On June 25, John Allison, the president and CEO of the Cato Institute, spoke at the Capitol Hill Lecture Series: Free Markets, Individual Liberty and Civil Society. Allison criticized the progressive movement’s philosophical ideologies, and presented Libertarianism as the way to pursue life, liberty, and happiness in a free society.
“There is a very fundamental philosophical crisis going on in the United States,” he began. Allison explained that the crisis is crippling down the initial principles envisioned by the Founding Fathers.
“Nobody should be entitled to happiness,” he said. “Happiness must be earned through hard work, sweat, and blood.”
He invited the audience to take a look at the progressive movement’s philosophical ideologies: Altruism, collectivism, and egalitarianism, which he claimed to be good but unrealistic in real life.
Altruism stresses the importance on the other people but not on you. Collectivism and egalitarianism are based on the so-called common good, he explained. “Unfortunately, the idea of common good is an oxymoron,” he said. Allison argued that the idea of common good is impossible because he believes that what is good for one person is not necessarily good for another person.
“It is not true that we are all equals,” he said. “Everyone is a unique special individual. They have their own strengths, weaknesses and different goals, and different understanding,” he stated.
Allison proposed libertarianism as the way for individual to pursue life, liberty and happiness. “Happiness is a very selfish idea,” he said. Meaning that each individual should live according to their moral truth, and create the kind of life that they want to live” he said.
According to Allison, government intervention in the citizen’s life is an obstacle to individual happiness, freedom, and the free market. As he put, “Liberty is essential to human being progress.” he declared, “In order for people to be productive they need personal and physical and economic freedom.”
Allison pled for more freedom to entrepreneurs because they are the driving force behind the progress of any society, and therefore, they should have freedom for their well-being’s sake. “Without freedom you cannot be happy,” he argued.
The Capitol Hill Lecture Series is sponsored by the Einhorn Family Foundation and hosted by The Fund for American Studies. It is designed as a network for people who are interested in economic freedom and limited government.
Roger R. Ream, the president of The Fund for American Studies, said that limited government and economic freedom are closely connected. He explained that an individual’s liberty and freedom to  produce are often restrained by the government to the determent of our well-being.
This lecture was the second of the four summer Lecture Series. The next lecture series will be on Wednesday, July 16, the in the Hart Senate Office Building, Room 902, on Capitol Hill. The speaker will be Nick Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute.
Rand Paul, junior Senator of Kentucky, introduced John Allison.