AIER Bastiat Society: “Why It's OK to Want to Be Rich" with Jason Brennan
Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022  |  6 p.m.  |  Richland Country Club, 1 Club Dr, Nashville, TN
Hosted by the AIER Bastiat Society. Sponsored by the Political Economy Research Institute at MTSU.

About the Event: Finger-wagging moralizers say the love of money is the root of all evil. They assume that making a lot of money requires exploiting others, and that the best way to wash off the resulting stain is to give a lot of it away. In Why It’s OK to Want to Be Rich, Jason Brennan shows that the moralizers have it backwards. He argues that, in general, the more money you make, the more you already do for others, and that even an average wage earner is productively “giving back” to society just by doing her job. In addition, wealth liberates us to have the best chance of leading a life that’s authentically our own.

About the Speaker: Jason Brennan (Ph.D., 2007, University of Arizona) is Robert J. and Elizabeth Flanagan Family Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. He specializes in politics, philosophy, and economics. He is the editor of Public Affairs Quarterly and an associate editor of Social Philosophy and Policy. He is currently overseeing a $2.1 million project on "Markets, Social Entrepreneurship, and Effective Altruism," funded by the Templeton Foundation. He serves on the Virginia Advisory Committee to the US Commission on Civil Rights, chairs the Designing the Future(s) Committee at Georgetown, and serves on the Georgetown Faculty Senate.