 This is a real pleasure for me. Thanks for letting me speak at that National Institute. It's a real privilege. So what I want to talk about today is really, I think, a mystery. A mystery that all of us who care about free markets, there's a whole community out there in the world who are advocates of free markets. We're all challenged by this mystery. And the mystery is this. All the evidence suggests, and I'll talk a little bit about the evidence, all the evidence suggests that capitalism and free markets work, that they produce wealth, that they generate a middle class, that they allow poor people to rise up from poverty, that indeed there's never been an economic system, there's never been an economic social system in human history, more beneficial to human life than free markets and capitalism. And yet, we in the West, in the Western world, are moving dramatically away from the system, moving away from free markets, we're moving away from capitalism. And we've been doing so not just in the last few years, with the latest administration or the last political shuffle. Well, we've been doing this for decades. In the United States, we've been doing it for 100 years. We've been moving away from capitalism. We've been moving away from free markets. And the question is, the mystery is, if you will, why? What is it that is causing these shifts? What is it that is driving a political establishment, really a culture, to be so antagonistic to an economic system that seems, at least, so good? What explains this dichotomy? And it's, to many of us, this is quite baffling. Let me just say a few things about why I think capitalism is such a good system. Well, if we look, if you think about it, the last 250 years, since the middle of the 18th century, the world has been running a massive experiment. It's, we've been testing all kinds of economic systems, all kind of political social systems. The whole spectrum has been tried. And we've tested it. We've run an experiment. We've tried it in different countries. We've tried it across time. We've tried it in different continents. And we've got results. The data's in, if you will. I mean, we've tried communism. We've tried fascism. And what's the result? What can we say about communism in terms of the consequences, the outcome? They're bad, right? People die. Tens of millions of people die. Tens of millions of people die of starvation. And the people who don't die, what's the standard of living like under communism? It's horrible. It's filled with poverty. Everybody's standard of living declines. It goes down. We've tried capitalism, or maybe not the purest form of capitalism as I would like it, but we've tried pretty close to it. We've tried it in the West during the 19th century. Certainly in the United States it was tried from really from the founding of the country until the early part of the 20th century. And what were the results there? What happened in America during 140 years in which the economy of the country was free of government controls, government regulations, where it was left alone, where business was left alone. What happened? Well, in 1776, when the country was founded, the United States was a third-rate colony of Great Britain. I mean, the Brits know that the reason the Americans won the War of Independence has nothing to do with the Americans. It has everything to do with the fact that the United Kingdom was too busy. It had bigger fish to fry. They were called the French and the Spanish. It wasn't that important, these 13 colonies. And yet, within 140 years, by the break out of World War I, the United States was the strongest, most powerful industrial, military country in the world by far. Those 140 years generated the highest economic growth in human history. The United States absorbed tens of millions of immigrants. And we're not talking about really intellectual, well-educated, you know, immigrants. We're talking about the ancestors who came to America. We're talking about the poor, the uneducated. We're talking about the people that nobody in Europe wanted. And yet, they did phenomenally well when they came to America. They came, they built, they created stuff. They built the richest, wealthiest country in human history. And it's a consequence of the fact that during this period of time, America was a free country. It was free of all those interventions that are so common today It was free of government controls, of regulations. I don't know who rule regulations in business. There were no real government controls of what was going on in the economy. So you had an economy that boomed. And yet, starting in the 1930s, the United States was systematically turned away from that kind of economic system, turned away from capitalism, turned away from free markets. We've tried every mixture of capitalism and socialism in between. We've tried a little bit of capitalism and a lot of socialism, a little bit of socialism and a lot of capitalism. We've tried all the different economic systems. And you can plot them on a graph. You can create a graph of wealth creation versus the amount of economic freedom. And what do you find? That the more economic freedom you allow, the greater the wealth creation. The greater economic growth, the greater the prosperity. So all the data lines up, all the historical data lines up to suggest that free markets actually work. They actually produce the goods. They actually create the wealth. They create a vibrant, wealthy society. And you can see it even today. If you look at, I don't know, how many of you, has anybody here been to Hong Kong? Hong Kong, a few of you. It's worth going once in life to go see Hong Kong. Hong Kong 70 years ago was a fishing village on a rock in the middle of nowhere. And on that fishing village, the British basically established the world of law. They protected property rights and nothing else. There's no regulation of business or very little. It's very, almost no safety net, almost no existing safety net. And yet millions of people from all over Asia flock to this little rock in the middle of nowhere. And today you go to Hong Kong, and it puts New York to shame. It's got skyscrapers. Seven and a half million people live on this tiny little rock. It's vibrant. It's energetic. GDP per capita, that is wealth per capita, is the same as the United States. Within 70 years we've gone from a fishing village to one of the wealthiest cities in the world. How? Because of economic freedom. Because people were left alone to build and create. And they weren't told what and how and when to do it. There's no redistribution of wealth. There's no government providing healthcare. There's basically free markets in Hong Kong. And yet people from all over Asia would love to live there. Because the standard of living there, even of the poor, is higher than anywhere else in Asia. So we've got examples of free markets working and their weight in our face. All you have to do is travel the world and you can see them. Yet you go to other countries where government is heavily mingled in those societies, controlling, regulating, taxing, redistributing. And their economy struggled. And you don't see the kind of economy. So why is it that we turn away from economic freedom? Why is it that we turn away from free markets and capitalism? And you know it's not that we don't understand why capitalism works. We've had great economists, whether it's both Friedman or Hayek or von Mises and lots of others, who can explain in great detail why capitalism and free markets work and why socialism and government intervention in the economy doesn't work. This is not a mystery as to why these things function. And yet it doesn't matter. We still turn away. We still move towards socialism. We still move towards massive redistribution of wealth, massive regulations. And the consequences are all around us. I know here in the Bahamas, you guys are suffering from the recession that we're suffering in the United States. But we're still suffering. The economy in the United States is barely growing. Unemployment is very high. And it's not like anybody's projecting that the economy in the United States is going to suddenly grow very fast. Everybody's now accepted that it's not going to grow. And there are many economists who understand that the reason for that is the growth of government, the extent to which government today regulates and controls and manipulates the economy of the United States. And it doesn't seem to matter. All this knowledge doesn't seem to matter. We grow it even more. We allow government to do it even more. We reelect Obama. We reelect officials that are just going to increase government intervention in the economy and decrease the ability of the economy to grow into the future. There's something about capitalism. There's something about free markets that we deep down instinctually at a gut level resent and hate and turn away from. Every crisis that happens, the financial crisis right now, every crisis that happens, we blame on whom. For the last 10,000 years we've blamed all financial crises on the same people. What do you want to take a guess? Bankers, right? We always blame the bankers. We blame bankers and we blame capitalism. We blame free markets even when economists later on can look back and say, well, they didn't cause that. It doesn't matter. So we still teach, in America at least, that the Great Depression was caused by Wall Street, the Great Depression in the 30s. Well, it wasn't. No real economist thinks that. It was caused by government policies, really, really bad government policies. It doesn't matter. We still teach that. We still believe it. We believe that this financial crisis right now was caused by whom. Who do we blame it on? Before the data was even in. Anything about what happened, we blame it instinctually on Wall Street, on banks. And yet, again, any decent economist, maybe not today, but in five years, I can guarantee you, will see what is obvious, which is this financial crisis was caused by government, by government policies, by the Federal Reserve, by regulations, by the incentives that the government created for the bankers. Doesn't matter. We'll still blame Wall Street, and the response will be to regulate it more, to control it more. So what is it about capitalism that is so offensive? What is it that we don't like about capitalism? So what are markets about? What is capitalism about? Real question. When I say capitalism, what's it about? Creating wealth. What did you say? Free markets. So what's free markets about? Creating wealth. But why? What are people doing in the market? So let's take this as an example. Steve Jobs used to, when he was alive, make these iPhones. Why did he do it? What motivated Steve Jobs? Make money. Profit. He was there to make money. He was there to make money. You know what the profit margin on one of these is? At least the original, the first iPhone. Anybody know what the profit margin was? 60%. 60% profit. He made a fortune out of these. Apple today is the largest corporation in the world, because they make a lot of money off of this stuff. So Apple makes this to make money. What else? Is it just about money? Was Steve Jobs just about money? Are people in business just for money? It's what we want. So innovation. He loves this, right? He enjoys it. He likes making beautiful things. He likes making things that come up in his mind and he can project out there into the world and build them. And he loves to make things. Who's image of these after? iPhone's Apple is about whom? Steve Jobs got to be up in the morning and he said, I want to make beautiful products for whom? For us, consumers. You think so? For himself. You know how many customer surveys Steve Jobs did? Apple does today. You know, focus groups. You know how many focus groups they do before they release a product? Zero. None. They don't care what you think. They don't care what I think. They know that they're really good at this, that they create beautiful products and whatever they build, guess what? We will buy. Right? So, why do they make an iPhone? Because it's in their self-interest. Apple makes iPhones that make money because it's fun, because they enjoy it. It's about Apple. It's about Steve Jobs. Businessmen go to work every day to make money, to have fun, to do something challenging. They don't get up every morning and say, how can I make my fellow man better off? How can I maximize social utility? They don't. Businessmen are out there for whom? Themselves. Now, when I went and bought my first iPhone, it was 2008, and the US economy was spiraling out of control. And I went to the mall and bought my first iPhone because I wanted a stimulating economy. Because I know that's why you guys go to the mall. You guys go shopping because you care about your fellow man and you want to make sure other people have jobs and you buy stuff so that they can have work, right? Anybody? No, right? Why do you go shopping? Because you want something. You want something that will make you look good, that will make you feel cool, that will make you more productive. You want something. It's for you. So, when you go to the marketplace, when you participate in capitalism, if you will, why are you doing it? For whom? For you. So, what is capitalism about? It's about people doing what? Pursuing their self-interest. Capitalism is all about self-interest. And this is not new. This is not me making this up. Adam Smith. Everybody know who Adam Smith was? The wealth of nations. What year were you? Do you write the wealth of nations? 1776. Adam Smith in the wealth of nations says that Baker makes the bread, not because he likes you. He doesn't really care about you. He makes the bread. Why? Why does the baker make the bread? To make a profit so he can feed his family, so he can feed himself, so he can go to the mall and buy stuff for himself. Right? The grocer who sells you the bread, does he care about you? No, he doesn't care about you. He's just doing it for himself. He needs to feed himself, feed his family. Capitalism is the system of self-interest. Capitalism is about people pursuing their own self-interest. Now what do we, what do we be taught about self-interest? What do we think about self-interest? From what we this big, like some of you are almost this big. Right? When we were really young, what about parents and our teachers and our preachers and really everybody taught us about self-interest? It's bad. It's bad. I mean I grew up in a good Jewish household. My mother, like every good Jewish mother taught me, think about this first. Think of yourself. Last. What does virtue and nobility and goodness mean? It means selflessness, right? It means thinking about this first. It means sacrificing. That's nobility. That's goodness. That's virtue. That's the essence, right? But what's capitalism about? It's about being self-interested. And yet, virtue means selflessness. Capitalism can't be virtuous because it's not selfless. It's not self-sacrificial. It's not about placing other people first. It's about a real conflict. And I would argue that at the end of the day, people don't vote their pocketbook. They don't vote economics. They don't vote what will make them richer. They vote what they think is right. What they think is just. And here's a system that is about self-interest. When we be taught self-interest is bad. It's wrong, morally wrong. It's not just, it's not fair. What's just and fair is equality, sharing, somebody said sharing before, right? Sharing, it's about being selfless. It's about giving, not, right? People vote for that. So they vote constantly away from capitalism and toward socialism. This ethic is consistent with socialism, not consistent with capitalism. Take somebody like Steve, like Bill Gates, a different high-tech entrepreneur, right? Take Bill Gates. Bill Gates made tens of billions of dollars for himself, right? Richest man in the world to watch. How did he make all that money? Who did he take it from? Nobody. Who did he take it from? Steve Jobs? No, he didn't. Who did he take it from? How did he get 60, 70 billion dollars for himself? What did he do? He sold products, right? And we bought them. We all bought Microsoft products. So let's say we paid $100 for a piece of software that Microsoft made, right? When we bought the product for $100, who lost in the transaction? Nobody. Nobody lost? How can that be? Right? You paid $100? Microsoft got a, you got a piece of software. Who lost? Nobody. How much is the software worth to you if you paid $100 for it? $100. How much? No, it's actually worth more than $100. You wouldn't bother giving up the $100 if it was worth exactly that, right? You're not indifferent between the two. You want the software, which means it's worth more to you than the $100 in your hand. So you're trading something less valuable to you, the $100, for something more valuable to you, the piece of software. So you're better off because you bought the software. How about Microsoft? Are they better off? Yeah, because to them it's worth a lot less than $100, they make a profit. That's called trade. And trade is win-win. Both parties win. So Steve Jobs made $70 billion trading with people. Making everybody traded with better off. Everybody was better off because they traded with bookings. They got software that was worth more than what they paid for it. So their standard of living all went up. Indeed, I would argue that Bill Gates touched every human being on the planet. And if you think about the impact Microsoft has had on computer networks, on the internet, on the existence of really everything we know about the information technology today, he's touched every human being on the planet and made all of our standard of living go up, improved our quality of life. And yeah, he made a lot of money in the process. So what do we think about Bill Gates? Good guy. That's a culture. Do we think he's a good guy? Noble, virtuous. Maybe you do. That's a culture. What do we think of it? We don't think of it very positively. Not from a moral perspective. We admire his business success. But while he was in business, people envied him. They were sent to him in the justice department. In America, the justice department went after him for so-called antitrust relations. People cheered. People enjoyed having him knocked down a little bit. He was not considered virtuous, making money that self-interested. When did Bill Gates become a good guy? When he became a philanthropist. When he retired from Microsoft, set up a foundation, put tens of billions of dollars into the foundation and started giving it away. So making the money, creating the wealth, impacting billions of people around the globe, that from an ethical moral perspective gets zero credit. Zero credit by the moral authorities in the world we live in. But giving it away, being philanthropic, that, now that's a good guy. That's generous. Because he's putting other people first. We live in a culture in which creating wealth, building stuff, making stuff, eh, giving it away, great. That's weird. Where do you think you have more impact on the world? By building and creating and being in business? Or by being a philanthropist? I mean, seriously. By building stuff. You're creating wealth. What a philanthropist is. We're distributing it. It's the business, it's the creation, it's the building. That's where the real action is in terms of rising standard of living, increasing wealth. Giving it away, that's fine, nothing wrong with it. That's not the essence of goodness. And yet, that's how our culture perceives it. I was at an awards dinner in Charleston, South Carolina because we're getting Lifetime Achievement Awards. Lifetime Achievement Awards and they had these long bios that introduced them. And in those long bios, they spent one minute on their business success and nine minutes on their philanthropy and community service. Because we feel guilty for the business success. We feel guilty for making money. We feel it's selfish, right? It's self-interested to make money. Even though other people are benefiting, the fact that we're benefiting taints it. Makes it unacceptable. We cleanse that guilt by doing what? By doing philanthropy, by giving it away. Somehow that is good because that's self-less. So, my argument is, Inran's argument was, that we have set up a mall system that is incompatible with wealth creation. It's incompatible with building and creating and sustaining a capitalist economy, a free market economy. And indeed, we're willing to give that up. We're willing to destroy capitalism. We're willing to destroy the wealth creation. We're willing to destroy businesses like Microsoft for the sake of this alternative, this morality that exists out there. This is dominated western culture of hundreds, if not for the last 2,000 years. That we're willing to give it all up in the name of what is good and what is just and what is right. And you see this in politics. The left, the people who want us to move away from capitalism, talk almost exclusively in moral terms. They talk about what is fair and what is just and what is right. They talk about economic efficiency because they know they lose that argument. They talk about moral terms. They have the moral high ground. They dominate the moral high ground. So if we believe in capitalism, if we believe in free markets we can't let them have the moral high ground. We can't just accept that capitalism is inconsistent with this morality. What we have to challenge in my view is not the nature of capitalism. Capitalism is what it is. It's about self-interest. Adam Smith knew it. We know it. Everybody knows it deep inside. Everybody knows it's about self-interest. That's why most people resent it. What we need is to launch a defensive self-interest. What we need is a different moral code. What we need is to reject the idea that the purpose of life is to serve other people. That the moral purpose of life is sacrifice. That the moral purpose of life is selflessness. Ryan Rand asks a simple question in the face of that morality. And that question is why? Why is your life not as valuable as your neighbor's life? Why is your moral purpose to serve your neighbor, not to serve your own life? She challenges the established ethical code and she presents an alternative. She says no. The purpose, the moral purpose of life should be to make the most of your life. The moral purpose of your life should be to be the best human being you can be. To make the most of the one life you have on this earth. To try to achieve happiness. To try to achieve success. To pursue the values that are going to make you the best person that you could be. So when somebody builds a company, when somebody creates a business and they're taking care of themselves and their families what could be more noble than that? What could be more noble? What could be more important than taking care of your own life? Taking care of the materially what is required of your own life and the people you love. That's what morality should be about. It should be about your self-interest. What is truly good for me? Now the obvious question is but doesn't self-interest demand the one what do we usually think self-interest is about? When we point to the kid in the schoolyard and say you're being selfish, what do we mean? You're taking care of yourself? What do we mean when we point to somebody and say you're selfish? That you're a lying, stealing SOB, right? That you'll do whatever. You'll backstab, you'll lie, you'll cheat. You're going to get your way no matter what. That's what we mean by self-interest. But is that self-interest? Is it in your self-interest a lie, stealing, cheating? How many of you have ever lied? Don't do it. It sucks. Lying doesn't work. It only complicates life. It only makes life worse. What really is a friend in life is reality, is truth, is facts. Lying distorts all that. It mixes it all up. You don't get anything that you really want from lying. The best example of this in America, I hope you know this guy, is Bernie Mader. You know Bernie Mader? He created this pyramid scheme. He stole from his best friends billions and billions of dollars. He's in jail right now. Who turned him in? His sons. One of them committed suicide a year after he was caught. So this guy's life is a complete disaster. Bernie says he's in jail right now. He says he's happier in jail than he was before he was caught. Because lying, cheating, is so horrific on your soul. It makes your life miserable. You can't look at your best friend. You're constantly afraid of being caught. Not afraid of being caught by the police, by being caught by your friends, by your family. It just doesn't work. You know, I'm at the age now but I can barely remember what happened last week. It's true, it'll happen all of you too. If I lied about what happened last week, I'd have to remember two things. What really happened and what I lied. But actually, I'd have to remember many more than two things because with every lie now you have to remember who you lied to. Why you lied to them? Who you didn't lie to? Why you didn't lie to them? Lying is just too damn complicated. It's just not worth the effort. And it's true of cheating, it's true of stealing, it's true of all the stuff. People don't actually reap the benefits. It doesn't actually lead to a happy, successful, flourishing life. It's a disaster. And actually, traditional morality has presented us with two alternatives. He's self-less, self-sacrifice, and Mother Teresa, right? The ideal of morality. Nobody actually wants to be her but we all believe that she was good. I mean, if we all wanted to be Mother Teresa what are you doing here? It could be in some way helping people. That's one alternative and the second alternative is lying, stealing, cheating, being an SOB. I'm saying there's a third alternative. Being really self-interested. Pursuing your life. Trying to achieve flourishing. Aristotle, this is an Aristotle who is playing this Greek philosopher. He talked about virtue as achieving individual human flourishing. Living life to the fullest. You're a human being, you've got so much potential, there's so many things you could be doing. Exercising your faculty to achieve a huge amount. A huge amount. That's what somebody like Steve Jobs did. That's what someone like Bill Gates does. To me, they're moral, moral heroes because they made a lot of money. Which means they produced stuff, they created stuff, they built stuff, they built a life for themselves. They took care of the people they cared about and by the way, they helped all of us at the same time by trading with us. So, they're the heroes, and giving it away, giving it away gets no credit in my book. I mean, it's nice. It's fine. But their impact on the world, on their own life and everything else is much greater by building and creating stuff. And when we deny people the ability to build and create stuff in America, when we give them a welfare check and tell them, don't work, here's money. We'll take care of you, don't worry about it. We deny them the ability to build and take care of themselves. We cripple them. The biggest victims, in my view, of welfare are the welfare recipients. Because where do you get happiness in life? Where do you get, where does happiness come from? What do you need to know to be happy in life? You need to be. You have to accomplish something. Because happiness comes from self-esteem. You cannot be happy unless you have self-esteem. And self-esteem is not earned by the ribbons that your teacher gives you. Indeed, nobody can give you self-esteem. Only you can attain self-esteem. You attain it by accomplishing things and recognizing your accomplishments. Where do we get most of our self-esteem? Where do we make most of our accomplishments in life? At work. By building, creating stuff. By making something. If you deny people work, you deny them the ability to get self-esteem and to become happy. Now you can be a corporate layer that makes a very low wage but is taking care of himself. Taking care of his family. Maybe sending his kids to school. You know you've accomplished something. You gain that self-esteem. You can be happy. You can be mental class, you can be rich and not do anything with your life. You will never be happy. Happiness doesn't come from money. It comes from accomplishment. It comes from success. It comes from working hard. If you deny that to people, you deny the ability to attain happiness and success. So, what Rand is advocating for is a morality of accomplishment, a morality of success, a morality of individualism, self-interest. And what's the one, what's the most important value that we as human beings need to pursue and care about our own life? What's the most important value that creates really everything that we have around us? So, here's the experiment. Look at your neighbors. You can look. It's okay. We're a pretty pathetic animal. We're a pretty pathetic animal. We're weak. We don't have claws. We don't have fangs. You know, try running down a bison and biting into it. I can't do it. Use Sabertooth Tiger who wins. Sabertooth Tiger. And yet, here we are in this building with a video camera, living a good life. And where's the Sabertooth Tiger? Extinct. So, how did we survive without existence? What is it that makes it possible for human beings to survive given how weak we are? Our minds. Our ability to reason. Our ability to be rational. So, if you want to be self-interested, what is the most important thing to cultivate? What is the most important thing to allow to flourish, to activate, to engage in? It's your mind. It's your rational and you have that. Each one of us is individuals. That's a characteristic of an individual. There's no group thing. There's no collective consciousness. There's only you and your mind. If we could win, if we could change people's perspective with regard to morality, if you think about people who want to pursue their own happiness, who want to be successful, who are committed to using their mind, what kind of political economic system do people like that want? Do they want paternalistic mother government sitting on their shoulder telling you don't do that? Don't drink that sugary drink. It's not good for you. Do they want to be told what to do and how to do it and when to do it? No, they want to be left alone. They want to be free. They want to be able to go out and engage in the world and make something of themselves and they want a political system that makes that possible. So, if we want freedom, if we want a higher standard of living, if we want markets and capitalism and all the good stuff that markets and capitalism provide, my argument to you today is that what we need is not an economic revolution, not a political revolution, what we need is an ethical revolution. We need to reject the idea of selflessness. We need to reject the idea that morality is about sacrifice. We need to reject the idea that you are your brother's keeper, that you are the servant of somebody else, that your life belongs to other people. Those things need to be rejected into them. Keep pile of history. We need a new moral code, a moral code that emphasizes your values and individuality. Your life doesn't belong to anybody. It belongs to you. You need to live it for yourself. You need to make the most of it and you need to figure out the rules, the principles that allow you to achieve the most of your own life. That's what morality is for. What are the virtues? What are the values that are going to make you the best human being possible? If we can do that, if we can reorient the culture around a morality of the pursuit of happiness, then we can have all the benefits of capitalism. Then capitalism can flourish and be successful without the cultural backlash against it. We urge you, and that's what we do in the book, we urge you towards a moral ethical revolution to save the benefits of capitalism that accrued to us over the last 100 years. Thank you all. You're up for Q&A? Absolutely. The only reason to give a talk is to have a Q&A. Where do you draw the line in self-policing by capitalism? Capitalism so that there is an actual truth opportunity by all beyond capitalism. When you have a music car event people like Matt Armstrong so many people who are actually publishing the truth, so many destroying their lives, there's no way that people could self-actualize for themselves because there was capitalism in essence ignoring the rights of others. Where is the mind of capitalism releasing itself? Well, I think, first of all capitalism needs to police itself in the sense that you've got to set a system of rule of law that protects property rights and then you let the system run its course and that's also a great example because what he was trying to do was not sustainable. Now yes he's a bad guy and he's caused a lot of people, a lot of pain and he is going to suffer for it. He's already suffering for it. Look, there's always bad guys. No matter what system you set up there's going to be there's going to be a Booney Mato, right? You've got to catch them quickly and put them in jail, right? That's the secret. Now what happens in the system we have today in the States is the SEC the Security Exchange Commission responsible for catching Booney Mato is so busy monitoring the behavior of innocent people they don't have time to look for the frauds they don't have time to catch the crooks That's what I'm saying. Where do you know the line? Well, you have to define what being a crook is and go after them and in my view the line is coercion. Anybody who uses fraud or force to take stuff that doesn't belong to them is a crook. That's the job of government is to go after those guys. Everybody else should be left alone. That doesn't mean there's not going to be any murders it doesn't mean there's not going to be crooks bad stuff is still going to happen but most of us are going to be left free and most of us are not victims of those kinds of acts. Why? I'm fascinated by what you're saying and I agree with that a lot but why isn't either or why can't you not be selfish and also be a good capitalist? So why can't you be selfless and be a good capitalism? Capitalism is not about being selfless. Capitalism requires to be a good capitalist, requires thinking about what you want to do how you're going to do it it requires complete absorption into your self-interest into making the most of the product of the business of your own life and selflessness is moving away now again I don't associate charity with selflessness because charity can be self-interested so I'm not against charity I'm not against being benevolent or being nice to people otherwise they won't trade with you charity can be in your self-interest if you're promoting causes if you're helping people you care about what I'm arguing is that is not your moral duty your moral duty is to yourself is to your own life is to your own publishing if everybody did that that assumes that everybody is equal you have the poor and the indigent the people who are incapable of disabled people who are resurrected you can't have the extreme attitude otherwise life would work no I disagree with you I think that it's the lack of an extreme attitude that makes life not work I think that extreme attitude is what would make life work I think the poor they far better off under system of self-interest under system of pure capitalism than they are in our redistributive society today and I think history suggests that the poor in Hong Kong far better off in Hong Kong than they are in very many other Asian countries where they're not just left alone the poor in America in the 19th century rose up from poverty much faster than the poor do today when they're being helped and coddled and giving checks and anything and they were much happier and had much more self-esteem and much more confidence and did more good for themselves than they would with the mixed economy so no I'm a radical I believe that when you leave people free when you don't cover stuff when you don't take money away from them when you don't tell them they moral obligationists serve that's when they are happy and successful and prosperous I'm completely advocating for an extreme form of society if you follow the capitalism it's extreme and you become the best person in capitalism and you are self-serve and at the same time you are moral and ethical you cannot help but you become a person it's almost as if you become compassionate but you become interested in others as a consequence of the lifestyle that you live absolutely I don't think there's any conflict in that sense but that's not being selfless that's being selfish caring about people why do you care about them what could be a greater value to you as a human being than other human beings they're the greatest value that can't be to you I would argue the opposite I would argue that a society of self-interested people is more benevolent and more charitable and more friendly and more caring than a society where we're raised to believe that our moral duty is to serve others and if you're poor somebody else has to take care of you and you have to take care of the poor what a society like that resulted is envy and resentment and there's the rich guy over there his moral obligation is to give me money and he's not doing it so I resent him see if I'm self-interested my view is if he's made a lot of money that's great that means he's provided me of the people I like in love with a service that we value so you realize that there's no conflict between people that other people's success is your success it's a win-win relationship altruism, selflessness creates win-lose situations so yes I agree and the fact is the free societies are the most benevolent societies yes our government, our political leaders here would always deny being socialist they'd run a mile to avoid being called socialist and yet from what you see of government here and in similar countries what do these governments do although they don't tend to be socialist what measures do they follow which have the effect of limiting free markets very seriously well I mean there are hundreds of things that they do almost everything that they do in the United States which I know 95% of what the government does is limit free markets they redistribute wealth on a massive scale so they take people's money and they give it to somebody else that's limiting your freedom you made that money it's your money they don't have a right to take it second they regulate every aspect of a business in California today if you want a shampoo head you need a government license shampoo head I'm not even talking about starting a bank massive amounts of regulations and controls and restrictions there's no accident that this financial industry in the United States would collapse it's the most regulated business in the country so everything that they do all these laws all these laws all these laws are forms in which they restrict equals freedom and regulate now you don't want to call it socialism fine I mean socialism technically is where the government owns the means of production none of these countries are socialist technically I call them statists they're all statists where the state is the primary actor in the world and you could argue that our countries particularly in the United States are much more fascist than they are socialist fascism they control the economy without owning the means of production they use regulations in order to control but they're all statists they all involve the primacy of the state of the individual natural I'm not to believe that most individuals their moral principles stem from their spiritual or their digital beliefs so are you saying that they should put that on and just follow a life of something else neglect their spiritual walk because a lot of people are motivated spiritually spiritual walk teaches you to be selfless and help others when you look at Christ and Confucius, however with God they serve that's what it promotes I'm saying that Confucius and Christ as understood by most people, I'm not a theologian I don't want to debate religion right now as understood by most people are inconsistent with economic freedom and economic success and capitalism that's what I'm saying and I'm saying yes I'm challenging you I'm not telling you what to do I'm challenging you to rethink what spirituality means because I consider myself spiritual I don't believe Confucius or Christ I still consider myself spiritual because we're all spiritual beings we have a consciousness we're not just atoms we're not just material so there is a spiritual element I'm challenging you to rethink it I'm challenging you to ask the question why should I let my neighbor like myself? I don't I doubt any of you like your neighbor like yourself and this is the test I give people do you love your children many of you don't have children imagine you have children do you love your children more than your neighbor's children everybody says yes but that's wrong that's wrong everybody the same supposed and I'm saying no I'm saying it's good that you love your children more than the neighbor's children they're yours your responsibility you brought them into the world you should love them more embrace that cherish that don't feel guilty about it now expand that to a whole morality think about your life you value your life more than other people's lives that's a good thing now embrace that now does that mean as the gentleman said before does that mean you're going to be rude to people does that mean you're going to be mean to people no because of a value to you so you're going to be kind you're going to be charitable you're just not going to be self less you're going to be nicer to people who are good than other people you're going to you're going to treat people the way they deserve not the same equality generally is overrated the whole concept of equality so basically both of you are thinking that love yourself basically love yourself yes I think you should love yourself absolutely I mean I think you should be worthy of your own love first but yes I think you should love yourself yes hi ready thank you for bringing all your students I hope you're not regretting it I'm sure they're very intrigued the challenge is though with capitalism and the whole idea of rational self-adress is what do you do now but Adam Smith wrote in 1776 about the nation basically the United States was a country full of resources origin resources so to speak but in society as we have it today capitalism has already enlarged what you have to say is that it's a really rich kind of question it's a massive level where you have this economic efficiency of this huge inequality what do you do when you have mass inequality as a result of capitalism well I'd argue two things one is I don't believe that the inequality that we have today in America at least is a result of capitalism it's much more a result of statism I think that the inequality would actually be would be less in the United States if you actually have freedom and what is important about inequality I don't think what's important about inequality is the absolute difference between poor and rich that's always going to exist and I don't know what the level would be under a completely free society I have a view that right now cronyism is exasperating that because of government not because of capitalism but put that aside in a free market you would have a difference between rich and poor the question is not what the difference is what the difference is the question is can the poor become rich and capitalism the history of capitalism suggests that there's no society in which there's more social mobility than under capitalism then in capitalism the fact that you're born poor does not mean you stay poor quite the contrary there are enormous amounts of opportunities to become middle class and to become rich and under capitalism the other thing is the absolute level of poverty is far higher than it is in other systems that is the poor much much better off I was in Cambodia a few years ago in Cambodia you see poverty no electricity no running water people living on houses on stilts because it floods and the house has to be way high so that it doesn't get flooded that's the kind of all of human beings lived 300 years ago so capitalism is what raises us out now what do we do given the reality today we've got this allocation already I say give us freedom let people be free to exercise their abilities so that they can rise up from whatever station they were born into in life and there is no equality we're never going to be equal we've all got different parents and we've got different genes and we've got different skills and different aptitudes let's embrace that that's wonderful that we're not the same it would be boring if everybody was like me I hate it I like the diversity and the fact that everybody is different and that's what creates a marketplace it's why we trade if we all value everything exactly the same there'd be no trade let's embrace the fact that we're different and unequal but let's create the environment which rewards ability and you talk about natural resources let me just say something about that my view is there's only one resource there's only one resource and that's the human mind it's the human mind, it's up here so the resources have been used up as long as they're human beings we can figure stuff out we can invent new stuff what used to be junk today could be a resource that black gooey stuff that was in the ground once people thought it was a nuisance until they discovered somebody figured out that you can make kerosene with it and light everybody's lives up it only became a resource because of the human mind it was just gooey black stuff that nobody wanted it's we who create stuff resources are infinite because the human mind's capacity is infinite are there any examples in terms of economicism, socialism communism fascism whereby the social dynamics of poverty rising has ever been successfully implemented as you're bringing up there has never been a system to ever do that other than capitalism socialism has not worked you can't name a model where it's worked in terms of increasing economic output and rising poor no the capitalism is the great for the poor capitalism has been the greatest system in human history, I mean again 300 years ago all of us were poor all of us were poor we were less often than the Cambodians the poor in Cambodia we forget, we don't forget we don't know history but where were we 300 years ago most of us weren't here because the population was so much smaller and then we lost our systems farmers we had nothing literally nothing and we died before we reached stage 40 what led us to where we are today where we can live long lives where we live in decent houses where we have A-conditioning where we have automobiles I mean that's capitalism it's raised all of us out of poverty and it's the only system that doesn't what oh sorry he's pointing in this direction and then I'll go to you you said on so many words that capitalism itself it assumes that the person should be certain enough to notice that the community is more important to themselves but that is a typical example of capitalism where a person steps out from that community and thinks about a guest himself so I didn't I don't want you to interpret what I said as saying that capitalism encourages a self-interested view that ultimately leads the view in the community is more important than you I don't, that's not what I'm saying I'm saying that you should view your life as the most important thing and you should cultivate your life I believe that if you do that rationally and properly you will value the other people in their community, not more than you but value them for you because they're valuing and I believe that capitalism cultivates exactly that kind of person so think about a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates I mean by building the companies that they will think of what they did to the communities around them they created millions of jobs millions, if you think about all the other companies that had great product from Microsoft and other people employed in Microsoft they created a rising standard of living for everybody around them and then if they wanted to be charitable they gave so many out there Steve Jobs as far as we know was not charitable at all but so look think of the benefits he created and I think if you look at the Rockefeller Carnegie and all the great industrialists they always you know help the community, not because they value the community about themselves but because it was in their self-interest to do something what I'm saying is what I'm going to talk about this time the human beings typically think towards more towards minds of we're more convenient what you're asking persons who would just think towards something and then to or even to some extent I think it was just a magic start to think about seeing other things within their self-interest I don't think we're coming out so I think we're communal there's no question we need other people we benefit enormously from other people the more self-interested you are the more you think about what's good for you the more you realize you need other people, not anybody to love you want friendship and you want traders you want people to trade value for value you want employees you can't build and create without other people so you develop relationships but the relationships are not sacrificial relationships they're not selfless relationships they're self-interested relationships I love my wife not because I don't care about myself because I'm self-interested the most self-interested emotion you can have as well I mean it makes you feel great it's really cool you want love when I married my wife I married her for selfish reasons because I love her I didn't marry her for selfish reasons I didn't marry her for her I married her for me hopefully she married me for her but you have to trade you don't want to sacrifice yourself for other people you don't want to make your life less for other people and you don't want other people to sacrifice for you you don't want to make them your servants maybe you mentioned Bernie made up things like pretty self-interested see I don't think so my argument is that Bernie made up a self-destructive that he acted in self-destructive ways that if Bernie made up a sat-down that thought, remember I said reason if he thought what would make my life a good life how can I make the best life that I can for myself he would have never come up with the answer a life steal and cheat for my best friends the problem with Bernie made up is he didn't think I don't believe you could be self-interested if you don't think last I don't want to assume that the person the person who thinks on those lines actually understand that he's on my back and then moving forward if you begin to protect two things one from the sociopath if you're a sociopath and you do what Bernie made up did in my world you go to jail the same thing happened today in the world if you don't you're just a jerk then you have a miserable life yes so the difference is this I'm advocating for rational self-interest for a rational approach to ethics into your own life Bernie made up was not rationally self-interested in my view you're self-destructive I'm not advocating for doing what do we feel like doing well greed is a tricky word but I'm not advocating to do it so let's say there's a line of cocaine here and it'll give me a high it'll make me feel better so you might say oh that's self-interested I'm saying no because if I thought about it then I know that taking cocaine what gives me a high right now is not good for me long term so I don't do it so I'm advocating for just like any moral code no matter what your moral code is going to be it's going to require you to think about what you want to do and what not to do and I'm arguing for a morality that says think think about what's good for you and do those things that make it possible for you to thrive in the long term don't go by emotions don't go by what people tell you don't go by whim it's a rational reason thought he's just waiting I think I need that because we're patient yes this is all well and good how do we move forward because when you think about it political electorate they want to keep you quite frankly illiterate and they want to have more regulation so that they can continue to be elected and this is what we're going to leave so this is my argument my argument is that this is not easy this is hard we're failing I'm arguing for a new approach and that is that this is ultimately an educational battle and this is ultimately a cultural battle about the kind of moral code that culture upholds as virtue as goodness I think we need to start challenging that and I'll give you an example we need to stop being proud of the fact that they're business leaders somebody like Mitt Romney should have been proud for making money should have been proud for being private equity he should have been able to explain what private equity is he should have been able to say I'm not in business to create jobs no businessman is in business to create jobs stop claiming you're in business to create jobs you're in business to make money and you know what if everybody succeeds in making money he's in you in business stop being apologetic be proud accept this morality and stand firm by it and I think if we had some role models if we changed the way we talked about language fairness right the left has this monopoly over fairness what does fairness mean to them equality it never used to mean equality what does fairness mean in the dictionary getting what you deserve equality so every time Obama says fairness every time the left says fairness somebody says fairness well that's not fair this is what fairness means let's take those moral terms those moral concepts and give them real meaning meaning that's consistent with capitalism I think that the economics and the politics fall into place if you can make those changes in the culture it's hard it's a long term battle I don't see any shortcuts yes it changes at first in about 1913 before that everyone was involved in helping their left and everyone was involved in helping themselves you had all the organization the logic you were all consumers they compared but as soon as they passed the law and they started to teach them people said that's why we become less and less human from that process and I think that what we're talking about is the national soul when we recognize that we don't live in a bar with the exchange society we don't plan to exchange society but we have to exchange to survive but some people cannot exchange for one reason or another one reason I agree with a lot of what you said but I don't agree with everything I don't believe the standard of society is determined by what happens to those people who can't take care of themselves first of all it's a tiniest of minorities it's a tiniest fraction of populations who really can't take care of themselves and that's what traditionally charity and all these other forms in the 19th century worked on but it's not a significant number that in a condition where they literally cannot take care of themselves I think a society is measured by how successful people are in it how successful they are in living how successful they are in attaining values and I think people who are successful and people who are very charitable this is why pre-1913 all this existed if you go pre-capitalism if you go to an era before capitalism there was almost no charity because people weren't successful because there was no wealth people hadn't built up enough to take care of themselves they might take care of their neighbor it's only capitalism that creates the wealth that makes charity even possible it's capitalism the first thing you have to do is take care of yourself the first thing to do is to build up the wealth and the capacity that you have and then if you want and I think most people do want then you take care of those who can't take care of themselves but that's a secondary consideration another way to look at this is America didn't become this great nation because of charity I mean charity was there charity was important but what created the great nation was work was personal responsibility was the genius of people like Edison and Ford and Rockefeller and people like that it was the energy the freedom and that's where we need to be focused on charity at the end of the day is a secondary issue it's not both for ethics and for economics it's a secondary issue the primary issue is taking care of someone I agree with that I misinterpreted you like buckle up yourself before you buckle up your children I thought you yourself wouldn't just say this charity is a secondary issue what would an extreme entrepreneur with an excellent surplus of money what should he do with his money he should invest it I mean the fact is that he would do a lot more good for society and for himself by investing that money then he will anytime from charity the return on investment in terms of the benefit to humanity far exceeds what you can attain for charity now it's up to him at the end of the day in my view every entrepreneur needs to decide what he wants to do with his money if you enjoy charity, if there are important causes out there that you believe in then give it away then set up a charity foundation, engage in it do it it's not morally mandated for you to do it buy a big house live the good life it's your life, it's your money do what you think will bring you the most happiness with you but in terms of if we think economically if we think about what will do the world good then the best thing to do with your money is to invest it by far the return people have done studies the return on investment far exceeds the return on charity particularly with law in terms of money yes he mentioned that in 150 years the United States there was tremendous economic growth as you mentioned freedom has been important I have a question about the role of the slavery labor in that growth also he said that rational self-interest to acknowledge that freedom of all individuals in society is to be the government intervention sure that slaves actually achieve that so so the question is about the role of slavery in the economic growth in America during the 19th century during this period I would argue that slavery generally is a net detriment to economic growth it's a negative so to the extent if they hadn't been slavery in the first 70 years then the economy would have grown faster slavery doesn't make any economic sense it is a it's not a model strategy and it's a bad economic strategy trade win-win relationships of what generates more economic growth and more economic success it's by the way why the north which didn't have slavery grew much much faster from an economic perspective than the south and why the north in the end won was much more powerful much stronger than the south now I agree with you sometimes you know sometimes when rights are being violated on a massive scale like with slavery you need government to intervene to stop that that's the role of government the role of government in my world is only one and that is to stop violations of rights it's to protect us from force so if I'm enslaving my neighbor it's absolutely the job of the government to come and save and save my neighbor but wasn't slavery a consequence it's a form of again the job of government is to prevent corrosion in society and yes it's driven from morality but it's not the morality of selflessness it's in myself interest not to have somebody else enslave sorry I just need to interject one thought there wasn't slavery a consequence of government policy in the first place people rising up against it that forced them to change that slavery was government policy and it was independent individuals thinkers movement leaders preachers all kinds of people who rose up and forced the north to go and get into a war and if it would have left the governments we still would somebody hasn't asked a question yet I I agree with you and I think you're starting short I mean I'm an alcocapulist if you believe in yourself it's bad they get from taking money taking money to the heart which is that therefore they operate without a price and they they have no idea of talking to the scarce and valuable resources why would you do what government do so I'm not an alcocapulist I believe government is a necessary good I said necessary good and I said it on purpose I believe it's a necessary good I do not think you can have a functioning society without government I think government has an important role it has only one role but it's a really really important role and that is to be that entity that monopolizes the retaliatory force it is the one entity force I don't believe you can have a marketplace and force I don't believe you can trade force I don't think force is a win-win I think force is a different type of entity where you should not have a market in it and we create a particular institution to control force we call it government you don't like the word government we'll call it something else I don't really care but that's what government is it's a good relationship and that's all it does it's the only thing that it does no it's not see I don't believe it is I don't believe it's a good or service and we can argue all nights and I've done it many times with an alcocapulist this is not a good or service force is the it's not about protection this is about coercion and coercion is not a good or service coercion is the anti-market it's the anti-mind it's the anti-reason it's the anti-life it needs to be separated out create an old institution for it that is separate than anything than anything else that is traded and where we actually have goods and services related to it today even with government having some regulation over weapons because it's an instrument of death weapons are an instrument of death it's an instrument of coercion there's no marketplace in atom bombs there shouldn't be a marketplace in tanks but we can have a long on that when you're talking to someone and you're talking about the virtue of service how do you how do you stop the person you're talking to more than the word guilt it's very difficult because I mean and I think again I think Jewish and Catholic mothers figured this out a long time ago that guilt is a great way to control people and manipulate them self-interest is guilt, isn't it? no, self-interest is the opposite but that's what 90% people think, I'm self-interested but I need to feel guilty why do I need to feel guilty self-interest is bad I'm saying I'm liberating them their first reaction is that's guilt why would it be guilt it's guilt because they hold the wrong moral codes what I'm saying is self-interest isn't guilt self-interest is the way to eliminate unborn guilt because people hold the guilt because they live self-interested and they believe they should be Mother Teresa and that causes the guilt I'm saying no, you shouldn't be Mother Teresa there's nothing good about Mother Teresa right? I mean we could discuss Mother Teresa but there's nothing much good about Mother Teresa live your life, make the most of it you want to go to India and help people you really think that'll make the most of your life doers nobody's stopping you the point is live your life based on your values be self-interested get rid of the guilt guilt is a way for people to manipulate you it's a way in which our religious and cultural and political leaders want us to feel guilty because then they can use that against us they can manipulate that state and control us I wanted to liberate you from feeling guilty, I want you to embrace your self-interest self-interest create self-esteem guilt destroy self-esteem that's the real issue guilt comes around because we buy into this alternative morality which is wrong yes well the advice would be to try to become an entrepreneur to try to build your own business to try to do that direction I mean getting a job is good training for being an entrepreneur yet it's no fun working at a 95 job you've got to do it you've got to do it because you'll learn the skills that allow you to be an entrepreneur and do your own thing second is really think about what you want to do use this too much of an educational system not impeding on your professor but too much of an educational system is about emotions that's not important not for success in life what's important is what you think is figuring it out is really spending time really thinking through what you want to do in your life and the emotions will follow the passion will follow but you've got to use what's between your ears and you've got to train yourself I can answer that I have two children who are passionate about surfing and the other is passionate about surface practice who wants to be used to the introduction and stuff they're not going to be jobs they're going to make them a lot of money but those are their passions they are willing to wait on tables and do other jobs so that they can do that thing they love and somebody needs to wait on tables so if that's what's going to make them happy then there's nothing wrong with that in the long term what you want to do is pursue your passions and figure out how to do that Pardon? Yes Is there a role for unions in a free society? Is there a role for unions in a free society? they might be I don't think capitalism is against unions as long as unions don't have special protection from the government as long as they don't have the power given to them by the government if they're voluntary associations you can imagine situations in which certain manual labor simple labor it's easier for them to organize together to negotiate terms but unions are declining in the United States in spite of all the protection the government gives them so I believe that the more you move towards a information society the fewer and fewer there's no sense at all I'm all for just living the life and going out to what you want to do I believe in that I believe people should spread their wings and be the best they can be but it's like that's good and education is important too and for our society as behemians I believe it was that socialism or the statism because with that education initially in the 1970s when we came into independence because before that we didn't have that because my grandfather he left school at age maybe 13 and he was able to go to school at age 58 and he's 91 now and he's able to help and provide for others and also that social or statism provided college scholarships for persons during that era to go off to school that's probably why a lot of us helped the opportunity to study economics and the two things one is whether it's good or not it's wrong because education might be very valuable to you but does that give you the right to take my money does that give you the right to steal my money because it's good for you now we understand that you will take my money and use your education that's wrong but somehow we create a government that comes and takes my money and gives it to you for an education that's right now it's still stealing and it's still wrong so on a mall basis taxes taking money from people to give to other people that's just stealing let me finish second in a true free market you would have private education there would be so much better than anything the government could provide you would have far superior products if you had the profit motive in education you would have people competing just like they compete today stupidly to make a better and better phone think about the billions the brain power that goes into making a better phone imagine that brain power going into a better educational product and selling it to you so I'd like to see competition and innovation and the profit motive in education I'd like to see it applied not just to phones not just to technology but to the most important product in the world which is education I think you're getting a third rate product because it's public because it's government in the east they're doing a lot of private education and replacing state education because they find the private sector and do a better and cheap yes, private sector can do any service better and cheap yeah for the value problem or something like that a lot of people are telling when you talk about this private or not it's you high education you spoke yes but you spoke about learning a livable way you know what do you do what do you do with those individuals because of this marketing profession appropriate information these individuals who don't have that opportunity the child born with the liquid parents what do you do with a child like that nothing nobody is I mean either somebody voluntarily chooses to help that child voluntarily I'd have to go one generation earlier than you my great grandfather was born in a little village in Europe he got no education he had no opportunities he got on a cart and went to the port and got on a boat and he happened to go to South Africa to America and they came to America poor Jews with nothing they had absolutely nothing they came through Ellis Island and they went to work and what did they have nothing now within two generations sometimes within one they grandchildren were doctors and lawyers but because the grandparent worked hard with nothing they had the liquid parents you ever see Fiddler and Roof these were ignorant Jews who knew nothing about the world and they left because they were being killed they left and they worked hard and nobody gave them anything and nobody provided for them with anything and some of their parents their parents were abusive and people survived I know a woman I just hired who's you know and you find these stories she was the chief financial officer Shell Corporation and she grew up in foster cares in foster homes you didn't even have parents people can raise themselves up if you provide them with the freedom if you provide them with the moral code that gives them that focus you spoke about President Barack Obama yeah if you spoke about President Barack Obama what would you do wow Ludwig von Mises Ludwig von Mises was once asked if he was appointed if you were appointed dictator of the world and you could do anything you wanted right now what would be the first thing you did you know what he said the sign but let's just pretend I'm a president today exactly the opposite of everything he's doing I would dramatically cut government spending across the board and start thinking of programs to completely eliminate I would put a proposal on the table to do away over a generation and a half of Medicare, Medicaid Social Security I would deregulate I would get rid of all the regulations everything the opposite of what they're doing today would that not be would that be in his best interest yes he is not suing his self-interest and no politician does this is why they're typically pretty miserable oh now you're shifting the question now you're shifting the question this is why von Mises would resign if the answer is what are you going to do that's popular then it's over then I wouldn't be in politics no rational self-interested person would go into politics as long as the culture is the way it is today that's why the effort is not in politics the effort needs to be in cultural educational change it needs to be about educating people so that we can get to the point when I could do the right thing and still get reelected thank you