Dr. Bernstein’s latest book, Capitalist Solutions: A Philosophy of American Moral Dilemmas, is available to pre-order on Amazon.com and will deliver sometime in October of 2011. He lectures around the country—and internationally—on Rand’s novels and philosophy.
Learn more about this book by visiting his website.
“How to Be Profitable and Moral: A Rational Egoist Approach to Business” by Jaana Woiceshyn
The book is intended for “thinking managers:” with a lot of concrete examples, it shows how rational egoist principles apply to business. John Allison, Doug Arends, Carl Barney, and Andrew Bernstein wrote nice endorsements.
From the book’s conclusion: “Being both profitable and moral is possible for business. Egoism holds—and shows—that being moral is in fact a fundamental requirement of long-term profitability. To sustain maximum long-term profitability requires that businesspeople reject both altruism and cynical exploitation of others and adopt egoism as their moral code. This means seeking objectivity—consistency with the factual requirements of human survival and flourishing through the use of reason—in all our choices and actions, as demonstrated by the philosophy and conduct of the BB&T Corporation. To achieve long-term profitability requires that we adopt and apply rational principles consistently. The virtues of rationality, productiveness, honesty, justice integrity, independence and pride, as identified by Ayn Rand, specify the actions that achieving long-term profitability entails. The main substance of this book consists of examining these virtues and showing how they apply to business, with the hope you can put them in your tool kit and use them the next time you encounter a moral dilemma in business.”
For those who wish to pre-order the book Jaana Woiceshyn writes:
How to pre-order: Contact the customer service department of Rowman & Littlefield (the parent company of Hamilton Books, my publisher) *before November* by calling 1-800-462-6420 or by e-mailing custserv@rowman.com and give my name and the book title. I don’t think the ISBN number is necessary, but here it is for reference: 978-0-7618-5699-3. They will ask for your credit card number.
The hardcover price is US$ 40 per copy. Your credit card will not be charged until the book is shipped to you in February.
Full disclosure: as a part of the contract with Hamilton Books, I am obligated to pre-order 70 hardcover copies by November. If you think the book would be valuable to you, or as a gift to someone, please consider pre-ordering from Rowman & Littlefield to help me fill the quota. But please do this only if you think the book is worth it (it will be available through Amazon, probably for less). If you do pre-order from Rowman & Littlefield, please let me know (jwoiceshyn@gmail.com) so I can keep track of the numbers.
The New York Objectivist Society has announced a weekend mini-conference in New York City for the first weekend in November. Early discount deadline is September 25.
The events begin with a fundraising dinner for the Ayn Rand Institute on Friday November 4, 2011. This will be followed by two full days of lectures on Saturday and Sunday November 5 and 6, 2011. Saturday and Sunday attendees will be immersed in an intellectual universe created by some of the best minds in their respective fields:
The event will be held at the InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel (111 E. 48th St.).
Full details including lecture descriptions are at:
http://www.newyorkobjectivistsociety.org/www.newyorkobjectivistsociety.org/NYOS_Conference_2011.html
To enroll, first RSVP by sending an email to info@newyorkobjectivistsociety.org. Your next step will be to send a check made to New York Objectivist Society, Inc. Cost before September 25, 2011 is $500. After September 25, 2011 the price goes up to $600, based on availability. All payments will be due by October 15, 2011.
NYOS CONFERENCE 2011
InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel
November 4,5,6, 2011
$500 if paid by September 25, 2011
$600 if paid after September 25 but by October 15, subject to availability.
RSVP to: info@newyorkobjectivistsociety.org
Make your check payable to: New York Objectivist Society, Inc.
Mail it to:
NYOS c/o A. Benlian
P.O. Box 939
Bronxville, NY 10708
Again, full details including lecture descriptions are at:
http://www.newyorkobjectivistsociety.org/www.newyorkobjectivistsociety.org/NYOS_Conference_2011.html
(This is a slight revision of a post that originally appeared on Ron Pisaturo’s Blog.)
In the Republican Presidential debate on Monday, September 12, this dialogue occurred:
WOLF BLITZER, DEBATE MODERATOR AND CNN LEAD POLITICAL ANCHOR: … Ron Paul, so you’re a doctor. You know something about this subject. Let me ask you this hypothetical question.
A healthy 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides, you know what? I’m not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I’m healthy, I don’t need it. But something terrible happens, all of a sudden he needs it.
Who’s going to pay if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that?
REP. RON PAUL, (R-TX.), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, in a society that you accept welfarism and socialism, he expects the government to take care of him.
BLITZER: Well, what do you want?
PAUL: But what he should do is whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself. My advice to him would have a major medical policy, but not be forced —
BLITZER: But he doesn’t have that. He doesn’t have it, and he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?
PAUL: That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody —
(APPLAUSE)
BLITZER: But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?
You can read Ron Paul’s unprincipled answer in the transcript. Here is my answer.
No, society should let you let him die.
That is, such a decision by right is for each individual in society to make. Your question reveals your socialist premise that decisions regarding whom to help live and to let die should be made collectively by society, overruling the rights of individuals. Your question also reveals how socialist schemes such as Obamacare require death panels, denials notwithstanding. Everyone dies eventually from current limits to health care. Resources are limited. If all the medical resources are controlled and dispatched by government instead of by private owners of those resources, then government decides who gets medicine and who does not. Maybe the 30-year-old who needs a half million dollars of care will get care initially, until socialized medicine collapses entirely, but there will be some cut-off of age and expense for which the government will just say no. Consequently, no matter how much wealth an individual produces and wants to spend to save his 75-year-old mother, or very sick brother or best friend or wife or even himself, the government will just say “No, society cannot afford it, the lives of younger or less sick strangers, or strangers with more political pull, are more important.”
As for my own individual decision on this 30-year-old in a free society, would I pay for his emergency and let him off the hook? No. But I would consider investing in a private fund that made loans to such individuals, if the return on investment were attractive. The 30-year-old would in effect have to take out a mortgage without getting a house; and he would have to pay high interest for his uncollateralized loan, or he might even have to pay a high percentage of his income—say, 30%—for the rest of his life. Such a burden would be great; indeed, it would be more than half the current tax burden under the welfare state. But the man would have his life, his investors would have their profit, and everyone would retain that precious asset possessed by Americans: freedom.
For a far deeper and more original answer than mine above, see Ayn Rand’s essay, “Collectivized Ethics.”(The Objectivist Newsletter, January 1963, pp. 1, 3–4. Reprinted in The Virtue of Selfishness, New York: Signet, 1964, pp. 80–85.)
Write the duo of Yaron Brook and Don Watkins in The Entitlement State Is Morally Bankrupt:
Despite the fact that the big three entitlement programs–Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare–have the U.S. government facing upwards of $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities, they largely remain a third rail: touch not lest ye be voted out of office.Why are they sacrosanct? Because, whatever else you can say about the entitlement state, no one disputes that it’s a moral imperative. Inefficient? Maybe. Expensive? You bet. But morally questionable? Absolutely not.
The problem with the entitlement state is not simply that it is bankrupting this country–the problem is that it is morally bankrupt.
The basic principle behind the entitlement state is that a person’s need entitles him to other people’s wealth. It’s that you have a duty to spend some irreplaceable part of your life laboring, not for the sake of your own life and happiness, but for the sake of others. If you are productive and self-supporting, then according to the entitlement state, you are in hock to those who aren’t. In Marx’s memorable phrase: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
Read the rest of The Entitlement State Is Morally Bankrupt.
Capitalism Magazine