Yaron Brook

Yaron Brook
Brook speaking at a Tea Party Patriots event
Native name	ירון ברוק
Born	(1961-05-23) May 23, 1961 (age 61) Israel
Occupation	Chairman of the board at the Ayn Rand Institute
Citizenship	American, Israeli
Education	Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (BS) University of Texas at Austin (MBA, PhD)
Literary movement	Objectivism
Notable works	Free Market Revolution Equal is Unfair
Spouse	Revital Brook
Children	2

Yaron Brook (Hebrew: ירון ברוק‎; born May 23, 1961)^[1] is an Israeli-American entrepreneur, writer, and activist. He is an Objectivist and the current chairman of the board at the Ayn Rand Institute, where he was executive director from 2000 to 2017. He is also the co-founder of BH Equity Research and the author of several books, in which he analyzes a variety of topics from an Objectivist perspective.

Early life and education

Yaron Brook was born and raised in Israel. His parents were Jewish socialists from South Africa. When he was sixteen, a friend lent him a copy of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, leading him to abandon the socialism taught to him by his parents and to embrace Objectivism.^[2] After graduating from high school, he served as a first sergeant in Israeli military intelligence (1979–1982) and then earned a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering in 1986 from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.^[3] In 1987, he moved to the United States , where he received his Master of Business Administration in 1989 and PhD in finance in 1994 from the University of Texas at Austin.

Career

Brook began his career as a finance professor at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, a position he held for seven years and which won him awards of recognition.

In 1998, he co-founded a financial advisory firm with Robert Hendershott, BH Equity Research, where he continues today as managing director and chairman.^[4]

Brook became an associate of leading Objectivist intellectuals, such as philosopher Leonard Peikoff, and in 1994, he co-founded Lyceum International, a company that organized Objectivist conferences and offered distance-learning courses. In 2000, he left Santa Clara University to succeed Michael Berliner as President and Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute, which was then located in Marina del Rey, California. In 2002, ARI relocated to Irvine, California.^[5]

Brook's philosophical activism includes teaching and public lecturing at events and conferences held predominantly in North America, speaking and debating at numerous American universities, delivering seminars for businesses and corporations in the United States and abroad, and writing opinion editorials for leading newspapers and websites. Speaking venues also include conferences, and professional and community groups. His subjects span a wide range of current events and philosophical issues, including the causes of the financial crisis, the morality of capitalism, and ending the growth of the state, each discussed with Objectivism at its foundation. In recent years, he has spoken to audiences throughout the world, including those in China, Australia, Brazil,^[6] Argentina,^[7] Greece,^[8] Iceland, Bulgaria, Israel,^[9] Guatemala,^[10] and England.^[11]

Brook is a columnist for Forbes ,^[12] and his articles have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Investor's Business Daily, and many other publications. A frequent guest on a variety of radio and national television programs, he is the co-author of Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea and Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand's Ideas Can End Big Government, and contributing author of Winning the Unwinnable War: America's Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism. His newest book is Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality, co-authored with Don Watkins.

Views and opinions

Rational selfishness

Brook promotes the Objectivist ethical position that rational selfishness is a moral virtue and that altruism is evil. In addition to teaching classes on his moral view of self-interest at ARI and as a guest lecturer at Brown University, Brook also defended the egoist position in a 2006 debate with former US Senator Robert Krueger at Texas State University, San Marcos.

Politics and economics

Brook is an outspoken proponent of laissez-faire capitalism. In appearances on CNBC ^[13] and several articles^[14] and speeches, he has defended the rights of corporations and businessmen and upheld the virtues of capitalism. In a January 7, 2007, editorial in USA Today, he defended multimillion-dollar CEO pay packages against the attempt by the government to regulate them.^[15] In a 2010 interview, Brook called the efforts of Democrats to raise taxes on multi-millionaires "totally immoral." He criticized George W. Bush for signing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which regulates corporate accounting practices.^[16] He has also argued that antitrust laws are "unjust and make no sense ethically or economically."^[17]

On gun rights, Brook has stated, "The government certainly has a role in regulating ownership of weapons", but he states that it is a "complex" issue to do with the philosophy of law. He is inclined to draw the line of prohibition between "offensive" weapons, such as tanks and weapons of mass destruction, and "defensive" weapons.^[18] Yaron is a supporter of Romantic and Renaissance art, and sees little value in Modern art.

Foreign policy and war

American foreign policy

Brook has gained much attention for his application of Objectivist moral philosophy to the question of American foreign policy, particularly on the Middle East.

He advocates an American foreign policy of rational self-interest that would serve only to protect the rights of Americans, as opposed to any form of government monetary aid, state-building, or spreading democracy.^[19] He has criticized the foreign policy of Ron Paul and other libertarians.^[20]

He advocates the withdrawal of US troops from Europe, and US withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United Nations, calling the latter "one of the most immoral institutions ever created by man". He is ambivalent about the World Trade Organization.^[21]

Brook calls for an embargo on North Korea, denouncing the regime as "threatening" and "belligerent", but believes that war is not necessary at present.^[22]

War against Islamic terrorism

Brook argues that Islamic terrorists initiated a war against the West because they hate its culture, wealth, love of life, and global influence,^[23] and that they attack Israel because of the influence Western culture has had on it.^[19] He explicitly rejects the idea that Islamic terrorists attack Western nations because they support Israel or because of any other reason, such as poverty or retaliation.^[19]

Brook claims that the West is not at war with terrorism but the ideology of Islamic totalitarianism. He repeatedly says that just like in World War II, the US was at war against not Japanese kamikaze pilots or German tanks but the ideas of Nazism and Japanese imperialism.^[24][25]

Brook claims that Islamic totalitarians are Muslims who wish to dictate every part of life from the teachings of Islam, taken to its logical extreme.^[25] He believes that Islamic totalitarians want to organize their governments according to Islam and that they wish to spread a global Islamic government across the world, sometimes by using legitimate means but mainly by using physical force, terrorism.^[25] Brook claims that the Islamic totalitarians repeatedly express that openly by arguing:

... it is a movement that believes in conquest ... Islam should rule every aspect of one's life ... they don't believe in the separation of religion and state ... and those who disagree are second class citizens or worthy of death, they want an empire in middle east, but their goal ultimately is world domination, and they state this. They are never satisfied with oppressing their people or the people around them, they want world domination.^[25]

Morality of war

Brook has done a fair amount of work to formulate a unique morality of war,^[26][27] although originated by Ayn Rand^[28] and also advocated by other Objectivists like Leonard Peikoff,^[29] Onkar Ghate,^[30] and Craig Biddle.^[31]

Israel

Brook considers Israel to be a morally good nation because its Western-style government protects the rights of its citizens, Arab and Jewish alike, vastly more than neighboring countries.^[32][33] On Zionism, Brook argued that "Zionism fused a valid concern – self-preservation amid a storm of hostility – with a toxic premise – ethnically based collectivism and religion".^[34]

Brook advocates morally, but not necessarily financially, supporting Israel, which he sees as a Western ally against Islamic terrorism.^[35]

Brook strongly disagrees with many aspects of Israel's policies, including its collectivist and religious influences, and its 'self-sacrificial' foreign policy of giving its enemies land, money, and other goods.^[32][36]

Personal life

Brook is married to Revital Brook, and he has two sons, Niv, a comedian, and Edaan.^[37][38]

Published works

Books

• Brook, Yaron; Watkins, Don (2012). Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand's Ideas Can End Big Government. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0230341692. 
• Brook, Yaron; Watkins, Don (2016). Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality. New York: St. Martins Press. 
• Brook, Yaron; Watkins, Don (2017). In Pursuit of Wealth: The Moral Case for Finance. New York: Ayn Rand Institute Press. 

Other

• Corporate governance: a study of director liability, firm performance and shareholder wealth, University of Texas, Austin, 1994 [thesis]
• Shareholder wealth effects of directors' liability limitation provisions, Brook, Yaron; Rao, Ramesh K. S., Journal of Financial & Quantitative Analysis, vol. 3, 1994, 481–497
• Terrorism in Israel, Yaron Brook, The Intellectual Activist, Vol. 10, No. 4, July 1996
• The gains from takeover deregulation: Evidence from the end of interstate banking restrictions , Brook, Yaron; Hendershott, Robert; Darrell Lee, Journal of Finance the journal of the American Finance Association, {Malden, Mass. et al.: Blackwell}, vol. 6, 1998, 2185–2204
• Do Firms Use Dividends to Signal Large Future Cash Flow Increases?, Brook, Yaron; Charlton, William T., Jr.; Hendershott, Robert J., Financial Management, (Tampa, Fla. : Financial Management Association International) vol. 3, 1998, 46–57
• Corporate Governance and Recent Consolidation in the Banking Industry , Brook, Yaron; Hendershott, Robert J.; Lee, Darrell, Journal of Corporate Finance: contracting, governance and organization, (Santa Clara U; Kennesaw State U), vol. 2, 2000, pp. 141–164
• Hype and Internet Stocks, Brook, Yaron; Hendershott, Robert J., The Journal of Investing, vol. 2, 53–64
• "Just War Theory" vs. American Self-Defense, Yaron Brook, Alex Epstein, The Objective Standard, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 2006
• "The 'Forward Strategy' For Failure, Yaron Brook, Elan Journo, The Objective Standard, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 2007
• Brook's article on CEO compensation in USA Today

References

External links

• Yaron Brook on Facebook
• Yaron Brook's profile page from the Ayn Rand Institute
• Appearances on C-SPAN

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