The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and @amazon.com.

The Creator stands on his own judgment. The parasite follows the opinions of others. The Creator thinks the parasite copies. The Creator produces. The parasite loots. The Creator's concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite's concern is the conquest of man. And how true that is. That is from the movie The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, great movie if you haven't seen it.

And what is the difference between the creator and the parasite? With me to discuss this topic, and the topic of creating wealth, is Dr. Tara Smith. She's a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and Dr. Smith is the author of several books on ethics and a pamphlet, Money Can Buy Happiness, and that's a wonderful pamphlet, a real eye-opener. It doesn't ensure happiness, but it's a wonderful eye-opener, and that's available @amazon.com or at my website, DrKenner.com.

I want to welcome you to the show, Dr. Smith. Great to be here. Thanks. You know, I think dimes, quarters, $10 bills, $50 bills. I remember as a kid earning some of my first money. What is money?

That's a good question that more people should ask or think about. We are so ready to condemn money and condemn the person who goes after money that we imbue it with all this baggage. Strip it naked. What is money? Money is a medium that allows exchange. And we have to get a little bit more basic here. Look, human beings need to make all sorts of things in order to fulfill our needs, in order to, you know, feed ourselves, put a roof over our heads, put shoes on our feet, make our lives eventually a little bit nicer, a little bit more comfortable, a little bit more enjoyable. We make things; we make goods. We bake bread, we make shoes, we perform services, we cut hair, we cut the lawn, and so on, right? We teach first grade, right? Money is this wonderful medium that we use. It's an intermediary that facilitates trading the good stuff, the values that human beings make, right?

If I'm a first-grade teacher and you're a baker, then, you know, for me to trade with you, you've got to have a kid who needs first grade. There's only so much bread I need and so on. You know, a barter economy in which I've got to find the person who's selling what I want at the same time that he needs what I can do really well is an incredibly impractical, inefficient way of trying to meet anybody's needs. When we have money, we've got this medium of exchange that we use to facilitate, essentially, people getting what they want, getting what they think can enhance their lives. Because I spend my money on those things that I decide are going to make me better off for having that.

Okay, so we're assuming that people are working and they're creating goods, and they're creating services, and they're able to trade, not by barter, which would drive us crazy, because if I don't have any first-grade kids, which I currently don't, then how am I going to trade in the example that you used? So, you know, my kids can't go to school. Well, it doesn't matter that, you know, the example falls apart for me.

So most of us want to earn more money. We want promotions. We think of getting better jobs. We think of creating new gadgets. Where does money come from?

Hey, I got to interrupt this, because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Ellen will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Here it is: The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it @amazon.com. Hmm, The Selfish Path to Romance, that is interesting.

Most of us want to earn more money. We want promotions. We think of getting better jobs. We think of creating new gadgets. Where does money come from?

Well, and this actually gets back, I think, to the clip that you played from the film The Fountainhead. Money comes from creating goods. You know, we use this expression to make money, right? But really, what you're making? If a person is truly making money, that means he's making something valuable. He's making something of value to people, such that they will spend what they make in order to get what he makes. They will spend money when we've got an economy with money in it, right that allows them to have it if they want it. But the point is, what money itself depends upon is the creation of goods and services that nourish human life and human happiness, and that's why making money is really making values. I love that! Making life so make money is a wonderful thing.

So you and I both created books. You've written several. One of them is Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics, which I loved, The Virtue of Selfishness, fabulous book. And you put in a lot of effort for that, and you created a product. And people can now go out and trade their effort for your book or for my book on romance, and they can get more knowledge to have a better romantic life or repair some damage.

So many values that people can create and that people do create of all sorts. Again, we can start at the most basic level, talking about the shoes and the bread and, you know, the making of clothing and all that sort of thing. But, you know, eventually, it's really nice, isn't it, to not have to worry so much simply about how I'm going to put bread on the table tonight or how I'm going to have a place to, you know, shelter myself from the storm tomorrow, right?

But by people being able to specialize in what they do, well, what they produce well, what they enjoy producing, they can do so much more, right? So we have an economy in which we have, today, for instance, services and goods utterly undreamed of. Oh, I know! I, 100 years ago, just flew across the country, and I just am amazed at all the amenities on an airplane, and let alone the airplane itself.

The problem in our society is because we have grown up accustomed to this, we take it for granted, right? So you started out asking, what is money or where does money come from? We don't ask those basic questions. Someone created. Money doesn't grow on trees, right? Money comes from somebody or some people creating things, having ideas. I can build a better mousetrap, yeah, I can build a better music-serving device, right? I can build an iPod, or whatever it might be. I can come up with a technique that will do laser surgery or what have you. And we are all so much the better for this, but because so many of us now, for a long time, have grown up accustomed to this wealth in the US in particular, we take it for granted. We don't ask, where is it coming from?

And I've always felt that it's a wonderful exercise just to sit wherever you are, if you're in your bedroom or in your kitchen or in your car, or even outside looking at a pretty garden. Look at everything that's a product of people's minds, whether it's a new type of plant that you're growing, or the wood that surrounds your vegetable garden if you have a wood fence or in your home, the air conditioning or the heating system or the paint on the walls or beautiful picture frames; everything has come from someone's thought process, the creators.

And there are the parasites. That's something we can talk about another time: people who steal the money or feel entitled to it without ever having earned it. So this has been wonderful. It really illuminates how we don't want to take that for granted. We want to value the producers. And if we ourselves are producers, to value ourselves.

And I want to thank you so much for joining me today. This is Dr. Tara Smith, and if you want any information on Dr. Tara Smith, you can get it. She's written several books and a wonderful pamphlet, Money Can Buy Happiness. You can go to amazon.com, and of course, you can go to my website, DrKenner.com.

Dr. Tara Smith, I want to thank you for being with us today. Thank you.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this ad.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke.

Sometimes gender is the source of conflict between partners. In general, women want intimate, emotional relationships and are often socially skilled, whereas men are preoccupied with proving their strengths and confidence, including in sex. They want to get things done without unnecessary talk. Women sometimes have trouble understanding why men seem to be oblivious to emotional issues, and men sometimes are confused when women get upset instead of just going along or solving problems. In these respects, each feels invisible to the other. When they argue, they are on different wavelengths.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance @amazon.com.