Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 One, I would thought tonight I would focus, um, since I'm in a book promotion mode, uh, focus on summarizing and then opening up for discussion my latest book. So a couple of things, I want it more than a couple of few things I wanted to say about it, but I do want to restrict it to at both 20, 25 minutes. I often think when I hear, uh, people presenting new material or books, uh, being interviewed, uh, the first thing I want to hear is why should I care? Why is it relevant or why is it pertinent? And then I want to hear, why is it distinctive? I mean, maybe many books have been written on this before, so why what's new about it? Where, why, why, if it is distinctive, why it is, and then I don't know, maybe certain bells and whistles about anything provocative than at anything that kind of catches attention.
Speaker 0 00:00:52 So I think on those and I have an eight or nine exhibits, I just want to show you after I say this or as I go, I think what the relevant and pertinent part I think is easy, uh, because capitalism is under attack now. Uh, how much it's under attack historically speaking, I dunno. I think I would classify it as bad as the thirties and maybe the seventies. So in the 1930s, it was tremendously under attack and it was scapegoated for the great depression and other things. And fascism and communism were on the rise in that decade. If you're a member and know your history now the, uh, seventies were pretty bad as well with all the turmoil and all the terrible economic performance, but also blamed on count, largely blamed on capitalism and the greed of oil companies remember all that stuff. So I, I think, uh, and what I argue in the book is there's an animosity.
Speaker 0 00:01:47 I would date basically the last two decades, our return of great animosity toward capitalism and kind of delusional belief, that alternative systems that might be preferable, including things like democratic socialism. Uh, so I, I don't think it's difficult to argue that a book on capitalism, especially one that defends it, uh, is very pertinent and very relevant and also odd in the sense that it's not that a lot of books on capitalism aren't being written. I do keep track of these and there's one coming out every week. I mean, I think the publishers are realized if capitalism or capitalist is in the book title, it sells, but as I re, as I scan these books and peruse them, 98% of them are anticapitalist. So that alone, that alone, I think is an interesting kind of mystery. Um, so, uh, so that's one thing I think also distinctiveness, I want to say something about the distinctiveness, uh, besides the fact that this isn't a validly pro capitalist book.
Speaker 0 00:02:49 Um, there are some other pro capitalist books, you know, historically I think what's really distinctive about this one is it recognizes capitalism as more than economics. Uh, it's very common among even free market economists. They call themselves free-market economists that, that their focus mainly is on economics. And there in many ways, I think perplexed as to why there'd be such animosity toward capitalism, because it produces the goods. I mean, even its critics say that Marx said it as far ago as, uh, the communist manifesto. So it's a head-scratcher for most free market economists that on the one hand, they think, wow, maybe people are against capitalism, you know, cause they don't know how supply and demand works or they don't know price theory, or they don't know what free trade, you know, is mutually advantageous. Um, all the economic arguments in the world are not going to change people's view of capitalism.
Speaker 0 00:03:42 If they characterize it as evil that they characterize it as unjust, if they're discussing it on moral, on a moral level. So that say if that's the case, which I think is the case, they're going to say, who cares, whether it's practical or not, it's immoral. And now you have to have a theory that says, you know, people are largely motivated by ethics more than by, uh, economics and possibly even more than by politics. What's distinctive about this book in terms of my take is, uh, again to expanding it beyond just the economics, but I take what's called a P P and D approach. And in academia, PPMD is a more interdisciplinary approach and the P P E stands for philosophy, politics and economics. So it's, it's uniquely, uh, capable of handling capitalism and all its rivals precisely because these systems have those elements to them.
Speaker 0 00:04:34 It's not just an economic system, not just a political system, it's not just a philosophic system. So the books, uh, structure, and I'll go through the table of contents quickly after this, you'll see, has almost equal weights of discussion on the philosophy of capitalism, meaning really the morals of it, the, the ethics of, of the justice of it and the critiques of that, of course, and also there's politics in there. And also also there's economics. So for the pure economist, reading this, it will be new to them to hear the political ethical arguments for the pure philosophers who are not comfortable with politics and economics, they'll get the politics and economics of capitalism. There are poly assigned majors out there who never very few of them are going to be pro capitalist, but, um, if they get a little economics and philosophy out of this, they would be benefited as well.
Speaker 0 00:05:23 So I think of it as like, you know, the standard three legs of the stool. If it's just one leg it's not going to stand. If it's two, it's not going to stand. These three legs are not only the three followed philosophy, politics and economics are not only going to enable people to understand capitalism better. But I would say for the advocates of capitalism, a much better foundation for defending capitalism. And I would actually put it to the critics that if you really want to be a critic of capitalism, you have to attack it on these three levels as well. It can't be attacked just on one level we know on economics, it's, it's, uh, not, uh, it's not vulnerable on that score. And the enemies know that. So in, in many ways, the enemies of capitalism are agreeing with my approach of having this three-pronged approach.
Speaker 0 00:06:09 And I do teach PP and E at duke. So some of this, I think this book, I was pro capitalist before I started teaching at duke. But I would say that teaching at duke in the PPD program has enormously increased my understanding of capitalism. And there's a particular, I would say also there's a particular, uh, seminar that I've put together for freshmen. A very small seminar seminars need no more than 20 students. And I've done this now four years in a row, and it's just a very illuminating to give it's called capitalism for and against. So it's a seminar where half the readings are defending capitalism from these three perspectives. And the other half of the readings are trashing capitalism from these three stores detectives. So the students get that me teaching it, uh, repeatedly as enormously increased my understanding of this whole thing. So that's one point.
Speaker 0 00:07:03 Um, another point is, um, and I, I think now actually it's worth going through, uh, some of the slides. So, uh, that's just a summary slide at the top. If you go to the next one, uh, Abby, this is actually right in the preface I say right up from, uh, this interrogated where have all the capitalists gone. Uh, I use a play on words a little bit. If you ask a person what a socialist is, they'll say an advocate of socialism, but if you ask them what a capitalist is, they'll say, I dunno, a financee or a venture capitalist. They very rarely will say an advocate of capitalism, but that's how I'm using the word. I'm using the word as where have all the capitalists gone, not in the sense of where all the bankers go, where did all the finances go, but where did all the advocates of capitalism go?
Speaker 0 00:07:53 And I do recount in the book who they were, how they enabled the U S and others to win the cold war and how capitalism was actually advancing in the last two decades of the last century, namely 1980 to 2000, but it's been in retreat since. So that is really what it's examining. It's examining, um, the, uh, in a way why, even though it has this wonderful economic record it's in retreat and what it would take to bring them back, actually. So now this particular, uh, passage, uh, is a summary. This is from the preface and it says, uh, I have my glasses and my argument can be stated succinctly Kaplan's is the only legitimate habitat for humanity. It's now get this now, it's I say, it's sustainable because it's practical. It's practical because it's moral, it's moral because it's egoistic and it's egoistic because it's rational and humans are natural.
Speaker 0 00:08:53 I go on to say, and when you think of this link and this sequence, that's a long sequence of argument, but notice it includes philosophy politics, the practical issues, as well as the moral issues. And I'm arguing here that no argument for capitalism can forget all these things. So go up a little more Abby, and I'm going to elaborate on these, but first show you the structure of the book. Um, I, these are a series of essays I wrote over the last decade. Half of them are over the last five years, so they're fairly new and fairly fresh, and they come from four or five different sources. Some are, were written at Forbes. Some were written at the American Institute for economic research. Some were written new for this book. The preface is certainly new for the book. Some of them were from my, uh, investment consulting firm and were only available to clients until now.
Speaker 0 00:09:43 But what I did is I went through, when there were clear themes, I haven't changed my views that much. I've just learned more over the last decade. So I thought I would start more philosophical. This first section is about the meaning of capitalism and the moral arguments pro and con on capitalism. This, and you see there's, you know, a half a dozen essays or more under that section. So, so it's structured, uh, uh, logically in a sense, not, uh, not chronologically, um, in each case, the, the chapters and the essays, you get the original sources as to where they came from. Now, the second section has more to do with freedom and government governance. So that would be classified, I think, is more politics than anything. So the first section is about, uh, ethics and morals. The second one's really about government and its role in a capitalist system.
Speaker 0 00:10:33 The next one is really about economics. So section three, called the primacy of production. If you look there, the essays and the entries are mostly about economics, but they start with the basics like say's law, there's stuff in there about canes versus say's law. In all cases, I'm giving the pros and cons as well, and, uh, refuting them as well. Now, if you go to the next section, Abby, uh, for money and banking, now this is obviously economics, but it's one of my specialties. I was in the banking industry for the eighties and nineties. And so I'm, I'm very interested in, and I think it's highly topical the way money and banking and central bank in generally are going these days. They're really going off the rails. So the whole issue of money sound money, the gold standard versus not modern monetary theory. That's all in this section, including the federal reserve, uh, becoming really a reckless rule as a set of rulers, the business cycle, obviously also economics.
Speaker 0 00:11:33 My forecasting firm does a lot with the business cycles. So I thought I would include some essays in there. Those are going to be more quantitative. Those are going to be more tips on how to forecast, uh, the business cycle, but also an argument that it's not a market's left free, that caused boom and bust, but rather governments that now the next one, if you notice is a mix of economics, and I would say politics, the fiscal state and its burden here, you're going to get a lot of essays on taxes and not just the economic effect of taxes, but the politics of it, the populism of it, the soap, the rich type of stuff. What do we just have this past week and argument about whether there should be a billionaire's tax? So I talk about the fairness or not of the tax code, uh, whether a graduated income tax is unfair or not.
Speaker 0 00:12:22 I say it's unfair. I, I detail in here the, the burden on, um, the, the producers and the wealthy, the unnecessary burden, and also basically the fiscal state out of control. We have a burgeoning welfare state where, uh, the F where the funders of it do not want to tax people because they'll get thrown out of office. So one theme in this section is that there's a bias toward deficit spending. There's a bias toward chronically spending, more than it's taken in, in taxes. And of course you have to borrow the difference. So the burgeoning debt, the fed desire to monetize that debt is all part of a piece in this particular section. Now, the next section is clearly back to morality. If you will, justice and inequality questions about whether capitalism is just, or not, whether it's just for people to be rich or not, whether inequality is okay or not.
Speaker 0 00:13:15 I argue here that capitalism is essentially a system of unequal performance and unequal rewards. However, that's not a bad thing. The problem today is that there's a, uh, unwillingness to have equality before the law. There's an, a real erosion. I argue in this section of constitutionally limited government and, uh, throwing out of the idea that people should be treated equally before the law. My contention here is that people are unequal. They're not only unequally in a birth status, but they're equal in the kind of professions they choose and the work ethic they have. And so we think it should. My view is it should be natural that people end up in different positions economically, but it doesn't mean they got there by robbing others. And we shouldn't be envious toward those who are more successful. Unfortunately, the welfare state in the entire tax code these days is geared exactly to, uh, caudifying envy.
Speaker 0 00:14:12 Alright, now the next section, I hope you see, by the way, by these sections, that as you go through them, you're going to get a mix of philosophic, political and economic arguments, globalization and trade is obviously a hot topic. I don't have as many essays here because actually it was not a contended thing until Trump came along. So many of these are obviously defenses of free trade critiques of protectionism, uh, a defense of globalization, which just means global trade. There's a critique coming from both conservatives and nationalists and, uh, socialists against free trade. So I thought that was worth, um, discussing. I come out with actually a very rare argument for unilateral pre-trade, which is the idea that you do not sit down and strike free trade agreements with other countries. You don't basically waste your time doing that. You just adopt retrade on your own, regardless of what others do.
Speaker 0 00:15:08 Now, this next one on crisis, the whole idea of things in crisis is it caused by free markets or not. Uh, it does government fix those crises or caused them. Uh, that's what I examine here. And the three big is of course, on the last two decades, our nine 11 and its aftermath, the financial crisis of oh 8 0 9. And then more recently, this COVID stuff. Now that my theme here is in many cases, these crises are one caused by government and then to use as a pretext for more government controls and government takings of Liberty. So a hot topic now, uh, many essays in here on that issue. And I think the whole history of crises and emergency powers and decrees and things like that are it's manifest that those are causing capitalism to be submerged. These are not crises caused by capitalism, but it's certainly the claim of the anticapitalist that every time there's a crisis, somehow capitalism caused it.
Speaker 0 00:16:08 The next one varieties of anti-capitalism here, I draw from work. I've done at duke about what I call the friends and foes of capitalism. And there are many foes. Uh, there are many enemies and the essays basically deal with that. Why do they oppose capitalism? What are the reasons they give for opposing capitalism? So this is a section that basically highlights the idea of even for a pro capitalist, you're going to face a, a gauntlet of opposition and you need to know where it's coming from. But actually I have to say the whole theme of the book really is you can't be defensive about it. Remember Donald Trump and his state of the union said something like the United States will never become a socialist country. And when I, when I first heard that, I thought, well, that's a sentiment that I share, but notice how defensive it was.
Speaker 0 00:16:57 We will not become socialists. Now, what is he reacting to the squad and these others who are pushing socialism, what would it take for a president to say, uh, I want America to become more pro uh, more capitalist country. Do that's a moment that's a more, uh, taking the offense and saying there's a case to be made for capitalism, not this defensiveness to be against anti-capitalism, uh, if you advance it, uh, Abby, I'm just gonna go through a couple of exhibits that I've exited excerpted. There are, I, last time I counted, uh, I think there's more than 60 exhibits. And so you'll get from this book, some nice pictures and graphs that illustrate interesting relationships. So it's not just reading prose for 500 pages. It is a long book, it's 500 pages, but it's chock full of really good stuff. I thought I would just highlight some of these exhibits there.
Speaker 0 00:17:52 They're actually a little more philosophical, so they're not going to be, you know, line charts of interest rates and things like that, although they're in there. But then I'm going to highlight the ones that, that are more about capitalism. Now here's an example of an exhibit taken very early on in the book. I think it says page 34 there. Now, if you look on the left and then on the right, I'm basically saying these are the pillars of the two systems and notice at the very bottom, if you start with capitalism, it says reason then going up there, it says egoism, then going up further individualism, private ownership, rights and constitutionalism. So it's, so the bottom issues are like philosophical. What's the role of reason and the mind in, in the system. And then the ethic of, are you pursuing self-interest or something else, or is it an individualist type system or not?
Speaker 0 00:18:41 And to me, that all leads to, well, that's why there would be private ownership. Private ownership is a very individualist, the whole idea of rights to life, Liberty property, the pursuit of happiness, a very American kind of capitalistic and constitutionalism. The idea that government can't do, just whatever it wants, but must be restricted by a constitution. Now on every score in this essay, this is just, uh, an exhibit from an essay. Statism has the opposite focus. Uh, it's not based on reason, but on feelings and subjectivity, it's not calling for individualism and egoism, but rather sacrifice yourself for the collective sacrifice for yourself, for the group. Don't think of yourself, think of the general interest instead. And of course the public ownership or control of the means of production, even the leftist and some of the fascists will say, yes, that's exactly what we demand.
Speaker 0 00:19:30 And you're duty bound to do that. And the government's going to be authoritarian, not constitutionally limited. So this is the kind of, um, this is the kind of knowledge I'm trying to give the reader. So they get a better sense of capitalism versus its opposite. So state him as Satan is a broader term. It's the idea that the state is all important and there can be types of statism. So let's go to the next level and I'll show you that this matrix I use at duke and elsewhere has been very helpful. You know, what is state isn't it's well-recognized by again, by all parts of the spectrum. And if you ask a socialist, what is socialism and the terminology is very confused today. So I think this is illuminating. The socialists will say, my system is public ownership of the means of production. What does that mean?
Speaker 0 00:20:23 It means the government owns factories, equipment, tools, resources, things like that. And, uh, there's also this issue of control. If you think about it, you, you might own something in title, but if others get to tell you what to do with that thing, if they control the means by which you use it, you don't really have full control of your property. So what I've done here with this matrix is I've said, let's look at and control together and capitalism. And again, the enemies of capitalism would pretty much admit this capitalism is a system where the means of production are both owned and controlled privately. Again, there's, it's not like there's no government, but the government is not telling you what to do with your property. You own your property, and you decide what to do with it. Now in the footnote below, I say, let's go beyond just talking about the means of production.
Speaker 0 00:21:13 Let's also talk about the products of production. So it's not just factories and equipment and things like that, but personal effects, you know, your car, your laptop, your toothbrush, those things are going to be privately owned and privately controlled under capitalism. Now the complete opposite, if you go to the other diagonal in the Southeast quadrant, if you will, socialism is not only public ownership, but public control of the means of production. And again, the socialists will admit that now fascism, I think is actually the direction that the west is going. This is a controversial term. Everyone thinks of Hitler and Mussolini when they are fascism, as they should. But notice where I put fascism it's private ownership, right? It's in that quadrant, but public control. So the fascist, if you look at the fascist history and they'll admit this, they never nationalized anything that they didn't take over industries and factories and companies, they let them remain free, but they told them what to do.
Speaker 0 00:22:12 They micromanaged everything they did. That was a heavy regulatory state. And their feeling of course was if we own the thing, they'll run it into the ground like the socialists do. So we don't want to do that. But on the other hand, we want to use it for status purposes. So one feature of fascism is not only that the, the heavy regulatory control of private industry, but also they do promote big business. So this isn't very confusing to people because it sounds capitalist. The reason they promote big business under fascism is they, it's easier to control big fewer businesses than to control a plethora of smaller businesses. So that the whole, what they call the corporate test model, the corporate test state, the quote partnership between government and business, which is very common in fascism. And it should not be seen as a version of capitalism.
Speaker 0 00:23:01 It's a version of status. So that's something to look for when you see someone like Obama or Bernie Sanders, they'll say I'm not a socialist cause I'm not trying to nationalize everything. Yeah. But if you look at all the things they're trying to regulate, they're actually more accurately characterized as fascist. And that's a terrible system. I won't talk about feudalism right now because that's not as relevant, but that's in the fourth category. I was so move up Abby to the next. Here's another exhibit that really goes to the title of the book. When I remember I said, where have all the capitalists gone? And I said, we need to think of capitalists as advocates of this exhibit when it might be difficult to see, but it's a, it takes up a full page in the book here. I recount a very interesting 40 50 year period.
Speaker 0 00:23:48 That's all it was, it was an amazing 40 or 50 year period, basically starting at the end of world war two and ending with the end of Soviet union. And what I've given you here is basically the famous, most famous, most influential capital, uh, in the sense of advocates of capitalism. And if you look, they range from economists to political theorists, to philosophers, to novelists, and the big names, of course you might not know the early names like Snyder, but Snyder was very good capitalism. The creator he wrote in 1940, a fabulous book, a high ag is in here. The road to serfdom measles is here. Human action. These names will be familiar to some of you, but this is just a library of pro capitalist arguments that any pro capitalists really should master has. What's in here, economics in one lesson on Rand is in here.
Speaker 0 00:24:43 The fountain had capitalism, the unknown ideal Schumpeter's in here. A great champion of the entrepreneur capitalism and profit seeking, uh, notice MES as the anti-capitalist mentality, um, has lots critiques of, um, uh, canes, which were fabulous. Uh, capitalism then known ideal came in the sixties, uh, anarchy state and utopia Nozick was really important because he was a Harvard professor was unknown in Harvard and elsewhere that there would be anyone who would stand up for the free society and Nozick did. And that was huge. Now fast supply side movement, as well as I tip my hat to hear now, what is it leading to? It led to people like Richard Reagan, Monreal Mulrooney and Canada, uh, winning election in the eighties and changing policy away from Keynesian interventionism toward supply side pro entrepreneur capitalists, not pure capitalism, but in that direction, moving in that direction and, and the famous fall of the Soviet union, I mean, absolutely unpredicted by anybody, including some on the right, some on the right even thought that they were monolithic.
Speaker 0 00:25:53 And, uh, but it's just a great period and shows how improve the world can yet people are pro capitalist. Now the real mystery that I addressed in the book is where are all these capitalists? One simple answer would be they're in their graves. They're all gone, but why didn't they produce students? Will I'm a student in a way I'm a student. Many of us are students of these great thinkers, but we really, I use we, the Royal, we a little loosely here. We really have not brought, carried the torch or taken the Baton from these and, and advanced the, the argument. And that's a mystery and that's something that worth discussing and analyzing because otherwise we're going to lose this system and lose this great country. But my bottom line answer not to give away the plot. I'll give away the plot a little bit it's that the moral argument has to be emphasized the morals of capitalism.
Speaker 0 00:26:48 The, the rational egoism of capitalism has to be more forthrightly, defended the individualism of it. Uh, those pillars I was talking about before that is really, what's making people cringe. That's really, what's making people, uh, reticent, uh, they're really reluctant to go there. And as a result, they're being steamrolled by the moral certainty of these others who are claiming, uh, to have the moral high ground. They don't have the moral high ground, but the advocates of capitalism, sadly say, don't quite know that yet. Uh, one more Abby, I think there's one more. That might be the end of it. Let me check. Is that okay? Let me skip over that one. That's a little too detailed. Now this one's a little duke T too detailed, so I'm not going to go through all of it, but this is the last exhibit in the book and it's taken from my seminar.
Speaker 0 00:27:39 And this is the kind of, uh, condensation that you'll really enjoy from the book. What this is is, is the friends and foes of capitalism organized by the three big questions. And we take an entire semester and go through this with the students, by the end of it, they're able to fill in these little thumbnail sketches, but notice up top what I'm asking of each set of ideas. What do they define capitalism to be? Do they think it's moral that they think it's practical? Do they think it's sustainable? And notice what I have. I have the Marxists. Then I have Keynesians. Then I have conservatives libertarians, Objectivists environmentalist feminists. We go through their writings, we go through their arguments and it's really fascinating to see it quite this way, because they all have very definitive views on these three questions. And I think it's an enormously valuable way to summarize, you know, who the friends and foes are.
Speaker 0 00:28:37 And you can see from this, that even the friends might have very weak arguments, uh, as just one example, shrimpers her I said is very good. Schumpeter's great about capitalism is wonderful. Capitalism is dynamic. It's the entrepreneurial system. Uh, we should have liberalism in the, in the good sense of Liberty. We should have limited government, but guess what? Schumpeter's actual view on capitalism? Sustainability was, he said it wasn't sustainable. Why? Because the intellectuals will come to hate it. So it's a different view than the Marxist view of the Marxist view was capitalism will burst apart. It'll so exploit labor that label or rise up and throw overthrow capitalism. Well, that hasn't happened, but obviously marks is not in the camp of people saying capitalism is sustainable, but some of capitalism's friends don't even think it's sustainable. And that's not a very good argument. If capitalism isn't sustainable.
Speaker 0 00:29:29 What's the sake of, what's the point of defending it on any grounds, moral, practical, or economic. I know some libertarian friends, by the way, who will say something like this, capitalism is great, but here's what happens. The wealthier capitalists get, they just can't stop themselves from bribing politicians. So what is the big word in Austrian economics and public choice economics rent seeking what's rent-seeking corporations, bribing politicians for special favors to see these libertarians think that's inevitable. They think it's unavoidable and they'll call it. They'll say crony capitalism comes out of free market capitalism. That's not my view. That's not really Iran's view, but our view is if you get a mixed economy, if you throw away constitutional limits on government, if you allow politics to bleed into economics, you're going to get corruption. You're going to get the kind of bribery and extortion we say, but it's just as much extortion on the part of politicians, extorting things from the private sector as it is the private sector seeking, seeking favors.
Speaker 0 00:30:35 So the solution to something like that and to make capital true capitalism, truly sustainable, you have to fight for constitutionally limited government. That's what's going to stop the corruption. That's when that's going to stop the issue of the money affecting politics. I have an essay in here, right? To this point, it goes something like this. The title was to get money out of politics, get politics out of moneymaking, to see the idea that you only read. You only have money in politics because politics is so involved in moneymaking, redistributing that wealth, making people want to care about who's in office versus not. So I think I'll stop there. That's a basic summary of the entire theme of the book, really more than anything, and, uh, be glad to take comments or questions from here.
Speaker 1 00:31:27 All right. Well, we have a couple, I think a couple of comments and questions in the chat. And then after that, um, do you want me to, first of all, should I get rid of the screen share so we can see everybody's face? You want to keep
Speaker 0 00:31:37 Anything?
Speaker 1 00:31:41 Yeah, let me get this right here. Is that this, and I have a few outs from the preface here and things like that, but, um, so the first question I see in here, that was just, where does it go? Um, should we think of politics and economics as necessarily separate? So that was from Jake. And I don't know if he has anything. He'd like to elaborate on that as a question, but you guys can feel free to unmute your mic on mute your cameras and ask these questions as well. Yourselves.
Speaker 0 00:32:07 That's a good question. Is that Jacob as a good question, Jake? Yep. I do think it's worth it.
Speaker 2 00:32:12 He was more specific as like, like throughout history. The way people make money is pretty inherently tied to the political system. The, either the governing system or more like blatant politics. So how should we, how should we separate them?
Speaker 0 00:32:26 I think conceptually politics is the, is what I call public governance, not private governance. So we think of government as politics, but the broader concept. And there's some essays in the book on this. If we think of governance, generally we have political governance, but we also have govern our lives with, you know, personal, uh, rules of operation and things like that. How often we brush our teeth in the morning. And so the distinction is politics really is about physics is about force the state. I mean, all sides will say the state is that institution with a monopoly over the legitimate use of force. Uh, markets are not, that markets are volunteering and economics generally voluntary exchange between people for mutual advantage. And so, um, there's a big difference between economic power and political power. The two are totally blended together. If you notice by anti-capitalist, the anti-capitalist will say, you know, Exxon has such power that it's no different than a dictator.
Speaker 0 00:33:25 And so we need democracy in the workplace and we need government control. I reject that view, but the relationship between the two Jake really crucial because the libertarian view would be since the government is what I just said. It was, it has this monopoly over the use of force. It's always going to do evil things. And so government, they say is a necessary evil, uh, and therefore get rid of it. If you can't be an anarchist. I, you know, my view is government isn't necessarily good if it's properly behave, if it's properly restricted and fully indispensable to free markets, you're just not going to get trade in an anarchic assessing or in an autocratic setting. So that's just, that's just part of the answer. It's much more, it's much more than that, Jake, but I think the big challenge is people do not think that could be a bright line between politics and economics.
Speaker 0 00:34:14 There. They're convinced that the two must blend together and then they just fight over. To what extent the government controls of markets I have found by the way that it's very difficult to get over the, uh, contention that capitalism is just government run by capitalists. That is a very common view. In fact, the name capitalism itself makes people think, oh, that's the system of by and for capitalists. Um, the opening essay in my book actually says, capitalism is a great name for this system because its Latin root is actually head cap head. It's a system of the mind. It's the system that most protects the human mind and creativity. Good question. Okay. There's way more to say,
Speaker 1 00:35:03 I think, uh, Dr. Kelly's up next, you guys can raise your hands at that feature. I believe that's what he did. There's a feature it'll pop you up next if you have something pressing. So, uh, you wanna,
Speaker 3 00:35:14 Yes, thanks for sure. Um, and you know, I have your book and I was looking at the exhibits as you were talking and I realized there are very riches here that I haven't fully mined yet. So thank you for that. A question Objectivists have been finding, um, against altruism for many years, trying to point out that, um, it's not dog eat dog. It's not, you know, screw your buddy is a productive pursuit of self-interest and economists have the idea of, you know, the people act in their self-interest, but altruism seems inescapable in the view in, in the popular attitude that business people are amoral at best, but government is good because they don't, they have no, you know, profit motive and that, um, yeah. And so I guess what my question is, to what extent you think the, the drift away from capitalism is, uh, driven by the moral basis, the moral antipathy or economic ignorance. And as, just as a side point, and you mentioned that in the last decades of the 20th century, things were looking good. They were moving in a positive direction. Now they're not what changed, uh, on the, on this issue of altruism versus economic ignorance. Thanks.
Speaker 0 00:37:00 That's a really good question. I think in the period that I detailed, you know, 1942, the end of the scope, I think the impetus was largely, um, the moral arguments I ran was not the only one as you, as we know, I Hazlitt Hayak Freedman. I didn't even mention Milton Friedman. They were all trying to say as well, the capitalism was moral and just, uh, a Friedman's whole free to choose thing. Their view was more like it's a moral system because you're free, but they wouldn't go so far as on and rant and say, no, it's a moral system because it's rational egoism. Um, it's hard. It's hard for me to, I have some suggestions in the book where it's hard for me to give a definitive answer as to why things turn at the end of the century. But, um, the Soviet union dissolved in 91.
Speaker 0 00:37:54 So the nineties themselves, I thought were a great decade. It was a decade when you found Clinton and the Democrats, and even in Britain, Tony Blair and others, they were starting to mimic naturism and Reaganism, they really weren't overthrowing it. And that's a sure sign that you're going in the right direction when you get the other party doing me too on your programs. Um, I hate to attribute it to one event, but I think nine 11 really did. And here it is right at the turn of the second century, right? Nine 11 did make people turn to the government in ways that were, I thought shocking. The Patriot act, the buildup of national military, that the, the, uh, adventures abroad, which was so disastrous as we've seen in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Um, and just that there was no sense that that was a government failure, you know, and that, that wasn't, how could you say nine 11 was a failure of capitalism, but then by the time we get to the financial crisis of a way to know time to this day, that is still attributed to capitalism, which is ridiculous.
Speaker 0 00:38:59 It was a national government policy, you know, to artificially promote home ownership to people who couldn't afford homes, you know, who could have not have guessed that that would collapse, but for markable how the last, I don't know the lasting power of this idea that capitalism, although succeeding on practical terms is still immoral. And there, there are themes in the book where I say, uh, where I speculate David, that the more capitalism becomes practically successful. There's kind of like a building animus toward it because they're saying, they're saying to themselves, wow, this is really unchecked greed. And so it's per se, it's what they do is they don't say, well, I'm, anti-capitalist because it's in depression. That was like the 1930s approach, right. The approach in the nineties was it's so dynamic and so prosperous, spreading, it's got to be really, really evil. This is a completely unrestrained egoism.
Speaker 0 00:39:58 So, um, that that's, um, I'm not sure that's a very good answer, but, um, it's undeniable to me that the last two decades are much more reasonably classified as the pro capitalists, uh, on the defenses. And, and, and oddly enough, now on the defensive, even, even economically, you know, it begins with, I don't think it's really moral. I don't know how to defend it. And then as the catastrophes come, they're not even sure how to defend the economics of it. They start, they start worrying that maybe even the economics of it don't work out. Right. Like, so thank you, Richard.
Speaker 1 00:40:41 Anybody else does anybody else?
Speaker 4 00:40:44 Yeah. Um, can you guys hear me? Yep. Now this data it's data with the yam, but seven, it's a great presentation. I like stuff you say I want to add, you know, because I just want to say, when you say where of all the capital's gone, I think we need to define, um, which capitalists we talking about. Okay. And so, you know, because you can talk about big business versus small business. You talk about people that want to do businesses with many employees, small number of employees, people that want to be capitalists with no employees. You hear that all, all the time. You know, and I hear, um, you know, they, they don't want employees because they don't want the liability. They don't want a brick and mortar. They don't want the liability. It's hard to say capitalism is lost when almost every TV show, um, is based on how much money you can win.
Speaker 4 00:41:44 Okay. I mean, there's people out there that want to make money, but what they don't want is, you know, you know, capitalism has that thing of risk and reward. And today when people saw all the small businesses that were destroyed. Okay. Um, during the 2008, all the small businesses were destroyed, uh, during this COVID bullshit. Um, you know, it's, it's like, and then when you hear about the tax thing, the only thing here about taxes, special taxes for businesses with more than a hundred employees, I mean, all of this is creating a sense of mine that I don't think it's destroying capitalism. I think it's destroying a huge sector of capitalism, which is the sector that we know has always made a difference in the world and small businesses where it's always been
Speaker 0 00:42:38 Well, this is what, that's a good, it's a good question. A good comment, David, this is why I think my theme in the book is, uh, both unique and illuminating. This is totally what you just described, which I agree with that the phenomenon is totally consistent with a trend toward fascism. Although the populous talk is, you know, we're for small business and we're against these big, bad tech giants and big business bigness being badness, it's a total cover for their real goal. They don't care if small businesses run out of business, uh, they're fascists and fascia would prefer to have big companies lining their pockets. And then in turn telling them what to do. It's the whole, if you know, Davos, it's, it's, that's the best way to capture it. It's the whole Davos crowd, the ones that go over to the world, economic forum every year and talk to each other.
Speaker 0 00:43:36 It's not just business people. Of course, it's business and academics and think tanks and politicians. But what is the focus? The total focus is on big business and partnerships with government, the idea of the stakeholder and model. There's a whole essay I have, by the way, totally refuting and tearing to pieces, the stakeholder model. But what is the stakeholder monitor? Think of it is throwing off the shareholder model where the owners of the company decide and the big companies, right? The big shareholder companies, what to do with their property, gov, these fascists hate that they don't want shareholders being the sole deciders. They want stakeholders, meaning a broadly defined group of people that, um, tell companies what to do. That's what fascism is and stakeholders to them are. Well, it's not just the owners, it's the employees and it's the suppliers and it's the local politicians.
Speaker 0 00:44:26 And it's the tax space. Some of them will include in there. The planet, the planet is a stakeholder, but earth has something to say on the board at Exxon. So I'm David. I hear what you're saying. And I, and I, what I just fare at the idea that the way these guys are getting away with it is by pitting big business versus small business. Because if they're not really anti big business, they want big business in their pocket. They want to control big business. All the, all the guilt trips, all the battering of them like Obama used to say those fat cats. Well, those same fat cats are the one that Senator Obama approved the bank. Bailouts Obama approved the bank, bailouts, why he's a fascist. He's not really actually a socialist. And so they, they, they play this game, this rhetoric game against bigness. And they're not really against bigness. They certainly are against smallness. Although they say another, they would rather, yes. Have the small business wiped out because they can't control a small business. You know, small businesses. It's too, it's too cumbersome for them to call up and say, do this. And that for me, with thousands of small little businesses, they don't give a damn about. Okay.
Speaker 4 00:45:41 Yeah. The interesting thing is rich is that that without small businesses you lose the innovation. I mean, Microsoft and apple started in fricking garages residents. That computer didn't come from IBM, which had been around for years and was huge. Right? So we all know. I mean, I love, I love what you're talking about, fascism versus communism, because I, I have that discussion all the time with people. People don't understand when I tell them that communism is more honest than fascism, because to me, it's the guy with the gun that works for you. And I don't care about, I mean, the robber is honest. He's a thief. He tells me he's a thief when he pushed the gun to my head, fascist is the guy that's wants to tell you, he's your friend. But, but, but what, but you got to do it his way in this, on the other thing. And basically he controls your business
Speaker 0 00:46:33 And noticed the other thing we're dealing with is if you have this conception, that capitalism is the system that favors capitalists, you're likely that you're likely to look at fascism and say, well, that's just the way it is. That's just, that's capitalism. And I hate it and I hate it and I hate big business. But then if you look and you say, well, don't you realize that what we're moving toward is not, not really breaking up big business. They're not doing that at all. They're favoring big business and then hoping to control big business. That's exactly what's happening. And, and, and it's odd because when the American people look at that, they say, yeah, that's what I hate, but I can't seem to stop it. This is supposed to be a heavily democratic system. No, we're way past the constitutional government, right? Where we're in a post constitutional era.
Speaker 0 00:47:23 So even the conservatives who say, wow, we need to get back to the constitution. These people do not give a damn about the constitution. They haven't since Woodrow Wilson, or they simply want to bolster and get, uh, favors from big business. And then, uh, the rhetoric is against big business, but they just want to control them. That's my view. But so, I mean, there's a lot of truth in what you're saying. And it's actually very tragic because it's, the issue is not Iran used to say this used to say, you know, the labor unions would pit themselves against big business. And she would say, you two are fighting each other and you have no clue. You're on each other's side. And what's really driving you apart is the status. They're the ones who are trying to instigate some antagonism between you two, once you've figured this out, the game is up. That was largely what happened in the eighties and nineties. I mean, the unions voted for Reagan. The Teamsters voted for Reagan. They voted for two landslides for Reagan. And it's hard to believe actually. And I would say the same thing. Now, these big business versus small business stuff is so much, um, uh, slight of hand, you know, diverting attention away from the real problem, which is statism.
Speaker 5 00:48:37 Yeah. I think a lot of what we're talking about here is semantics of what the word sounds like to people and their immediate reaction. I think the term free market really attracts people. They liked that the term fascism, everybody hates fascists. Let's say term that is automatically labeling as evil. I think the term individualism is good and people say, yes, I'm an individual. And they identify with that. I think the term altruism is one people never hear, but this is what we're up against in communicating with the public. And I think if we can use the term CRE market a lot, that'll help.
Speaker 0 00:49:33 I disagree with that. Robert, I that's been trying to conservative have tried that for at least five or six decades. Now they'll use free enterprise. They'll say free market. These, these opponents hate freedom. So they don't, they're not moved at all. I know you might think Americans are, but even Americans are moving away from that idea. I agree with you that capitalism as I just myself admitted seems the word itself to most Americans seems like, well, that's just favoring capitalists. So to that extent, they're correct. If it truly was a system that favored capitalism, uh, capitalists, I would be against it as well. That's not what the system is, but I don't think you can get out of this by saying let's change the rhetoric and fool people into loving capitalism. That there's a, I think we should go with the word capitalism and defend heartily.
Speaker 0 00:50:28 I think similarly Iran's of the same thing about selfishness. She was criticized for using that word, thinking, God, you're going to lose everybody who already thinks selfishness is terrible, but she had the same attitude toward capitalism. These words are real they're worth defending. And if it takes a little argument to tell people that they have a false dichotomy going on that that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. But the other methods that you're suggesting sound defensive, they really do seem to be defensive. Um, and that's what I want to get away from my, there are at least six or seven essays in the book, uh, criticizing conservatives. I mean, it's not just anti-left wing the essay saying the photos of capitalism include some conservatives who, uh, either for religious reasons or ethical reasons, uh, don't like capitalism. So that does not help, uh, often and frankly, some libertarians as well, to the extent they embrace anarchy. So it's even difficult on the right to get a unified front defending capitalism. There are many libertarians I quote in the book saying, don't use the word capitalism, stay away from it.
Speaker 4 00:51:38 You know, it makes it say, uh, addressing Robert. Um, you know, one of the things is that I think that a lot of people hate fascia. Some for the wrong reason, I guess most people, when they think of fascism, they think of, um, of racism. They don't think of the evils of fascism when it comes to economics. And so when, when I know men, many of us talk about the word fascism, we're referring to the economics of fascism, as opposed to, um, the, the distraction of, uh, the people that want to say it's racist and whatever. I just think it's evil. Like in the comments, I probably did it in three videos and I just wanted to promote that the last video. And I think it, it did it reverse, but the video with bill riddle when he did that speech on Romney, and he actually started out this, this was done in 2012 and he said, here's what Romney should have set.
Speaker 4 00:52:32 And it's really a promotion of capitalism. And I, I just, uh, if, if people have a chance, it's, it's, it's, it's a 15 minute video, but, um, it's, it's really good speech because he starts out with, um, somebody saying that he was worth $200 million and he says, you know, you made a mistake, I'm worth $250 million. And here's, and here's about, and here's why the extra 50 million are so important. And you know, his comment is the problem with many capitalists is that we, we don't, we don't like, like what, like with Richard saying, we don't fight, we don't fight for it. We don't fight for it. And I think that, um, without having to, anyway, if you guys get a chance, I think that all of you enjoy the three videos,
Speaker 0 00:53:21 The, uh, one of the things I thank you. Thank you guys for that. One of the things say in the book is not only are capitalists rare in the sense of advocates of capitalism, but capitalists who were financial capitalists and ideological capitalists rarer still that that is very rare. So someone like George Soros is what a financial capitalist, but an anti capitalist ideologically, that's a much more common combination. I mean, most of the people, most of the guys had senior level and gals at Goldman Sachs Morgan Stanley city Corp. I know them. I've worked with it for a year they're anti-capitalists they're, avowedly, anti-capitalism give money to Obama, give money to Sanders, but most people don't realize it. They think, and this is a Marxist premise. They think rich people are pro capitalist ideologically. They're not why because they go to the same elite public schools that are anti-capitalist.
Speaker 0 00:54:14 They can't avoid it. Even when they go to the business schools and they got a Harvard business school or few quotes, they're going to get the same kind of stakeholders stuff. And so the whole movement toward woke capitalism, which surprises the hell out of people, surprises, conservatives, conservatives are thinking, wait a minute, what happened to the CEO suites over the last two decades? Why are these CEOs, uh, signing on to all sorts of socialist and fascist measures? Because they, they don't escape the universities any better than anybody else does. And, and they're, they're actually, if anything kind of sh more shy about it, cause they're, they're overwhelmed by academics. They're, they're kind of impressed by the eggheads and the IQ levels of people in academia. So if the academics are telling them you're guilty, you're a parasite, uh, you know, turn over your corporations to something.
Speaker 0 00:55:05 By the way, the marches could not get on their own. They were supposed to take over the corporation violently, right? They couldn't do it. They didn't do it. Labor didn't want to do it. So what are they doing? They're bleeding them dry, uh, jab by jab with this stakeholder stuff. Uh, someone did a study of what stakeholders actually meant. There was a business school professor. She went through the literature, just looking for what it meant to be a stakeholder. She counted 435 different types of groups and or people who called themselves stakeholders. That's how many people want to show up in the boardroom telling business what to do? I couldn't help, but think in 435 is also the number of representatives in the house house of representatives, the same number. Um, so by the way, Robert fascism, you know, you said it does have a bad name.
Speaker 0 00:55:54 It does. And so I'm a bit surprised why people don't more, uh, on the right who are pro capitalists bring to the attention that that's the system we're moving toward. Uh, instead people think we're moving towards socialism and notice what they do with the rhetoric there. They put the word Democrat in front of it. So they call it democratic socialism. And I'll often say to students, why are they modifying it? What, what is it about socialism that when it's not democratic, it's just brutal. It's in U Maine and there's blood running in the streets and you think it'll change if we vote for it, instead of get it by violence, you know, buy a ballots instead of bullets. Um, so, so that's maybe part of our problem as well. Democracy is seen as saintly. Anything that's democratic, anything people vote for is seen as well.
Speaker 0 00:56:47 That's fine. They voted for it. Well, they also voted for, uh, Chavez in Venezuela. They voted for Madeira. They have voted for those jackasses down in Caracas for decades. Now, now maybe some of the, maybe some of the more recent, uh, uh, elections were fraud, fraudulent and corrupt. But that always happens when you start with socialist state, they win the first few elections and then they overthrow the constitution and then they corrupt all subsequent elections. So this shouldn't be a big mystery to anybody, including the people at Venezuela. Uh, they voted for Hitler. They voted for Vienna. You know, democracy is not an assurance that you'll get Liberty at all. If the democracy means just the most, the most means people, democracy is ruled by people. If the people are complete ignoramuses or actually vicious, they'll, they'll vote for tyrants. Um, I don't have to tell this audience that, but that's true. But notice that AOC and others, they have no problem with saying I'm a Democrat socialist, and everyone thinks that whitewashes, that did democracy. The saintly thing. Whitewashes the tyranny, which is the socialism I'll often say to students, do you have any problem with democratic fascism? Oh, of course I wrote what democratic fascism, what is that? I said, I don't know the kind of fascism that the Germans practice when they voted for the Nazis that was democratic fascism, the students have no clue of that combination.
Speaker 5 00:58:19 I think we should keep pointing out that the Nazis were national.
Speaker 0 00:58:25 Right. And I have a couple of essays in the book, uh, reluctant to be critical of Trump because everyone was critical of Trump, but there are a couple of essays, three or four essays in the book that point out Robert that on the one side AOC and others, you get socialism, right. But from the Trump side, you get nationalism. It is identical to what happened in Weimar, Germany and pre Hitler, Germany. You had nationalists on one side and socialists on the other, and you're absolutely right. Hitler. And the Nazis came along and said, you're both right. Let's combine nationalism and socialism together. And that is what the contraction Nazi-ism means. It means national socialism. So it's funny because the left hated Trump because he was a nationalist, but they're the socialist. So they're just providing the other side of the combination. Um, but they were worrying that he would be a tyrant that he would be the next Mussolini, uh, you know, never admitting that they were offering the socialist side of the wedding
Speaker 6 00:59:30 Professor. You talk about, um, how, uh, for example, United States or another country could unequivocally be a free market or promote free markets and therefore not engaged in any actual, um, rules-based trading and not establish any, um, trading, uh, relationship with any nation and just kind of forthright be, uh, free market as, as much as they can be. How, like I'm having a hard time, like rationalizing that if you have other nations, if you don't really have like a, a base, um, it based understanding of free markets across the world. And the fact that you deal with other nations who are thinking in a geopolitical fashion, such as China. So could you talk a more, um, more about this and, um, how could you, how could like one nation go about doing that without hurting themselves and shooting themselves in the foot in the short-term? Because like, could you go and do that and then be a leader in what others follow? Because I think we like the United States and the west kind of try that with China and, um, opening China up, uh, economically kind of just led to more authoritarian than,
Speaker 0 01:00:45 So I do endorse what's called unilateral free trade, which is you just lower your tariffs and lower your barriers to other nations and basically adopt a free trade policy without negotiating with them without sitting down. And if you know how these negotiations go bilateral versus unilateral bilateral two countries, sit down. These things go on for years and months and then special interest groups get involved. And the whole free trade agreement turns out to be a semi free trade agreement. It's even worse with what's called multi-lateral negotiations. That's like 16, 17, 20 countries in the room. Those things go on for years and they invite cronyism and they invite favoritism. So, so one of the reasons I advocate unilateral free trade, is it just forgoes this opportunity to invite you in corruption? That's 0.1 but 0.2 is listen. If, um, uh, if Japan says we're going to put tariffs on us goods that they're taxing their own citizens, why do we care?
Speaker 0 01:01:48 Why would you turn around and say, as Trump did well, we're going to slap tariffs on you. Tariffs are not put on Japan, they're put on American importers. So, so when Trump said I'm going to raise tariffs, he was basically saying I'm going to tax the American people, but he would lie. And he would say, China is paying these tariffs. China does not pay the tariffs. Tariffs are paid by your own citizens when they import stuff. So what I'm saying is don't do that even if the other countries adopt tariffs. So what they're taxing their own citizens. That mean we should tax our citizens. Now here's another example. Suppose someone says the foreign country is subsidizing exports. It's, it's taxing its own citizens and pouring money into some country that sends us stuff for keep, why would you oppose that? That's like a gift again, again, you're not taxing yourself.
Speaker 0 01:02:40 Some other countries taxing its citizens to give you cheaper stuff. I don't know why anyone would oppose that. Why anyone would put up barriers. So that's another argument for unilateral free trade. There, there are other reasons to do this, but I would say this just to, because you brought up China, I think it's a good point to bring up something. A government at any free society has to do is they do have to designate if necessary other countries as enemies. If you, if you, the state department has to do this or the department of defense, I'm not against Iran, for example, would be a good example of this. I ran as an obvious example. I, I'm not sure what China is. So let's just take Iran as an example. I think it's perfectly appropriate for the us state department to say, Iran is an enemy of the United States.
Speaker 0 01:03:25 They want to kill us. They want to kill Israel. They're an enemy. And therefore, no trade, no trade with them. Just allowed it. It's no different than a, than a municipality saying, these are criminals. They're in jail. You can't trade with criminals. That I think is okay, but you still have to have objective definitions of what it means to be an enemy state. But there, I think you're perfectly appropriate, but that's not. When you think about it, that's not really a protectionist policy. It's a policy of saying they're enemies. Therefore don't aid in the bet enemies. And there, I think our government is perfectly legitimate to say to a company, you can't be selling stuff to Iran. Why? Because they're an enemy of the United States and they might come out of that position, right? They might change their government in Iran. In which case you reassess the situation.
Speaker 0 01:04:11 But people forget that when the Soviet union came into existence in 1917, the us did not recognize that government for 16 years. So for, and not until 1933, I don't think it should have recognized me than them. But notice the principle was practiced then namely, okay, here's this new regime? Are they an enemy or not? If they're an enemy, we don't recognize them officially. We don't have ambassadors. We don't have trade with them that I do think is appropriate. I wouldn't classify China in there. I know we differ on this. We've talked about this. I would not classify China right now as an enemy of the United States. There's certain nefarious things they do, but I wouldn't classify it as I classify them as an enemy. And therefore I wouldn't have a trade war with them as Trump had. I mean, Trump started a trade war with them. I actually think this will sound crazy. I know, I think China purposely sent the virus here to get Trump out and then they counted on the left wanting Trump out as well. That's why the left is covering up China's role. I don't think it was an accident that
Speaker 6 01:05:20 Why is it? The virus is way too convenient. Let's be honest.
Speaker 0 01:05:25 Oh, that's a, that's a thing we can dispute. But so Trump just Trump said, don't send us, uh, your gadgets and your, your way and everything. And they said, good. Well, how about, how about a virus? And maybe we'll send you that, see what happens anyway,
Speaker 6 01:05:43 They released it. They really made an effort to making this damaging as possible for the rest of the world.
Speaker 0 01:05:48 Steve, do you have your handout?
Speaker 7 01:05:50 Yeah. Uh, uh, yeah. Great discussion. Uh, Richard, uh, uh, talking about, you know, the, uh, anticapitalist movement over the last 20 years, uh, to what extent do you think, um, some of that is attributed to the, to the, uh, growth of cultural Marxism in the United States, like, uh, uh, for example, uh, advocate, really the roots of Marxism in the United States, I think kind of got its roots back in the 1930s with the Frankfurt school importing its ideas into the United States and a grandchild socialism coming into the United States in the 1920s, 1930s. And I think it gradually sort of infiltrated American universities, uh, you know, from say the 1930s all the way to the current day. And so I'm curious, uh, you know, what your thoughts are on, on, uh, this anti-capitalist movement. Um, how much of that is attributed to this, uh, growth in cultural, the cultural Marxist movement that kind of really started with, um, the Frankfurt school and even with Saul Alinsky and his publication that the rules for radicals in 1971, so forth.
Speaker 0 01:07:09 I think it's Steve. I think it's very important. And one way of, I think one way of classifying, it would be the old Marxist argument was purely economics. I mean, some of it was politics, purely economics. We criticize capitalism because capital capitalists are exploiting laborers, but that argument went away long ago when it was seen that the laborers, as you know, gained in productivity and real wages and living standards. And so the shift you're absolutely true that shift occurred after that. Well, if we can't find it, they hated capitalism, right? They couldn't find antagonism really between capitalists, employers and employees. So they shifted to other potential antagonisms and we we've seen them all today. I mean, it's, it's men versus women it's straight versus gay. It's black versus white. It's old versus young. I mean, it goes on and on and on and they just wait for incidents to come up.
Speaker 0 01:08:03 So if it's Harvey Weinstein, they'll pound down the me too movement for two years and then it's, and then if George Floyd is killed, they'll pound on the blacks and whites are at each other. And the whole thing is, and leads to antagonism and leads to people at each other's throats. Let's just look for the different throats. That's all they do. And another, so I agree with you, Steve, that, that they, they have at the ready a whole litany of potential antagonisms that they just rotate from, depending on what's in the headlines. And it's constant, it's just a constant barrage of, and the implication always, of course, is they won't say this. They won't say this is essential to capital a, to socialism, or even to medieval ism or to feudalism. Every antagonism they'll say was due to capitalism. And it's just a cover for the fact that they can't say it's an economic plash anymore.
Speaker 0 01:08:59 I think something that, uh, uh, at, at T a S um, Stephen heck has written extensively and powerfully on the spread of postmodernism. So that is certainly anticapitalist. So it isn't just, it's much worse than Marxism Marxism claimed to have a different access to knowledge or the inevitability of scientific materialism and all that kind of stuff. Postmodernism is just anti reason, totally anti objectivity, anti individualism, antiques, seeing people as independent, independent individuals. So that's going to be anticapitalist as well, if that's what you're referring to. Yes. That's, that's been an undercurrent for a long time now, and it's emerging well all over the place with the gender stuff and the race stuff, the whole idea, the whole idea that if reason is out and people don't interact with each other on the basis of this wager it gets very concrete bound. So they start looking at pigmentation and genitals and stuff like that. When you think about it, it's like a very crude way of classifying people, because you're no longer, you're no longer dealing with them on an ideological or rational level. So you're just looking at these kind of crude, uh, concrete bound, uh, aspects. Very anticapitalist obviously. Yeah. Is that what you meant? Is that what you were referring to?
Speaker 7 01:10:24 Yeah, well, yeah. And also I think a
Speaker 0 01:10:27 Cultural part. Yeah.
Speaker 7 01:10:29 Yeah. I think it's actually been a little quiet
Speaker 0 01:10:40 Here. Yeah.
Speaker 7 01:10:42 Oh, okay. Uh, I think it's been a long term strategy of the Marxists, however long it takes. They want to, they've always wanted to bring down the United States. And, um, I don't know if you're familiar with a socialist parties, presidential candidates in the 19, 19 57, Norman Thomas. Um, but anyway, he, uh, he made sometime in the 1950s, he said, um, uh, that the socialist should not describe.
Speaker 0 01:11:22 Yes, Steve, I don't think that, I don't think we, if you can hear us, Steve, I can't hear you. I don't know if you break it up in and out. I would, I would just to change the discussion, but I would stress as I have in the book, the disappointment I have with conservatives and libertarians not being pro capitalist. So I think, I think we can take it. We could stipulate that the socialists and the postmodernists will be anti-capitalist they always have been, but they're given such wide birth. It's a vacuum there. And it's so sad. I think one of the more interesting things that the Atlas society does is it tries to reach out to, and bolster the arguments and improve the arguments of conservatives and libertarians, because they really do need it. Um, it's almost not even worth, uh, engaging with the socialists because they're so they're almost self refuting, but it, but it is somewhat of a, head-scratcher why by now the conservatives and libertarians would not realize that they need a really full throated defense of the kind of things we believe in here. A reason, individualism, egoism, they're very shy about it. They remain shy about it for various reasons. Even with the country going down, they don't seem to want to go there. David Kelly. Good. David, do you want to say more about that? It's really your, your strength more than mine, but that's something I'm sensing. I don't know if you have the same kind of disappointment with our, you know, fellow travelers.
Speaker 3 01:12:56 Oh, I do. Uh, it's very gay and very longstanding. Um, yeah, the conservatives are religious, you know, even if they're not officially believers or part of a church, they tend to accept the, um, the doctrines of religion, which includes our truism. So they, you know, they make some case often to the effect that, well, capitalism is really altruistic because to be successful, you have to provide something that is valuable to other people. So your whole lot of is altruistic. And, you know, anyone who has ever done business or thinks about it knows that that's not the case. You, you are developing something, um, that is good. And, you know, you have high standards, hopefully of creating a great product at, at a competitive price and you offer it. That's how capitalism works, but, you know, the motive is not just helping your neighbor. Um, and libertarians are so afraid of, uh, egoism that they shy away from it and rely just on economics.
Speaker 3 01:14:16 I've seen this, oh, so many times overall, even at a relatively good place like keto, but, um, Richard, I also want to ask you, um, you've worked on wall street and you were saying before that many of the people you worked with were very, you know, woke, uh, well, at least left wing, very socialist oriented. And there's a case that I, I, I put in information about a recent book by Stephen. So group called the dictatorship of woke capital, um, that the elites in wall street, um, are kind of buddy-buddy with the elites in academic life and the elites in Washington and gravitate left. Uh, so here's the question. To what extent over the decades, you and following the economy has the financial sector increased its share of the economy, giving them more wealth and influence as opposed to main street, so to speak.
Speaker 0 01:15:28 Yeah, the, the phenomenon is called financial is it's actually has a name, David, the financialization and, uh, most economists, uh, criticize it, certainly the socialists criticize it. And yes, you can measure, you know, to what extent an economy is, has a bigger financial sector say relative to the manufacturing sector or the service sector or agriculture. If you take something like Hong Kong, I mean, Hong Kong is 95% finance. There's a whole, the whole country is like a financial center and it's one of the, well, it's one of the wealthiest countries and still actually one of the freest countries on the planet. But my theory on the financee, or is, is because I see this in, in university as well. It's not just the general public, but people who actually go into the field this'll sound crazy now, but they think it's parasitic. They don't actually think the financial sector is productive.
Speaker 0 01:16:25 Wow. So, yeah. And now if you add to that, the fact, the undeniable fact that there are some of the highest paid people in the country, they are normally guilt. They feel enormously guilty about what they're doing. I don't know how many conversations I would have with a foreign exchange trader or an investment banker. And we would have discussions and, and they would say something like, I have no idea what I'm doing. Not that they weren't skilled. They were highly skilled. No, they meant something like I have no idea what I'm contributing to the economy. I'm just trading stocks here. I'm just shuffling paper. I'm just doing mergers and acquisitions. You know, I'm moving freight from one bucket to another. There was all this discussion. And of course they'd been taught that in business school that the problem is that's how it's taught in economics.
Speaker 0 01:17:16 It's not taught as a separate, as a productive sector. I actually think this'll sound crazy to most people. I think the financial sector is more productive than the other sectors. I wouldn't go, I wouldn't go overboard on that. But I think of the financial sector as the brains of the economy, they're deciding where capital is invested and allocated. So they have to figure out what every other industry is doing. They have to figure out that's why they have analysts on wall street. You know, this David all your years writing for Barron's, those people basically have to decide what is the great new product coming? The NEC they have to judge management, they have to judge this industry is rising. This industry is falling. It's an enormously difficult and complex thing to do. And now if you're just like in the manufacturing sector and you're in the steel business, I'm not saying it's not a difficult, I'm not saying it's not difficult, you know, to be a steel executive, but you're basically focused on steel.
Speaker 0 01:18:11 You don't. Whereas the investment banker is focused on steel and aluminum and agriculture. And so it's really sad because I think the combination of them thinking, I don't think I'm productive yet. I'm making a lot of money. I got to go every growing year, I got to get something back to the community because they feel like I stole something from the community, or this is the Goldman Sachs theory. I need to go into public service. I need to, I'll spend the first half of my life accumulating massive money, but then I'll work with the treasury. So the, the, the, uh, turnstiles between wall street and the treasury department, or the fed, or that kind of thing, much of it is motivated by their view of, well, I'm 45 now. And I'm a multimillionaire time to work at the us treasury and, you know, adopt a graduated income tax or something on these people that I don't trust my former colleagues or bail, all that kind of stuff. It's really terrible. It's really sad.
Speaker 3 01:19:10 Yeah. Richard, as an expert in this field, I just have one follow-up question and I'll I'll mute. Um, I was once talking to a very successful investor. And so I asked him, you know, what, what is, what is the productive function performed by the financial, um, industry? And he said, it it's really it's this guy must've been in. It, it wasn't, he wasn't objective. As I know. So he thought, conceptually, he said two things. One is it allocates capital, uh, on a rational basis. And the other is it allows for people to offload risk. Yeah.
Speaker 0 01:19:51 That's, that's okay. That's not a bad answer.
Speaker 3 01:19:53 Yeah. So, uh, which both of which seemed to me, you know, along the lines of what you were saying, hugely, hugely productive.
Speaker 0 01:20:04 Yeah. Another way. Another way of interpreting this would, um, the residue and leftover of the labor theory of value. It's hard to believe that that's still around, but from the time of Adam Smith and Marx, the view was there's manual labor, your skilled labor and there's cerebral or mental labor. And their view was if you're working with your hands, if you're getting your hands dirty and calloused, if you're digging, if you're, you know, agriculture or mining, digging stuff out of the ground, that's real production. Or if you're on an assembly line, you know, but that's true. But if you're in a white collar, sitting in an office, having a meeting with someone, what the hell is that? That's it, that's your view? The whole, so the whole pyramid of ability that you wrote about and Atlas, you know, that the people at the top actually contribute more than the people at the bottom that they're rarefied.
Speaker 0 01:21:01 This is rarefied air. That one of the reasons they get paid so well is not only are they more productive as intellects and creative people and entrepreneurs and managers and strategic strategists who see further than the janitor does. Uh that's. That whole thing is not really understood. And that's another thing that would be biased against the finance here right now. Nobody, everybody knows what the farmer does, plants, seeds, and harvests. And then they ask him what an investment banker does. I don't know, rips people off. They have no clue of what serene, I would say, even scientists and engineers, they would say, I have no idea what they're doing, but I know they're brainiacs. Uh, but, uh, other than that, they can't really explain it. So I don't know back to this idea that if you don't understand something, you fear it a little bit. So, uh, but the sad thing is to see people in the field itself swallow these premises. That's, what's really, it's not just outsiders who saying, I have no idea what wall Street's doing. Therefore it's probably parasitic, it's the wall Streeters themselves who feel that
Speaker 7 01:22:11 feel better about themselves. Have other comment about the financial sector. You're talking about the financial stuff. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Can you hear me? Steve got muffled. Okay. I'll uh, I'll try that. Uh, that's interesting about the financial sector is heavily regulated and, uh, because of the, you know, the heavy regulation, um, the biggest banks have gotten bigger and more profitable. A small community banks really have not grown and, you know, basically kind of flat line. And I think it's because of how heavily regulated the financial sector is, is the biggest players have the resources to pay for the, all the attorneys and accountants that know how to deal with all the compliance and regulation versus like the small community banks.
Speaker 0 01:23:30 I think it's part of the Steve. I think it's part of the same theme of if government really wants to control and be efficient. It needs big banks who are obeying them, but they don't really care about the small banks for that reason. So I think it's just another example of, if we're moving in a fascist direction, don't be surprised that bigness, although rhetorically, denounced, uh, the more they rhetorically denounced, big, big business, the more they're in the hand, in the pockets of big visit. What I just said, though, it sounds something like Bernie Sanders would say, it sounds like I'm a socialist notice by saying something like that. But, but Bernie Sanders wasn't against the bank bailouts and Barack Obama wasn't there. I think they recognize that as the state becomes more and more burdensome, and by the way, by the way, as it becomes fiscally profligate, it's just like massive chronic deficit spending.
Speaker 0 01:24:27 It's going to want to take over the financial sector. It has to, one of the reasons the federal reserve got rid of the gold standard a hundred years ago is the federal reserve was created not to fix the monetary system and not to ensure safe and sound banking, but to help the government finance itself. Well now fast forward a hundred years from now, and the government is completely out of control in terms of trying to finance itself. So the fed has become a whore. So the treasury needs, you know, in the nineties, we used to talk about central bank independence. The central banks were supposed to be diminished down to don't touch anything of the treasury in independence. Men don't be political. The central bank should be off. They're just ensuring that the value of currency was stable. Now, central banks are totally every day helping government issue its bonds monetize its bonds, keep its bond yields down to zero. So can afford all this stuff. I mean, you think of it. They're totally, the central banks have been totally turned into political, uh, entities and, and wall street is just something. Wall street just becomes something that the central banks need to dump all these bonds into. So it co-ops, I think MES is actually said this amazingly in the sixties needs, it said, if we keep going in this direction, the banks will become ipso, facto subsidiaries of the treasury department. Yes. Remarkably question. Yes.
Speaker 7 01:26:00 Yeah. Just one final point on the, on the big banks, you know, uh, the Dodd-Frank act that the massive Dodd-Frank at over 2000 pages, uh, the intent supposedly 10, the Dodd-Frank act was to end too big to fail, but yet the largest banks have, are now much, much bigger today than they were with the passage of the Dodd-Frank act a much more powerful.
Speaker 0 01:26:28 So, and that, and the too big to fail doctrine goes all the way back to 1982. So this has been going on for a while now. Yeah. So Abby, shall we wrap up?
Speaker 1 01:26:41 Yeah, I would say we're coming up to time, but does anybody have any final pressing questions before we go hit our time here? Pretty on the nose this time, anybody? Well, I want to thank Dr. Salzman for presenting his new book. I'll be sending a recording of this out. And if you guys want to get a copy of the book, I will send links to affiliate links to Amazon to get copies of the book. If you don't already have that one. Um, and you can get it on Kindle. I believe there is a Kindle version now. Um, it's, I will send that link as well, uh, and then share, you know, share with your friends. And, um, I think that's what we're all here to do is to, you know, talk about these topics that we can talk about them with the people who don't see eye to eye with us. Hopefully, maybe not the really crazy ones that they won't talk to you, but you know, you know, don't argue like don't do all I say, don't argue with people who don't, uh, you know, who aren't really there to listen. But other than that, I think we're here to, to have those conversations. So any final comments from you, Dr. Salzman?
Speaker 0 01:27:48 Well, I just encouraged people to read the book and tell others about it. And if you want write a review, a brief review at Amazon as a book is really the sales are going up as surprising to me and the reviews are there reviews we're working on being done in various journals and things. That's nice. I, I continued to be on an active book tour, uh, if you want to call it that. And, uh, it's been fun. It's been exciting cause the different venues asked different things really, but Abby, I wanted to thank you for organizing this and quarterbacking at all. I thank you very much. And everyone who participated tonight, uh, tell all your friends about the book. Thank you.
Speaker 1 01:28:27 Yes, for sure. First have a great rest of your night. Everyone
Speaker 0 01:28:33 Take care.
