"The Morality of Capitalism" with Dr. Yaron Brook

okay good evening ladies and gentlemen thank you very much for joining us today and I apologize for the delay in starting great to see so many people here and unfortunately some people couldn't make it in here and had to go in the next room but that's okay it's live streamed and the Q&A of people on that side can definitely ask questions after my name is Cameron I am president of the undergraduate journal and I'm here with my team of 18 we're very excited to be hosting dr. Brooke today in conjunction with seat ops what the journal does is we're an interdisciplinary academic journal at the University we want to encourage and empower undergraduate intellectual activity and that's primarily through publishing our biannual print edition to which all undergraduates are welcome to submit their writing but today the focus is on our live talk with dr. Brooke but before we get started I'd just like to thank everyone for coming I'd like to thank the University of Exeter is annual fund for their generous financial support without which the talk would not be possible I'd like to thank Alex and the team at xtv who's making all the recording and streaming possible and the University of accident dr. Brooke is going to advance his case for unrestrained the moral case for unrestrained capitalism he started his career in Israel and misery in military intelligence and then he moved to the United States in 1987 Kiedis MBA and PhD at the University of Texas at Austin and then was an award-winning lecturer at Santa Clara he founded the hedge fund BH Equity Research and is now the both the co-author of this best-selling book free-market Revolution which you're welcome to take a look at at the end of the talk and he's the executive director of the iron ran Institute in California so without further ado please join me in welcoming dr. your own Brooke thank you I'm gonna go in front of the desk thank you all this is uh wow this is terrific to see an audience like this so the last 250 years it's kind of weird standing close cuz I have to look web so I'm gonna stand a little bit last 250 years if you will have been a experiment a social experiment a social experiment in which economic political social systems work and which don't which economic political systems raise the standard of living of people and which don't which economic systems create wealth create a middle class raise the standard of living of the poor and which don't and over the last 250 years we've tried a lot of different things a lot of different things in the 19th century we came as close as we've ever come to what we consider pure capitalism flea markets and when I mean free markets I mean free free of what real question free of what free markets are free of regulations government controls govern intervention right that's what we what I mean when I talk about capitalism want to talk about free markets so we came close to that in the 19th century we tried pure statism in a variety of different forms whether it's communism fascism all kinds of forms we tried everything in between some state ISM lots of free markets a little bit of free markets lots of statism we've tried every variation possible and I would argue I'm sure there'll be many here who disagree but I would argue that the empirical evidence is unequivocal if you want to raise the standard of living of people including the poor if you want to create wealth if want to create a high standard of living if you want innovation technology prosperity capitalism free markets look indeed the more free market you have the greater the wealth the greater prosperity and the greater the better the condition of the poor there are more statism you have the exact opposite happens and you can actually plot this on a graph you can take a graph of the in a sense percent of freedom that you allow in an economy and the amount of wealth created in that economy and there is a direct correlation indeed today there are economic freedom indexes published and you can do it not just historically but you can do it cross sectionally across different countries across different regions of the world and those countries that embrace capitalism that embrace free markets more because nobody embraces it completely those countries that embrace it more richer more prosperous and the poor do better than those who embrace it less there's a direct correlation between these things I mean and we've seen great examples of this we've seen East Berlin vs. West Berlin you know they built the wall not to prevent people from running away from capitalism towards communism but the other way around 25 years ago the wall came down and people discovered the difference between West Germany and East Germany it was dramatic and stock the prosperity in the West the poverty and horrific nature in the dirt the filth the pollution in the East we've seen it in Asia Hong Kong vs. China Hong Kong it's flourished I'm Kong 70 years ago anybody been to Hong Kong oh good number everybody should go to Hong Kong at least once in their life it's astounding place 70 years ago as a fishing village almost nobody lived it twenty-five thirty thousand people there today seven and a half million people live on this tiny little rock no natural resources no reason for them to be rich and yet the GDP per capita which is a measure of wealth is equal to that of the United States of America so that as riches Americans and richer than most Europeans on this rock why what is this rock half all that was provided on the rock there's almost no safety net almost no social services all that was provided on this rock was a respect for property rights and the rule of law that's it millions of people from Asia came to this place and they thrived they thrived ain't done phenomenally well today they're just as you know maybe you won't consider this a real measure but just as one measure they're more skyscrapers in Hong Kong than they are in New York City because to fit seven and a half million people into this tiny little space you have to build skyscrapers so there's this relationship and you can see it today in China to the extent the China adopts free markets and in the places where those free markets are left alone if you will where the central government leaves them alone who wealth is being created they produce people are rising up from poverty more people more people have moved from poverty to middle-class hood in the last thirty years than in any period in human history in Asia why because Asia has adopted free markets so we've run this experiment again in my view the data is conclusive you challenged me in the QA so this is the question because it's it's a question that really troubles people like me who believe in free markets and believe in capitalism if this data is so conclusive is if it's so obvious that free markets work in the way I've described it I keep moving and the cameras kind of everybody's gonna get seasick over there I'll try to stand still if this is all true if everything I said is true then why are we moving away from free MA throughout the West the West is giving up with free markets the United States of America is a lot less free today than it was 30 years ago which was a lot less 360 years ago which was a lot less free than a hundred years ago we are systematically moving away from capitalism we're systematically moving away from free markets that's certainly true of Europe that's only true of the UK although you've gone through dramatic movement away a little bit in you know would have been moving towards and now starting to move away again but suddenly in the last few years the West is deserting free markets in mass in mass why what is it about free markets that we find so bad if everything I said up until this point is true granted fairly big if but give me that for now there's something about capitalism it's something about markets that we find offensive though we resent that we don't like that causes us to blame them for every problem to blame them for every crisis and to crush them at every opportunity crush them I mean regulate them control them it posed the rule of governments on them so what is it what is it about markets that's so upsetting that's so yeah doesn't feel right I mean the latest financial crisis is a good example 2008 happens and before there's any data before an economist has looked at anything before anybody knows anything about what's actually happened everybody knows who's to blame like capitalism failed those were the headlines in all the big newspapers it's capitalism fault free markets failed now we could spend hours and hours and hours talking to a financial crisis I'll give you my two minute I mean that's a joke the idea that free markets failed in 2008 because the funny thing about this financial crisis is that it happened in which industries banking and housing at least in the United States I'm gonna put the UK aside because I know less about the UK or that I think this is true of the UK banking and housing of the most regulated industries in the United States the most controlled they're more regulatory agencies they're more people involved in regulating them were rules to regulate them than any other industry and they failed and we don't blame the regulation god forbid we blame government for anything we blame the markets and we blame a particular segment of the markets we blame bankers now we mean we blame bankers for every financial and economic crisis for the last 2,000 years since Jesus threw out the moneylenders from the temple right we used to blame it on Jewish bankers but that's politically incorrect so now we only blame it on bankers but it's what it is Wall Street right Wall Street's the blame now I will guarantee the ten years from now almost no economist looking backwards towards the financial crisis will blame it on markets but it doesn't matter because we blamed it on markets and we've completely added on to the massive regulation that used to exist now they're even more of them setting up the next crisis which way again I can guarantee blame on markets on free market so called free markets where the freedom comes from I've no idea so something again something is their instinct truly almost that leads us to say it's capitalism it's those bankers it's those flee markets that at fault they're the ones to blame they did this to us so what is it so what the markets about what is what is capitalism about but what a markets why do people participate in markets why does what if Steve Jobs build one of these why does he do it real question to make money this is about making money these things have profit margins I wish I could sell a product with these kind of at margins 60% plus right he Steve Jobs money to make money Apple wants to make money right people sell you stuff that make you money is it only about money I mean people going to business the Steve Jobs make this only because he wanted to make money what else what else yeah he loves this right it's it's a passion for him he believes that he can produce something better he's driven by competition but he's offered he's passionate he loves this stuff but at the end of the day this is about whom Steve Jobs made this for whom for me he doesn't care about me if you cared about me you would have produced this much cheaper price and maybe you would have asked my opinion about how they should look which would have been a disaster never asked me an opinion about something like that so why did he mean who did he make this fall for Steve Jobs this is all about Steve Jobs business is about the business that makes it he's being it's about him it's about his self-interest now I bought my first iPhone in 2008 when the US economy was spiraling out of control right and I went to buy my first iPhone because I wanted to stimulate the US economy because I know that's why you guys go at them all you guys should go shopping because you care about your fellow man and you want to make sure their jobs out there and you want to help the economy kind of suppose that's why you buy those nice shoes and those nice clothes and the iPhones and your iPads and right so why do you go at them all why do you go shopping for whom for you to make your life better you think not always the case sometimes you buy a lemon or a bad product but but you engage in that trade you go and buy the stuff because you want to make your life better so capitalism is about what it's about people pursuing what they're selfish it's about producers producing because they want to produce and they want to own a living and they want to make money and they love producing and it's about bias buying stuff because they want to make their life better and buying the stuff that they believe will make their lives better and it's the matching of those two markets are all about the pursuit of self-interest and who loses when we pursue when we do this when I bought the iPhone did I lose I paid 300 bucks for this let's say right how much is this worth to me if I paid 300 bucks to it there's the econ 101 how much it about Hamid how much was this worth to me if I paid 300 bucks for it more than 300 otherwise I wouldn't be bothered how much was it worth to Apple less than 300 they made a profit so we both won I'm pursuing my self-interest Apple pursuing this self-interest and we'll both better off at the end of the day magic it's called the trade of principle win-win and indeed this is not a new observation I'm making making here today this is an observation at a Smith made in 1776 in the wealth of nations he said the baker does not bake the bread the baker being the equivalent of his Steve Jobs right does not bake the bread for your sake he doesn't know you and he doesn't care about you he makes the bread for himself because he wants to feed his family and he wants to make money for himself and you're not buying the bread so that the baker can feed himself you're buying the bed so that he can feed yourself you're both self-interested that's the motivation so capitalism is all about self-interest that's what markets are about that's esepcially obvious everybody knows this but what do we know about self-interest what are we being taught by our mothers fathers professors preachers about self-interest from one with this big what have they told us it's bad self-interest is bad I I grew up in a good Jewish household and my mother taught me think of yourself last think of others first I mean she didn't mean that but she taught me that right nobody means it that's part of the hypocrisy of the whole system think of yourself last what's Malo what's noble what's virtuous self less Ness not thinking of self excluding self from the decision just read can't or we comped Augustine competent over there philosophers right you shouldn't take your concerns into account when making a moral decision selflessness is the start is the standard of virtue sacrifice sacrifice means giving something in expecting one in return nothing or something of lesser value and yet when I bought the iPhone was I sacrificing no that Apple sacrifice no we both came out ahead win-win sacrifice is by definition lose win you're supposed to lose that's what makes it a sacrifice that's what makes it virtuous goodness comes from loss this is the morality this is the mall code that we are taught you can see this in the world out there right Steve Bill Gates think Bill Gates a different technology entrepreneur Bill Gates builds Microsoft he makes seventy billion dollars for himself building Microsoft how many people does he help in the world by building Microsoft how many people's lives does he change for the better I would have you pretty much everybody on the planet we're all better off for Microsoft I mean I'm an apple guy I mean Apple consumer since 1989 but I know that without Microsoft without standardization we might not have the Internet we you know our lives are so much easier computing would be much more primitive so much easier because of what Microsoft did he has literally raised the standard of living of almost every person on the planet billions of people are benefitted from him making 70 billion dollars by the way the only way to make money in a free market is by providing a service or value to somebody else who values it more than what you're selling it for otherwise they wouldn't buy it so when I buy a Microsoft product for a hundred bucks it's worth more than a hundred bucks to me and if you do the calculation it's worth hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions of dollars over the lifetime so here's Bill Gates building a business creating jobs creating an industry creating wealth changing everybody's lives making everybody's lives better and how much more credit does he get for that activity zero I mean we think of him as a good businessman but how many people think Oh Bill Gates yeah he was a Wow that was a model thing he did by starting Microsoft and making lots of money I mean we laugh because that's not even it's not even in the framework of morality the way we think about it right so at best he's kind of morally neutral but mostly we kind of say particularly in in the world in which today where inequality is deemed this evil thing we say oh no he must be a bad guy cuz he's so rich so he gets negative moral credit for all this good he's done the world he gets negative mall credit now when does Bill Gates become a good guy oh that's slightly good guy he's not a saint yet but a good guy kind of more positive he leaves Microsoft god forbid he should continue to create wealth and create products and sell them to us right now he goes and starts a philanthropy and oh he starts giving his money away hey that's good now he's a good guy now we like him we like philanthropists we love charity those are good things now how many people is he gonna help in his charity quite a few hundreds of thousands maybe not billions it doesn't matter it's not how many people you help it's what you get out of it why do we view Bill Gates as the good guy now that he's a philanthropist because he's not making any money because he's not benefiting it cuz he's not being self-interested he's being perceived as caring about others that's good caring about others that's a positive caring about yourself negative how would Bill Gates attain sainthood how do we make him a great historical figure that people talked about for generations what would he have to do yeah I would have to give it all the way move into a tent and if he could bleed a little bit that would make him heroic I mean then we'd really you know say to it I haven't talked the Pope but I think sainthood would be forthcoming now I consider that a perversion a provision of morality a perversion of justice a perversion to build something to create wealth jobs flourishing for your own life improve the people's well-being all over the world that we consider they're insignificant but to give it that give the wealth that you had to create by the way it didn't just appear out of nowhere you had to build it you had to create it to give it now oh that's virtuous and Noble and wonderful and heroic but that's the mall system we have and this idea of giving this idea of selflessness as being virtuous is completely inconsistent with capitalism because capitalism is not about giving it's about trading it's about selling it's about buying it's not about sacrifice because capitalism is not about sacrifice so capitalism by definition in the mall system that we live in today is not virtuous it can't be virtuous because the people in it are motivated by self-interest and they are there's no doubt about that and the two things that happen politically because of this because of this conflict there's conflict between ethical system that we have and between the way markets work what happens to these businessmen and generally to people in the world when when they in generally undated a basis they are pursuing your own self-interest imagine put yourself in their place you're pursuing yourself interest but you be taught that self-interest as bad and you've been taught that you should be you know be selfless you should be second he should be Mother Teresa that's what you should be but nobody wants to be Mother Teresa so we all live a different life what do you think that happens inside of you when you live one life and your model ideal is a different life what emotion does that generate shame or guilt I would say guilt guilt I feel guilty and most wealthy people today feel guilty for the wealth they've made Bill Gates certainly is an example of that they feel guilty about it and much of the charity is not motivated by benevolence and love of their fellow man most of their charity is motivated by try to buy themselves into heaven whether they're religious or not the equivalent of heaven the equivalent of virtue they're trying to buy themselves into virtue by giving them on your way because that's what they've taught is virtuous making it again it's not giving it is so guilt now how do we use guilt now if if you grew up in a Jewish or Catholic household you know that guilt is a powerful weapon you can control people with guilt you can get them to do stuff so for example we can easily get people to vote to increase their own taxes using guilt because they don't give enough of it away charity is small in the world we live in and yet that people over here the need stuff they might not have nice houses they they're poor and I'm rich and it's my moral obligation my mother taught me to take care of them but I don't because I'm too busy living my life and I don't look over there so my politician local politician comes to me and says I've got a solution for you you don't have to look over there you don't have to worry about those people anymore I'll worry about them I just need a raise your taxes quite a bit in order to give it to them and I go yes all right I can reduce my guilt by raising my own taxes and this is what happens people think in America at least they think that people votes their pocketbook ie they vote some maximize the economic will be people never do that people vote what they think is right what they think is just what they think is fair so when Obama runs for president he promises to raise in this last election he promised to raise taxes on the rich quite a bit in America right he promised to raise - how do you think the rich wrote it all most people say voted against it right now most people which people voted for Obama eight out of the ten wealthiest counties in the United States went for Obama not for the Republicans knowing that their taxes would go up but that's cool that the Texas go up because they get - they get have less guilt they get to help the people they were supposed to help anyway but forgot right so we distribution of wealth the whole idea of the welfare state is an idea driven by this morality it's driven by the idea that a Bill Gates owes it to everybody else to take care of everybody else and if he's not doing it voluntarily then so what let's force him to do it let's use taxes in order to do it for him that's one way in which the small code kind of gives us a welfare state a redistribution state a state that takes so someone gives to others there's no economic argument to justify that it's a completely moral argument that to justify the welfare state what about regulation the regulatory state regulations are growing and growing and going why are they going so much well what were we taught about self-interest beyond the fact that it's not good what a self-interest that people do in their lives what do they do how do they how do they behave they just go into complacent trade when we look at a kid in there in the in the back and I'm not pointing in anybody specifically so don't take this personally and say you're selfish what do we mean by that you're taking care of yourself no we mean something more negative what do we mean you don't care about anybody else it's even worse than that what what what what is likely that person's doing they're willing to hurts other people another to advance their own interest the people who will need to exploit people they're willing to lie cheat steal do whatever it takes to get away wait to get away with what they want to get away with to make supposedly make their lives better so they are scoundrels the scoundrels now what a businessmen we've already decided a businessman a self-interested but self-interest equals scoundrel now maybe if we think about it's not so much but deep down yeah self-interest we be taught from the beginning equals scoundrel so what do we need to do with scoundrels do we want scoundrels cooking our food do we want to colin jost building our buildings do we mutts condos building elevators well we have to because that's what business does right it creates all the products that we use but we don't trust them so what do we need to do we need a point good-hearted public servants to go and watch everything that they do to make sure they don't kill us because you know you know in America every elevator you walk into an elevator in a high-rise building there's a little diploma on the wall and it says that a government bureaucrat inspected the elevator and approved it for functioning it won't fall and kill you because if he didn't do it we know we don't deep down we know that if we just left it to the marketplace those elevator you know many fractures would build elevators that killed people so we need a public servant to make sure that they don't because that's how you make money in capitalism but killing your customers if we didn't have food inspectors McDonald's would poison us thank God to the government and why do we trust the inspectors because they're not self-interested there are public servants there for the common good we hate self-interest they're there to take care of us yeah you should talk to talk to them sometime find out if that's true but anyway that's the perception we don't trust private bankers we love central bankers central bankers are fine we give them promotions Bernanke who oversaw the financial crisis in a disastrous way gets reappointed and considered God today gets hundreds of thousands of dollars for a lecture like this why because the central banker didn't make any money they just get a salary they're not in it for themselves they're public servants they're there for the common good yes they might make mistakes but they have all of our interests they're not self-interested we don't trust self-interest so you get a regulatory state because every time something bad happens you're gonna blame the guys who are self-interested you're not gonna blame the public servants you're gonna blame them and you're gonna you're gonna hire a bunch of new public servants to look over their shoulder some more and if you had a thousand public servants looking over the bankers before well that wasn't enough because they obviously got away with it let's hire 5,000 to look over their shoulder now in my view this whole scheme is wrong it's evil it's it's it's it's distorting the whole reality of the world in which we live and it starts I think with the fundamental question why is it good noble virtuous to think of others first why is that the standard of morality somebody else's well-being why is the purpose of my life other people's happiness what I mean other people more important than you and to me there's no answer to that other than because somebody said so to me the most important person for you is you and morality ethics should be the science that tells you how to live a good life that teaches you what values and virtues to pursue to achieve happiness to achieve success to achieve flourishing I mean this Hawkins back to Aristotle for Aristotle the purpose of life is what serving others no the purpose of life is flourishing it should do man a happiness your own happiness your own flourishing it's to make your life the best life that it can be which is not easy it's hard to figure that out what will make you happy what will give you the best life that it can because it turns out that instant gratification is not what works in the long run lying stealing cheating awful strategies for success in life and if you don't believe me try it well I prefer you don't but I mean everybody's lied right lying sucks I mean it's awful strategy you might get what you want that instant but long-term it ruins relationships it ruins your ability to communicate with people and you lose what you deceptively got it doesn't work so the real purpose of ethics in my view it's not the dismissed self-interest but to figure it out to figure out what is really in our self-interest what leads to a happy flourishing successful prosperous good life you know Aristotle writes a lot about this so what is it what is it for human beings to live a successful life where do our values come from where the where the stuff that we that help us live where does it all come because it all has one source because if you look at your neighbor here if you look around the room you'll see that it is a biological specimen we're pretty pathetic let me just look about with slow will week we have no fangs we have no claws you put any one of you opposite a saber-toothed tiger forget about right except that what's interesting is the saber-tooth Tigers not here and you are and you're sitting in an auditorium with you know life streaming which is just a few years ago didn't exist with sophisticated cameras on sophisticated seats and you already closed anybody have the clothes making gene in them I don't how do we get all this stuff and where how do we get rid of the saber-tooth tiger why are we here and he's not here what is it uniquely human what allows us to prosper what allows us to be successful destroying things like what yes so yes but what makes it possible it is convenient what what makes it possible for us to destroy things because he's right in a sense he's a mean he's being obviously cynical but in a sense he's right the difference between two saber-toothed tiger and else is this the saber-tooth Tiger either adapts to his environment or dies he either genetically evolutionarily adapts this environment or dies human beings do what adapt their environment to them so it gets cold we build buildings and we yes we destroy mountains we carve out rocks from the mountains to build a building or we chop down trees to build the huts or we kill animals to make our clothes yes human beings YOUnique we change our environment to fit ourselves by the way nature made that not us that's the way we are that's the way we're programmed if you will we change our environment to fit our needs how do we do it though that's the question how do we change the environment what tool do we have to allow us to change they change our environment to fit our needs what's that we learn we experience but just you know animals that have experiences why what capacity do we have that allows us to learn intelligence reason it is a reason it's as our minds which are unique we can think we can communicate we can strategize we can learn we can develop we build one atop of the other from other people's learning experiences we can reason reason is the most important value for human beings it is what allows us to survive without it we are dead and it was what allows us to thrive to be as successful as we are and as successful as we could be reason so to be self-interested isn't about instant gratification it isn't about lying stealing and cheating it isn't about I don't know the line of cocaine here and just taking it and getting a high that's not happiness that's our flourishing that's not success it's about reasoning it's about thinking it's about using your mind to figure out what's good for you self-interest to achieve your self-interest to be self-interested is unbelievably hard it's hard work it requires real thinking calculating figuring stuff out what's good for me what's not what career should I pursue what shouldn't I what relationships should I pursue what should night what tree should I chop down what tree shouldn't I chop down these are not easy every step in human progress has required genius you think making clothes is easy some genius had to figure out once you call up an animal you can use that skin and the whole process has to be invented by an entrepreneur you know to figure out how to make the clothes or agriculture any one of these a massive achievements of the human mind self-interest is about the human mind it's not about instant gratification it's not about emotion it's not about satisfying your emotions and what is the enemy of the human mind what makes it impossible for us to think what to do anything with our thoughts if we can't think it's force it's coercion somebody sticks a gun at your back and says from now on two plus two equals five which government bureaucrats do to entrepreneurs all the time all the time you try programming up computer if you have to add two plus two is equal five well try building a bridge or an elevator or building you can't you can't function but if you don't they'll shoot you coercion is the anti thinking the anti reasoning the anti mind so in my view the enemy of man is force it's other people who try to force upon him their values their ideas their conceptions what they think is right your life is yours something groups it's not people who need stuff it's not somebody else it's you it's about your happiness your success your prosperity and it might be the only economic system that leads you to pursue your happiness to pursue your flourishing to pursue your life is a system that extracts force from society that says you cannot force people to do stuff that the only use of force is to defend yourself against bad guys against crooks against the line cheating thieving types and therefore extracts governments from market places because all government regulations are and redistribution of wealth is false so if we take that force out what you're left with is capitalism and capitalism is mall because it's the only system that allows for the pursuit of happiness that allows for human flourishing for individual human flourishing it's smaller because it's consistent with a morality of self-interest it's not consistent with the morality of self less Ness and that's why we don't consider it more and that's why we move away from it constantly so the battle for those who believe in free markets the battle in my view is not economic I think I think those of us who believe in free market one the economics battle decades ago about it's not Paul's political because politics is just a reflection of people's views and morality politicians will never change unless that people change the battle is ultimately a mall battle it's a battle about whether your life is yours whether the standard of goodness is your happiness or other people's happiness if the standard is other people's happiness capitalism loses and capitalism dies freedom generally dies if the standard of what is good is your own happiness than capitalism flourishes then we recognize its inherent morality its inherent virtue and we all benefit from its existence so while the talk is primarily about capitalism what I really am asking you to think about or we think is your Malo beliefs and challenging them all beliefs of the last 2,000 years and maybe it was erecting an old mall belief of Aristotle's reinterpreted by ein Rand your life is yours your happiness should be the standard of your morality thank you [Applause] all right wow you're on thank you so much for coming to speak to us tonight you've certainly left us with some very thought-provoking ideas my name is cherry and I'm editor-in-chief of the undergraduate exeter which is the academic journal that is hosting this event together with C talks and I'll be leading the Q&A now so what we're gonna do is we're gonna take a question from we're going to alternate between a question from the audience member and then one of the pre submitted questions that we collected from other audience members earlier on in the day so does anyone have a pressing question okay oh that's great um we'll start with the young man in the blue hello hi um you talked about killing your customers being bad and that's that's pretty self-evident but it seems killing your workers is fine I mean you look at Rana Plaza and Bangladesh for example that was a failure of capitalism yeah it was cheap labor and yeah I guess I would have expected that first of all it's ludicrous to consider Bangladesh capitalist there's no rule of law there there's no let me finish there's no capitalism in Bella Gill the dish there's no rule of law there's no respect for property rights and there's no respect for individual for human for the lives of people but let me let me there's a broader question going over not particularly in Bangladesh because so there's this wonderful statistic about OSHA in the United States OSHA I can trim what OSHA stands for but it's basically the safety and protection of workers Act that passed in the United States at some point and everybody chose this graph that OSHA passes and in safety in workplaces or put it the other way deaths an accident workplaces went down quite a bit right anybody says see when government regulates things get safer and what they don't show you ever I wish I had a way but anyway what they don't show you ever is what happened before OSHA was passed which is a systematic pattern since the 19th century of declining deaths and injuries in the workplace why it's quite simple but beyond the fact that even greedy capitalists care about human beings nobody likes to see their workers die or suffer just like you wouldn't like to see your neighbor dying of suffering you think you're different than the guys who won Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or guns who I corporations they're just human like you nobody wants to see other people maim because of it because a work condition that they created so that's one reason but the second reason to put it in dollar terms right it's not efficient loss work time lost suits a whole variety of reasons increased productivity to increase productivity one has to create a safe healthy work environment healthy work environments were not created by regulation they were created by greedy capitalists because it's the way to make money the way to make money is to treat your work as well and if you have two plants one plant in which we beat our workers and chain them to the fences slavery call it in the south of the United States and he had another plant where people are free and when you pay them a fair wage based on their productivity who do you think did better economically it's not an accident by the way that the North beat the South in the Civil War the North was a lot richer a lot more productive a lot more effective a lot more capitalist it didn't have slaves slavery is the worst economic idea ever counter to Marx slavery is not economically efficient it's economically horrific so if you want to make money if you want to be rich if you want to be wealthy treat your work as well okay McDonald's is one of the most wonderful places to work ever I've worked in the equivalent of McDonald's and a lot worse but if we were white why are you personalizing it's not oh you should first I say let me finish okay one moment one moment okay how this is going to work is that you will have to put your hand up and we're not allowed to interrupt each other because that's what we learned right okay it's only polite to put your hand making them upset before they have a right let me just deal with the minimum wage because it's part of this and that covers all of this stuff what do you do when you fought there's no point because there's so many questions now gonna get to your choice what is it what is the issue of the minimum wage what happens when you raise the minimum wage now this is econ 101 this is econ 101 if you raise the minimum wage all you're doing is creating a class of unemployed people you raised unemployment rate and who you who are the people who aren't employed they're the poorest of the poor they're young poor people and they'll never get their first job they'll never get their first job because I'll never learn the skills now if you look at people working in McDonald's actually look at data which is I know it's unusual these days if you look at people working McDonald's they don't look there very long they're learning a skill they're learning to be on time the learning customer service they gain productivity they find a better job and they're very soon earning much more than they make it McDonald's but if you've been either in the job in McDonald's if you never give them the job at seven bucks an hour five bucks an hour they'll never learn those skills and they'll be stuck in poverty recipients of welfare for the rest of their lives and it's not just that you're making them poor for the rest of their lives you're making them miserable for the rest of their lives because where do we get where do we get our happiness farm we get happiness from self-esteem you get self-esteem from work we all say the most important thing in life is family but how many people spend most of their time with their family most of us spend most of our time at work because that's where we get fulfillment that's where we get self-esteem that's where we get happiness when you deny people work you deny them life you deny them happiness you deny them success you're destroying those people and the worst thing you can do is pass minimum wage laws that institutionalize people into poverty and unhappiness which is exactly what they do okay Wow great okay so we're gonna move all right so we're gonna move on now to a pre submitted question and the first one I have here is quite interesting goes America is 5% of the world's population yeah and it has 25% other but it has 25% of the world's prison population as a result private prisons are a three billion dollar business is it moral to make money off of people being in prison I think the real question is why 25 percent people in prison that to me it's much more interesting I'll deal with the private prisons in a minute but I have to say this why is 25 who are these people who are these people in prison they're drug offenders they've hooked nobody in my view why are they in prison if you if you legalize drugs if you legalize drugs not only what murder rates go down not just in America but in in in in the Latin America prisons population would shrink dramatically the cost the law enforcement would shrink dramatically police could actually protect us from real criminals rather than chasing people who want to shoot up heroin I'm not for shooting up heroin by the way but you have a right if you want to commit suicide go ahead and commit suicide I shouldn't spend a lot of money trying to prevent you from committing suicide and that's what drug laws do so I would I would I would legalize drugs and get rid of the 25 percent of people in prison beyond that no I don't think prison should necessarily should be private I think prison is a function of government and I'm not for privatizing prisons ok great so now we're gonna move on to an audience question and I'm going to move on to people who have come from the other room watching the live streaming and would go with the young man in the white over there always talked about how force you know freedom whatever yeah but is it not kind of true that when a country like Mozambique except is just my programs from IMF who sew in countries like Mozambique accepted the structure adjustment programs from IMF and World Bank they're kind of forced privates are take probably their teeth privatization that's the one yes upon them upon industries that weren't quite ready for it yes and results in high unemployment and an increase in poverty okay so there's a there's two issues there one is I'm not a fan of the IMF in the World Bank I think they should be eliminated they've they never had a purpose they certainly don't have a purpose anymore they served some purpose after World War Two they suddenly shouldn't exist today and they shouldn't be imposing you know their imperial will on anybody so I have no fan of the IMF and the World Bank however I don't believe that any country is unready for privatization of private property indeed quite the opposite I think the sooner you establish private property the sooner you establish privatization the sooner you will get out of poverty and start creating wealth and again I would refer you to two Asian countries where they've done this starting with Hong Kong even Singapore and see their progression out of this there's a wonderful book of course I wouldn't remember the name there's a wonderful book that says how do you how do you solve poverty in many of these countries it's by a South American economist says one way in which you could almost instantly help people who are poor is give them private property over the land that they are cultivating anyway I I was in Rio de Janeiro and if you've ever been to Rio de Janeiro but do you gravity the most beautiful city in the world by far but it's an interesting place because the middle class all live at the bottom of these hills right in these condos and close to the beach and favelas which is which is squatters the poorest of the poor live up on the hills with the most beautiful views in the world right you would solve their poverty problem like that if you gave them private property rights over the land that they already occupied because what would they do they would sell it to rich people who would build resorts and beautiful homes and benefit from the view and they would move somewhere else with the loads of cash that they would get from it and if you did that universally across South America and Africa you would increase production increase wealth dramatically the problem is that the powers to be don't want to do that right the government owns all the land and government never gives stuffed-up if it can hold on to it ok great I'm sorry well I feel like the audience has questions I'd like to get through so who has a question alright let's go to the back there in the middle oh that's hard well do you want to shout out your question great so Scandinavia I'm gonna catch you sure just cuz we're limited in time so it's a Sweden question I get this every time why are people in Sweden so happy because they're pretty socialist I have two to two answers you can accept them or not but two answers one is there not that socialist the difference between the United States and Sweden is not that big in terms of the size of government Sweden went through this pattern it was one of the most capitalist countries in the world up until the 1950s and indeed massive amounts of wealth were created in Sweden by families and by by corporations by businesses and they were incredibly industrialised they made a lot of money in 1950s they switched towards socialism and I started redistributing all that wealth those made very little wealth was made during that period by the way they were just redistributing all the wealth it was made in the previous century it took them until 1994 when Sweden was basically Greece it was bankrupt and since 1994 to today Sweden has been deregulating reducing welfare reducing state involvement systematically across its economy and indeed today on the World Economic Freedom Index which measures economic freedom sweden is ranked higher than the united states in a bizarre twist so that's explanation one is it's not as socialist as you think - why do the Swedes say they're so happy because the only way to measure happiness is to ask you are you happy Suites say they're happy but it's funny because yes Swedes in America if they're happy they're as happy if not more happy than Sweden Sweden so if you run the same test in Minnesota which is dominated by Swedes they're happier than Sweden I'm gonna make a flippin answer because it to the side of this I'm Jewish if yes Jews if they're happy then never gonna say yes we just live in a culture of complaining we like to complain if to say happy means you're being selfish and it's not Swedes it's socially acceptable to say yes I'm happy even if you're not Jews it's the opposite so my point is that the studies are way all them well-being studies and happiness studies a way skewed culturally life expectancy in Sweden is higher than in the United States by the way right life expectancy Sweden's higher than the United States life expectancy of Swedes in America is higher than life expectancy of Swedes in Sweden same to of Japanese Japanese Americans live as long if not longer than Japanese in Japan but it's much higher than the average so I've done statistics in my life you got to be careful okay can we go with the man in the blue first of all thank you for the interesting talk I cannot really agree with all that you say but that's not what it's about no I'm very interested in how you see the relationship between capitalism and government in general because it seems to me that you describe the two as not coexisting really yeah and not influencing each other so let me say I'm not an anarchist I believe in government I believe in government as a necessary good what is the role of government it has no role in economics it's sooo other than the definition of protection of property rights government is force the nature of government is a gun everything the government does is about coercion it's about using a gun so my question is if somebody has a gun government and all governments are like this whether they're good governments are bad governments they own the monopoly over the use of force that's a definition of government that power that has the monopoly in a society over the use of force that's true of totalitarian governments and it's to a free goods the question is if you have an entity whose responsibility is force how do you want it to use that force my viewers I wanted to use that force to protect us protect us some crooks and criminals from bluud violate our freedom protect us from terrorists and fallen invaders so a military a police a military and then to serve as an arbitrator of disputes final resolution sir judicial system and that's it and other than that I believe that we as individuals are far better off dealing with one another directly then having this entity impose its will on us I think all it does is corrupt distort pervert and if it just stepped out of it we can handle our fears quite well No so so my set my point is that to the extent that we lie steal cheat the government has a role and taking us and putting us in prison because we're committed fraud we're stealing from people that's the protection of rights to the extent that you're just not very good at what you do in capitalism then you lose and that's okay they're gonna be winners and losers in capitalism we're not gonna be equal what's that you don't you don't yeah quite the contrary today we get away with murder because today I can murder you the equivalence of murder you and I can pay the politician off over here and he's gonna leave me alone this is called lobbying or it's called cronyism however you want to call it this is what corporations do today because we meet mixta - I want to take that element that's force that actually murders people governments by the way murder a lot more people than we do in capitalism right puts it over here no no no entity in human existence has murdered more people than governments have but I want to put force over here and put it under very tight controls and pterri pterri blinds so they can only use it in retaliation in self-protection and I want to leave all of us free to trade and we'll make mistakes but their mistakes and they're not mistakes on a grand scale that causes all of us to suffer this is when the Federal Reserve makes a mistake when you have one centralized entity that prints all the money and determines what interest rates are going to be when they make a mistake which they do every day everybody suffers because we all are using the money that they put it if you take away a federer's if you take away a central bank like Scotland had in the nineteen century or like the United States had before 1914 a bank might make a mistake and some people might lose but a bank doesn't have the systemic risk to use a modern term that if central bank does government is centralized power there's nothing that can distort and pervert more than that centralized power cause it touches everybody and it has big big guns okay thank you your honor I just like to remind everyone that we do you have to put our hands up just to maintain control so I'm gonna go to the women to the back their bad behavior sorry okay do we have a mic that we could go okay you know what buddy you say a question I'll repeat it because people in the other room live-streaming will not be able to hear you so why don't you go so you mean by wait you mean the price okay okay sorry can I repeat the question I have prices going up and isn't that a bad thing it is an example of capitalism run amok for education in education yeah price is going through the roof in education American higher education right in in colleges they're going through the roof guess guess who's paying that price yeah but but who's subsidizing it who's making it possible taxpayers Gupton loans all of the American education all of American education is dominated by government funds government pays all the bills know through these loan programs but that will lend you money to go to any university as long as the university will accept you there's no price control there's no market there's no market tuition in no market in the world no capitalist market no flea market in the world would prices go like this and quality go like that which is what's happening in America it wouldn't happen the only reason it can happen is that government is buying it when government buys anything what happens to price sure goes way up government is buying your education yes it's through loans and it's through this convoluted complicated thing in America but it's basically the government buying it and prices are going up and by the way where's the money going it's really interesting all this tuition goes up where does the money going because they're no more professors the student professor ratio in the United States is not changing right the same number of professors goes to three things professor salaries they're getting more and more money and teaching less and less and less yeah but it's in a big scheme of thing it's small and it subsidizes itself because because attendance at football games subsidizes the coach's salary but I don't care I mean if you want to blame coaches that's fine professors get higher and higher iron higher salaries administrators there are three to four times more administrators at American universities today than there were 20 or 30 years ago and buildings that today the universities are building magnificent dormitories and all kinds of stuff not improving education one iota education is actually declining and that's because the government's buying it any anything if the government bought bought a hammer and you can see this in the Defense Department in America when the government goes out of Vice hammers what do you think happens to price of hammers it goes up because the government's using money that it didn't earn right it's your money so they don't care about how much it costs they just pay whatever they whatever they want government is a distorter of markets and if what if education was truly private in America I would bet anything prices would be declining and quality would be rising private colleges get as much money from the government estate on colleges because they're getting the money from student loans which are all today under Obama all student loans come from the government and the most the greater the percentage of student loans you can you can track you can do a correlation right you can do a statistical the more student loans are funded by government the higher the prices of education okay we're gonna move on now young lady the front one second if you just get the mic there I am where does the NHS sit and within a capitalist idea would you abolish it or would you keep it so this is great because I can say pretty much anything to a British audience okay yeah we disagree with me but if I say anything about the NHS oh my god it'll be dangerous for me to leave because you guys I mean for you the NHS is like religion it's like it's unbelievable and this is true I mean of course I'd abolish the NHS the NHS is killing you guys it's killing you guys this is let me finish I just I said I'm going to explain if you had cancer if you're healthy by the way if you're young and healthy then it just is wonderful because you don't need it you have a little bit of sniffles you go into the doctor they give you a spin and they don't charge you and you think that's wonderful it's it but if you have cancer if you have heart disease you do not want to be in the UK because you because you'll well let me let me finish I get it I get it because because you're gonna wait in long lines for your MRI you're gonna wait in long lines for your cat scan you're gonna wait in long lines for your surgery the best doctors who are not making any money here gonna go overseas are gonna go into the private sector you are getting and the older you get the more this will affect you you're getting mediocre at best mediocre treatment when you get really sick doctors own as compared to the state's less and in a state stopped as owning less now because we're socializing healthcare in the United States some doctors are leaving the profession and we're getting fewer and fewer doctors in the United States and there's a shortage of doctors more patients shortage of doctors as the aging as the population is aging fewer doctors if you want high-quality health care if you want high quality education it's it's education and health care are some of the most important values we have in the world that last people you want running it's as the government they have no incentive to make it work well they don't you don't have a customer relationship there is no competition there's no innovation 75% of all innovation in the world in health care happens in the one country that has a little bit of freedom left in health care which is the United States I want every entrepreneur that goes in and makes a stupid little app for this thing because this is the only place where we still have a little bit of freedom in the world I wanted to think about how to build the best school in the world possible to build a great educational product because a mind is much more important than I want him to figure out the next best way to kill cancer or heart disease but if you take the profit motive out of those treatments the incentive goes away the motivation goes away not only that going back to cost what happens in freedom in a free market in every single product and service every single one is that as competition innovation happen prices go down and quality goes up just look at the world you live in the stuff you take for granted is this stuff because that's the stuff being produced and what happens prices here they go down and quality goes up in everything that's true except in two areas health care and education why because those are dominated even in the United States by government government perverts the incentives it perverts the incentive to innovate it perverts the incentive to compete it perverts the incentive to keep prices down it perverts an incentive to increase quality now poor people in a real market economy could buy insurance your Namit insurance health insurance in the United States in places that have very few regulations costs less than your monthly cell phone bill that's how much it costs to get insurance in in places and that's why people who believe in socialized medicine don't want insurance companies in the United States you compete across state lines because they don't want the truth to be discovered that in some places the u.s. you can buy healthy shows for less than a cell phone bill now every poor person in America almost 95% I think have cell phones health care is more important than a cell phone you can give up a cell phone go buy insurance right now that's in a world where we've got massive regulations imagine if there were no regulations all those costs all that insanity that the government brings to the insurance market I for example I'm 53 years old I've got two sons a little older than you guys I'm not gonna have any more kids my wife's done we were done 20 years ago we were done right right I mean even if we wanted to we couldn't at this point this is the reality I have to buy maternity coverage we the state of California has decided that you cannot sell an insurance policy in California without maternity coverage so guess what I pay more money than I should much more money than you know I'm never gonna do acupuncture I tried it a long time ago I'm not gonna do I keep legit doesn't work for me I don't know if it works for you it doesn't work for me in the state of California I buy coverage it covers acupuncture but I'm never gonna use it you still have to pay for so the insanity of the government telling me what's good for me or the government determines to me fear what kind of it should raises the cost and reduces the quality the best thing you can do for health care by the way I come from a country with socialized medicine i socialized as an NHS which is Israel and Israel has a pretty good healthcare system because it has lots of doctors why does this all have a lot of doctors because it's the Jewish state right that's a lot of doctors and then good doctors but if you're really really sick in Israel and you have the money you fly to the United States of America when Berlusconi in Italy gets sick he doesn't come to the UK to benefit from the NHS he goes to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota that's the standard the standard is the Mayo Clinic and figuring out how to provide the Mayo Clinic to poor people is an interesting issue but you don't do it by socializing it you don't do it by destroying the Mayo Clinic which is what the NHS has done okay we have a couple of minutes left so we have time for two more questions in the gray over there and the woman over there in this sweater and just to note you know if you have any more pressing questions which I'm sure you do we will be taking Iran to the RAM yeah over bill goes in a drink yes go ahead would you not accept there are some situations where the government would need to intervene for example in this room all the people who want to ask questions it's in our self-interest to shout them out it's not in everyone's interests overall if we will shout them out at the same time yes even Milton Friedman you seem to have a lot of your views in common with would accept problems like monopoly power or common land or externalities which he called neighbor defects all these things he would have his reason for government intervention would you not agree with this all you've said is property rights and that's it yes so the property rights is the equivalent of a rule that determines how we're gonna ask questions and indeed if you were really rude we could in a property rights system we could escort you out there now not any you do not even University enforces that but at least the civilized ones do so government has a role as I said in defining property rights and this indeed souls most of your problems now monopolies you know do we have time to get into monopolies in my view monopolies do not exist in a free market I know so let's take a monopolist let's take a great historical example what's your favorite monopolist example well in the United States its Standard Oil Rockefeller because Rockefeller in the 1870s had 93% of all oil refining capacity in the United States ninety-three percent sounds like a monopoly right what do you expect what our econ professors are really really good econ professors what do they do they might be someone to him but what do they teach us the monopolists do why do we hate monopolies because they what what happens to prices under monopolies prices go up and quality goes now I mean that's obvious you just look at the charts but it doesn't look that way it turns out look at the data when Rockefeller had 93 percent of all refining capacity in United States prices went down every single year quality went up every single year why because Rockefeller understood what all businessmen understand that if he didn't do that they would be competition because the government wasn't prohibiting competition it wasn't like a British monopoly in the 1700s or the 1800's where monopoly went a government-granted monopoly which meant the government prohibited people from competing with you in a free market anybody could compete with you if he raised prices people would compete with him and indeed so so he kept prices down and you can see this you go to Alcoa in the 50s in aluminum price if you look at IBM in the 80s when they were in the 70s when they're just a small went after their there is no example in a free market semi-free of way a monopolist raises prices at lowest quality you can you know challenge your econ professors to find the example now why who ultimately competed Rockefeller out of the business because Rockefeller was producing a product in an 1870s of which he had 93% which two three decades later he had zero market children zero because what was the product he was producing in 1870s what was he were finding oil for anybody no carrot seems kerosene which was used for jet fuels in the 1870s oh my god well is that what we were using kerosene in 1870s for for lighting for lighting by the way Rockefeller saved the whales because the primary reason we were killing whales in the early 19th century was for whale oil which we were using to light our homes by making kerosene so cheap whaling industry went out of business and we saved the whales but put that aside who drove them out of business who drove rockefeller out of the business of lighting Thomas Edison electricity who would have expected that what government bureaucrat could have seen that coming none so no Central Committee no authority is going to arbitrate competition because you can't competition is always unpredictable if it was predictable somebody would win all the time and nobody wins all the time so monopolist don't behave you aware your professors tell you they do it's nice on the board it doesn't work in reality and there's always substitute ability products can be substituted when we look at monopolies we look at a fairly narrow IBM was accused of dominating the mainframe business yeah but there was there was digital that was creating computers that was smaller than mainframe yes they had a hundred ninety percent of the mainframe business but that's zero percent of the slightly smaller business which was taking over their business and ultimately what took over IBM's and digital's business the PC the Marcus is the dynamic they changed constantly it's amazing feature now let me quickly address your other question because that's a whole other can of worms the problem of column of the Commons my solution to problem of the Commons is not to have any privatize them if you apply property rights over everything it gets cleaned up very quickly my land is clean but our land is probably pretty dirty because when it's public it's owned by nobody and nobody takes care of it when it's yours this is why the the the Eastern Bloc of Europe was filthy far more polluted than capitalist Western Europe because nobody owned anything so nobody cared about anything they left it to rot when you when it's yours you care about it and if you apply property rights over water and over other goods they would be clean because you don't drop your garbage in my backyard and there's a whole legal history about how to do that and how it could be done government intervenes if I'm if I'm spewing something out of my factory that's killing you then govern intervenes because I'm violating your rights I'm using force against you but other than that government has no vote okay great we're gonna go to our last question out to the young woman in the sweater do we have him oh yeah could you pass that on to thank you so taking it down from a large scale it's like a consumption site how do you explain the crippling overconsumption and drive to spend to buy these suppose that win-win products you spoke about earlier that forces people manipulates them and coerces them as you say these evil governments do to like as you said yourself to buy my mobile phone contact over health insurance how do you explain that's the type of behavior caused by marketers so immoral and free well a I've already explained that the market is not free the market is is who if eclis regulated so we don't know what would happen in actual free milk and will help people would actually behave in a free market it's not the way they behave today because we're not free but second is nobody's actually cursing you to buy a cell phone nobody is I for a long time didn't want a cell phone I thought it was ridiculous so it was a stupid product I have a phone at home I have a phone at work I don't need a cell phone this is in the 90s when nobody had self and they were first coming out they were but my wife used to travel quite a bit to school she was getting a master's degree and she would come home at night she would come home after dark and I forget okay I'll biased I get a cell phone just for emergencies and then you know what I discovered then it was pretty cool to have a cell phone nobody cursed me I just thought it was cool so I bought one and then we all got one and you know why I buy well I'm gonna get an iPhone 6 as soon as I get home this is a fight nobody's cursing me nobody put a gun against my head I see all the advertising I see what's his name Samsung's advertising and that doesn't faze me one minute I'm still gonna buy an Apple because I want this bothers me that it's a little slow it's a little bit efficient screens a little small I want something better but that's the coercion that's my choice and could you give this up of course you could it's your choice it's your choice the whole idea that advertising curses you I mean there are a million actually probably more than a million products that I don't buy because I have no interest in them I mean people try to sell me all kinds of crap that I don't want but I buy the stuff I want cuz I choose now I might make mistakes it might not be good for me like some people might choose this they don't choose this over health insurance because the health insurance for many people is just not available because they live in regulated states where the health insurance is too expensive but people do choose this over stuff that's better for them why is that my problem people make stupid mistakes in their lives all the time and you think that a government regulator knows what's good for you so if the government controlled marketing and advertising and said who these products are healthy and good let's take a product let's take a product we all know is important food does anybody here know what's good for you in terms of food fat saturated fat is it good for you yes how many people think it's bad for you what does the government tell us is good for us and what does it come and say is bad for us the government overwhelmingly in the wall today says that saturated fat is killing you it's bad for you don't eat saturated fat this is the bureaucrats who've got a common interest in mind telling us they've got a whole food pyramid and at the bottom of the food pyramid of grains greens are good for you fat is bad for you now turns around at the latest research and I'm not an expert on this so I might be wrong but the latest research is showing that saturated fat is actually really really good for you and it might turn out might I don't know if this is the case that grains are bad for you but the government in its wisdom has been teaching us telling us what to eat and what not to eat so we are they eating this diet in America everybody's fat you know why everybody's fat in America because yes and you know what about McDonald's is bad for them is that bun the bun is bad for now the bun is bad for them the bread is bad for them I mean I mean I didn't make this saturated fat up he did right I'm glad you think so and that's fine you know so it turns out image are a significant number of scientists today based on the New York Times The Wall Street Journal and and medical publications all over the world today are discovering that that's not true it's just not true now as I said I might be wrong my point is this fine I'm on I'm on he's saying I'm not wrong and he looks older than you and maybe maybe has something I don't know my point is this when a centralized Authority makes a mistake we all suffer when a central authority tells us what's good a bad for us we all follow their lead he might be right I might be right he's gonna eat a diet low in saturated fight I actually eat the high in saturated fat I might be wrong maybe and I'll suffer the consequences you won't you can follow his advice and that's fine I'm okay with that I'm not gonna I never try to force you to eat saturated fight I'm gonna eat the set you ate afraid I'm gonna die of heart disease and it's not gonna cost you a thing and I know you hope I do well my point is this I get to make the choice you get to make the choice and if there wasn't an NHS we wouldn't be cost subsidizing each other about this with each beam burying the cost of our own decisions so if I'm really sick because I'm eating a bad diet whatever that by diet is my insurance rates will go up I will bear the cost of my own bad decisions so if I'm not following you see in my view the government shouldn't have a health recommendations because they don't know what they're talking about most of the time the best thing is for you and your doctor to figure out what the diet is right for you until you make the best educated decisions about your life and this is so this will be my parting wood my point is this you know I believe it's self-interest I believe you should pursue your life figure out what's right for you and don't abide by Authority not my authority not his authority but don't grant Authority for government or anybody the Pope I don't care what your thirty don't greet them the authority to rule your life to tell you what product could make or not to make what profession to go into and not to go into what food to eat or not eat for that matter what drug to take or not to take it's your life you make a decision about your life with I am for freedom I'm for liberty I'm for your liberty and freedom to do to an including commit suicide including make mistakes including the bad stuff but that freedom will mostly allow you to achieve more prosperity more happiness more successful more flourishing than any system that exists today on the planet because it's about individual liberty it's about individual freedom and you are the standard it's your tana me that's when I'm fighting for not fighting for saturated fat or against Authority who cares I mean I do care but that's not the issue the issue is who gets to decide I want you to decide not some government bureaucrat thank you thank you thank you all and let me just say these guys did a phenomenal job organizing this and this kind of audience so thank you everyone said the audience turnout is amazing so I'm whether you agree or disagree with her on thank you so much for coming and you know keeping an open mind about this sort of thing we will first of all I'd like to thank University of Exeter is Annual Fund again without their support this would not be possible and I'd like to thank xtv again and of course my wonderful committee who have worked very very hard thank you so much we will now be taking your own to the ramp so those of you who have questions or comments that you would like to we're gonna eat saturated fat so yeah we will be consuming some of that if you have any pressing comments or questions please do go to the ramp otherwise we will probably put a post up on our Facebook page and on our twitter and you can post your reply or comment there and continue the debate online so look out for us on Facebook and on Twitter and again thank you all for coming [Applause] oh thank you Mike let's turn this off so I can actually talk thank you you

Channel: XTV Online

Views: 40,953

Rating: 4.8352489 out of 5

Keywords: xtv, exeter, guild, university, student tv, ayn rand, yaron brook, capitalism, morality, debate, talk, alex glynn

Id: 44E6ujRLchs

Length: 89min 31sec (5371 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 22 2014