 So you went from a cold, really good Belgian beer in Sweden to Venezuela? Yeah, actually, I've got a Venezuelan Polar right here. I'll take a little drink of this. Are you sure you want to do that? It's really terrible. This was actually manufactured. This was brewed in Miami. Oh. This is Polar. This is a Venezuelan firm. It's actually easier to get in Miami. They've actually had times in the last couple of years where the Polar company couldn't manufacture beer in Venezuela. It's not clear that they ever ran out for the country, but the factories had this shut down. And the reason is the Venezuelan economy, as we all know, is turned socialist. And one aspect of that in Venezuela is that they control the foreign exchange system. And so all foreign exchange transactions are half, legally speaking, have to go through the government. And the government bureaucrats that are in charge of that didn't give Polar enough dollars to import barley. They don't grow barley in Venezuela, so they have to import it. And obviously barley growers in America or Canada or wherever they get barley, they expect to be paid in dollars. And so if they don't get enough barley, they don't make beer. So they've actually had beer shortages in Venezuela. Socialism sucks. If I was running a socialist country, I'd do no better at it than the Venezuelans. But I would make sure they made beer. Everything else would go to hell in a handbasket, I'm sure. But at least we would have beer. Even the Soviets knew that it was bad beer and bad vodka or whatever, but even they had it. Well, to some extent, you want that because you have to, you know, at least it dulls the senses, right? It dulls the pain of having to live under the poverty of, I have to say, though, I lived, you know, I grew up in Israel. In Israel, when I was growing up, I was quite socialist. The largest employer in Israel was the labor union. The labor union was a large employer. So it owned the means of production, the labor union. And it's why Israel was relatively a poor country back then. And I don't think there was any good alcohol in Israel in those days. So there is now, I've been a wonderful brew bar at pubs and wine. You know, Israel is not a socialist country anymore. You go there and you can see it immediately. It's beautiful. Yeah. So the beer became a metaphor in Venezuela. The beer, you can get it. Although it's easier to get here. It's not very good. But it's by far, it's not the worst beer I've ever had. Maybe we'll talk about the worst beer I've ever had in a minute. That's North Korea. But so we went to, in Venezuela, we went to the Colombian border, a little town called Cucota. And if you've watched the news stories about Venezuela, you've probably seen these bridges, these two bridge crossings between Colombia and Venezuela. And when we were there, this is about two years ago, literally without exaggeration, thousands over the course of a day, easily 10,000 people are crossing from Venezuela to buy rice and beans and sugar and deodorant. What do they get the currency to do that? So that was the funny thing. They do bring in Venezuelan money. In fact, when they come into the country, they're lugging like luggage, like on wheels, like we would have at an airport. And you can see these people with very heavy bags coming into Venezuela. And at first, this was confusing to us. We were like, why are their bags heavy? We understand why they're heavy going out. They have the rice and the bean. But it turns out they're heavy on the way in because they're bringing in literally suitcases full of bolivars. Wow. And then they trade entire stacks or suitcases. They don't even count the money. They weigh it at the money changers. And so you trade a suitcase of bolivars for a small amount of pesos. And then you buy your food and things with that. Calemnos must have some kind of exchange ability to... Yeah. So they're probably very quickly flipping it as quickly as they can back in. Probably at the official exchange rate. So I mean, there's probably an arbitrage profit that they're getting on that too. Because the official exchange rate is obviously terrible. So that's where we went. And it was not the normal kind of poverty. I know you've traveled a lot. I've seen some of the world's greatest poverty. And I never want to get used to it. Like you should always find poverty, like shocking. But this was not that. These were middle class, even people that even looked rich who were coming and crossing to buy food. We talked to one couple. We talked about it in the book, Paulo and Ana Maria. They had come three days, one way. So it was a six day round trip from the other side of Venezuela. They'd driven all the way across the country to Colombia. And he worked in a hotel. He was a middle class, you know, just a regular Joe. And he was doing a six day round trip. And he left his child behind with family. I just can't imagine how, how dystopic my existence would be. I'm living Dallas. I mean, I guess I would, what would it be like to have to drive to Vancouver for groceries and leave my child behind in a dangerous country? It really was, was, it was worse in many ways than the slums of India that I've seen. Because, because when you see regular people, people who are not peasants and I care about the peasants too. I don't want to make this sound like I don't, but this was a whole nother level of despair that I'd never seen it with my own eyes before. Well, I've been told by people from, from Caracas that, you know, you've got middle class kids or even, even the kids are the wealthy dumpster diving for food. I mean, because that's the only place they can find just a little bit of food, eating pets and eating all the zoo animals. And one can only, only just imagine, unfortunately, what, what life must be like for the poor in Venezuela. I mean, if this is what the middle class and their, these people had the means, they had a car, they had the means to drive across the country. I mean, most Venezuelans don't. So, yeah. So a lot of people are claiming, you know, Venezuela is not really socialist. There's still private property in Venezuela, all this stuff. But, but when I look at the numbers, I mean, they, they really did collectivize farming. So, and they really did collectivize the whole supply chain in oil. Yeah. You know, what else, what else is, is, you know, is, is obviously kind of socialist about what's going on in, in. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so, I mean, when you collectivize farms, that means you're collectivizing the supply chain for food too, which, and then the supply chain and the food for energy, these are the two most critical things to our, our existence, you know, food and warmth in the winter and cool in the summer and heat for our food. So, they collectivize and say, yeah, sure. They, you know, little stores on the streets are still privately owned. But you even had that in the Soviet Union. I mean, no country has completely socialized all aspects of the means of production. But Venezuela has gone about 80% down that road. And they haven't gone down as far, probably as Mao's China did during the Great Leap Forward. But it's 80% of the way there. It's, it's about as socialized as any country's got. I mean, it's as socialized as Cuba. Cuba has some private enterprise. And so, but when you're talking about controlling those types of sectors, food and energy and finance, capital markets, completely controlled by the government. I mentioned foreign exchange, but the banking system is also collectivized. So, you know, yeah, you can give people a little bit of freedom to buy and sell stuff on the streets, but, but, and that's, that's a nice thing. I mean, it's better than collectivizing, you know, street level vendors, but you really, it's a recipe for ruining the country. We've certainly seen that. But it's, I have no trouble calling Venezuela a socialist country. I mean, and it's stunning to me because again, I think people have to lie to do this. You know, I'm not saying all students are doing that because I think a lot of them are truly ignorant, but anybody with any kind of education, anybody who knows anything really about Venezuela, who claims Venezuela is not socialist is just nuts. Yeah. And it's lying. It's, it's, it really is. I mean, they have nationalized, they've nationalized hotels too. I mean, so it's, it's gotten to the point where the government is controlling not just the major factors. They're getting into the point where they're controlling things like trivial, frankly is hotel. Tell me the value of selfishness. Use another word, self esteem. The value of selfishness is that you esteem yourself as a value that you leave according to your nature, which means by the judgment of your own mind and you respect your own mind, you respect your own ability to do the right thing. Therefore, you respect the possibility of being a morally virtuous person and you regard yourself as a value worth preserving. Let me bring it down from Kant a little bit to a bromide that I had drummed into me as a child. And maybe you've heard it. Happiness comes from making other people happy. Oh, yes. Who hasn't heard it? And that's the trouble. Let's aim at the day when people will not hear it anymore because it isn't true. It isn't justifiable. And the first question you would have to ask is why? Why is it good to want others to be happy but not yourself? And I suppose you will be told that well, but they will work for your happiness and not their own. Well, it's like an exchange of Christmas presents that neither party wants, but you have to exchange presents and you're not allowed morally to do something for yourself. Whereas what I say, you can make others happy when and if those others mean something to you selfishly. If you love them, then you want to make them happy. Fine. If you don't love them, that's not a moral crime. You don't have to love everybody. You cannot love everybody because it's a meaningless expression. You can love only those whom you value. And if they contribute to your happiness, you contribute to theirs. That's fine. But each one of you has to be selfish about it. Supposing somebody were in love with you and said, I love you because you're so bad. So I sacrifice myself and I'm going to love you. Would you accept that or would you say it's the most? No, sir. I wouldn't either. That's the most insulting thing anyone could have said to you. And yet that's what altruism would demand. And there is a great Russian writer who tried to practice it, Dostoevsky, who did marry a poor stupid little seamstress whom he didn't love at all out of the desire to make her happy. The end of it was she committed suicide. Now that is an altruist practice. That's what altruism leads to. How about it's more blessed to give than to receive? Well, that's obviously the welfare state. That's a clearly motivated slogan to please give me something and you'll be blessed, but I will keep your material good. Using the super chat and I noticed yesterday when I appealed for support for the show, many of you stepped forward and actually supported the show for the first time. So I'll do it again. Maybe we'll get some more today. If you like what you're hearing, if you appreciate what I'm doing, then I appreciate your support. Those of you who don't yet support the show, please take this opportunity. Go to Iranbrookshow.com slash support or go to subscribestar.com Iranbrookshow and make a kind of a monthly contribution to keep this going.