 All right, welcome to lip and lunch. We're coming at you live. It's May 6th and Daniel Katz is joining me here Yes, I'm here, hopefully in body and soul. Nice to see you. Well, you know, it's it's really see I this is why I wanted you to come on the show today, Dan because I didn't know yeah that you were familiar with some of the Work of Ayn Rand. No, I didn't know and I did some yoga did some meditation so I can bring my body and my soul to this Yeah, well because we should get right into it because we have Dr. Yaron Brooke here all the way from Southern California in town to give a talk at the U of T Tonight on the morality of capitalism and of course he has the book here the free market revolution How I ran ideas can end big government so welcome. Thank you. Great. Have you here? Thanks for having me and I'm really looking forward to this conversation. So You know, we were sort of talking before the show and I I I said that That I thought that Ayn Rand's ideas were partly responsible for the neo con Revolution that I guess started around the Margaret Thatcher Reagan and Brian Mulroney Days, but you're saying my premise is totally wrong. Well, I'm saying your premises wrong for many reasons I don't consider Margaret Thatcher Ronald Reagan neo cons. I mean again Let's let's be precise about what we mean by neo cons. Yeah, you know conservatives Liberals who became conservative during the 19 late 1960s and early 1970s the first neo con was Irving crystal and he was a trotskid and He was a trotskid and he was an anti-soviet Socialist and then he moderated a little bit more to the right over there all the way to becoming a Conservative but he never gave up his liberal is his leftist ideology. He believed that the best way to achieve leftist goals was by Adapting government to more conservative means, but he was never he I mean indeed he he hated I'm ready. He was very antagonistic time because I'm read never bought into any of the leftist ideals I didn't believe that the purpose of society was to attain some kind of leftist utopia She starts with an individual. She has no sense of society and collectivism as a goal is that and the individuals a means to an end But the neo cons And you can't believe that individuals a means to ends there the neo cons are collectivists. They're statists They just you know, they're more conservative than typical leftist status, but they're still status They still want to use government to attain social goals to attain social means This is why they have the farm policy that they do right They want to use government to go out into the world to bring democracy to the world. That's not an iron man perspective I meant would never advocate for that So so it's very much they want to make the welfare state more efficient. They're not about abolishing the welfare state Which is an iron man position, right? Therefore Using the rich to suck as much tax money out of them in order to redistribute it So you lower taxes supply side economics, right? You lower taxes to get more money out of the rich Okay, I know it says no the money is the rich you want to lower taxes on them because it's theirs It's not your money. Don't stop stealing it from them. It has nothing to do with these social Social programs so the neo cons of the enemies of objectivism and indeed they view it that way if you actually talk to a real neocon You know the crystals bill, you know bill crystal who's on TV a lot in the United States or Michael Novak or Oven crystal who died a few years ago. They would have said we have nothing to do with I meant Okay, so I like the terms you're using collectivist versus individualist And it seems that a lot of people are trying to put their finger on What's wrong with America? Yeah these days and a lot of them are the ones that I'm hearing that I like the ones I listen they're saying the real problem is Collectivism and it's essentially that I mean you could call it communism Which is a seems a little out of date Yeah, to blame it on communists these days, but they're they're saying it's this collectivism. That's the real problem But there it seems people are having a hard time really articulating that getting that idea across and coming up with a real solution See there are lots of forms of collectivism Communism is one it's a it's a radical form of You know socialism, but it's it's just one form of collectivism fascism is a form of collectivism Multiculturalism in my view is a form of collectivism any kind of racism is a form of collectivism Anytime you place the group ahead of the individual any time your standard is the group your standard is society your standard is Something other than the war being of the individual then it's a form of collectivism and again We have lots of forms of collectivism only one true form What's it just from either one of you actually my own nose here? What is collectivism? Let's get that collectivism is the idea that the group is primary Individual serves the group that the purpose of your life is to serve your tribe or your group or your you know Some collective out in the state right the state any any kind of statism where the state is primary What did you know? You know John McCain say country first, right? Yeah, that's collectivism. That's the country first You're you're nothing you're just a cog in the machine to serve to serve the state Now he's a Republican senator Publicans are just as collectivist as Democrats because you just said fascism also. Okay, so I think I think just to just to clear. I think Democrats are far more fascist than Republicans a bit Absolutely the left But they smile the left is the primary fascist movement today in the world And if you if you you know that the left is formal collectivistic than the right now the way that's problems I'm not I'm not gonna and I just mentioned one in it in a McCain, but You know fascism is not rights versus left. What's the difference between fascism and communism? What's the difference they're both the same? Well there you know I'm not private corporations So the difference is this the difference is that the communism the state owns the means of production, right? Owns the factories right okay in fascism the state controls the means of production They leave you the pretense of private property you own it, but they control it So under Mussolini or Hitler did anybody really own their own factories could they decide what price to charge and what products to make? No, the state told them but they pretended like they were private But the fundamental for both is that you as an individual don't matter you as an individual live for the proletarian under Communism you live for the state under fascism or for the Race under fascism or for some other you know status goal, but there's no difference between the two the two of both Ultimately on on on the left side of the spectrum. They're both big government welfare It's no accident that the Nazi party was the National Socialist Party. They were socialists They believe in you know Sacrificing the the able the wealthy the people who create stuff for the rest of the people for for everybody else massive Redistribution of wealth control over the means of production So there's fundamentally no difference between fascism communism and they both belong on the left side of the political spectrum So what what's I mean? What's happening today? There are people out there that are saying that there's been even a conspiracy I'll use that word Conspiracy to kind of change even the educational system so that it really puts forward a collectivist kind of ethos Well, look this isn't a conspiracy. This is just straight philosophy American educational system And I don't know about the Canadian, but America. I know the American Canadian The American educational system is strongly influenced by John Dewey the American philosopher of the late 19th century and John Dewey In you know came up with the idea of progressive education and the goal of progressive education is not to teach you anything It's not knowledge. The goal of progressive education is to socialize you. It's to make you part of the group It's to make you part of the collective So there's no doubt in my mind that over the last hundred years the educational system in the United States has driven students towards collectivism and a way from the vigilism towards reliance on the state and then other people in a way from self-reliance of self-responsibility and and You know the pursuit of one's own happiness and own success in one's own terms The state in the United States through the educational system has moved us away from the founding fathers vision of individualism in the 19th century vision of pioneers and Individualists out there struggling and making making you know life for themselves into a collectivized group think Don't stand out Work for the group and work for the state It seems like There could be some convoluted mess in all this in that is someone coming into I Wanted to Address the neocon also situation but sure that people going through MBA schools whatever school is now some are very Advanced and they really do There are some bright lights amongst the professors that really want to share your view without even picking up this book Sure, but I I can't help but thinking that a lot of them are trained to be high-end You know paper pushers like they just to fit into the mole somewhere in some slot And know how to say yes, sir Way up the corporate there's no question I mean I used to I used to teach I'm a finance professor by my trainees I used to teach in a business school used to teaching an MBA program and an undergraduate business program and look at most of the professors that either You know do things this way because it's always been done. Yeah But a lot of them on the political spectrum leftist So, you know when you survey business schools in the United States ask people for their political affiliation Over 70% of leftists are left of center. So business school doesn't go away from what I just said No, absolutely quite the country. So they're much more about Kind of the cronyism they're much more about Regulation and state intervention and state control then they are about entrepreneurship and about building a business and about being creative and by About, you know, making something of your own life So yes business schools today do not help train Individuals to be the kind of business leaders that I think, you know, capitalism demands Dilemma how to play the game. I have a brother-in-law who's in the middle of it He's actually an outcast secretly, but he's there and he knows his stuff and Business systems management. So he they're not gonna get rid of him quite yet But you just know how to play the game to keep your job and move up that next slot And then you get caught in the look but that may not be good business school I'm not and good businesses Don't encourage that right. Yeah, you know businesses who are successful encourage the employees to be entrepreneurial to be creative to be to come up with new ideas and to be independent and to think for themselves it is You find this kind of mentality the bureaucratic mentality Much more in businesses that in in hand-in-hand with government that maybe don't have that much competition or not involved in In real innovation and all that are just dying, right? I mean, there's a cycle in business The entrepreneurial The the the businesses that are really thinking forward the businesses that allow the employees to think for themselves Are the businesses that break through the businesses that innovate that are businesses that are moving forward Other businesses are dying because they don't allow that see in a truly competitive market, which unfortunately we don't have today. Yeah You get a very dynamic situation where success is driven by People's ability to think for the selves and be creative and beyond entrepreneur. I have nothing against what you just said I'm actually hopefully for that part of it I'm just saying that unfortunately There exists. There's this gray area between just for the state It's just depends which bit crazy boss you have or Yeah, but this is encouraged by the political system. We have both in the US and Canada You know to really get capitalism or what this book is really about is what we need is a state to back off of business to get Out of the job of business. So, you know, I'm an advocate for no regulations For for the government to separate itself from the let from the world of business led business compete led business Succeed or fail let companies go bankrupt if they fail let them make a gazillion dollars if they're successful Get government out of the business of business But when you have businessmen who have to make nice with bureaucrats regulators Politicians then they become bureaucrats regularly they become politicians and that's the mentality they get and that destroys innovation and progress and success so what you want in my world views what you want is a separation of business from Government I would think that you know the idea of the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us all about is really a Big part of the problem because all that government money is being spent on private sector companies For all this military stuff and and they have to cozy up So I don't I don't think that the real problem is is the military complex. I think it's the industrial complex I think the problem today is That there's almost no industry in the United States today that doesn't get some kind of subsidies some kind of tax breaks supposedly trying to manipulate their behavior There's no business in America that doesn't have to deal with regulators with Antitrust people with some element within government that it that dominates them and restricts their ability to be productive and to be And to be creative. Yeah, I mean you've got you've got more of that in the military part of it Look government needs a military It's just a question of how big it needs to be and whether it's today It's much more than the military it's spread over all these industries and government has its hand in almost every side of the U.S. economy Oh Go ahead. I have to ask this dad. Okay, so if the answers is less regulation now Some people are saying they're looking at the big economic crash of 2008 and they're saying part of the problem was that of The deregulation that began under Reagan and got to the point where these companies these banks were left unregulated and they They ruined the game. So this is this is one of the most bizarre ideas I've ever heard of right Because if you know anything about banking in the United States, you realize that even during the 2000s It was the most regulated industry in the United States There's not a bank in the United States It is now regulated by at least five different entities five different ones The government is everywhere in banks. There's not a product a bank can offer that the government doesn't have to approve There's not an activity that engages it that some bureaucrat doesn't have to say okay They're too big to fail so government has you know do whatever you want make as much profit if you want if you fail We'll bail you out. That's deregulation. There's been there's been minor Insignificant deregulation of the banking sector since the Reagan era to today. There's been almost none And it you cannot show any relationship any and I've challenged people in debates about this topic show me one relationship Between a deregulation and the financial crisis. There's zero relationship. This is a myth complete myth What happened is too much regulations what happened is that the regulation of the banking sector? incentivized banks towards behavior that was Irresponsible that that put them and their clients in financial risk and they created the bubble that we saw in 2008 and what was that one of those things one the Federal Reserve in the United States kept interest rates at below the rate of inflation That's called the negative real rate of return like they are right now, right when you do that you incentivize people to do what? You incentivize people to take on debt Guess what people did get what people doing right now in Canada because interest rates are so low They're taking on debt because money is so cheap. I'd be an idiot not to take on alone So this is where they're forced or they're enticed to do crazy things They're enticed to do crazy things and then why did all go into housing? Because in America government subsidizes housing on a massive scale Fetty and Fanny government entities are Subsidizing mortgages and telling you oh, no you should buy a house Both Bill Clinton and George Bush are set as a goal That 70% of Americans should own a house at the time it was somewhere between 60 and 63 percent They were driving towards 70 so they said we're gonna subsidize housing until 70% of Americans own a house So guess what they they lowered those mortgage rates by by Fetty and Fanny buying up those mortgages and driving rates down And all the debt that Fetty and Fanny was were taking on in order to do this Was guaranteed by the US government so of course it was really cheap debt and if and we know this because the government You know stepped in and took them over I have a very large mortgage in my home Yeah, I asked my when I when I when I speak to a crowd I ask people in America How many of you have bought your home out right don't have any mortgage that some people raised there How many of you rent some people raised there? I say thank you for subsidizing my mortgage I couldn't afford the big house that I have today if I couldn't deduct the interest I pay on the mortgage for my taxes you can't deduct your rent You can't deduct the fact that you bought your home out, right? So I'm being subsidized to take on debt right so I take on debt so Everything that the US government did was motivated it was driven towards Increasing the debt level that people have and driving it towards housing and that's exactly what happened And you can look at the time frame and then you know and then banks were told you're too big to fail So don't worry about the downside will bail you out. So yeah, they they did they took more risk than shareholders Would ever allow them to take in a free market. They did stupid things that they would never do in a free market So all of this this crisis from beginning to end is a crisis of government regulation Government control of the economy. There's not an element of capitalism not an element of free market in the whole thing Because everything is controlled everything is regulated So let's talk about the interest rates for a minute because you're saying that in a sense the federal reserve the government the collective Through by setting low interest rates is essentially subsidizing or encouraging everybody to take on debt so What is the right interest rate and what I'm really trying to get out of your series is like What is the role of the federal reserve? What is the role of the money who's going to create the money supply a great question? That's a fundamental question. What is the right interest rate and does anybody think that if you what is the right price for bread and Can anybody imagine if you put 12 guys in a room and give them PhDs in economics 12 smartest guys in the world Could they come up with a price of bread? Well, they tried this in the Soviet Union and the answer is no They'll always eat a price of too high which means that a lot of bread will be produced and nobody will want to buy it Or their price is too low, which means that nobody will want to produce bread and everybody will want it That's what happened the Soviet Union. You got the lines of bread But we imagine in our collective wisdom, right that if you put 12 guys in a room and tell them to set the price of interest Then they'll get it right Interest rates much more complicated a price than bread much more important at a price than bread and yet somehow they'll get it Right, they cannot do it. There is no right price of interest rates set by a committee a committee cannot set that price No individual can set that price only the marketplace. How do we get when you walk in any supermarket in Canada? There's always bread there and there's always the bread you want and it's always at a price. You will need to pay I mean, that's amazing and that's what a market of supply and demand and flexible prices does Well, if we let interest rates have the same thing then the price of interest rate would be exactly right But you need a market for that and to have a market for that you need to fed out Which means you can't have a central bank Get the right price of interest which means the money is then created by Private entities like financial institutions or how about any company? How about any company or any group of people or any individual anybody was any capacity to create wealth Let the currency at the end of the day. You'll get one currency Denominate in a variety of different forms But at the end of the day the logical entities in a free market to create money on banks and look Before there was a before there was a Federal Reserve in the United States Federal Reserve is relatively young the central bank of Canada is relatively young even younger than the Federal Reserve Before that banks printed money. You depend on their own currency. Yes, they own currency They're all denominating in dollars, but they had their own currency and Each one of those dollars were exchangeable to gold and you know, I don't know in a free market where there would be gold Or where there would be, you know, there's there's a lot of talk about Bitcoin or whatever today Who knows what the currency would be? But the point is the market would set it in interest rates would be determined by the availability of loanable funds people savings and The demand for loans and we're supplying demand intersect. That is the price and that sets the interest rate Which is mostly if everything in the perfect world in a way, I don't mean perfect perfect But that's okay in a perfect world logistics. I think you're on the lines of William F. Buckley or am I wrong? No, William F. Buckley was a huge supporter of the Federal Reserve. This is why he was you mistake conservators Conservatives with with I mean, I mean William F. Buckley by the way really hated I meant I mean kicked her out of the conservative movement Purposefully because because he resented the fact that she was an atheist and and he was very he was a devout Catholic But William F. Buckley was a statist. He just wanted a smaller state But he still wanted a welfare state. He still wanted a Federal Reserve He still wanted a government intervention in the economy We believe in a state, but a very small state a state that only does one thing it protects individual rights It protects you from thieves from fraudsters protect you from foreign invasion and has a court system to arbitrate disputes But other than that leaves people alone You know leaves the currency alone leaves interest rates alone leaves products alone leaves regulation alone leaves markets to deal with everything else other than Force forces the is the monopoly is the only job of government is to extract force from society What do you mean extract force from society? It means put the crooks in jail. It means if somebody initiates force Take them out. Okay, right? It means be be there for self-defense for the purpose of Okay, let's talk about a big problem that everybody's talking about these days And that is the the global environmental crisis and let's talk about What an iron Rand? Solution would be to that because other people are talking about global tax Let me add to that. Let me add to that. So you have to tell me what this global crisis is. I look outside Everything looks cool Including in locally, let's say the Great Lakes or whatever the effect of certain factories doing certain things It's like not not control control but making sure there's certain pollution to come out maybe not even have a government involved some association amongst Businesses that they make sure that the Start with a certain premise the human environment today The environment for us is the best. It's ever been in human history We have never had it better the air has never been this clean for us Right compare this to that to the suit we used to breathe in caves when we used to have fires in caves or the oil in the mud Hots we used to live in or in London in the 19th century where there was host down all over the street We have the cleanest air in human history. We have the best water supply in human history We have the highest standard of living. We live longer. We live healthier. We live better And I'm just talking about the wealthy. I'm talking about everybody the poor today live better lives healthier lives Cleaner lives have a better environment than the poor have or anybody has ever lived in human history So the human environment we have to start on that assumption is better than it's ever been. It's fantastic Well, even the industrial age in London Oh, it was pretty messy. It was pretty messy and it's got a cleaner and cleaner since then which is great now So start with that premise now. Yes. There are problems right people are pouring junk maybe into the Great Lakes or some companies pouring, you know Gases that might be poisonous into the atmosphere. The way to deal with that is through private property The way to deal with that is by is is is through the definition of private property. Why who owns the Great Lakes? They are not owned by anybody nobody does well, what happens to property that's owned by nobody Nobody takes care of it. If it's owned by me, I take care of it If it's owned by you you take care of it How about selling off the Great Lakes or having like a homestead act over the Great Lakes and getting getting private Noticeship over what and I don't ask you exactly how you do it because I haven't figured it all out But that's a way to do it like there was a way to do to do land in the past if you own If you own a piece of the Great Lakes, you're gonna make sure it's clean and if somebody is polluting it What are you gonna do? Can can you dump your garbage in my backyard? No, we know we've known that for like a thousand years common law said you can't drop your garbage in my backyard Well, if you make my backyard part of the lake If you make my backyard part of a river or a stream or then you then you can't pollute it because it's mine Private property is the solution to pollution. Okay. Now, there's I've I've read some Stuff that says that one way to deal with pollution, especially when it comes to something like the Great Lakes is that you treat the watershed as An entity in other words everybody in that waters that lives in that watershed is a stakeholder in that watershed now so I'm thinking I mean we value democracy in Canada and the US and Some people might suggest that okay. Let's these are all the stakeholders in this watershed Maybe it's a better idea to create a democratic system where the people who are stakeholders in that watershed Get to have a say on how that watershed is managed Why are they the stakeholders? I mean the shippers who ship stuff through the Great Lakes are stakeholders their livelihood depends on this the fishermen who go out on there Who might not live in the watershed but work on the watershed have a stake in this Why not find a way to give them shares to give them real ownership and then they can sell them right? So if I have a house and I get a share in the lake and I can sell it to somebody else and create a Corporate kind of you know, I don't know There are all kinds of ways to do this, but it has to be grounded in the idea of private property. Otherwise it'll fall apart if it's look Democracy is fine when you're voting for a president or when you're voting within a corporate entity for the CEO as a shareholder and so on Democracy is not good. It's bad. It's evil When you were voting to violate somebody else's rights when we're voting to take stuff away from other people That's the true nature of democracy starkly. This is why the founding fathers of America was so anti-democracy as majority rule Quad majority rule think of democracy my favorite example of democracy's Athens, right? Athenian democracy the first democracy the pure democracy everybody voted on everything and Socrates you remember Socrates the philosopher. He's going around and he's he's talking to the youth and he's Challenging their religious beliefs and the elders of the town say wait a minute Socrates is corrupting our young people Right, so let's vote on what we should do with Socrates. So they vote. What do they vote? To kill him because that's the only way to sign on Socrates. There's no other way to sign I don't came right after Socrates. I know it was Socrates student Plato actually tells Socrates right they say you have to drink this chalice of poison and Plato says to Socrates I might be making this up. But anyway, Pedro said to Socrates. I got a tunnel We can get out of here and Socrates says no I believe in democracy that people have voted and he drinks the chalice of poison and dies, right? Do we believe in that kind of democracy or do we believe for example in free speech and 99% of Canadians can vote to silence me, but no they can't and now in Canada free speeches Right, some people have been silenced But you know I believe at least that you cannot silence people the democracy cannot silence anybody The same thing is if I own a house and you wanted to turn it to a tennis court And you get all the neighbors to vote to turn it into tennis court. Does that make it right? Well, here's the thing though once you start to deal with Any kind of I'm gonna use the word collective I don't think I mean it in the sense that that you were using it earlier, but when you have an entity even a corporation Let's say a private corporate a corporation that's owned by shareholders where there's more than one shareholder You're going to have a difference of opinion Inevitably between those shareholders about how to govern that that organization So now so at some point you're gonna have a vote or you're gonna have some system where a Direction is determined and some of those owners some of those shareholders aren't are gonna get their way and some aren't gonna get their way And they have an opportunity to sell their shares in it's an absolutely so if you could create a corporation over the lake You'd have to figure out how to distribute those shares initially how to set it up and those shares were saleable and Traitable so that the rights were that you had full right to get in and out then absolutely Let's find a way to it to and that would be a form of privatizing the lake Let's find a way to privatize the lake to turn all public so-called public property into private property And then it stops being abused because then somebody cares and if somebody is there to Monitor it because it's theirs. They have economic Values at stake. Okay, so we don't have a lot of time left But this is a fascinating discussion and certainly blowing some people's minds Opening them up to ways that maybe they never really thought about things before but let's talk about some of the other solutions That that you've got in your book here and that presumably you're gonna be talking about tonight at the U of T Well part of the case I make in the book is that capitalism Capitalism works It's unequivocal if you look at the historical evidence if you look at across cultures If you're talking about creating wealth creating a high-stand for living if you're talking about how well the poor do There is no system in human history that comes even close To capitalism every country that approaches a more capitalist System does better than countries that approach a more collectivized system or more state-to-system socialism fascism whatever That is just empirical fact anybody with eyes should be able to see that look at Hong Kong You know seven and a half million people live on this rock. No natural resources. Nothing there 70 years ago was a fishing village all they have is a protection of property rights and yet It's thrived and you'd rather be in Hong Kong than any of the other Asian countries around there That's why people were willing to go on rafts and row to try to get to Hong Kong That's why if they opened the borders, they'd be a flood of millions more people into that place So capitalism works into the question we ask in the book and this is a question to everybody out there You know to me it's it's self-evident all you need to do is no history and you know capitalism works Why do people hate it because they do 90% 90 plus percent of people hate capitalism Particularly, that's beautiful. Most people think it's a disaster. Most people think all they can think of when they think of capitalism is Bad stuff that they learned at school about it. There's nothing positive associated with it And what am I my claim is that the problem with capitalism is not Economic the economics a clear cut. They're simple. You know All these economists who claim capitalism don't work just don't know what they're talking about that lying through the teeth Paul Krugman's a liar He's a bad economist and a liar Paul Krugman. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, he's always on CNN. Yeah I mean, he's a what he says is just plain false and he knows it. He just put a book out Yeah, he puts lots of books. He wanted to know what price for economics. That's how bad of an economist is The problem is that people perceive capitalism as unethical as immoral as unjust It's the ethical beliefs that drive the perception of economics. It's not about economics. It's not about facts It's not about politics. It's about morality because when we grow up from one with this big We are taught a particular type of morality. What is good? What is noble? What is virtuous to a What does our mother tell us is good and noble and virtuous? Putting the interest of others first being selfless sacrifice sacrifices the greatest virtue of all, right? And yet what's capitalism about? It's about self-interest. Mm-hmm. It's about making money for whom for you. It's about producing goods for whom for you It's about consuming goods for whom for you So you've got capitalism that is self-interested and morality that says self-interest is evil and indeed what's good is sharing What's good is sacrifice? What's good is giving to people, you know Take Bill Gates. Bill Gates built a wonderful company called Microsoft that touches every human being on the planet makes all our lives better and Yet he gets zero moral credit for that. When does Bill Gates become a good guy when he sets up a philanthropy and starts giving it away That's why and how would he how would he become a saint? If he gave all his money away and moved into a tent and if he could bleed a little bit and show a little bit of suffering on the way Then he would become a bigger saint right because saints are sufferers people who suffer That's our standard of morality So now that's inconsistent with capitalism that's considered with socialism Socialism demand sacrifice you produce don't keep it. You have to give it to Joe Okay, so I'm waiting for the punch line because that's not the case here because obviously you're very conscious No, I'm talking about campus my case is that self-interest is virtuous that there's absolutely no reason to sacrifice for other people That's selflessness is evil that it's wrong to be selfless that it's wrong to sacrifice that it's wrong to live for other people You should live for yourself. You should live for your life. You've got one life here. Why should you live it for other people? Okay, why do they have a way to your life that's greater than you? But do you find that's a hard sell not when explained properly, okay? Yes, it is when people say selfish you because I've got two thousand years two thousand years of Philosophy and religion teaching people the thinking about yourself and pursuing your own values and doing what's good for you Is evil and wrong and you should be sacrificing to the state to God to your neighbor To to the poor to somebody else that your life is meaningless and yeah people try to live both ways They try to do what's good for themselves And then they do some community service in the evening to make themselves feel good But I'm saying what do you need to do the community service to make yourself feel good as long as you're taking care of yourself As long as you're doing it in a way that is not hurting other people that is hurting other people through force You're not you're not defrauding them. You're not lying them. You're not cheating. You're not sacrificing them to you You're not you're not, you know, you're not abusing them Then why do you have to be you should be proud of your achievements? You should be proud of your own life. You should pursue your own beliefs. That's the story of Howard walk in the fountain He's building those buildings for himself Because they because his vision of what is good His ideals of what is good. He's not doing it for the community. He's not doing it for other people He's doing face clients and for himself or that contractual relationship and who loses when he does that when I live for myself Who loses everybody gains The client gains because they got a beautiful building People in the community gain because they can look and see a beautiful building Who loses nobody loses To win-win the whole beauty of capitalism whole built beauty of self-interest is their win-win relationships We don't you know, we don't do this interview unless I'm benefiting from it and you're benefiting from it You shouldn't do this interview. Please don't do it as a sacrifice right There's all human relationships should be like that your relation with your spouse should be like that you only should with your Kitchen let me rephrase the question. Yes by following all that you said which is the an ran model and more and so on Does somehow even while following this mandate that you're you know, it's for yourself Service Then just keep talking I'll do this for the people you're trading with that's right. Yeah, okay for yeah, does it somehow Indirectly help community that I'm wondering somehow absolutely. It helps everybody everybody benefits from this and again You know Adam Smith understood this right Adam Smith in the in the in the wealth of nations in 1776 he says The baker doesn't bake the bread because he likes you He doesn't care about you when I order he's making the bread because he's trying to make a living And the grocer who sells you the bread doesn't care about you. He's trying to make a living But you know what you're better off and everybody would be better off because the baker bakes the bed So by people pursuing their own self-interest Not sacrificing everybody who's willing to work Everybody who's willing to take responsibility over their own life everybody who's willing to be rational and to pursue their own rational values is better off And that's the kind of society that you know, I believe and that's the kind of society the book is driving towards that kid It's kind of society. I'm man's driving towards and to do that You have to get government out of our lives out of our lives in every aspect out of our bedrooms out of our boardrooms Out of our shops out of our banks out of every Interaction that we have because they distort that interaction, but to do that. We have to first reject 2000 years of religion and philosophy Reject the idea that your life doesn't belong to you Reject the idea that you did nobility and virtue or sacrifice and giving I say nobility and virtue or building Creating trading. That's what nobility in virtue. I say Bill Gates is a saint a saint for building Microsoft The fact that he gives his money away afterwards fine who cares and he and not only that but Bill Gates will be due More good for individuals out there in the world through building Microsoft than he ever will through his philanthropy And yet we live in a society that views his philanthropy as good and building Microsoft as evil That's why when the mess we're in that's why we're going to get into a bigger mess in the future We've only just started our mess and because we're heading to you know, the society resents and the vigilism society resents this idea of Of self-interest and therefore it resents and rejects capitalism and that's what we're seeing in America today If we're seeing in Europe today that we're seeing all over the world Dan that's not taking away anything from your philosophy again I'm just testing on this that that there is in in every field I'm just using this example in this particular area in the business world There was corruption in the business abuse by people make it cutting up into those little chairs on the morgue Somebody's crew up put them in jail. I mean, I'm not saying against that absolutely. Yeah, but To judge the business world today and say you see businesses all no Because you have to also understand the incentive structure you have to understand what regulations are doing and what government is doing is the role they play You know, but but the problem is that in the world we live in It's so often the case that because you find three corrupt businessmen we assume that all businessmen are And that's just not true. Yeah, they come up businessmen. They corrupt doctors They're corrupt lawyers a lot of corrupt lawyers, and you know what the most corrupt field out there is media Politics okay, and media is not far behind. Yeah, and yet how many villains Who do you think are most of the villains on television at least in the United States? Over 50% of all the murders committed on television in fiction and television are committed by whom? businessman You know who commits the fewest murders on a television in America Media people guess why because it's a media producing this stuff, right? But businessmen are perceived to be the most corrupt people in the universe and yet which act to rip everything around here Everything around here was created by a business. Yeah, these things were died with green There was created by some paint company that specializes that created that made a profit off of it These computers are all Samsung IBM all businesses the desks are created by business this table is cute Every value that we have around us was created by some guy trying to make a living trying to make his life better Whether is a as a big business a small business a medium-sized business This we are the life we have today is a testament to business all the good stuff in the life we have today is a testament to business and and and the profit motive and yet we rejected we resented and we want to regulate it We want to control it. We want to drive them out of existence. I mean that's just mind-boggling Well, you're speaking here in at the U of T tonight and Do you think do you think I'm because I'm very convincing. I mean I'm I'm fine. Don't look at me I'm not gonna go. I I totally Brought new light on me and I would Really rethink some things, but I'm not gonna go all the way with you on that read my book If I could convince you if I could convince you in 40 minutes of it, I was absolutely right I would worry about you, right? You can't do that. You can't do that. But read my book. No great respect much more respect than on a man Then I fit. Okay. All right. So here's the book free market revolution How a man's ideas can and big government and you're at the U of T tonight. I've got the info Let's see here The medical science is building one Kings College Circle room 3153 So people can check that out tonight. I think it's a 715 the doors open 715 the doors open and can you put the information up on the website? Yeah, we will we'll do that and where you going next after Do some more media this afternoon and then heading towards a talk and then I had to Chicago. Okay continue in my Well, great. Thanks for coming in today and having a nice conversation doing this. Okay. Thanks. Well, we're