Ben Bernanke: Firefighter or Arsonist?

Ben Bernanke is crediting the Federal Reserve for lessening the impact of the financial “crisis”. Here are some excerpts from his recent Washington Post op-ed:

The Federal Reserve, like other regulators around the world, did not do all that it could have to constrain excessive risk-taking in the financial sector in the period leading up to the crisis. We have extensively reviewed our performance and moved aggressively to fix the problems.

There is a strong case for a continued role for the Federal Reserve in bank supervision. Because of our role in making monetary policy, the Fed brings unparalleled economic and financial expertise to its oversight of banks, as demonstrated by the success of the stress tests.

We have come a long way in our battle against the financial and economic crisis, but there is a long way to go. Now more than ever, America needs a strong, nonpolitical and independent central bank with the tools to promote financial stability and to help steer our economy to recovery without inflation.

Alex Epstein of the Voices for Reason blog gives a very critical response:

Thus, the Fed is a financial firefighter that simply needs more resources to put out fires set by financial arsonists in the free market—and Bernanke is Financial Firefighter in Chief.

Hardly.

The Fed is the arsonist. The Fed has command-and-control powers to dictate the money supply and baseline interest rates in our economy—fundamental factors shaping market decisions about where to invest money. As Yaron Brook explains in his thorough course on the financial crisis, the Fed’s artificially low interest rates (under the regime of Alan Greenspan and deputy Ben Bernanke) were the primary cause of the housing bubble, which combined with other government-induced phenomena (such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) effectively paid people to make reckless investments in real estate. Brook explains how similar factors were at work in the dot-com boom.

In other words, the problem is not that government policies and institutions didn’t do enough to stop the fire, it is that they poured the gasoline and lit the matches.

Why Are We Moving Toward Socialized Medicine?

By Dr. Yaron Brook,
Executive Director, The Ayn Rand Institute

Government intervention in medicine is wrecking American health care. Nearly half of all spending on health care in America is already government spending. Yet President Obama’s “reforms” will only expand that intervention.

Prior to the government’s entrance into medicine, health care was regarded as a product to be traded voluntarily on a free market–no different from food, clothing, or any other important good or service. Medical providers competed to provide the best quality services at the lowest possible prices. Virtually all Americans could afford basic health care, while those few who could not were able to rely on abundant private charity.

Had this freedom been allowed to endure, Americans’ rising productivity would have afforded them better and better health care, just as, today, we buy better and more varied food and clothing than people did a century ago. There would be no crisis of affordability, as there isn’t for food or clothing.

But by the time Medicare and Medicaid were enacted in 1965, this view of health care as an economic product–for which each individual must assume responsibility–had given way to a view of health care as a “right,” an unearned “entitlement,” to be provided at others’ expense.

This entitlement mentality fueled the rise of our current third-party-payer system, a blend of government programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, together with government-controlled employer-based health insurance (itself spawned by perverse tax incentives during the wage and price controls of World War II).

The resulting system aimed to relieve the individual of the “burden” of paying for his own health care by coercively imposing its costs on his neighbors. Today, for every dollar’s worth of hospital care a patient consumes, that patient pays only about 3 cents out of pocket; the rest is paid by third-party coverage. And for the health care system as a whole, patients pay only about 14 percent.

Shifting the responsibility for health care costs away from the individuals who accrue them led to an explosion in spending. In a system in which someone else is footing the bill, consumers, encouraged to regard health care as a “right,” demand medical services without having to consider their real price. When, through the 1970s and 1980s, this artificially inflated consumer demand sent expenditures soaring out of control, the government cracked down by enacting further coercive measures: price controls on medical services, cuts to medical benefits, and a crushing burden of regulations on every aspect of the health care system.

As each new intervention further distorted the health care market, driving up costs and lowering quality, belligerent voices demanded still further interventions to preserve the “right” to health care: from regulations mandating various forms of insurance coverage to Bush’s massive prescription drug bill.

The solution to this ongoing crisis is to recognize that the very idea of a “right” to health care is a perversion. There can be no such thing as a “right” to products or services created by the effort of others, and this most definitely includes medical products and services. Rights, as the Founders conceived them, are not claims to economic goods, but to freedoms of action.

You are free to see a doctor and pay him for his services–no one may forcibly prevent you from doing so. But you do not have a “right” to force the doctor to treat you without charge or to force others to pay for your treatment. The rights of some cannot require the coercion and sacrifice of others.

Real and lasting solutions to our health care problems require a rejection of the entitlement mentality in favor of a proper conception of rights. This would provide the moral basis for breaking the regulatory chains stifling the medical industry; for lifting the tax and regulatory incentives fueling our dysfunctional, employer-based insurance system; for inaugurating a gradual phase-out of all government health care programs, especially Medicare and Medicaid; and for restoring a true free market in medical care.

Such sweeping reforms would unleash the power of capitalism in the medical industry. They would provide the freedom for entrepreneurs motivated by profit to compete with each other to offer the best quality medical services at the lowest prices, driving innovation and bringing affordable medical care, once again, into the reach of all Americans.

©2009 The Ayn Rand Institute.

Author Bio
Dr. Yaron Brook is president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.

The Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in Irvine, California, works to introduce young people to Ayn Rand’s novels, to support scholarship and research based on her ideas, and to promote the principles of reason, rational self-interest, individual rights and laissez-faire capitalism to the widest possible audience. The Institute is named for novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982), who is best known for her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. ARI has a distinguished Board of Directors and a staff of about 35 employees.

For more information about ARI, please visit http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=index

An Interview with Yaron Brook (Part II)

Below is Part II of our interview with Dr. Yaron Brook, President and Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute.

Click here to read Part I.

FMM: Recently, we’ve seen – particularly at town hall meetings – an outpouring of anger and concern over rapid government growth. Do you believe this rhetoric is capable of bringing about a change in the course of our nation?

Brook: In the short run, yes. In the short run, these outpourings could slow today’s anti-freedom trend. But even if you were to kick Obama, Barney Frank, and every other leftist out of office, that would do nothing in the long run to change things. Recall that the size and scope of government grew under Bush, even when Republicans controlled the House and the Senate.

That said, we are working to channel these outpourings into more education and more intellectual activism for a positive ideal, not just anger at the current government. Just as the original Boston Tea party started as in effect an emotional response to British tyranny, it became an intellectual movement committed to the ideal of individual rights. That, in essence, is what has to happen today. People need to grasp what a truly free society would look like, and they need to understand at a deep level why such a society is good.

I recommend two of our recently-released essays in this regard: “Atlas Shrugged: America’s Second Declaration of Independence” and  “A Call for the Separation of State and Economics.” We have also launched a new website devoted to defining in detail what freedom actually means. It’s called Principles of a Free Society.

FMM: In Atlas Shrugged, the novel’s heroes all, at some point, commit some form of civil disobedience. At what point (if any) do you believe civil disobedience towards government becomes justified?

Brook: Well, civil disobedience is less extreme than what many of the characters in Atlas Shrugged do, which is attempt to overthrow the society. I’ll address both.

I believe that civil disobedience, which means breaking an unjust law to help get it overturned, is valid if the disobeyer has fully thought through and accepts the consequences, which would include some sort of calculation as to the likelihood of success.

Any sort of rebellion is only justified if a society lapses into dictatorship. Here is how Ayn Rand characterized the mark of a dictatorship:

There are four characteristics which brand a country unmistakably as a dictatorship: one-party rule—executions without trial or with a mock trial, for political offenses—the nationalization or expropriation of private property—and censorship. A country guilty of these outrages forfeits any moral prerogatives, any claim to national rights or sovereignty, and becomes an outlaw.

America, fortunately, is not near this point, especially with respect to the all-important issue of censorship (though we are threatened in all areas, including here). Those who seek, freedom, therefore, need to focus on educating themselves and others, on the nature and justification of a free society. Our website, www.aynrand.org, has a multitude of resources.

FMM: Do you believe we need an economic collapse (or other cataclysmic event) to bring about a return to our founding principles?

Brook: Absolutely not. The stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression constituted an economic collapse that massively increased the amount of government intervention in the economy, and took this country farther from its founding principles faster than had ever occurred before.

The fundamental needed is education. We can certainly use the current crisis as an opportunity to educate—just as anti-capitalists are using the opportunity to mis-educate—and at the Ayn Rand Institute and Ayn Rand Center, we are. But this crisis is anything but an educational silver bullet—or silver lining. It is a real crisis, with everything bad that entails.

I think there is a tendency among people interested in liberty to try to avoid the fact that reversing our cultural, economic, and political trends requires reversing the deep-seated ideas and ignorance that led to those trends in the first place. That is a serious intellectual undertaking, not something any crisis is going to magically bring about. Of course, it is also an urgent intellectual undertaking, which is why we at ARI are working as fast as we can, and why we encourage others to do the same.

FMM: How can intellectual activists and concerned citizens most effectively oppose the current trend of government growth and the erosion of individual rights?

Brook: Education, education, education.

What people have to realize is that the fight is not primarily political. We have the politicians we do today because they advocate the policies most Americans endorse. That’s what we need to change, and the only way to change it is through spreading better ideas.

I would say that if you want to change the culture for the better, the first thing to do is know your case. Know what a free market is and why it is good. Don’t offer the same mealy-mouthed, half-hearted, apologetic arguments for the market conservatives have been dishing out for decades. Don’t focus on how corrupt this or that politician or political party is. Be able to supply the moral, economic, and historical—above all, moral—defense that capitalism requires.

Then, if you are interested in fighting today’s trends, speak out on whatever scale is open to you. Write letters to the editor, call your Congressmen, refer people to ARI’s website or Ayn Rand’s books, participate in a tea party, or start a blog. And of course, ARI always welcomes financial support from people who wish to support our efforts. Those are the kinds of individual actions that can help change a culture.

We would once again like to thank both Dr. Brook and his staff for all of their diligent efforts in advancing the cause of individual rights.

Click here to view other Free Market Mojo interviews.

An Interview with Yaron Brook (Part I)

Dr. Yaron Brook, President and Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute, has had a significant impact on the politics of Free Market Mojo’s authors and, as a consequence, his videos and writings have frequently appeared on this blog.

Dr. Brook is a contributing editor of The Objective Standard, has contributed a series of columns to Forbes, and is a frequent guest on a variety of radio and TV shows, having appeared on Fox Business News, Fox News (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN.

A popular lecturer at corporations, universities, public forums, community and professional groups, Dr. Brook is known for his radical ideas and passionate speaking style.

Dr. Brook was born and raised in Israel. He served as a first sergeant in Israeli military intelligence and earned a BSc in civil engineering from Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, Israel. In 1987 he moved to the United States, where he received his MBA and Ph.D. in finance from the University of Texas at Austin; he became an American citizen on May 28, 2003. For seven years he was an award-winning finance professor at Santa Clara University, and in 1998 he cofounded a financial advisory firm, BH Equity Research, of which he is presently managing director and chairman.

Today, we are proud to present part I of our two-part interview with Dr. Yaron Brook.  As with any writings or comments from outside sources that appear on Free Market Mojo, the author’s views are his own and are not endorsed by either author of Free Market Mojo.

FMM: Often in the conservative movement, we see a conflict between the more “libertarian” conservatives (those concerned primarily with individual rights) and religious conservatives, the former group being typically composed of “fiscal” or “economic” conservatives while the latter group contains the social conservatives. Do you believe reconciliation is possible between these two groups?

Brook: I am not interested in such a reconciliation occurring; I don’t think any benefit would be achieved by it. “Conservatism” as a movement is a failure. It promised to move America closer to laissez-faire—to “conserve” the traditional American economic system—and it has done nothing but make weak arguments against the growth of government, or take a leadership role in growing government (Nixon’s price and wage controls, Reagan’s increased spending and expansion of Social Security, George W. Bush’s prescription drug bill, education bill, government-subsidized “ownership society,” and Sarbanes Oxley). What is needed, as Ayn Rand long ago pointed out in her 1960 article “Conservatism: An Obituary,” (reprinted in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal) is to recognize that capitalism can only be defended successfully on moral grounds: as the system that recognizes the individual’s right to his own life and his own mind. This requires rejecting the traditional idea that selfishness is evil and destructive, and that altruism—self-sacrifice—is good and beneficial. It requires recognizing that, as Ayn Rand argued extensively, the selfish pursuit of wealth and happiness via production and trade under laissez-faire capitalism is the true virtue.

FMM: I recently happened upon a blog named “Soul of Atlas”, authored by Mark Henderson, who is currently writing a book on the similarities and differences between Objectivism and Christianity – two philosophies that many would see as being antithetical to each other. Do you believe it is possible for a person of faith to live by the three principle values of Objectivism (Reason, Purpose, and Self-Esteem)?

Brook: To the extent someone follows a policy of faith—of believing in some supernatural being for which there is no evidence and whose alleged powers contradict everything we know about science—he is doing the opposite of living by reason. For more on the issue of religion, click here.

FMM: Your paper, “Just War Theory vs. American Self-Defense”, as well your various arguments for Israel’s right to exist, have had a major impact on our foreign policy views. From the standpoint of a foreign policy based on rational self-interest, what should the U.S. attitude towards Israel be? And what role (if any) should the U.S. play in Israel’s conflicts with its neighbors?

Brook: In thinking about questions of this sort, it is important to begin with identifying our terms. By a foreign policy based on rational self-interest, I mean a policy dedicated to the protection of the individual rights of Americans. One implication of this view is that when evaluating other countries for various purposes, including considering alliances, we judge them according to whether and to the extent they protect individual rights. That is the moral-political principle that was at the founding of America — and we ought to use it as a standard for assessing other regimes. Countries that live up to this standard are potential friends and allies and trading partners; countries that don’t are potential threats. Israel is the solitary regime in the Middle East that respects and protects individual rights; it is surrounded on all sides by various forms of dictatorship. Just look up the records of Egypt, Syria or Jordan. They are horrifying. In Israel citizens — regardless of their creed or race — have the right to vote, to freedom of speech, to assembly, to start businesses — all the things we in the West take for granted, but which are precious—and which in the Middle East are unheard of. See here.

All things being equal, I think our attitude toward Israel should be as friendly and supportive as our attitude toward France, Britain or Canada — which are likewise basically free nations. Could Israel (and these other nations) be more consistent in its implementation of the principle of individual rights? Yes, and I wish they were. But unlike its neighbors Israel protects rights–and that’s a crucial value.

So, Washington should definitely be friendly toward Israel regardless of the goings on in the rest of the Middle East, but in view of current situation an even closer relationship is warranted — for the sake of America’s interest.

America today faces an enemy in the form of Islamic totalitarianism — an ideological movement seeking to impose the rule of Allah’s laws worldwide, and led by the theocratic regime in Iran. Adherents of this movement were behind 9/11 and a host of prior attacks on U.S. interests. The Islamist movement encompasses various factions — Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, the regime in Iran, and others.

Israel today also faces this same enemy — specifically the Hamas-Hezbollah-Iran axis. This axis was behind the 2006 and 2008/9 wars against Israel. Hezbollah has already created a mini-Islamic state in Southern Lebanon; Hamas is working to do that in Gaza. These are threats not only to Israel’s security — as we’ve seen in the recent wars and in Hamas’s rocket attacks — but also threats to us. Note that Hezbollah is Iran’s proxy force. For example, it was behind the massacre of 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983 — one of the deadliest attacks on U.S. Marines since World War II. I would argue that Washington should encourage Israel to crush these Islamist forces, and even offer weapons and expertise to help it eliminate our common enemy.

In this connection I would recommend to your readers a forthcoming book on foreign policy, to which I contributed several chapters: Winning the Unwinnable War. The book presents an analysis of America’s foreign policy in the eight years since 9/11 and offers a positive alternative based on the moral idea of rational self-interest. The book offers a fresh, rational vision for what America’s mideast policy should look like. More information here.

FMM: In Ayn Rand’s non-fiction book The Virtue of Selfishness, she asserts that taxation should be voluntary. Are there any theories as to how a system of voluntary government financing would work?

Brook: Well, in that book she actually discusses a bit how such a system would work, so I encourage readers to take a look at the relevant essay, “Government Financing in a Free Society.” But, to address the concern behind the question, it wouldn’t be a hard problem to finance a government voluntarily. Any population that would accept and desire a laissez-faire system would place a profound value on a government limited solely to the protection of their rights—and would be more than willing to pay the modest amount of money necessary to finance it. (Compare that to today’s citizenry, which alternately desires and despises its oppressive, paternalistic government, and would never voluntarily finance the government’s monstrous budget.) As to working out the details of how to best carry out voluntary financing, that issue was of very little interest to Ayn Rand and I feel the same way. Think about it: we have dozens of “czars” running the economy—we’re not exactly on the verge of laissez-faire. Thus, it is way too early to be talking about financing a free society. Let’s get close to a free society first.

FMM: On the blog, we’ve previously posted articles on monetary system of competing currencies – these articles being largely based on F. A. Hayek’s arguments for such a system. As a leading defender of individual rights and a PhD in finance, what is your opinion of such a system? Along the same lines, what, in your opinion, would an ideal monetary system look like?

Brook: What I advocate is a fully free banking and monetary system, similar ( but with even more freedom) to America’s banking system during the 19^th century. In such a system, the marketplace chooses what kind of money will be used and how banks are structured.

As to the currency, what material that currency is made of, how many different currencies there are, what policies banks use with regard to currency, etc., should be solely determined by the decisions of free individuals in the marketplace. Whether that leads to one dominant currency (which is what I would expect), or twenty, is up to them.

A free market leaves individuals free to devise the best economic arrangements they can think of, and over time the better ones win out while the worse ones fade away. So the ideal monetary system would be the product of the combined intelligence of untold thousands of smart people. Even the most brilliant economic mind in the world couldn’t tell you what it would look like in its particulars, though of course he could add valuable ideas to its development.

For more on free banking, and the proper relationship between the government and the economy, see “A Call for the Separation of State and Economics.”

This concludes part I of the interview. We are, of course, very grateful to Dr. Brook and his staff for their time and energy. We hope you will visit next week for Part II.

Update: Click here to read Part II.

Click here to view other Free Market Mojo interviews.

9/11/2001: An Attack on Individual Rights

Eight years ago, nearly 3,000 American individuals were murdered. A massive retaliatory use of force became an immediate moral imperative for the United States Government.

I will leave it to more poetic voices to describe the tragedy that occurred on September 11th, 2001. But I will attempt to put those events into a context that I do not believe is used enough in discussions of foreign policy. The context is the only context that any government should operate within: self-interest. The “self” being each individual comprising a government’s constituency. This modus operandi for government, naturally, extends into the realm of foreign policy. In every interaction with the outside world, our government should act in our interests. This means that no war is ever fought for the sake of the people of another nation (i.e. our government has no right to sacrifice the lives of American soldiers for any purpose other than preserving the individual rights of American citizens). This is not to say that an American life is, intrinsically, worth any more than the life of a foreigner. However, a foreigner’s life should only be a secondary consideration for our government.

This philosophy comes with a plethora of ramifications that affect a wide array of government programs and actions. However, for the sake of this day and post, I will focus on self-defense. The attack of 9/11/01 was an attack on America as a nation, American ideals, American lives. But most importantly, it was an attack on individuals – American individuals, to be precise. As such, a massive retaliation on anyone and everyone responsible was a moral imperative for the U.S. Government. No quarter was given to us by our enemies, and none should have been given in return. I believe Dr. Yaron Brook said it most succinctly:

Eschewing self-interest in the name of compassion is immoral. The result is self-destruction.

Our response to radical Islamic terrorism has clearly lacked any sense of self-esteem or a proper understanding of the role of government.  Americans – because they are human beings – have an inalienable right to their lives. 9/11/01 was more than an attack on a nation’s pride, it was an attack on human pride, an attack on human dignity. Those who do not respect life do not deserve it. If you look back on 9/11/01 and feel anger or rage, do not be ashamed. The root of that righteous indignation is pride – specifically, pride in the fact of your existence as a human being.

America was built upon the idea that men should deal with one another by reason, and by mutual consent and to mutual advantage. Sadly, there are those in this world that choose to deal with their fellow men by force – let them be dealt with appropriately. To the extent that inaction by our government results in the loss of American lives, our government can be held morally responsible.

Quote of the Day

“Freedom (i.e. individual liberty) and democracy (i.e. unlimited majority rule over the individual) are entirely different and incompatible things, the second being an enemy of the first.”

~ Yaron Brook

August 6th, 1945

Today is the 64th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is, possibly now more than ever, a controversial subject. Warren Kozak of the Wall Street Journal sums it up nicely:

At the time of the event, 85% of the American public favored dropping the atomic bombs, according to a Gallup poll (10% disapproved). Over the years, that attitude has changed. By 2005, Gallup found only 57% of Americans thought the bomb was necessary, while 38% disapproved. Most of those polled were born after the event.

In August 1945, much of the world was exhausted after six long years of total war and tens of millions of deaths. Most people that summer didn’t quite understand the implications of Hiroshima. All they knew was that the atomic bomb was some sort of new, extremely powerful device that was the result of a top-secret project. It was a demonstration of the amazing technical superiority of the United States—not unlike the moon landing 24 years later.

But even before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, doubts about its use surfaced within the group of physicists who created it. Albert Einstein, who first brought the atomic bomb to FDR’s attention, along with Leo Szilard, who was instrumental in building it, were both opposed to using it against Japanese civilians.

As time has passed, the army of doubters has grown. These critics argue that Japan was all but defeated by August 1945 and the bombs were unnecessary. The incendiary bombing campaign had already destroyed most of Japan’s cities, they say, and the mining of the inland waterway brought its war production down to practically nothing. Its citizens were undernourished and there was practically no fuel or any other raw material left in the country. Japan, according to this school of thought, was a spent nation just waiting for the best possible deal from the Allies. Much of this is true.

On the other side, those who believe the bombing was necessary point out that unlike Nazi Germany, which collapsed during its final days, the Japanese fought more ferociously as the Americans drew closer to the mainland. Almost all were willing to die for their emperor, having demonstrated this in each island invasion leading up to what would have been the largest amphibious landing of all time. Americans were growing weary of the death telegrams that came by the hundreds and thousands to cities and towns across the country. Gen. George C. Marshall, the Army chief of staff, worried that Americans would not be able to sustain their commitment to the war if the invasion of Japan proved to be a long, costly battle.

The Japanese were banking on this as well. At the time that the bombs were dropped, battle-hardened G.I.s were being rotated from Europe back to the U.S. and then sent on to staging areas in the Pacific. The first wave of the invasion under the command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur was scheduled to land in November 1945, with a second wave in March 1946. Hospitals were being quickly built in the Mariana Islands to accommodate the thousands of expected wounded. What Americans eventually found in Japan after the surrender more than proved that Japan was preparing to repel the invasion, not just with its military but with civilian suicide squads as well.

I will be the first to admit that I am not a historian, so I will not attempt to offer  historically-based arguments in support of dropping the bomb. For me, as always, it is a question of the individual. The pertinent question is: which nation had violated the rights of the other? The number of lives lost by either side with either course of action (meaning: whether or not the atomic bomb had been dropped) is largely irrelevant. The germane fact to be considered is which side bore moral responsibility for the war. A government’s primary purpose is to protect its citizens from force. Any government, operating within its proper role, must never place the life of any foreigner above the life of one of its citizens – with “citizens” absolutely including military personnel.

The fact of the matter is that governments do not arise out of thin air, they are (most often) a product of the philosophical premises held and actions taken by the population of that government’s nation. So using “innocent” to describe civilians of an enemy country, is oftentimes a mischaracterization. To be sure, even the most committed enemy must certainly possess some truly innocent civilians, and it is abhorrent that these civilians should suffer at the hands of American forces for crimes they did not commit. However, our government must still place a higher value on American lives than the lives of these innocent civilians – and in doing so, America will not have acted immorally. The moral responsibility for the death of innocent civilians lies with the aggressor nation. Japan, without provocation, threatened the lives of American citizens. It was morally imperative for the U.S. Government to use whatever means necessary to end that threat. Any innocent Japanese deaths that resulted, were the moral responsibility of the Japanese government and complicit citizens – so says the law of causality.

A few years ago, responding to the Iraq War and the “Just War Theory” of self-defense, Dr. Yaron Brook published an article on war and morality. This article forms the basis of what I have written above. Below is an excerpt from Dr. Brook’s summary:

The civilian population of an aggressor nation is not some separate entity unrelated to its government. An act of war is the act of a nation—an interconnected political, cultural, economic, and geographical unity. Whenever a nation initiates aggression against us, including by supporting anti-American terrorist groups and militant causes, it has forfeited its right to exist, and we have a right to do whatever is necessary to end the threat it poses.Given that a nation’s civilian population is a crucial, physically and spiritually indispensable part of its initiation of force—of its violation of the rights of a victim nation—it is a morally legitimate target of the retaliation of a victim nation. Any alleged imperative to spare noncombatants as such is unjust and deadly.

That said, if it is possible to isolate innocent individuals—such as dissidents, freedom fighters, and children—without military cost, they should not be killed; it is unjust and against one’s rational self-interest to senselessly kill the innocent; it is good to have more rational, pro-America people in the world. Rational, selfish soldiers do not desire mindless destruction of anyone, let alone innocents; they are willing to kill only because they desire freedom and realize that it requires using force against those who initiate force. Insofar as the innocents cannot be isolated in the achievement of our military objectives, however, sparing their lives means sacrificing our own; and although the loss of their lives is unfortunate, we should kill them without hesitation.

Many will undoubtedly find this viewpoint to be extremely harsh. For any readers who do, I encourage a full reading of Dr. Brook’s article. You will find that this rational egoist view of war arises out of a commitment to reason and to individual rights, not unnecessary malice towards one’s enemies.

Man has an innate right to his own life, when another individual violates that right, that aggressor forfeits his own right to life. As Ayn Rand said “Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.”

Author’s note: I do not endorse the entirety of Objectivist thought as I am a person of faith and believe in a higher authority. I find common ground with Objectivists because I do not believe that such a higher authority exists in the form of any earthly government, and therefore will never sacrifice my life or reason to any temporal power.

Yaron Brook Discusses Government Growth

Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, is scheduled to appear on the Glenn Beck program on Fox News Channel today, Thursday, July 30th to discuss the alarming growth of government programs. The show starts at 5 p.m., Eastern time (2 p.m., Pacific time) and  Dr. Brook’s segment should begin at 5:40 p.m., Eastern time.

If you miss Dr. Brook, check back here as we’ll try to locate the interview and post it. In the meantime, here are some videos of Dr. Brook in April, 2008:

Can interest rates be kept in check without the Federal Reserve?

Does unregulated capitalism result in pollution and inadequate health care for children?

UPDATE:

The Renaissance of Self-Interest

Any person with an understanding of the principles of individual liberty can put his ear to the ground and hear the coming of collectivism in America. For my own part, I would argue that collectivism has already arrived. But along with the changing tide, there is a resurgence of interest in the principles behind the freedoms that we, as a nation, are losing. The sales of Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, are skyrocketing – and see even greater numbers every time a new government program is forced upon us. The following is an article by Dr. Yaron Brook, President of the Ayn Rand Institute, on the resurgence of Ayn Rand’s works.

Ayn Rand’s Renaissance
By Dr. Yaron Brook,
Executive Director, The Ayn Rand Institute

The U.S. economy is in shambles. Government intervention into the economy is increasing by the day. Americans are alarmed and desperate for answers: What caused the crisis? What is the solution? That might sound like a description of today’s world, but in fact it’s sketch of the world of Ayn Rand’s 1957 classic novel Atlas Shrugged.

Ayn Rand died more than a quarter of a century ago, yet her name appears regularly in discussions of our current economic turmoil. Pundits including Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli urge listeners to read her books, and her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, is selling at a faster rate today than at any time during its 51-year history.

There’s a reason. In Atlas Shrugged, Rand tells the story of the U.S. economy crumbling under the weight of crushing government interventions and regulations. Meanwhile, blaming greed and the free market, Washington responds with more controls that only deepen the crisis. Sound familiar?

The novel’s eerily prophetic nature is no coincidence. “If you understand the dominant philosophy of a society,” Rand wrote elsewhere in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, “you can predict its course.” Economic crises and runaway government power grabs don’t just happen by themselves; they are the product of the philosophical ideas prevalent in a society — particularly its dominant moral ideas.

Why do we accept the budget-busting costs of a welfare state? Because it implements the moral ideal of self-sacrifice to the needy. Why do so few protest the endless regulatory burdens placed on businessmen? Because businessmen are pursuing their self-interest, which we have been taught is dangerous and immoral. Why did the government go on a crusade to promote “affordable housing,” which meant forcing banks to make loans to unqualified home buyers? Because we believe people need to be homeowners, whether or not they can afford to pay for houses.

The message is always the same: “Selfishness is evil; sacrifice for the needs of others is good.” But Rand said this message is wrong — selfishness, rather than being evil, is a virtue. By this she did not mean exploiting others à la Bernie Madoff. Selfishness — that is, concern with one’s genuine, long-range interest — she wrote, required a man to think, to produce, and to prosper by trading with others voluntarily to mutual benefit.

Atlas Shrugged argues that ideas shape society. A society that values reason, the individual, and freedom creates the United States of America. A society that denounces the mind, preaches self-sacrifice, and worships the collective creates Nazi Germany. What Atlas shows is how our culture’s ideas — particularly its ideas about morality — are moving us step by step away from the Founding Fathers’ ideal.

Rand also noted that only an ethic of rational selfishness can justify the pursuit of profit that is the basis of capitalism — and that so long as self-interest is tainted by moral suspicion, the profit motive will continue to take the rap for every imaginable (or imagined) social ill and economic disaster. Just look how our present crisis has been attributed to the free market instead of government intervention — and how proposed solutions inevitably involve yet more government intervention to rein in the pursuit of self-interest.

Rand offered us a way out — to fight for a morality of rational self-interest, and for capitalism, the system which is its expression. And that is the source of her relevance today.

Yaron Brook Discusses President Obama’s “Czars”

Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, is scheduled to appear on Glenn Beck on Fox News Channel today, Wednesday, July 22. The program starts at 5 p.m. Eastern time (2 p.m. Pacific). Dr. Brook will discuss President Obama’s “Czars.”

For anyone who has not listened to Dr. Brook speak or read his publications, I urge you to do so. I would consider this man to be one of today’s most eloquent and principled advocates for liberty.

UPDATE: Here is the video of Yaron Brook’s interview (Dr. Brook begins at 7:00)