Ibis Slade“Being selfish means caring about your own life,” says Yaron Brook. “It means thinking long term, figuring out what’s really good for me, what will make my life the best life that it can be.”
Brook shares these thoughts with journalist John Stossel in a wide-ranging interview released on April 29, “Selfishness, Immigration, War, Love, Liberty and Of Course Ayn Rand.” Known for his pro-free market perspective, Stossel regularly covers economic, political, and cultural controversies.
In this episode, Brook, chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute and host of The Yaron Brook Show, applies Objectivism’s moral defense of capitalism and its view of rational self-interest to some of today’s major debates. He emphasizes that capitalism is not only an economically productive system but also a moral one.
Brook rejects the idea that morality means self-sacrifice, pushing back against the idea that figures like Mother Teresa are guideposts for a morally good life. Instead, he argues that creating value and earning profit for one’s own sake is the moral ideal. He argues that real thriving comes from production, trade, and free exchange: “Win-win relationships are what actually drive progress.”
Turning to politics, Brook critiques the U.S. health care system, arguing that government controls are the main driver of high costs. “The system is so convoluted and absurd,” he says. “The anger should be at the people who made it so cumbersome and expensive . . . and that is government bureaucrats.” He comments on the public reaction to the recent killing of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare: “It is truly horrific and very, very sad that America has reached a point where killing an entrepreneur, killing a businessman, is something that is celebrated.”
On immigration, Brook defends the freedom of movement across borders, rejecting arbitrary restrictions. “America was always supposedly the land of the free. What is it about this arbitrary line that we draw in the sand that makes it impossible to be free to cross it?” He challenges the protectionist mentality, comparing fears about immigrants taking jobs to similar fears about automation and foreign trade.
On foreign policy, he rejects humanitarian interventions and defends the principle of national self-defense: “Wars cannot be humane. You either win a war or you lose a war. And what we’ve become very, very good at is losing wars, most of which we should have never started.” He explains when and why it is morally legitimate to engage in war: for example, why World War II protected U.S. interests but the war in Kosovo did not.
The interview also touches on the folly of the Trump administration’s tariffs, affirmative action in education, environmentalism’s demand for human sacrifice, welfare’s war on self-esteem, the self-destructive war on drugs, and even the selfish nature of romantic love. In each case, Brook returns to his central argument: that human flourishing requires the protection of individual rights and the moral sanction of productive achievement. As he puts it, “The real choice is freedom.”
Stossel’s YouTube channel has over a million subscribers. As of this writing, the episode has received more than 60,000 views.
Watch the full interview here.
NI Staff
Ben Bayer
