 Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for putting this together. I know it wasn't easy. The world is still not quite back to normal and things are not running quite as smoothly as you would want. I had to do three COVID tests to get here, so they're still making it a little difficult, but we're here. We've got a very mixed group, so I just want to get a sense of the audience to get a sense of who's here. So let me ask you, how many of you have read something, anything by Iron Man? Almost everybody has read something, so it's a more knowledgeable group, although some people haven't read anything, so we've got a nice mixture. Alright, so we're going to be talking about capitalism. Capitalism, as I see it, is a real free market. And the one thing we know about capitalism is that nobody likes it. Maybe some young people like it, you go to college, you get all excited about capitalism, and you go to work, and within five years you've forgotten about that, and you vote for the liberal party. A liberal party? A liberal party? It kind of likes capitalism a little bit, but it's not too much. And generally in the world in which we live, capitalism is belittled. Again, it's some kind of vague ideal out there. We might deregulate a little bit, we might move a little bit towards it, and then there'll be a backlash if we move towards the left. And we seesaw in the center, but you notice that the center moves which direction generally? Over the last hundred years, which direction is the center moved? Left. Dramatically left. In the United States, you can look at the platform of the Democratic Party. It looks like the platform of the Socialist Party 50 years ago. And you look at it in economic issues, and you look at the platform of the Republican Party, and it looks like the platform of the Democratic Party 50 years ago. The center moves left. Everything moves left. And everybody is at the end, when it comes to really making decisions, people don't like capitalism, they're not interested in capitalism, they don't want capitalism. And the question I think bewilders almost everybody as one, because, and this is what makes this an interesting question, because the fact is, the historical fact is, the existential fact is, that everywhere markets, free markets, capitalism is tried to whatever extent it is tried, it is a massive success. If by success we mean, economic growth, human well-being, opportunities for individuals to achieve things, capitalism is this unbelievable success it has been for 250 years, and nobody wants it. And that's the real thing that you should really ask yourself, how does this happen? We've got something that clearly works, and we're opposed to it. We don't want it. How does that happen? Usually, if you study economics at school, we assume we're all rational actors, and we all want to maximize our utility, and we all want to maximize our well-being. If that were the case, we would all be capitalist. Because if you look around the world, you can see it. Countries that have more economic freedom, have higher standard of living, higher wealth, and more opportunities, you can actually take the economic freedom index, there are a number of them, it doesn't matter which one you use, and you can plot a graph of economic freedom versus GDP per capita, versus wealth, versus opportunities if you can find a measure for that, and you'll see the correlation, the correlation is right there. And you can see it in history, periods where we let the economies be free, where we leave people alone, where we let people make choices for themselves, where we don't regularly control everything, periods in which economies grow faster, periods in which we climb down, we close off, we regulate, we tax, we control people, periods in which there are few opportunities, economies grow slower, things don't go as well. You can look around the world, geographies, there's a famous, one of my favorite satellite images ever, is the satellite image of South and North Korea. Have you ever seen this? It's a satellite image at nighttime of the Korean Peninsula, and the South is all lit up, because there's civilization there. They have electricity, and they turn on the lights, and everything is lit up, and North Korea, it's like it was 10,000 years ago. There's not a sign of a light anywhere. It's completely black. You've got it right there, a little experiment. Now, South Korea is not capitalist, but it's more capitalist than North Korea. It's on that path in terms of being more free markets, where individuals have more freedom, not the full laissez-faire. So we can see a whole spectrum of countries, a whole spectrum of periods of time, and we can see the success. Maybe the freest place could argue, both socially and economically, in the 20th century, certainly in the latter half of the 20th century was Hong Kong, that freedom was gone, because China's taking it over. It used the COVID distraction to basically take it to Hong Kong. But Hong Kong was this amazing place, right? Seven years ago, there was nothing there. It was a little fishing village. And then people from all over Asia went there. They swam, they little rafts, they took anything to get to this place, right? Why? Because they provided free healthcare? No free healthcare in Hong Kong. Because they gave them, I don't know what they call it now, universal basic income? No, no welfare, very little welfare in Hong Kong. Why do people go there? I mean, if you listen to the social democrats, you'd think Hong Kong would be the most hellish place on earth. None of the wonderful Scandinavian and northern European, you know, welfare state benefits that, you know, we all, in America, we all envy you guys. Hong Kong had none of it. And yet people wanted to live there. Why? What did they have? Opportunity. Opportunity, that freedom. All they had was the rule of law. Contracts were protected, property rights were protected, and they left you alone. You couldn't even vote, I don't know how many people know, but Hong Kong was never a democracy. You could never even vote. It was created by the queen, I guess, by the government of the UK. But freedom of speech was protected, social freedoms were protected, and your economic freedoms were protected. And what happened in Hong Kong? It went from a little fishing village to seven and a half million people. Most skyscrapers in Hong Kong and New York said, hire GDP per capita. There's one measure of wealth and economic success. Hire GDP per capita in the United States. Well, the United States took 250 years to achieve. Hong Kong did it in seven years. Capitalism works. And yet we don't like it. We don't want it. We constantly move away from it. So why? What's capitalism about? What's capitalism about? Well, more basically. You know, in capitalism, we talk about capitalism in terms of free markets, in terms of people being free to exchange goods, to produce what they want to produce, to consume what they want to consume without any regulations and controls and people telling them what they can and cannot do. What are markets about? Why do we go into the marketplace? Why does... Here it comes. Why does Steve Jobs made one of these? Why do people go to work? Because, first of all, he's having the private actor look at the economic freedom, wealth, somehow. So this is a private actor when it comes to capitalism because mostly you control the economy using specific characters and also in the homeland we're having that. Yeah, but I'm asking you something much simpler. Why does Steve Jobs do this? Because it is a symbol of development and also it is kind of a symbol of, I wouldn't say privilege, but... Do you think he makes it out of because it's a symbol? No, it's not because... Does he wake up every morning and say, because there's a market for it? Because it's a market where there's continuity with it. But there's no market for iPhones. There is, but it is with a high price. There's no market for iPhones until what happened? He makes money. Yeah. I mean, Steve Jobs created the microfire phones. Why does Steve Jobs make this? Money. To make money. I'm glad somebody finally said it. Don't we all go to work to make money? Don't we start businesses to make money? That's not the main reason. The only reason maybe, but it's certainly a reason and I find it always interesting that it takes a long time for somebody to say, make money. But the reason is to make money, and this is indicative of part of the problem we have with capitalism. Why can't we just say, yeah, I do it to make money? What else? To provide value to society. To provide value to society. Does he wake up every morning saying, I want to provide value to society? Provide for himself. He wants to provide himself. That's to make money. He's making money. Why else does he do it? He likes to make beautiful products. Yeah, he loves this. And he wants to make the world a better place. That's how he makes money, right? But he wants to impact the world. But his primary motivation is, to, I'd say, primary motivation. He loves doing it. Steve Jobs love doing it. Hopefully you go to work because you love doing what you're doing. It's fun. And Steve Jobs wanted to make beautiful things. He wanted to make beautiful things that other people would use that would make the world a better place. But that was his passion. That was his love. He didn't do it out of a sense of duty to others, out of a sense of duty to the world. He didn't have a sense of deep inspired passion. And he did to make money. He didn't do it as a charity. Profit margins and these things were very high. Still are, I think, very high. So that's why Steve Jobs goes into the market. That's why we go as producers into the market. We go to produce stuff because we love doing it. And because we want to make money at it. That's why we produce, we create, we build, we make stuff. Why do we buy this stuff? That's the other side, right? Why do consumers consume? Since we're talking about the iPhone, I like to tell the story of the first iPhone I bought, which I think was 2008, when iPhone came out in late 2007 and I went about what one in 2008. And if you remember 2008, you guys don't because you're too young, but 2008 was the beginning of the Great Recession, the financial crisis. And I went and bought my iPhone because I wanted to do my part in stimulating the economy. Because we were going into recession. Because I know you guys all, when you go shopping, the reason you shop is because you want to make sure people have jobs and you want to help stimulate the economy and you're doing it for the greater good, right? Is that why you buy shoes and clothes and iPhone? No. Why do you go shopping? Because it provides value. To who? To yourself. To yourself. So you go and shopping because it's to provide yourself. You buy stuff, right? For you to make your life better. You hope, right? So why did I buy an iPhone for $1,000? It's cool. Because... An evilist. Well, I think it's my own motive to make the profit out of it in the future. Because if I'm not saying... Yeah, but who's going to make the profit? Me. You. That's all I need. Right? It's you. You're doing it for your reasons, for making your life better whether it's an investment in the future or whether it's just... I mean, I don't buy ice cream because I'm investing in the future. Ice cream because... It tastes good and I want to eat it. Right? I want to make my life better. So what's the same about producers and consumers in a capitalist market? What value are they pursuing? Whose value are they pursuing? Their own. Capitalism markets even more broadly than capitalism, even in a non-capitalist economy. Markets are places in which individuals go in pursuit of their own values. Either as producers or as consumers, it is a place where people are self-interested. Whether they're going after what they believe, at least, or their interest, it could be wrong. But they believe at the time that their interests are aligned with their actions. So capitalism markets a system of self-interest. People pursuing their own self-interest. Egoism, somebody said. Right? Now what do we know about self-interest? About egoism? Not from an economic perspective. We just did that little exercise economically. It completely makes sense. And by the way, why did I buy this for $1,000? Because it's worth what to me? More than $1,000. More than $1,000, right? That's why you buy whatever you buy. The cash in your pocket is worth less to you than the thing that you buy. That's why you're exchanging into Apple. It's worth. They would rather have the cash than the iPhone. So what's the nature of these transactions of win-win transactions? I benefit because I got an iPhone. Instead of the cash. And Apple benefit because they don't want the iPhone. So they want the cash. Same with any product you buy. You benefit and the person selling you benefits. Otherwise, you wouldn't transact. Right? It's only people like Donald Trump who think that trade is lose-ludes or win-ludes, right? The whole point of trading is to screw the other guy. To make them worse off. That's not how the real world works. In the real world, you trade in a way that both parties benefit. Certainly, if you want to ever trade with them again. Some markets about some interested action. Self-interested action. What do we know about self-interest? From a moral perspective. We put aside economics. We put aside politics. What do our mothers teach us about self-interest? What about preachers? I don't know what it's like in the Netherlands. Right? What are you, Protestants? We don't want you here. I know what my Jewish mother taught me. I'm American though. She's American so she's not my mother. It doesn't matter. Everybody teaches everybody the same, pretty much. My Jewish mother taught me never be selfish. Never think of yourself. Think of others first. Always. Always think of other people first. Be self. Less. Self-less. Think about that word. Self-less. No self. So in anything you do in life you shouldn't think about yourself. I mean that's really hard, actually impossible. But that's more. That's virtue. To be virtuous is not to think of yourself. What is virtue? Not to think of yourself and to sacrifice for other people. Other people are the standard of morale. What we do with other people? Thinking of yourself morally is considered evil, considered bad. No good. But even that's not completely true. Because do we really care about helping other people? Or do we care about the self-lessness? My favorite example here is who's considered like a moral icon? Even among Protestants. Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa is the standard, right? Mother Teresa is small power. She's this incredibly moral. She's saint after all. And everybody considers a saint. Even Jews consider a saint, right? A saint. Why? What makes Mother Teresa a saint? She's selfless. She's selfless. She left the middle class upbringing. She went to India. And she helped poor people not die. She didn't help them advance in life. She helped them not die. Now, did she help a lot of people? Thousands? Okay. And she was miserable. We know that. If you read her diaries, you know how miserable and how much suffering she lived. But let's take the opposite of Mother Teresa. What's the opposite of Mother Teresa? I don't know. You could fill in the black. You could use jepezos. You could use Amazon. You could use Gauge. You could use Steve Jobs. You could use any of these guys. Like a billionaire. One of these billionaires. With the opposite of Mother Teresa. How many people does the billionaire help? Millions. Maybe hundreds of millions. How does a billionaire help people? That doesn't make sense. Billionaires helping people? How do they help people? I think maybe more than sections. And I'm not talking about the charity. Put aside the charity. Forget about charity. You know, based, they provide jobs. What do they do? What's the essential thing where their business person does? Starts with a T. They trade. And what do we just say about trade? What is trade? It's win-win. So every time I trade with somebody, the other person is better off, right? So if I do lots of trades, if I do billions of trades, that means billions of times people are better off. Every time you buy something from Amazon, you are better off. Otherwise, why did you do it? Amazon is better off. And the way Chepisa became so rich is by making all of you better off. There's no other way to become a billionaire. The secret of becoming a billionaire. There's no other way to stop it. The secret of being a billionaire is build a product that everybody wants at a price and willing to pay a price that is higher than what it costs you to produce. And if everybody wants it, we're talking about billions of people, you'll become a billionaire pretty quickly. And if you can do that every year, like iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 or Windows 1 and Windows 2 and Windows 10 and Windows 55, you'll become a billionaire. That's the way to become a billionaire. But what are you doing when you're doing that? You're making millions of people better off, better than they were previously, better than they would be otherwise. They chose to engage in this transaction because they believed that their lives would be better. So billionaires improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Mother Teresa improves the lives of thousands of people. Mother Teresa is a saint and billionaires are what? The devil incarnate. They're evil. How does that work? They help more people because the interesting thing about the standard for morality that we all live in our culture and our world even in the enlightened West, standard value is not helping other people. Standard is your own selflessness. See, the problem with the billionaires, what's the problem with the billionaires? They're enjoying themselves. They're making money. They're benefiting whom? In addition to everybody else. Maybe they're improving the lives of hundreds of millions of people, but they aren't improving their own lives at the same time. And that's unacceptable. But Mother Teresa, she didn't benefit. Maybe she went to heaven. If you believe in that. But in this world she didn't benefit. On the contrary, she suffered. Cool. We like that. Like I say, Bill Gates in order to redeem himself from the evil of having made so much money and set up the largest foundation in the world that he's giving money away. Let's put aside all the conspiracy theories about Bill Gates for COVID and stuff. You can ask me about them in a Q&A if you want. But he's doing philanthropy. Let's assume it's all positively motivated, right? So when he does philanthropy to people like him, not so much, look at all the conspiracy theories. Why? What is it about Bill Gates and his philanthropy trying to help other people not benefit himself? What is it about Bill Gates that people don't like? Bill Gates. Maybe there's a little bit of envy there. I think his money is tainted. Money is tainted because it came from making the world a better place to live. Yeah. Because it came from improving everybody's lives. But it's more than that. See, what's the difference between Bill Gates doing charity and Mother Teresa doing charity? He's not suffering. No. He still seems like he's having a good time. Have you ever seen him interviewed? It's like he's pretty happy. He seems like he's engaged. He really is enjoying this. He doesn't look miserable. And indeed, I don't know if you know this, but in Bill Gates' house outside of Seattle, he has a whole womb that's a trampoline. How cool is that? So, yeah. He could do all the charity he wants. He's never going to be conceived as a good guy if he has a trampoline that big. He endures. No good guy, like a moral person, doesn't have a whole womb that's a trampoline. That doesn't go to him. So, there's no way for Bill Gates to become virtuous in the world to perceive virtue as associative or suffering. Virtue as associative or self-lessness. He's obviously, even in his charity, enjoying it, doing some stuff that he loves. He only gives to some charity. He only gives to some causes. The causes he's chosen. One of the reflections of the fact that we despise him for this attitude is the fact that now he's associated with every conspiracy theory known to man. You know, it's not the Elders of Zion anymore. It's Bill Gates in every single conspiracy. It's part of the reflection of that in the culture. The fact of him for everything. Because how he made his money, the fact that he made a lot of money and the fact that he looks like he's already had that time. And they all do. And, you know, if I had that kind of money, I would too. Even with less money. And partially, they have a good time because they actually produce this money. They actually created this wealth. They actually earned it because they deserve it. It's not just somebody gave it to them. They didn't just inherit it. They actually worked for it. And that gives them a certain pride and self-esteem that I think is reflected that people are comfortable with. Because we're not supposed to have pride, right, as I said. Not a virtue. You know, how do you think Bill Gates becomes a saint? How would we change our view of Bill Gates? I'm not sure it's possible anymore right now with all this stuff. But how do you think we could make Bill Gates a saint? You'd have to give everything away. You'd have to give everything away. You'd have to live in a tent. No trampoline room. And you'd have to bleed a little bit for us. But you gotta show some blood. Because otherwise, how do you show that you're actually suffering and sacrificing? Then people would start feeling for it. And maybe we'd get a street or two named after him. I mean, think about it. It's a beautiful world we live in. Pretty amazing world we live in. Who built Amsterdam? Amsterdam is probably one of the greatest examples of this. Who built Amsterdam? Traders. Businessmen. Trade and business built Amsterdam. Built New York. Built all the great cities in the world. Bill Gates is of their time. Who built these things. And yet, they're the villains somehow. And when we name streets, we don't know what you named streets in Amsterdam that I can't pronounce any of them anyway. But in America, we named streets after politicians, after social activists, after generals. But nobody named streets for the people that you built America. People that built America, business people. Industrialists. What do we call them? I don't know if you're familiar with the term in America that we use to describe the big industrialists of the country that you built the country. Rubber barons. Barons, aristocrats, from Europe. And robbers, because rubber man comes from Europe, where the barons, the local aristocrats used to steal from the passersby. The toll roads. That's rubber bands. No, that's zero sum. What happened in America? What still happens? In any free market market. So we despise the idea of self-interest. Any idea of self-interest is at the heart of what an economy, any kind of marketplace, involves. So the first thing that comes to mind when we think capitalism is self-interest. Everybody knows it's all about self-interest. Everyone's back. See how we might benefit materially. But there's got to be some shady stuff. My mother used to tell me in those days being a millionaire was a big deal. Today you have to be a billionaire to be a big deal. But she said, every millionaire in the world is a crook. Everyone is a crook. Because you're associated in your money. Selfishness or self-interest with thievery. Which is what we all think of when we think about self-interest. Immorality. And then you say, okay, a system that encourages this kind of behavior. It's got to be a bad system. Adam Smith when he wrote The Wealth of Nations. He understood this and he said the baker doesn't bake the bread for you. What does the baker bake the bread for? Money. You're living. Feed his family. Maybe because he loves baking bread. But he doesn't do it for you, he does it for himself. And Adam Smith realized there's a problem here. Because our morality is inconsistent with the idea that it's okay to do things for yourself. She said, okay so if we add up all the self-interest in actions that happen in the economy there's something called an invisible hand that turns that into a virtue. So it's good for society. Actual act of being self-interested is still suspect. Now if it's suspect if we're suspicious of people who are self-interested because we are. What do we do to them? Other than not like them. But what do we do? Practically, politically. What are you going to do if you think that these businessmen are self-interested and selfish equals bad? What do you do? Taxation. Non-aspect. I'll get a taxation in a minute. We should work. But what else do you do? A, you tax them, take away some of their gains because they've all gotten in some formulation. But what else do you do to them? Yeah, you regulate them. I don't trust you. You're self-interested. You're cut corners. You're cheat-line steal. Even though we can have the discussion about whether cheating, lying, stealing are self-interested. So I'm going to put a little crowd on your shoulder and they're going to check everything that you do. And I'm going to pass regulations to pull here about all things that you can do. So I don't have to check. So we regulate them and we tax and we distribute wealth because we say, oh, well, you're not going to help the needy. It's not in your self-interest to do it. So we're going to take your money and give it to them. Because that's the right thing to do. It's not necessarily economically good, but it's the morally right thing to do. And whenever they raise taxes, they don't use economic arguments to raise taxes. They use moral arguments to raise taxes. It's just it helps the needy in California they raise taxes by 30% on the very rich and the very rich voted for it. Why? Because they were told if we don't raise taxes in you, then all these kids won't be able to get an education. It's always the other that's going to suffer unless you sacrifice. And we impose the sacrifice on you because you're not good enough to do it out of your own self-interest. So I believe that the entire welfare state and the regulatory state are driven by our moral ideas. Our moral ideas of ethical values of a drive policy. Not economics. Nobody gives a damn in Washington D.C. about economics. Nobody gives a damn in political parties about economics. At the end of the day, it's about what can sell and what sells. People talk about feel good stuff. What they're talking about is morality. They don't want to say it's morality because that sounds, you know, pretentious. But what it is at the end of the day is morality. It all comes from the same assumption. This morality of focusing on others is not a morality of self-sacrifice. Which brings us to objectiveism. Iman's radius. Because Iman challenges this. She challenges this morality and she offers us an ultimate. Her basic question is that she starts with is why? Why should I sacrifice? Why is somebody else's life more important than mine? Why should I place the war on other people before my own? Why? We only have one life as far as we know. I'm pretty sure you only have one life. Why don't we toast up? Why don't we happy? Why not live well? Flourish, succeed, thrive as an individual? Why suffer? Why sacrifice? What's sacrifice? Trade is win-win. What's sacrifice? What's sacrifice? Lose-win. Yeah, it's lose-win. Which almost always turns into lose-lose. Why is it lose-win? How do we know it's lose-win? Because otherwise it wouldn't be a sacrifice. The whole point of having a concept called sacrifice separate than a concept called trade is the idea that I'm losing. I'm giving up something in return for what? Nothing or something less valuable to me. You have to be in a worse situation. Well... Virtue, right? Today everyone's virtue signaling so you get back currency of virtue. Yes, but again it's in reality it's not worth anything. It's not worth anything. And the virtue signaling is all about this idea of sacrifice. It's not about the idea of anything else. So you see your virtue signaling why is that a virtue? Why is it a virtue to lose? Why is it a virtue not to pursue your own life, not to pursue your own interests, not to pursue your own path? Why is it a virtue to align other people and to focus your attention, your energy, and everything on other people rather than your own life, your own success, and the common, the standard morality that we have in the world today just doesn't make any sense because what's the answer to why? Why should I live that kind of life? It's because somebody said so. Maybe it's God, maybe it's my philosopher friend, but there's no reasoning, there's no connection and it flies contrary to your own life. So then develops a philosophy in Malachi based on the idea of individual human flourishing, a success and living a good life. What does that require? We're not going to go through the whole ethics, but just quickly, what does that require? What does it require? Never mind even a little bit. What does it require for human beings to survive? What do you need to do in order to survive? Yeah, you got somebody to be reading the notes, right? What makes us human? What is the unique way in which we survive that other animals don't have? Social interaction. Even social interaction is downstream from this because you have to do this to be able to even get to the point where there's something to communicate about and there's something you're communicating. Yeah, you have to you have to be able to reason. You have to be able to think. I mean we're this weird animal that we don't have we don't have the genetic programming to know how to survive. Like you plop somebody in the middle of the Amazon naked, how do you survive? You can survive, but it's not guaranteed. How are you going to survive? Like if you take an animal from, I don't know, from the north and you put them in the Amazon they won't survive for very long. They'll die like that. Human beings won't. Why? What can we do that is different than other animals? Yeah, we can adapt our environment to suit us. We don't just we don't have a program. We can change the programming. We can change the world around us. So, we don't have the gene for agriculture. Some genius had to figure agriculture up and then teach us and then we all adopted agriculture. I mean even hunting people think hunting. We're all genetically programmed to hunt. I mean I look around this room pretty much any pathetic animals. Look at you. You're weak all of us weak on a biological scale we're slow no fangs, no claws you guys try running down a bison and eating into it you're not going to get there. So, you're imagining this. It doesn't work but how do we I can't say this in Amsterdam I don't think but if I'm talking in Denver somewhere in the Midwest I often say but I just had a bison booger around the corner I didn't get a bison booger I didn't kill a bison not with this. I didn't kill it with tools right? with weapons with traps with strategy what are those products of? human mind reasoning, thinking figuring stuff out solving problems what makes humans humans is our ability to reason ability to observe reality integrate it abstract from it reorganize it in our minds reality actually reorganize it in reality production that's what production is we produce stuff we don't just sleep outdoors we build buildings and they're a little more complicated than nests we build skyscrapers we don't accept nature as it is we adapt nature to fit our needs that's what makes us human so a morality that is fitting for human beings as a morality it says you should live your life for yourself in pursuit of your own happiness of your own success and how do you do that? by using what is human which is your mind so for ran the purpose of morality is your happiness your success, your flourishing and the means to be moral be human it's to think it's to use your mind it's to reason if you took an egoistic philosophy of egoistic moral code in one word what would it be? think it's nothing more selfish than that right? and indeed the lying cheating is not selfish because what usually happens to lies is cheaters and thieves unless they're in politics they get caught in politics you can get caught it doesn't matter but they get caught and bad stuff happens to them and even in politics anybody ever meet I don't know if there's anybody in politics here I have to be killed but anybody ever meet a happy politician? I've never met one it's hard why? because politicians don't necessarily most of the time function based on reason it's about manipulating people it's not about solving problems real problems sanity I know you guys affiliate with political parties but that's part of the challenge is this politics is about what? what's politics about? certainly today what's politics about? force politics is about coercion it's not voluntary laws are passed but you have to do it otherwise force is applied against you so politics is not deal with the voluntary it's not deal with the chosen it doesn't deal with reasoning individuals doing what they unless the politics protecting them but politics is about force, coercion and when you apply force and coercion that inappropriately I would say to intervene in free exchange with people to intervene in the choices individuals make which all our politicians do it's corrupting there's just nowhere around it it's corrupting because you're using force when it's inappropriate to use force so if we value capitalism if we value the end result of capitalism which is more wealth more production more freedom more choices more opportunities we need a new moral code we need to abandon the existing moral code we need to abandon the idea of sacrifice we need to abandon the idea of selflessness and you need to embrace a moral code that's consistent with the outcome not just because it's consistent with the outcome but because it makes sense we need to figure out a moral code of how to live as individuals how to make our lives the best that they can be not how to sacrifice but how to live and that's Iron Man's project if you will and that's what I think all morality should be about figuring out how individual human life can be the best that it can be and if we can figure that out then capitalism is easy think about where capitalism started think of America maybe as the first capitalist country and so the kind of freedom that was established there well it starts with a document a document that declares that all men have the right equal rights inalienable rights to their own life not to sacrifice, not to suffer but to their own life to live their life to their own liberty speak, write anything they want the most selfish political statement in all of human history every individual has an inalienable right to pursue their own happiness now that's a revolution right there and that's the revolution that created the modern world that created the world that we have that's the revolution that we have to rediscover and now I think this is why I should read Iron Man I think we have the tools much better tools in philosophy to justify the idea of the pursuit of happiness leading to a great world and a great life thank you all