Capitalism and Morality: Twin Pillars of the West
2017-12-17 · Guest: Jayant Bhandari (Resident of Singapore) · 51:23
Capitalism and Morality in Western Civilization
Bob Zadek and guest Jayant Bhandari discuss the foundational roles of capitalism and morality in Western civilization. Bhandari argues that democracy is often a “cancer” when imposed on irrational or tribalistic societies, and they explore the impact of immigration on Western institutions and voting patterns.
Topics: Capitalism, Morality, Democracy, Immigration, Western Civilization, Bill of Rights, Boston Tea Party, Public Choice, Rationality
Speakers: Bob Zadek, Jayant Bhandari, Caller (Jacob)
Twin Birthdays of Liberty [00:19]
Bob Zadek: Hello everyone, welcome to the Bob Zadek Show, the only live libertarian talk radio show on the air all weekend and the longest-running libertarian talk radio show in California. Thank you so much for listening this twin birthday morning. Twin birthday, he says? Well, two important events in American history happened on this weekend.
In December 16th of 1773, we had the Boston Tea Party. The Boston Tea Party was one of the sparks that led to armed conflict called the American Revolution that resulted—part of a chain of events—that is why we are here today. An important event in American history. For those of you interested in the Boston Tea Party, I was pleased to do a show on the Boston Tea Party many years ago with a writer, Harlow Unger, who wrote a wonderful book on the Boston Tea Party. Still a good read.
Also on this weekend, in 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified. As you may recall, when the Constitution was adopted by the states, ratified by the colonies, then became the states, the Constitution lacked a Bill of Rights. Many states agreed to ratify the Constitution only with the addition of the Bill of Rights. James Madison, in the first meeting of the House of Representatives, honored his promise and introduced the first 10 amendments to the Constitution called the Bill of Rights, which was ratified. And thus we have the Bill of Rights today.
And I dare say the Constitution would be merely the shell of a document that it is without the Bill of Rights. And as proof of that, I will point out to you that whenever our rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom of assembly—whenever those rights are under attack, those people who defend our rights in court do not cite to the Constitution, but rather cite to the Bill of Rights as the source of those protections. That tells us that without the Bill of Rights, we would not have had any protections whatsoever. The wisdom of the anti-federalists who imposed and forced the new government to adopt the Bill of Rights. Happy birthday, Bill of Rights. Happy birthday, Boston Tea Party.
Compassion and the Western Experience [01:00]
Bob Zadek: This morning’s show is entitled “Capitalism and Morality: Twin Pillars of the West.” Twin pillars of the West. Hmm. One would think that one of the pillars of the West should be, or democracy should be included with capitalism and morality, but it is not. Why was that excluded? We will learn this morning. I’m pleased to welcome to the show this morning, appearing joining us live from India, is Jayant Bhandari. Jayant is a resident of Singapore. His biography, which I will ask him to summarize briefly, is quite interesting. And Jayant, by dint of the history of his life, he has a unique, unique perspective on values, capitalism, morality, and democracy. Those pillars—he has a unique perspective given his life experiences. And I’m delighted to welcome Jayant to the show this morning to share with him, to share with us, his views on the future of capitalism, morality, and yes, democracy in the West. Jayant, welcome to the show this morning.
Jayant Bhandari: Thank you very much for having me on, Bob.
Bob Zadek: Now, Jayant, tell us—I don’t usually do this with my guests, but because your background will help our audience understand the value of your perspective and your observations, tell us briefly those parts of your biography that influenced your view that you’re going to share with us this morning.
Jayant Bhandari: Bob, I was 26 years old when I first moved to the UK to do my post-graduation. That was the first day when I experienced compassion from strangers. That was the first day in my life I understood the meaning of compassion. Now, this is the difference between societies based on reason, morality, compassion, empathy, which is the Western civilization, and then you have the rest. The difference between the West and the non-Western societies is so huge that if you have grown outside the Western society, there has to be something wrong about you if you cannot see this difference. I experienced morality, rationality, and compassion in the West, and this is what I learned living those two years in the United Kingdom.
Bob Zadek: But aren’t humans—this may seem naive, and I’m asking it really to hear your observation—I have quite an optimistic and positive view of the world. Aren’t humans inherently compassionate and moral, and isn’t that the default way they are, and any other type of behavior is taught into them, or compassion is taught out of them? Or am I hopelessly naive?
Jayant Bhandari: I would say, just in this context, yes, that that is naivety. There are two kinds of societies in the world, and one is the Western civilization, which actually believes in compassion and empathy and morality and honesty and integrity. And to a certain extent, you see the same in East Asia, which is Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore. However, Bob, the concept of compassion and reason and empathy is virtually non-existent in Africa, the Middle East, in South Asia, and in most of Latin America. Now, this lack of compassion and reason in these countries is so common that what you end up in these societies is extreme tribalism, extremely superstitious behavior.
Now, Bob, what actually happens is that because you and I look the same and these days we wear the same clothes and we often wear the same, listen to the same music, watch the same movies, and watch use the same kind of perfumes, the reality is that it makes us think that we are all the same. But you have to really distinguish and separate the world into two parts: a rational world, which is the Western civilization, and a non-rational world, which is most of the non-Western societies.
Capitalism as a Moral Achievement [04:30]
Bob Zadek: And how does that absence of rationality find its way into an economic system, a system of governance? The subject, after all, and the topic of many of your talks that you give in Vancouver and elsewhere in the world deals with and always comes back to the subject of capitalism. Now, capitalism is a—one would think—not a system of morality, it is an economic system. But yet, in hearing you speak, the two concepts of morality on the one hand and capitalism on the other are incredibly intertwined, and you cannot have one without the other. So share with us, if you will, the relationship between morality, a moral view of the world, a way to deal with others, and an economic system, which is the way to trade and to prosper and to improve the standard of living.
Jayant Bhandari: So, in a way, Bob, the concept of reason, I think, is at the foundations of the whole thing. A society has to become rational. When a society becomes rational, it tends to develop compassion, a sense of the rule of law, sense of morality, and as a consequence, a society like that will have capitalism as the way people transact with each other. Now, you cannot really impose capitalism from the top. You have to have a society that believes in morality, a society where people transact more or less in an honest way with each other. People who are self-responsible, people who believe in not begging for free stuff from other people. Only proud people can have capitalism in their societies.
Bob Zadek: So in other words, it’s people have to feel a certain way about themselves and their own lives and those around them for capitalism—that’s the petri dish in which capitalism will grow and succeed. But capitalism cannot be done, as you have said, by fiat. That is, you cannot go into a third-world country and impose capitalism by rule of law and say, “From now on, here’s the way you deal with each other.” It has to have the fertilizer, the petri dish, if you will, in order to survive, or else it’ll just be mechanical but not really—it will not take root. Is that a fair summary?
Jayant Bhandari: Absolutely. Remember, for 300 to 500 years, Christian missionaries started to establish themselves in Africa, in Latin America, in South Asia. And these Christian missionaries understood very well that they had to wean these superstitious, tribalistic mindset out of the societies of these societies. They knew that these people needed to be taught the concept of reason. And until you have really enlightened these people, they clearly understood—and this was not just Christian missionaries, but also European colonial powers—that unless these people woke up, they would not really be people who could rule themselves.
And as a result, what you had was a consistent improvement of these societies in the third world. European colonizers were no saints, but they actually significantly brought in consciousness in these third-world countries. What happened is that after the Second World War, political correctness became a predominant intellectual aspect of the Western societies, which meant that we started to see everyone as equal, everyone as the same, all cultures to hold the same values, which meant that we in the Western society, these people started to think that all you needed was a proper set of institutions imposed on these countries, and all these countries would be on the path to progress. And this has been the reason behind many of the erroneous decisions of the US government. They have tried to impose democracies on many of these countries, and in every single case—and I can go country after country—every single case in these third-world countries, once you impose democracy, the situation became worse, not better. It became worse. The psychology of masses, the lowest common denominator of the masses, started to reflect in the institutions of these societies, and these societies have continued to degrade after they accepted democracy. They then became spineless dictatorship, communist, and then back to democratic—a spineless democratic system. That is a cycle these third-world countries have been on for the last 70 years.
The Flaws of Democracy [06:30]
Bob Zadek: If you had to pick one country as the best example of that thesis, what country would it be?
Jayant Bhandari: Well, look at Pakistan. Pakistan was a country which was doing which has done reasonably well in the past when it was under military dictatorship. Every time the masses and the women and the men would come to the streets while they had military dictatorship to get democracy, the moment they got democracy, immediately the fanatic elements, the fanatic aspects of the societies kicked in, and it made Pakistan slowly and surely a religious country. Every time, every cycle, when Pakistan becomes democratic country, women get locked back into their houses because the fanatic elements are the people who rule when the masses decide who should rule those societies. Democracy does not work because the lowest common denominator in every society, the lowest 51% of the society, decides who should run your country. It is a non- and anti-meritocratic system of governance.
Bob Zadek: Any listener listening to us this morning would conclude is that implicit in what you are saying is that democracy is not necessarily the best tool for governance, the best structure for a country. That democracy is only selectively, in the right place at the right time, only then will democracy be effective. But democracy is looked upon generally in the world as being a universal good. The more democracy, the better, if you will. You cannot have too much democracy, like you cannot be too rich or too thin. You cannot have too much democracy. And what you are saying, and by the way, which I agree 100%, is that democracy is not automatically a universal good, but it is simply one element of governance, but not necessarily the more the better.
Jayant Bhandari: In my view, Bob, democracy actually is the worst form of government. The problem with democracy is that governments today are the biggest and most powerful institutions we have anywhere in the world. Now, when you decide on a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer, someone who builds bridges, you don’t vote who should construct those bridges. There’s a meritocratic system by which these people are selected and by which these people construct the bridges and how these people come to become doctors. Now, the problem is that the least competent people in terms of their lack of understanding of public policy and governance are the people because they are striving for bread and circuses, vote in democracy, and they are the people who have the most vote in the society, which is the lowest 51% of any society. And because they decide who runs your government, a cycle of populism not only overtakes the institutions of government, but slowly it corrupts absolutely everything in the society. Associations, businesses, everything becomes democratic, everything gets the virus of populism in it. Democracy is a cancer, and that actually is very visible in third-world countries. Democracy, however, has only slowly decayed the Western societies. And because the decay is slow over the last 200 years, for example in the US, it is not very visible. But democracy ensures that your institutions are no longer standing on moral pillars, but on the pillars of populism.
Technical Competence vs. Popular Vote [09:00]
Bob Zadek: You know, I am smiling as you’re speaking because on the one hand, I profoundly agree with you, and I’ll explain—I’ll sort of give a response in a moment. But I can just imagine how our listeners are looking at each other and are wondering, can this be an American libertarian radio show when the guest and the host are bemoaning the pitfalls and the weaknesses of democracy? But I’d like to explain, because I couldn’t agree more. And your point about doctors and engineers and bridge builders is so right on.
I just would like to add an explanation of why I agree so much with what you have said. In the 2008 presidential election when Obama was first elected, the US economy was in decline—not permanent decline, but was suffering. And the question before the voters was, how do we fix the economy? In other words, the question before the voters, more or less, was whether the government should adopt the approach of John Maynard Keynes, which was extensive government spending, spend our way out of the Great Recession, or should it be a less aggressive monetary approach, let businesses fail, let the market find an equilibrium, and then grow out of it on its own? That was the vote before the American public. And the American public, President then-candidate Obama promised a Keynesian approach: spend, spend, spend, spend our way out of the recession. And he won.
Now, voters were being asked to vote on what economic theory made the most sense. PhDs in economics profoundly disagree on that question. And yet the American voter, not trained in economics, was voting on an economic system. It’s absurd. Voters are not informed enough—I include myself—voters are not informed enough to vote on hyper-technical legal issues, but that was the vote. I would further draw an analogy to imagine scientists in a laboratory testing to find a new compound as a medicine to cure a disease. And they have two tests, and they have to figure out which test—what the test results prove. Would anybody imagine putting that to a popular vote? Why, of course not. The scientists have to decide. But yet putting it to a vote is democratic. Thus, democracy has profound weaknesses in terms of decision-making in society. So I agree with you 100% in what you have said. That we have in this country far more democracy than the founders intended, and they were very wise. They knew the limits of democracy, and they gave us a government which was at its founding only one-half of one-third of our government was popularly elected: the House of Representatives. Not the Senate, not the presidency, and certainly not the judiciary. They knew what they were doing. We have evolved into a far more democratic society than the founders gave us, to our weakness, and that finds its culmination in the populism that elected Donald Trump. So Jayant, I couldn’t agree with you more about the weaknesses of democracy and how the masses—not that they are mean-spirited, they simply lack the technical competence to make the right decision.
Jayant Bhandari: Absolutely, Bob. And also when America became independent, not everyone had the right to vote. Only a minority of people had the right to vote. Today, 18-year-old kids who don’t have any understanding whatsoever about public policy, who have never generated wealth in their lives, have the right to vote. They go to the streets, they protest, they want free money for their education, and they want other people to give them free money. And because they vote, their protests are listened to by politicians. So this is actually the democracy itself has become worse and worse as time has passed by. Now, people who don’t have work, people who depend on social welfare, have the right to vote. Those kind of people did not have the right to vote initially when America became independent.
Bob Zadek: And what’s interesting is in law school, you learn early on in one’s education that every right carries with it—and the phrase was a correlative duty. Every right has a corresponding duty. And the right to vote carries with it the duty of being informed. And without fulfilling the duty of being informed and having a stake in the outcome, you ought not have the right to vote. It’s very simple. Rights bring with it duties, and we are very generous with the rights and we are very forgiving with the duties. This is Bob Zadek. I’m spending the morning speaking with Jayant Bhandari. Jayant is a resident of Singapore, lectures extensively in Vancouver, Canada and elsewhere on the subject of capitalism and morality. We’ll be back in 60 really short seconds. Please stay tuned, there’s lots more to come.
[Sponsor break removed]
Immigration and the Preservation of Values [13:30]
Bob Zadek: Welcome back to the Bob Zadek Show, the only live libertarian talk radio show on the air all weekend. I’m joined this morning by Jayant Bhandari. Jayant is a resident of Singapore, born and early education in India, lectures extensively in Vancouver. More about those lectures in a moment. We are discussing subjects that cannot be more important than they are today: capitalism, morality, and yes, democracy as well, which we call the twin pillars of the West. Jayant, you have observed both in Europe, in Canada, and in the US the battles—and they really are battles—over immigration.
I have had many experts on immigration on my show in the past, and my own views have always been, as have my guests’ views, basically and put most simply: let them all in. I look upon the right to travel as an inherent human right, as a natural right. People have the right to improve their lives if they can, to move freely across borders, or they should have. I believe in giving people the opportunity to do the best they can for themselves and for their families. And I do not believe, or did not believe until listening to your material, I strongly believed that the profound benefits of living in the United States—I enjoy those benefits because of the accident of birth. My parents lived here. And I feel uncomfortable about denying those same benefits to somebody else just because of the accident of their birth, that their parents didn’t live here. Where my parents lived had nothing to do with me. I didn’t participate in that decision. I just am a beneficiary. Now, Jayant, you have a very different perspective, and I will say to give the punchline, I find myself as I listen to you becoming more and more persuaded. So I’ve given you my “let them all in” worldview because I want others to benefit from all that flows from being living and working in America. Again, I, in listening to your material, I fear that perhaps I am being a bit naive. So give us a different, your point of view on the subject of immigration.
Jayant Bhandari: Bob, when people think about the US as a melting pot, they forget that most of the immigration, initial immigration to the US happened from Europe. Europeans, as I said initially, are the only rational societies that I have known in my life, and I have been virtually everywhere in the world. Also, East Asia has a capability and they are the also people who are increasingly becoming rational. But the rest of the world is extremely irrational, superstitious, and tribal. And you can’t change these people very easily. My view is that this takes at least a millennia to change. This is how long it took Europeans to become rational from savages.
Now, this is the problem. Look at what has been happening with multi-ethnic societies. One prime example is India. India, everyone hates everyone else, either because they have different languages, they have different kind of racial composition, different kind of religion. They just simply hate each other because not only they are multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious, but also they are irrational people. You have to have rational people before you can overcome the limitations of tribalism and superstition.
Now, if you bring in these people, they don’t really change, Bob. And this is something that I have seen again and again. I initially used the word empathy and compassion, and I told you that as a 26-year-old guy—and this was one of my earlier articles I wrote for the Liberty magazine—as a 26-year-old guy, I felt compassion for the first time in my life. That was the first day of my life in the UK, and I went to my room and cried because I had never experienced compassion. The problem is that a lot of these people from the third world, from Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, come to Europe, experience compassion, but their reaction is not gratitude. Their reaction virtually all the time is that these Europeans are stupid. They don’t feel compassion, they don’t have gratitude, and unless you don’t have it, you just feel very different from what Europeans think you are feeling. And this is why the culture of reason does not mix with culture of lack of reason.
Voting Patterns and the Shift to the Left [16:30]
Bob Zadek: I would have thought—and again, it almost seems as I express my own views, I almost find myself feeling embarrassingly quaint—I always believed, and it’s just my extremely positive worldview, that immigrants come to the West to buy into the Western system, to—and they can’t wait to get totally inculcated with Western culture and Western values as the promised land. But when you speak, you distinguish the external, the surface level of culture—music, clothing, movies, and the like—with the deeper Western culture of morality and empathy and things like that. Please explain where I go astray in thinking that migrants to the US or to Western Europe at their core are doing so to buy into Western culture lock, stock, and barrel.
Jayant Bhandari: Initially, when migrants came to the US, they came for Western values. They were looking for freedom. They were looking to escape tyranny, and they believed in Western values. These were the best Europeans who came to the US. However, you have to again distinguish between people of Europe and people from Africa, Middle East, and South Asia, and even Latin America. These people, when they come to America, they predominantly come for one thing, and that is material benefits. And because they don’t have the moral compass, they don’t really necessarily realize why America is wealthy. They think that America became wealthy because of some kind of rationalizations they create in their own minds. But because they are fundamentally irrational societies, they cannot really understand causality. They cannot really understand why America became a wealthy country. As a result, they want to accept American the benefits of materialism they get from being in America, but they actually deduct from the values that America has: the values of Western civilization, the morality and the honesty and the integrity of that society. And eventually, these people get the vote as well. And look at the voting patterns. A vast majority of people from non-European countries, of non-European background, actually vote for the left. They vote for democratic parties, and they vote so much for the left that the even the Republican Party today is probably more leftist than the Democratic Party was in 1950s. So the kind of people that you now have in the US because of huge migration is that the whole of public policy has shifted left in the last 50, 70 years.
Bob Zadek: And that shift to the left, you attribute in part or maybe substantially to the effect of immigrants who ultimately achieve the right to vote through citizenship—they account for at least part of that shift to the left.
Jayant Bhandari: Absolutely. If even today, a very large number of second or third-generation people from Africa, Latin America, and South Asia vote for the leftist parties. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but this is actually a very, very large number.
Bob Zadek: When you explained in one of your lectures, you explained with some detail how—and I think you were referring to middle-class Indians, citizens of Indian descent and maybe born in India, migrated to the US or to Canada—how everything about their worldview was socialistic: their view towards Obamacare, their view towards the relationship between police and society. It was the views—and these were middle-class, educated Indians. You happened to pick Indian because you were referring to them, not because they were in any way different. It was just random; you knew them, so you referred to them. So explain to our audience what you have observed to be the voting pattern on these various topics of middle-class, otherwise—I shouldn’t say otherwise—middle-class solid citizens, doctors, professionals and the like, who happen to have immigrated from India or other similar countries.
Jayant Bhandari: Well, Indian migrants in the US are among the richest subgroups in the US. They actually make a lot more money than ethnically Europeans make. So these are very rich people. Strangely, they voted for Obama. A huge, huge proportion of these people voted for Obama. And again, it comes back to the same thing. People can become rich, but it does not necessarily make them rational. It does not necessarily make them understand causality. They are not rooted to the concept of morality. They are not rooted to the concept of compassion and empathy. Now, Bob, a very good example of that is that I’m currently in India. I come to India a couple of times a year, and the middle-class people in this country simply don’t care about the poor people. If poor people die, they have zero interest in those poor people. In fact, they have zero interest in anyone outside their own families. And within their families, they fight with each other. And if they have keep the facade of a good relationship within the family, it is only because it’s expedient and convenient to them. Remember, the culture of these people is tribal and superstitious, and as a result, they behave in a certain way. They never get anchored to the concept of morality and reason.
Geopolitics and the Future of the West [20:30]
Bob Zadek: So you’re now—I opened the show today expressing my views towards immigration of “let them all in.” And I did that based upon my very limited exposure, almost all positive, to the immigrants that I came into personal contact with. I considered them to be, in my view, the ultimate, ultimate entrepreneurs. They gambled everything except for a corrugated box full of their possessions to come to the US in my view of simply making life better for their children, for themselves, and for their successive generations. They bet everything on their own skill to survive and came here with nothing. That’s my perhaps romanticized, perhaps accurate, my view of immigrants. And therefore I said they are the most—they will become the most solid of American citizens, the more the better.
Jayant Bhandari: And Bob, you are actually correct. I mean, a few of these people are truly exceptional. And in fact, the first wave of migrants you get are reasonably good people. But you don’t really have the average guy in the US right now. Once you start getting the average guy, that will be a complete disaster for the US. And that has actually been happening in Europe for the last two, three years. They have been getting relatively average people from Africa in the Middle East, and it’s a complete unmitigated disaster for Europe. I have traveled around in Europe, I have been to no-go zones, I have been to refugee areas in Europe, and they are horrible places. They are fanatic. These people cannot—they are very tribal. They expect free money from you because they can’t think of anything else. And they don’t feel any gratitude when they get free money, unlike what you and I think they should feel. They actually don’t feel gratitude. And if they don’t feel gratitude, you can immediately understand that this situation will never change.
Bob Zadek: Your view of sensible immigration policy is quite different than mine—let them all in. What would your immigration policy be recommended for Canada, the US, and for the West in general?
Jayant Bhandari: It’s extremely hard, Bob. I don’t believe in the concept of government. I think government is a mafia. And the only reason I oppose democracy is because the democratic mafia is far worse than a meritocratic mafia. Now, how do you control this mixing of people? I have no clue. But we have to at least start understanding this huge problem. The problem is that gypsies have been in Europe for 1,400 years and they haven’t become assimilated in Europe. So we have to at least start accepting the problem so that we can start seeing possible solutions of migration.
Bob Zadek: You present a very frightening view of the prospects since there is a flux of immigration. We’ll discuss that in greater detail in about 30 seconds. We’ll take our callers in about 30 seconds. We’ll be right back with Jayant Bhandari and finishing up on capitalism and morality. Please stay tuned.
[Sponsor break removed]
Bob Zadek: Welcome back to the Bob Zadek Show, the only live libertarian talk radio show on the air all weekend. I’m speaking to Jayant Bhandari. We are discussing capitalism and morality, and by the way, also democracy and immigration. Now, we have only a few minutes to go. We have a caller, Jacob from San Jose. Jacob, what’s on your mind this morning? And we are kind of running out of time, regretfully, so please, if you can, pose your question briefly.
Caller (Jacob): Yes, Mr. Bhandari. The North Korea government said that they’re going to continue with their atomic weapon development, missile development. China has a mutual defense pact with North Korea. China has said the United States is going to have to take a first-strike hit from North Korea, then we can defend ourselves. The British say, the British government says they’re not going to support us in taking that protective step that we need to take against North Korea for our own defense. So how do you view capitalism? We’ve got Chinese capitalism, we’ve got US capitalism, British capitalism. There’s a mutual defense pact China has with North Korea. What about the British? They’re not supporting us, they’re supporting China. How do you see that? Three capitalist countries, there’s no mutual defense of capitalism, though.
Jayant Bhandari: So, I’m not even aware of the fact that China has this nuclear defense agreement with North Korea. Now, I have spent time in North Korea. I have been there, I have traveled around in North Korea, and I think it’s a real problem for the US. I don’t have a solution to that problem. I think North Korea can do something really, really stupid because it’s a true totalitarian state. I cannot even imagine what I saw when I was traveling in North Korea. People are like puppets in that society, and they will follow the orders of the people who rule that country. So anything is possible, and this is really a scary thing for the US and for the rest of the world.
Bob Zadek: Now, we have only a couple of seconds to go before we have to close. What would—as you witness what is happening in the US and in Canada, both good and bad, what is your prognosis for the next two or three years? Do you see continued deterioration in the fabric of society, turning around? If turning around, what do you see by way of optimism or pessimism? And that’s like requires a 45-minute answer. We only have a couple of seconds. Sorry about that.
Jayant Bhandari: Bob, I am very pessimistic about the future of the US and of Canada. Despite the fact that they are probably the two best countries in the world today, but the problem is democracy of these two countries. There is a huge proportion of non-Europeans in North America, and eventually their voting pattern is such that North America will very rapidly start to look like another Latin American country or Africa or South Asia. And this is not going to be good for the future of North America. A lot of these people, because they lack the concept of reason, will fail to understand why America will start getting degraded because of their voting pattern. But I think this is going to be a problem for North America in the near future. Europe will eventually also face exactly the same problem. Europeans are not having babies right now. It’s the non-Europeans who are having babies in Europe, and eventually demographic shift will not be good for Europe either. And this is exactly the reason why I am in love with East Asia. They like to keep themselves away from migrants. Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong does not allow migrants to enter their countries easily.
Bob Zadek: I think what I have learned in reading your writings and listening to your videos—what I have learned that has changed to some degree my own point of view is that some of the anti-immigrant sentiment that I’ve experienced in the US seems to be born out of personal distaste—distaste for foreign cultures, foreign music, foreign attitudes—sort of very racist in a way and not rational, to use the word of the morning. Jayant, your anti-immigration views are not born of that. There is none of that in anything you say, but rather your opposition to immigration is supremely rational. It simply is the fact of it, rather than any dislike for people who are different. And that’s what I have learned from you this morning that I didn’t appreciate in hearing the views of those whose view on immigration is different than mine. And that was my education from listening to what you had to say. Now, we have only a minute left. Tell our friends out there how they can follow your writings and your presentations.
Jayant Bhandari: Everything, Bob, I do goes on my website and that’s jayantbhandari.com. Also, I run a yearly philosophy seminar in Vancouver called “Capitalism and Morality.” The next one will be in the third week of July 2018. It’s a seminar where I bring in speakers to talk about what are seen to be politically incorrect topics, and I want people to think about issues that they don’t really have availability in the normal society.
Bob Zadek: You may see me in the audience in the next session. It sounds wonderful. Thank you so much. To my friends out there, enjoy the rest of the day and the rest of the weekend, and thanks again to Jayant Bhandari. See you next Sunday, everyone.