Brook views poverty with philosophy
Yaron Brook would have the audience at the Yale Political Union believe that morality is a science.
“Your morality is not as most would have us believe … it is not to serve others, it is not to sacrifice,” the president of Ayn Rand institute — a nonprofit that aims to increase awareness of the author and political theorist — said Thursday night before a lively crowd. “Morality is the science that tells us how to live life to the fullest.”
Although the union debated on the failed resolution “Resolved: Your Poverty is Your Problem,” Brook kept the discussion on a more basic...
“It’s not moral to trample on the backs of hundreds” to achieve personal success, Mamis said.
I think what she means by this is that it is not moral to create either jobs, nor a product of value. She may also mean that working for what one consumes is a moral failing.
Consumption does not cause production, it happens to be the other way around. Production allows consumption. Try consuming what has never been produced (by someone) and you'll see my point.
Adam Smith said it best:
The baker doesn't bake bread because he wants to feed people, but because he wants their money.
According to Ayn Rand, that which is the moral is also the fully practical and there is no dichotomy between the two. It is in this sense that morality is a science, moral issues in the real world can be approached scientifically and rationally, thus reaching sound rational and practical solutions that are also at the same time moral. It is reciprocal relationship: a principle is invalid if it cannot be practised or is not realizable, because after all, principles are intended to be guides to human actions.
In this sense, Objectivism prescribes a set of principles that are practicable and address the task of human survival. The solution to poverty, therefore, is not the concrete-bound, immediate solution of aid, charity, or government welfare; poverty must be examined as a philosophical issue requiring a philosophical and principled solution for the long-term.
The only surest way of eradicating poverty (which has been empirically demonstrated across the world--think East versus West Germany, North versus South Korea, India, China, Kenya, etc.) is by unleashing the productive powers of private entities in order to generate wealth for selfish reasons and protecting their right to own and dispose of such wealth as they see fit.
Wealth generation entails the rise of markets, employment, traders, consumers, adaptation to cultural and market demand forces, true knowledge of immediate environments, competitive forces, superior quality and services, the drive to excel and achieve, and much more.
I was born into Socialist India and have lived through seeing my parents have to wait in ration lines for their food, oil, and milk. I know on a personal level