If dedicating your life to creating the values that advance it is a moral achievement, then there is nothing greater or nobler than the creative geniuses whose productive ability has created our modern world: a world where we live more than three times as long as our ancestors; where our homes are heated in the winter, cooled in the summer, and lit at night; where we can travel across a continent in a matter of hours; where we can say goodnight to our children from the other side of the globe.
But far from holding up the great producers as moral exemplars, we lump them in with the Al Capones and the Bernie Madoffs as people who must be stopped or at least shackled until they learn to selflessly serve others. Even Jobs was criticized because he devoted his life to Apple rather than philanthropy.
“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 goal of a war is to defeat an enemy’s will to fight. So argues the author of Nothing Less than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History (Princeton University Press, 2010), who makes the case that a strong military offense can win a war and establish lasting peace while playing defense often leads to destruction. This study of six major wars, from the Second Punic War to World War 2, by historian John David Lewis, contrasts the use of overwhelming force, such as the Greek victory over Xerxes’ army and navy, with a lack of reason, purpose, and commitment to fight. On the eve of the 10th year since the worst attack in American history, I turned to my friend John Lewis, a visiting associate professor of philosophy, politics, and economics at Duke University and teacher at Objectivist Conferences (OCON), to discuss today’s war from an historical perspective. Dr. Lewis is the author of Solon the Thinker: Political Thought in Archaic Athens and Early Greek Lawgivers. Scott Holleran: What is the theme of Nothing Less Than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History?John David Lewis: That wars are driven and caused by people’s decisions to fight and that those decisions are based on the ideas they hold. This has enormous implications for what victory means, because it means discrediting the ideas we’re trying to defeat. For example, one could never explain Germany’s massive attacks [against other countries] or Japan’s massive attack on America, in which they launched into intercontinental warfare, without understanding the ideals that they held. The theme of Nothing Less Than Victory is that one must defeat the enemy by discrediting his ideas.Scott Holleran: How was Nothing Less Than Victory suggested by your students?John David Lewis: I was teaching a class on ancient and modern warfare and it became clear that a comparative history would be useful. My students posed good questions.Scott Holleran: While writing about the rise of the Nazis, did The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America by Leonard Peikoff help your understanding?John David Lewis: Yes, because it’s the only book I know of that places philosophical ideas as the lesson of history. It’s not only an explanation of Nazi Germany in terms of ideas but, much more deeply and widely, it demonstrates how ideas move history.Scott Holleran: The current administration supports military involvements in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, as well as other underreported incursions in nations such as Yemen and Pakistan, with something other than, or less than, a purpose let alone a victory. The Oxford English Dictionary defines warmonger as “a person who seeks to bring about or promote war.” As a commander-in-chief who supports and initiates militarism with no purpose or end, is President Obama a warmonger?John David Lewis: I think he’s incompetent but I don’t think Obama is a warmonger. He inherited those wars but he’s simply unable to bring those wars… [Read the rest at Scott Holleran’s blog.]