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Category: Free Market
Capitalismo: o protetor da menor minoria da Terra
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Austrian Economist Bob Murphy Interviews Marsha Familaro Enright on School Vouchers
Austrian economist Bob Murphy talked to Marsha Familaro Enright about the reasons for her opposition to school vouchers, even though she founded, and ran the private Council Oak Montessori School for 27 years. Enright warns that they will ruin the independence of private schools.
Enright also describes her work towards creating optimal higher education using the Montessori philosophy, through The Great Connections Seminars. Listen to the discussion on Murphy’s podcast, The Bob Murphy Show here.
Capitalism is the Crucial Protector of the Smallest Minority
This piece was originally published by Real Clear Markets on May 15, 2019.
For decades, leftists have championed socialism while ignoring its mountains of skulls, from
Russia to Venezuela. They dismiss The Black Book of Communism, a careful tally of the 60-plus
million deaths resulting from the deliberate actions of socialist regimes.
Some socialist-leaning people seem to be sincerely concerned about the welfare of others, and
ignorant of its egregious body count. Socialist-friendly intellectuals should know better. Their
job is to identify broad truths and their impact on human life. The most culpable are those who
know socialism’s deadly impact and continue to advocate for it.
The million-life question is: why?
Some of socialism’s apologists claim capitalism has killed more—but their tally includes
millions of deaths from wars and slavery. Are war and slavery caused by capitalism? Only clear
definitions can answer that question.
Socialism is the socio-economic system under which the community owns all property. Since all
the people living together can’t be in control at the same time, in practice, the leaders control the
use of property. The result: those with the power of the state control and direct economic
activity. Hence, horrors such as the deaths of 6 to 8 million under Stalin’s state-directed seizure
and disposal of farm produce in the Soviet Union alone.
Capitalism results from the system in which property is owned by private individuals,
government is sharply limited, and individual rights are protected, such as free speech and trial
by jury. Since Britain and the U.S. first implemented this system in the 18th century, creative
individuals have been able to well-deploy capital, resulting in profuse economic activity. Despite
the disruptions and truly serious problems along the way, capitalism has brought the highest
increase in wealth and relief from poverty to the greatest number of people than any other system
on earth.
However, socialists confuse the public by equating capitalism with mercantilism, a system in
which government officials ladle out economic favors to cronies. Yet “crony capitalism” is a
canard: cronies have been around in every state.
More precisely, the problem is crony statism. Highly limited government and the rule of law in
which individual rights are protected delimits the favors officials can distribute to cronies,
equalizes opportunity, and results in the peaceful and productive pursuit of self-interest—and
increased living standards for all.
Wealth is not static—it is created. How else did we get from caves to skyscrapers? But a rich
person can live well anywhere—it’s the poor who especially need free choice made possible by
private property and individual rights if they are to create wealth and follow their own dreams.
And yet the mystery: leftists claim to care about the “poor and oppressed,” but the hockey stick
of GDP since industrial capitalism’s establishment fails to persuade them that capitalism is a
good system.
And they don’t just criticize capitalism—they revile it. Why?
Because socialists are collectivists and capitalism is individualistic. Socialists believe that the
ultimate good is “society,” the group, not the individual. This group may be the nation, the
family, the ethnic tribe, the similarly-gendered—you name it.
Caring for and helping others is their highest value, their moral duty and they claim to believe
that socialism achieves it. And that point is the intersection of the moral and the practical
because, if capitalism is dominant, people care for themselves. It is the individual’s
independence which scares these socialists, because, if everyone is independent, no one needs
them!
Under capitalism each person can choose his or her own path of highest potential—not someone
else’s idea of how to live. The result is that individuals all over the world are lifted out of poverty
by following their own creativity to produce.
But living under capitalism demands an attitude towards others which is missing from the
collectivist picture. For example, many teachers are socialists because people who go into
teaching tend to want to help others, as do nurses and doctors. And there’s plenty of good in
helping others. I’m a teacher myself, but I don’t do it out of a moral duty. I do it as an exercise of
my highest powers of understanding and skill and I enjoy seeing the young flourish.
I strive to help them reach the point where they don’t need me. As renowned Italian educator
Maria Montessori said: “The greatest sign of success for a teacher…is to be able to say, “The
children are now working as if I did not exist… ”
Those who are collectivist in their core want something far different—they want power over
others. They infantilize to keep others dependent, like mothers who reward and enable children
to stay at home forever.
The collectivist focus on control reveals this motive. They dissemble by presenting a false
alternative: which group are you going to let control you? Are you going to be a “wage slave”
and let some rich guy tell you what to do, with his business and jobs, or are you going to have a
say by voting for the politicians and party that will control the economy? Nowhere do they offer
the choice of independence in which you control your own life.
To stop the scourge of collectivist guilt-induced government programs, capitalists need to
counter their ethic with a different moral model and assert capitalism’s spiritual as well as
material good. It’s good because it gives each individual the opportunity to exercise his or
her highest human virtues, such as self-reliance, productivity, and reasonableness, while, at
the same time, enabling individuals to make a good living.
A few years ago, Lenore Skenazy, of the book and blog Free Range Kids, dug up a 1905
newspaper article about two boys, 13 years old and 5 years old, who were celebrated for
traveling by themselves to Washington, D.C., and then San Francisco. Their adventure reflected
the self-reliance venerated in that era—and shot through Horatio Alger’s hugely popular novels,
such as Ragged Dick, in which a young boy radically improves his own life. That moral outlook
was celebrated in late nineteenth and early twentieth century America.
We need a return to that spirit! Challenging the collectivists’ moral presuppositions is critical.
Let’s trumpet the valor and superiority of capitalism and wipe socialism and its destructive
power from the face of the earth.
Marsha Enright is head of The Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute. It sponsors The Great
Connections Seminars and Leap Year Program, which radically increases reasoning power,
knowledge, self- confidence, and independence. She’s also the founder of Council Oak
Montessori School, for ages 3 to 15.
We Need Art To Deify The Greats Of Capitalism
I have loved the sculpture of the ancient Greeks since I first saw it in a book, at the age of 12. That’s when I read the Greek myths and knew I had found my religion. The worship of Man.
On Friday, June 30, 2018 with delightful friends in tow, I made a pilgrimage to the Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia de Reggio Calabria to see the Riace Bronzes.
Not Polykleito’s Spear-Bearer, not Alexandros of Antioch’s Venus de Milo, not the Discobolus of Myron nor Michelangelo’s David—not any of these magnificent depictions of human beauty and greatness convey the same power as the Riaces.
Nor can any photos capture their full breathtaking beauty and glory. These are not the gods: these are men as gods.
Unlike the later classical period, they are not a severe, generalized ideal, calmly reposed.
Even the Discobolus has a quietness in his stance and expression in comparison to these warriors. These are men with an energy radiating from their bodies, an energy and form embodying human excellence. And there is no taint of that humility which touches many of the greatest statues of the Renaissance. These have beautiful, but not simply idealized faces; they are individuals, which I adore because they are the embodiment of individual excellence as an ideal for us all.
Ironically, they are known only as Statue A and Statue B. There are many questions surrounding them: these rare bronzes were found off the Calabrian coast of Italy, near Riace. No sunken ship was found near them, and they were in a location that once could have been land, so there is much doubt as to how they arrived in the sea.
And what a find! We have almost no bronze statues of the Greeks, but mostly Roman copies in marble, perhaps to insure they, too, wouldn’t be melted down for other uses. The bronze shows details of hair, veins, skin, eyes, mouth, lashes and expression which I have not seen before.
Phidias, or his student Alcamenes, or Myron, or Polykleitos are the artist-candidates. Statue A was probably created during the early years of classical Greek sculpture, between the years 460 and 450 BC, and Statue B between 430 and 420 BC. I haven’t been able to discover how the historians figured that out.
Statue A: this is a man who doesn’t hesitate to assert himself. Who doesn’t question whether his achievements might be that of a god. His shield held firmly in his left arm, his shoulders gracefully erect, he is tensed for action. His hand’s position indicates a javelin was held lightly in the right. His calcite eyes are on his target in the distance, almost fierce, with his mouth open slightly, not in a snarl, but ready for battle.
The other, Statue B, is slightly slimmer, more relaxed. He gazes a bit more softly and dreamily. Only one of the original eyes is still intact. His stance is firm, but not as energetic as A. I think A looks in his early ‘30’s, B in his twenties, but experts think their ages are reversed. B is as handsome as A, with high cheek bones, well-set eyes, full mouth and luxurious hair and beard – although not quite as full, curly, and long as A. B is equally beautiful in body, but somewhat slimmer, with less callipygian form.
I wondered if A were Agamemnon or Odysseus, and B Paris. Wikipedia entries argue they are warriors from the Aeschylus story, Seven Against Thebes. No matter, they are clearly Heroic age and they convey the confidence, the assuredness of Man’s rightful place on earth which the Homeric works convey.
In Homer and in their legends and plays, the Greeks warned of hubris, they told of misfortune, they dramatized the tragedy of fate, even for the greatest. But their sculpture captured their deepest belief in the power and achievement possible to human beings.
Today, men and women, implementing the genius of Greek philosophy and its child, science, have created the most remarkable technological and politico-economic progress ever – to reach the stars, the ocean bottom, the tops of mountains; to make the blind see again and the maimed walk; to lift millions out of poverty and enable the most peace and trade humankind has ever seen.
The Renaissance that triggered these achievements began with the art and the heroic vision of the ancients. But today, what do we have in art? Stories, not of tragedy, but utter dissoluteness. Not just sculptures of deformed or alienated humans but things called “sculpture” which are of complete meaninglessness.
The place you see heroic figures most frequently today are super hero movies and in video games. No wonder young men love them.
How I long for a Renaissance of real heroes, a dramatization of real men and women achieving great feats. Don’t the astounding achievements of our high-tech civilization deserve inspiring depictions of what humans have achieved? Wouldn’t you like to see movies and sculpture, novels and paintings celebrating that spirit? How magnificent it would be to have such art lining our streets, like our monumental architecture.
For a Renaissance of the human spirit, we need more than videogames: we need the unabashed and highest artistic renderings of a grand heroic vision to inspire us and remind us of what’s possible in the spirit and the body together. In our day and age, that should be the lionizing of the great scientists, inventors, and producers rather than just the warriors, athletes, and actors.
But to get that we need to reject the skepticism, dogmatism, and nihilism which created the current artistic culture. We need a resurgence of individualism and a recognition of the moral greatness in individual freedom, embodied in the capitalism which deserve awe. And to get
that, we need a renaissance of heroic philosophy which validates the power of the human mind to comprehend, create, and produce. A philosophy that validates rather than cast aspersions on human reasoning power, human ability and courage, and the great works made possible by these qualities.
Let’s recover that unabashed assertiveness of our ancient forebears. Not a false arrogance, tainted by unearned doubt, but a clear-minded knowledge that truth and right are hard to achieve, but we can do it and then great feats are possible.
Marsha Enright is head of The Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute. It sponsors The Great Connections Seminars and Leap Year Program, which radically increases reasoning power, knowledge, self- confidence, and independence. She’s also the founder of Council Oak Montessori School, for ages 3 to 15.
Orignally published in Real Clear Markets
https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2019/05/28/we_need_art_to_deify_the_greats_of _capitalism_103754.html
Liberating Education – What Education Would Be Like In A Fully Free Society
“Liberating Education” by Marsha Familaro Enright, is the final chapter in Common Ground On Common Core. This chapter discusses the history of education in the U.S. since the time of the Pilgrims, and what education would like in a fully free society and laissez-faire market. Click on the link to read the PDF of this chapter.
Teaching Freedom: Incorporating the Principles of a Free Society into Pedagogy
by Rachel Davison
Oak Farm Montessori School
and Marsha Familaro Enright*
The Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute
Teaching Freedom Illustrations
Abstract
Free Enterprise educators are urged to examine their educational principles and align their classroom practice with their advocacy of liberty by providing a classroom environment that develops the virtues as well as the ideas needed to live in liberty. Such pedagogy has a direct benefit to the educator. When freedom and autonomy are directly experienced, students become more engaged, interested, and enthusiastic learners and more often adopt the ideas and values of liberty. Combining empirical evidence from Socratic practice and Montessori education with research on development and optimal learning, the authors suggest ways to create such a classroom culture.
“To consider the school as the place where instruction is given is one point of view. But to consider the school as a preparation for life is another. In the latter case, the school
must satisfy all the needs of life. ”
Maria Montessori (1994, p. 5)
I. Schooling Versus Autonomy
When we think of free societies, we often think of industry, free markets and minimal government. But real freedom starts within, with self-understanding, self-responsibility, self-direction, determination, and a nimble ability to adapt to life’s challenges.
If young people are schooled in the facts about the overwhelming advantages of a free society, and how to reason well about them, and they study the full range of great ideas, the likelihood that they will be convinced of the ideas underpinning a free society goes up greatly because the facts are on the side of freedom.
Yet, it’s one thing to be lectured to about liberty and the virtues needed for it; it’s another to know how to act in freedom. It’s valuable to know the ideas of liberty, but can you apply them in your life? Where do you learn how? As Aristotle said: “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” (Book II, Chapter 1)
It’s one thing to believe in the ideas abstractly; it’s another to experience what such a society would be like—and to be motivated to achieve it.
To build a free world, we need people at many levels of society and in many areas—
business, the trades, the arts, medicine, journalists, as well as intellectuals and professors—with the ideas, values, and habits friendly to liberty. This is where a sound, liberal education is essential.
With history as the measure, it’s clear that free society advocates don’t need to be a majority to significantly change the culture. But they need to be a significant, knowledgeable, and active minority. Such a minority made the progress towards full freedom and individual rights possible in Britain; such a minority in the American Colonies was instrumental in achieving independence from Britain.
Unlike the American Colonists, none of us has been raised in a highly self-reliant society of the Enlightenment Era—did we have the chance to develop the habits needed to embody its values? To act in our families, among our friends, in our towns and cities, the way a free person should act? To have the skills and force of personality to implement the changes needed to make our lives better and freer, whatever our professions, associations and interests?
Educators familiar with the facts, history, and ideas of free societies and spontaneous order understand the value of dispersed and localized knowledge and the prosperity and flourishing that results from individuals peacefully collaborating as trading partners.
What they might not have considered is the way in which the classroom is a micro-society in which students learn how to behave in the larger world and whether their classrooms reflect the social relationships, the virtues, and the psychological conditions that sustain and advance the behavior of free people. Educators have the opportunity to craft an experience in which students learn how to behave as self-reliant, independent, self-responsible individuals.
The modern classroom, from grade school to graduate school, relies heavily on a structure of a single arbiter of knowledge, often in the position of lecturer, discussion leader, knowledge authority, and director of learning. Directed group lessons in traditional grade school and lectures in higher education are favored methodologies of the traditional method of education.
The teaching paradigm encourages an authority to convey the “right” answers to the waiting student-receptacles. Yet, this top-down environment is counter-productive to conveying the ideas, values, and virtues of a free society.
In the traditional teaching model, students are considered passive empty vessels, to be filled with knowledge by the academic authority, rather than active agents in their own learning.
This model is a legacy of the movement to economically mass-educate the populace and is literally based on factory organization, i.e. everyone doing the same thing at the same time for mass production.
How is a young person supposed to learn to be an autonomous individual if he or she is being treated like an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge? What opportunities are students give to learn and practice the skills of a self-reliant, independent, and self-responsible individual?
If we are aiming to foster a society driven by free enterprise, shouldn’t the pedagogy of our classrooms align with those values?
Traditionally, “learning” is measured by the amount of information the instructor has offered which the student is able to reiterate on tests and in papers. How does the instructor know if real understanding has been achieved? Whether the student has deeply incorporated the instructor’s information and ideas into his or her thinking? Whether the student can use this information in his or her life?
Consider the psychological effects of the traditional methods of teaching in which:
- The teacher is the repository of truth.
- The student is taught one line of reasoning given in the lecture or presentation.
- The student is the receiver, not initiator of learning.
In this paradigm:
How does the student learn how to arrive at truth himself?
How does the student learn that there are multiple ways of approaching a problem?
How does the student learn to find subjects of interest to himself, individually, and know how to go about the process of learning new material?
If students have no skills in these processes, how can they grow into autonomous individuals, arriving at their own conclusions and navigating all the choices and opportunities which freedom presents?
“‘Autonomy’ suggests, strictly speaking, that one gives or has given laws to oneself; that one is self-governing; that in essentials one obeys one’s own imperatives.” (Kaufmann, 1980,15).
The conditions of freedom cannot be consistently and sufficiently conveyed in a traditional, lecture-based environment because it does not provide the individual with opportunities to learn how to be a free, autonomous person.
Advocates of reason and freedom understand that the mind cannot be forced to accept truth. Nor does the social pressure of authority or peers result in a real understanding of truth, and certainly not the first-hand comprehension and autonomy of the innovator. Neither does a top-down environment cultivate an independent person’s ability to fight for his or her individual freedom.
To acquire truth, each person must observe and reflect on facts for him- or herself. Each person must compare and contrast, analyze and synthesize those facts, for him- or herself. Each person develops ideas, from those facts within him- or herself. Each person must integrate one set of facts with another, one set of ideas with another, for him- or herself. This is the only way to arrive at truth, since an understanding of truth cannot be transferred directly from one mind to another.
If a classroom structure can serve as the sandbox in which to practice how to live as a free person, then the independence of rational inquiry and the development of rational judgment, need to be incorporated into that sandbox.
Advocates of a free society understand the value and power of the dispersed and localized knowledge of the individual within the structure of a market, the creativity it unleashes and the flourishing that results. In turn, the micro-society of a classroom structure that endeavors to encourage the exchange of ideas between individuals, while still incorporating the guidance and expertise of the educator, mirrors the creative process of the market. This is impossible in a strictly lecture structure, and difficult in many discussion structures.
Free society educators can endeavor to construct a classroom structure parallel to a market with a productive exchange of ideas between individuals, while still incorporating the guidance and expertise of the educator.
Such a classroom offers the student the opportunity to develop and practice the skills of rational independence, creative thinking, collaborative exchange, honesty, objectivity, justice, and honor—all skills and virtues valuable and necessary in a free society.
II. The Principled Pedagogy of Freedom
“The greatest [obstacle for] an attempt to give freedom to the child and to bring its powers to light does not lie in finding a form of education which realizes these aims. It lies rather in overcoming the prejudices which the adult has formed in this regard.”
Maria Montessori (1955, p.48)
Developmental and cognitive research, plus over 100 years of experience using the Montessori philosophy of education argues that optimal learning occurs through freedom within a structured environment, where the following conditions are present (Lillard, 2005, passim):
- The instructor is informed about and alert to the developmental needs of the young adult student,
- Questions are actively encouraged by classroom methodology,
- Instructor’s activities are modified based on the interests of the students, within the limits of the studied material,
- Activities are crafted with optimal learning conditions in mind, ones that engage the needs, attentions, and interests of young adults.
Methodologies rooted in the Montessori educational philosophy encourage individualism and self-reliance, foster individual development, unfettered creative discovery, exploration, and integration of newideas. In support of this claim, researchers have recently identified the unusual number of highly creative people who were Montessori students (Sims, 2011).
Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, French cooking evangelist Julia Child, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos are among the many unusually creative and capable people with a Montessori background. Some insist this type of education was instrumental in their radical creativity.
For example, Brin and Page have identified the individually-driven exploration of the Montessori classrooms as a major source of their willingness to try new things and think out of the box again and again. (Goodwin, 2012)
The environment created in a Montessori classroom relates to the well-known facts of spontaneous order: The discovery of truth, the correct identification of life-supporting facts, is not a centralized, top-down procedure. Instead, it results from a complex process of discovery and argument, demonstrated through the history of thought and the progress of civilization.
Socratic practice, short lesson-lectures and self-selected research projects are examples of classroom strategies for higher education which encourage individual autonomy and contribute to fostering attitudes that are receptive to the complex ideas of freedom.
III. Specialized Discussion Methods and Individualism
“Discipline must come through liberty. . . . We do not consider an individual disciplined only when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined.” Maria Montessori (1912, p. 86)
The classroom is a micro-society in which the social order emerges through the exchange of ideas and values, explicit and implicit, and from the way in which participants interact with each other according to the discussion principles.
The term “Socratic Seminar” is used variously. We are using it here to mean a very particular discussion format and methodology in which students are engaged in examining, analyzing, and discussing the material themselves, first-hand. They are synthesizing the information themselves, rather than having it handed to them. It is an active learning environment. Michael Strong’s book, The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice well describes this particular methodology and its benefits.
Socratic Practice harnesses important and powerful social-psychological elements that encourage a freedom-oriented classroom culture while increasing learning. It is a process of collaborative inquiry which develops fact-based reasoning, objectivity, listening skills, and team work for problem-solving.
Seminars run by the principles of Socratic Practice function as a market of ideas, where reason, combined with the invisible hand of individual self-interest, results in greater knowledge, reasoning, and social skills for all. As a collaborative learning experience, it taps into all the advantages of learning by imitation; it’s an opportunity to see multiple ways to reason on the same materials. Research by the Jasper Project on Cognition and Learning at Vanderbilt University shows meaningful group problem-solving results in superior learning (Jasper Project, 2000).
“One particular thing that I learned at Queen’s [College]—both from faculty and students—was how to work collaboratively with smart people and make use of the Socratic method to achieve commonality of purpose.” Billionaire founder of Paypal, SpaceX, and Tesla Motors, Elon Musk
This method requires each participant to focus on what exactly is said in the text, and what can be surmised from it; the instructor guides the discussion with incisive questions and by requiring the participants to stick to the facts of the work when arguing their opinions.
- All opinions must be grounded by reference to the work studied, developing the habit of fact-based judgment and objectivity.
- The teacher acts as a facilitator, encouraging the students to use their own minds to find the meaning of the text; the teacher does not act as an authority on the text. The best reasoning is the highest authority.
- The teacher demonstrates and encourages questions and thinking in different ways when approaching the material. The points of view and questions of the different participants demonstrate how material can be approached in a variety of ways. This outcome encourages creativity by illustrating many ways to reason about the same issue. Consequently, not only excellent deductive reasoning, but creative, inductive reasoning is encouraged.
- Participants effectively trade their knowledge and skills by example.
These elements work together to strengthen student reasoning skills and instantiate the value of individual differences. Displays of inordinate knowledge about a subject are irrelevant and discouraged because each discussion member cannot verify them. This reduces non-productive jostling for social position. Reason’s authority is the great equalizer and students come to appreciate each other as helpers in their learning. This results in a psychologically safe environment, which encourages exploration and creativity.
At the end of every Socratic seminar, the instructor guides a “debrief,” a self-reflective discussion in which each participant comments on what went well and what could be improved. The beneficial effects are:
- Significant improvement in the discussions from one session to the next by raising conscious awareness about participant actions and interactions,
- Participants learn to be equally responsible for the quality of the inquiry,
- A culture of equality among peers is established, including the instructor; the instructor and other participants values each individual’s thoughts and reactions, while the best reasoning remains the highest authority; Mastery Learning research on how individuals acquire mastery in knowledge and skills found that the attitude of the teacher seriously affects the students self-image and motivation, (Dweck, 1999, passim),
- The validation of the person of each individual because each person’s participation with rational arguments adds value for the other participants,
- The encouragement of the habit of taking responsibility, giving validation to the virtues of others, and working together in a rational way.
The discussions improve radically from one session to another because of the awareness generated by the debrief, and the expectation of achievement and cooperation. These methods benefit from the strengths of peer-learning and exchange (Brown, et al., 1989, Orr, 1987).
In Socratic Practice, the teacher uses his or her expertise to craft the entire environment of the class:
- Physical:
- Every participant sits in a circle facing all the others as equal intellectual explorers.
- The room is well-lit and comfortable to enhance concentration.
- No phones or outside distractions are allowed.
- Cognitive:
- Works are chosen and taught in a purposeful order, so that students can discover their meaning and connections themselves and find joy in doing so. They are invited to engage with the material rather than passively receive it.
- Focus is on paying attention to the deepest meaning of the works studied and each other through questions of clarification, i.e. what does the other person mean?
- Solid evidence and reasoning are required for all opinions.
- Social:
- The instructor takes a limited role and gives feedback in a way that is kind, but honest, encouraging student awareness of each other, and cooperation through self-moderated exchange.
- Students are encouraged and enlightened as to how to respectfully listen by the instructor’s sincere attempts to hear and understand what the other is saying, before replying.
- Students are responsible for their own contributions and encourage contributions from others.
- Psychological:
- Reflection at the end of the discussion about what went well in the discussion and what can be improved generates a high level of self-awareness and self-generated improvement in learning from session to session.
Csikszentmihalyi’s research on Flow, the psychology of optimal experience, shows that attention is the most limited cognitive resource (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991). But it’s husbanded very well in this type of seminar.
- Every person’s reasoned contribution is valued; being active makes it easier to pay attention,
- The specially selected texts are of deep interest about issues of importance; this makes it highly motivating to pay attention to the discussion.
These skills are enormously practical: a 2014 study by Association of American Colleges and Universities and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems analyzing Census Bureau data of 3 million U.S. residents found “the overwhelming majority of employers are desperate to hire graduates who have a demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems.” (Samuelson, 2014)
Lastly, students report that these seminars require the best of them; their best thinking, behavior, and awareness of others.
“You see how much value you have to offer and to add to your own thinking. It’s not a zero sum game like in traditional education where you’re trying to compete with each other and there’s one answer. It’s not “the right answer”; it’s better and better answers. Everyone’s building a mosaic of truth together. We all study one text but there many objective truths in it, you’re benefiting from hearing all these different ways to understand things objectively and truly. And you realize you have something to contribute. It doesn’t have to be the perfect thing, but together it fits with what other people are saying.” – Michael Natividad, junior, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
IV. Conclusion
“Be careful not to ask [your] questions of the [students]. Only when [students] seek to answer questions which they themselves ask, do they commit themselves to the hard work of finding answers that are meaningful to them…give only as much guidance and encouragement as is necessary to elicit the [students’] interest.” Maria Montessori (1937, p. 26)
“Comparing this method to the regular educational system, this unavoidable feeling of frustration comes up: Why, with such a fantastic method, isn’t there a change? The passion in learning that everybody had is proof of this seminar’s effectiveness.” Tobias Mihura, junior, Clarin High School, Buenos Aires
The authors are sure they have not communicated all the ways in which teachers of free enterprise can encourage the values of a free society in the classroom micro-society. We welcome suggestions and wish to learn from the skills of others. But we urge such teachers to reflect on what kind of habits they are encouraging in their students. We hope that we have triggered reflection on how to develop the virtues needed for freedom.
References
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, Chapter 1, Moral Virtue http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.2.ii.html
Brown, J.S., Collins. A. & Dugid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, Jan/Feb, 21-42.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi. 1991. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper Perennial.
Dweck, C.S. (1999).Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. Philadelphia: Psychology Press/Tarylor & Francis.
Goodwin, Danny. August 31, 2012. “Maria Montessori Google Doodle: How Montessori Education ‘Programmed’ Google’s Founders.” Search Engine Watch.
Jasper Project on Cognition and Learning. 2000. Vanderbilt University.
Kaufmann, Walter. 1980. Discovering the Mind. New York: McGraw Hill.
Lillard, Angeline. 2005. Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Montessori, Maria, translated by Anne Everett George. 1912. The Montessori Method, New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/montessori/method/method-V.html
Montessori, Maria. 1938. The Secret of Childhood. Bombay: Orient Longsman.
Montessori, Maria. 1989 (1955). The Formation of Man. Oxford: Clio Press. http://www.moteaco.com/abcclio/form.html
Montessori, Maria, 1994 (1948). From Childhood to Adolescence. Oxford: Clio Press.
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Samuleson, Scott. March 28, 2014. “Would You Hire Socrates?” The Wall Street Journal.
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Acknowledgements
Ms. Enright would like to thank Rachel Davison for initiating the idea of the presentation leading to this paper as well as for her lovely work on the presentation, and K.R. for his encouragement and help with the ideas and vision.
Originally published at the conference site of the Association of Private Enterprise Educators. http://www.etnpconferences.net/apee/apee2014/User/Program.php?TimeSlot=12
The Call of the Entrepreneur
This film celebrates the productive virtue, passion, creativity, and heroism of
entrepreneurs around the globe.
By Marsha Familaro Enright
The New Individualist, Jan/Feb 2008 — This past September, I was thrilled to see The Call of the Entrepreneur, a new documentary by The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, headed by Roman Catholic priest Robert Sirico. Beautifully filmed in high definition, with inspiring music and a riveting story, this documentary celebrates the productive virtue, passion, creativity, and heroism of entrepreneurs around the globe. It dramatically makes the case for the moral value of capitalism—and it’s about time.
Economic and political developments in the last thirty-odd years have proven the factual case for the superiority of capitalism, but the moral case remains to be won. The harnessing and molding of self-interest through capitalism towards creative, productive, life-enhancing, happiness-achieving ends must be trumpeted to the world. This documentary is a clarion call.
The film’s theme is the unstoppable energy, optimism, creativity, and productiveness of the entrepreneur, which has made our world possible. It starts with a dairy farmer in the small mid-Michigan town of Evart, interweaving his story of ingenuity, perseverance, and calculated risk with the thrilling and heart-wrenching story of communist refugee and media magnate in Hong Kong, and that of a self-made merchant banker in Atlanta. Each of these entrepreneurs is remarkable.
Jimmy Lai, founder of giant Next Media, recounts his journey from the desperate poverty of Guangzhou province in communist China to his position as a media mogul aiming to foster freedom through information. The son of a merchant family stripped of their wealth, Jimmy’s mother was sent to work in the fields all week while he and his siblings fared for themselves. The boy left school at the age of ten to work in a railway station, which changed his life.
The communists, he comments, painted China as wonderful in contrast to the nasty picture they presented of the outside world; but his eyes were opened by the travelers at the train station. Their dress, speech, and even the kind way they treated him gave him an education. “I was never treated so well before,” he recalls. After ravenously eating a bar of chocolate handed to him by a client, he resolved to go to where it was bought: Hong Kong. He had to beg his mother for a year before she would allow him the dangerous journey in the hold of a sampan to the freedom of Hong Kong.
Dairy farmer Brad Morgan was searching for a more cost-effective way to dispose of tons of cow manure when his undying curiosity and creativity led him to the compost business. Although he appears only moderately educated, Morgan skillfully uses scientific and business experts from far and wide to turn his farm into one of the largest and best composting businesses around.
Investment banker Frank Hanna describes how his father, rather than guiding his sons to sports or leisure on the weekends, would take them to various properties the family owned. Together, they performed all the chores and learned the processes involved in running businesses—lessons Hanna used well as he and his brother built their merchant-banking business. Hanna has combined this practical knowledge with a study of free-market economics, not only for his successful business but for philanthropy, as well. Recently, he was named Philanthropist of the Year by Philanthropy Magazine because of the thoughtful and principled approach he takes to charity.
In addition to these inspiring stories, the movie deftly explains some key economic concepts through simple illustrations, including the tremendous value that capital markets create—something Tom Wolfe’s bond trader in Bonfires of the Vanities didn’t seem to know. Experts such as Peter Boetkke from George Mason University andWealth and Poverty author George Gilder cameo with pithy explanations of economic principles.
From the opening, the movie attacks the ridiculous idea that capitalism is a zero-sum game, visually puncturing that argument with sweeping views of New York and Hong Kong. You would think that just one of capitalism’s nay-sayers would ask themselves the question: If it’s a zero-sum game, where did all this stuff come from? How did we travel from the caves to New York City?
In justifying the virtue of the entrepreneur, The Acton Institute emphasizes the other-oriented attitude of the entrepreneur in contrast to the view that entrepreneurship is merely about greedy wealth-acquisition. The documentary argues that the entrepreneur must focus on the needs and desires of other people in order to succeed. One of the film’s messages seems to be that entrepreneurs are virtuous because they work for other people, performing a kind of altruism. In fact, during a question-and-answer session after the movie, executive producer Jay Richards confirmed this, emphasizing that the “al” in “altruism” means “other.”
It’s unfortunate that Acton feels the need to justify the goodness of the entrepreneur by his or her ability to help other people. Helping others is a valuable benefit of what they do, but, clearly, that is not always the entrepreneur’s motive. Morgan, Hanna, and Lai are obviously working for the laudable motives of enjoying the exercise of their own powers, and for their desire to change the world for the better—according to their own vision. While entrepreneurs must focus on the needs and desires of others for trade, many entrepreneurs create products that others could never imagine, or imagine wanting, such as PCs or “pet rocks.” Like almost all creators, entrepreneurs often face unrelenting criticism and resistance. Most often, the entrepreneur has to be pig-headedly persistent—“kinda stubborn,” as Morgan calls himself—in his own vision to bring new values to the world. Although the actions of entrepreneurs wonderfully result in benefits to others, in order to succeed, they must cleave to their own selves, to their own vision. Sounds rather self-interested, doesn’t it?
Indeed, the film’s commentators express discomfort with the concept of greed and criticize John Stossel’s ABC specials that focus on greed as a positive force in the market. Unfortunately, in the moral wars, the film’s eschewing of greed could be seen as apologetics for the basic self-interestedness of the entrepreneur, a discomfort that can be attacked by those more consistently altruistic in the self-abnegating sense.
The problem lies in the loaded concept of “greed.” Conventionally, the concept of greed, like that of selfishness, emphasizes excessiveness—in this case, the desire to acquire or possess more than one needs. But what of the entrepreneur’s stubborn insistence on pursuing his vision when others want him to stop? Is that excessive? Is that greedy?What’s needed is a clearer parsing of the concept of greed. Greed to acquire and possess values is a strong human motivational tendency. A more neutral term for this tendency is “ambition.” It’s a good thing that humans have this tendency, or they might not be sufficiently motivated to survive and flourish. It’s a tendency that can be aimed toward good or ill. The primeval, undisciplined tendency of greed often results in the pursuit of fame, money, or power at the expense of integrity, honor, love, family or friendship. Each person needs to focus the aim of his or her greed toward productive values, not toward destructive ones. That makes the moral difference.
On the other hand, some self-defined individualists would do well to broaden their almost autistic concept of the well-lived life. As Aristotle said, man is a political animal. Humans tend to have a great desire to interact and affect others, even when pursuing their own interests.
Given the religious orientation of The Acton Institute, the ultimate message of the film is that man becomes nearer to God through creativity. With stirring music and shots of Michelangelo’s “Creation,” the documentary’s climax testifies that man’s creative ability is God’s gift to man, granting man a special place in the universe. This is the religious idealism of former centuries—a view contrary to that of the radical environmentalists, who consider man and his reality-transforming reasoning powers to be an unnatural scourge upon the earth. Rather, this Scholastic religious doctrine sees man as closer to God than any other creature, by his participation in God’s ability to create. The commentators, including Father Sirico and George Gilder, affirm the inspiring nature of this relationship to God.
As a thoroughly committed scientist and a nonbeliever, I was struck by the topsy-turvy nature of this view. Man’s ability to create and transform reality rather than merely adapt to the given is fundamental to his survival powers, acquired through evolution. Man’s reason and imagination, exploratory tendencies, and especially the energy, persistence, and independence of the personality type that typifies entrepreneurs, allow him to remake the world to suit his purposes. Isn’t it interesting that men feel the need to capture the sacredness of this fundamental of human nature by projecting a god with the same ability—and making man his special protégé?
This transformational power is a sacred ability, because it makes human flourishing possible. As George Gilder says in the film, “There is no reason to explain poverty—poverty is the natural human state” before the first entrepreneurs, the farmers, changed the world. Productive creativity should be celebrated with joyful sanctity—and this film goes far in that direction.
The Call of the Entrepreneur is premiering around the country at small venues, through organizations like the Sam Adams Alliance. Acton hopes to get it onto PBS affiliates or commercial TV. Despite its philosophical shortcomings, I urge you to see it and to enjoy its dramatic celebration of the optimism and lavish productivity of the entrepreneur.
A lesson in profit by Gen LaGreca and Marsha Familaro Enright
Addressing a joint session of Congress on health care, President Barack Obama reiterated his often-expressed aversion to the profit motive:
“[B]y avoiding some of the overhead that gets eaten up at private [health insurance] companies by profits and excessive costs and executive salaries, [the public insurance option] could provide a good deal for consumers, and would also keep pressure on private insurers to keep their policies affordable and treat their customers better . . .”
Is this true? Is profit wasteful, as Obama implies? Does it lead to higher prices and lower value to consumers? Can the government, unburdened by profit, do the same job as a private company, only cheaper and better?
To answer, let’s consider one business, one product, and one profit-seeking man who lived at a time when the market operated largely free of government subsidies, bailouts, regulations, taxation, and other “progressive” intrusions.
Henry Ford, at age 13, saw a steam-driven land vehicle, a “road locomotive,” which filled his imagination with the vision of a horseless carriage and fueled a passion to create one. As a young man, he worked day jobs, while trying to build a car in his free time. Realizing a viable car could not run on steam, he sought to develop a new kind of engine.
On Christmas Eve 1893, the 30-year-old inventor clamped his first gasoline engine to his wife Clara’s kitchen sink. With the home’s electricity providing ignition, the motor roared into action, sending the sink vibrating and exhaust flames flying while Clara prepared the holiday dinner.
In pursuit of his dream, Ford and Clara moved eight times in their first nine years of marriage. He quit a secure job at the Edison Illuminating Company, banking everything on his vision. He co-founded the Detroit Automobile Company—a venture that failed. Jobless, Ford moved his wife and child into his father’s home. But he kept working on his car. “It is always too soon to quit,” he said.
Ten years passed from the roar of the little engine on Clara’s sink to the launch of the Ford Motor Company. It took five more years to produce his big success, the Model T, and additional years to master its mass production.
Why did Ford persist through years of hardship and uncertainty? How much would his love for the work have sustained him without the hope of eventual profit? Imagine if he had lived in a system where politicians could, at the stroke of a pen, seize his profits or decide how much he could keep. Would he have risked so much or worked so ferociously to bring a world-changing invention to market?
Would an Amtrak employee devote a decade of free time inventing a new train, only to rise a notch on a civil-servant’s pay scale? Dream big, work hard, create something earth shaking, but be paid small is the antithesis of the American dream.
The pursuit of profit not only motivated Ford, but also his bold investors who had the foresight to realize the horse was doomed.
In 1903, a school teacher invested $100—half her life savings—in the Ford Motor Company. Sixteen years later, she sold her stock for a total gain of $355,000. Why would she and others place their money on a highly experimental venture, were it not for the hope of tremendous gain should the enterprise succeed? What kind of person would deny her the reward for recognizing Ford’s vision and risking her own money?
The pursuit of profit also impacted every aspect of Ford’s business operations.
Ford didn’t need a politician’s scolding to lower prices—only the desire to make huge profits by reaching mass markets. Because early cars were expensive, people viewed them as mere playthings of the rich. But Ford sought to “build a motor car for the multitude.” This led him to develop his moving assembly line, significantly reducing manufacturing costs and, consequently, prices. The original $825 price of the Model T finally bottomed at $260. That price-lowering strategy brought him the millions of customers that made him rich.
Similarly, Ford’s pursuit of profit didn’t result in bare-subsistence wages for employees, but in phenomenal pay increases. He shocked the world by introducing the $5 workday, more than doubling the era’s prevailing wage. Why? To attract the best workers, whose talents increased product quality and company efficiency. High pay also decreased employee turnover and training costs, again increasing Ford’s profits.
Ford typifies the successful capitalist, whose profit-driven innovations lower prices, while raising wages and living standards for all.
Even today’s Ford Motor Company, a much-fettered child of our mixed economy, demonstrates the superiority of private- over government-run companies. Ford refused TARP bailout money, choosing to operate without government strings. The result? Ford’s profits are up 43 percent, while bailed-out GM and Chrysler lag behind.
In Henry Ford—a thin man who was the fattest of fat cats—we see an embodied refutation of President Obama’s worldview. Ford developed a new form of transportation vastly cheaper, faster, more convenient, and superior to the old mode. He continually lowered prices so that everyone, rich and poor, would have access to his product. He created thousands of jobs. He raised employee wages. He did all this good without government grants, bailouts, stimuli, subsidies, or coercion, but simply as a result of the honest pursuit of personal gain.
This achievement was possible only because a private individual had the freedom to pursue his own self-interest, in cooperation with others who supported his vision and shared in the rewards, unencumbered by government.
By eliminating profit, Obama implies that everything else about an enterprise would remain the same, only the product would be cheaper and better. Actually, by removing profit, nothing at all would remain the same.
Contrary to Obama’s notions, profit is not an overhead cost, but a vital gain sought over and above costs in order to reward a company’s risk-takers. According to economist Ludwig von Mises, “Profit is the pay-off of successful action.” And “The elimination of profit . . . would create poverty for all.”
Eliminate the hope of profit, and you extinguish that spark which ignites the human engine and powers it to explore uncharted roads: the creative mind. Profit is the proud product of the creative mind, and the creative mind is an attribute of the individual. Obama’s attack on profit is an attack on human creativity and innovation, which is an attack on the individual.
Obama’s antipathy for the self-interested individual is explicit. “In America, we have this strong bias toward individual action,” he said in an interview in the Chicago Reader. “But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations.”
It was Henry Ford’s individual actions and individual dreams that brought motorized, personal transportation within reach of everyone in the world.
America is rooted in the “pursuit of happiness”—which means the right of each of us to create, to produce, to rise, to succeed, and to profit from the fruits of our labor. Contrast this worldview with that of a president who disparages the individual and seeks to limit or expropriate his profits on behalf of a faceless “collective.” Obama’s war on profit is a war against the individualist heart and soul of America.
Profits are a badge of honor earned by someone who offers others something they value enough to buy. The first buyer of the first car of the Ford Motor Company was a doctor. He was tired of hitching up his horse and buggy for nighttime emergencies. Ford’s product enhanced his life, as it later enhanced the lives of millions. Profit is the medal Ford received from his customers for a job well done.
If our nation is to cultivate productive geniuses like Henry Ford, it must proclaim that the quest for profit is moral and noble.
POSTSCRIPT: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood recently announced “the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.” This means that the federal government, with its vast powers to fund highway projects, “liveability” initiatives, and other aid programs, as well as to tax gasoline, now intends, in LaHood’s stunningly brazen words, “to coerce people out of their cars,” in favor of walking or cycling. A century ago, Henry Ford, through capitalism and the profit motive, brought motorized transportation to the world. Now, an alarmingly anti-capitalist government is reversing that historic achievement and pulling us back to the pre-industrial age.
Gen LaGreca is author of “Noble Vision,” an award-winning novel about the struggle for liberty in health care today. Marsha Familaro Enright is president of the Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute, the Foundation for the College of the United States. Incidents from the book “Young Henry Ford,” by Sidney Olson appear in this article.
Copyright © 2010 by Marsha Familaro Enright and Gen LaGreca. Permission to reprint is granted with attribution to the authors and inclusion of their byline.
Permanent Link: http://marsha-familaro-enright.com/a-lesson-in-profit/
Originally published at: http://dailycaller.com/2010/03/31/a-lesson-in-profit/
Can the free market be saved without Ayn Rand?
It’s been a year since Stephen Moore’s article, “Atlas Shrugged: from Fiction to Fact in 52 Years,”seemed to ignite an explosion of interest in Ayn Rand. Sales of this prescient novel tripled; two Rand biographies have been selling like hotcakes; and references to her in the media have skyrocketed.
Yet, some free-market defenders continue to repudiate her and her ideas, as they have for decades. It used to be conservatives such as William F. Buckley of National Review trashing “Atlas Shrugged;” now the critics include libertarians, such as Heather Wilhelm of the Illinois Public Policy Institute, who penned “Is Ayn Rand Bad for the Market?”.
But in their rush to distance themselves from Rand, they succumb to a deadly philosophic trap. It results from their anxious desire to apologize for the individualistic, self-interested motives that actually drive free markets. This anxiety prompts them to defend capitalism on the opposite premise: that capitalism is good only because it is “other-directed”—i.e., that it grants certain groups, such as the poor, opportunities to acquire wealth and power.
Over the decades, this has led such apologists to launch unpersuasive and futile crusades, such as “compassionate conservatism” and “bleeding-heart libertarianism,” which are not defenses of capitalism, but embodiments of its opposite. For example, conservatives and some libertarians plunged headlong into the moral and logical pitfalls of collectivism when, led by “compassionate conservative” Republican president George W. Bush, they created Medicare Part D, then the biggest-ever addition to welfare entitlements.
Likewise, Wilhelm summed up what too many on the right think, when she writes that free markets are best “sold” on the premise that, above all else, they help society’s neediest. She adds that “Rand’s insistence on the folly of altruism, however, tends to overshadow and even invalidate this message.”
You bet it does—and with good reason. That’s because no one can defend capitalism and free markets logically and consistently without a moral validation of enlightened self-interest as the highest good.
After all, the left didn’t rise to power because they had facts and rational arguments on their side. The empirical case for the superiority of capitalism in bringing a better life to the poor is overwhelming, whether we compare Chile to Cuba, Hong Kong to communist China, or the fully communist China of the past to itself today. So, one has to ask: Why haven’t these arguments won over all those who claim to want to help the poor?
The answer is that the left’s ascendance to power wasn’t driven by economic fact but by a moral vision thinly covered with economic claims. This vision was accepted by millions only because of the moral philosophy of self-sacrifice that dominates our culture.
That morality claims that the highest good for each individual is to live for the sake of others—for society or the collective. Ultimately, it implies that each of us is a moral slave to someone else. Whether it’s Marx’s “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” or Hitler’s admonition to live for the German Volk, or Pol Pot’s belief that “since he [the individual] is of no use anymore, there is no gain if he lives and no loss if he dies,” the morality of self-sacrifice kills liberty because it subordinates the individual’s life to the group.
This is the morality that brought us the carnage of the 20th century.
The arguments of “compassionate” libertarians and “bleeding-heart” conservatives do nothing to challenge this ethic. They merely try to slip capitalism in under the tent of collectivist moral philosophy, telling everybody, in effect: “Don’t worry; even though sinful, individualistic self-interest drives capitalism, it is good because it can be harnessed to serve groups, such as the poor.”
In other words, these would-be defenders of capitalism merely “me-too” the collectivist moral claim that our primary ethical responsibility should be the welfare of other people. In this view, they march lockstep with those on the left who revile individualism and capitalism as being anti-poor, anti-caring.
Their view couldn’t be further from the truth. Free-market capitalism arises from a social vision that cares about the smallest minority of all: the individual. That vision recognizes the moral superiority of the right of the individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—the very vision identified by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence and fought for by the Founding Fathers.
What is this right, if not the right of each person to pursue his or her own highest self-interest? Remember, the slogan of the American Revolution was “Don’t tread on me.”
Yet, that “selfish” American Revolution established a social system that created the most productive nation the world has ever seen, with the highest level and broadest distribution of wealth. It was a system based on individual rights, limited government, and equal justice under the law, in which everyone could keep and enjoy the fruits of his or her own efforts.
This system was fair because it gave each person the equal opportunity—and the pride-enhancing challenge—to make the most of his or her life, poor and rich alike. In fact, only a capitalist society can truly serve the interests of the poor and the disadvantaged, as well as the rich and the capable, because it is at root based on justice for the individual. And justice for the individual is justice for all.
This is what makes capitalism morally superior to collectivism.
Ironically, given the prevailing presumptions about self-interest, capitalist societies such as the U.S. are also the most charitable. Our individualistic system created a nation of magnanimity due to our unimpeded productivity, overflowing abundance, and benevolent sympathy for other individuals struggling for their own lives, liberty, and happiness.
It’s amazing that in all their talk of Rand’s “harsh message” and “confrontational language,” many free-market defenders haven’t asked themselves why her writings have inspired millions to become advocates of capitalism. They don’t understand that she completes the 18th century vision of the American Revolution by presenting a morality that fully justifies capitalism and individual freedom.
Rand’s morality of rational, enlightened self-interest defends the individual’s right to his own life, the power of his own liberty, and the glory of his pursuit of his own happiness. She said: “My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive work as his noblest achievement, and reason as his only absolute.” Her message—that “man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads”—is a message of the glory of the individual, unshackled and free.
We urgently need Rand’s vision of the moral nobility and greatness of a social system based on enlightened self-interest if we, the 21st century advocates of freedom, are to finally free the world from the death grip of collectivism. And that is a vision we must defend with “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
Marsha Familaro Enright is president of the Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute, the Foundation for the College of the United States. Gen LaGreca is the author of Noble Vision, an award-winning novel about the struggle for liberty in health care today.
Copyright © 2010 by Marsha Familaro Enright and Gen LaGreca. Permission to reprint is granted with attribution to the authors and inclusion of their byline.
Permanent link: http://marsha-familaro-enright.com/can-the-free-market-be-saved-without-rand/
Originally published at:
http://dailycaller.com/2010/02/16/can-the-free-market-be-saved-without-rand/