 So I have a challenge in pronouncing his name and Aynran's name. You're wrong, Brooke. As the Executive Director of the Aynran Institute, a former finance professor, speaks internationally on such topics as the clauses of the financial crisis, the morality of capitalism, and the endings of growth of government. Dr. Brooke is a co-author of Neoconservatism on obituary for an idea that no offense to the ideal conservatives it might be in the audience. He's also a contributing author of Winning the Unwinnable War, America's self-criminal response to Islamic totalitarianism. He will be selling and autographing copies of his latest book entitled Free Market Revolution, immediately following tonight's program. His writings frequently appear in the national print media and he often appears on national television. Just last month he was a guest on the John Stossel's Fox News program. Born, raised, and educated in Israel, Iran served in the Israeli military. Iran was a self-identified socialist until he was 16 years old, at which time he read Atlas Shrug. I look at him. Despite his best efforts to uphold and Aynran's arguments, he couldn't and went on to become a student of Aynran's philosophy of objectivism. In 1987, seeking a life in a place that offered them the most personal and economic freedom and to raise a family, he and his wife ever made it to the United States. I wonder if you've made the same decision today, I'm not sure. He has advanced degrees from the University of Texas and taught finance at the Santa Clara University. He is also a co-founder, managing director, and chairman of a financial advisory firm, VH Equity Research. In mid-1990, he decided to join the Aynran Institute's new educational program, the Objectivist Graduate Center. In 2000, Iran left teaching to become the executive director of the Aynran Institute and the go-to source for laissez-faire policy. Iran's fields of specialties include objectivism, capitalism, finance, business ethics, venture capital, economics, and foreign policy. Dr. Brooks, the topic tonight is Standing American, the free market revolution. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Iran Brooks. Who's in Silicon Valley, say? This is pretty cool. Coming from the election yet? Four more years. I think it's going to take longer than that. We lost. And we've been losing for a long time. We've been losing for a long time. At least we, in the sense that those of us who believe in free markets, those of us who believe in limited government rights, in the constitution, in the vision of the founding fathers, have been losing for a long... It's been a hundred years, a hundred years, of non-stop government growth, government increased intervention in our lives, in our economic lives, in our social lives, in every aspect. For the last hundred years, government has only grown. I don't care if Republicans win, Democrats win, increased its control, attempts to manipulate many conservatives here. During Ronald Reagan's era, government spending increased. Yes, taxes went down and that's great. A lot of regulations went down and that's great. But even Ronald Reagan's revolution lasted six years, eight years. Not much of a revolution. We're losing and we've been losing systematically. And it's time for those of us on the way to start asking the question. The fundamental question, if we want to win, is why are we losing? What's going on here? Now, it would be understandable for us to lose if we were wrong. If what we advocated for didn't work. So, you can make the argument, as some people do, I think they're delusional but they do, that capitalism just doesn't work, that free markets don't work, that they cause all the ills of the world around it. They don't produce wealth, that they don't create prosperity, that they don't allow the poor to rise up. History, fact, the opposite. Everywhere that free markets try, you get wealth creation. You get a rising standard of living. You get the poor benefit in terms of their lives. You get social mobility, rich people becoming poor, poor people becoming rich depending on how productive they are, how entrepreneurial they are. This is too historically. I like to think of it this way. For the last 200 plus years, we've been running an experiment in the world. An experiment in which social economic systems work and which social economic systems don't work. And work here, I'm just talking about well-being of people, standard of living, wealth creation. We tried, we tried a bunch of different systems over the last 20 years, right? We tried communism, we went all the way out here, we tried communism. And hundreds of millions, tens of millions of people died. Standard of living's dropped. People all, common denominator was the lowest common denominator, right? That's what equality meant. We tried fascism, also out here on the left, right, by left. I wouldn't say pure capitalism, close to it. You know, we tried free markets. During the early decades of this country, you know, putting aside the issue of slavery, which you shouldn't put aside, it's a big issue. But this country, during that first 100 years, was the freest country in human history. And what happened? What happened in America when we had no regulation, no safety net, no government controls, no government intervention in our lives? Well, very little. There still was some, unfortunately. What happened? Well, we went from a second-rate colony. You know why we wonder what independence, right? Because the British didn't really fight. Because we were a second-rate colony. It wasn't worth it. They were busy with the French and the real battles. We were with the French and the Spanish. But 140 years later, what are we? We're the strongest industrial, military country in the world. Nobody comes close. By the break of World War I, we are in. We're even during that period called the 19th century. Capitalism is what happened. Freedom is what happened. And the consequence of that are the fastest economic growth in human history. We have sold millions of immigrants, and they worked, and they created wealth, and they created prosperity, and they created industry, and they created the world that we today enjoy. Because we demonize them today, you know, history books and our econ books. But that's the reality. The reality is a reality of enormous success when you have freedom. So we tried, and then we tried all kinds of mixtures. You know, we touched some, you know, socialism and some freedom, and all of these mixtures, and you can almost grow a graph. It's not 100% correlated, but there's a close correlation there. Between economic freedom and economic success. The more economic free you are, the more successful you are. Economic freedom. It's just there. It's right in front of our eyes, staring at us. How many of you have been to Hong Kong? What have you been to Hong Kong? Before you die, you have to go to Hong Kong. You've got to see the situation. Here's a place that 70 years ago was a fishing village on a rock in the middle of nowhere. And today it puts New York skyscrapers to shame. It is a magnificent city. And it's got 7.5 million people who live on this rock. And they have no natural resources. They have nothing there. Except what? What have they had? What have they had for 70 years? Freedom. At least economic freedom. They had protection of property rights. Did they have social security? No. No Medicaid. No safety net. And who came there? Did the rich from all over the world come to Hong Kong and establish this wonderful place? No, the same kind of people who came to America in the 19th century. Who came to... Who are you? Your ancestors who came to America. Were they the intelligentsia of Europe? I mean, I don't want to insult you, okay? Ancestors. So I'll talk about mine. Who didn't come to America, but pretend they did. What does it say in the Statue of Liberty? Send us your poor, your meat, your hungry. That's who our ancestors were. They were the poor of Europe. They were the persecuted of Europe. They were the ignorant of Europe. These were farmers who didn't know anything. They knew they wanted a better life. That's what they knew. And they came here, they made a better life. That's the same thing in Hong Kong. People got on little boats and got there somehow. They wished their lives together. Not for safety, not for hand up, for freedom. And they boomed. They flourished. GDP per capita in Hong Kong is equal to that of the United States. That's a measure of wealth. That's a measure of standard of living. And they're still free in the US. You know, the Heritage Foundation and Fraser Foundation in Canada, they put out these economic freedom indexes. And the United States four years ago was number three. And, you know what, they didn't waste this today. 13, 18, and dropping, and dropping fast. Hong Kong and Singapore are the top two. And you can see correlations there. You can see the relationship between economic freedom and prosperity. So why is it, why is it that we reject that? If for 100 years we'd be turning our backs on what leads to prosperity, what leads to success, what leads to a rising standard of living. What leads to the poor being better off again? Not just the middle class, not just the rich. Everybody's better off. So what is it? What is it that we resent about economic freedom? What is it that we resent about capitalism that causes us to vote against it? Because we don't vote. You know, people say you vote your pocketbook. People don't vote their pocketbook. They voted their pocketbook. We'd be living in laws that fake capitalists haven't. Because after juicers have made a pocketbook, people don't vote their pocketbook. What is it about capitalism that people don't like that causes them to vote against it, that causes them to advocate against it, that causes them to tolerate the ever-increasing wall of government in our lives? What is capitalism about? What are markets about? Volatility. Volatility. What is capitalism about? What is a marketplace about? Simple but capitalism is a big word. Markets, what are markets about? Risk, why do we take risks? Who cares about risk? Profit. Profit. We take risks in order to make something, right? You wouldn't take risk if there wasn't a reward. Markets evolve on the one side about profit, right? When Steve Jobs makes one of these or Meade one of these, why did he do it? To make money. The budgets of these were huge. I mean, Steve Jobs didn't say what if you were on wants, because then he would have sold it for a lot less. He had more features, better ones. What's I like? No, Steve Jobs made this because he was making money, but what else? It wasn't just the money. What else did Steve Jobs make these? What was the other reason he made these? Intervention. Yeah, but why did he care? Power. Because he loved it. Passion. He loved it, he had passion. He loved beautiful design. He loved to see the image of his product made out there. So Steve Jobs made the iPhone 4? Steve Jobs. iPhone in 2008, because the economy spiraling out of control. And I went to the mall to buy my first iPhone because I wanted to stimulate the economy. Let's go tomorrow. Because you care about your fellow man and you want to make sure that everybody has a job and you know that those people need jobs so you buy the nice clothes and the nice shoes you wear and everything to help your fellow man, right? No, so why did you go? Well, I mean, there's nothing wrong with helping a Chinese fellow man. They're not human beings, they're human beings. So why do you go to the mall to make your lives better? So what is the marketplace about? It's about people pursuing their self-interest. It's about people trying to make their lives better. It's about people trying to make their lives better. But on the one side, by making profit, by making money but also by enjoying the productive process which clearly is Steve Jobs' case you could see. And on the consumption side, by trying to make our lives better, by buying stuff. But it's our lives that we're trying to make better. It's about us. It's about our self-interest. And yet what are we taught from when we were this big about self-interest? I don't know about you guys, but I grew up in a nice Jewish family. My mother was a good Jewish mother. She taught me what? When it comes to goodness, when it comes to virtue, what should you do? What is good? What is virtuous? Think about other people first. Being self-less. What is the essence of virtue? What is the essence of goodness? As taught to us by our religious leaders, and by our secular leaders. What is the essence? One more. Altruism is two. What does that mean? Sacrifice. Selflessness. You just look clear because it's a word that we daddy around. Sacrifice means giving something up and getting what in return. Nothing. If you get something more in return, if you get immense satisfaction for what you're giving up, is that a sacrifice? It's not a sacrifice. Sacrifice is giving without the expectation of getting back. Because when I bought an iPhone, I gave up 300 bucks. Was that a sacrifice? No, why? Because I got something worth how much to me? You guys need an economics lesson. How much was what I got worth to me if I gave up 300 bucks? No! More than 300 bucks. Who would have bothered? More than 300 bucks. I get more than 300 bucks of utility, at least I expected to out of this. Otherwise, I wouldn't have paid for it. Who would have bothered? Make the effort? More than that. Trade is what? It's a zero-sum game. I give up 300. No. How much did Apple make on this? 200. 200 or whatever. 60%, right? 180. How much did I make on this? A lot. Probably more than Apple. And when I bought this, so what do we call that? We both? One. This is a win-win. We call this A, it starts with a T. Trade. Trades of win-wins. When you buy an automobile for $20,000, who lost? Both parties. I mean, unless you buy a lemon, you know, your expectation is that you can win. That's the goal. Trade is about win-win. Sacrifice, by definition, is about lose-win. So, lose-win, noble, virtuous, good, win-win, eh, we don't quite like it. We were taught from when we're this young that it's all about other. That virtue is about other people. That goodness is about how we treat other people. That everything is about other. That being self-interested is self-interested. So how can we have an economic system that's about self-interest when we know self-interest is a bad thing? Self-interest is not fair. Self-interest is not just. Self-interest is not noble. So what's profit? Can profit be fair, just, noble? No? Because it's self-interested. So we've given up. We've given them all high ground. The left has them all high ground. We're playing on their field. They have home-court advantage when it comes to their morality. When it comes to fairness. And notice Obama uses fairness and justice and all these words. And nobody challenges them on it. Because we've all accepted it. It's not because we disagree with them. It's because we've all brought into it. We've all brought into the fact that morality, nobility, goodness are about self-lessness. We talked about altruism. Most people think altruism is being nice to people. It's being benevolent. But that's not where the word comes from. Altruism is a relatively modern word. It was a term invented by a philosopher in the 19th century. Augustine Comte, C-O-M-T-E. And what he means by altruism is that your life is not yours. You need to dedicate your life to the well-being of other people. And you will be measured. Your goodness will be measured in what you do to others. And if you think about what's in it for me I get pleasure from helping other people. That's not moral anymore. Because you get any pleasure out of it. It's about truly subservienting yourself. Your own values. What's good for you to other people. That's what altruism means. And that is incompatible with freedom and it's incompatible with capitalism. But that's the moral code we all believe in. To guess what we get. Stagism and socialism and government. Because it's incompatible with freedom and capitalism and markets. So we don't get freedom and capitalism and markets. I mean, think about somebody like Bill Gates who I know is not that popular in Social Valley but a cent from it. How did he make his money? How did he make his money? The T-word. By trading, right? By trading. He sold us a product which we voluntarily bought. Did we get more out of it than we paid? Looking back way more out of it than we did. I mean, the fact that he standardized computing that we got software that we could all use and we could all communicate. I mean, the value to us of Microsoft's existence is unbelievable. Each one of us is an individual. And not just us in this room. Every human being on this planet is attracted by Microsoft. Now Bill Gates made $50 billion doing that $100 billion, however much you want. But how much did we make from those trades? Much more than $1,500 billion, much more. But we think of Bill Gates when he's making the $50 billion. Morally, ethically, is he a hero? Yes. Yes. Yes. I love you guys. Other than the front row here, is he a hero? Culture out there, if we were making a documentary about him, he's not a hero. He's a pirate. He's not a good guy. Nobody viewed him as morally good. I mean, the best way would say he's a great businessman. He's a great technologist. And even that, a lot of people doubt big. Nobody talks about him because of morality. When did he become a good guy? And he gave it all away. And he hasn't given it all away, right? He's giving it. He's got the villains in the big house. See, he's only a bit of a good guy. What would it take for Bill Gates to be a saint? Now, I haven't talked to the Pope, so I can't guarantee this. But what would he have to do to become a saint? He would have to give it all away, move it to a tent, and if he's soaked some blood in the process of, you know, suffering, because that's the standard, then he would be a saint. This is the morality of making stuff, building stuff, creating stuff, and giving it away, offering. That's actually... I was at an awards dinner for businessmen in South Carolina. She can't accuse them of being leftists, right? South Carolina, Charleston, and they had this Lifetime Achievement Award, right? Now it's the speaker. Luckily, I spoke after this. So, they were introducing all these business guys, right? Giving them the awards, and these are long introductions, because they want to make a big deal out of it. So, ten minute introductions. One minute on their business success, nine minutes on their community service, and their volunteering, and their charity work. Now, there's nothing wrong with community work, and charity, and all that stuff. Nothing wrong with that. But nine minutes, and one minute, give me a break. Not only did they do more for their community through their business activity, just like Bill Gates will do much, much more in Microsoft than he ever will through his charity, by many, many factors. These businessmen got almost no credit for what really made them special, being in business. What really made them unique, where they really contributed and made stuff and built stuff. We don't value that. Because it's what? What did Bill Gates do, and why did they do it? Because it's so interesting. And we view that with disdain. We view it with disdain. We want, you know, we talk about charity and giving back and philanthropy. These are the, up here, these are the noblest thing in the world. Why? Why? I mean, it's compared to building something that never existed before, creating a new product, becoming a billionaire. What does it mean to become a billionaire? It means selling people a product you and want. That's what it means in a free market. You're changing everybody's lives. I'm not even talking about all the jobs that Bill Gates created, not just at Microsoft, but all the companies that serviced Microsoft, and all the companies that would have never existed if not for Microsoft, which I have millions and millions of, I mean, you can't add this up. You cannot add this up. It's such an enormous number. But he gets no more credit for that, because at the same time, he's benefiting himself. Benefiting himself. We hold a moral code today that views self-interest would disdain from an ethical moral perspective and views altruism sacrifice selflessness as the moral ideal. And we lose as long as that is the case. As long as that is the case. And so the revolution that we need, the change that we need the change that we need in order to win, it's a cultural change. It's a philosophical change. It's a moral change. It's a moral revolution that I encourage you to join. It's a revolution that says no. My life's purpose is not to sue others. My life's purpose is to live my life. I think the most of my life is to live the best life I can live. That involves helping people, it involves being nice to people, it involves even charity and community service. But that's not the essential of my life. It's about taking care of myself. It's about building stuff and creating stuff. That's what it's about. It's about trading with people. Benefiting them and benefiting myself. But not being ashamed of benefiting myself. That's the purpose of life. It's to benefit yourself. It's to make your life better. It's to live a full, human, flourishing life. It's about a real self-interest. Self-interest of human flourishing. Going back to our start, we talked about a morality of human flourishing. Pursuing those butchers to make us the best human beings we can be. And, you know, the glimpse of this in our founding document. Our founding documents have a glimpse of this. Because, you know, what was the American Revolution about? Was it about teataxes? Taxes are higher today. It wasn't about a stand-out. It wasn't about taxes. What was the principle behind the American Revolution? Freedom from water. Freedom's a nice word. What is it freedom from? From charity. Not just from charity. It's freedom from what? What is a thing? From government? What kind of government? From control. It's freedom from courage. It's freedom from force. But the real revolution that is America, it's about freedom. Who's freedom? The individual's freedom. So before the American Revolution, who did your life belong to? To somebody. And where you lived, right? So if you were in English, who did your life belong to? Belong to the king, right? And even somewhere else, it might have belonged to the tribe. Or some collective, some group, your life, you know, to the pope, or to the community, or to the majority, called that absolute democracy, right? Somebody owns you. Your life belonged It wasn't yours. The American Revolution rejects that. That's the real revolution. It says, no, my life is mine. I have a right to my life. Right? Right means what? Freedom. It means freedom of action. It means I can do what is necessary to support my life. You can't tell me how to do that. You can't tell me how to live my life. It's none of your business. So I don't know about violating your rights. You have no say in my life. My life is mine. That's what a right to life means. The American Revolution is the first time that politically it was stated that our lives, each one of our lives, is ours, not the states, not the kings, not the peoples, not the tribes, not the witch doctor, what's yours. It's ours. This is a revolution about individualism. The individual sovereignty of his own life to ejection of all the collectivism of the past. So the founder's had this sense of self-interest. And what does it say? The most important political document in human history is the Declaration of Independence. And it says that you ever wait to life, liberty and what? Happiness. Who's happiness in communities? Why does it say the public good? Nobody's concerned about the public good. They're concerned about your happiness. Each one of you is waiting to go out there and pursue happiness. Now is that a joystick? No, that's the most self-interested political statement in human history. That's the foundation of this country is built on a political system of self-interest. People pursuing their own values, people pursuing their own interests. That's what we need to recapture. And reject this whole otherism. You know what altruism means? Altruism. I think a lot of other. It's otherism instead. Making other people the center of all life. That needs to be rejected. And I know that's hard because we're raised on it. It's everywhere. It's in our culture. But if we care about freedom for us, then we need to reject it. I think what self-interest means because there are two things that the altruists have taught us. One is you've got to be self-flexed. But what do they tell us about self-interest? What is self-interest? When I point in a schoolyard to the kid in the corner and say you're being selfish, do I mean you're taking care of yourself? What do I mean? You're you know, you're like cheating stealing SOP.