This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, September 30th, 2011. I'm Caleb Brown.

What does it mean to have a moral claim on one's own life?

And how has rejecting the morality of self-ownership

contributed to our financial crisis.

John Allison is the former CEO of BB&T.

He spoke at the Cato Club 200 retreat held earlier this month.

The real causes of the financial crisis are philosophical and the real cures are

philosophical and our battle is fundamentally philosophical.

The real causes of financial crisis are a combination of altruism and pragmatism.

Altarism literally means otherism.

It basically says that everybody else is more important

than you are, and as interpreted by liberals,

that means that society is important and individuals are not

important.

Altruism is not about benevolence.

It's a very fundamental kind of worldview where others are more important. Where do the idea that everybody has a right? of

where others are more important. Where do the idea that everybody has a right to a house come from?

Provided by who?

Everybody has a right to free medical care, provided by who. My right to free medical care provided by who. My right to free medical care is my right

to imprison a doctor to provide me with that care or to imprison somebody else to pay for that

doctor. That is exactly the opposite of the American concept of rights.

And the American concept of rights, each of us has the moral right to what we produce,

...