Elon Musk earned every penny of his trillion-dollar fortune and has a right to keep and use it for his own benefit. He earned his fortune by being enormously successful at producing products that others voluntarily purchased. He built several successful companies, including PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX. He risked enormous amounts of his own and others’ capital and almost went bankrupt in the process.
Musk and other productive geniuses create wealth and thus raise the productive capability and standard of living in the economy. They don’t steal wealth or expropriate it from some to redistribute it to others, as politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren want to do. Musk makes people better off through trade. His employees are better off because they’re able to obtain jobs they wouldn’t otherwise have. His customers are better off because they obtain products that make their lives better. These are win-win relationships for Musk, his employees, and his customers.
All individuals have a right to their own lives and a right to live their lives as they see best. No one has the right to violate the rights of others. Rights protect freedom. Freedom means the absence of the initiation of force, the absence of compulsion and coercion. Whether a person has wealth worth one dollar or a trillion dollars, if he has obtained it through honest, voluntary trade, he has a moral right to keep it. It’s immoral for some people, whether politicians or criminals, to initiate force to take the wealth.
Expropriating wealth from individuals who’ve earned it to give it to those who haven’t is economically destructive because it rewards parasitism, laziness, and being unproductive.
People must work to support themselves, not live as parasites off of others. Encouraging people to support themselves promotes greater production and a higher standard of living in the economy, for the rich and poor alike.
Attempting to achieve greater income equality through the welfare state is immoral and unjust because it requires force to expropriate wealth and income from those who earned it to give it to those who didn’t. It also sacrifices some people for the sake of others.
The morality of altruism provides the moral basis for the welfare state because it says it’s moral to sacrifice oneself to others. But this morality is destructive to human life because to the degree one practices it, one undermines one’s ability to survive and flourish. For example, should I eat a plate of food I obtained through my own productive efforts? Not according to altruism. Instead, I should give it to someone who needs it more. One’s own death would be the result if one acted consistently on this principle.
The opposite is egoism. This morality says we have a right to our own life and the right to live it to pursue our own selfish happiness. It says it’s immoral to sacrifice ourselves to others or others to ourselves. It says we should deal with others as traders and trade value for value to each person’s advantage.
Egoism is consistent with the requirements of human life. It enables individuals to flourish; it doesn’t call for sacrifice and suffering. There’s a harmony of rational self-interests in a society where rights and freedom are respected because the success of each person promotes the well-being of all people. For example, to become richer, Elon Musk must produce products that make people better off to get them to voluntarily purchase the products.
One might ask here: What about the poor and needy? Who will take care of them? If you want to help them, no one will stop you. But you have no right to force others to help them.
The battle between the expropriators and the rights protectors is ultimately a battle between altruism and egoism. Unfortunately, altruism is embraced by most of humanity. It’s also been the dominant morality throughout human history, whether due to religion or secular ideas such as socialism. It wasn’t until fairly recently that Ayn Rand showed us the destructive and vicious nature of altruism and the benevolent and life-promoting nature of egoism.
Egoism needs to be embraced more widely. We need to protect the rights of productive individuals, such as Elon Musk or any lesser producer, from the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warrens of the world. These power lusters want to violate rights to gain more control over people’s lives, punish success, and sacrifice productive people. We need to end the orgy of sacrifice and rights violations and embrace the morality of rational self-interest and the protection of rights to achieve a more peaceful and prosperous society.
Brian P. Simpson is a professor of economics at National University in San Diego, and author of the books “Markets Don’t Fail!”, “Money, Banking, and the Business Cycle” (two volumes), and “A Declaration and Constitution for a Free Society.”