MARINA DEL REY, CA -- The praise being heaped on Bill Gates for planning to give away his $100 billion fortune is misplaced, said a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute.
     "Bill Gates deserves moral credit for having produced his fortune, not for giving it away," said Andrew Bernstein. "It is the creation of wealth that deserves tribute. And anyone, like Bill Gates, who does it superlatively should be regarded as a moral hero."
     "This needs to be emphatically stated in our society, where the redistributor of wealth is routinely commended, while the creator of that wealth -- and the victim of the redistributors -- elicits only indifference or condemnation."
     Bernstein said that the fundamental moral issue underlying the virtue of Gates's intention is the question of whether or not an individual has a right to his life and to the pursuit of his own happiness.
     "Those who praise philanthropy as a moral virtue are saying, in essence, that the producer does not have a right to his life," he said. "This view is immoral. The moral man is the man who creates values, including material wealth, and lays no claim to another's wealth or effort as his 'right.'"
     "We must revolutionize our ethical thinking: it is the wealth-creators, not the charity-dispensers, who deserve moral praise. We must learn the importance of celebrating the virtue of productivity, not charity."