ARC News Release

PRESS ADVISORY AYN RAND CENTER FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
555 12th Street NW, Suite 620 N, Washington, DC 20004
October 9, 2008

Capitalism Without Guilt: The Moral Case for Freedom

Who: Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights
What: A talk defending the profit motive and presenting the moral case for laissez-faire capitalism. A Q&A will follow.
Where: National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW, Washington, D.C.
When: Wednesday, October 22, 2008, at 6:30 PM

The public and media are invited. Admission is FREE.

Description: Capitalism has an undisputed record of wealth generation, yet it has always functioned under a cloud of moral suspicion. In a culture that venerates Mother Teresa as a paragon of virtue, businessmen sit in stoic silence while their pursuit of profits is denounced as selfish greed.

Society tells businessmen to sacrifice, to serve others, to “give back”--counting on their acceptance of self-interest as a moral crime, with chronic guilt its penance. Is it any wonder that productive giants from John D. Rockefeller to Bill Gates have behaved as if profit-making leaves a moral stain that only tireless philanthropy can launder but never fully remove?

It is time America heard the moral case for laissez-faire capitalism.

Two centuries ago the Founding Fathers established a nation based on the individual’s rights to life, liberty, property--and the selfish pursuit of his own happiness. But neither the Founders nor their successors could properly defend self-interest and the profit motive in the face of moral denunciation. The result has been a slow destruction of freedom in America, leading us to today’s economic mess.

In this inaugural lecture celebrating the launch of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights (ARC), in Washington, D.C., executive director Yaron Brook will demonstrate how Ayn Rand’s revolutionary ethics of rational self-interest supplies the moral foundation that previous proponents of capitalism lacked. Dr. Brook will explain why individual rights are crucial for capitalism’s survival--why productivity and profit, the “selfish greed” that conservatives abhor, are not vices but cardinal virtues, and he will explain why Americans must reject McCain/Obama-style “national service” and instead proudly embrace the radical individualism their lives and happiness require.

Bio: Dr. Yaron Brook is president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. A former finance professor, he has been published in academic as well as popular publications, and his opinion-editorials appear in major newspapers. He is frequently interviewed on national TV and radio. Dr. Brook lectures on Objectivism, business ethics and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.
For more information on this talk, please e-mail media@aynrandcenter.org


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Dr. Yaron Brook is available for interviews now and after his talk.
Contact: Larry BensonE-mail: media@aynrandcenter.org
Phone: (949) 222-6550, ext. 213
For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”
Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Center for Individual Rights. All rights reserved.
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This release is copyrighted by the Ayn Rand Center, and cannot be reprinted without permission except for noncommercial, self-study or educational purposes. We encourage you to forward this release to friends, family, associates or interested parties who would want to receive it for these purposes only. Any reproduction of this release must contain the above copyright notice. Those interested in reprinting or redistributing this release for any other purposes should contact media@aynrandcenter.org. This release may not be forwarded to media for publication. ARC's media releases are solicitations sent to addresses obtained from individual subscription requests. The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, 555 12th Street NW, Suite 620 N, Washington, DC 20004

Note: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC

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