Grégoire Canlorbe

Interview with Roy Barzilai, for Agefi Magazine–english version

This interview was initially published on the website of Institut Coppet, on September 16, 2015. It was also published, in French, on the website of Institut Turgot, on October 20, 2015, and in the February 2016 issue of Agefi Magazine

Roy Barzilai is an independent scholar, who studied both Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism and Rivka Schechter’s philosophy of language, rooted in the Hebrew Bible. The synthesis of Rand’s Aristotelian philosophy, and the biblical creed of ethical monotheism provides profound insights into the ideas that shaped the Western mind. By exploring the intellectual history of Western civilization, Roy seeks to reach a greater understanding of the human mind.

As a financial analyst for more than a decade, Roy became aware of the herd mentality in financial markets. He studied the Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior and the new science of socionomics, focusing on how change in social mood affects society, its ideas, philosophy, culture, and economy. This dynamism is the engine of history.

Roy holds undergraduate degrees from Tel Aviv University in Law, accounting, and computer science. He is the author of two books: The Objective Bible, published in 2014, and The Testosterone Hypothesis, published in 2015.

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Interview with Guang Zhen Sun, for Man and the Economy

This interview was published in the December 2015 issue of Man and the Economy journal, founded by Nobel Prize winning economist Ronald Coase. For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

sun Holding a PhD in economics from Monash University, Australia, GZ SUN now teaches economics at the University of Macau, Macao Special Administrative Region, China. His research interests are mainly microeconomics and the history of economic thought.

His joint work with collaborators helped establish the theoretical foundation of a literature on endogenous labor specialization. He has also published at times on topics in axiomatization, public choice, theory of the firm, evolutionary economics, etc., and on less-dismal-than-normal topics such as general equilibrium analysis of how large-scale societies of ants self-organize. Among the services he has provided to the scientific community of economists, the commitment he currently takes most seriously is his editorial job at a new journal, Man and the Economy, founded by the late Mr. Ronald H Coase.

His book The Division of Labor in Economics: A History provides, for the first time, a systematic and comprehensive narrative of the history of one central idea in economics, namely the division of labour, over the past two and a half millennia, with special focus on that having occurred in the most recent two and a half centuries. Quite contrary to the widely held belief, the idea has a fascinating biography, much richer than that exemplified by the pin-making story that was popularized by Adam Smith’s classical work published in 1776.

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Entretien avec Deirdre McCloskey, pour le journal « Man and the Economy »–version francophone

Cette entrevue a été publiée, en anglais, par le journal Man and the Economy, dans leur édition de juin 2017, et mise en ligne sur leur site web dès décembre 2016.

Deirdre Nansen McCloskey a enseigné l’économie, l’histoire, l’anglais et la communication à l’université d’Illinois à Chicago de 2000 à 2005. Economiste, historienne et rhétoricienne réputée, elle a écrit 17 livres et environ 400 publications académiques sur des sujets divers et variés allant de l’économie technique et la théorie statistique à la promotion du transgenre et l’éthique des vertus bourgeoises. Elle est connue en tant qu’économiste « conservatrice » de l’école de Chicago (où elle a enseigné dans les Facultés d’Économie et d’Histoire de 1968 à 1980), mais se présente en tant que « femme du Midwest lettrée, adepte de la théorie quantitative, postmoderne, épiscopalienne progressiste et adepte du libre marché. Et non « conservatrice » ! Je suis une libertarienne chrétienne. »

Son dernier livre (sorti en mai 2016 aux presses de l’Université de Chicago) s’intitule L’Égalité bourgeoise: comment les idées, et non le capital ou les institutions, ont enrichi le monde (Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World) et donne une explication fondée sur les idées quant à la forte élévation des standards de vie de 1800 à nos jours. Les accidents de la Réforme et de la Révolte en Europe du nord-ouest de 1517 à 1789 menèrent à une nouvelle forme de liberté et de dignité pour les citoyens – via la diffusion d’idées appelées « libérales » – qui provoquèrent ensuite l’explosion de la hausse des standards de vie par la voie du commerce dès lors « libéré ».

Son livre précédent, appartenant à une même trilogie et intitulé La dignité bourgeoise : pourquoi l’économie est incapable d’expliquer le monde moderne (Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World – 2010) démontre que les explications matérialistes telles que l’épargne et l’exploitation n’ont pas suffisamment de vigueur économique ou de pertinence historique. Le premier livre de la trilogie L’ère bourgeoise (the Bourgeois Era trilogy), Les vertus bourgeoises: l’éthique de l’ère du commerce (The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce – 2006), démontre que, contrairement à ce que clame le clergé à gauche comme à droite depuis 1848, la bourgeoisie a du bon et l’enrichissement par le commerce n’est pas la pire des éthiques.

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Interview with Stephen Hicks, for Foundation for Economic Education — unabridged version

This interview was originally published in an abridged version, on Foundation for Economic Education’s website, on May 2 2016.

Hicks is the author of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault, which argues that postmodernism is best understood as a rhetorical strategy of intellectuals and academics on the far-Left of the political spectrum in response to the failure of socialism and communism.

His documentary and book Nietzsche and the Nazis is an examination of the ideological roots of National Socialism, particularly how Friedrich Nietzsche’s ideas were used, and in some cases misused, by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis to justify their beliefs and practices.

Additionally, Hicks has published articles on a range of subjects, including free speech in academia, the development of modern art, Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, business ethics, and the philosophy of education, including a series of YouTube lectures. He is also the co-editor, with David Kelley, of a critical thinking textbook, The Art of Reasoning: Readings for Logical Analysis.

Grégoire Canlorbe: According to a popular opinion, left to its own devices, capitalism inevitably tends to a monopoly economy. An economy in which there is no competition. In a monopoly environment, the dominant companies can freeze competition and entrepreneurial initiative. In this regard, any monopoly is problematic, even the monopoly of the local baker or shoemaker. Without competition, the quality of service slips. And innovation becomes an expensive nuisance unless it wildly jacks up profits.

As a fine connoisseur and renowned debunker of anti-capitalist arguments, how would you assess this widespread analysis?

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Interview with George Gilder, for Agefi Magazine’s April 2016 issue

This interview was initially published in French in Agefi Magazine’s April 2016 issue.

George Gilder is a venture capitalist and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute and American Principles Project, Editor-in-Chief of the Gilder Technology Forum (from Forbes).

Grégoire Canlorbe: It is not uncommon to hear that the global weakness of the contemporary USA lies in the worsening of income inequalities. The best predictor of social and economic class is nowadays the social and economic class of parents. People like the Rockefellers or the family of Mitt Romney are born into the 1% and pass that position along to their children. In other words, the USA have a plutocracy, like it or not; and that plutocracy should at least pay a higher tax rate and a higher death tax—a higher tax for passing along its wealth to its kids. America works best when it can open the path for dirt-poor kids with drive and intelligence to rise—as Abraham Lincoln rose from the poverty and mud of his father’s farm in Illinois.

What is your opinion on this popular view?

George Gilder: The popular view is nonsense. Inequality is irrelevant. Under free markets, capital flows not to those who most quickly spend it but to those who can best expand it. It goes to suppliers rather than demanders. What matters is mobility and creativity. Forbes magazine shows ever more rapid arrivals and departures from their lists of rich people. However, the “hypertrophy of finance” in the world economy that I describe in The Scandal of Money is fostering more inequality based not on merit but on government privileges.

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Entretien avec Pierre Bergé, pour la revue « Arguments »

Cet entretien a été initialement publié par la revue « Arguments », fin mars 2017.

Pierre Bergé est un entrepreneur en confection de luxe, essayiste, et mécène français. Compagnon d’Yves Saint Laurent, il l’aide à fonder la maison de couture du même nom. Il est aujourd’hui président de la Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent, reconnue d’utilité publique en 2002, dont les missions sont la conservation de l’œuvre d’Yves Saint Laurent, l’organisation d’expositions et le soutien d’activités culturelles et éducatives.

De 1977 à 1981, il dirige le théâtre de l’Athénée puis préside l’Opéra Bastille de 1988 à 1993, année où il est nommé « ambassadeur de bonne volonté de l’UNESCO ». Soutien médiatique et financier du Parti socialiste, il est également un militant qui soutient la cause homosexuelle et la lutte contre le sida, cofondateur de l’association Sidaction dont il est aujourd’hui président. Il était propriétaire du magazine Têtu jusqu’en janvier 2013. En 2010, il prend le contrôle du quotidien Le Monde, conjointement avec Xavier Niel et Matthieu Pigasse, au travers d’une recapitalisation du groupe.

Pierre Bergé est, enfin, l’auteur de plusieurs essais consacrés à Yves Saint Laurent, ainsi qu’à la liberté et aux valeurs républicaines. Évoquons notamment Liberté, j’écris ton nom, de 1991, Inventaire Mitterrand, de 2001, Les jours s’en vont je demeure, de 2003, et Lettres à Yves, de 2008. Il se définit politiquement comme un « démocrate rooseveltien ».

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Interview with Howard Bloom, for Gatestone Institute — unabridged version

This interview was originally published, in two parts and in an abridged version, on November 28, 2016 and on May 18, 2017, on Gatestone Institute, a “non-partisan, not-for-profit international policy council and think tank based in New York City” with a specialization in strategy and defense issues.

There are only a handful of authors alive today whose ideas about geopolitics have won respect in both the world of Islam and in the West. One of those authors is Howard Bloom.

His first book, 1995’s The Lucifer Principle, predicted a nuclear Iran. And his 2000 book Global Brain, warned about a man named Osama bin Laden and a group called the Taliban. His new book The Muhammad Code: How a Desert Prophet Brought you ISIS, al Qaeda, and Boko Haram—or How Muhammad invented Jihad, is the story of how a desert prophet set us up for a nuclear Iran and an atomic successor to Osama.

Howard Bloom has debated one-one-one with senior officials from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Gaza’s Hamas on Iran’s global Arab-language Alalam TV News Network. And Sheikh Muhammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai’s ruler, who doubles as the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, has named a racehorse after one of Bloom’s books.

Bloom’s second book Global Brain was the subject of an Office of the Secretary of Defense symposium in 2010, with participants from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. And the Department of Defense’s SENSIAC Military Sensing Symposium relied on Bloom to explain how to see the world through the eyes of Osama bin Laden.

Bloom’s 199 appearances on North America’s highest rated overnight talk radio show, Coast to Coast AM, a show that airs on 500 of the continent’s leading radio stations, have covered everything from the Gulf War and 9/11 to the Fort Hood shootings, the Arab Spring, and the Syrian civil war. In addition, Bloom has dissected headline issues over 40 times on Saudi Arabia’s KSA2-TV, Saudi Arabi’s Ekhbariya TV, and on Iran’s global English language PressTV.

Grégoire Canlorbe: In a market overwhelmed with books on Islam, what is unique about The Muhammad Code?

Howard Bloom: The Muhammad Code tells a story quite unknown in the West, namely the story of the only founder of a major religion ever to call himself “the Prophet of War”^[i] and to command 65 military campaigns. It tells the story of how that prophet set our ancestors in the West up for over 1,300 years of attack and enslavement, the story of how he laid the groundwork for the destruction of superpowers far more potent than the United States, and the story of how he started the longest-running world war in history. And most important, The Muhammad Code tells the story of how that prophet demands that his never-ending war be turned today against the ideals we hold dear in the West—human rights, gender equality, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of trade, entrepreneurship, pluralism, and democracy.

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Interview with Waleed Al-Husseini, for Gatestone Institute

This interview was published on September 20, 2016 at 4:30 am on Gatestone Institute, a “non-partisan, not-for-profit international policy council and think tank based in New York City” with a specialization in strategy and defense issues.

Waleed Al-Husseini is a Palestinan blogger and essayist as well as the founder of the Ex-Muslim Counsel of France. He garnered international fame in 2010 when he was arrested, imprisoned and tortured for articles he posted in which he criticized Islam. He has received threats and death threats. He is one of the most celebrated cyber-activists from the Arab world and now lives in France where he sought refuge. He continues to be a fierce defender of its secular, republican values.

He is the author of an autobiography, Blasphemer! Allah’s prisons! edited by Graset in 2014 (re-issued in 2015), as well as articles in Le Monde, La Règle du jeu and Libération. His blogs are “la voie de la raison” and “I’m proud to be atheist.”

Contact: hassayen@gmail.com

Grégoire Canlorbe: Could you start by reminding us of the circumstances and motives of your dissent?

Waleed Al-Husseini: My atheism is the result of a long quest for the truth about what I saw happening in front of me. Obviously, nobody holds all of the Truth, but during my research, I realized that religion in general, and Islam in particular, was highly incompatible with the values of human life. That was the beginning of my rejection of Islam. As time goes by, the horrors and crimes committed against mankind in the name of Islam seem to have proven me right. They have strengthened my conviction that it was the right choice to make.

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Interview avec Christine Lewicki, pour Agefi Magazine, édition décembre 2016

Cette entrevue a été publiée par le journal Agefi Magazine, dans leur édition de décembre 2016.

christine-lewicki Christine Lewicki est fondatrice et directrice de la société O Coaching Inc., basée à Los Angeles en Californie. Auteur du bestseller J’arrête de râler (plus de 250 000 exemplaires vendus) et Coach d’entreprise certifiée, elle est aussi conférencière, formatrice et facilitatrice de groupe MasterMind. Entrepreneur nomade, elle a des clients aux États-Unis, au Canada, en Asie et en France.

Son travail à O Coaching est à maintes reprises salué par les média, ses clients et ses pairs. Christine participe à de nombreux panels et émissions de radio et télévision. Elle a été interviewée sur France Inter, Europe 1, RTL, RMC, Sud Radio, Radio Bleue, France 2 et Direct 8 et M6 et de nombreux articles ont relayé son message dans la presse française (Le Monde, le Figaro, Elle, Marie Claire, Marie France, Top Santé, Psychologie magazine et bien d’autres encore).

De 2007 à 2010, elle a été invitée à siéger au conseil d’administration de la Fédération Internationale du Coaching de Los Angeles. D’après ses clients, « travailler avec Christine, c’est allumer une lumière qui vous éclairera tout du long sur le chemin de la réussite. » Conférencière, Christine Lewicki anime des conférences et des séminaires plusieurs fois par an en France sur les thèmes « Réveillez l’Entrepreneur qui est en Vous », « J’arrête de Râler » et « Wake Up ! ».

Grégoire Canlorbe : Votre passion et votre vocation est d’aider les « gens ordinaires » à créer des « vies extraordinaires ». Je pense qu’il est bon de noter, dans ce contexte, qu’un discours courant en France et dans d’autres pays est d’encenser par dessus tout les diplômes, le confort matériel et la conformité—et de fustiger toute ambition hors des sentiers battus, toute fortune iconoclaste et tout mode de vie exceptionnellement trépidant. Comme vous l’écrivez vous-même, « en cultivant la modestie, nous finissons par cultiver la médiocrité. »

Comment expliquez-vous notre docilité psychique envers cet idéal amoindrissant de modestie qui entrave nos talents et notre accomplissement personnel ? Quels rituels et quelles résolutions concrètes recommandez-vous pour échapper à notre zone de confort ?

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