 Thank you all for coming and thank you Dennis for inviting me and it's great to see a full house tonight. So I've been asked to talk about how to be a rational egoist. But I thought I'd start by talking a little bit about why you should care about being a rational egoist. And I think, and I'm going to make an assumption, and I hope the assumption is true, and the assumption is that in this group we all care about freedom, we all care about free markets, we all care about capitalism. And, you know, we, many of us are advocates of free markets and capitalism. And I'm going to make an assumption that we all can agree that those things are good. And I would argue, and Ayn Rand has argued, that if we really believe, you know, I never turned a thought. Do I need it? Do I need a mic? No. I think this is a cleaner sound without the mic. Let me know in the back if I needed to switch it on. Ayn Rand would argue that we are losing the battle for free markets, at least in the West, that we have been losing this battle over the last hundred or so years, in spite of the fact that we have the best economists, in spite of the fact that we have reality on outside when capitalism free markets attested they work, when they've tried, it creates prosperity and a good life. In spite of all the evidence, in spite of all the facts, in spite of the great economists that we have, we're losing the battle because, because the underlying morality, the underlying ethical beliefs of the culture are antagonistic to capitalism. Markets about what? Markets about profit. But they're not just on the business side, they're about profit. On the consumer side, they're about what? Fulfilling our interests, our values. You know, going out and buying up, I like to joke that I went and bought an iPhone in order to stimulate the US economy. That was my point. And I'm sure most of you go shopping in order to help the shopkeeper and to, you know, Adam Smith got this right a long, long time ago. We're all in it for ourselves, in the marketplace. The marketplace is about self-interest. And yet, our ethical code, the ethical code that we've been taught since we were this big, the ethical code that permeates our entire culture, the entire West says that self-interest is not a good thing. Even Adam Smith really said that. It's good only in the sense that it serves a social purpose. It serves it. And that's a tough one. You know, your individual behavior is kind of immoral, but continue doing it because it maximizes the utility of society somehow. It's just not convincing. And unless, so I believe that unless we can defend the self-interest and action that we engage in in the marketplace, is built upon, we cannot properly, consistently win this battle, win this war over freedom. The left, the left holds, you know, the moral high ground. Socialism is consistent with the self-less, pro-self-sacrificed morality that we have been taught for hundreds of years. And that we have all bought into subconscious. It's why guilt is so prevalent, I think, among the wealthy, at least in the United States. Because they know they pursue their own self-interest their whole lives, but that's really not what morality is about. I like to use, you know, Bill Gates was not viewed as a good guy when he made the billions of dollars. What does it take to make somebody a good guy from a moral perspective, from a perspective of ethics? Giving it away. So making the money doesn't count morally. Giving it away counts. A morality like that is inconsistent with capitalism. We will never ever win the battle for capitalism, for freedom, as long as the Bill Gates, the Gates of the world, are not admired for making the money. For creating the wealth. For pursuing their values. For pursuing profit. So I'm here to defend self-interest. And I'm here to explain self-interest. And the reason self-interest needs to be explained is that it's being perverted. It's being distorted. By those who believe that morality is about being self-less. By those who believe that morality is about self-sacrifice. Because if they just sold us that package, you know, you should be, to be a good person, all you have to do is never think about yourself. Forget about yourself and sacrifice, sacrifice, that pain is good. We don't say you got to be kidding me. I don't want that. But then they say the only alternative to that, the only alternative to that is being selfish. Now what do we think of when we think of selfishness? When we point to the kid in the schoolyard and say that kid is selfish. Do we mean he's rationally pursuing his self-interest? No, we mean he's a lying, cheating SOV. We mean he's a really horrible person. And nobody wants to be that person. So one of the ways we can sell people on being on a morality of self-lessness that nobody really practices is by convincing them that the only alternative is being selfish in this, you know, that Bernie made up. Everybody, you know, in America I assume everybody knows that Bernie made up. The largest Ponzi scheme ever stole $53 billion from investors. You know, at least one of his investors committed suicide. His son recently committed suicide out of embarrassment for what his father had done. His children actually turned him in. But the idea is that self-interest is Bernie made up. If you're truly self-interested, if you're consistently self-interested, then you lie, steal, and cheat, and that's what Bernie made up. And nobody, none of us, no good person wants to be Bernie made up. So we stuck in this, there's nowhere to go, right? Self-lessness is all they teach. Being self-faced is Bernie made up. There are no alternatives. So they lump together, anti-self-interest crowd, lump together, true self-interest, which I'll talk about in a minute, and this viciousness that is a Bernie made up. The lying, stealing, cheating. And they present that as a unified concept under the title of self-interest or selfish or however you want to call it. Greed, you know, greed is a horrible thing, right? We all know that. Why? Because we point to the person who has lied and stolen and cheated in some way and we say he's greedy. But what about the guy who has been greedy in the sense of just pursuing wealth? Legitimately, just accumulating a lot of wealth. Why is that bad? Why are those two the same? Why is Bill Gates and Bernie made up lumped into the same category? And they are. They're both self-interested, at least until Bill Gates gave them anyway. You have a sense that if Bernie made up and stole $153 billion and given it to charity, he would be treated a lot better. But that's perverse. That's perverse. So the first thing I want to try there is I want to separate those two up. I don't believe Bernie made up of self-interest. True. He made a lot of money off of his cheating and lying. But when I talk about self-interest, when I talk about self-interest meaning taking care of self, putting self first, wanting to live the best life that you can be, being happy as your primary moral purpose, Bernie made up doesn't pop into my mind as that kind of person. Bernie made up as a miserable, pathetic human being who lied to everybody he interacted with on a day-to-day basis. Because who did he steal from? His best friends. People who played golf with, people he interacted with in business. Who did he lie to? Well, he had to hide it from his kids because they went into business with him. He had a lie to the friends he was stealing the money from. Now put yourself in his place. Imagine living a day where everybody you meet, you have to lie to. Not a happy day. Not pleasant. You know, Bernie made up, he says, in some of the interviews, he says that he couldn't sleep at night because he feared being caught. Now, he didn't feel being caught by the police. It was the least of his worries. He worried about being caught by his sons, which is actually what happened, or by his friends. You can't live a happy life. You can't be successful. You can't have self-esteem and self-worth living a life of deception. That's not self-interest. And it's funny to say, you made a lot of money, but we're not materialists. We're not just about the money. Money's just one factor in what makes us happy and successful and self-interested and selfish, right? Money's just one piece of it. He, for the money, gave up everything else. And indeed, it's interesting that most of these guys land up in jail, which is the least happy place on earth. And, you know, while he's in jail, his son commits suicide. I don't think anybody could recover from something like that. That's... So, think of Bernie made up as self-destructive. Not a self-interested, not a selfish, but self-destructive. And we need to take that concept of self-interest and rip out the bad guys from it. And then what's left? So what is self-interest about? Well, it's about pursuing what's good for me. Each one of us pursuing what's good for yourself. And what is that? Is that something that's just completely, you know, whatever subjective, we each have our own values, you know, it's whatever we feel like in the moment. Is that what's going to lead to the best possible life? Well, Iron Man says no. She says there's a science to human happiness, if you will. There's a science to human success. There's a science to selfishness. There's a science to being good at living. And the challenge she says from morality, the challenge for ethics, is to discover the principles by which we should live that lead to a happy, successful life. So discover the principles by which we should live to achieve a happy and successful life. And there are such principles. So, for example, you know, what is he? There's really, you know, there's one big principle and then a lot of you can break it out. But what is the one big principle? It's to live a life of what? Well, where do human values come from? You know, if you look at your neighbor, what you see next to you is a weak, pathetic, slow, unfit for nature. Animal. Put yourself into the... You wanted me to attack you guys from the way that your widow responded. If you put yourself in the prairies of Africa, you can't compete in just body-wise and material-wise with the cheetahs and the lions and whatever else animals are out there. We're not strong, we have no fangs, we have no claws. We don't have the ability to just physically survive in the world of it. What is it that allows us to hunt and become, in a sense, the king of all the animals to rule over nature? What is it that makes it possible for us to do to create every value that we have? Everything. From the iPhone to the building, to the electricity, to the clothes we wear and the food we eat. All of them are products of one specific type of human activity. And that activity is reason. It's rational thought. So we're answered, well, if all human values seem to come from this one thing, then shouldn't that be the most important principle by which one should live? Reason, rationality, observing reality, figuring out, coming up with principles based on that? So rationality, reason, that's why rational self-interest. To differentiate from, you know, the misinterpretation of self-interest that others would have, it's rational self-interest. Then the question is how do we apply reason? How do we apply rationality to this issue of self-interest? Then you evaluate, is cocaine good for me or not? I feel like I want it. It'll make me feel good. But is it good for me? And that is just good for me right now, but is it good for me over the span of my lifetime? And the answer is probably for most of us, no, it's not. Cocaine's out. Cocaine's not a value to me. It's a negative value because it actually decreases my ability to enjoy life. So the whole idea is to apply reason to every one of the decisions in life. And that eradicates this notion of a wind-worshipping, emotion-driven, you know, Bernie Madoff, who, you know, I don't think he sat down and planned his pyramid scheme. He kind of, you know, emotionally just drifted into it because, you know, you cheat once and you cheat a little bit and it's hard to admit, so you cover it up and then the cover-up is bigger and then you have to have a bigger cover-up of the original one. Most of these frauds and these things happened because somebody didn't want to face reality. And what is the number one thing you do if you're rational? You know, the thing that rationality is based upon is the notion of facing reality, facing the facts, accepting the facts. So rational self-interest is about living a rational life for the purpose of your own happiness, of your own success. Figuring out what that is and for each one of us, you know, that's going to be somewhat different. But it's not going to be those things that are associated with self-interest and selfishness that is painful. Does that mean we hate other people? Right? Because you were selfish, right? So we despise other people with nothing to do with other people. We're rude to them. We're impolite. Because all we care about, after all, is ourselves. I mean, it should be obvious that if you rationally analyze it, other people are of huge value to you. We know, right? We know what a free market, how a free market, how a division of labor is a huge benefit to us. How the work of other people and training with other people enriches us enormously. So other people are huge value to oneself. And you never know what kind of value you're getting from other people because you don't know what exactly they're doing in life and in what way they're contributing to yours. But they probably are, if they're productive. So other people are enormous value to somebody who is selfish. So what we need to do is, again, separate these two out. And now, if we can defend the idea that self-interest is morality, the other side is claim that selflessness is morality. And selflessness is incompatible with capitalism. When we got into the marketplace, we're not being selfless. So if we can establish that selfishness is morality, which is one of Iron Man's big missions, then capitalism is self-evident. We don't need, I mean, we always need economists, but you don't really need economics. What does self-interested people want? If your purpose in life is to pursue your values, if your purpose in life is to pursue your happiness and your success, what is in your self-interest? What are your values? Who can choose that? Only person who can choose that is you. Nobody else knows exactly what you value and what you want and what you care about. Only you can choose it. And therefore what kind of political system do you want? One that leaves you free to pursue your values. One where coercion is taken out of the picture. Where you are sovereign over your own life because it's yours, because you're morally certain of your own value and that you want to live the best life that you can. And there's only one political system that that fits into. And that's a capitalist political system. A political system that leaves you alone. Because what is it that we don't like about other political systems? Is that they coerce you. They coerce you into doing things that, you know, sometimes you might agree with, you might want to do it sometimes, but sometimes you don't agree with it. You want to eliminate coercion altogether. Because coercion places a barrier between you and your rational pursuits. So it's this notion of rational self-interest in our view in Iron Man's view and in the objective's view is the ultimate underpinning of a capitalist society. It is the justification, the moral justification of individual freedom. Somebody disagree. We didn't get thunder and lightning, so it's pretty safe. In my view, this is not a... It's not that hard of a case to make. I know it seems hard, and, you know, I'm not sure I've convinced you guys, but it seems like telling people that they shouldn't feel guilty about pursuing profit, that they shouldn't feel guilty about pursuing their own happiness, about being productive and achieving things, that should be easy. That should be easy. But that is what we're facing. Unless we can make this argument, unless we can convince people that their purpose in life is this rational self-interested life, I don't see how we can win the battle for freedom and win the battle for capitalism. I think, luckily for us, Rand didn't write philosophy primarily. She wrote novels. Many of you probably read The Fountain and the Shrug, which are great vehicles just for that, to get that message to people and the fact that these books are selling through the roof. Better now than way better now, that which you was alive and kind of on a continuously increasing path suggests that maybe there's a chance that we can get this message out and then capitalize it with the good economics and the good political theory. Thank you all. Randians have we got in the audience. Quite a number. How many? All right, thank you. How many? Actually, Randians. No, none of those. How many? Oh, respectable showing. Friedmaniacs! A couple of that. Just so you know, you're dealing with... Some Maniacs, I'm worried about. Spittians. Long variants. Yeah, let's not get along. Before we just get onto the questions, I mean, there is, you know, a... Human beings are a social species and I think you've sort of said that, but there are many cases in which, as Hayek, this is one that I secretly wanted to know how many Hayekians there are. You know, as Hayek says, so much of our social interaction, you know, you think of language and many other things, they're not planned, they're not designed. They just come out of the sacks and we are social creatures and we live together and we understand that. Now, you're talking about, well, let's be rational about this. Now, Hayek would say, I don't think he's opposed to you, but the Hayekian view is that, once you start trying to rationalise things and trying to impose an order on this natural order, then you come across that. Sure, well, the challenge is that if you rationalise without coercion, that is, there is order. There are businesses, corporations that have run where there is order. It's true that you can't centralise a plan in an entire economy. That's a good thing, but that's not the key argument against central planning. The key argument against central planning is not that it can't be done. We know that, it's just too complex, but imagine it could be done. Would that be a good thing? No. That's why it should be rejected. Yes, much spontaneous order happens, but it happens because, as rational agents, it's the consequence of those interactions of many, many rational agents that we get this added benefit, and that's the benefits of trade. Trade is a win-win, and when you trade across an entire economy and try to cross an entire society, you get enormous benefits from it. And I think that's a consequence of language. Why did language evolve? I think that it evolved because of an existential need between two human beings and then other human beings to communicate. To communicate about trade, about hunting, about survival in some way or another. It evolved because of the selfish need of each individual to communicate for the purpose of survival and then for the purpose of flourishing. You start with survival, and then you expand on that. I don't think a social, some kind of magic happens in society. I think that if we're all self-interested, we're all rational, you get all those benefits of trade on an even larger scale than you do in a society that doesn't recognize those virtues. Right. Now, who feels like you've been raising up this opinion? You're quick. Dominic, can you give your name on who you are and your state of fame? Tommy Graham, conservative way forward on certain things. I guess the question here and Eamonn's question is, do you then endorse coercing the rational thought onto people? Because, you know, the natural order or disorder, whatever, if people are freely making the choice not to be rational, should they be coerced into it? I think it's pretty easy. I don't think you can coerce people to be rational. That is, rationality is a process that happens inside your head. I can't coerce you to think right. I can coerce the conclusion, but I can't coerce the method. I can't coerce a conclusion because it wouldn't be rational. For the person engaged in it, it's not theirs now. I exclude coercing. You cannot have rational thought and coercing on opposites. The thing that negates reason is force. And if we believe in reason, we must demolish force. Force must be extracted from human society. All force. So, for example, I'll give you an example. Human society has an economic policy. Very good. It doesn't have economic policy because the government is not involved in economic policy. So let's say you're a communist and a committed one. And you have a group of friends who are all communists. If you want to go start a communist somewhere and live your communist way, as long as you're not coercing people who don't who you haven't signed on to, I have no problem with that. I think you're nuts and crazy. All those horrible things, but I can't stop you from doing it. I believe that a free state is neutral philosophically, is neutral economically. It just doesn't get involved. Now, I believe, I think we all believe that in such a situation, capitalism thrives and free market thrives, and yet there'll be, you know, people start keyboards. And as long as I'm not subsidized by the government, who cares? I'm from Israel, so I know about the keyboards. And it wouldn't exist without subsidies because it was failed economically. But you'd have all the freedom to do that. Hello. I pretty much always regard myself as the right way to send to the right, but recently I thought, I might use that term any more. There's so many things about right-wing politics, particularly in the UK, but I don't think at all, because I don't know if it consists of my views or I think consists of the views of capitalism, for example, being anti-ortionist, being anti-immigration, in America having this quite a lot of religious ideas in politics. Do you regard objectivism and capitalism as right-wing or the views of the right-left spectrum is appropriate? Ideally, I think it is right-wing, because I think it's right. I think they're not right. Given that they have adopted the right, I don't think that it's useful to use that spectrum. That is, the risk that we run is to be associated, particularly in America, where the religious right is so dominant, to be associated with those views. You know, it's a challenge that we face all the time. Do you go on the Glenn Beck show, or don't you? I don't know if you know Glenn Beck, but I assume everybody knows him. He's very good at certain issues. I mean, brilliant at some things, but then he's wacky, complete nutcase on others, and you have to be very cautious not to be associated with the anti-evolution, all those views, which the religious right in the United States is very big. And they're not really for capitalism either, right? They're for some mushy, a compromised vision of what markets are really about. So you have to be very careful. Right. We'll move forward here, then we'll do this talk. Yeah, you talked about kind of happiness, being a goal. It's obviously completely different for every person. Probably synonymous with utility. You're kind of saying that kind of a tautology. Isn't it like saying that you should act? Because what kind of act can there be that isn't by definition utility maximizing? And so there, I'm just confused about how it's different from just the actor. No, this is the classic question I get from economists who've been trained in utility theory and have been reading his Mises. Yes. I don't accept a utility maximizer. I don't believe people are utility. They can be. I don't think most people are. I think most people go through life take the cocaine example. There are plenty of people. It's not the cocaine. It's not utility maximizer. It might be pleasure maximizing at the moment, but it's not utility maximizing in the long-term rational sense of that. It doesn't increase their happiness. It increases their misery. And I think most people act every day. Lots and lots of times a day to increase their misery index to minimize their utility. I think this is where economists are wrong and particularly the Austrians because they take economics and they apply it they take the idea of utility and the idea of rational behavior and they say, well, everybody does it all the time. Well, but that's simply not true. People do self-destructive, harmful things to themselves that if they just stuck for a second to themselves, but they don't stop the second to think like that. We're not deterministic. There's no mechanism within us that drives us to pursue our self-interest. We can be self-interested, but we can also be self-destructive and we can also be self-less. We can also, like some people in Mexico, see nail ourselves to the cross to sympathize with Jesus just to feel the pain. That's not utility maximizing. They might think it is you know, they've got the ecstasy but there's nothing objectively scientifically, and this is why I emphasize this is a science. If you evaluate scientifically human life, nailing yourself to a cross is not utility maximizing. There are certain scientific principles that say this action leads to happiness, this action leads to death. If you do too much cocaine, it's the death. Those are scientific principles. If you eat certain amounts of poison, you will die. People choose to eat that poison in spite of that because they're self-destructive, because they're not utility maximized because the idea of taking economics and applying it to all of human action is wrong. There's a big disagreement between von Mises and I. I'm mad, they used to have dinner at a mic there. You know, I have lived von Mises and I'm mad sitting around the dinner table discussing these kind of issues, or their disagreement. The idea that you can take these principles in economics and apply it versus having philosophy, philosophy as a field. And people take philosophical ideas that are bad for them, and they're committed to them, and yet they're never going to be happy because of it, because they've been bad folks. Just to say, I'm a student of Objectivism from New Zealand and a former spokesman for the Libertarians Party in New Zealand called Broad Tent is the US Libertarian Party. It's started by Objectivists for Objectivism and promoted Objectivist ideas and now pretty much abandoned by Objectivists. The question is what politically should an Objectivist in the UK do. You've got the Conservatives who are run by a smarmy fragmented who's not very far apart from a socialist. Then you've got UKIP who makes some good noises about Europe and sound money occasionally but then do want to do things like a version of freedom of expression such as not banning burqas. And then you've got a small Libertarian Party which is all over the shop. All over the shop as the US Libertarian Party. So what should an Objectivist in New Zealand sorry, in the UK? I'm glad you're not asking about New Zealand which I know nothing about. What should an Objectivist in the UK do? I think much would be my answer. I don't think politics matters at this point. I don't think we have enough Objectivists to make any difference and I don't think politics is where change is going to come from. I would vote in terms of voting because that's a one political action. I would vote to minimize damage and give us more time. So figure out how to strategically vote so that you get so freedom of speech is kept around so you have enough time to try to convince people to vote for the party of the future which will be more Objectivist or more Libertarian in the non-rock body in a sense. I think it's buying time and that's my view of the US. I will vote Republican. I will sometimes vote Democratic. But it's all an issue of how do you buy time because the fact is we're not nowhere near to turning the corner. I think we better turn the corner in the next 10, 20 years because I think the US economy at least something I know about is in dire straits and if we don't turn the corner in the next 10, 20 years this economic crisis would feel like nothing as compared to what's coming. But at least turn the corner. I'm not saying get there but turn the corner. But you need that time. Blow down the growth of statism and vote for Republican. But maybe it's divided government that slows down the growth of statism as the Bush administration proved that it didn't slow anything down. Maybe having divided government is the best. So you have to strategically think about what is the best way just to slow it down so that you buy yourself time. Now, are you all right? You can do it. I don't think I have any claims to say until we'll make one. But I know you've one rejected the left-right spectrum pretty much. I know Aiman also said that you were going to try to attack the Adam Smith Institute from the right. I was wondering if I could attack you from the right. And you've insisted that coercion must be banished from all human relationships. Yes. I've heard you say on the internet on YouTube and that kind of film television you reject the Rothbardian model the anarcho-capitalist model. How do you square those two values? What would an objective estate that actually has to be a state has to be a government what would it look like without coercive taxation pay for it? That's pretty much my question. Why is it not? My difference with anarchism at least those who are barbarians who believe in anarchism is I don't believe you can have overlapping jurisdictions which have the ability to use force. I don't think you can have competing police forces. I think it's ludicrous. And it only leads to ultimately to dictatorship. The biggest guy with the biggest police force and their most powerful weapons is going to destroy all the other ones and take it over. Anarchy doesn't work. Now how do you fund a state that has a police force and has a military and has a judiciary system which is the objectivist model state? How do you fund it? Primarily, and there might be other ways to fund it a long way from solving that problem but primarily through voluntary taxation. I see no problem. I see no issue with leaving it up to people to pay for their defense and to pay for their policing voluntary. People do lots of things voluntarily today that they don't have to do. I'm not even mentioning charity and their self-interest. I want there to be a police force. I certainly want a military to protect my borders particularly in times where they might be invaded and times where they're more peaceful they probably cut them out of money a year for that cost. But explain to people why it's in their rational self-interest. To support a police in a military and to support the judiciary I don't think that's hard to do. The judiciary can then also you can have fees on protecting contracts you can have fees on patents like that. So there's certain fees that they can charge for specific services but then policing and military I think could be voluntary and you know yes there's going to be a free-rider problem who the hell cares is my view. I mean so there'll be some free-riders. As long as there's enough police and enough military to protect me and I might need an interest I feel good about myself and if my neighbor is not contributing anything to his own policing and his own defense I won't speak to him. I won't trade with him. I'll board cut him. And I think all the neighbors should. So I mean there are mechanisms by which that is built with but it has to be voluntary. It cannot be closed. My name is Davika. I had a question about what you spoke earlier about being basically talked about selfish. Selfish is good. And you also then linked that to saying you know being selfish probably means that other people are valued to you. Which kind of contradicts the definition of being selfish which means showing disregard for others. No I don't think that, see that's the definition that the self-less morality would like you to believe in but I don't think that's the definition. The definition of selfish is taking care of self. It's placing your own well-being above the well-being of others. That doesn't mean you don't care for other people. It just means you care for them in the context of your own life. So I care for my kids more for example than I care for your kids. Now that I've met you I probably care for your kids more than I care for some child in Africa. So what's close to me I'm going to care more about. What I love I'm going to care much more about. People I trade with on a day-to-day basis the grosser the butcher to use that I'm going to care more about them because I actually see the benefit I'm getting than somebody far distance from me. But I still care about people because my life depends on my life is better for their existence. I think I was going to pick up on the point when you said the word probably. No it wouldn't be probably. I probably was a rhetorical point. It's absolutely people are valued to you. There's a question about it. I have predictions in terms of being selfish means just looking after one's own self-interest and then you link it to you know making other people value to you. And I was going to go on to the point where I wanted to use on it's an extreme subject I know but like on exploitation now when you're doing business and if you're selfish then you think about one's own profit and that's all that matters to you at any cost sort of thing. So what are the views on economic exploitation? Think about that. So all I care about is profit. I used to do this to I used to teach finance so we have a big issue in finance is should companies maximize shareholders should they be stakeholder friendly? They care about everybody in the workers and everybody on the side. And we still list all the stakeholders and then we take a decision like moving a plant to Mexico or something. And how do you make a decision? Well this one it's plus five and then it's minus and you kind of weigh all these and you can't weigh them because it's all algorithm. So basically it's whoever has the biggest voices whoever pounds on your door more you get. And then I go to the shareholders and I say all I care about is shareholders. What do I do? I take my employees and I chain them to their machines and I whip them three times a day. Then they won't work hard and they won't get the maximum productivity for them. Oh okay so if I maximize profit it means that I need to treat my employees pretty well because I need them to be maximally productive. But supplies, I don't care about supplies I'm late on the bills, I never pay them. No no no you can't do that because if you really care about profit your supplies have to trust you you want them to deliver the goods when you're and you can extrapolate that on and on the fact is that if you want to be profitable then you have to take care of your people. Any businessman will tell you that. Now the term exploitation on the other hand I think is being broadened to such an extent that I think has become almost meaningless. I consider exploitation as chaining to the machines and the whipping. I don't consider exploitation going into Indonesia or Malaysia or many other countries and hiring 12-year-olds to work. I think you're adding enormous value to that 12-year-old into that culture. There's no accident that Britain during the Industrial Revolution had child labor and the option was what? If you didn't have child labor, they passed a law in the early 19th century not to have child labor as those children have done. Not many of them would have stopped. And that's exactly what's going on in Malaysia and Indonesia and they have large no value. If you pay them a bucket or whatever their going rate is that going rate is higher than what they alternatively would have done which is what did children do before the Industrial Revolution? Worked 14-hour days on the farm and barely survived. Subsistence and most have died because there wasn't enough food and the Industrial Revolution made it possible for us to educate our kids and to pamper them and spoil them and all the things we do to our kids today. Without going through that phase we would have never achieved the wealth to make it possible for us to treat children. Indonesia, Malaysia, all these other countries have to go through the same stage. There's no way to skip over it. They have to create the capital to make it possible for them to reach the amount of wealth so that children won't have to work. None of us want children to work. How about providing jobs at this stage in their development? First of all, they're extreme right here. Oh, extreme? Well, technically I think I'm extreme left on this room, but don't worry, I'm no commie, don't worry. Basically, I was just wondering because if you look at the economic policy of Britain and America and like the West generally, especially with back of Obama in charge it seems like they're specifically following policies that will destroy wealth, that will inflate the currency and that will cause people to die basically. You'd have to be a complete crescent to not really understand how that economic policy is going to cause inflation and stuff. So why do they do it? I mean... Well, because they don't see an option. Their worldview is constrained by the idea that the only solutions emanate from government. There is no solution. If you let the market free things will be much, much, much worse. So, yes, there are problems with what we do but we're really, really smart and we'll figure them out. So, Benakie, I think to some extent, I think he's self-deceiving, but to some extent believes that he'll be able to squeeze all that extra money out just in time so that there's no inflation. Although anybody who studied economics knows that that's absurd. But he believes in what's his option. His option is not to print money and to just let things get worse in the short run but politically that's infeasible and people will be hooding and he really cares about people. I mean, where does he go with that? Freedom is not on the table. It's not an option for them. Their whole mindset, the whole way they think. You know, think about October 2008, Lehman had just gone back about financial world is in chaos. With anybody putting on the table let's do nothing. I mean, that's not in their worldview. Their worldview is we have to do something. It's what we get paid for. It's what politicians are about. And if you had told them, but yeah, but long term it'll make things worse, they would have said how do you know that? Long term. Who knows what the long term will bring? We got to solve this problem right now whatever the long term it is. But we can't tell, we don't know. And in that sense, people are driven by the underlying premises. They're not driven by economics. You know, Bernanke should know about it. He's a brilliant economist from Princeton. So is Krugman. They don't, because economics doesn't matter to them. What matters are these more fundamental premises. Right? Well, go to the extreme left here, or right here. During your description of child labour, you said basically the kids in relation did these with these opportunities? It was an explanation, an explanation what you said. You said they were work or they died. Yeah. So how morally... Exploitation I would view as I kill them, right? So they either look for me or I whip them or we'll shoot them. That would be exploitation. I'm using coercion to get them into my factory and keep them there. The reality is if I don't bring my factory there, they die. That's just the reality. They live very, very poor lives on less than a dollar a day. By bringing the factory there, I raised the standard of living from near death to a dollar a day. Which is not great, but it sure beats the half dollar a day. So there's no coercion there. And the other aspect again is moral. The fact that somebody's dying somewhere does not place a claim on me. I don't owe them anything. I don't owe the child in Malaysia anything other than not to make him worse off through force. But if I'm being a factory there, I'm increasing the choices. That's all I'm doing. I'm not forcing him to walk in. I'm increasing the set of choices that that child had. That can be a negative thing. But does he really have a choice? Is there a choice? Sure. He can stay on the farm. If I don't bring the factory there, what happens? That's the alternative choice? Should I have a choice? There's only one rational choice, which is what you said. You have rationality. Well, then great that I'm providing him. But again, if I don't bring the factory there, then the only rational choice is the state on the verge of starvation. Right. This is just decided outside by three, four, three submissions. Dr. Seabird. Yes. This call is to aware that I'd end up in Stilts and Crackfield and others are trying to look at it. But I don't think they're doing it profoundly enough. Because I think when I began to basic moral philosophy in the UK and to a certain extent in the US, I've only made two statements which are people in the UK who are generally considered to be incompatible. And even some people in this room might consider them to be incompatible. The first is this. I consider myself to be an honest and moral trainer. And the second is, I'm a private doctor. But there's two together. Immediately, sir. To you. Yes. But not in the UK. And I don't know how to be able to resolve economic or philosophical political problems until we do them. But I agree with you. But to me that is a moral economic issue. That is, the notion that people view private and moral as somehow in conflict is a problem with morality. It's not a problem with private. So my challenge is we need to rethink morality because something's screwy in the way people view morality if they view a private doctor as somehow immoral. So the challenge to us is not economic, it's not political, it's moral. How do we convince people that morality is about being a trader. That the traded principle, that the idea behind trade is the essential idea in morality. It's about, you know, you're providing a service but you're seeking your own value from it. You're not doing it out of you know, out of coercion just for the benefit of mankind. You're doing it for your benefit as well. And that's a good thing. That's what we need to convince. So I agree completely. Who else feels... Questions on morality This is going to be about morality. Better people in economics in the room. Who wants to talk about morality? Right. Moral perversion you mentioned at the beginning. Definitions and selfishness means arming others. I hate to be fed to the left. To be fed to the left. It's not much over. It's nearly all the nature of literature. Absolutely. That's why this is such a big challenge. I said it's hundreds of years old. This is, you know, again this goes back to mostly to Christianity. I mean because the Greeks the Greeks would have never even played up, would have never considered morality as something self-less. Morality was always about self-improvement. Morality was about making yourself the best and Aristotle suddenly the goal of morality is the goal of life is you'd be there for film and happiness however you translate that. But it was about egoism. You know, Aristotle is an egoist. He's about how do I make my life the most fulfilling life possible. Western civilization I think with Christianity but it has its roots in Judaism and elsewhere distorts that and in order to advocate for its self-lessness and full self-sacrifice morality it colors selfishness with all this darkness and that's why this is such a hard battle. It was just about economics we would have won a long time ago. This is about challenging the most sacred beliefs that people have and have had for the last 2,000 years. Anybody else on morality? I'll take a couple of this time from the Music Institute. I hope this question is about morality. So I know Inran would you know be very much against initiational violence and you mentioned that before. Does this principle follow directly from rational selfishness? It follows directly from the idea that reason is man's means of survival that is our tool for survival is a thinking mind is rationality, is rational thought and the only thing that can stop thinking that can stop the application of reason is coercive force. So that's why she's against force because it's the antithesis it's the anti-reason the anti-rationality the thought and force are opposites and if you believe in thought if you believe in reason if you believe in rational argument and rational discussion convincing people through reason then force takes that away you have to do what the guy with the gun says whether you think it's good or whether you think it's bad it's out. It's the same thing you know if reason is a universal value it's just a value to you it's a value to everybody and you cannot benefit Rand would say in high degree you cannot benefit from applying force to somebody else you suffer as well as they do it goes back to the fact that we benefit when we trade we benefit when it's a win-win you can't benefit from coercion whether it's a gun or whether it's fraud or whether it's lying and cheating you're deceiving yourself you're deceiving reality you're deceiving reason and as a consequence you suffer you will now be successful yeah I knew it was that second hello my name is Bjorn I'm more of an illustrator but apparently it's also in London anyway I've been very involved in Swedish politics especially in politics regarding the school and since you said we're losing the battle we're losing the moral battle and I'd say that we're already in kindergarten in school let's say that it's my first day in school I'm six years old and I've just went to Toys R Us or some toy store and bought a really nice Barbie backpack that I really enjoy it's pink it's very girly she does pony's on it but I love it even if I'm a guy and I'm not never mind my suckers the thing is that all the other boys are wearing some sort of Spider-Man backpack so I am quite unique in that sense and therefore they bully me because I am not as everyone else and since no one really interferes at that moment as a six year old I'm being taught that I should be as everyone else and since you said we shouldn't interfere with politics but you're still saying that we should act now but we shouldn't interfere in politics but in the future when we have both time we have all rooms so let's say that we're really Britain but we should still not interfere with politics so what should we do to prevent this from happening we should get involved in education I don't think you're going to change bullying from the political, from politics you change bullying by changing the culture in the schools and by changing parenting skills because a lot of the bullying a lot of times the parent of the kid of the boy with the pink thing are going to be pretty upset are going to side with the guys with the Spider-Man so it's about changing parents attitudes and about changing schools I think the biggest campaign the most important campaign that we could engage in long term is to change the schools and I think the fundamental change that needs to happen is to privatize them is to get the government out of the schools altogether and let competition reign and let the free market really establish itself and that's why I criticize a lot of the think tanks in the U.S. for wanting charter schools vouchers and tax credit that's all nonsense you want the government out completely and the schools are so bad in the United States that if ever there was a time where you could actually advocate for selling the schools and privatizing them now is the time because people upset with the schools so let's go all the way let's not go half way let's raise money by selling off the schools in a way to cut California's budget deficit sell off on the schools but we've got you're right in America you walk into the classroom and there's your lesson about how man is destroying the environment and his evil for industrialization and it starts when they're four or five years old and they get it every single year in the classrooms and if we don't start combating at those young ages we're a huge deficit one of the things we do at the institute is we try to get at least in high schools and middle schools we try to get on man read and we've been very successful in getting the books into classrooms and getting them part of the curriculum which I think at least gives the older kids options at least they're exposed to something different time is limited so it's interesting to ask the question who thinks they would explode trying to give short answers let's start right at the very back there I have a question linking morality and selfishness the same thing by the way they are well the same very thought provoking I wanted to disagree with you but could you argue if everybody is intrinsically selfish or at least they're trying to maximize their perceived utility could you argue that that is completely in line with being entirely self less if your own utility function is a function of somebody else's utility function for example a mother child somebody dying for a friend see again I don't believe that people are utility maximizers I don't think they're intrinsically or even perceived I don't think they are I think people are guided by moral principles and if they believe that helping somebody else even though it will bring them consequences if they think it's the right thing not the good thing for them but just the right thing they do it but they're not thinking I'll feel better if I help this friend I'll feel better if I die for this friend because you can't feel better once you're dead they're thinking this is the right thing because the priest and my philosopher and everybody has told me since I was this gay that the other person's well-being is what's good for me so that is not utility maximizer now that is not to say that you don't help a friend and that there are circumstances where you do risk your life for somebody but that is only moral in my view it's only it is rational that is when you're hierarchy of values that person is so important that risking your life for them is necessary necessary for your well-being and you can imagine a child a wife but a stranger I think last time I spoke there somebody asked me a good question about a child drowning in a river and do you jump in and help them my answer is it depends it depends is it my child it depends how often the river is can I swim can I swim I think that child has to be not any child even a straight child has some value to me and then correspondingly what is my probability of surviving but if the probability of my surviving is close to 100% a child is a value and I'm willing to jump in and save a child in spite of the hassle and getting wet because life is valuable but that's the trade-off I mean that's the calculation the rational calculation but Smith says it's not a matter of rational calculation it's in your nature I don't think it is many people see drowning kids and don't jump in so Smith and I would disagree you want to be invited back I've got two questions I want people to be really ordinary and ask really nasty questions and disagree I've got an endless choice here I'm going to take you there and then I'll get back just in support of what you have been saying here I disagree I was talking to an IT consultant who had done work for Homeland Security and he was pretty familiar with the setup there and he said that the Homeland Security chief if he was ever to be ambushed and kidnapped his security was in charge of killing him because what he could possibly pass on to the third parties would be very damaging to the security of millions of Americans and he as chief of Homeland Security was quite happy to perform the task and be aware that he would be killed under such circumstances and that is totally rational as you described I think he can be rational but it doesn't have to be so imagine if the United States wasn't a good country now I think it's still a good country but imagine it wasn't, it was a nasty country I wouldn't want to die for it they can have all the secrets in the world I'm not going to die for a really bad country so to evaluate whether it's a rational decision or not I would want to know why does he love America if he loves America just because he was born there I don't consider that a rational decision but if he loves America for real values for the freedom and whatever then I'd say okay then it's worth fighting for in a sense it's the same choice that a soldier makes it's a soldier selfish or not I'd say yes if he's writing for the right reasons but no I think a lot of soldiers are not there for the right reasons they're there for false sense of patriotism they're there because it's emotional and in that case they're not being selfish and they're not being utility maximizers and they're bad right in the back I just wanted to force again to how and who decides on the Russian's constraints or consequences that they preserve government I think that's exactly one of the only rules the government has I think that the the whole purpose of government is to come up with a rational means of settling disputes with it because otherwise it is left up to you know vigilante vigilante justice I think the police and government the whole purpose of is to objectify objectify the resolution of disputes like that and to use force in retaliation when necessary that's it that's all the government so even the victims themselves you believe that acting in their own way does not agree with the punishment that is yes no I mean again if somebody's coming out with a knife I'm not gonna say why not only the police can use force I'm gonna shoot the bastard and you know we'll deal with it later right but I'm going to have to justify my actions and I think legitimately so to the police to the government and because I think the government has the monopoly over force that's the whole purpose of what what is the whole party want to solve their issues through a career law do you have any justification to stop them doing that as long as it's volunteering both parties want once one party says wait a minute I don't like your real law then no then again it's just like if you have a corporate dispute you can certainly write into the contract that you first have arbitration and absolutely arbitrate private arbitration and private judicial processes are fine as long as they're voluntary as long as everybody can sense them listen gentlemen I know it's terribly irrational for you but we do have a drink outside it's not in your own best interest if you want to give in we will have a drink for you outside we have to close the formal parts of the proceeding Jaren will be around if anybody likes my asking other questions I think it's been after the sensational scintillating session so thank you all who have asked the questions of that thanks in particular to Jaren and just to keep Adam Smith a little bliss to your heart Adam Smith died