The Trader Principle with Dr. Andrew Bernstein

An important moral principle of a free economy, and of a free society more broadly, is that all exchange of values must be performed by the mutual consent and to the mutual advantage of all parties involved in the transaction. Often overlooked is that trade involves exchange of intellectual-spiritual values as well as of material ones. An important component of the moral virtue of justice, the trader principle is antipodal to socialism, under which values are coercively redistributed by the state. This talk demonstrates the moral virtue inherent in freely and voluntarily trading value for value.

Andrew Bernstein is the author of The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic, and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire (University Press of America, 2005), Objectivism in One Lesson: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Ayn Rand (Hamilton Books, 2008), Capitalism Unbound: The Incontestable Moral Case for Individual Rights (University Press of America, 2010), and Capitalist Solutions: A Philosophy of American Moral Dilemmas (Transaction Publishers, 2011). Additionally, he has published numerous essays, many in The Objective Standard, for which he is a contributing editor, and many in other publications, including op-ed essays for Forbes.com. His op-eds have appeared in—among other newspapers— the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press. In 2013-14, he was the Hayek Research Fellow at the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism at Clemson University, where he taught courses in Economics and in Political Science and, principally, researched and wrote the first draft of his forthcoming book, Heroes and Hero Worship: An Examination of the Nature and Importance of Heroism.