 So today we're talking about capitalism and war. And I think the best way to start this is to acknowledge something or to recognize something that is really, really important. And it is kind of self-evident. And if it's not self-evident, you can watch TV and you can see it. And that is the war is horrific. It is evil. It is destructive. It is everything, those of us who believe in freedom, who believe in liberty are against. It is not a zero-sum game, if you will. It's not a game. It's a negative sum activity. There are no winners in a war, certainly not from an economic perspective. Everybody loses. The left often claims that wars result in economic activity. We should be the one calling them on it. That is just not true. World War II did not result in a boom. We would be much richer if that war would have never happened. Wars are destructive. They destroy on both sides the winners and the losers. And it is in human activity a last resort. Maybe we can talk about when they are justified. But as a principle, the initiation of war is never justified. It is an unmitigated evil because it destroys the thing most precious. What's the thing most precious? Human life. Life. Human life. Standard of value, a standard for the good should be human life. Human flourishing, human success, human well-being. Wars destroy that. Not only do they kill large numbers of people and thus end life, the people who survive, whether they are injured or traumatized or have lost loved ones, in every part of life, this is devastating. Generations are traumatized by this. This is not something that goes away very easily. And if I can share personal experience, I've lived through wars. I remember when I was 12, 1973, it was Yom Kippur, the high Jewish holiday, we were in synagogue fasting, and suddenly the sirens go off. And soon after that, somebody comes and calls my dad and off he goes, and we don't see him for weeks. And this is the beginning of the 1973 war with Syria in Egypt. I was 12, I was the oldest male in the apartment building. I had a one week old sister. And one of the things we would do is we would look in the afternoon, you would look out the window to see the cars coming up with a soldier with flowers and which house were they gonna go to to tell somebody their loved one has died, right? War is an unmitigated evil. It is never good. For those who on the right and on the left valorize war, you know, valorize muscle, valorize force, think this is noble and good. You know, no words can describe how evil and awful that is. It's nothing noble about a war. You have to defend yourself sometimes. But that's still not a pleasant activity, even if it has to be done. War is a meval because they hurt human life. They destroy an economy. They destroy all the wealth that is being built. I mean, look at some of these cities in Ukraine now, this city in the Southeast of Ukraine, Meripur, I'm probably distorting the name. I mean, it's just been flattened. I mean, this was a thriving city of half a million people. And there are no buildings there, all that wealth, all that wealth creation, all that activity, all that vibrant economic activity that many of us know is win-win, that trading that went on, right? The production, the consumption, the trade, that win-win, that's all destroyed. And the only way to build it up again is to deploy capital that is now not gonna go for something that could have been above and beyond. Now it's just to get us back to where we were before. So there's no perspective in which this is wrong. This is a good thing. So I think the question we must ask is given that it is so destructive and evil and harmful and really, really bad for everybody involved, why are we still seeing it? And why are we still seeing it of all places in Europe? Why are we seeing it in what we associate with civilization with peace, with flourishing with societies that supposedly care about human life? Why has war not died? We thought it was famously President Wilson declared the World War I to be the end of all war. It was so horrific. World War I was so horrific. So many people died for what? What was the cause of World War I? What was the reason to go to war? Nobody really knows, right? Austrian-Hungarian Empire wanting to sustain its whatever and the British feeling a little insecure and the Germans rising because they, oh, I don't know. But none of it sounds really good as an excuse for why millions of people had to die and it was supposed to be the war that ends all wars, according to Wilson. And of course, not soon after we get World War II. And why was World War II there? What was, well, because some really, really evil people wanted it and we'll talk about what motivates them, why they want it. And yes, we had to defend ourselves. The West, UK, United States had to defend themselves ultimately against the evil. But why? Why is this the means for achieving aims? What is war attacking? War attacks human life. But underneath it, what is human life about? What makes human life possible? What is it that makes us human? What is really being attacked when we engage in war? What makes us human? Don't say thumbs, please. What makes us human? Reason. Reason makes us human. Ability to think, ability to conceptualize, to observe the world out there, to abstract away from it, to create general concepts, and ultimately to go out there and change the world to fit our needs. Reason is our means of survival. It is the means by which we exist as human beings. We were born with nothing. We're not born with any instincts. We're not born with the ability to survive. None of you have the instinct to hunt, even though some of you might think you have. Nobody has the instinct to do agriculture. Today we learn those things, but somebody had to invent them. Like, you know, you try going out there and running down a bison and biting into it. Well, I don't know if you have bison. You don't have bison in the UK. I don't know. What do you have in the UK? A big, you know. Yeah, you're gonna have boring cows. Maybe you can run down a cow. I'm not sure you could bite into it though. And yet, you know, if I'm in Colorado or somewhere like that and what can I say, yet I just had a bison booger. You can't get bison boogers in the UK. How's that? Well, because we've developed the tools, the skills, the strategies, the hunting capabilities to run down any one of those animals. How do we do that by using a reason? Reason is the way in which we survive. Reason guides our actions. And reason is, it's two reasons that we understand that our wellbeing depends on our ability to trade with other people who use reason in order to produce and create. That's fundamental to human survival in a group, in a society. Fundamental to human society is the ability to trade. What is the fundamental nature of a trade? That it is win-win. That we both benefit. That there are no losers, at least in its transaction. And that wealth, in a sense, is created. There were better off, wealth being a representative of being better off because of that trade. You know, if you've watched my videos, you know, I like to use my iPhone. I bought this for a thousand bucks. How much is this worth to me? A lot more than a thousand bucks. Don't tell Apple. Why? Because this is amazing. I mean, you guys were born with this kind of attach to you. I know your generation doesn't know life without an iPhone. But this is, I remember when, you know, when I moved to the United States, I moved to the United States in my 20s and I never called my parents, right? They were in Israel. I moved to the U.S. Never called my parents because of long-distance charges. It was just unbelievably expensive. And if you call collect, then they get it paid to charges. They didn't want it. It was just super expensive, right? Today, no thought to call anybody, anywhere in the world, anytime, or maybe the time zone differences, when you think about that. I can video conference with my kids, read them a bed night story. I can access every movie, every song ever written. I mean, the beauty of trade. I gained, Apple gained, and I gained enormously wealth in terms of quality of life and human well-being improved dramatically. Reason is the way in which we survive. Reason is the way in which we thrive. Reason is the way in which we interact with one another. And if we disagree, then reason is our means of discovering who's right and who's wrong. Or we have developed means by which we arbitrate disputes. Means by which if we disagree and cannot settle our dispute, there is a court of law, there's arbitration, there's all kinds of mechanisms by which, what do we do? We present facts, we present evidence, we use reason for a neutral judge to decide who's right or wrong. And then they will, we build civilization that's about building a society grounded in reason. Where reason is the way in which we deal with one another in every aspect of our lives. And what do we do with the people who don't deal with reason? The people who want to cheat or steal or use violence against any one of us, well, we put them away. They go to jail. At least if it's explicit. So violence we have recognized as something we don't deal with, we don't sanction, we don't let be. So we build these societies based on reason. I think that's what civilization is. Post enlightenment, that's what the West, that's the contribution that the West has made to the world is this understanding of the world of reason. And therefore how you build societies based on this principle. And we understand that that requires the elimination of force, at least to some extent, from society. But every single time we do this, and this is new, right? We've only, I think, the post enlightenment political era has only been the last 200, 250 years, not more than that. But every time we do this, there are people out there who are reactionaries. People who don't believe that reason is our means of survival. And one of the things that offends them the most is that reason is an attribute of whom? Who reasons? Small people, not big people? Small. Small people. That only smart people reason? Even big. Yeah, everybody, but which human being? So I mean, who reasons? Like there's a particular word I'm looking for, right? Starts with an I. Yeah, individual's reason. There's no group reasoning. There's no collective consciousness flowing above your heads here, in which thinks for itself. Each one of you thinks for yourself. Only you can think for yourself. I mean, it's no different than the fact that who eats? Who said individuals? Individuals. Groups can't, there's no collective stomach. There's no collective immunity. There's no collective anything. Yeah, we're a group of individuals. He's good. Catching on. We're a group of individuals. Only individuals think. And yet, there's always been a train of thought in our world that wants to suppress individuals. That wants to eliminate the individuality of individuals. That wants to collectivize everything. It is the notion that the individual doesn't matter. That the individual doesn't count. That what counts as the group and that the individual is just a sacrificial animal for the group. That the purpose of life, every aspect of life is not to serve your happiness, your well-being, your prospects, but it's to serve the group. And you can fill in the blank in which group. It doesn't matter. There are lots of groups that would love your sacrifice. That encourage your sacrifice. Indeed, often impose their sacrifice on you. So groups, this reactionary idea that the collective is what matters. That the individual doesn't matter. Keeps coming back. Whether it's the proletarian, that's what matters. You don't matter. What matters is the proletarian. And even if you're part of the proletarian, you particular don't matter. It's the proletarian as a group that matters. And how do we know what the proletarian is good for the proletarian? What's required for the proletarian? What the proletarian needs? How do we know this since the proletarian doesn't speak? Then what do we need if we're gonna have the proletariat express itself? This one starts with an L. We need a leader. We need somebody who can communicate with these consciousness that the proletarian has. Somebody who can communicate with the world of the proletariat and then tell the proletariat what they really need, what they really want. Any group, every group needs somebody to tell them what they really want because they've stopped thinking as individuals. They've given up their task to the group but there is no such thing as the group. The group can't think. The group can't act. The group can't do anything. Only individuals exist. So we need one individual or group of them to declare themselves the spokesman of the group, the representative of the group, have some mystical insight into what the group needs and then tell the group what to do. So, you know, it's not an accident that Marxism evolves into authoritarianism. This is no other way. You need an authority to tell the masses what's good for the proletariat. Otherwise, how would they know? We're not born with that knowledge. No, we're not born with any knowledge. We have to discover the knowledge. How do we know what the Aryan race needs? How much land it needs? How much blood it needs? How much whatever? Well, we need a leader. We need somebody who can commune with the Aryan spirits and tell us what they need. And notice that this communing with the spirits is the opposite of reason. It's the negation of reason. It doesn't involve facts or evidence. It involves revelation, mysticism, the essence of mysticism. Nazism, communism are mystical ideologies. They're not based on reason that some people would like to claim. They're based on revelation. And both ideologies, all ideologies of collectivism ultimately will argue, as Lenin did. This thing was Lenin. You know, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. You have to kill a few tens of millions of people to get the utopia we all desired. I mean, Hitler said the same thing. This is the standard. What's good for the group, which I know, because I have commune with the spirits. And if we have to kill some people, if some people have to die in order to achieve it, it doesn't matter because the individual does not matter. Only the group, only the collective matters. And this is true of human history going back a long time. I mean, the tribes that we all belong to a long, long time ago, how did they maintain control over us as individuals? Well, they had a political leader and they had a spiritual leader and they conspired together to do what? To tell you you knew nothing. The spiritual leader was the one communing and the spirit has said that you have to follow the political leader. And who are you to disagree? And who are you to speak up? Tribalism and collectivism always rely on two things, muscle and spirituality or mysticism in order to achieve their goals. They need the negation of reason because reason is the tool by which individuals stand up and say, I don't agree. You don't speak for me. I've come to a different conclusion. And it's why they eliminate free speech as one of the first things they do because they wanna take away the power, your power to stand up and say, I don't agree. I wanna do something different. Is a collectivistic vision. At the root of war is the negation of the individual, negation of reason and the adoration of the collective. One kind or another. You see that in Russia right now. I mean, if you listen to Putin and I encourage you to listen to Putin, he's telling you exactly what he believes. He longs for some great Russian empire where the Russian people are all united around one spirit. And they have to be led because who's gonna talk for the Russian people? And those poor Russians in Ukraine, they don't know what's good for them. Putin knows what's good for them. And therefore, Putin speaks for the Russian people and is willing to destroy and kill as many of his old people. I mean, think about all those young, your age soldiers on the Russian side who know they don't have a clue why they're there because Putin told them to go there. Thousands of them are being killed, right? Now, they're the aggressor so we somewhat celebrate that, right? Because we're maybe pro-Ukraine but they're still young, most the innocent kids who are dying for cause that is not theirs. They're dying for cause of their leader who claims to speak for them and who is not challenged by anybody within this collective. All for some Russian mystical vision of what Russian greatness is supposed to be. I don't know when Russia was great. Maybe someone can enlight me later. Russia generally has been a pretty dark place, pretty mystical place and a pretty backward place. It never embraced the Enlightenment. It never embraced capitalism. It never embraced freedom. And as a consequence, it never became particularly rich as a country. Maybe the Czars were rich but then their people were treated horribly. So which union slaughtered tens of millions of people? Maybe in excess of a hundred million, it's not clear. We'll probably never know. Putin has said the greatest tragedy of the 20th century is not at the Holocaust, not World War I, not World War II, the greatest tragedy of the 20th century is what? That's the Soviet Union. The dismantling of the Soviet Union. Really, the greatest tragedy? I have bigger tragedies every single day. So what do you do when you face a tragedy of that scope? Well, you try to rectify it. You rectify it. How? When you don't care about individuals. When you care about some spiritual direction you're heading in. When you care about some ideal that is not real and that hasn't got nothing to do with the individual lives of the people, your people, want you to go to war. Every single war is driven by some collectivist ideology. Individualists don't go to war. Individualists seek what? Trade. They're trying to make their lives better. They're trying to better themselves. They're trying to make their lives as individuals good. They're trying to pursue their happiness. You don't attain happiness through war. You don't attain success as a human being through war. That is through trade, through study, through self-reflection, through lots of things. Lots of ways to make yourself a great human being. Violence is the negation of all of that. And indeed, if you look at history, the periods dominated by collectivism, dominated by collectivistic ideologies are periods dominated by war. I mean, maybe the bloodiest war in all of Western history is the 30 year war. Where Catholics who believe they had the truth in the name of all Catholics, and Protestants who believe they had the truth in the name of Protestants, slotted each other left and right all over Europe. And on a capita basis, maybe the bloodiest war ever. Probably more bloody than World War I or World War II. World War I was a war of, I don't know, you guys tell me, it's always bewildered me, you know, this war. You know, it was a war about empires. Wasn't a war to achieve anything for any individuals within the empire? And yet, millions of young kids your age died. And I remember, you know, all the stories and history about the Brits going to war with all the enthusiastic, we're gonna win this for what? For Britain. You're gonna die for Britain, what is that gonna do exactly? And is it for Britain? You're dying in the fields of France, you're dying in the fields of Germany. For what? Is that patriotism? Love of country for oneself, which is what I consider patriotism, because I love this country because it allows me to become the best human being I can become? Or was it just bravado, a collectivistic notion of how wonderful Brits are and they could defeat anybody? And let's go and have a go at it, some Sunday afternoon. But think how many Brits came back dead. I mean, you can see the gravesites. I mean, it's just horrific. And why did the Soviet Union invade Poland? People forget that World War II was started not only by Hitler, right? World War II was started on a single day with Hitler invading Poland from the west and Soviet Union invading Poland from the east. Start of World War II was both those entities. Why did they do it? Well, Russia in order to impose the will of the proletarian on everybody because the proletarian is what matter and again, no individual matters. And Hitler in order to impose the will of the Aryan people to give them more space and to destroy its enemies, whatever those were, fantasies that Hitler had about what those, who those enemies were. And everything and anything in the way of achieving those collectivistic goals were okay to do, okay to destroy. And note the periods of peace, relative peace. There's never been complete peace on planet Earth, unfortunately, but when are the eras of relative peace? Well, from the end of the Napoleonic Wars until World War I, Europe was mostly peaceful. Why? There were some small wars here and there but nothing on the scale of what was before and what was after. Why was it relatively peaceful? Industrial revolution. Yeah, but what is it about the industrial revolution? What is it about the process of the war going on? During this period that led to peace of all things. Trade. Trade, there's globalization, which definitely benefited peace and we can talk about why globalization encourages peace, but more fundamentally, more essentially. Yeah, individualism. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran book show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening, you get value from watching, show your appreciation. You can do that by going to iranbrookshow.com slash support by going to Patreon, subscribe star locals and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those channels. 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