they're no favors to give the freer in economy the less cronyism there is the more socialist in economy the more cronyism there is There's far more cronyism in in europe than there is in the united states It's just institutionalized in europe the bribes are Presented as legit, but it's the same thing So a lot of those a lot of those you know in my world drugs are legal What happens to the profits from drugs if they're legal? They basically plummet so nobody's going to make money off of cocaine if cocaine was legal The only reason they make money off cocaine today is because it's illegal the fact that it's illegal Creates, you know concentration of powers of people who are willing to wield guns in order to preserve their trade But in a competitive market the profit goes down It's a commodity cocaine is a commodity so The more free we are the fewer billionaires are going to be who don't deserve to be billionaires they might still be some but very few There's a question here in the front. She's being patient Thank you for coming and for your energy and your talk. Um Okay, uh my question is about the coercion aspect of capitalism. Um This is something I can't really wrap my head around is that People who create desire for people in the developed world for certain commodities I feel that in a way that is coercive Um because the desire is created to such an extent that Through what we purchase we are perpetuating, you know child labor Bonded labor the labor that's responsible for producing Um clothes in the fast fashion industry palm oil in our food You know that kind of desire that trumps our care for other people It seems like how how could we have so let we wait. Um, I'm not done Answer that and then you can ask another question So I there are at least two big issues there one is somebody creates a desire in you No, I mean take credit Whatever desire you have you chose So you're responsible for it. Nobody's nobody nobody has brainwashed you to want starbucks Right, you want starbucks because you've made that decision and you can make a decision not to have starbucks tomorrow You can boycott starbucks if that's what you want, right? So it's not nasty corporations brainwashing us to want stuff. It's us choosing To engage in that activity We have free will I don't believe in that advertising programs us that advert got don't believe in subliminal nonsense To the extent that you don't think I I think about stuff before I buy it I make choices And if I think I don't know why I desire this then I don't do it, right? So that's one second Child labor is a massive improvement in the world So children who work Is a massive benefit to the children and their families Not forever but Let's be clear before the industrial revolution. What do children do? They did two things they died It's not funny 50 percent of kids never made the age of 10 Before the industrial revolution 50 percent of kids didn't make the age of 10 And that's still true in much of the developing world 50 percent of kids don't make the age of 10 second they worked They didn't work in factories. They worked in the field worse conditions More back baking baking and and all they had was they got up in the morning went to the field and they went to Bed when the sun set that that was life Not even a factory into a town in indonesia or malaysia or china or whatever And these kids who were working in the field, it's not like they were in school And now they're being pulled from school and put into a factory You got to be kidding me They they leave the field and now they're working in a factory. Why are they willing to leave the field and work in the factory? Because they're making more money in the factory than they did in the field They're supporting their family. They're relying the family now to raise their standard of living When do they stop working in factories and and this is an amazing book about sweatshops that shows That pretty much every country in the world stops child labor pretty much the same point. What is that point? When the family is making enough income Without the kids working to feed the kids Then the kids stop working Because no family wants their kids working So as soon as they make enough to feed the kids the kids go to school Now if you ban child labor in these countries Before that happens Then the kid either goes back into the field to work or they starve to death Those are the only two options now you can give them charity But you can never give enough charity to make up for the amount of poverty that exists in the world And by the way during this horrible period in which children have worked What has happened to absolute to extreme poverty in the world? How many people today in the world in which we live live in extreme poverty? Which is defined by the united nations as two dollars a day or less How many people in the world today live at two dollars a day or less? 20 Anybody else? You guys are well educated. What's that? how much three All right, so this is a very optimistic group for the most part It's eight percent. So you said is right. It's actually exactly eight percent What was it 30 years ago? Anybody know what it was 30 years ago? 30 years ago is 30% Over the last 30 years we've gone from 30 percent extreme poverty to 8 percent extreme poverty. How do we do that? How did that happen? I mean first of all that should be something we should be celebrating every single day We should be dancing in the streets a billion over a billion people have come out of extreme poverty Over the last 30 years and nobody knows it Nobody knows it because your teachers don't teach you this stuff. The press doesn't advertise this stuff. It's not anyway How did it happen? Because of a little bit of capitalism and some child labor You can't get there without the child labor You cannot get from extreme poverty to middle-class without children working in the process in the west We had child labor in the 19th century as part of that transition from extreme poverty to wealth In china in indonesia in malaysia and soon in africa. I hope in africa They will have child labor as a phase from going from extreme poverty to middle-classhood to wealth That is the necessary transition and if you cut it out you You're making them extremely poor forever. So i'm a big fan of child labor in that context That's a good meme right you're honest in favor of child labor You've got a second question and then we'll go to the back. This is a follow-up on your first response about free will We choose what we buy um, like you and i think about our purchases before we make them but We're talking about not theoretical capitalism, but real capitalism. We're not everyone reflects upon Yeah, so this is this is why This is why I would like to see us teaching people morality. Yeah to me teaching people morality means teaching people to think That's the essential thing about morality is to think not do stuff because it feels good Not do stuff because people expect you to do stuff not do stuff because the commercial told you to do stuff Do stuff because you think and you think it's good for you So I don't blame the companies. I blame us in not teaching a proper morality if you teach morality as so morality for Aristotle just a little bit of philosophy right morality for Aristotle was the study Of what are the virtues and values that individuals should pursue in order to achieve happiness? It's an empirical study about what actually achieves Udominea for individuals success flourishing for human beings If we had a moral code today if we thought about morality in those terms Then these problems would go away because people think for themselves and I am not a snob You know many people are but I don't think oh I can think but oh those people that they can't think for themselves They're too stupid. No, I think every human being this is the great insight of the enlightenment This is why the declaration of dependence declares all men are created equal equal in what not in their abilities But equal in the fact that they can reason So everybody should be taught to think for themselves. That's where we should focus There's like a bunch of people behind you that want to ask questions Uh, so maybe this gentleman here and then we'll go to the back of them All right Well a number of things, uh, I mean the danish prime minister was pretty good at combating that Thing suggestion because when bony said, you know, I want socialism like they have in denmark in sweden The danish prime minister the next day came out and did a press conference and said we're not socialists And they're not and if you go to denmark, you don't see the means of production owned by the state You don't see the workers owning the businesses you see Tons of private property tons of private businesses Amazing unregulated markets less regulated than in the u.s. If you look at countries based on the ease of doing business companies Denmark scores higher or very close to the united states. It's not like we're capitalist and they're socialists So first that's bizarre. They do more redistribution of wealth But less regulation we do more regulation and less redistribution of wealth But it's all this spectrum of mixed economies Second Who said the danes are happy they said because they're asked right I mean who cares what they say Right, you ask me, you know, I I as you figured out I come from a jewish household. Yes, jews if they're happy Yeah, you laugh like nobody didn't know jews says yes Even if they're all happy you just don't say yes like everybody else will say you're happy. How can you be happy? What's happiness to find happiness, you know, there's there's this constant questioning You know, you just don't do it cultures have and Scandinavia if you say you're unhappy Then they look at you. What what makes you different? Why are you unhappy? We're all happy here This is what you're supposed to be as a danish So you got to really be cautious of happiness studies happiness studies is a very very difficult What is happiness they very rarely define it even I mean avastar had a hard time defining happiness Not an easy idea to define So I would question that and look at the end of the day Bernie Won't do more than move us towards Denmark, right? We're not going to have communism in the united states He he will he's not going to have not in the short run anyway, maybe in a very long way And and Bernie's going to raise taxes and regulate a little bit more and maybe Nationalize one or two things but there's not going to be a lot happening And he can get away with saying stuff like that because he knows that there's checks and balances and what he actually does and and what he's going to say, but No, if you actually look at his what he wants to do It's way to the left of Denmark and Sweden Way to the left of Denmark and Sweden Denmark and Sweden have privatized over the last 30 years Everything they can think of Sweden has school vouchers. We don't have school vouchers in this country Sweden is in many respects more free than we are in some respects in other respects not so much High taxes. I always I always ask people this is experiment. I'd love to run right everybody says Scandinavia so wonderful everybody's happy there By the way, here's some before you run the experiment. Here's some just pure stats Swedes in America Swedish people and Danish people in America people have looked at this Like in Minnesota, Minnesota has a lot of Swedes Are happier than Swedes in Sweden Danes in America are richer than Danes in Denmark Scandinavians generally in the United States live just as long as Scandinavians and Scandinavia So when you isolate the cultural characteristics Suddenly there's no difference if anything But but what's true is Scandinavians in America live in bigger houses, right bigger cars and generally are wealthier Yes Oh you and then then who okay, so You told us that people were inherently selfish, right? No, I didn't say that You told us that people should be selfish, but they're not inherently selfish. I wish they were In a quality question Was that we should have free markets and have people just donate to charity? So it seems like these ideas are contradictory, right? No people should become more selfish yet people should donate more to charity and Let me let me just correct you on what I said. I didn't say people should donate more to charity I said people will donate to charity when they're free. It's not should and it's not more I don't know what the number will be so people will donate to charity even though even though they should become more self Yes, yes, so it seems to me like there's a contradiction there and also the second question is on the question of solving inequality The big problem is that wealth from previous generations locks out people in current generations So do you believe in things like inheritance taxes to ensure that people actually deserve the wealth that they have Keep it and don't get to pass it down. So you're making a lot of assumptions there. So let me take the first one first Um, well, actually, let me take the second one because I'll forget. I'll forget the concrete. She said the first one is easy Um You're saying we have to solve the problem of inequality. There is no problem You you're assuming there's a problem without establishing. There's a problem. There's no literature that there's a problem There's there's all there is is the identification that inequality is higher. Why is that a problem? There is nobody nobody states that now you might say there's a problem mobility poor people are now rising up and up But that's not a problem of inequality That is a very so the whole idea that inequality is a problem is good brainwashing It's thomas piquetti and paul krugman who by the way takes $250,000 to give a speech about the evil of inequality talk about hypocrites, but It's it's there is no problem of inequality. It's problem property. There's a problem of lack of social mobility There are all these problems that exist. There's a problem of slow economic growth None of them not a single one of them is related in any way to inequality You also state That there is this barrier to rising because of uh because uh inheritance Why is that a barrier that is if I leave my kids a lot of money, how does that hurt you? It doesn't hurt you it might spoil my kids It might hurt my kids because I'll be spoiled now and they won't know what to do with the money and they'll they'll waste it But it doesn't hurt you my leaving my kids money. It's not your money. It's not your money It's nobody's money for my money. I could burn it for all you should care I choose to give it to my kids Which is probably a bad idea if I give them too much, right? But it's my decision what I do with that money I choose to give to my kids in addition Kids who are not worthy of that money who don't live up to it in a sense of being productive creating stuff usually lose it They do if you look at the top uh the the top richest people in this country There's very few that inherited it. That's just that's just that's just not true I've bought billionaires. It's just not true. That is a stat Out of the man that is manufactured by somebody with an agenda But it's just not true the only people in the very top of the billionaire list who inherited the money are the waltons And they've done a pretty good job at that But the fact is not only that if you look at the number of people who are in the billionaire list today and what the list was 10 years ago 20 years ago. It's a completely different list. The list completely changes And and there's been tons of academic research about this so So that's so number two. I don't think that inherited wealth matters that much. I don't think it's a big factor No, I don't believe in inheritance taxes because I think it taxes my ability to choose what I want to do with my money before I die And it's my choice. It's not yours. It's none of your business what I do with my stuff Again, I could burn it And it's none of your business. I choose to give it to my kids which is in my case almost like burning it, right? um I shouldn't say that um And i'm not dying anytime soon So the issue is mobility and I i'm with you. I think there's a real problem mobility Mobility it seems like mobility is really the ability of poor people to rise up It seems to have shrunk over the last 50 years, let's say And the question is why? And I have a theory of why and I think it's pretty pretty solid and pretty established because if you look at history again Where do you see where and when do you see the most poor people rising up into middle-class? Under what conditions? Under what conditions the poor people rise up into the middle class and become rich When when is the period in which we talk about from rags to riches? the industrial revolution the periods in which There was the least amount of regulation the least amount of taxes the least amount of Controls the most capitalist periods in history are the periods in which there is most social mobility Even piquetti admits that he just then rationalizes away and waves his hand I think I assume you know who thomas piquetti is because he wrote that famous horrible book um That's capital in the 21st century So the solution to and and why is mobility restrained today? I'll give you a few little examples one licensing laws So if you're a poor person And you're trying you're struggling to make a living. Do you have money to go and be trained on how to shampoo hair? Because in california you need a license to shampoo hair Shampoo hair I can do it for myself But if I did it for you I'd need a license Now who can afford that license somebody has a little bit of money not the poor person who's trying to rise up And everything is licensed today Everything and it has nothing to do with protecting the consumer nobody cares about the consumer who doesn't want more people shampooing hair Who the people who already shampoo here who don't want the competition My my son's girlfriend was a uh, no ex-girlfriend was a was a Unfortunately she was a psychologist. She got a master's in psychology She couldn't practice privately until she did 2000 hours of inch of uh interning at a very very low wage Which you know you do that under the assumption that half the people are not going to stick with 2000 Then they're going to go switch professions Then she has to take a test and only then do they allow it to have a private practice in psychology Who does that hurt that new up-and-comer who's trying to be successful who's trying to rise up in the middle class That's one second taxing the rich Reduces the ability of the poor to rise up. Why? What do rich people do with their money? No, they don't I mean they donate it donating doesn't matter in life What are they they spend it really rich people don't spend their money? I mean, I mean you buy a yacht you buy an airplane. How many more yachts are you gonna buy? No, the fact is that rich people don't consume a lot It's why canesian hate rich people because you know if you believe consumption drives the economy You don't want rich people because rich people don't consume the problem with rich people is problem in quotes is they save it What what does that mean they invest it? What does investment do? What is the outcome of investment? Which means what which means creating jobs? Rich people whether you like it or not Even when they're passive they're not doing anything. They're just putting the money in the bank create jobs Because the bank lends money to small business within highest people or to a big business that builds another plant in highest thousands of people But when you tax wealth and you tax this the highest marginal rate when you increase the highest marginal rate You're hurting job creation Who does hurting job creation hurt? The people looking for a first job the last example. I give you the most controversial I guess minimum wage I can't think of a more evil policy than the minimum wage Because it helps some people But who does it hurt? The poorest of the poor the people who are the least trained have the least productive knowledge Because they are priced out of the labor market and they're institutionalized into poverty forever Because if you don't get that first job you'll never get a second or third if you don't start somewhere You'll never rise up to middle-class it So if you look at all the policies we have instituted the so-called reduced inequality They are the policies to blame for the poverty and for the lack of mobility Free markets are the only the only System in human history to bring people out of poverty. This is the graph that shows it We were all poor ones. We instituted free markets. We became middle class Asia was poor until very recently the instituted free markets a billion people came out of middle class Africa today is still poor most of the extreme poverty is in Africa But if you look at countries like rwanda Botswana, Namibia that are instituting private property a little bit of a rule of law. What's happening to them? The gdp the fastest growing economies in the world today are in Africa Are in countries that are adopting a little bit of capitalism It works always everywhere and the more you strain it the more poor people suffer And it's the poor who suffer more, you know, you can tax me another 10 percent another 20 percent other 50 percent It's not going to dramatically change my life I've done well in life You know worked hard started with nothing worked hard done. Well You can tax more you're not going to hurt me that much But you know who you hurt you're hurting the guy who's trying to find that or the girl trying to find that first job That's easy to hurt that We've got the girl there's been waiting and then we'll move up This question was actually related to mine. So put the mic in front of you think Oh, yes, it is. Um, so I just wanted to go back to this idea of um a possible inconsistency, especially with your Oh, I didn't do that. I didn't do the first question. Right. Yeah, let's go for it. So you want to flesh it out That's fine. Sure. So I I'm just curious about your answer to the first question That was asked and this idea that people like descriptively will help other people Though it seems in your in the ideal world of rational egoism people would not help other people the ultimate my ultimate question is Given that you don't believe in the use of force or coercion And you believe that people descriptively will help other people I was wondering what you see as the role of the state at all like whether the government should exist at all If they're not going to use force. Yeah, great question. So first, let me address the charity thing Look, my rational self-interest involves caring for other people not everybody. There's some people I clearly don't care for And I would not help even in a In any circumstance But generally I have a positive view of human beings. Why? Why is it in my self-interest? Because it's rational if I look around if I look at other human beings, what do they mostly do? They mostly create and produce and do things that Indirectly benefit my life. I'm better off For having people out there all over the world working and producing and thinking and creating and it's wonderful And if somebody falls on bad luck or somebody's born with bad luck Look Egoists like me and I consider myself an egoist, right? I you know, my wife really cares for plants You know, I know a lot of people who love their dogs and their cats Why because they get something they get a value out of it I don't get plants and I don't get Animals, but I get human beings. I get a human value from people Uh enjoying life from people happiness from people getting getting a great job getting a promotion living a good life I don't want to see suffering suffering is is unpleasant And I don't want people to suffer because I don't think it's What's possible for human beings and I have I would be incredibly generous not out of any sense of altruism but out of sense of Wanting to live in the best world I can think of living in Towards people who who suffer so I would consider it selfish to help not everybody again. I would be very selective Like I love children So most of my charity would go to help children You know, uh, uh, children in poverty children to go to school. Maybe cancer treatment, whatever, right Other people might like other stuff And the beauty of it is we would choose who to help Based on our values based on what made you happy Not based on some bureaucrats decision of this is how you help people Which in which you know, I always ask people I mean in every one of these things. What do you think this would look like? This is an iPhone, right? What do you think this would look like if the government designed it? Everybody laughs no matter what the politics of the audience is they all laugh what socialists laugh, right? But that's okay. So let's do charity which is more important That's a charity through the government because that'll look better than iPhone Let's do health care through the government because that'll work. Let's do education through the government because that'll You know Really? I mean if you don't trust the government with an iPhone, why do we trust them with education? Why do we trust them with health care? Why do we even trust them with charity? The real point that iron man makes about charity And by the way, iron man gave to charity But the real point that iron man makes a charity is you don't get your moral Gold stars your moral your your your moral Value from charity charity is a nice thing to do But it's not What makes you moral think about bill gates bill gates what makes him moral is the charity he does One Buffett the same thing. They didn't do charity. We think there were horrible people Iron man saying No charity is is not a major virtue It's something you can do if it's consistent with your values and for most people it is and they would do it I don't know if they'd be more charity or less charity I think it would be more focused charity. I think it will more efficient charity. I think there'd be more competition around the charity But you know in terms of I also believe strongly that people would not be starving in the streets because A, there'd be jobs but people who couldn't take care of themselves going back to the original question We'll be taking care of through charity, but that's a such a small number. Think about today in America Almost 50% of americans get stuff from the government Almost 50% do they all need it You mean we all we couldn't have saved the older older among us. We couldn't have saved We really need social security We really need the government to take our money away from us to save it for us because we couldn't have saved We can't buy health insurance. We can't take care of ourselves I don't believe that. I believe every one of us can take care of himself Some people do a better job at it. Some people do a worse job at it, but that's life Don't penalize her. What was the second question? What are the states I think the state I said this early on I think the state has only one role and that is the protection of individual rights Individual rights meaning our freedoms of action, right? And therefore the state should be limited to those functions that are required in order to protect individual rights, which are basically three the police the military and a judicial system And there is a role for legislation legislation around protecting rights So for example helping us to find property rights Particularly in new areas like like technology and stuff like that, but it's very narrow I don't think the legislature should meet more than once every two years for a few months. I don't think there's that much to do The more the legislator meets the more they intervene in our lives So I think it's a very it's a very limited role Yes, but they can only use force. So this is the I mean, that's that's crucial the only Reason the government should ever use forces and self-defense in protecting rights. So force is fine Somebody's running at me with a knife or with a gun. I don't say well, you know force is bad for the mind So I'm not gonna intervene. No, I shoot them, right before they can shoot me. So Forces justified only in self-defense never Initiated this is why the whole tax system the whole regulatory system. That's not a self-defense. That's initiated That's telling me what I can and can't do. I haven't done anything yet, but I'm already restricted, right? I want people to be free and then if they initiate force then the government steps in And stops it and puts them in jail or does what's necessary in order to penalize them same with foreign affairs I don't believe in sending troops to bring democracy to the world. Somebody attacks you though You've got to have a military to defend yourself. So the whole point is defense Forces only legitimate in self-defense Um, so uh, we have had a lot of talk about Individual rights, but what have capitalism done so far in terms of racism sexism and gender equality or discrimination? Yeah, that's great So capitalism is the only system in human history To get rid of all those things So At the birth of capitalism there was slavery There was slavery forever. We go back to the bible. I know that my old testament god tells the jews how to treat their slaves Not slavery's bad. No, this is how you should treat them to treat them kind of nice, but you could still have slaves when uh, when the jews You know a conquering You know the land of israel god at some point tells them You should kill every man woman and child of this other nation and they come back with the children And god's furious. I told you to kill everybody to say well the children says, okay Well kill all the boys. You can keep the girls the sex slaves literally in the old testament So slavery's always been around the most horrific types of slavery When did slavery go away? When did slavery go away? Well, I mean 90 percent of slavery when did it go away? What's the date approximately? Slavery goes away when is british when is Britain banned slavery and the slave trade About 1800 I think 1805 something like that. When does the united states ban slavery? 1863 with the civil war right when is brazil finally banned slavery end of the 19th century So the century in which slavery is banned is this the most capitalist century in human history When do women achieve The right to vote the right to own property and in which countries do women achieve the right to vote in its own country property The most capitalist countries in the world The less capitalist the longer it took But it happens a little after slavery so it happens in the early 20th century. Where in the most capitalist countries in the world So the opposite what is the most? Diverse country. What are the most diverse countries in the world? Well, the united states of brazil. I mean a few but united states is one of them Brought people from all over the world. It's not like when they were home. They didn't hate other people for the way they looked I wish hated the You know the the brits for good reason, you know northern italians hate the southern italians who hated that I mean everybody. I mean the racism unfortunately sadly has been a feature of human life forever It's called tribalism my tribe. You're the other right? When did that start going away when we all Arrive together and live together and work together and got to know each other and discovered that skin color and and and these other features are not important That's capitalism. That's what happens on the capitalism So the opposite is true. I believe that anytime you go towards collectivism Tribalism other ism you get more racism not less racism. You get more discrimination not less discrimination I'd like to return very briefly to the point about capitalism's imposition of desires coercive Because you said they don't make you want things which might be true in the case of starbucks But let's say something like tylenall versus the generic, right? um They one product advertised in lesson stills and you would desire to buy it in a way that classical economic theory says a rational actor Should it and if you said before the example with the gun like when I put it to your head You no longer get to act rationally you have to act by this reality of force In the departure from rationality in that transaction wouldn't it be coercive? No, because there's no departure from rationality. So It's still true that the responsibility is yours To engage your mind and to think about tylenall versus the the yes I've heard tylenall, you know Beer commercials you see beer commercials they've changed in recent years old beer commercials used to have bikini clad women All over the thing and everybody's drinking beers if there's a relationship between the two but they wanted to associate uh, beautiful women sex and drinking beer budweiser whatever I don't like beer I don't drink beer because the bikini clad goes in advertising. It's stupid and it makes no sense Now there are people who might I'm not saying nobody does but whose responsibility is it? It's theirs It's theirs. They need to think but if you think It takes you two seconds if tylenall you can today you can google tylenall versus generic And in two seconds you can figure out what's bad, right and and there's economic consequences. So it's Look rationality is an achievement It's a virtue It's something you have to look at It's something you should get moral credit for I think it's the most important moral thing you can do That's what we should be teaching people. So the problem with this is same. I said before is not the advertising Advertising gives me information. I know this tylenall good it's the fact that We don't teach people to think for themselves that to me is the problem Teach people to think for themselves Advertising comes less valuable at least the bad advertising the ones that connect bikinis with beer, right become less valuable And and the advertising that is valuable Gets elevated because I think advertising is crucial because I learn a lot of things that I didn't know before through advertising I learned about products. I learned about things that are out there that I didn't know So it's advertising should be about providing information And it will only be about more providing information as we demand that as consumers and will demand it when we become more rational Rationality just like selfishness is not automatic Yeah, it's an achievement. It's something you have to work on. How are we doing? We've got a couple of questions here if you want to do them Mine is more common based on what I've you know kind of heard In the last hour or so it just Uh, you know, it just it occurs to me that the politicians are actually the ones that are perpetuating This idea of not thinking which is what you're trying to you know focus here and say you've got to think Because all of these ism sexism racism all of that You know, you only embrace it when you don't think and I was in India just you know a few months ago and You know, it was it was such a stark contrast to me Because I went around the place quite a bit and I've heard a lot of people saying oh, we are very poor and I can't do this. I can't do that and I started asking them Why can't you know, why can't you like you talked about shampooing the hair? Of course, there is no license there. I said, why can't you just go sell vegetables or you know flowers which people buy there Do something do not depend on the government and you know or do not keep cribbing And it you know as I thought more about it. It was just the politicians and It you know just to make their lives better and get more votes It seems like they're just perpetuating these crimes if you will in my in my opinion I don't think it's the politicians as bad as I think politicians are and as awful as I think they are I think we get the politicians we deserve I think it's the other way around. I don't think politicians lead I think politicians are followers I blame You know a force that's much more insidious than that and is right in our presence right now I blame the intellectuals The intellectuals are the ones who teach us they teach us Whether it's because they train our teachers Whether it's because it's they're in the media Whether it's because they're the professors at our universities They're the ones who don't teach us how to think when that's their job They're the ones who tell us to depend on government when they know they should know better They're the ones who tell us that socialism is okay when they know history. They're studying history. Most of us have not What what do we know most people out there don't know stuff, right? But who does well, Paul Krugman knows And that I won't call in the names I'd like to He perpetuates lies lies. He knows better And indeed with Paul Krugman you can take his economics textbook from 20 years ago And then his new york columns and you can see how he's changed he used to be an economist Now he's just a hack and worse so That's who perpetuates this it's intellectuals. It's your professors telling you there's no knowledge That it's all subjective that uh, you know, the whether it's post modernism or whether it's The analysts so it's your philosophy professors. It's your politics professors who don't teach you this The most important event in all of human history. Look at the difference And yet they don't teach you this or this little blimp up And why Greece was successful Now instead they they they teach you ideas that are consistent with this That to me the economists the the the the political scientists the philosophers they're the ones to blame the politicians are You know the end result Of a horrible intellectual system. The most important people in the world Are intellectuals and among the intellectuals the most important are university professors And if the world is going to hell that's where you should look No, I'm serious I'm serious. You couldn't have communism without Intellectuals buying into communism. You couldn't have had fascism without intellectuals in Germany Advocating for the ideas that led to Hitler That's you have to look at the universities to to see where the real what is intellectual uh, I've been reading a lot of investing stuff lately and and to kind of meander around the stuff Like I keep coming across instances where they say that stability is destabilizing But the the consistent presence of like like an artificial safety perhaps induced by the federal reserve or by whoever By by by by driving out the normal variation You actually encourage massive crashes and the inverse of that is that instability Is stabilizing so when I look at your curve Instability was that dramatic transformation and lifestyles and instability created our political Stability and now we've had this no Is that any part of the stability gives you one to two percent growth Of the economy instead of five six seven eight percent growth in the economy when poor people would actually rise up Because there's so many jobs and so many things to do that that they would actually rise up to middle class Stability gives you what we have today in america what we have in japan what we have in europe which is basically nothing Slight slow economic growth boring or the stock market's been a little interesting the last few days But no shum tits are the great Economist called called it the forces of creative destruction You need it you need once in a while to flush out the system of the of the stuff that doesn't work anymore. That's no good You know Somebody has to shut down typewriter companies when you have word coming out Somebody has to shut down the buggy whip industry when you get automobiles That has to happen You know we're now it's very fashionable to condemn private equity even tucker calls it goes out of his way to go after private equity But private equity is exactly that function in finance that shuts down the bad industries that are not doing any good anymore And optimizes and allocates capital in an optimal way so What you want is is a dynamism Which i think so take the federal reserve Right the federal reserve was created in 1914 established in 1914 in order to Smooth out economic success. So we there was too much instability in the 19th century too much ups and downs And what have we had since the staff junior of the federal reserve? Less than 20 years later. We get a great depression Completely acknowledged by economists caused by the federal reserve Great depression. I mean no depression in American history is as bad as the great depression When we didn't have a federal reserve we did better Then okay, we had some periods. We had a war and we had some periods of Good economic growth and then because of the fed nobody disputes this because of the fed We had hyperinflation in the 70s with stagflation stagnation and inflation and then if you look at the financial crisis we just had Economists in five ten years will identify the fact that it was caused a large extent by the federal reserve All the federal reserve has done is created instability massive crashes a sense of You know a progress and smoothness and everything and then bam everything falls Out from under your feet. It's going to happen now where the now and five years or sometime it's going to happen You can't have these low interest rates without paying a price And the price is going to be big when it happens So yes, I agree completely the attempt of government to to to to reduce risk Actually increases existential risk. It makes the risk much more Much bigger and it hurts The people who can lease the ford To be hurt because again, I think the poor are the ones who suffer the most from government intervention They're the real victim again. I can handle more taxes they can't Handle me paying more taxes because me paying more taxes hurts them All right, so we'll get to you but maybe somebody who hasn't asked here And then maybe we'll take her question and we'll call it tonight because everybody's leaving So thank you very much for a great talk I had kind of a two per question one Was really interested by your comment where you talked about morality lagging behind and our goal is to to catch up. So one, do you think something is The the fact that morality has not cut up This is something innate to us as humans that prevents us from that So that's one and two. What are the next concrete steps like realistically? What can we do to close the gap? Yeah So why is it lagging? It's lagging because of the dominant role of The dominant role of religion and in particular christianity has had over the world And You know, there's nothing that advocates for suffering and for sacrifice and for altruism more than the christian religion So it's the dominance of religion that is held back. So while if you look at this period of the enlightenment They release from religion every aspect of human life like science. No religion politics. No religion like separation of future state um Family relations. No, you know religion religion is something you do you do at home, right? You don't bring it into the public sphere except in morality Because that is so important and The perception is you have to have somebody dictating that morality from above because otherwise we'd all be animals. We'd all just Kill and slaughter. So it's understandable why it lags Partially because of the world religion this way But there's another feature and I meant I meant said She could have never developed her full theory of morality and full theory philosophical without forcing the industrial evolution Because she says what the industrial evolution showed Is that when you free what you could see in concrete terms is a when you free people up They don't behave like animals because they were free then and they built and created also The role of the mind in human life You don't see it much here It's not a lot of thinking going on. You're just walking Suddenly you free up the mind. Look what happened So you had to have certain existence or Philosophy like every science is an inductive science. You learn from observation in integration You had to see in a sense what human beings are capable of in order to create Or to articulate a morality that reflects them. So it had to happen post-industrialism. Why is it now hard? It's hard because unfortunately the enemies of the enlightenment Um were very powerful and they started very early So the enemies of the enlightenment begin with russon content begin right at the beginning of the 1980s late 18th century Righted is and they killed the enlightenment And from then on our intellectual life is dominated by enemies of the enlightenment enemies of reason and enemies of individualism And they have so skewed. I said intellectuals matter They have completely dominated the intellectual life of the last 200 years So while religion has faded the people who entered the space were not pro-reason pro-science pro-individualism They were pro You know, uh Secular form mysticism if you will reason is not connected to reality You know morality comes from not from god, but it comes from categorical imperatives in your mind You just know it's good. Really? I know a lot of people don't know Um So, you know, you've got a bad intellectual. What does it take? It takes replacing Which is hard It's really really really hard to capture the intellectual high ground and it's going to take a long time And what can you do? There's only one thing we can do is speak You got to talk you got to stand up You got to say I disagree That's not how I live my life Hear the principles in which I live my life and be happy be successful And then have people come to you say, how do you how do you do that? You say, here's some principles. Here's some ideas So that's the best thing you can do is just live the best life that you can and articulate to the world how and why you do it because It's all about education and and getting people to read and refer them to apple shrugged and font and head and let them read I ran I mean I still think among libertarians. I know the one of the big problems among the design ran is underappreciated And the more libertarians realize that they will never be successful never be successful Unless they promote I ran to a proper role as the philosopher of the free market the philosopher camp Doesn't matter what Mises did doesn't matter what Hayek did doesn't matter what any of these guys did philosophy drives the world Not economics So you've got to get the morality down economics will flow from it Not the other way