So maybe maybe the most amazing story in all of human history is the story
of what has happened to humanity over the last two hundred and fifty years.
About three hundred years ago, how many people do you think what percentage of
the world population do you think lived in extreme poverty? And when I say
extreme poverty, I mean the poverty of the poorest of the poorest people here
in poor who are living on let's say, two dollars a day or less
in real dollars. And maybe there's nobody who who lives that poor, but
there are people in Africa, and there are people in parts of Asia who
are living on two dollars a day or less. I mean, imagine even
in your life what that would mean to live on just two dollars that's less
than a latte at Starbucks, right for a day. What percentage of the
population in the world you think lived on two dollars a day or less three
hundred years ago? Over seventy percent. Anybody else, ninety eight percent,
ninety five percent more almost everybody, and I'm talking about everybody Western Europe,
England, the whole world. Ninety plus percent of the population lived on two
dollars or less a day. People woke up in the morning. Mostly they
went out and they farmed. Most of the population were farmers. They came
home when the sun set, they ate a quick dinner, they went to
sleep. No reading. Nobody could read. No electricity, no light,
no toilets, no any water, no iPhones, no internet, no TikTok.
Can you imagine? That was three hundred years ago? And that seems
like a long time ago. But for all of human history, for a
hundred thousand years, basically human beings lived about the same. There were some
changes. We became agricultural at some point, but we were still poor.
And what was life expectancy during that period of time? How long did people
live? Forty in the most prosperous, best places, thirty in the rest
of the world. I am long dead, long, long time ago.
You guys already in middle age. You've got ten years to live and you
finished, right, That was life. Fifty said of all the children died
before the age of ten. One of the reasons people had a lot of
kids instead of the end you half of them were die. Life was brutal,
You were short, he was unpleasant. You had no choices in your
life. Who did you marry. You got to choose who you married.
No, your parents told you who to marry. You didn't choose your profession.
You did what your parents did. Most of you were farmers, and
you continue to be farmers. But if your father having to be a blacksmith,
you became a blacksmith. There were no options. And if you're a
woman, forget it, zero options. You did what you were told.
And yet look at us today. Look how rich we are relatively speaking,
where gazillion is. We have running water and electricity. We don't live on
two dollars a day less. Indeed, we spent two dollars on a latte.
We have iPhones, we have amazing technology. We live your generation could
live to be one hundred and fifty. It wouldn't surprise me at all if
biology doesn't advance the point right too late for me, I think, but
for you, I think we're going to see real life extension Already. Life
expectancy today for me is probably well into the eighties, more than double what
it was just not that long ago. What happened, what happened to take
us from that poverty to this wealth? And why don't we appreciate that more?
Because what happened is we became free. What happened is we allowed people
to start businesses, to build, to create, to innovate. What we
got was a little bit of what people today called capitalism, and yet we
hate it. We hate capitalism, We denounced capitalism. You and Peru have
elected leftist government, but so is Colombia, so is Chilean, so is
Argentina's with Brazil, and so is every almost every country in the world.
So what's interesting is during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, we had
a system where wealth is created. There was basically a system based on the
idea of free markets, of leaving people free to pursue their own ideas,
to build you own businesses, to not ask for permission in order to start
a is this, and to employ people in order to transact with one another.
We had a system where basically people we're free and left alone, and
we create an unbelievable wealth. It really is unbelievable how wealthy we are by
historical standards. Four hundred thousand years, nothing happened. Suddenly we became rich,
And that should be the most interesting important question in all sciences. Why
what did we get right? And what basically we got right is freedom.
And the most important question we should ask ourselves today is why is it so
easy for us to give it up? If it contributed so much to our
success. Why are we willing to give up our liberties and our freedoms?
Why are we willing not to have a free market but to control, to
regulate it, and and and try to manipulate it in every country in the
world. Why are we so attracted to leftist ideas that have failed everywhere they
have been tried. Socialism to an extent that it is tried leads to starvation,
death, destruction. Under communism in maoist China, anywhere between twenty two
hundred million people died under communism. Under stale it anywhere between thirty and one
hundred million people died in Venezuela. Today people are struggling to eat, to
find food. You know, Venezuela used to be the richest country on a
capita GDP basis in Latin America. Chile used to be the poorest country in
Latin America on a PI capita GDP. Venezuela turn socialist and became the poorest
country in Latin America. Chile turned a little bit capitalism, not a lot,
just a little bit, and it became the richest country in Latin America.
So who does everybody in Latin America want to copy Venezuela? The failure,
that's all we want to copy. We reject the success. Something about
free markets, something about capitalism we really don't like, Well, you really
reject and again not unique to Latin America. You see this phenomena all over
the world. What is successful is freedom and capitalism and free markets. What
is failure is government control, government manipulation, central planning, socialism that's always
failed. What do people choose socialist? Why do we choose fail You you
wouldn't do that in your postal life? I hope, I hope some of
you might. You know that boyfriend who's not good for you, and you
keep going back to him. That's like socialism, keep going back to it
even though we know it's not good for us. But then I postal lives
we learned quickly. In our public lives, we don't learn at all.
Why there's something about capitalism. This really is yucky, unpleasant. We don't
like it. What is what? What? What is? What is?
Uh? What are free markets? About what is the essence of markets?
Just even not free? Just markets? What why do we go to the
marketplace? Why do we go to the marketplace to do? What? To
trade? But why do we want to trade? Right? Like? Why
did why did Steve Jobs make an iPhone? Why do do you make one
of these? It's pretty right? I like my iPhone. Imagine if the
government had made one of these, right, a government committee would have made
one of these, it wouldn't be the size of this room, really ugly
and never work. What did what did? What did Jobs make one of
these? Steve Jobs to form a CEO of Apple who died? He made
this because what it helps him make? Just yell whatever whatever comes money right
and helps they make money. He made it for the money. A lot
of profit in this. They sell this for fifty percent profit margins, which
is high right if they eat eight? He made it to make money.
Every business, every business out there, everybody who sells you stuff out there,
is doing it because they make money. Why why do they make money?
Because they live off of it, the vast off of it. They
become rich off of it. Is it only about money? Did he only
do this for money? No? What else boy the innovation, But what
about the innovation? Yeah, he enjoyed it. He loves the stuff.
This is so much fun. And hopefully when you get a job one day
or you start a business, you won't just do it for the money.
Also for the money, money's important, but you'll do it because you love
it, because you're passionate about it, because it really gets you excited.
You get up every morning excited about making something in the world. You have
a vision. Steve Job at a vision and he made it a reality.
Soa who at the end of the day, did Steve Jobs make the fight
phone full? He didn't do it for us, and he didn't ask us
what we wanted. Do you know how many focus groups? You know focus
groups? If you're take in a Malkety class, they teach about focus groups
and how many focus groups Apple did before they designed the iPhone, before they
put the iPhone out zero you know Forward, the guy who forward from the
cause. He once said, if I asked my custom about what they want,
they would say a faster horse. We don't know what we want.
It's geniuses like Ford and Steve Jobs who tell us what we want. They
present us with a product that we fall in love with su Seem Job built
this for Steve Jobs, and he sells it to us because he benefits from
it. And I went to buy my first iPhone in two thousand and eight.
It was two thousand and eight when iPhone first came out and the US
economy was going through a session, and I went to buy my iPhone because
I wanted to help stimulate the economy. I wanted to help my fellow man.
And I hood from Canes the great economists that if you consume, the
economy gets better. So I went to consume because I care about the economy
and now want to help my fellow man, because I know that's why you
go shopping. You all go shopping because you want to make sure people have
jobs, and you go shopping because you want to help stimulate economy. Right,
anybody here go shopping for that reason. Usually there's one. It is
one. No nobody goes shopping because of that. I didn't go shopping because
of that. I didn't care about these economy. I went shopping because I
wanted an iPhone because it was cool, because I wanted to improve my own
life. You go shopping because you think that the stuff you buy will make
your life better. You go shopping because it's for you. Some markets are
places where buyers and sellers meet in pursuit of their own self interest. Markets
about the pursuit of self interest. Markets about the pursuit of self interest.
We're trying to make ourselves better by working, by producing, by creating,
or by consuming. We consume for our own benefit. We produce for own
benefit. We're not doing it for humanity. We're not doing it for the
public interest. We're not doing it for the common good. We're doing it
for our own good. But what did your mother tell you, or your
preacher or your professors? What did they tell you about pursuing your self interest?
Is this a noble thing? Is this a moral thing? Is morality
about pursuing self interests? What's morality about? I can tell you what my
mother taught me. My mother told me when it comes to morality, right,
when it comes to life, always think of others first, think of
yourself last. If you want to be a good person, be self less,
never be self interested. What do we have a word? An ugly
word for self interest we don't like. What is that? You're being selfish?
Selfish is bad? Why Selfish is you know you'll do anything to get
your weight, hurts other people, you'll exploit other people. So the two
options we're given in life is be selfish and be a horrible human being,
or be self less put the interest of other people before your own interest.
Sacrifice. Sacrifice means what give something and get what in return? Nothing or
less. Sacrifice is about losing. What are markets about? What do we
just say? Markets about self interest? But morality? I was a self
interested man morella you loses in in a marketplace? Who loses? When I
buy my iPhone for a thousand dollars? Why do I pay a thousand dollars
from my iPhone? It's a lot of money. Why would I pay a
thousand dollars an iPhone? What's that? Because it's valuable to whom? To
me? How valuable is it more than a thousand dollars? That's why I'm
willing to give up a thousand dollars to get the iPhone. When you buy
a nice pair of shoes and pay I don't know, two hundred dollars for
the pair of shoes, it's because the shoes are more valuable to you than
two hundred dollars now maybe they're not. To me, I wouldn't buy those
shoes, but to you they are. So we're each buying things, exchanging
money for something more valuable to us, and the person's selling it to us.
Do they lose, No, they win to I mean trade, buying
it, selling stuff. It's like a miracle because they win. And how
you win both parties win trade is win win. They're no losers. There's
no sacrifice. There's nobody worse off. It's an amazing thing. It's how
wealth out them at least created. It's created by creating these win win relationships.
So we're better off. We do it for ourselves. And yet a
morality teaches us that being better off and doing it for yourself it's kind of
questionable. Vurali tells us we should sacrifice. Vurali tells us we should be
self less. Roality tells us we should lose. Now win that's noble,
that's good. Everybody knows who Bill Gates's. It's very quiet, Oh it's
calling. What's everybody knows where lawn mosque is? Yeah, Bill Gates?
Do you know Bill Gates's? Yeah? He found in Microsoft. Anybody use
Microsoft. Everybody uses Microsoft. I use Microsoft. Even though I've only used
apples for thirty years, I still use Microsoft. Right, Wood and Excel
and powerpoints and all that stuff. Right, Bill Gates got super rich.
He became a billionaire. How did he become a billionaire? How do you
become a billionaire by selling people stuff they want for more than it costs you
to produce? But selling to billions of people, hundreds of millions of people,
over and over and over again. And why do people keep buying Microsoft
stuff? Because they believe it makes their life better. So the only way
to become a billionaire of free market is to make other people's lives better.
It's to make the world a better place. It's the increase the value of
other people because now they can use tools and they can be more productive.
So Bill Gates made the world a better place by starting Microsoft. Improved the
lives of hundreds of millions of people all over the world. Did we think
he was a good guy from a moral perspective? From an ethical perspective?
Is he like a saint? Is he going to become a saint soon?
No? No? Why is he not going to become a saint? Change?
He brought more people out of poverty than maybe any other person in our
lifetime. You know, all the millions of people who work either for Microsoft
or for the people who like software for Microsoft, or the suppliers for Microsoft
computers, or all the all the businesses he employed, millions and millions of
people. Made the world a better place, millions of millions of people.
Why morally isn't he a good guy? He made the world of better place?
What was his mistake? If you wanted to be a saint, what
do you have to do? Sender? Yeah, I mean you can benefit
from it. His mistake was making money while making the world of better place.
Because our morality is not about helping other people. Our morality is about
not helping ourselves. It's about being self less. And if you become rich,
or you become or you enjoy you or have fun helping other people,
it doesn't count morally, which is really interesting. To be a saint,
what do you have to do? You have to lose, you have to
sacrifice, you have to somehow be in pain. If we want to make
Bill Gates, you know a saint. By the way, Bill gets used
to be run Microsoft. What does he do now? Anybody you know what
he does? Now charity, he's a philanthropist. Do people like him more
now than when he was running Microsoft? Yeah, a little bit more.
Well, now there are a lot of conspiracy theories about him, but put
that aside a little bit more because now he's giving money away, he's not
making it. Is he helping more people or less people less? Why do
we like him more because he's not benefiting, he's only giving away. We
still don't like him a lot because he's still rich. He has a big
house, he has a nice car. What would make us like him even
more on the ethics scale? If he gave all his money away, if
he moved due to a tent and maybe if he bled a little bit for
us. A little bit of blood helps you if you want to become a
saint, if you're pursuing your own self interest in any kind of way.
Our moll code, the mall code that our culture has today in South America
and North America and European pretty much everywhere in the world, it's against you.
You're not being moll And for most of us, what happens is we
live a particular life. A lot of entrepreneurs, they make money, they
do well, they create jobs, they change the world, They make the
world have been a place, but they know that they're pursuing their own self
interest, which they know because their mothers told them is not a good thing.
So what do you feel when you do one thing but you're supposed to
do something else? What's the emotion? Starts with a g guilt? Guilt?
You know guilt. You guys are Catholic, you know guilt. Us
choose no guilt? Right, It's because we live one life and we're supposed
to live a different one, one of child of giving or what of sacrifice?
So why do we hate capitalism? We hate capitalism and free markets because
capitalism free markets about people pursuing their self interest. It's about people doing pursuing
their own values, having fun doing it, making money for themselves. And
yeah, I'm making the world have better place for all of us. But
they're doing it immolately. They're doing in a way that's immol and wrong.
Morality and economics, morality and what actually allows humanity to advance on two different
planes. They don't match up, they don't link. The one is fighting
the other. Our morality is constantly fighting against what makes sense economically, our
morality is constantly fighting against what makes sense for a perspective of walk creation,
a freedom of advancing the wild, and that's a conflict you cannot win if
you're on the side of free markers. That's why we don't win. We
always lose. Socialism is completely consistent with the morality that the world of the
world out there from each according to his ability, to each according to his
needs. It's about sacrifice. It's about giving. It's not about creating.
It's not about building. It's not about making. It's about we distributing.
It's not about the pursuit of your happiness or your individual interest. It's not
about trade. It's ultimately about sacrificing some people to other people. Socialism is
great when it comes to sacrifice, even if it means killing a bunch of
people. That's okay. As Lennon said, to make it omelet you have
to break some eggs. He was talking about human lives, not about eggs.
So our morality, i'm all code that we as a culture all embrace
is consistent with culturalism. And in a battle between economics and morality, morality
will always win. And that's why we always drift in a particular direction,
which is ultimately self destructive. We then shift back, we go through this
kind of we shift back a little bit to get the economy going again,
and then we immediately go back to our status socialist policies. Do we distribute
work because we can't live with the explicit self interest that capitalism and pledge.
We really care about freedom, if we care about economic success, if we
want to be as individuals and as a cultural wealthy, then what we need
is a different moral code. The economic system that works we know, I
mean, look, we understand economics, we know why socialism fails. That
We've had great economists. You've explained why socialism fails and explain why capitalism works.
I mean great economists. He can, you know, second to none.
There's no economic questions out there that put in doubt the superiority of capitalism
over socialism. What we need to do is catch up when he comes to
ethical beliefs. We need a vuality that actually says that self in just is
a good thing, that being selfish actually means taking care of self and does
lyne cheating and stealing? Is that a good way to take care of yourself?
Like is lying a good strategy for living? Some of you look skeptical.
You know, if you're not sure, he's in a little experiment you
can do right. If you've got a boyfriend or gofriender, just a friend,
try lying to them for a day. Just lie to them everything they
ask you. Lie and see how well that goes. It's incredibly destructive.
It's really really bad in business if you lie, people generally don't want to
do business with you again. If you like your friends, you're not gonna
have many friends. If you like your husband and wife, divorce is in
your future. Stealing, cheating, these are terrible strategies. These are not
ways to make your life better. There are ways to make your life worse.
So what we need is a real understanding or what makes all like better?
And a morality. What's morality? What's ethics? When we talk about
morality, high fluting stuff, what does it actually mean? What's end?
Yeah? Code fully a code of values to tell us what he's good and
what is bad? And I would say we need a code of values to
tell us what is good and what is bad. And the standard for that
should be what is good for life and what is bad for life? Evil
is that which destroys life. Good is that which enhances life. So we
need knowledge about what enhances life well as human beings. What is the most
important thing for human life? What is the thing that we need to do
in order to survive as an individuals and as a species. What makes us
human? What's it to treat us and animals? Yeah, don't say thumbs.
Something apolos to say thumbs. It's our ability to think. It's our
reasoning ability, it's our rationality. We can figure stuff out, we can
solve problems. I can put you in a new situation. You don't have
the instincts to know how to deal with it. You don't have it coded
in your DNA. How to do it. You have to think. You
have to accumulate evidence, you have to analyze it. You have to come
up with solutions. You have to be creative, you have to use your
mind. You have to think. You have to be rational. Rationality is
what makes us human, and rationality is the one thing that leads to success.
I mean, emotions are wonderful. It's great to feel right. I'm
an emotional guy. I'm pretty passionately to tell I think right. But emotions
are not tools of cognition. Emotions don't give you information about the world out
there? What are emotions? Give you information about the world inside there?
Inside here? They tell you about yourself. They don't tell you abou the
world. When you get most into trouble, following reason and following emotions.
Emotions almost always when you when you get into trouble, where you go.
I should have thought about this some more. I shouldn't have followed my emotions.
If only I'd remembered this boyfriend is a joke, and I wouldn't have
gone back to right thinking. So what makes us human, what leads to
our success is to think. It's to be rational. And if you're rational,
you don't like cheat of steel because it doesn't make sense. It's those
are all things that altimately corrupt your mind, corrupt your ability to think.
Said, to be self interested means to be rational, to be a person
of reason. I mean this is Iran. We talked a little bit about
Iran. Iran's real contribution to the fight for liberty is to ground it on
a morality of self. And this is life so challenging because it's much easier
to convince people of economic principles than it is to change people's view of ethics,
view of morality. Your purpose in life is not to sacrifice. Your
purposon life is not to suffer. Your purpose in life is not to do
for others. Your purpose in life should be your own happiness, your own
success. You're want flourishing. I like to say live with a capital L
really live. And to do that, you have to think. You have
to use your mind. You have to be rational. You have to guide
your life by your mind. And if you do that, if you guide
your life by your mind and your rational what kind of relationship do you want
to have with other people? Do you want them exploiting you? Now you
want to exploit them? No? What kind of relationship do you want to
have? What's alternative to me sacrificing to you or you sacrificing to me.
What's the kind of relationship? Okay, what's end a win win relationship?
Wait? What you want in life is to maximize win win relationships. You
want to trade, trade in material values and trade in spiritual values. You
want to benefit one another again in individual relationships, Right if one in a
couple, if one of the couple does everything for the other and the other
one doesn't do anything back, how long is that gonna last? Now,
very long? It has to be win win, It has to be a
trade, so a morality of self interest. There's a morality in which each
one of us uses our minds to pursue our values with the goal of success
at the living while engaging with other people in win win relationships way. Ultimately
everybody benefits from the transaction and the other things sick for it. Yeah,
they be sick to do it. Yes, you respect them and they respect
you. It's a it's a mutual thing of wind wind. And of course
if people have that sense about their life, they want to be happy,
they want to be successful, they want to live by their own mind in
pursuit of their own values. Then what kind of political system would they want.
They want mother government sitting on their shoulder and say, don't eat that
too much sugar, don't start that business. It's wrong. You have to
fill out all these forms in order to do anything, like ken try did
we got stopped? Did they point in Peru like you had to fill an
ug Everywhere you fill in forms and then you know you don't hear here,
go over there, like oh no, I ain't to Bolivia, right,
I come into Bolivia a hand the guy that passport, and he says,
you need a visa. Nobody told me. Airline didn't tell me. Nobody
said I needed visa. One hundred and sixty dollars. Pay over there?
What a scam? Right? And you fill in paperwork and they take pictures
and they what for? Leave me alone. A person who values his own
mind, values his own life, wants to engage with other people in win
win relationship, wants to be left alone. Does not want a cursive government
telling what he can and cannot do, how he should shouldn't live. Such
a person wants to live free. So if we care about freedom, we
need to care about morality. But we need a numerality, a morality of
self interest. Thank you,