 After here, our guest has traveled a long ways to unite. He is an author, radio, podcast host, and has put her speeches internationally regarding activism, morality, philosophy for capitalism, and other topics. Currently, Dr. Brooke is the Executive Chairman of the IRA Institute, and Dr. Brooke is visiting us in Jennifer Line murder for thinking impossible. We ask that you please respect Dr. Brooke and her fellow audience members, and I'll hold all questions to the Q&A session at the end. At the appropriate time, we'll have those with one question lined up in the aisle on the right side of the room. So now without further delay, please join me in welcoming Dr. Brooke. Thank you all for coming. Before I forget, could I really add a few things? Like you and me first, I'll conclude up. What is it on YouTube? Subscribe to that. And we'll be handing out the books to the Q&A, the first people who ask questions get a few groups that they want. So they'll be instead of asking for the questions you can get a few. So one of the great districts, one of the great tragedies of the 20th century, 20th, 20th century, is this phenomenon. The fact is, the capitalist system of private poverty, the system in which government restricts itself to protect the individual rights and little else, to the extent that has been practiced anywhere in the world. It is a massive overwhelming unequivocal success. The mystery and the tragedy is that nobody seems to care. That everywhere, it is not capitalism on the rise, it is not capitalism that people induce and excited and come out into hundreds of thousands that listen to speakers on, but it is the exact opposite. It is socialism that people seem to be passionate and excited about. It is great and great a state intervention that our politicians keep selling us on, and we keep finding, we keep embracing a bigger and bigger state, more and more regulations, more and more controls. In spite of that, that all of that, in there's our standard of living, reduces economic growth, makes our life worse up. We still embrace it. That's the question we're going to try to answer today, but before that, I can't just say that capitalism, so let me give you a few indications of it. I can't prove it here, but you'll check it, you can challenge me in the Q&A, certainly about the facts that I present, but I can at least give you some indication of why I believe this system. How many people 250 years ago were poor, and I mean really poor, like living on less than $3 a day, or percentage of the population of all, 250 years ago, 260 years ago, 300 years ago, how many people were living on $3 a day, less than $3 a day? 99, 75, I couldn't hear what you said, 94. Yeah, 94, 94 is kind of, I like that company. It's somewhere north of 90, shorter probably 99, if there was some, it was in Aristocracy, there were some wealthy people in a very small group, 90 plus percent, somewhere around 95% of the population was living below $3 a day. I mean think about it, we're talking about today's dollars, we're not talking about some other, think about what that means, think about the people today in the world living on $3 or less. We consider that unbelievable poverty, that's Africa, that's Cambodia, that's rural China, and that number is shrinking and shrinking. Anybody want to guess how many people today live on $3 a day or less? I think it's 8%. So today it's 8%, we've gone from 95% to 8% globally, we're not just talking about the West, we're talking about globally. And indeed it's shrunk dramatically over the last 30 years, probably the biggest untold story of the last 30 years is the fact that over the last 30 years between 1 to 2 billion people, 1 to 2 billion people have come out of poverty. We've come out of poverty, we're all in Asia, we're really all over the world, 1 to 2 billion, nobody says, nobody talks about it. That's UN numbers, not any organization, they're usually called, but the numbers are so good here. So we've gone from 95% to 18%. If you look at the history, that $3 a day is about what income has been for most of us. However, this is a, I'm going to do the graph in the air, right? So we have 10,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago, this is GDP per capita, well per capita, even per capita, they all behave approximately the same way. And they basically clap. And you know, you get a little bit up, maybe during warm and then down during the, you know, the dark ages and they maybe up a little bit during the winter. Basically, it's stuck for 10,000 years. And then it goes like that. I mean, it doesn't just slowly go up. Ages goes like that. What's the date when it goes like that? Anybody want to suggest the date? 1850, a little late. It actually starts before 1850. 1770? That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Actually like 1776. Because any number, any date we actually put on is somewhat arbitrary because it happens over a period. But 1776 is a good symbolic date for two reasons. One, obviously, right? The founding of America. We'll get to why that's important in a minute. What's the other thing that happened in 1776? Anybody know a famous book that was published in 1776? The first book that really articulates the fans of the trade and capitalism was published in 1776. What is that? What is the founding of America to do with it? Well, the founding of America was the first articulation in a political reality of the principles that were being discussed and debated and discovered during the 18th century. And those are the principles of freedom and liberty. Of individual rights. Of the idea that property should be private. The idea that every individual has a right to their own life. For 1776. Who's like, who did your life belong? It wasn't a crown. It wasn't a crown and it belonged to the tribal leader or the queen or the council or the fill-in-the-hope, fill-in-the-blind. It certainly didn't belong to you. You were just a car and a machine living for the sake of others. Living for the sake of the community, of the group, the community, the public. I mill need to try them. Most of our history, we would try them. And you didn't count. What counted was their tribe. And you knew what was good for the tribe. They tried the leader. So they had a strong incentive to convince you that the tribe was important and you were not. Suddenly, in the 18th century, people say, wait a minute, why? I can take care of myself. Why is it my life is valuable as everybody else's? And what we get is this movement towards individual freedom, individual liberty. Culminating in the farming of this country with all its flaws, with all its problems, the big flaws of slavery. They articulate in the Declaration of Independence the principles of individual liberty and individual freedom. For the first time in human history, in a political document, it was then put into court. This idea of freedom is basically what capitalism is. Because what is capitalism? Capitalism is a system of private property. Capitalism is a system in which the government protects your right to your life. Which means what? What is the right to life to be? People talk about rights a lot. What does it actually mean? Right means freedom, freedom to act. On your own behalf, in pursuit of the values you believe are necessary for your survival, for your pursuit of happiness. It means that nobody has a right to tell you what to do and what not to do. Nobody has a way to use force on you to force you to do something you don't want. Or to change your course. You, as an individual, are free to live your life as you see fit. Only all the government is to prevent you from stealing from other people. From using force on other people. From obstructing other people's right to their own action. To their own action in their life by using force. Because the only way to violate rights is with force. So the whole idea of America is to create a government that all it does is protect us. And otherwise leave us alone. That's capitalism. Capitalism is a system that just needs you alone. And when we're left alone, guided by our reason, what happens? We create, rebuild, we make, we trade. The industrial revolution now. We create massive amounts of wealth. Everywhere it's tried. This is not about the west or the east or the north or the south. It doesn't matter what color skin you are. It doesn't matter where. It's not like a culture you come from. Every way. Every way. Where you allow for freedom, the protection of property rights, real contract law. You get the same response. You get massive creations of wealth. And you can see this over and over again. And you can see the comparisons with systems that don't allow for you to be broken. They're restricted to be broken. They tell you how you should live, where you should work, what you should do. There's a lot of advice there. One of my favorite examples of freedom wars is small, small place, rock. And then there's a doorway, really. 70 years ago, it was a fishing village. Today, seven and a half million people live in this place. It has a GDP per capita, and a measure of wealth, higher than the United States. They're richer than us. It took them only 70 years. More skyscrapers than New York City. No safety net or a tiny little safety net today. But not when they got all those immigrants coming in. People came from all over Asia into Hong Kong. And today they're rich, relatively speaking. Why? Because all they have down this island is the protection of property rights, protection of contract law, protection against fraud and force and motor and all that stuff. And otherwise they left people alone. Freedom works, capitalism works. What's in Hong Kong? What's in the United States during the 1960s? What's in the entire West? Everywhere they tried in the 1970s. Even today, as we drift away from capitalism and we're stricter and control more and more, it's still too evident today that those industries that we leave alone, that we don't regulate too much, that we don't try to control too much, what happens there? You get this. And what happens when we control and regulate? Or you get the choice. You get a bank up the auto industry. You get very little innovation. You get very little, period. Even within a country with the same rule of law. Those places that are free are those that are not. So, I'll give you one more example. So, if you go, if you look at Latin America, there's a country that was the richest country in Latin America 30 years ago. Anybody know what country was the richest country in Latin America 30 years ago? Venezuela. More oil reserves in Venezuela than Saudi Arabia. The largest oil reserves in the world are in Venezuela. The last 20, 25 years, they have embraced socialism and real socialism. They nationalize all companies. They nationalize all service businesses. They nationalized farming and created collective farms. So, what's happened? This started, I mean, really started. Middle-class kids are dumpster diving to hide food. There are no cats in Caracas. No dogs, no cats. You know why? They've eaten them all. No animals in the zoos. They've been eaten because there's no food. That's what happens in a society where there's no food. Because socialism always results in starvation. Always. There's another country in Latin America. Used to be the poorest country in Latin America. And today is the richest country in Latin America. Chile. And Chile embraced, relatively speaking, free market policies. Relatively speaking, elements of capitalism. It went like that. Just like every place that embraces it. Like that. And it is today. The richest country in Latin America. But what's really interesting about that example, these are neighbors. They're not that far from one another. Chile and Venezuela. It's that most countries, if you look at the policies they were embracing, you would have to come to the conclusion that they want to be Venezuela, not Chile. But more than that, Chile has now voted for socialist president twice. She is undoing all the things that made the country rich in an desperate effort to make Chile like Venezuela. But to me, this is madness. It's sad. Capitalism works. It was everywhere in stride. Everywhere in stride. You know, if somebody wants to ask me about Sweden, please do. Sweden is a great example of the success of capitalism. And socialism, statism, however you want to call it, government involvement, central planning, the attempt to control an economy always fails. Always. Whether it's on a micro-scale or on a macro-scale. It fails. So the question is why? Why do we need capitalism? Something about capitalism we obviously don't like. It's not about because of what creation we like. We like being rich. But there's something more powerful than economics. There's something more powerful than world creation that leads us to abandon the well in favor of the territorial plan. You know, we'll get there. We'll give it away. We'll build in here. What is capitalism about? What's the essential characteristic of any free market? Indeed, any market place. What's it about? What does the jobs build this for? Why does he make this? What? Yeah, but what does that mean? Why does he do it? To sell it, but why does he want to sell it? To make money. Good. This should be pretty simple. People call it a business to make money. That's not only about money. Money, by the way, for whom? For themselves and for the company. I mean, it's hard to say it. Why else does he make this? What else? This is... Yeah, and he loves this. He loves it. You know what I mean? He loves beautiful things. Love, unfortunately. But Steve Jobs and most businessmen don't just go to make money. They want to make money. But they also love what they do. It's a passion. They want to create beautiful things. They want to change the world in their image. So who does Steve Jobs make this for? That's the issue of making this. Well, customers are, but that's not what he wakes up every morning saying because he didn't ask me what I wanted. Luckily, because I would have never come up with this. No focus moves. Those of you studying marketing, Apple never does focus. They don't care what you want. They're going to teach you what you want. It's true. All great innovators. All great innovators. Teach us what we want. We don't know what we want. I didn't want a cell phone when they came up. You guys are too young to remember the days of the first cell phone. I don't want a cell phone. What do I need a cell phone for? I've got a phone in my home. I've got a phone in the office. What the hell? I need to be on my all the time. I resisted. I don't want a cell phone. But the producer produced it anyway. He was going to show me that I wanted a cell phone. And you know what? It didn't take that long. It didn't take that long before I had a cell phone. A cell phone, right? Because we don't know what we want. We have taught what we want by great innovators and great thinkers and great business people. They improve our standard of living and quality of life without us even knowing they've done it. Anyway, so Steve Jobs makes this for himself. Steve Jobs is interested in Steve Jobs. He wants to make a lot of money. And he wants to have fun doing it. That's his motivation. This is about Steve Jobs. And I'd like to tell the story of my first iPhone. Like 2008 came out in late 2007. And I went out and was going to buy it in early 2008. And at the time, the economy was declining. You know, we were rolling into the recession. And I went and bought my first iPhone because I wanted to help stimulate the US economy. I want to make sure people like that. Because I know that's why you guys go shopping. You want to help other people. Because he laughed it, yes. Nobody goes shopping for that reason. If you don't buy your shoes because you want the person in the shop to have a job. You don't buy anything because you care about the economy. I don't know anybody. Well, usually there's one if I ask you to move. One person raises their hand. Yes, I do. I don't need you shopping when it's socially optimal. No. Why do you go shopping? Why do you buy your iPhone? Because you want it. You want it because it'll make you productive. Because it'll be cool. Because it'll be fun. Whatever it is, it's about you. So what is the marketplace about? The marketplace is about people coming together to do what? To trade for the purpose of. The marketplace is about the pursuit of self-image. All parties entering, trying to make their lives better. I am better off buying an iPhone for $600. I guess I'm going to have to shell out a thousand soon. Because this is worth how much to me? I bought it for $600. How much is it worth to me? More than $600. No, more than $600. Good. More than $600. If it was $600, I would be different. I wouldn't care. But it's worth more to me than $600. That's why I'm going to give it up. I bet for $2. It's because the bet is worth more to you than the $2 you have in your pocket. That's what trade is. And how much is it worth to Apple? Less than $600. They're making a profit. I won. They won. That's the beauty of voluntary trade. It's win-win. My life is better off even though I'm poorer by $600. By the way, inequality has decreased. With my bank account, about $600 less, and Apple's got $600 more. Right? But why is that screwed? Because I got an iPhone. But the economists never measure the iPhone. They don't count that. They just look at my bank account. So inequality goes up. Even though my quality of life has gone up as well. The whole inequality stuff. I don't know if you follow Piketty, the whole French economist. All the numbers is all bogus. Because you're not measuring the stuff I'm buying. The value to me of the stuff I'm buying. All you're measuring is my win-win bank account. I don't care about money. I care about the stuff money can buy. So both bodies enter the transaction. Intending to make their life better. Now, sometimes you buy a lemon. Sometimes it turns out that what you bought is not as good as you thought it was. And you make mistakes. But the intention is the pursuit of your own self-interest. Markets about self-interest. People tell me it was green on Wall Street. Well, of course it was green on Wall Street. That's a job. That job is to make money. Off of money. Which, yeah, people perceive as green even. That's the entire thing we're just supposed to do. Right? If they didn't do that, they'd be fired. So the whole point of markets is the pursuit of self-interest. Yeah. What have we been taught about self-interest since we were this big? Dad, your mother teach you. Yeah. So do yourself and yourself. I know what my mother taught me. A good Jewish mother. Right? Always think about this first. Be self-less. Sacrifice. That's noble. That's good. That's virtuous. Selfishness. That's bad. So you want self-interest? That's no good. Now, all my mothers say that. None of them mean it. Because they all want us to be successful. If you're successful, you have to pursue your own self-interest. There's no other way to be successful. But they say it because that's what we're taught. And when we're this big, that's what they were taught when they're this big. By our preachers, by our rabbis, by our philosophers, everybody, everybody who talks about ethics and morality talks about the nobility of selflessness. The best thing in the world is to be self-less. You know, in basketball when they pass the ball, oh, he's so selfless. No, if he was really selfless, he passed the ball to the other team. That's real selflessness. We might watch the selflessness a little bit, right? He's selfish because he wants the women. He's passing it to the guy who could score. So we are taught that it's good to consist of sacrifice. Sacrifice, I mean by sacrifice. Self-sacrifice. Giving up something and getting one in return. That's a sacrifice. Otherwise, if I give more in return, what is it? More like trade. So we're taught that sacrifice is good, giving and not expecting anything in return. That's not. We market. Where do you give and not get anything in return? What political system is good with that? What if you're good with your church all the time? Yes, and this is why, this is partially why this other political system is so successful. What political system is consistent with the idea of sacrifice, of giving and not expecting anything in return? Socialism. To each, farm each according to disability. To each according to his need. So you get based on how much you need. Not based on what you want, not based on how much you produce. And you get your stuff taken away from you because somebody else needs it. Not because it's not an issue of your well-being. You don't point to the sacrifice. That's the essence. So we have a moral theory that said, sacrifice, selflessness is great. And I believe that's very consistent with socialism. I mean, another example of this is the whole idea of shared. We have Johnny in the sandbox. Johnny's in a sandbox. He wants his. Johnny's in a sandbox and Paul comes along and he wants to play with Johnny's trucks. What does the mother, father, doesn't matter immediately say? Johnny, you gotta share it. I mean, no adult would share his car with a stranger, but we expect that kids to share with some stranger who comes along. What? Supposed to be someone keeping your car to hell with private property when it's little kids because we project our moral idealism under a little kid. We don't live it because we're cynical, but we project it on our kids. Why not tell Johnny to trade? Think of all what Paul has. Maybe there's some mutually agreeable thing you can do. That would be a teaching moment. No, we immediately go to what's moral, what feels right, what feels good, which is the socialist movement. Sharing, socialism is very good with sharing other people's. Think about Bill Gates. Bill Gates and Microsoft became the richest man in the world. Seventy-something billion dollars of personal work. How did he do it? How did he become a billionaire? Good question. How did he become a billionaire? Think of vans with a politician. You know, we had personally, but the idea was stupid. It assumes a politician an idiot so they can easily take advantage of it. And it assumes there's no competition so the politician are not competed for, the employees are not competed for, and people can't pay them more to be more productive. If you think about the billionaires that are out there, how did they become billionaires? Really, Steve Jobs really took advantage of those software engineers because they're so stupid they didn't know what they were working for. They invented an industry. The railroad bear and stuff, they got it into the railroad. So they invented an industry, but what has to be true of the industry or the product or the market that you're inventing that would get you to be a billion? It's got to satisfy a need. It's got to satisfy a massive need. It's got to make millions and billions of people life better. So you've got to sell a lot of these to become a billion. That a lot of these are being sold, hundreds of millions of them. Every time somebody bought one of these, they're like, who's off a better one? Otherwise I wouldn't have bought it. The whole point of buying this is to make my life better. So the only way to become a billionaire is to make the world a better place. The only way to become a billionaire in a free market is to offer millions or billions of people a product that makes their lives better. Bill Gates changed the world. The world was different before he started Microsoft. It was poorer. It was less connected. He didn't have a computer on every desk. That was the dream Bill Gates had. A computer on every desk. Now today you take that for granted, because we all have computers several in often on every desk. But you know, when I was growing up, there weren't computers in-depth. There weren't computers, period. So massive computers and rooms. I think I was in the last class that actually programmed and assembled a bunch of computers. What other PCs? By bringing the PC revolution, he changed the world for the better. And not just us, not just the wealthy, if you will. But everybody pretty much on the planet has been touched in one way or another by Microsoft. The fact that we're so connected is a consequence of Microsoft. He made the world a better place by trillions of dollars, if you had to put a number on it. And he got 72 billion out of it. A tiny fraction of the total he created. How do we perceive him from all perspective while he was in Microsoft? Ethically, he's a good guy. We're going to build statues for him. We're going to name all the vets out there. Now, we dislike them. I mean, everybody's celebrated when the Justice Department left Microsoft. Yeah, I think that's fascinating. We resent his work. We resent how much he's made. We resent it so much and we inflicted so much guilt on him that he had to... How did he become a good guy? There's now a way of a deletion for me. Yeah, to leave Microsoft. God forbid you make money. And start a foundation. Because giving money away, that's cool. That's good. How you got it? Yeah, that's good. Instead of giving this to him. And he had to give it far away because he'd invested all his money in Seattle. People would have said, you're being selfish. You just want to make Seattle really good. No, he had to go all the way to Africa to give it away. How many people is he going to help? He helped some people. You know, big thousands, big tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. Far, far, far fewer people. Then he helped Microsoft. Microsoft is a magnitude. Microsoft changed the world. His philanthropy will make the world slightly better in some way. And yet, that is considered model, wonderful, beautiful. And it's working Microsoft. Yeah. You know, even now, you still have a little bit of his empathy for people. Why? He seems to be having a little bit too much fun with this. Very good. Have you ever seen a painting of a saint? Right? A saint, real saint. Then smiling. Having a good time. You know, saints are supposed to suffer. So if we want to make Bill Gates a saint, what would we have to do? He still lives in a big house. He still flies in a private jet. He's still having fun, whatever he's doing. What would we have to do to Bill Gates to get him to the saint? I haven't spoken to him. So I can't guarantee this. What do you think we would need to get Bill Gates a saint? I think he'd have to give it all away. Maybe move into a tent. And most importantly, he'd have to show us a little blood. Suffering. Suffering is virtue. Suffering is good. Having a good time. That's, you know, enjoying ourselves. Actually living a life that is challenging and exciting and fun and innovative and that's not a model. It might be, we all want to do that. But we don't consider them all. Morality is associated with us with sacrifice, between pain. Now to me, that's a morality that kills capitalism, that kills freedom, that kills free market. Free market is about individuals pursuing self-interest. And when we demonize self-interest, we demonize capitalism. You cannot build a capitalist society. You cannot build a free market on the foundation of a morality that says pursuing your self-interest is immoral. Build gates, building, creating the world that he did, and Microsoft, that's immoral. What's moral is giving it away. That's socialism there. Cannot beat that. So what do you do? Because how have we, how have we historically perceived self-interest? What is self-interest we need? When we call somebody in the school yard, that kid's self-interest. What did we need? Exactly pursuing a better life for himself. Not what we meant, right? What do we need when we call the kid's self-interest? Exploding something. He's a lying, cheating, stealing, SOV. That's what we meant. Self-interest is not a neutral term. It's a clearly negative, bad term. It's about exploiting people. The Poletarian, for example, right? Bound exploitation. It's about taking advantage of people. It's about lying and stealing and cheating. That's the perception we have. So we have this choice in morality, right? That we have a 2,000 year. You can be good, which means self-less and sacrifice. And think of others first. And indeed, if you read other comments, sorry, Augustine Combs, the French philosopher, who tells you when you're doing something for somebody else, if you think, oh, I'm going to feel good because I'm helping somebody, that's out. That's not moral anymore. You have to completely devote yourself to other people. You can't think of others. That's morality. That's coaching. That's good. And then the alternative is lying, stealing, cheating, some of it. Right? That's not a good alternative. So everybody wants to be good, but none of us actually want to live that life. Right? We all admire Mother Teresa. Nobody actually wants to be Mother Teresa. So what happens when you pursue a particular life, pursue a particular course of life as most people do in America today, which is mostly kind of self-interested. We go and try to make a lot of money for ourselves. We pursue a career that makes us happy. What happens then? We pursue that life. But do you know Mother Teresa had it going? What's the emotion that you get when you split yourself up like that? Up with the chief. Right? Guilt. And we learn a culture that you all own. And politicians are phenomenally good at using guilt to get you to do things that are not in yourself. Amazing. And that's how we are. The system that we have. Because we want to learn that self-interested life. So we have let the government control and regulate the tax and we distribute all of our wealth. Because we don't want to be those people, those selfish people. So we live that. And then when we vote, we vote to kind of force the government to help us out. We're more charitable than that. We don't give enough to charity. It's okay, take 50% of my income. That's competition on the fact that I'm not charitable. So I don't buy, I ran and didn't buy this split, the supposed alternative that we have. Because she says this is the third option. It's not sacrifice. It's not being an SOE. It's living your life, we will say, rationally. It's sort of your values. Without life stealing cheating. Because it turns out that life stealing cheating are not in your self-interested. Ask me about that in the Q&A. It's about living the best life you can live for you. Because she has a small question about the morality of selflessness. Why should I live with other people? Why is other people more like more important than my life? Why is there happiness more important than my life? Because some ancient books said so. Because some philosophers particularly go, why? What's the reason that other people who are being is more important than my well-being? Why should I sacrifice for others? There's no answer to the why. Other than I told, you know, I said so. Somebody said so. Does she pause as an alternative? And the alternative is to live for you. If you live for you, what's the most important value you should pursue? What's the most important thing that a human being should live for if he's living for himself? What is the thing that makes us human? You don't say fun. What is the thing that allows us to have every important value in our life? We need every value in our life that's possible. And it's a consequence of one that we have as human beings. Autonomy to do what? I know lots of people with autonomy that squabble their lives completely. And autonomy doesn't, you know, build computers. Autonomy to increase their clothes from that one. Where did the clothes come from? Anybody know how to make clothes? I know. I mean, so skinny an animal, they're drawing the elves and actually taking the cotton and weaving it or whatever they do with it, I have no clue. How do we figure out, nobody knows. Nobody knew, right? None of us know, somebody out there knows. But somebody had to, how do they figure it out? Figure it out, and then think about it. Some genius discovered it. Einstein's day, Republicans went to the state as a consequence of what we used to do with our people. Somebody had to figure out that if you skin an animal and you write a felt in a particular way and if you cut it up in a particular way you can use it for clothing. You can shield yourself in the cold of winter. It's not in Africa, but anyway. Very early on in human history, from the beginning there's only one way in which we as human beings can survive. We don't know how to do agriculture. Nobody here has a gene for agriculture. We don't know inherently that a seed dropped down and if you water it, a plant rises up. How did we know that? Somebody figured it out. Every human achievement, every human discovery, every value that you really have is a product of human reason. It's a product of human thinking. It's observing reality, integrating reality, figuring stuff out. So if you really care about yourself, if you're really going to be selfish, what's the most important thing you should care about? What's your greatest asset? What's your mind? What's your reasoning capability? So if I ran the number one value in a moral code of selfishness, it's reason. It's thinking. And you can boil down, I ran morality basically to one word. Think, think, think. Try using your mind to figure out how to live the best life that you can live. How to live the most productive life that you can live. How to attain the most values that you should attain for your life. How to live. It's not easy to live. It's a challenge to live. I tell people, you want to be selfish? It's hard work. Selfishness is not about pursuing your emotions. Emotions get you into trouble every time. Emotions are products of thinking, the products of conclusions you've already come to. They're not tools of cognition. They don't tell you about the world out there. They might tell you about your own psychological state. They don't tell you about what's out there. Only one way to figure out what's out there and that's to use your senses and your mind. So if I ran to be an egoist, to be selfish, to be self-interested, means observing, thinking, producing, creating the independence, the post-autonomy, the independent thinker, you can't rely on other people. This is your tool of survival. You don't want to give it up. Now, what kind of world do people who want to rely on their own reason, want to rely on their own mind believe in themselves, who have self-esteem, have self-confidence, what kind of world do people like that want to live in? A world in which they're told what to do, how to do it, what's their own authority? A world in which they want to live their life as they see fit. They want to be able to choose the values that they believe in. They want to be able to pursue their own happiness their way. Without authority, without mother government sitting on their shoulder telling them how much sugar they can consume today, they want to decide these things for themselves. Capitalism doesn't mean you won't bring mistakes, you're pursuing mistakes. The beauty of freedom is when you make a mistake, you're free to learn from that mistake and make sure you don't make it again. So, in my view, freedom rests. Capitalism rests. On a morality of self-esteem. And unless we can defend the morality of self-esteem. Unless we can defend the morality of self-esteem we will never have capitalism. We will continue to lose the battle for capitalism if we are losing without it. So the revolution that has to happen is not a political revolution, it's not an economic revolution. In many respects it's a much, much harder revolution. It's a moral revolution. It's the negation of the morality the morality of altruism, the morality of otherism, the morality of living for others. And embracing a true morality of self-esteem. A morality of rational self-esteem. A living life, living the best life that you can live. And the only economic system, the only political system consistent with such a life is capitalism. Thank you. Okay, the first person to ask a question can get to me. You get to choose a book if you want one. And it will do that as long as it books. I just had a question about the name. I believe it was the, it was a French saint. You made a quote about selfishness. It's not a saint, he was a philosopher. French philosopher in the 19th century who claimed that morality was, he coined the term altruism. He coined that term. And that term meant if you cannot think about what's good for you in a moral action, a moral action has to be completely selfish. That was, that sort of thing. Hi, you mentioned the case of Venezuela. I'm from Bolivia. And the same thing is happening in my country. I'm a Humphrey fellow here at the university. I've already worked a few years and I worked for an organization that writes and sort of calls out and all the abuses that the government is making. And it's certainly a sad situation. It's a story that keeps on repeating itself and Latin Americans is evident as it's anywhere. So more than having a specific question, I just wanted to sort of put a case there and sort of say I completely agree with everything I heard today. I mean, it's dying to me, the place like Bolivia, rich in natural resources, rich in many respects, right? Just like Venezuela. Oh, even Ecuador and Peru have the model of Chile right there. So what creates wealth? And they don't adopt it. Instead, they keep passing laws and make them look more and more and more like Venezuela. And to me, that's my problem. But they do it always in the name of what? In the name of the poor, in the name of the indigenous people, in the name of, you know, it's always you've got to sacrifice a lot of money. And of course, the leader always keeps accumulating power as well in the process. You know, leaders have a huge incentive to tell you you shouldn't live for yourself. They have a huge incentive to tell you to live for them, which means to the people. In a capitalist society that was taxless, would voting be a right? Or is this something that you could charge a fee for to generate revenue from military police forces? All right. I mean, I think, I don't think, I don't think voting is an important right. I think it's a specific year. So yes, I think you could say if you want to participate in voting, you have to pay taxes. So taxes are voluntary. But if you want to participate in the organization of government, you have to pay taxes. So I do believe that would be a vote. A Hong Kong example I gave, they never had to vote. They were ruled in a sense by a devil that jumped out from the UK. You happen to be a theme opera guy while the UK was socialist. It was kind of an interesting situation. So yeah, I think voting generally is overrated, and I think the best example of that was the last election. If you think it's worth dying in the battle page to have the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, I think it's worth dying in the battle page to have the choice. I just agree with you pretty strongly in terms of what the founding of America meant, and I think that is important consequences for people like myself who are African-American. So for me, you mentioned that the flaw of America was slavery. But for me, and I think in terms of America's economic history, and it wasn't just a flaw, it was the main route that we took. I mean, the economy of the 19th century was largely based on slavery. Right before the Civil War, I think the value of slaves were more valuable than any other asset in the country combined. I mean, it was just a very substantial amount. Can I answer that? Yeah. And that has transgenerational effects, right? So for instance, my grandparents were both sharecroppers. They were robbed of liberty. My dad was born in a really racist city. So he didn't have the best education, and that leads down to me and for millions of other people in America. So what would I and Rand are objective, as in what you say, to people since liberty was robbed at the beginning, and that has transgenerational effects? So I'd say a few things. First, I disagree completely with your economic history, because that's simply not true. I know the economists who play this game, but look, and I don't think this is, the problem with slavery is not what I'm going to say now, but slavery is incredibly inefficient. Slavery is not good economics. Slavery is awful economics. And this is why the North won. The North won because the North was much richer than the South, much richer than the South, because it didn't have slaves. So it had to produce. It had to actually have trade relationship, win-win trade relationship. The North was industrial. The South was agrarian and the North was a negative economic impact. If you actually think of it from a purely economic perspective, slavery is a disaster. They're not very conductive. I mean, again, this is not my main argument against slavery. Slavery is evil because it treats human beings as property. That's evil in and of itself. But economically, it's stupid. It's just not good economics. If you want to create wealth, but that doesn't change the question in a sense, right? Because the fact is you started because of slavery and because of Jim Crow laws and because of racism, it wasn't damaged in this country certainly through the 1960s and arguably to some extent today as it damaged, as an endemic phenomenon. You started lower down. You started lower down. I think all that's true. Now it's fair, right? But it is what it is. So it is what it is. And that's the reality. So my ancestors, I don't have to go very many generations back to my grandparents. All their siblings were murdered in Germany. Every single one of them was insurmountable. My grandparents were lucky because they happened to have emigrated out of that area of Europe just before the war. And if I go back 2,000 years my people were enslaved by the Egyptians supposedly based on life, right? Where do we end this, right? What I want is so I don't feel guilty I don't feel like I share any guilt in the fact that you historically your ancestors were screwed. They were. But why did they do it? So in a sense, yeah, we're born different. We're born with different advantages. We're born with different genes. We're born with different situations. We're born with different histories. You know, live with that. That's the way the world is. Now the question is, what's the optimal way to create a society by which now, from this starting point where we're all in different places where we can maximize freedom and we can maximize our own worldview. And I claim that the best society for that is freedom. And I think you might be suffering because of this issue. It doesn't give you a claim against me. So why are you going to penalize me for that? I'm saying let's have freedom. Let's have as much opportunity as possible. I don't believe it's a good opportunity that's a mythology. It doesn't exist. Let's have maximum opportunity. Let's create as many opportunities so that you can rise as high as you can. And maybe it's limited because of this issue. Let's have this go reality. I can't change this. You can't change this. What we have to do is live with the world as it is today. And my view is the best thing we can do in the world today is maximize freedom. And I am a big fan of Martin Luther King in this respect. I believe that the solution to the problem of racism, particularly in derrick racism, is colorblindness. It's not a positive interpretation of Martin Luther King. Let me live with that positive. I believe in colorblindness. So, you know, I would like to live in a society where it doesn't matter if I'm Jewish and you're black and they're white and they're green and they're yellow. What matters is your individual character. Whether you're a good guy or a bad guy or productive or not productive. And that's the only basis for society to live. And to get there you don't get there by robust discrimination. You don't get there with affirmative action. You don't get there by based on racial code and so on. It's actually racist. So, all of those things institutionalize the racism instead of getting rid of it. I'll ask the Sweden question. Sweden is praised as the ideal welfare state of the social estate. But how is it then as economically successful as it has been? All right. So, here's the story of Sweden that you've never heard of. Before 1870 Sweden was the poorest country in Europe on a pro-capita basis. What was country Europe? They were farmers. They had nothing. And in 1870 they instituted basically basically capitalist policies. And between 1870 and about 1960 Sweden was the freest economy in Europe. It was more capitalist than any country in all of Europe. And they created so many scooters of what? A lot of what? They were the richest by post-World War II and it's tricky always to evaluate these world wars. A lot of countries crushed Sweden because it was semi-neutral. So pre-World War II they were the richest country in Europe and post-World War II they were certainly the richest country in Europe on a pro-capita basis. They had, I think it was something like five or six of the biggest industries in Europe. And in 1968 it started to become social. It took all their wealth that they created. And they started redistributing. And it was a lot of wealth. So it lasted a long time. But by 1979 less than 20 years after they turned to socialism anybody know what the biggest industry in Sweden was? The biggest money maker in Sweden? No, that's Norway. Norway is not a good example because Norway has the oil so it can dish out checks to its people. What was the biggest industry in Sweden in 1979? No. No, no, no. Yeah. I don't think Ikea started them. I was wearing my underwear. No, she said something. You know, you guys might be too young for this, but it was above. Remember above? The rock group? They were the biggest industry. All they did was shut down. Nobody wanted to be in Sweden anymore. They were being Swedish. They were regulated. The second biggest producer in Sweden because of money was Johan Borg. And he left Sweden like a lesson book, a monocle or something to avoid the tax. By 1994, Sweden was Greece of today. It was basically bankrupt. It could not pay its debts. And the government started from 1994 until today. You can go see this. They started cutting government spending, cutting taxes, cutting regulation. To the extent that Sweden is a success story, it's because it's been cutting the world of government. It's been shrinking the world of government. It's been moving away from its socialist classes. Because socialism leads to starvation everywhere it's tried even Scandinavia. The only reason the Scandinavian countries are not starving is because they're not socialists. So Bernie Sanders can use that as a model. But it's not socialism when he's modeling. It's a mixed economy. Just like we're a mixed economy in America. There's some freedom and some state involvement. In Sweden they have a different mixture. Their mixture is they redistribute more well. They regulate industry less. In America we redistribute less well but we regulate industry more. What's better? I don't know. From a freedom perspective, they're both suboptimal. Really, really bad. Really. Sweden was much better off in the system they had from 1870 to 1960 today. And if they really were socialist they'd be really, really, really big trouble. So it's not a socialist country anymore than America's socialist country. And when it was more of a socialist country. Hi. I'm from Sweden. I live in West Africa. One thing that characterizes our leaders is that they're extremely selfish. So can we say these guys are capitalist because everything they think about is to amass way for themselves. And I think that cuts across almost everybody of Africa. And it's clear that the people we govern are suffering very, very much. That's a great question. Because I think one of the things that we be taught is that people who lie steal and cheat and exploit and steal and steal and steal and steal. Is that what they do? You see, I don't consider them selfish. Because to me being selfish means being rational, being thoughtful, being productive. These people are not productive. They're just crooks. Being productive, being honest, having integrity, that to me is being selfish. Now I don't have an easy word to describe these people other than they're crooks. Other than they are selfish. In my view, they're ultimately self-destructive. Because that kind of behavior in spite of the wealth, in spite of how shining the collar is, I don't know how many of you have no politician. Have you ever seen a happy politician? I mean, a truly fulfilled you know, you have? Juan Pablo. I'm not even sure about Juan, but you know, really explosive as a human being. Somebody who really plays that exact living and fear, like these dictators live, who's not living with guards all around them, who's not afraid that their secret police will kill them, like they killed Stalin, who's not afraid they're going to lose the war, like Hitler, you know, all the psychological problems that come with lying and stealing and cheating. So to me, that kind of behavior is self-destructive behavior. What I'm advocating for is not that kind of... You see, we have talked that selfish people want lots of money. Money's not the standard of life. Money's not the standard of good. I mean, I love money, right? But I don't measure how successful somebody is in life by how much money he needs. I measure it by how he got the money and what he does and how he lives, right? Whether he is flourishing, whether he's happy. It's not about power. These are false gods. Power, money, and it's interesting because whenever I'm in a debate with a socialist or somebody from the left, they bring up money. They want to talk just about money because they're pure materials. I've got a PhD in finance. I could have gone to Wall Street to work in Wall Street and made a lot of money, but you know what? I love this. I love millions of dollars, too. That's what I gave up to do this. I gave up millions of dollars because this is fun. This is fulfilling. This is passion. This is exciting. I don't want to sit at a desk and trade, you know, or do whatever they do, you know, all this stuff. And I love Wall Street, right? My book is the Marquis Point. I think finance is terrific, right? But that's not me. Because it's not about money. So if you love finance, go through finance and make lots of money. Cool. I'm all for that. So these people are not being selfish. Not by having your hands getting in. They are evil. So, you know what? If you read Atlas Swag, there's an oath that the heroes swear in Atlas Swag, right? I swear, in a sense, that I will not live for others. But neither will I ask other people to live for me. Neither will I ask other people to live for me. So the idea is to be an independent human being to live for oneself, without sacrificing to others without asking them to sacrifice. That's what I meant for what I was saying. And that's what people have to have to have. So what you need in Africa, what you need in the whole world, is a proper conception of self-pity and get rid of the conception of sacrifice and what's good for that people. Because what's good for that people is to leave them alone. Protect their rights. Leave them alone. Try to decide what's good for any group on any side. Well, some leader has to challenge. And then you get into those kind of problems. Thank you. Thank you again so much for coming and actually partying out. It's really important in my opinion to get as many speakers as we can to big universities like MSU. Anyway, I was really curious, because honestly I can't say I'm really curious what economic policy is best for the United States and for the world. And so a huge issue that's come up on the eventual optimization of hundreds of industries. It's already happening in cars with robotics, but as we get smarter and smarter programs in AI they estimate that many more millions of jobs will be lost. And the big worry is that we're going to switch over into a system of universal basic income where the government gives out a living wage to residents taking from the riches that benefit of these bottom-end issues. Or that, beyond this, we don't let this happen, then we get super slums. And we have a huge class of people that are now suffering because of this. I was curious how you think, what you're thinking on this and what you think will happen. I find this issue, I guess, entertaining for the following reason. Not that I've been around that long, but I've heard that same argument for the last 220 years. When the steam engine came about all the jobs were going to be lost because of the steam engine. When the trains came around all those drivers of horses and carriages are going to lose their jobs. And they did. Millions and millions and millions of jobs have been destroyed over the last 200 years. And yet, more people work today on the planet. Not a subsistence farmer could work in productive activity. Then ever, in human history, how is that possible? We've got all these machines going on this work. We've got computers. I mean, my Marxist uncle, I've got a couple of them. My Marxist uncle told me in the early 1980s that there's no jobs. In 10 years, nobody's going to have a job because of computers. We're going to take all the jobs. Every new decade, you get exactly the same story. And my answer to that is human needs are human needs are I can't imagine what I'm going to need in 20 years. Just like I couldn't imagine that I would need this isn't a luxury anymore. This is a need. Human needs are and the richer we get which is what's happened and what would happen if we got robots because they didn't open up. The richer we get the richer the scope of our needs the harder it is for us to imagine what those would be. There will always be jobs. Now maybe we'll work fewer hours. Maybe we'll have more time for vacations. I'll give you a few examples about the last hundred years. How many people do you think worked in the hospitality industry? Hospitality means hotels and restaurants and things like that. Almost nobody. There was no vacation a hundred years ago. You worked hard and you worked more than 40 hours a week just to feed yourself and sustain and try to rise up and be like but you didn't go on vacations. Vacation is a modern concept. Today I don't know how many millions of people are helping. Every country in the world has these resorts and hotels and really cheap ones and really seven-star luxurious ones and you know there's a profession that ten years ago I wouldn't imagine existed. It's called celebrity chefs. They are chefs who make a lot of money. Chefs, right? And then there's a whole industry around the celebrity chefs. They're all the Armenian chefs and all the restaurants. None of that existed. I'll give you one other example. In California, California, every single strip mall has a nail solo. I mean everywhere there are hundreds hundreds of nail solo. Pedicure is a manicure. About 20-30 years ago nobody thought they needed a manicure. Today everybody has a pedicure. I mean men have it women have it. It's everyone. So that's a need for example that I still haven't adopted. But it's a need that people have adopted to get their nails done. And there are thousands tens of hundreds of thousands mostly Asian women. Who works at these places? I don't know what the nail salon of the equivalent of that is going to be 100 years from now. And I think it's contentious of a long mask and everybody else to try to project that in the future. But this I can tell you. If we have universal basic needs, what does that mean? It's a big part of our self esteem. The major part of our self esteem comes from that. People who don't work for a living have a hard time having a self. Any self esteem. I'm talking about working in general sense. You can raise your kids. That's real work. So unless you have a challenge unless you have a productive challenge you cannot be happy. You cannot have self esteem which is a requirement to happen. This is my biggest claim against self esteem. When you start handing people check and saying you'll never get a job anyway. And when you start raising the minimum wage so the young teenage in the inner cities are never going to get jobs you're destroying their lives spiritually in ways that you cannot imagine. I think the biggest problem we have today in American society is the self esteem. It's taken a whole group of people and that's another. And basically told them you're worthless you need the state to keep your life. That's incredibly disturbing. And that's what the minimum basic income would do to even larger groups. They want to do it for everybody. And this is incentivized people who are working completely. So I think it's very arrogant of Silicon Valley to claim that they know how many jobs there will be in the future. There's a lot of people working today. 200 years ago there wasn't even a billion people on the planet. And today there's like 6-7 billion people working for that project. It's pretty amazing. And do I think there will be plenty of jobs in the future? Absolutely. Can I tell you what those jobs are? I mean, one of the most lucrative jobs today is gaming. I want the futures who predicted that to linear. That's part of the view, you know? Because you can't predict where the next beat is going to be. Not only do I think they're going to be jobs. I think we're going to live if we're allowed to, right? We're going to live much longer. We're going to live much healthier. There's no reason that human beings can't live beyond the 20s, 30s, or longer than that. There are going to be a lot of people who are going to have to work past 65 because who the hell wants to retire? The diamond sounds. Yeah. Yeah, that's some activity in life. You can't just sit around and talk. There you go. I'm just curious how an objectivist regards the principles expressed within Andrew Carnegie's gospel of love? I mean, I think mixed, right? So for Carnegie charity is way too much of a duty. I consider it a duty. I consider charity an option. An option that you only do when it's consistent with your values. You only do when you have enough money after you've taken care of yourself and the people you love. And you only do around issues that are important to you. Carnegie did that, to a large extent, right? He opened libraries. He really focused his efforts on areas, but I don't think that's, you see, for Carnegie you buy yourself into heaven, right? I've lived this selfish life all my life. I've made all this money. Now I need to get into heaven, so I'll give it away. He's doing what go-gates is doing right now. That to me is a trap, right? You buy yourself into heaven by living a great life. And then if you want part of living a great life, it's a charitable activity, fine. But that's not what buys you into heaven. That's not what makes you a good person. What makes you a good person is taking care of yourself. Okay. So, though I would argue that this is more morality of egoism than it is of capitalism, this lecture. I just have one historical... I think the only morality of capitalism is egoism, so it's the same thing. So I just have one question. Historically, libertarians or capitalist nations, you know, less government, more, you know, more freedom are crushed by a collective like either corporate on the right, corporations, you know, honest collective in the left. How did we fight that? Because I can't think of any historical example in which, you know, the perseverance of something, because even in the colonial example, you know, you have the collective of the United States crushing small, you know... That's exactly the point. It's the only way to preserve a free morality is to change the moral code that people live in. That as long as people live by altruism is their moral code. It's not that they actually live it. As long as that's the ideal, the three of them always will go to society. Always will go to society. In one way or another, every status in the world always preaches what? Even the dictators in Africa always preach what? The common group, the publication. Yeah, we have to sacrifice you guys because those guys need it. When we stand up and say, we don't believe it exactly, the fact that I make money doesn't give you a right to it. You don't get my stuff. My stuff isn't mine. Until we stand up ourselves as individuals in an egoistic way, we will not win. I think that was the one group that needs to do that of a businessman. Instead, business is a coward. They apologize for their wealth. They appease. But when a businessman finally, as they do in apple shop, right in the center, stand up and say, I want to buy stuff. In Microsoft, Microsoft told Congress in 1998. Oh, I think it was. They were bought in front of Congress. Microsoft did zero lobby. Zero dollars spent in Washington. Literally zero. They had no presence in Washington, D.C. They were bought in front of the Senate. And I'm going to hatch. I'm still a senator from Utah. You guys have to give money to Washington. You've got to build a building here. You've got to invest in Washington. You can't leave us alone. And Microsoft walked out of the meeting. They said, look, you leave us alone. We leave you alone. We're not interested in lobby. And they refused to lobby. They refused to pay any. Guess what happened? No, they didn't care. What happened? Yeah, the government came after them. Well, first they came because you're going to pull a gun on me. But the sequence was, we want to be free. Okay. I'm putting a gun at you. Okay, we'll pay you. So it's a background. What politicians do is background. When we get a point where we have enough business, we're not just one company, enough business, we say, we're not good. We're not playing this game. Enough setup. And pride in their own achievement, and pride in their own will. Then you have a shot there until then. But it's from all code. So long as you have that one code, it's hard to change people from all. The thing we keep asking ourselves is why? Why does socialism win when there's a competition and we have a choice to make we choose socialism? And I'm thinking that it's because we are taught that by the institutions that we attend since we're six, five, six years old. In other words, the educational system being run and organized by the government that is benefiting from that thinking. Yes, but socialism is good and capitalism is bad. What we're taught is sharing sacrifice, self-listening. And my argument is that those ideas, that morality about food needs necessarily to socialism. And that's why nobody opposes the education. Because, you know, that's what religion believes in. I suppose taught. So who's different? We can't actually stand up to self-righteousness. So would privatizing be the answer? Absolutely. I mean, look, there's no question that the best thing you could do in an economic part of the day. But it's not enough. The battle is philosophical. I have a question regarding the 2008 financial crisis. Do you think federal reserves should have failed out the big banks? And what do you think the central bank's role should be moving forward? I think the central bank's role moving forward is to eliminate it. So I'm going to do this one. The central bank is a short, good entity. It is the ultimate in central planning. It can never work. It never gets it right. It's the central plan. And we understand that it's wrong to central carry. I ask our audiences all the time, what do you think this would look like if the government designed it? Everybody laughs. But you know what? We let the government design things more important than this. Which is interest rates. To supply money. Much more important than this. But we let them do it. And how do they do it? How does this get designed? Based on supply and demand, in the financial world, there we have a monopoly. Which is a government monopoly. And it runs about as well as the post office. It sucks. You'd rather use FedEx or UPS, but when it comes to money, the government has them. So the only role of the Federal Reserve is this. The 2008 financial crisis is a complex issue. And no, I don't think the Federal Reserve should bail anybody out. And I think that they hadn't bailed out until March of 2008. And I think the whole crisis would have been pulled differently and much better. But I think they started bailing them out in March and they couldn't stop that money. And at the end, it wasn't the Fed that bailed everybody out. It was Paul, which is Congress and the President. Bush, you have to ban capitalism in order to save it. It was his famous quote. Yeah, I mean, all of that is incredibly corrupt and incredibly bad. And I think that they held responsibility because they got interest rates way too low for two and a half years. We call it the bubble, which then they quit by raising interest rates too fast. So the whole combination, they stimulated the crisis. After that, the whole housing regulatory, I've got a six-hour course for financial crisis. So this is just me doing a really good job. But at the end of the day, the financial crisis was government created. It's online. So do you run for financial crisis course? Forgive me if this question seems any or if you've already perhaps put some sort of answer to it, but I wonder if it could be more specific. So everyone based on just general reality and based on everything that you've posited thus far, everyone is not pursuing life rationally. So how can we promote life rationally? And is there a way for and this is just one example, which is a very complex example, but intervention in, for example, the education system, government intervention in the education system to promote a greater capacity for human understanding of their own reality and of course, your morality. Yeah, so I agree with you that people are not rational, they're not pursuing their rational self-righteousness. But I think the government cannot fix that. It's the wrong institution to what is the essence of government? An globalization of what? Of course, of a gun. The essence of government is a gun. Good watch, I said that. The essence of government is a gun. Now, when is it going to open? It's up to you. So the only job of government is self-defense. In a sense, our self-defense protect us, we're not an ounce. So, I believe that there is a role for government and that is self-defense because it's a gun. And the only place where you use a gun is somewhere. There's no gun in education. There's no gun in healthcare. There's no gun in finance. All a gun can do is destroy it. Education is a voluntary activity. Health care is a voluntary activity. What you need there is freedom. So if you want to encourage rationality in education, unleash them on it. Privatize it all. I'm not from vouchers or tax credit. I'm from selling the schools. All of them. You're worried about poor kids not getting an education? Anybody here willing to contribute to fun for poor kids to get an education? Every audience in the world, everybody really stands. Great. We'll fund poor kids' education in private schools. And you'll get competition. You'll get innovation. Instead of the next entrepreneur thinking about how to create Angry Birds 3, we'll get entrepreneurs thinking about how to create great next, great educational innovation that can speed up the ability to learn to come more out. I don't think we can go from where we are today. We need to underestimate targetization of education and at that, and I include the eight state but more importantly than that, is primary and high school. State has no business. That's what it is. Run by teachers and which are parents and students. to serve a customer and the customer is the kid or the parents and you have to satisfy the customer which means you have to educate and now you compete steam jobs in a wonderful little video from like 1985 or 6 before you went back to Apple where he talks about how come we have marketing for everything right we have marketing which Coca-Cola versus Pepsi you know and all these stupid things but we don't have marketing about this school is better than that school why don't we have marketing when I'm proud of my school and I'm trying to sell you and coming to my school because I serve such a great educational product so if we privatize they do get competition competition is great it's great iPhones why wouldn't it be great for something much more important than iPhones like education so that's what you want you want part of it um regarding like the the flawed morality of um altruism and uh such you discussed um why is it that when an individual accumulates wealth it's considered greed but when uh individuals in society demand the government to take money from those individuals that are making their wealth why is that not greed I well because in that world because when you accumulate greed for yourself you're being selfish which is defined as bad there's there's no philosophy out there other than I man an avastar and he can pay between those in the middle no philosophy out there and think that selfish is a good thing they all think it's bad so when you accumulate wealth for yourself that's bad because it's selfish but when I take your wealth and give it spend it over there I'm doing it in what in what in the name of what in the name of public interest and then the common good in the name of altruism I'm helping people who don't have as much as you do and you should have given them anyway right you should have given it from your own free will but you didn't so when I asked you to raise your taxes what are you going to do okay I feel guilty I'll vote for you would we do all the time we vote for you thank you so much once again for coming out and talking to us today um I know it's kind of dangerous especially uh in economics to project too far out but uh kind of a two-part question here first do you see the EU as moral and then secondly do you find that the european union economically is in for quite a show they see the EU as moral not in its current construction I see the original project of the EU as a positive product because the original project was the idea that within Europe there would be free movement of capital goods and labor and I think that's a good thing just like in the United States we don't have we don't have different states with barriers we allow the free movement of capital labor and goods across the states and I think that as a project for Europe was a good thing where they went wrong was when they started to regulate started to impose all these controls and started to impose kind of socialist agenda on the european union so if it was just a treaty that said open borders for the paper capital and goods then I would be all for it and I would be against the Brexit under those and it's not it's much more of this top down centralized plan what I think the future is as you said economic projection is very difficult I mean who who would have believed Greece would still be around right we thought it was going to sink into the ocean it's gone it was finished the euro was dead remember all the economists saying the euro was dead and the world economy right now isn't decent shape because it's so ugly enough right and Europe is doing okay I travel in Europe a lot I speak in Europe a lot and you know you people are pretty wealthy and they do pretty good likes and they're using despite of all the socialism I don't think it can last but how long it takes what is the sequence of events I don't know I'll tell you this in about 10 to 15 years Germany becomes very old just demographic I mean put aside the intervals Germans become very old and they've been promised very lush retirement plans so there are a lot of pensions and it's not clear to me the way the money is going to come from now one of the reasons that for immigration one of the reasons Merkel wants all these immigrants is because they need a young workforce to pay taxes to pay for the benefits of old people when they retire over the next day have a baby boom generation just like we do and they started retiring around now and they go for the next 23 years I think that's when you get you might get a break before you Germany the heart of Europe in so many bad ways right the heart of Europe I'm somewhat infected but mainly because they're philosophers so we I mean can't he go you know Marx Schopenhauer me chair I mean really I mean that's quite a tradition but I think that's where you might get the break you know because and if they bring in a new population that actually works that actually produces you know the other issue is Islam and to what extent that becomes a conflict and how big of a conflict and you know there's real in in in Europe there's real angst about Europe becoming Muslim about that Islam taking over Europe this is a conflict if you can see more terrorist attacks against more you know conflict between European culture and Islamic culture how that all plays out is a question and so I just read a book called submission and the story of submission is basically how Europe in this case France basically submits these law and Europe and France becomes Muslim that's one theory of where Europe is headed another theory which I is quite to is is that if the terrorism continues and if the right of Islam continues then one day sorry but the Germans will wake up and then we concentrate encapsulate this time it won't be Jews although they'll throw them into the measure but but we're not that far from bastard to the view of we're not that far from that attitude in Europe you're seeing these great wing semi almost fascist political entities in Europe rising up and being more successful in in France you know really depends on the way out there but she's out there and she got a significant number of votes they just had an election in Austria thank you um with a with a far right got something like 20 20 something percent of the vote uh and the sender right got 30 percent so you know it's hard to say how it's all gonna play out but if you project 20 years out it doesn't look that I would be right I've done I've done a bunch of by the way you should always in my podcast I've done a bunch of podcasts on Europe because I I spent a lot of time in Europe I travel there because I speak I do a lot of speaking there particularly Eastern Europe which is interesting so I go to places like Ukraine Georgia and Poland and Bulgaria and that you know there's a lot of passion for liberty in those places versus Western Europe where there's very little passion or even the United States of America where there's very little passion there's much more passion for Bernie Sanders than there's so there's been a large discussion about the philosophical view of where we should be um but the larger point that uh so many philosophers and this is half my major is how it's actually applied um so how do you see this transition or this actual implementation of this moral this moral code that you were talking about into so the United States how is that transition from the erotical to the reality education education education is getting you guys to read out shrub big work right but educating yourself about these ideas you're not going to transition to those ideas without being familiar with them so it has to be that they're taught in philosophy department which they're not it has to be that if they're not taught in philosophy department you meet them somewhere else it's me going out and exposing you to them and hoping you meet some books or the book yourself is just by a man which is a smaller book and more you know a nonfiction it's not fiction you've got to study you got to learn you've got to educate and then when you get it get in if you embrace these ideas you've got to let other people know about it is no shortcuts so how does any philosophy come to dominance within a couple education education teaching there's just no other way so it's me doing this a million times over and then you I'm a bit but this is the beginning right you guys have to do the work if you if you want to in terms of reading and educating yourself and unfortunately it's not taught in philosophy department so I can't count them except for a few cases but Austin Texas we're talking about one more question so I know you kind of talk down this a little bit but um it seems like everyone thinks a lot of people think that their self-interest is getting the government to give them more um so how do we kind of fix that make it so everyone's self-interest is trying to get themselves to you know it's the same answer as I gave just a minute ago you've got to educate right so getting stuff from the government does not give you self-esteem does not add to your flourishing it gives you money but it's not about money but it's about more than that it's about living it's about living a fulfilling flourishing old life and until we start talking I mean one of the problems I think with P. Morgan and with libertarians is we don't like to talk about stuff like we do economics we're really good at economics and we want the economy today I mean there's no great economist because we've been using it in the history of right I mean freedom is the best communicator of economic ideas but but but the economists and with all due respect economists economics is not that important the world does not change based on you cannot you cannot do the world is changed by philosophy and unless we talk teaching people what it means to live a good life this is Aristotle's project Aristotle's project is the whole idea of ethics was how do we how do we uh figure out what values and books lead to eudaumonia which is flourishing or happiness so right and and then teach that and that's I'm in history right but we need more people to do this and you can disagree right but let's set the standard as human flourishing individual human flourishing and let's have a debate about which values and butchers lead to human flourishing there will be a huge advancement and then it turns out that being a mooch and a thief by getting government to do your stuff for is not good for human flourishing for your flourishing but to do that we have to do philosophy we have to do ethics so this is my picture libertarians I get economics we won that debate 50 years ago there is no argument for socialism there's no argument for canes there's no argument for mocks they have no economic arguments against capitalism I'm sorry I've done this talk hundreds of times and I've never heard an argument from an economic perspective on why capitalism is bad all the arguments are wrong but what about the poor what about these people who can't handle it what about those people who can't handle it those are moral arguments those are not economic arguments what about the poor is that do we design our whole lives about what about the poor I happen to think the poor better off than the capitalism in your system I'm not gonna convince anybody of that I'd rather say I'm not designing the economic system around the poor because I don't care about the poor any more than I care about the rich or that I care about the middle class I care about you and you and me I care about individuals and what's the best thing I can do with individuals even free you teach them how to live a good life so with your poor you want to be free and you want to learn how to live a good life you're rich that doesn't make you good you still have to learn how to live a good life I know a lot of rich people live horrible it's not about money it's not about where you are it's not about what ethnic group or race you are what about your ancestors or any of that stuff it's about you and the freedom and the knowledge to live life to the fullest you only have one shot at this there's no I wish Buddhism was right I mean that would be cool if I just get after being a cockroach for a while right but I can't this is it so to me this is the simplest thing in the world right teach people how to make the most of the one life today that's the story we have and then the economics and the politics will fall into place thank you all