"The Anti-Industrial Revolution" by Ayn Rand (Ford Hall Forum)

Tonight we welcome back one who is very close to us because of the friendship she has demonstrated through the years. It's close to a dozen times that Ms. Rand has spoken here and she draws an amazing audience. Not because the hall is so crowded, but amazing because of the people who come from tremendous distances. There are people here from Canada, there are people here from Michigan, there are people here from the various New England states, from New York, from Pennsylvania, from Washington D.C. this, if you will take the word of an old timer in forum. History is unique and when we have on a topic such as the anti industrial revolution and the speaker, Ms. Ayn Rand, no introduction is needed. You know her, you know of her, you've read her novels and that's why you're here. And that's why she is now introduced to you, Ms. Rand.

Ladies and gentlemen, let us begin by translating an abstract idea into concrete, specific terms. A current trend proclaims that technology is man's enemy and should be restricted or abolished. Let us project what this idea would mean in practice. Suppose that you are a young man in the year 1975. You are married, have two children and own a modest home in the suburbs of a large city. Let us observe a normal average day of your life. You get up at 5am because you work in the city and must be at the office at 9. You always had a light breakfast, just toast and coffee. Your electric percolator is gone. Electric percolators are not manufactured any longer. They are regarded as an item of self indulgent luxury. They consume electric power, which contributes to the load of power stations, which contributes to air pollution. So you make your coffee in an old fashioned pot on an electric, no, an oil burning stove. You used to have an electric one, but they have been forbidden by law. Your electric toaster is gone. You make your toast in the oven. Your attention wanders for a moment and you burn the toast. There is no time to make another batch. When you had a car, it took you three quarters of an hour to get to the office. But private automobiles have been outlawed and replaced by mass transportation. Now it takes you two hours and a half. The community bus can make the trip in a little over an hour when it is on time. But you never know whether it will be on time, so you allow for a half hour's delay. You trudge 10 blocks through the bitter gusts of a cold morning wind to your community bus stop and you stand, waiting. You have no choice. There are no other means of transportation and you know it. So does the bus company. When you reach the city. You walk 12 blocks from the bus terminal to the office building. You make it on time. You work till noon, then eat at your desk the lunch you have brought from home. There used to be six restaurants in the two blocks around the building. But restaurants are notorious sources of pollution. They create garbage. Now there is only one restaurant and is not too good and you have to stand in line. Besides, you save money by packing your own lunch. You pack it in an old shoebox. There are no metal boxes. The mining of metal has been severely curtailed. There are no plastic bags, a self indulgent luxury. There are no thermos bottles. Your sandwich is a little stale and your coffee is cold. But you are used to. In the later hours of the afternoon you begin to watch the clock and to fight against the recurring attacks of your enemy, boredom. You have worked for the company for eight years. For the past three years you have been office manager. There is no promotion to expect, no further place to go. Business expansion has been arrested. You try to fight the boredom by telling yourselves that you are an unusually lucky fellow. But it doesn't help much. You keep saying it because under the boredom there is a nagging fear which you don't want to acknowledge, that the company might go out of business. You know that paper consumes trees and trees are essential for the preservation of life on earth. And forests must not be sacrificed for the sake of self indulgent luxuries. The company you work for manufactures paper containers. By the time you reach the bus terminal again on your way home, you reproach yourself for being exhausted because you see no reason for it. Your wife, you keep telling yourself, is the real victim. And she is. Your wife gets up at 6am you have insisted that she sleep until the coal furnace which you lighted has warmed the house a little. She has to cook breakfast for your son, age 5. There are no breakfast cereals to give him. They have been prohibited as not sufficiently nutritious. There is no canned orange juice cans pollute the countryside. There are no electricity refrigerators. She has to breastfeed your infant daughter, age 6 months. There are no plastic bottles, no baby formulas. There are no products such as pampers. Your wife washes diapers for hours each day by hand as she washes all the family laundry, as she washes the dishes. There are no self indulgent luxuries such as washing machines or automatic dishwashers or electric irons. There are no vacuum cleaners. She cleans the house by means of a broom. There are no shopping centers. They despoil the beauty of the countryside. She walks two miles to the nearest grocery store and stands in line for an hour or so. The purchases she lugs home are a little heavy, but she does not complain. The lady columnist in the newspaper has said that it is good for her figure since there are no canned foods and no frozen foods. She starts cooking dinner three hours in advance, peeling and slicing by hand every slimy calcitrine bit of the vegetables. She does not get fruit very often. Refrigerated freight cars have been discontinued. When you get home, she is trying not to show that she is exhausted. It is pretty difficult to hide, particularly since there are no cosmetics which are an extra self indulgent luxury. By the time you are through with dinner and dishwashing and putting the children to bed and a few other chores, you are both free. But what are you to do with your brief evening? There is no television, no radio, no electric phonograph, no recorded music. There are no drive in movies. There is a movie theater in a town six miles away. If you catch the community bus in time, you don't feel like rushing to catch it. So you stay at home. You find nothing to say to your wife. You don't want to depress her by discussing the kinds of things that crowd your mind. You know that she is keeping silent for the same reason. Junior did not eat much dinner. He has a sore throat. You remember vaguely that diphtheria had once been virtually eliminated. But epidemics of it have been recurring recently in schools around the country. 73 children died of it in a neighboring state. The last time you saw your father, he complained about pains in his chest. You. You hope desperately that it is not a heart ailment. Your mother died of a heart ailment at the age of 55. The old doctor mentioned a device that could have saved her. But it was a product of very, very advanced technology which does not exist any longer. It was called a pacemaker. You look at your wife. The light is dim, electricity is rationed, and only one bulb per room is allowed. But you can see the slump of her shoulders and the lines in the corners of her mouth. She's only 32. She was such a beautiful girl when you met her in college. She was studying to be a lawyer. She could have combined a career with the duties of a wife and mother. But she could not combine it with the duties of heavy industry. So she gave it up. In the 15 hours of this day, she has done the work of a dozen machines. She has had to do it so that the brown pelican or the white polar bear might not vanish from this earth. By 10 o'. Clock. You feel a desperate longing for sleep and cannot summon any other desire. Lying in bed by the side of your wife, who feels as you do, you wonder dimly what it was that the advocates of a return to nature had been saying about the joys of an unrestrained sexuality. You cannot remember it any longer as you fall asleep. The air is pure above the roof of your house, pure as arctic snow. Only you wonder how much longer you will care to breathe it. This, of course, is fiction. In real life, there is no such thing as a gradual descent from civilization to savagery. There is a crash and no recovery. Only the long drawn out.

Could you speak a little louder?

Only the long drawn out agony of chaos, helplessness and random death on a mass scale. There is no such thing as retrogressing a little. There is no such thing as a restrained progress. You are hearing many voices today that object to an unrestricted technology, a restricted technology, is a contradiction in terms. What is not fiction, however, are the countless ways in which your life, and any meaning, comfort, safety or happiness you may find in life, depends on technology. The purpose of the far too brief example I gave you was to prompt you to make a similar personal inventory of what you would lose if technology were abolished. And then to give a moment's silent thanks every time you use one of the labor and therefore time and therefore life saving devices created for you by technology. If someone proposed to reduce you to the state I described, you would scream in protest. Why don't you? It is being proposed loudly, clearly and daily, all around you. What is worse, it is being proposed in the name of love for mankind. There are actually three major reasons why you and most people do do not protest. One, you take technology and its magnificent contribution to your life for granted, almost as if it were a fact of nature which will always be there. But it is not and will not. 2. As an American, you are likely to be very benevolent and enormously innocent about the nature of evil. You are unable to believe that some people can advocate man's destruction for the sake of man's destruction. And when you hear them, you think that they don't mean it, but they do. 3. Your education by that same kind of people has hampered your ability to translate an abstract idea into its actual practical meaning, and therefore has made you indifferent to and somewhat contemptuous of ideas. This is the real American tragedy. It is these three premises that you now have to check. The attack on technology is being put over on you by means of a package deal tied together by strings called ecology. Let us examine the arguments of the ecologists. Their motives will become clear as we go along. Under the title the Ravaged Environment, a survey of the ecological crusade was published in NewsWeek magazine on January 26, 1970. In spite of, or perhaps because of its sympathy with that crusade, it is an accurate survey. It captures the movement's essence, spirit and epistemological style. The survey begins by declaring that man, quote, has come face to face with a new man made peril the poisoning of his natural environment with noxious doses of chemicals, garbage fumes, noise, sewage, heat, ugliness and urban overcrowding. Observe the odd disparity of the things listed as perils, noxious chemicals, along with noise and ugliness. This mixture occurs in all the arguments of the ecologists. We shall discuss its motives later. The perils the survey keeps stressing are not merely local, but global. They affect the whole of the earth and threaten the survival of all living species. What kinds of examples are given and on the grounds of what evidence? Quote in the shallow waters of the Pacific Ocean off Los Angeles, sea urchins, a small sea animal, are enjoying a population boom thanks to the organic materials in sewage being washed out to sea. Normally, the sea urchin's population levels are tied to the quantity of kelp on the ocean bottoms. The animals die off when they have eaten all the kelp, thus allowing new crops of the seaweed to grow. But now that the sewage is available to nourish the sea urchins, the kelp beds have not had a chance to recover. In many places, the kelp for which man has found hundreds of uses, it is an ingredient of salad dressing and beer, has disappeared altogether. There is, of course, no way of calculating the exact effects of the loss of kelp on its particular ecosystem. Close quote an ecosystem is defined as the sum total of all the living and non living parts that support the chain of life within a selected area, unquote. How do the ecologists select this area? How do they determine its interrelationship with the rest of the globe and over what period of time? No answer is given. Another example. Quote Right now, some ecologists are worried about the possible effect on the Eskimo of the great oil race. On Alaska's remote North Slope, oil spills in the ever frozen sea zafir would be trapped in the narrow space between water and ice, killing first the plankton, then the fish and mollusks that feed on the plankton, then the polar bears, walrus seals and whales that feed off sea life and finally threatening the Eskimos who live off these animals. The net outcome of the current research hopefully will be a better understanding of the potential consequences of man's tampering with any ecosystem, unquote. Consider the actual consequences of this particular example. Without any effort on their part, the Eskimos are to receive fortunes in oil royalties which will enable them to give up their back breaking struggle for mere subsistence and to discover the comfort of civilized life and labor. If and it is only and if the ecologist fears came true, the Eskimos would have the means to move to a better background. Or are we to assume that the Eskimos prefer their way of life to ours? If so, why are they entitled to a preference but we are not? Or shall we assume that the Eskimos have inalienable rights but Thomas Edison did not? Or are the Eskimos to be sacrificed to the polar bears, walruses, seals and whales which are to be sacrificed to the fish and mollusks which are to be sacrificed to the plankton? If so, why? But we will come back to these questions later. Quote no human environments, non human environments, the survey declares, have a remarkable resiliency. As many as 25 or even 50% of a certain fish or rodent population might be lost inhabited during a plague or a disaster. Yet the species will recover its original strength within 1 or 2 years. It's man made interference or pollution that can profoundly disturb the ecosystem and its equilibrium. Unquote. Bear this in mind. Factories represent pollution. Plagues do not. Quote the worst fears of land Conservationists concern not the accidental spoilage of land by waste, but its exploitation by man to build mines, roads and cities. In time he may encroach so far on his greenery that he reduces the amount of air he has to breathe, unquote. Have you ever looked at a map of the globe and compared the size of the area of industrial sites and cities to the size of the area of untouched wilderness and primeval jungles? And what about the greenery cultivated by men? What about the grains, the fruit trees, the flowers that would have vanished long ago without human care and labor? What about the giant irrigation projects that transform deserts into fertile Greenlands? No answer. Quote Louisiana State bird, the brown pelican has vanished from its shores, the survey laments, blaming the bird's extinction on ddt. The dinosaur and his fellow creatures vanished from this earth long before there were any industrialists or any men, and environmental resiliency never brought them back. But this did not end life on Earth.

Excuse me, there's no smoking here.

Contrary to the ecologists, nature does not stand still and does not maintain the kind of equilibrium that guarantees the survival of any particular species, least of all the survival of her greatest and most fragile product, man. But love for man is not a characteristic of the ecologists. Quote? Man has always been a messy animal, the survey declares. Ancient Romans complained of the sooty smoke that suffused their city. And in the first century, Pliny described the destruction of crops from climate changes wrought by the draining of lakes or deflection of rivers, unquote. Such events did not occur in the period that followed the fall of Rome, the Dark Ages. Would you regard the following as an expression of love for men? This deals with another alleged pollution created by cities noise. Quote Nor can the harried urban inhabitants seek silence indoors. He merely substitutes the clamor of rock music for the beat of the steam hammers, the buzz of the air conditioner for the stage rumble of traffic. The modern kitchen, with its array of washing machines, garbage disposal units and blenders, often rivals the street corner as a source of unwanted sound. Consider the fate of a human being, a woman who is to become once again a substitute for washing machines, garbage disposal units and blenders. Consider what human life and suffering were like indoors and out prior to the advent of air conditioning. The price you pay for these marvelous advantages is unwanted sound. Well, there is no unwanted sound in a cemetery. Predictions of universal doom are interspersed with complaints of this kind. And nowhere, neither in this survey nor elsewhere, does one find any scientific evidence. No, not even to prove, but even to support a valid hypothesis of global danger. But one does find the following quote Some scientists, the survey declars, like to play with the notion that global disaster may result if environmental pollution continues unchecked. According to one scenario, the planet is already well advanced toward a phenomenon called the greenhouse effect. Concentrations of carbon dioxide are building up in the atmosphere, it is said, as the world's vegetation, which feeds on carbon dioxide, is progressively chopped down, hanging in the atmosphere, it forms a barrier, trapping the planet's heat. As a result, the greenhouse theories contend, the world is threatened with a rise in average temperature, which, if it reached 4 or 5 degrees, could melt the polar ice caps, raise sea level by as much as 300ft, and cause a worldwide flood. Other scientists see an opposite that the polar ice will expand, sending glaciers down to the temperate zone once again. This theory assumes that the Earth's close cloud cover will continue to thicken as more dust fumes and water Vapor are belched into the atmosphere by industrial smokestacks and jet planes. Screened from the sun's heat, the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new ice age will be born, unquote. This is what bears the name of science today. It is on the basis of this kind of stuff that you are being pushed into a new dark age. Now observe that in all the propaganda of the ecologists, amid all their appeals to nature and pleas for harmony with nature, there is no discussion of man's needs and the requirements of his survival. Man is treated as if he were an unnatural phenomenon. Man cannot survive in the kind of state of nature that the ecologists envision. That is on the level of sea urchins or polar bears. In that sense, man is the weakest of animals. He is born naked and unarmed, without fangs, claws, horns or instinctual knowledge. Physically, he would fall an easy prey not only to the higher animals, but also to the lowest bacteria. He is the most complex organism and in a contest of brute force, extremely fragile and vulnerable. His only weapon, his basic means of survival, is his mind. In order to survive, man has to discover and produce everything he needs, which means that he has to alter his background and adapt it to his needs. Nature has not equipped him for adapting himself to his background in the manner of animals. From the most primitive cultures to the most advanced civilizations, man has had to manufacture things, and his well being depends on his success at production. The lowest human tribe cannot survive without that alleged source of pollution, fire. It is not merely symbolic. That fire was the property of the gods which Prometheus brought to man. The ecologists are the new vultures swarming to extinguish that fire. It is not necessary to remind you of what human existence was like for centuries and millennia prior to the Industrial Revolution. That the ecologists ignore or evade it is so terrible a crime against humanity that it serves as their protection. No one believes that anyone can be capable of it. But in this matter, it is not even necessary to look at history. Take a look at the conditions of existence in the undeveloped countries, which means on most of this earth, with the exception of the blessed island which is Western civilization, The wisest words on the subject of pollution and ecology were spoken by the ambassador of one of those countries at the United Nations Symposium. Oliver Wirasinghi, ambassador from Ceylon, said, the two thirds of mankind who live in developing countries do not share the same concern for the environment as the other one third in more affluent regions. The primary problem for these developing areas is the struggle for the bare necessities of life. It would therefore not be realistic to expect governments of these areas to carry out recommendations regarding environmental protection which might impede or restrict economic progress. Unquote From Industry Week, June 29, 1970 in Western Europe in the pre industrial Middle Ages, man's life expectancy was 30 years. Europe's population explosion in the 19th century, when the population grew by 300%, is the best proof of the fact that that for the first time in human history, industry gave the great masses of people a chance to survive. If it were true that a heavy concentration of industry is destructive to human life, one would find life expectancy declining in the more advanced countries it has been rising steadily. Instead, here are the figures on life expectancy in the United States obtained from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. 1947.3 years 192053 years 194060 years 1968 the latest figures compiled 70.2 years Anyone over 30 years of age today give a silent thank you to the nearest, grimiest, sootiest smokestacks you can find. No, of course, factories do not have to be grimy. But this is not an issue when the survival of technology is at stake and clean air is not the issue nor the goal of the ecologist's crusade. The figures on life expectancies in different countries around the globe are as follows from the New York Times Almanac 1970 England 70 years India 50 years East Africa 43 years Congo 37 years South Vietnam 35 years. If you consider not merely the length, but the kind of life men have to lead in the undeveloped parts of the world, the quality of life to borrow with full meaning the ecologist's meaningless catchphrase, if you consider the squalor, the misery, the helplessness, the fear, the unspeakably hard labor, the festering diseases, the plagues, the starvation, you will begin to appreciate the role of technology in man's existence. Make no mistake about is technology and progress that the nature lovers are out to destroy. To quote again from the Newsweek survey, quote what worries ecologists is that people now upset about the environment may ultimately look to technology to solve everything. Unquote. This is repeated over and over again. Technological solutions, they claim, will merely create new problems. Quote A number of today's environmental reformers conclude that mankind's main hope lies not in technology but in abstinence, fewer births and less gadgetry. The west coast has also spawned a fledgling zero GNP growth movement. Harvey Wheeler of Santa Barbara center for the Study of Democratic institutions believes the US may reach a point, perhaps in 10 years when the present rate of growth is absolutely disastrous and economic growth may well have to be eliminated altogether, unquote, end quote. Russell Train, one of President Nixon's advisors, warns that improving the quality of life will entail unpopular cutbacks on luxuries. People have shown no inclination, he points out, to give up the products of influence, TV sets and gadgets, unquote. You have probably seen on television, as I have, the younger adherents of the ecological crusade, the hippie types who scream, denouncing modern luxuries, with special emphasis on the electric toothbrush, which they claim contributes to pollution by consuming electricity. Leaving aside the fact that this toothbrush, as any dentist will tell you, is an extremely valuable tool of health care because it provides gum massage, let us consider its consumption of electricity. An average household light bulb consumes 100 watts of electricity per hour. This bulb is used approximately 8 to 10 hours per day, which means a daily consumption of 800 to 1000 watts. Compare this figure with the following. A General Electric cordless toothbrush consumes 2 watts 2 of electricity per hour when being recharged. Whatever the motives of those hippies denunciations, concern for air pollution is not one of them. The immediate, though not the ultimate motive is made quite clear in the Newsweek survey, quote, to amend, the ecologist maintains that a national population plan must be invoked primarily through a national land use plan, unquote end quote. The battle against pollution must also overcome the jurisdictional lines that carve the planet into separate sovereignties, unquote and the ecologist program cannot be accomplished, quote, without some fairly important modifications of the American tradition of. Of free enterprise and free choice, unquote and the quote, obstacles to reform are man's traditional notions of growth, sovereignty, individualism and time, unquote and quote. What is needed, the ecologists suggest, is a rebirth of community spirit not only among men, but among all of nature, unquote. How they intend to impose a community spirit on nature where living species exist by devouring one another is not indicated. The immediate goal is obvious. The destruction of the remnants of capitalism in today's mixed economy and the establishment of a global dictatorship. This goal does not have to be inferred. Many speeches and books on the subject state explicitly that the ecological crusade is a means to that end. There are two significant aspects in this new left switch of the collectivist line. One is the open break with the intellect, the dropping of the mask of intellectuality worn by the old Left, the substitution of birds, bees and beauty, nature's beauty for the pseudoscientific super technological paraphernalia of Marx's economic determinism, A more logicous shrinking of a movement stature, or a more obvious confession of intellectual bankruptcy could not be invented in fiction. The other significant aspect is the reason behind this switch. The switch represents an open admission by Soviet Russia and its facsimiles around the world. And it sympathizes of every political sort and shade that collectivism is an industrial and technological failure that collectivism cannot produce. The root of production is man's mind. The mind is an attribute of the individual and it does not work under orders, controls and compulsion, as centuries of stagnation have demonstrated. Progress cannot be planned by government, and it cannot be restricted or retarded. It can only be stopped, as every status government has demonstrated. If we are to consider nature, what about the fact that collectivism is incompatible with man's nature and that the first requirement of man's mind is freedom? But observe that just as the ancient mystics of spirit regarded the mind as a faculty of divine origin and therefore as unnatural, so today's mystics of muscle observing that the mind is not possessed by animals regarded as unnatural. For the rest, I will refer you to Atlas Shrugged. If concerned with poverty and human suffering were the collectivist's motive, they would have become champions of capitalism long ago. They would have discovered that it is the only political system capable of producing abundance. But they evaded the evidence as long as they could. When the issue became overwhelmingly clear to the whole world, the collectivists were faced with a choice. Either turn to the right in the name of humanity, or to the left in the name of dictatorial power, they turned to the left, the New Left. Instead of their old promises that collectivism would create universal abundance and their denunciations of capitalism for creating poverty, they are now denouncing capitalism for creating abundance. Instead of promising comfort and security for everyone, they are now denouncing people for being comfortable and secure. They are still struggling, however, to inculcate guilt and fear. These have always been their psychological tools. Only instead of exhorting you to feel guilty of exploiting the poor, they are now exhorting you to feel guilty of exploiting land, air and water. Instead of threatening you with a bloody rebellion of the disinherited masses, they are now trying, like witch doctors addressing a tribe of savages, to scare you out of your wits with thunderously vague threats of an unknowable cosmic cataclysm. Threats which cannot be checked, verified or proved. One element, however, has remained unchanged in the collectivist Technique, the element without which they would have had no chance. Altruism, the appeal for self sacrifice, the denial of man's right to exist. But observe the shrinking of plausibility with the expansion of the scale. Some 40 years ago, Franklin D. Roosevelt exhorted this country to sacrifice for the sake of an underprivileged one third of a nation. Fifteen years later, the sacrifice was stretched for the sake of the underprivileged of the whole globe. Today you are asked to sacrifice for the sake of sea urchins and inanimate matter. To the credit of the American people, the majority do not take the ecology issue seriously. It is an artificial PR manufactured issue, blown up by the bankrupt left, who can find no other grounds for attacking capitalism. But the majority, as in so many other issues, remain silent. And this, precisely is the danger. The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They are accepted by default. It is possible, however, that the leftists may have outsmarted themselves this time. The issue may be stolen from them and dissolved by American common sense, which may take them at their word, accept the semi plausible bait and reject the rest of the ecological package deal. What is the semi plausible bait? The actual instances of local pollution and dirt which do exist. City smog and filthy rivers are not good for men, though they are not the kind of danger that the ecological panic mongers proclaim them to be. This is a scientific technological problem, not a political one, and it can be solved only by technology. Smog may be a risk to human life, but life in nature without technology is wholesale death. As far as the role of government is concerned, there are laws, some of them passed in the 19th century, prohibiting certain kinds of pollution, such as the dumping of industrial waste into rivers. These laws have not been enforced. It is the enforcement of such laws that those concerned with the issue may properly demand. Specific laws forbidding specifically defined and proved harm, physical harm to persons or property are the only solution to problems of this kind kind. But it is not solutions that the leftists are seeking, it is controls. Observe that industry has been made the scapegoat in this issue, as in all modern issues. But industry is not the only culprit. For instance, the handling of the sewage and garbage disposal problems so frequently denounced has been the province of the local governments. Yet the nature lovers scream that industry should be abolished or regulated out of existence and more power should be given to the government. And as far as the visible dirt is concerned, it is not the industrial tycoons who threw beer cans and soda pop bottles all over the highways of Americ.

Thank you.

Thank you. Since the enormous weight of controls created by the welfare state theories has hampered, burdened, corrupted, but not yet destroyed American industry. The collectivists have found in ecology a new excuse for the creation of more controls, More corruption, more favor peddling, more harassment of industry by more irresponsible pressure groups. The industrialists, as usual, will be the last to protest. In a mixed economy, the industrialists will swallow anything and apologize for anything. Their abject crawling and climbing on the environmental bandwagon is consistent with their policy of the past four or five decades, inculcated by pragmatism. They would rather make a deal with a few more bureaucrats than stand up and face the issue in terms of philosophical moral principles. The greatest guilt of modern industries is not the fumes of their factory smokestacks, but the pollution of this country's intellectual life, which they have condoned, assisted and supported. As to the politicians, they have discovered that the issue of pollution is pay dirt and they have gone all out for it. They see it as a safe, non controversial, public spirited issue that can mean anything to anyone. Besides, a politician would not dare oppose and be smeared from coast to coast as an advocate of a such smog. All sorts of obscure politicians are leaping into prominence and onto television screens by proposing ecological reforms. A wise remark on the subject was made by a politician with whom I seldom agree, Jesse Unra of California. He said, quote, ecology has become the political substitute for. For the word mother. The deeper significance of the ecological crusade lies in the fact that it does expose a profound threat to mankind, Though not in the sense its leaders alleged. It exposes the ultimate motive of the collectivist, the naked essence of hatred for achievement, which means hatred for reason, for man, for life. In today's atmosphere of a drugged orgy of boastfully self righteous swinishness, the masks are coming down and you can hear all but excitement, explicit confessions of that hatred. For example, five years ago, the occasion of the east coast massive power failure and blackout, Life magazine published the following in its issue of November 19, 1965. Quote. It shouldn't happen every evening, but a crisis like the lights going out has its good quality. In the first place, it deflates human smugness about our miraculous technology, which at least in the area of power distribution and control, now stands revealed as utterly flawed. And it is somehow delicious to contemplate the fact that all our beautiful brains and all those wonderful plants and all that marvelous equipment have combined to produce a system that is Unreliable. Unquote. Currently the NEWSWEEK survey criticizes the spectacular progress of the United States as the society's system of rewards favored the men who produced more, who found new ways to exploit nature. There were no riches or prestige for the man who made a deliberate decision to live well enough alone, in this case his environment, unquote. Observe that this system of rewards is treated as if it were an arbitrary whim of society, not an inexorable fact of nature. Who, who is to provide the riches or even the minimum sustenance for the man who does not choose to exploit nature? What is prestige to be granted for? For non production and non achievement? For holding man's life cheaper than his physical environment? When man had to live well enough alone in prehistoric time, his life expectancy was 15 to 20 years. This phrase, to leave well enough alone captures the essence of the deaf, blind, lethargic, fear ridden hatred eaten human ballast that the men of the mind, the prime movers of human survival and progress, have had to drag along to feed and to be martyred by through all the millennia of mankind's history. The Industrial Revolution was the great breakthrough that liberated man's mind from the weight of that ballast. The country born of the Industrial Revolution, the United States of America, achieved the magnificence, one which only free men can achieve and demonstrated that reason is the means, the base, the precondition of man's survival. The enemies of reason, the mystics, the man haters and life haters, the seekers of the unearned and the unreal, have been gathering their forces for a counter attack ever since. It was the corruption of philosophy that gives them a foothold and slowly gives them the power to corrupt the rest. The enemies of the Industrial Revolution, its displaced persons were of the kind that had fought men's achievements and progress for centuries by every means available. In the Middle Ages their weapon was the fear of God. In the 19th century they still invoked the fear of God. For instance, they oppose the use of anesthesia on the ground that it defies God's will. Since God intended men to suffer when this weapon wore out, they invoked the will of the collective, the group, the tribe. But since this weapon has collapsed in their hands, they are now reduced like cornered animals to bear their teeth and their skin souls and to proclaim that man has no right to exist by the divine will of inanimate matter. This is the last stand of the anti industrial Revolution. What do they hope to gain in practice? I shall answer it by quoting a passage from Atlas Shrugged. It was published in 1957. And I must say that I am not at all happy about having been prophetic on this particular issue. It is a scene in which Dagny Taggart, at a conference with the country's economic planners, begins to grasp their motives. Quote Then she saw the answer. She saw the secret premise behind their words. These men were moved forward not by the image of an industrial skyline, but by the vision of that form of existence which the industrialists had swept away. The vision of a fat, unhygienic raja of India with vacant eyes, staring in indolent stupor out of stagnant layers of flesh, with nothing to do but run precious gems through his fingers and once in a while stick a knife into the body of a starved, toil, dazed, germ eaten creature as a claim to a few grains of the creature's rice, then claim it from hundreds of millions of such creatures and thus let the rice grains gather into gems. She had thought that industrial production was a value not to be questioned by anyone. She had thought that this man's urge to expropriate the factories of others was their acknowledgment of the factory's value. She, born of the Industrial Revolution, had not held as conceivable, had forgotten, along with details of astrology and alchemy, what this man knew in their secret, furtive souls. That so long as men struggle to stay alive, they'll never produce so little. But that the men with the club won't be able to seize it and leave them still less, provided millions of them are willing to submit. That the harder their work and the less their gain, the more submissive the fiber of their spirit. That men who live by pulling levers at an electric switchboard are not easily ruled, but men who live by digging the soil with their naked fingers are. That the feudal baron did not need electronic factories in order to drink his brains away out of jeweled goblets. And neither did the rajahs of the People's State of India. Unquote. I thank you.

Ayn Rand addressing the Ford Hall Forum on the topic the anti Industrial Revolution. We'll return to the forum for the question and answer period following a 15 second pause for station identification. This is the Eastern Public Radio Network. This program comes to you live on public radio in boston, wgbhfm. From Boston. You're listening to the Ford Hall Forum tonight. Our speaker is Ayn Rand. And now Forum president Judge Reuben Lurie will begin the question and answer period. Let's go to the floor. You will forgive me if I make a little Announcement about the mechanics of the question period. Some of you may be new. I will take about one question on the first. Go around from each section except this central section where I'll take two. When recognized, please stand and then put your question as briefly as you can, remembering always that you are the questioner. The speaker is on the platform. Question, please. Question here. I'll be back. Yes, come on.

Would you agree that there are some aspects of air pollution that are worse in the hole than out of doors? For instance, the hair sprays, the air, so called air fresheners.

I get it, I get it, I get it. Would you agree that there are some conditions of air pollution that are worse in the home than there are in the atmosphere outside? Such as the various hair sprays and other devices in, including wax that is spread on the floor?

No, I would not. I would say it depends on the home. But I do not agree that the things you mentioned are in any way dangerous. And I'll give you a very simple example. My hairdresser didn't put enough spray on my hair yesterday and it is very uncomfortable for me. But it's a personal choice. Each home should be free to use whichever they please so long as they don't harm others. And no planner has the right to forbid certain products for the consumer's own good. Let the consumer decide.

May I remind you that this hall is a concert hall. The acoustics are amazing and trouble is that I can hear you and I want to hear the questioner. And the more you applaud, the less time you will give Ms. Rand to answer questions. Not that I don't want you to applaud, but with reason. Question, please. Yes, I get it. Will this young man asks for your prediction as to what will happen in the pollution of the atmosphere in a city such as Los Angeles where the condition appears to be serious and growing in seriousness from time to time. What do you think should be done?

To begin with, as against the ecologist, I make predictions only about issues which I do know and nobody knows. The issue of pollution. Such literature as I have read on the subject is so terribly unscientific. Even so, it's written by scientists that nobody can tell the extent of any particular danger, even such as smog. Certainly smog is visible to the naked eye and you know it's a not comfortable and some people claim it stings their eyes. I, by the way, lived for eight years in Los Angeles. It didn't hurt me. But let us assume that it could hurt people with weak lungs. That is all that might be assumed today and even that cannot be proved. And the ecologists themselves complain that they can't give proofs. Well, if they can't, on what ground then do they ask? Total power to plan over us. But specifically about Los Angeles. What should be done? Those people to whom the smog is really damaging, if they so believe, or if their doctor advises should move out of their it is a large country and it is a free country. Nobody can order anybody to live in Los Angeles or in New York or Boston. If some place is bad for your health and many places are on grounds other than fog, then you should not live there. But you cannot forbid it to others.

As part of the ecology problem, Dr. Isaac Asimov suggests that population explosion is a problem. Do you have any comments? This gentleman says that as part of the problem of ecological problem, Dr. Isaac Asimov has suggested that part of this problem is created by the population explosion. Would you care to comment?

I don't believe that there is any kind of problem such as the population explosion. If people were free to produce, they would produce enough to feed themselves. There's certainly enough on this earth to support much larger populations. And if you observe as people become more affluent, more educated, they do not breed large families. Therefore it is not a problem. But it is a terrible problem when populations are growing through ignorance, through anti birth control campaigns or religions and are unable because they are forbidden in controlled economies or dictatorships to make a living for themselves. Yes, then it is a terrible problem. But the solution is freedom and not more power. Here's an interesting historical fact I mentioned that the greatest population explosion in history was in Europe during the 19th century. 300% after a long period of time from the middle ages and on, when the population was growing by about 3 or 5% a year. And at that time all the intellectuals of the altruist socialist collectivist persuasion were raising the same issue about population explosion and that the world was perish of hunger. And they were saying that on the eve of the greatest prosperities that the world had ever known because it was the freest century we ever had. Therefore, today when they hear about fear of population hunger, it is only because they are of the same persuasion and of the same farsightedness as those 19th century socialists. They sense or maybe even know that under controls a growth in population is disastrous, but so is a population of any size under controls it's only a matter of time before the birth of one human being is too much because there's nothing to feed him.

Yes, If I may, I'd like to return to your general philosophy, Ms. Rand, and ask you how would you account for the apparent unselfishness of someone like a doctor or a nurse who appear to live not for themselves but for other people? Successful. They work under bad conditions and for extremely low pay. How do you account for the apparent unselfishness of some doctors and nurses who appear to work not for themselves because they are working under extreme conditions and unsatisfactory conditions?

Well, the answer is really contained in your own question. When you say apparent unselfishness. Good doctors or nurses never are unselfish. They had to be very selfish in order to become competent at their profession. Which means not that they're indifferent to the welfare of their patient, but that they're not practicing their profession for the sake of the patient as a sacrifice against their own interest. They're no more unselfish than anybody who takes part in an exchange economy. If you sell books or you wait on tables or you help people in the hospital, in any profession where you trade with others, you do have to satisfy your customers. And you satisfy them by holding very high standards of your own and then offering them to other people. And if their standard agree with yours, then you make the trade, each party doing it for his own sake, not the other parties. Well, the very same applies to doctors. They're not there to sacrifice to their patient. They're there because this is the profession that interests them. This is the work which they like. And since they are dealing with matters of life and death, it's true that they will very often put themselves to a great discomfort, such as being awakened in the middle of the night if their patient is dying. But since their purpose is human health, the battle against disease, it is not a sacrifice for them to rush to save a patient. If they said no, I prefer to play poker for another half hour and I won't budge. Then they don't like their profession, let alone the patient. There's no sacrifice involved.

Miss Rand, I look forward to your future book on objectives. Are you working on it at present? And do you have any idea when it will be? Thank you. This young gentleman says he's looking forward with eagerness to your new book on objectivism. And please comfort him by telling him you're working on it, you're working on it now. And will you tell him when it will be published?

No. If you mean the book I refer to in the introduction to for the new intellectual, no, I'm not working at it. I am working on my Articles in the Objectivist which are being published into in collection of books and on a new novel, but I can't even tell you when that will be published.

It's hard for me to see. If you'll stand up. I'll see you quicker. Come on, come on.

I don't hear you.

Will you tell this young gentleman how the government will be financed in this free society?

I will refer you to my book called Capitalism the Unknown Ideal, in which there is an article on voluntary taxation or the possible suggestion theoretically of how a free government could be financed. And I can't repeat that, it would take a whole lecture. I would suggest that you read it. In Capitalism the Unknown Ideal. May I add something to the previous question? Really, it's a bit of advertising, but for a good, unselfish cause. Today, the next book of mine that will come out, that I can't predict, and that is I will have a pocketbook that is paperback, published probably in February or March, early spring of 1971, which will be specially addressed to college students and it will be a collection of my articles on the subject of the student revolt, the New Left, et cetera. The articles appeared in the Objectivist and the book will also include today's lecture. I am advertising it because there are so many college students here and I would like you very, very much to read that book if my theory, my philosophy and this subject interest you. Thank you.

This gentleman. Come on. It is plain that the role of the ecologist is one of organizing knowledge, accumulating knowledge in biological sciences and making predictions. Although I agree that I would like to see the ecology taken out of the realm of political concepts. In 1845, in Ireland, an economist and zoologist, an expert, as we would have our colleagues today tried to make the population in the so called diet.

What's the question?

I'm trying to. I wish you would. I wish you would come to the question. I get it, I get it, this gentleman says, and he'll correct me if I haven't got it and I'll try again. This gentleman says that there is the belief that the ecologist is truly seeking, through scientific means and through biological studies and the rest of it, to inform people with regard to the necessity for what the ecology stands for in the effort to prevent the alleged injuries that people are suffering through the failure to realize the purposes of ecology. And this gentleman says he agrees that the ecologist should avoid involvement in political matters and should limit himself simply to scientific pursuits. Now, he says, as an example of what he is questioning, that In Ireland in 1845, there was an ecologist of that time who undertook to assert that the intelligent way of approaching the potato famine was to approach the problem scientifically and seek to avert the blight. This was not paid any attention to with the consequence of migration of many hundreds of thousands and the death of untold thousands in Ireland. And he asks for your comment.

So what's the question?

The question that he said he sought to bring out was is it not true that there is a scientific aspect to the true ecological approach, one that is not concerned with politics, but with the effort scientifically to find out what can be done scientifically to improve conditions?

Well then the question amounts to is science valid? Well, of course, science as it was understood up to the trend of modern philosophy is the most valid and the only powers that man has in learning how to survive. And after all, what is technology except applied science? Therefore, if some man discovered how to prevent potato blight and he can prove it, that is a scientific discovery, he is certainly not the first man whose correct knowledge has been ignored by others and who might have been ignored by his time but then, or even persecuted but then discovered to be right. That has been unfortunately the history of all intellectual pioneers in the world. And one of the things which I am opposing. But then I don't quite see what relevance your question has to the subject of ecology as it is defined and practiced today. I would say more. There would be nothing wrong in a science which attempted, as they claim, to study the biological relationships of the various conditions in the world, interrelationships of species and air pressures and atmosphere and all physical and biological factors. It's very ambitious undertaking. But there'd be nothing wrong in studying it but to make conclusions, to make predictions of doom and demand totalitarian power on the basis of non valid arbitrary hypothesis, I.e. setting back such a science, if it were ever existed or would come into existence, it is setting it back by centuries. It is disgracing the name of science. It is quite obviously nothing but the political and press agent move as to whether one can study relationship with certainty. But one would need a totally different philosophy. Observe that today's philosophy, in all the known more or less defined sciences, objects to system building. It objects to the integration of knowledge. Yet here is a very modern movement which is attempting integrations on the basis of of ignorance. When they acquire a better scientific epistemology, then certainly it might be a very important science. But even if they present predicted correctly universal doom, they would have no right to impose their wisdom so called true or false by force on the rest of mankind. Those who would agree with them then would be saved. Those who don't would perish. But no discovery, no concept, no fact. Take that as an absolute. Can give any human being or group of them the power to enforce their decisions, right or wrong, on other human beings. That is the one question which should be regarded as an absolute. If you hold individual rights and therefore men's survival as any kind of value, if you don't speak up openly and admit it.

This gentleman in back there was a person whose hand I saw. Yes, part of contradiction that. I'd like you to fill up.

Your book. That's a contradiction. All right.

Just a minute. Just one minute. Just a minute. Please don't do this. We have no censorship here. None at all. Except the self imposed censorship of courtesy. A questioner is entitled to be heard without this type of interruption. If, when he's finished, you want to indicate a reaction, that's all right, but don't undertake to cut him off. Go ahead, sir. Now come to the point, please. Not by failing to change, to hold true to Howard Ross planning in the Portland with the result of bombing. Now, I saw your movie or the movie I'm trying to see your question. And it said you wrote the screenplay. And I assumed it would be an act similar to that same true principles. When I saw the film, I saw almost what might be called a complete betrayal of the novel in its commercialization. It's overdrawn.

Please.

What is your question?

If Curtis is the principal, I will not stand for this. I'm being insulted without grounds here.

Wait, wait. Wait a minute, please. Now hold on a minute. Hold on a minute. Come to your question immediately. I get it. This gentleman says that he found a contradiction between the climax in Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead and the moving picture that was based upon it. And he finds it difficult to understand this apparently contradiction. And he wonders whether or not you had any control over it.

If you were any kind of dramatist and if you understood literature and the difference between a novel and a screenplay, you would take your head off to me for what I accomplished in that movie.

Thank you.

Come on. I would just like you to comment on the fact that before the Industrial Revolution, probably the greatest minds in the world, some of the greatest minds in the world, the philosophers and literary minds, lived very full lives and enriching lives without the use of technology.

Will you comment upon the fact that before the Industrial Revolution, there were many of the greatest minds. Minds, literary minds and the artistic Minds that lived full lives without the Industrial Revolution. Or before the Industrial Revolution.

You mean as trembling prisoners of a rich political patron, if and when they could get one full lives, such as, for instance, Chopin, now that's the beginning, early in the 19th century, who died in his searches of consumption, are those rich full lives? The great minds before the Industrial Revolutions were the great exceptions. It is only a very unusual combination of circumstances, either inherited wealth or some not too tyrannical protector at court that could possibly permit a man in literature or philosophy to function at all. But in the 19th century, you suddenly saw the most amazing flowering of human talent. The two other periods similar in quality were the Renaissance and Ancient Greece. For a brief period. Why? Because men were free and therefore could exercise their talents, could bring them out and found their own way, and didn't have to beg for royal sustenance, and didn't have to be sent to jail or exiled or sometimes executed for their ideas.

Come on. What would you say to the notion of competing governments? What would you say to the notion of competing in government?

That it is an irresponsible piece of nonsense and it's the only answer it deserves.

Will you please explain what you meant when you said that restricting technology is a contradiction in terms of.

Because technology depends on men's inventive freedom, the freedom to invent and to produce. Once you put restrictions on that, and you put technology under a commissar or Gaulleiter, you lose the best man immediately. Then really independent men are not going to produce. The better ones, who might remain by sheer chance or accident, or who are more tolerant, will eventually be displaced by the ruling cliques. Favorites, which happened in Germany under Hitler and in Soviet Russia, is still going on. So that the best minds are incapacitated in technology because they have to be subject to the orders of the commissars or the switches of the party line. And by that means the country produces less and less by that process. But also a point I wanted to remind you of. You cannot isolate one branch of technology or of knowledge from others. You cannot restrict one branch, but say, oh, go ahead freely in medicine, but not in refrigerator production. All branches of knowledge are interconnected. One invention opens incalculable, unpredictable avenues to other inventions in other sciences, because this is the way free minds operate. You cannot predict who or when we'll get an idea. But a man who is free to think and to produce as he sees a development in one branch of technology, he applies it to his own branch. For instance, as a very simple example, there have been Enormous gains for medicine from our space exploration program. Many of these things were applied or led to discoveries in regard to medicine. And the whole history of science is full of examples of that kind. Once you begin to restrict, you cut off all of that. You cut off the free invention of minds which you can't control and can't predict. How can any one man or body of man know what genius is born, where and what kind of ideas might occur to him? That's an impossibility by definition. But you have seen attempts at controlled technology in all history, for all recorded history, from the most primitive techniques to the 19th century and to today, and you can see it doesn't work. You cannot restrict technology, you can only destroy it.

Way in back, please. Come on, hand up. Can't we find an ecological philosophy that could be applied to the industrial revolution of today rather than, as to the use of your own quotation, a return to the ages of the brontosaurus. Can we not find an ecological development to be applied to the needs of the day rather than a return to what the gentleman describes as virtually a prehistoric term?

I don't know what he means by that.

If you want to rephrase your question, I'll take it. Yes, you suggested that ecologists, in fact, if we follow through on some of the things that we suggested, that in fact we would be returning brontosaurus. And I'm asking you, if you cannot find a happy medium between these two alternatives, is it necessary for the ecologist, of whom the gentleman identifies himself as one, to be confronted with the unhappy necessity of returning to this prehistoric animal and his time? Is there not a happier medium for.

Them to begin with? I didn't suggest returning to the brontosaurus because we weren't there when he perished. We can't return somewhere where we had not been. I'm not suggesting. I'm proving that collectivism is a return to savagery, never mind metaphors. With or without brontosaur, there's plenty of modern savages. And when you can see the hippie movement and the drug chants and the Woodstock festival or similar events, you don't have to go far. You see prehistory right in your own backyard. Now. That is the return quote to nature as the ecologist seed and publicize it and approve of Now, I don't know what the middle will be between that and what and a free technological civilization. No, there is no middle. And. Oh, excuse me. Yes, perhaps there is, only that isn't quite what you would take as a middle. Why don't all the nature lovers move out of technological nations and start their own movement in nature. There are plenty of unpolluted places. Let them move there. And if, and I'm only being polite here, if they prove their point that way, within a few generations, the world would follow their example. It certainly followed the example of capitalism when it proved its validity and its value. But the attempt to introduce savagery in a civilization of computers and nuclear weapons. Where would be the middle between a rational man and a self made savage? Which is worse than simply an innocent savage who doesn't know any better? Come on.

With reference to your article, if retaliation according to Objectivist principles is valid for some men, that is those men who have established themselves with the label of legitimate government, why is it not valid for all men? The relation of government. What was the first you mentioned an article with reference to her essay the Nature of Government. With reference to your article the Nature of Government, he asked why the principles that were set forth there would not apply to all men.

Well, I did state that the principles do apply to all men. And in that same essay, the Nature of Government, I covered the point of this question, why? I state that men, men have the right to retaliate by force against an initiation of force. But if men wish to live together in a free society, they have to delegate that right to the government. And I stated why personal retaliation cannot be proper because the government, in a free society, a proper government functions under objective, effectively define laws. Laws which state what constitutes an offense, what constitutes a crime, and above all what constitutes proof. Therefore, the government properly would act as the arbiter and the agent of an injured party and retaliate in his name and protect him. If incidentally a man is killed, caught in a back street, and somebody pulls a gun at him, he, even under today's laws or principle, and under Objectivism too, would have a perfect right to then fight back when he is alone and attacked. But he doesn't have the right to initiate force. He has the right of self defense. Now, if every man wanted to exercise his right of retaliation by himself, and I covered even that in the essay, just project the kind of chaos of arbitrary whims and total irrationalities that would be the rule in the country. You could not have a society because all the honest or rational men, supposing you had a total majority but one, they would be at the mercy of the first dishonest, an irrational man who wanted to take force into his own hands as a right or as a system. He cannot have that right in A social context. He cannot use force when there is a government that is going to protect him. Under objective standards, force is not an issue to be used at arbitrary whim.

Further question up here. Yes. Come on. Innocent of what? Evil. Evil? Will you comment upon the statement that as Americans we are innocent of evil?

I didn't say that. I wish we were. No, I didn't say that.

Wait a minute.

I said.

Did I not get it? I'm afraid you did. I'm sorry.

I know where he made mistake. I said Americans are likely to be extremely innocent about the nature of evil. That is, which means they do not know what is the nature of evil, how far it can go and how to recognize it. Which doesn't mean that individual Americans are incapable of plenty of evils. No people, no individual of any race are immune from that. But I meant American culture. Americans are innocent in this respect. Innocent in the sense of not knowing something evil, not innocent in the criminal sense of not having committed evil actions.

Up here. Yes. Come on. Yes. Should American business have a policy in an authoritarian country? Give an example, like oil in, say, Venezuela or sugar and Cuba, should they have a policy of trying to bring out a laissez faire capitalism? Could I elaborate? No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You don't need to. Perhaps it'll be clarified by Ms. Rand. Thank you. Should America government be involved in connection with the problems of authoritarian governments such as the oil situation in Venezuela? And this gentleman cites what used to be the interference in connection with sugar in Cuba? And he asked, what is the role of this government, a free government, so to speak, with an. I'm sorry, you misstated it. I was saying the role of the business to that Authoritarian. Yes, but you didn't let me finish. What is the role of the businessman and connection with the policy of the government in an authoritarian country?

Do you mean the American businessman in regard to Cuban sugar?

No. I'll put it. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute, my friend, this gentleman. I think the question is an interesting one, if you will permit me to reward you. This gentleman says that under a system of laissez faire capitalism and the business interest undertaking to go into a country which is under an authoritarian regime, what is the effect of such interest upon the political government's attitude towards it? Sir, Sir. Sir. Be content. Be content.

Is the question. Should they go in? No.

What should their attitude be?

They should not. However, if you had a completely free government and free society, I wouldn't venture to say should the government or should it not impose embargoes on dictatorships? That is a very technical question. I would say this. If embargoes are necessary, if a certain dictatorship like Cuba is quite a threat to this country simply as a base for Soviet Russia, then if there is a demonstrable danger of war or physical attacks, then the government of a free country would have the right to impose an embargo on that country, therefore forbidding businessmen to deal with it. But you know what is much better and what actually did happen in the 19th century? The government wouldn't have to forbid a businessman to deal with the bad countries of the time, like South American dictatorship, which changed every few months, wasn't forbidden. Only the government would not protect or help citizens who dealt with unstable regimes of that kind. So for the attitude of the government was, if you want to deal with dictatorships, do so at your own peril. And the dictatorships took care of the peril. That the businessmen who collaborated did not come out of it too well in modern times. It applies particularly to the businessmen who collaborated with Soviet Russia. And most of our big companies, unfortunately, did help to establish Soviet Russia economically. For details of that, read a book by Mr. Sutton on. I forget the exact title. It's the Western Industry and Soviet Economic Development. Some title like that, but the author's name is Sutton. S U T T O N. And it's a remarkable book on the history of American relationships to Russia. Businessmen who helped develop Russian industries and all but lost their shirt at it, and they're still trying to do it.

You must keep to the microphone as.

To what are their motives. Some of them were liberals, some were pushed by liberals, some were simply ignorant. But their events demonstrated that they were wrong. It wouldn't have been necessary to forbid any. Does that answer your question?

I hope so, yes. Come on. How do you answer the charge level.

That you often with the conservative right.

That your philosophy and that of a socialist philosophy are much akin insofar as both are dogmatic, both are very materialistic and overly optimistic of technology? How do you answer the criticism of those. How do you answer the criticism of those who are on the conservative right? That your philosophy is akin to the philosophy of the left and the socialist side because both alike are dogmatic and both alike are materialistic?

I do not argue with mystics. I never answer the smear of National Review, and therefore I will not answer you on all the same grounds.

Wait a minute. Sir, sir, sir, sir, sir, please. No, I understand.

All right. If you do apologize, I will tone down and Point out to you where the smear was. To call a philosophy that demands the absolutism of reason and of proof, like mine, to call it dogmatic, which means something arbitrarily taken off on face is the most profound smear. And if you didn't intend it, I'll accept your word for it. But then be awfully careful of sources like National Review.

I believe this Rank has illustrated that evil is not necessary because of violence. Are evil. That what? Coercive monopolies are evil? Yes, Government is a coercive monopoly. Therefore government is a necessary evil, either government. This gentleman finds a statement in your book relative to the evil of coercive monopolies. Now, he suggests that government is a coercive monopoly. And therefore he finds that if you undertake to assert that coercive monopolies are evil, are you not compelled, he believes, to assert that the government, since in his point of view, is a coercive monopoly, also is evil?

I have dealt with that question so many times in so many articles that I will not go into it again. I will only suggest to those who are interested that they read the very book you mentioned. Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal, the specific article, the Nature of Government. And then as a side issue, my article on monopolies, which is called America's Persecuted Minority, Big Business and other articles in that book. But this in particular, if you have read it and have not retained the context and my definition of the difference between the nature of government and the nature of industry, between political power and economic power. If you haven't got it from my writing, you will not get it from my speaking. Five minutes.

This gentleman up here, come on.

Wait a minute.

All quiet, please. Could this gentleman. Could this gentleman have your opinion of the Nixon administration in general and Spiro Agnew in particular?

I did not expect too much from Mr. Nixon, but I was disappointed. Now, I could criticize Spiro Agnew, but with big reservations, because he is the victim of the most vicious smear campaign that I have ever witnessed. My criticism of him would be the exact opposite of the liberal's criticism. And I was in the same predicament in the case of Joseph McCarthy who is still being smeared. You know, McCarthyism. I didn't believe that McCarthy was philosophical enough to undertake the kind of battle he did. And I say the same thing about Spiro Agnew. What he's doing is fine up to a certain point. On a journalistic level, somebody has to speak out. And the liberals and the press are doing their best to prove him Right. By the kind of tactics they are using against him. Only he has no philosophical base and therefore he is tragically sticking his neck out. I don't believe he will accomplish much for the moment. However, it's wonderful to hear somebody saying something that is not. Mealy mouth, apologetic and middle of the road.

Come on. The gentleman way in back.

Knowledge of what?

What is the considerable knowledge in what? Physiognomy. Yeah, I get it, yeah. Yes. Do you believe that this gentleman says that in your novels he has come to the conclusion that you have displayed considerable knowledge of physiognomy which has to do with the mind having an influence upon the ultimate features of the phase?

I didn't know there was such a science, if that's what it is. But no, I have no particular theory on the subject.

Further question. Up here. Come on, come on, come on. Wait a minute, my friend. Go slow, go slow. In writing about self actualizing people who.

Seem to be the kind of people.

You are interested in, positively described as.

One of their characteristics altruistic love as a human being.

Professor Maslow, Joseph was consulted to industry. Would you comment on this idea that.

Altruistic love as part of healthy individuals.

In presuming that the reverse is true, those who do not love that altruistic.

Blood are not and the five.

Will you comment upon the statement attributed by. Quiet please. Quietly. Will you comment upon the statement attributed by this questioner to the late Professor Maslow who said that it was quite essential that there should be an altruistic attitude on the part of people in industry. Wait a minute, my friend. Come up. Stand up so I can see you. Self actuating. I get it. Self actuating men found as a result, according to Maslow, found as a result of his studies that these men were assisted by an altruistic attitude.

I have written on altruism several million words. I have read on the subject such experts as Plato, Kant, Hegel, Marx and on down. And I have opposed and am opposing their argument. I am not interested in Mr. Maslow's arguments. So I know who he is. I mean, not him personally. I know of his writing. It is so much on the fringe on the issue, so primitive and so irrelevant that it is nothing more than an arbitrary pronouncement. And the only thing I wish you would not do, at least not in my presence. You are free to do anything when I am not around, is to ascribe to be a liking to the kind of people that he projects. You started your question by saying the kind of people that I Would like are altruists. Don't do it. The kind of people I would like are in my novels or in real life. I would name them to you. They can be named very briefly. Don't ascribe any other liking to me. Come on.

This gentleman standing. Come on.

Wait a minute.

Of self, a measure of freedom. Want to achieve this aim, the absence of anarchy. Now, whether that be analogous with respect to pollution, that in order to protect ourselves against what is projected to be an evil name of collusion, that in fact governments institute objective rules.

I get it.

If government is created in order to control and prevent the emergence of anarchy, is not a government justified in undertaking to protect the pollution, let us say, of a stream, by taking adequate steps in order to prevent the worst from happening, as it does in connection with the effort to prevent anarchy.

I never would use such expression as we have to give up a measure of freedom. That's what the conservatives are using, not me. Therefore observe how imprecision can lead one into trouble. If we had to give up a measure of freedom, well then we would end up giving up everything. Because excuses can be invented for any giving up. When I speak of not retaliating in person, it isn't giving up a freedom which we had but then gave up. We don't have the freedom to attack another person. We don't have the freedom to initiate force. We have the right of self defense. But since another person is involved and we want to deal with other people and leave a society, we have to establish certain objective rules by which self defense will be exercised. That's not giving up a freedom that you ever had or a right that you ever had. You don't have the right to attack another human being by force, but you do have the right of answering by force if he attacks you. Now therefore that has nothing to do with surrendering freedom. It's merely protecting yourself and everybody else from the irrational use of force. But now, to give up your rights because of the pollution that somebody alleges somebody else is doing, and to let that somebody rule you to begin with, even if the they had some true knowledge, even if they had it, it is still up to them to convince you and then you can obey them voluntarily. Their superior knowledge, if it existed, which is singularly, eloquently absent, their superior knowledge, would not give them the right to demand that you or the rest of us give up our freedom. And nor would that be a solution. You'd never give up freedom of judgment and freedom of production, or freedom of controlling your life. That those rights you do have, and they are inalienable morally in the sense that they may be infringed, but they must never be surrendered.

Is there a question here? Yes. Come on. In a society where a person rights, the laws of society are not objectively defined. So the individual in that response, in that society does not have recourse to the government to protect his rights. What are his responsibilities towards protecting his own values? What is the responsibility of the individual towards respecting his own values or protecting his own values?

It isn't a responsibility to begin with. It's his own choice. You say if you posit an individual in a dictatorial government that doesn't protect or recognize his rights, what should he do? Is that the question? Get the hell out of there as fast as he can. You cannot leave nor maintain any values for long. Under a dictatorship, there is nothing that an individual can do except get out. If the whole world went dictatorship, then all an individual could do is form a conspiracy which will probably be discovered in five minutes and die that way rather than commit suicide. But that would be his own only choice.

I want to say something, and I hope Ms. Rand will forgive me. I had asked Ms. Rand and I asked her when I was speaking to her earlier, as to whether I was correct in my understanding of my memory of a talk we had had some years back. When Ms. Rand told me, as I thought, that this was the only public forum whose invitation she accepted. And her answer pleased me so much. And because when the forum is concerned, I'm very immodest, I'm going to ask.

Her to give it to you with great pleasure. I won't forgive you. I'll thank you for this. Yes, this is true. This is the only invitation to lectures that I accept and have been very happy to have been invited once and every season. And I'm very happy to be here. My reason is as follows. To my knowledge, this is the only intellectual organization of its kind in the whole country. By intellectual organization I mean an organization that is truly and respectfully interested in ideas, takes them seriously, and invites, in the majority of cases, only speakers who do deal with ideas seriously, whether the organization agrees with them or not. It is the only organization that has the policy of the best liberals of the 19th century, which was a free expression, exchange of ideas, freedom of expression and respect for the intellectual realm. As such, today's liberals degrade the name. But in the 19th century, people really did believe that people could express different ideas freely and disagree openly and still remain civilized. The only organization of this kind is the Ford Hall Forum. And since you've asked me to speak freely, I attach great deal of the credit, or I give a great deal of the credit to Judge Lurie. I want to say that. So obviously you understand, because it is his influence and his kind of severe fairness in conducting a forum that has kept this organization intellectual, fair and open. And that is very rare today. And I have not seen another public instance of it. I thank you very much.

I had not anticipated this twist, but I thank you and I thank Ms. Rand. This forum is very dear to me. As some of you know, I'm about to celebrate the 50th year of my active connection with it, and I've been presiding regularly until this year for 30 years. It is terribly important, I think, for the welfare of our community that we should hear various points of view. That questioners should be encouraged to put their questions without the fear of ridicule from those in the audience who may differ with them. That the speakers should be listened to courteously with whatever sense of disgrace, disagreement the questioner may have, and that out of this mutual search we may find ourselves enriched as human beings. This, I think, is the challenge that the forum offers to you, and I trust it will be the challenge that you will always insist that the forum should meet. Thank you very much. And so we come to the end of the sixth meeting of the 63rd season of the Ford Hall Forum. Tonight, our speaker has been Ms. Ayn Rand. She has spoken and answered questions on the subject the anti industrial revolution.