 Welcome to this exploration that we're doing about the philosophy of objectivism. Today I am with the famous Jaron Brooke. Most of you know him as one of the most visual personalities of the philosophy of objectivism. He also hosts the Jaron Brooke show and he's a board member of the Andren Institute. And also with us is Professor Tara Smith. She teaches philosophy in the University of Texas and she's also a member of the Andren Institute. Thank you very much for being with us. So one of the things that I see in the world, not only in America, also in Latin America is the misconception of what is philosophy and what is politics. So I would like to start by having the definition according to objectivism of politics. Is politics part of philosophy? Is it a completely different thing? How can one relate to both? Does a politician need to have a philosophy? Yes, yes, yes, on a few fronts. Within philosophy definitely a very important component is thinking about how human beings should live in society with others, in organized society. And that's what traditionally has been called politics or political philosophy. But politics in that sense isn't just the same as the kind of everyday following of elections or political parties or who's up in the polls or that kind of thing. But philosophy and political philosophy in particular is concerned with what are the basic conditions in a society that will allow the individuals to flourish in that society. So what sorts of principles should govern? Should they be free? Should they be compelled to act in this way or in that way? Does man have rights? Is there such a thing as an individual right? If so, how do you figure out what your rights are too? What is justice in society? So there are all sorts of political ideals that people have talked about over the years. People talk about equality in the political realm or democracy and so on. So the sort of subject matter of political philosophy is to figure out which of these principles are valid, exactly what they mean, what are their foundations. And then even when we think about just politicians today, you know, in Mexico and Guatemala, in the U.S. and Poland, if they're to be, you know, if they want to be the elected governors or if they're the self-appointed governors, the governors in society need to themselves be guided by the right ideas about the basics. So you're going to have to stop me sometimes. I can go on and on and on. Feel free. Yeah, I mean, philosophy deals with the fundamental questions in these fields and in politics it deals with these kind of fundamental questions that Tara spoke about. And in a sense, every human being needs a philosophy. Every human being has to have philosophy. But somebody who is in politics who has the responsibility of determining the laws, of governing in a sense, it's incumbent upon them more than anyone else. It should be part of their responsibility to have a clear philosophy, to have clear principles, to be able to articulate what those principles are so that people know what they're voting for. You know, too many politicians today don't have a philosophy, don't have principles and you don't know what you're going to get. You're voting for them, but they might change their mind here and they might change their mind there, they might do this, they might do that. And you've got to think about, I mean, the power that politicians or public office holders hold, their power is tremendous, right? They have the power of the gun. They're the people in society who may force you to do things whether or not you want to, right? Now that's legitimate for certain purposes, but only for certain purposes. So it's really important that they be thoughtful in the deepest way about when is it legitimate for the government to use coercion, what kinds of laws are compatible with the whole reason we have government in the first place and so on. So they've really got to think it all through, yeah. Now it seems to me that there are two forces struggling against each other. There's the sports of politics, which is all about like winning elections, who's the more charismatic, who's the one that kisses more babies or that compels more to like the causes that are in fashion. And that's like watching, I don't know, like a soccer world cup. We call it the sort of horse race. The horse race. That term a lot. Right. He's up, he's down, he's ahead. Exactly. And some people think that that is all that it's politics about and that's what they get bored about it. But also in that realm of like the horse race, the sports of politics, political advisors, campaign managers, tell the politicians, don't compromise with anything. Don't say that you are pro something or against something, especially during a campaign time. So it seems to me that there are two forces that are struggling in politics, right? One is like what we call like the sports of politics or the race horse. That it's all about who's up, who's down, who's winning the election, who's more charismatic, who kisses more babies, who goes to more rallies. And some people think that that is all that politics is about. They don't understand the philosophy that we were, you know, like discussing the important things, what is justice, what is not. And these forces are struggling because you have campaign managers or political advisors telling candidates, don't commit to anything. Don't say that you are pro something or against something, especially during the racing campaign. Because you don't want to alienate any voters. Exactly, you want them all, right? And if you are in this loose end in that middle grade. Everybody can like you if you stand for nothing. Exactly. And then there is the important things of society. If you don't have politicians that actually stand for something, your society is not going to flourish, it's not going to prosper. Well, it's just a drift with the particular whims. Okay, so then this one got elected who was cuter than the other one and well, whatever he feels like doing is what will happen. I think sadly politics has deteriorated to that level such that the people who think well, if that's all there is to it, that's boring or I can watch sports themselves rather than politics. But it's because, I mean, voters have a responsibility too. To hold candidates and officials accountable will tell me what you stand for and why you stand for it. You know, take a stand, we need to push them to take for stands. But people have also just lost an understanding of what government is all about. They don't understand what government is. You know, I was saying a minute ago, let's think about the power, the special unique power we've given government, right? And think about what it's for. I think a lot of people, and I don't think this is just in the US, government, oh, it's that big institution that does a lot of stuff or that takes care of us, you know? Or the stuff we do together. I mean, you actually will read some politicians included giving the most abysmal, vague, hazy under, conceptions of what government is. So when people don't have a sense of what it's for, the kind of power that governments wield, that is like eh, and they're all the same because they're not taking stands, right? Then you get this kind of mishmash in the middle of nothing. But in the meantime, power is aggregating in the hands way and then they get the power and they're not shy about committing then, committing the troops, changing the laws, cutting off the immigration or whatever. Right. I mean, yeah. To a large extent we get the politicians the culture deserves. So it's easy to blame the politicians because they're out there and doing what they're doing, but really the fault is with the people who that's what appeals to them. They want politicians that are handing out the candy, that are handing out the goodies, that don't commit to anything, that are not principled. And indeed politicians who stand for anything don't get elected. So they're political consultants. It's not their fault, they're just telling them, this is how you've got to win. This is the market right now. Yeah, this is the market. So if you're going to make a change, the change has to happen at the intellectual level. We have to gain as a culture in a sense an understanding of what government is for, what government is not for, what kind of politicians, what kind of government actually creates a flourishing society. And as long as people are ignorant or evading the truth about that, we're going to get the politicians that appeal to the worst element of us. And of course you could have a politician who leads, who educates, who teaches us, but that is very hard and it's doubtful that they'd win. But it also tells us something about the nature of the politicians who will follow such advice. Okay, I will be all things to all people. So what is he after? Does he have some ideas? Does he have some genuine ideas that he bloody cares about? On whatever the issue, and I might disagree with him a lot. No, but it's, well, he's obviously all about getting elected, which means he wants power. He wants, I want office so I can do my stuff. When we go along with that, again, we get some of the blame too, but we've been doing that for so long at all levels. Every, you know, the consultants are evading, the politicians themselves, the voters are evading. This is a really sacred responsibility to have, you know, such, and again, think about the purpose of government. I think that's one of the things that Ayn Rand stresses that's so important. You've got to think about why does it make sense for human beings to have a government in the first place? Does it make sense? If so, why and for what? And the basic answer is to protect the individual's freedom to lead their own lives. That is what I want to discuss, because if you do the intellectual work, you end in the conclusion that the government is not to control the economy or have natural resources or nothing like that. Government is to implement the minimum laws that allow a just society to exist where every individual can flourish, where your life, your liberty, your private property is respected. As yours. As yours. Exactly. Okay, so that's here. Now on the other side of the spectrum is all the collectivist mentality of people who believe that the government is actually there to be this economic sugar daddy, you know? That is there to give you food stamps. Well, not just an economic sugar daddy, but also a moral sugar daddy, right? It's there to tell you what you can consume and how you can consume it, with whom you can consume it, how you can take your body and all of that. So they want control. But really you said a word there that I think is key. It's the question of what is a just society? And that's a big part of this is about what is the concept of justice and how does that apply to politics? And I wanted to stress on that because if you ask most of people today, they won't say that the government's role is to implement equality under the law. They would say that the government's role is to implement material equality or economic equality. People don't see government as a ruler, they see it as a cash machine. Most of them. And if you try to do the intellectual work, right, and try to bring them from this end to this end, they will say, well, why can't we have a mix? Okay, I understand that the law is important, but I also think that economics and the government, you know, controlling economics is important. And I always remember Anne Rand's interview in Playboy magazine in 1964 when they asked her, it seems to me that you see the world in black and white. And she gives a marvelous explanation where she says, well, if you understand that white is right and black is evil, why would you go for gray? Why would you put a little bit of the wrong- Poison, right. Boys on the right. Right, in the milk you give the baby. Yeah, no, it's so true. I mean, you have to figure out what are the right principles for government, right? What is government for? And then it's got to stick to its mission, right? What's the function of government? The government's reason for being its purpose, right? That's sort of question number one. And if it's to protect individual rights, it's not to protect individual rights and do a little of this and a little of that and all of this other stuff. That is, you know, things that are themselves incompatible with respecting those rights. If you're really serious about rights, you can't take from Peter to give to Paul. Exactly. You can't give to the other guy. So you can't protect individual rights by violating individual rights. And the government today is the biggest violate of rights. And the founders of the United States understood this. They understood the risk that the government would, as it accumulated power, start violating rights. And they tried to structure government through a constitution, through the separation of powers that would minimize the risk of that happening. But we don't have, other than Iran, we really don't have a philosophical defense of the idea of a limited government, of a government that actually only protects individual rights. And that is really what is missing from the culture. And we indeed have a morality, a moral code that permeates the culture that demands that we take from Paul and give to Peter. Because Peter's suffering. And it's unacceptable that Peter's suffering. And it's okay to use force. So the whole philosophical idea that force is bad, that forces the enemy of reason. Reason is necessary for human survival, that individual rights are a way of protecting our minds, our freedoms, our ability to execute, to think, and to live based on our minds. That whole philosophical chain is, to a large extent, original to Iran, and until it is taken seriously, we won't be able to really transition to a system of government that only protects rights, because the pull is always going to be to, but what about the needy? They demanded it. And, oh, use a little bit of force. A little bit of force came along. I think we've got to call out the contradictions there. Because in terms of how you get from here to there, you've just got, okay, even on the case by case, it's like, all right, you say, well, we've got to give to the, but I thought you were committed to right. You know, first they might get in by saying, oh yeah, that sounds good, protect individual rights. Well, how is that compatible with, okay, if you don't want to give voluntarily to hell with you, we're just going to take your money. I mean, expose the contradictions and, you know, try to prod people to look, you can't have your cake and eat it too. But what happened? Because the United States had the foundations for this to be prevented. I understand in Latin America, we've never had that. Like our legislative system, as you explained, here in Ocon, Yaron comes from the continental viewpoint. It doesn't come from the Anglo-Saxon viewpoint of the importance of private property and individual rights. So wasn't Marx right? Maybe capitalism has the seed that self destroys itself, after some generations pass and they live rich and wealthy. They forget how hard it is to get there. So then you have new generations that say, wait a minute, why don't we just like redistribute wealth? So the challenge with the United States is that it was founded with these fantastic political ideas on a foundation that is equivalent to quicksand. And this is why you can't just pick and choose what you like out of philosophy. Philosophy is a whole. And when you get the politics right but you get everything else wrong, it's not going to last. And I don't blame the founding fathers for this because they didn't have a complete philosophy. And there was philosophy and there was no philosophers articulating a foundation for liberty. So to a large extent, the Enlightenment, that whole period, is building a beautiful city on quicksand. And that quicksand is the morality of altruism. It is the lack, the fact that they don't have a philosophical, complete philosophical defensive reason. They don't understand the link between reason fully, between reason and individual rights. And really the only philosopher who's provided us with a system, an integrated system from politics all the way down to metaphysics, that integrates it all and provides what I consider a real concrete and metal foundation for the ideas of capitalism is Iron Man. And since the founding fathers came before Iron Man, you can't blame them for what they did, the best that they could with the tools that they had. But it truly is a tragedy that we didn't have it. So I have a few different things to say here. So first, going back to Marx himself, so maybe capitalism, it just spawns, we have, even in the US, we haven't had full, pure, respected capitalism. We had the platform set up for it but we didn't quite do it. And once you start cheating on it, once you start in with the contradictions, the mixed premises, the mixed economy, it's just, the mix is going to grow. The poison is what spreads in the glass. You put a little drop of poison in here, it's going to pollute gradually but eventually and steadily because well if he's getting a special favor from the government, I want a special favor. I'm not stupid, right? So once you let in alien premises, that's how it grows and bleeds. But I just want to go back one way. Before you go to another point, because this is very important, especially for people that are watching in Latin America versus Spain. Because there's two conceptions, right? The US has always been capitalist. I wish, I wish. Exactly, that's one. And the other one of the people who, you know, study a little bit more, they say no, everything, there was capitalism until the Civil War and the creation of the Fed. Now you're saying there was never true capitalism. Yeah, it's fully completely. And I'm not an economic historian. I'm a philosopher. But no, we always had a mix of some controls, of some government oversight in terms of the currency and so on. Well, and if you think about before the Civil War, we had slavery. That's anti-capitalist. That is anti-capitalist. The South was feudal. And then after the Civil War, it was a period, the freest we've been. But we had regulation of the railroads. We then had antitrust laws in the 1890s. Then we got a Federal Reserve in 1913. But even during that period from the Civil War until World War I or until the Central Bank, we had all kinds of regulations, all kinds of favors, all kinds of cronyism, all kinds of things. No, it wasn't anywhere near as great. I wish we had what we had back then, right? It was as close as we've ever come to capitalism and it's a million times better than what we have today. But we've never had it in pure form and we've never had, since the founding, there's never been a defense of it. There's never been an intellectuals who actually defended the intellectuals in the 19th century. In a sense, hated the American system, attacked the American system, undermined the American system, certainly post-Civil War. So by the time you get to when you have a Central Bank and income tax, everybody's ready for it because the intellectuals are pounding away that this is evil, this is bad. The progressive, what they call themselves the progressive movement at that time. But European influences, that little poison, although I think the poison was even there at the founding, slavery, for example, but European influences throughout the 19th century undercut American capitalism from the very beginning. And going back to what your own was saying earlier, it's the altruism, you know, who's saying the lack of the moral foundation. It's the altruism that undercut us throughout. I mean, earlier we were talking about individual rights, right? The idea of individual rights, among other things it means your life is yours. Each man is an end in himself. That is incompatible with my thinking I am my brother's keeper. I have to serve, give, and you shall receive from the Lord, right? If I really think that, that's exactly what's going to make me think, oh, well, he's needy. We have to give to him. So there's that fundamental contradiction between altruism and egoism, such that the defenders of capitalism, right? There are many so-called defenders of capitalism. They're apologists for capitalism in the sense that they apologize for it. It's like, oh, it's not so bad, or, oh, look at GNP, you know, and they'll point out, but they're not getting at that core issue of egoism, altruism, whose life is it? Yeah, and the essential of capitalism is not GDP, it's not wealth. The essential of capitalism is freedom. It's the freedom of the individual to live his life in pursuit of his own happiness. And that contradiction is already in the founders. On the one hand, you've got in the Declaration of Independence each individual has an inalienable right to pursue their own happiness. On the other hand, you've got Thomas Jefferson and others articulating a morality, a Christian morality, a morality of sacrifice, a morality of what's good for the other is the standard of morality. And that undercuts immediately the idea of pursuit of happiness, because is it the pursuit of happiness or is it the pursuit of other people's happiness? What should I actually guide me? And that contradiction in morality infects the politics. So let's talk about that hypocrisy, that contradiction, because it has been called out by different people throughout history. For example, in France, Frédéric Bastiat, a lawmaker, well, mostly an on-lawmaker, because he wanted to take away all the laws that prevented like true capitalism. A lawbreaker. A lawbreaker. Yeah, and he has a very good short story about taxing the sun. The story of the candle makers, right? So he is mocking all this crazy subsidized and he goes to the extreme of saying, well, why don't you candle makers go to parliament and ask for people to put wood in their windows and avoid the competition of the most cruel of all the competitors of all, that is the sun. And with this, Bastiat mocks the fact that this is ridiculous. Also, you have, for example, Frédéric Hayek writing the road to serve them and warning about the dangers of having a totalitarian government that controls everything. Also, you have Ludwig von Mises, who talked about the anti-capitalism mentality or the evil within the socialism economic system. So what is so special about Anne Rand? What is that she brings to the table that no one else has brought through history? And I just mentioned three examples, but there have been many other freedom fighters. But what is it that she accomplishes that no one else had accomplished before? I mean, it's basically that she presents a philosophy. If you think of Bastiat, he's fantastic. I mean, he's a genius. But he only deals with a certain layer. He only deals with that political layer. He deals with the law. And he does it beautifully and brilliantly. But he's not challenging, again, the fundamental premises that are in society. The altruism, the lack of understanding of what reason really is and reason as being man's basic means of survival. Those ideas, you know, he can defend. He's not a philosopher. He's, in a sense, a legal scholar. If you look at Hayek, I mean, it's interesting to look at Anne Rand's marginalia comments when she read the road to serve them. I mean, when you read it with Anne in mind, he compromises all the time. He is not a principal defender of true liberty. Or we need a little bit of welfare. We need a little bit of this. Or we need a central bank sometimes. Or we need this year, this day. Because he doesn't have the conception of an absolutist view of the role of governance to defend individual rights, period. No buts, ifs, nothing. And he has this conception, which Rand rejects completely, of the common good, the public interest. Again, coming from altruism. We need to care about society. Not about the individual in his own pursuit of happiness, but about what's good for them and the needy. And we need to take care. So, who wrote the serve them, he talks about the slippery slope. He's on the slippery slope. He puts us on the slippery slope. Even if you think back to somebody like John Stuart Mill. Known as a great champion of liberty. Sort of, kind of, and as long as it serves, the public utility. And I think so, that's a form in which the conflict, the contradiction plays out in the U.S. and always has between the public good understood on these altruists, the good of all. And, you know, the individual has to be sacrificed for the greater utility and so on. That versus the individual. And Rand gives you the foundation for understanding. And I like that you're on use the word absolute. You know, you have absolute sovereignty over your own life. I mean, all that's got to be unpacked and understood in a certain way, right? But as long as you're not in front of anybody else's rights. Right. Your life is yours. And that stands on the egoism, the morality of egoism. And that stands on, again, going back to philosophy more broadly, what she saw in the nature of reality and metaphysics and how we can know anything. But isn't that the best for society? Isn't the best for society that every individual has their rights respected? Only if you understand what society means. Only if you understand that society is just a collection of individuals. It's not a unit in and of itself. But the fact is that most of these thinkers, almost all of them, don't deal with society as a collection of individuals. They have a kind of metaphysical view that society is an entity, it's a thing. And it's okay to sacrifice the minority. If you viewed the individual's life as sacred, then you would never say you can sacrifice one individual for the sake of society. But they all, with the exception of Mises, I think Mises has a better conception here, and he's the best of the economist, and he's the most consistent of them. I mean, he famously, in a Mont Pelerin meeting very early on, stood up angrily and said, you're all a bunch of socialists, including Tayek. He called him a socialist and stormed out to do him, because they were compromising. And he would not compromise. And he would call for what it was. And he would all defend that run, you know? Yes, he's the one who liked Rand and there's a reason. They were both uncompromising absolutists. But let me say, you know, I think, I've come to this more and more. One of the great tragedies of the 20th century, in my view, is that those great thinkers, Hayek, Mises, many of kind of the free market world that was out there, did not take Rand more seriously. If they, these giants, had said, you know, we're economists, and we get the economics and we can explain the economics, and we can explain the economics of free markets but you know what, we're not philosophers. We need a philosopher. And Ian Rand, here, is presenting us with a philosophy that gives the foundation for what we believe in and you have to have that philosophical foundation. The world would be, we would be 50 years to 100 years further along in fight for liberty. And that's awesome. Not just if they all automatically immediately bought Ian Rand but it's like, oh, we ought to look into what she's saying more. And of course, give it a full, thorough, critical challenge. But you know, like take her seriously to begin with and you'll see, oh yeah. I agree with that. In fact, I come from the libertarian background first. I studied Mises, Hayek, Bastiat, Haslitt. It all makes sense. And then I read, ran way after that, reading Atlas Schrock, like I went from zero to everything, you know. And I was like, this is completely coherent. I don't see why this should be- Completely coherent. I like both those words. Exactly. It's like both approaches nurture from each other. I mean, there could be things that, as you say, okay, discussions and debates, but that's healthy because that makes a movement grow and have more influence and more impact. But I think it's because of what you said. One of the problems that economists don't recognize the importance of philosophy and I think a lot of people out there in the free market movement, they get caught up in the economics and the economics are beautiful and it's fun. I love it and so on. But unless they start understanding that it all rests on a foundation and what undercuts freedom in the world today as that philosophical foundation, unless they talk taking philosophy seriously and engage in objectives not just on a politics, but as a philosophy and see its importance in that realm, they can't win. The freedom movement can't win. And I think they didn't do that with Rand when Rand was alive, which is a massive tragedy because she was the ultimate genius here. But that's the kind of engagement that has to happen unless the culture, and this is why it's so hard, unless the culture changes its fundamental philosophical approach, we're not going to get the politics right. People have to become more egoistic. They have to at least have respect for egoism and respect for their own lives and want the freedom. People don't want to be free. They're not going to be free. But they should want to pursue their values, to achieve their happiness and not have paternalistic government sitting on their shoulder like a mother telling you what you can and cannot do and what you eat and what you can't eat. But they have to have that self-esteem. Right. No, the nanny state that has been going on for so, so long, that term, and I think first came out of England maybe, but the nanny state, as it's spread, people get used to being taken care of and they want to be taken care of. And I mean, we've all, in a sense, grow up, you know, part of what everybody needs to do. Voters, it's like, grow the hell up and take responsibility for your own, you know, but we're in this self-reinforcing kind of cycle. Yes, and the only way to change that self-reinforcing cycle is philosophy. It's a new set of values. It's a new way of thinking about it. I mean, let me talk about our libertarian friends for a minute, you know, and a lot of these economists that we were just talking about, they want limited government. Objectivists want limited government. Limited why? Limited how? Limited by the function of government, by its reason for being in the first place again, whereas I think what you find with a lot of libertarians is, they just want it. They don't really understand what liberty is fully. They don't understand what its foundations are, why you have a right to freedom, but they know that they want it. But they really, they don't even want it because they don't really know what it is, but they know that they want something, but they don't tread on me, right? Get out of my space. So, yeah, limit government because I have these feelings. So it's completely subjectivist. So that's another way in which I think a lot of the pro-liberty movements, you know, which on the surface look good, really are only superficial and are not getting at the kind of thing that I'm just talking about. I mean, Hayek rejects the idea really of individual rights. I mean, he's not a defender of individual rights. He might be a defender of economic freedom, but he's not in the name of individual rights. But he does it in the name of some kind of social utility. So at the end of the day, he undercuts his own argument and without that understanding of what liberty is and what is its, you know, we keep saying this, but it's so crucial, you can't have, you won't ever achieve that. And while we're at it, let me say, there are two excellent essays by Einrand which are available free at the Einrand Institute website. One is simply called The Nature of Government and the other is called Man's Rights. And if you wanted to start thinking more about these things and seeing the way in which she approached them, those two essays, Nature of Government, Man's Rights, available free on the web, just really a wonderful place to start in thinking more about this. Right. I feel like I, because we were talking about this yesterday, the university that I come from in Guatemala, gathered together all the different minds that fight for freedom. So you have a public choice school, you have law and economics, you have a monument to Atlas Shrug. Of course, they teach you Austrian economics and it doesn't matter what you choose in your career, you can study medicine, psychology, I study international affairs and political science. You have to pass through the courses of Austrian economics and Einrand is always there, you know, like the first thing they teach you is liberty is responsibility, is one coin with two sides. You cannot have liberty if you're not responsible of yourself, what you were saying, grow up, right? So I think that I cannot separate what are the benefits that libertarianism has given me from the benefits that objectivism has given me. Like I have both, you know, they are both part of the way that I think, that I conduct my politics, that I try to influence more people and all I see is benefits from the two. Because, okay, Rande, for me, she gives me the philosophical aspects on how to conduct my personal character, my life. What do you say? Why do you want freedom? How do you answer that question, right? The depths, like if you see a tree, she's the root. And then the branches are things like, okay, how are we going to make public policy? Like, for example, the voucher system and education, or individual pensions for health. How do you do the pragmatic things, especially in places in Latin America where you have such underdevelopment, you know? But talking with you, I understand that I have, this is a unique experience, right? Because most people, either they are objectivists or they are libertarians. And we are still a minority because the rest of the world loves socialism and equality. But even at UFM, right? Imagine if they'd reversed their priorities, which would be my preference, but not theirs. And started with Aimee and built that philosophical foundation and then brought in Mises and Haslitt and Hayek and talked about that. Once you have that philosophical foundation, once you build the roots, then you can build the tree. And then you study Mises, okay, but we can't really achieve this instantly. How do we move towards it? Okay, vouchers and there's a means to moving towards liberty. They're not the end, they're just a means. But if you had that philosophical foundation, everything else becomes a thousand times easier. Because if you understand the importance of human reason, the importance of the pursuit of happiness, the importance of individual values, of creating a world in which individuals can pursue their rational values for their own survival and flourishing, well, what kind of world is that? Oh, obviously, it's a world in which they get to make choices. That's freedom. That's what we mean by individual rights, by protecting individual rights. So capitalism becomes, or freedom becomes kind of simple once you understand this foundation. And then in terms of how does the economics work and how do we move towards economic freedom? Yeah, these free market economists have a lot to contribute to that debate. But first they have to acknowledge the importance of the roots. Let's just go a little further on the roots issue. Let's be a little more specific even about something that your owners refer to a few times now, about the foundations for freedom or the nature of reason. Why is freedom such a good thing? I was indicating a few minutes ago, it's not just, hey, I like it, I want it, I don't like when people tread on me. It's a good thing, just a quick version, because human beings need to reason in order to do the things we need to do in order to survive. This is the most basic, human beings as a kind, we are born naked and ignorant and we don't know what the hell is going on and we need to figure it out. We're not like animals who have the claws or the fangs or the speed and they just, you know, are drawn to the foods like, no, we need to figure it out. Man survives by his wits. We need to think, oh, I can turn that into a hammer. I can plant over the centuries and centuries. In order to read, so reason is means of survival as Rand stress it, like this major theme in some of her fiction and nonfiction, reason is how we survive. It's how we get by, let alone how we really flourish and build these fabulous societies and these cameras but in order to be in a position to reason, you need to be free of others, of other individuals forcing you to do things, you know, initiating the use of force against you. But it's all of that and again there's a lot to be said there that needs to be explained and understood and understand, freedom is an objective value. It's not valuable just because some people like it, right? It is objectively valuable to mankind and when you deprive men of freedom, you're in effect like, you know, you're doing things to their brain or you're making their brains dysfunctional or unate, you're like paralyzing their brains. Now, my god how sick is that? How cruel is that? How anti-life is that? So every time we then talk about, well let's mix a little socialism with, you know, going back to the poison here again, that's what's going on. No wonder she got angry. Yeah, I mean think about government regulations. What government regulations are doing is they're limiting the scope of my ability to think. I can't think outside of the box. So people don't. Or if they do they get slapped down and they get shut down. So it's not just that government regulations disturb a market as economists describe it much more fundamentally is it's limiting the scope of my thinking. It's constraining my mind and that's the evil. The economies that have, you know, let's go back to the Soviet Union. Let's go back behind the iron curtain. Let's go, I wish back historically but unfortunately today to so many countries where we see the practical effect. This is what I explained to young people in Latin America. I say to them, why do you think that Cuba looks like a postcard from the 1950s? Why is it that it's stuck in time? Because even when you say, okay we're going to distribute everything, you can only distribute what in that moment exists but since you are forbidding freedom there's no more liberty for you to read, to innovate to come up with new products so you get stuck in time because you distribute what exists in one time but from then on. What the minds came up with in 1920 or whatever. You're just stunting the mind which is stunting life. And in Cuba, Cuba is unique because really what should have happened in Cuba is a complete deterioration. They should be living like in the 15th century. The only reason they even have the 1950s is because they got money from the USSR for a while, they got money for the suck money in Venezuela, the sucky money out of Mexico and all these other regimes that are funding them but if you actually just leave the system alone you see it in Venezuela. You see starvation, you see complete deterioration to returning man to subsistence farming. You have to go back and start growing your own food because you've destroyed the capacity for civilization. So going back to the and connecting this good public policy and the roots of philosophy is there any record of Anne Ran having opinions on Margaret Thatcher and the way she made government? I don't know, I just don't know. I don't think so, I don't think she knew much about Margaret Thatcher and you know Margaret Thatcher was of course a mixed case as great as she was in the context of the politicians we've had over the last 100 years, I mean I wish we had another Margaret Thatcher today. She was a very mixed case and she wasn't completely principled and she was on that slippery slope and partially I think that's because the main guidance came from Hayek and not for something even more principled than that. She did amazing things, I think she's a hero in the context of politics but she didn't go as far as I think we would have liked her to go particularly in articulating the philosophical case for what she was doing and so what happened in England and what happened in the United States is you get a swing to more freedom and then for a while there's a sort of momentum with that politically but then everything is swinging backwards because you didn't lay the philosophical foundations, you didn't lay even the political foundations for that swing to continue towards more and more freedom. And in some ways you end up giving good ideas a bad name when under the name of the good ideas you have these half-hearted semi-measures and then everybody thinks see we've been there, done that, tried that, doesn't work. But how far can you go when you're in politics because I recently wrote a book and I inspired myself in both Anne Rand's conservatism and obituary which is included in Capitalism the Unknown Ideal and how she blames also conservatives, you know, for the extagnation of the good ideas and then I read Margaret Thatcher and how she said, okay, I knew that the socialists were my enemies every time that I put down a union but the treason came from my conservative party those were the ones that were always wanting to compromise and every time I went too far they were like, no, you're coming back and in fact, if it were not for the Falkland Islands that crisis that she had she would have been removed by the party so where do we make it work not betraying the principles but actually getting into office because if you go too much to the extreme you get out, not by your enemies by your own peers unless you have the absolute power of like I don't know becoming a dictator or saying like what Mises said about becoming a dictator so Mises was asked once what would be the first thing you can do anything, you're a dictator of the world you can do anything you want what would be the first thing you did in my case no, what do you think Mises I don't know resign you said you can't force people to be free you can't impose freedom on people that whole idea of a dictator is a negation of the idea of freedom so no I wouldn't sanction the idea of a dictator staying a dictator so no Pinochet for example Pinochet killed a lot of people he's a bad guy we have to balance the good with what you actually did so no, no Pinochet and this is the challenge and this is why it's a little depressing but you're not going to really achieve much success in politics politics is not the realm in which we're going to change the world the way to change the world is through education the way to change the world is through convincing people and educating people about a new set of ideas and again I keep going back to this but this is why philosophy is so important that's why it's so hard to educate people to change people's morality we talked about it particularly in the context of Latin America which is a very Catholic place you're going to have to give up that Catholicism you're going to have to give up that morality of sacrifice it's doable having been raised a good Catholic unless you give that up unless you give up the notion that the moral ideal is a man dying not for sins that he committed but for sins other people committed that's the most unjust thing I can think of I'm okay with suffering for sins I committed I'm not okay with suffering for sins other people committed that's just wrong so we have to change our entire conception of morality and until we do that politics we can change it at the margin we can do a mortgage thatcher we can minimize that and move the pendulum to a more free direction but we're not going to attain freedom and it won't be sustainable unless the culture changes and that means people's philosophy people's view of ethics primarily changes perfect so what should we do in order to fix society can an individual fix it or should we do like John Galt start a new society from scratch I would probably well no we should not go off and start a new society I think fix it there are things that can be done in many many societies it also depends on what kind of society you're in and how far gone it is there are some big differences still within regions and countries in this world so not all situations are the same but often education not just education of the first graders and the fifth graders but you've got to educate people about ideas get them to question as we were talking about earlier poke at the contradictions or the tensions and the things that people are saying poke them to think honestly to be honest with themselves and each other and not just repeat the group speak or what we all know we're supposed to like the environment or egalitarianism or whatever the trendy ideas are really try to get to individual minds to just start questioning some of these things because it's a long gradual process you can make some changes at the margins and by talking about political issues and we need to put out the fires that the politicians are increasing because we're affected by those but long range it's got to be a deeper level of people's thinking for your views go read Iron Man go read Iron Man and educate yourself before you can educate others you have to educate yourself learn about these ideas learn about these foundational ideas understand economics and the politics of them and then go out and the best way to educate people is speak, speak, speak, right, right, right I mean what you do what the Iron Man Institute is doing we're trying to get to young people and trying to get them when they're still open to new ideas radical ideas and you know expose yourself to these ideas first by reading the books I can't think of anything better to do than what you're doing Gloria is what you're speaking about and advocating for it and having discussions about it I think that you can switch people's way of thinking by questioning I think that's the genius of Socrates right, like always asking keep thinking, keep questioning right, keep questioning yourself and this is why we need to fight for free speech for this ridiculousness of you know like no you cannot talk about that and that's cultural appropriation and that offends me and feelings before thoughts if we don't fight or defend the right of speaking freely then game over and again even the defense of free speech is philosophical has to be philosophical because you said feelings above reason well that people who believe feelings should be of reason, they're philosophical arguments for why reason is impotent and he shouldn't go by reason where he's in the collective wisdom and this group identity, all of these things are coming from a philosophical foundation so even to defend free speech we need to understand what reason is we need to understand why it's efficacious we need to understand it's the only way in which human beings can know stuff and which again challenges religion you know we need a whole philosophy which again Ayn Rand gives us the foundations for it she asks the right questions and she often gives the right answers the answers to those issues so on every one of these issues philosophy is where the action is and if we if we just do it from a utilitarian perspective if we just use Mill's argument for free speech we lose and that's why the first I mean the US you might think hey you guys have had a first amendment for over you know it says in your constitution what's happening that it's so deteriorated there what's happening is the influence of John Stuart Mill people defend even defenders of free speech in the US defended by its service to civil society so everybody can be educated so it can serve the public good again that's not the fundamental basis for free speech you know it's the individual but the individual makes people nervous I don't like the individual because that's unselfish and that's yes be selfish capitalism sounds like every man for himself so what about the poor and also now we have this culture of spending we see it for example in Latin America the kids of the drug dealers or the kids that come from cronists and they have huge amounts of money and it's all about like yachts and jewelry and women and helicopters and you know like rich kids that are entitled to any material good that they want they don't have any philosophical principle and people say to you you see that is what capitalism is all about like this shallowness of materialism and consumerism how do we make the connection to people that say no that is precisely because these people lack philosophical basis they behave like that there's a difference in between being materialistic and consumerist and being a true capitalist how a person spends his money, why he wants his money those are moral issues psychological issues capitalism is a political system in which every individual rights are respected what you do with your rights is another kind of question but capitalism is wonderful capitalism is the system that takes seriously this idea your life is yours which man is an end in himself if you want to make something if you want to create some product or service and offer it you can do that on the free market and if somebody wants to buy it great why will they buy it when they do want to buy it because he thinks I'm better off spending the money what's wrong with that allowing you to not getting in your way you want to make a transaction you do it because you think you're better off the IT service it's mutually beneficial when you truly have capitalism and you haven't distorted it with favors for some or cronyism or all this other garbage when it's true, laissez-faire let willing voluntary agreements be made by adults that's how we get out of the jungle and I think it's really crucial particularly in Latin America but in the United States as well to say we don't live under capitalism whatever behavior is out there it's not capitalism for example, people actually earn their money people actually work hard and have an idea and actually create the wealth not just steal it like Coney is doing they have respect for it they don't behave in these maybe one or two of them do but overall they have real respect for it because they know what it took to earn it and you can see that whatever you think of Jeff Bezos Bill Gates and so on they're not crazy consumer going off on parties that just doesn't happen and indeed they're still working they work hard even though they've got more billions they'll never be able to spend the joy comes from the actual productive activity the joy comes from making stuff and the reason they still make money is because that is the measure that's a sign that they're creating value and that profit is a sign of value that's one of the big misunderstandings of capitalism people say oh they made so much money that's bad if you make a lot of money in a free market that's a sign you created huge amounts of value you change people's lives you change the world around you otherwise you cannot make money so partially we have to disentangle this idea of what capitalism is it's so crucial cronyism for example the nature of capitalism capitalism doesn't have cronyism because politicians have no favor to give so there's nothing to law before it's only if you give politicians the power to give favors do you get cronyism and in this sense what is the role of money because even people like Harari recognize that money is one of the most fantastic technologies and tools that humanity has come up with in order to trade peacefully with one another and benefit so even people that wouldn't agree with a lot of the things that we've talked here they recognize money as one of the best technologies like language, like mathematics it's a facilitator should it be in the hands of government exclusively well obviously not there's absolutely no reason for it if it monopolizes any product it's violating people's rights to use whatever means of exchange that they want and indeed the only reason dollars have values because we have legal tender laws you have to accept dollars I can't put a sign in my door that says I only take gold that's actually illegal you're out of jail for that so violating our rights to trade in whatever we want to trade and of course we know all the problems that central banks have created as fast as economically that central banks have created so the practical is the moral and the moral is the practical and when you violate rights you get bad outcomes and the central violation of rights is our inability to exchange and our inability to exchange what we want to exchange and how we want to do it and the consequences, the inflation the recessions, the depressions all the things that central bankers have brought against us Yaron Tara I could talk with you for days I feel the same way, this is great this is terrific but unfortunately we have our past our deadline and the other good thing is that we actually covered all the questions that we have and even more, thank you thank you so much for sitting down and explaining these things I think that the way you have answered you can tell that you are amazing philosophers because you give great examples that people that are not as familiar with these ideas can relate in their daily lives and I think that's important Thank you for bringing these ideas to the Latin world I'm excited about that Thank you very much