The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority practically resolves. All government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to, which of them shall be Masters. And which of them slaves. Welcome to Keith's Nike don't tread on anyone and the
libertarian Institute today. I am so happy to be reunited with Isaac Morehouse. It's been a couple years since I met him at the IHS Retreat. He is the CEO of Crash, the career launch platform and the founder of Praxis a start-up apprenticeship. I am Isaac. Where's the best place to find your work? Probably just Isaac more house.com. You can you can find the company as I'm involved with the books and podcast and all the different stuff. I'm up to or Twitter at Isaac Morehouse.
I'm very active there as well. That's awesome. So, I was looking through your podcast and saw that you did a straight read of a number of things that I was really interested in. Some of my favorite works on libertarianism one of, which was the obviousness of Anarchy by John has this please give me the thesis of that essay and why you think it's so important. That as I say is one of the absolute. I mean it is a gem. It is one of the absolute best essays on.
I won't even say on anarchism on libertarianism and I'll get into what I mean by that in a minute and I reread it like every used to like every year. It's probably every couple years now, but because when I first came across it It opened my eyes to what I would call hayekian, anarchism which is, which is, you know, it's an understanding of the great game that's being played is the conflation of the concept of government with the concept of governance or the concept of law with the concept
of order. And it's a very orwellian thing in it, and I think That limits our thinking so much. And so when I, when I sort of came to libertarianism and then I'm following all the great awesome libertarian, arguments, both economic and moral to their logical conclusions. And it's dragging me more and more into anarchism. I'm feeling very uncomfortable about this and I have the classic the classic garbage, you know?
Back when I was a teenager like, but but who would build the roads but how would things like the brains inability to imagine? Ajan, like how would it work? And that's what this essay the obviousness of Anarchy really does, is it? It makes you realize that that is actually an absolutely absurd question because it's already working. So that the the nutshell version of the obviousness of Anarchy is anarchy is all around us. In fact, Anarchy is the backdrop
of everything. All the order we see around us. The heavy lifting is being done by non-government institutions norms and ideas and the order that we appreciate and enjoy everything from property rights to the fact that people don't walk around naked in the shopping mall. That's not because of law. That's because of society, which precedes law. And I hasn't, it says, in one of those essays logically and historically Society precedes,
the state. Right, and it must it must, you can't organize into a state unless you're something that has the ability to organize already. Right? And so that concept that like, Anarchy is the backdrop and the Order of I mean, right? Like you can look at language.
You can look at money, these emergent things and that's why I call it hayekian the understanding of kind of emergent order and you realize social norms, you know, property rights, common law itself, which is what most of our legal system is legislation, gets tacked on after the fact, and takes the credit for it. So, a great example, I always use the the, you know, naked in the Shopping mall, example.
I used to give lectures at foundation for economic education in different places and I would always ask the students, you know. How many of you if indecent exposure laws were overturned today? How many of you would go running naked in the shopping mall tomorrow? Of course, nobody would. There's always some kid that raises his hand being a jackass. You know, I would read everything. Nobody would write, nobody would and I say, why not?
And then people start to think all the sudden, why wouldn't I? Well, I'd be embarrassed their social norms around it. I probably get kicked out of the mall because they have private property rights. There's Cops that are private, you know, my parents might get upset with me. My friends wouldn't want to be around me and you and they all of a sudden realize. That law is not what's preventing people from running around naked in the shopping
mall, at all. And and what happens is these, these things arise these norms and institutions they arise without the state and then, the state comes later codifies it. So they can have a big ceremony where they announced I passed this law. That does something that's already being done and that everybody likes and supports and I'm going to take credit from here on out for this bad thing
never happening. Child, labor laws are another great example, you don't ever get child labor laws in really poor countries, or at least you don't get them. Enforced, you get them once. Child, labor is all but eradicated because people don't want their children to have hard labor. That only is it? That's a matter of survival. And once it's already eradicate. I mean, you can look at the statistics of child Labour.
It's basically has disappeared and then child labor laws are introduced to make it illegal and all they really do is make it illegal for the tiny, tiny fraction of very Or people who are still doing that. If you go to a very, very poor country and try to enact child labor laws and really enforce them, you'll cause people to die. You'll cause them to starve and die, right? Because they're doing that because they have to.
So Society tends to take care of these things in a very, the market does in a very subtle ways and the law takes credit for it. And once the law is passed within a generation, if that it may be even less, we forget, we forget that it, there didn't used to be a lot and that if there wasn't a There wouldn't be people. You know, this hobbesian idea that without the state. Everyone would be murdering each other. All the time is just absolutely absurd.
Like, I think Hobbs is probably the single most damaging political philosopher, you know, in the last, several hundred years. Because this idea, if there weren't the Leviathan, this great mythical Authority. Everything would be utter chaos. And that's what the obviousness of Anarchy is pointing out that like the, the main line that the, that the essay comes back to over. And over again is look around. Well, how would we how would we take care of this? Look around?
How is it already being done? The vast majority of law enforcement is private already today. Lawn for public law enforcement didn't even exist until the 1860s was everyone murdering each other for the first 100 years of this country's? History constantly, No, in fact, it got worse after publicly police forces were introduced. So just this idea that like, it's already there. It's the backdrop is just so mind-blowing to me. Yeah, there is a Great article by Alfred kuzon called.
Do we ever really get out of Anarchy? Dad, and and you and I didn't talk about it. So I gotta plug. There's nobody. Nobody ever references that article, it's so obscure. I'm like so excited that you know that article it's so underappreciated because it is a very it's a great academic way of saying, who watches the Watchers, another words, if we as a society can't, you know, really organized by ourselves sort of ignorant, corrupt, and barbaric.
What we Need is a state. Well, first of all, a state is just a subset of the very humans, you're saying our evil corrupt, stupid and ignorant and, you know, can't be trusted with any Authority who regulates them.
Eventually, you have to justify a world government cuz countries are in a state of Anarchy, but even then, who checks the world government who gave them the license to be a world government who gives people a license to get licenses, so it's not that there's no, there's a system of, you know, And Regulation and then there's no credibility and no regulation.
What you instead have is voluntarily funded competing credibility agencies or a coercively funded Monopoly one and it's what Hans Hapa says is the greatest contradiction. Monopolies are terrible and we need a big government to stop monopolies. Also, the state should have a monopoly on taxation law, conscription War, the currency, and then they just list all the things, the state should have a monopoly on it. It's so wild.
When you it's like once your eyes have been opened, you can't, you can't see the world, the old way again, and it seems so absurd that you ever did, like, like, take gun control. I mean, I'm flummoxed and blown away. When I see people like, we need the government to make sure that, you know, nobody can own guns or everybody has to register. Blah blah.
And you think about what that means, this single institution that has murdered like Actually more murdered raped imprisoned, you know, exponentially more people than any other institution, you can add up organized crime and you know, petty theft and individual mass shootings and every non-government type of violence in world history. Add them all up, hop in the bucket compared to what governments have done to their own people.
Not let alone what they've done in war to other people and you think that entity you want to entrust Scent of the tools of violence of self-defense and, you know, initiation but you want to entrust them with, with all of it and give people nothing. This entity. That is the most murderous entity in the world. Like, it's so absurd to me. Even if you hate guns and you hate violence, well, I would you concentrate them in the hands of the most brutal assholes in history.
It's wild. So, so that's where I think it's really that conceptual game that pits that were relly and thing of Government is government is not a fact of Nature. And I think that is the thing that must that we must make clear and understand that people have this idea that it's a necessary evil. They already know that it's evil. Nobody actually likes government. They know that it's shitty. They might as things for them, but the concept itself.
Nobody's like, Yay. It's a necessary evil is what people believe, once you realize that it's not necessary. That's where the real power comes in. And you have to understand, the reason it's not necessary is because there are other institutions and mechanisms that are already doing the things that you believe governments doing. So. So government is a bad belief. Governance is a necessity of
human nature. Like it's just wired into the fabric of the world that govern in some mechanism mechanisms of solving disputes even even hierarchies people becoming Leaders in certain areas, and having a higher degree of specialization. These things. Are these things are all part of the fabric of the world. The way Society is built, but if you can conflate, Government, which is an unnecessary, belief and, and conflated with governance, which is a necessary part of, of all Society.
Then you've won already. You just have the two terms interchangeable in people's brains. And when you say no government, they can't think otherwise than no governance that those. Those two things have been so conflated and so the separation of those Concepts I think is the single most important thing to reduce the role of Of the state and the role of violence and people's preponderance to look
for it to solve problems. Exactly giving the government a monopoly on guns to solve violence that, that really is wild. It's like saying husbands are bad. Therefore o j--, Simpson should control. All men who get married and parents are bad there for Casey. Anthony should be everyone's babysitter. And I mean, it's so ridiculous. I can't believe anyone. It's well, that's why they get
you in in the schooling system. Then we need people, like, practice to work to help us get out the second thing, you, and I spoke about was also by John has nest called the myth of the rule of law. What is the thesis of the myth of the rule of law? And what lessons did you learn from it, man? This one?
This one is one of those that it's not really that valuable to like, let's say a liberal part, like, a modern liberal, because they're sort of it. They already, they already sort of. Don't think about the rule of law as some, you know, Ironclad thing. It's not it's not an altar. They worship at conservatives and like constitutionalist Libertarians. You know, Ron Paul types, very often.
Justin Amash types, very often can really get caught up in this idea that If only we abide by the rule of law. If only, we get the laws, right, and we enforce them properly and abide by them, and they're very, very focused on. You know, the Constitution we got to abide by the Constitution. And I think what, what this essay, the myth of the rule of law is making clear, is that there is never an escape from the rule of individuals when you
have a A state. I mean, now absent estate, you're going to have the rule of some sort of individuals in a competitive market process. Right? So, an individual still has to make decisions or the only one that can make decisions say you had competing, you know, competing protection. Agency's some CEO somewhere has to make a decision about something and employee has to, but they faced the competitive pressures of the market.
So in the over, over the over time, the process is going to have a better outcome than the state but it but it's still the rule of individuals within a market. Text the rule of law when people are like, well, you have to have a government as long as it's, you know, sticks to the Constitution. Then it's going to be fine. It's not possible. That's what has. This is pointing out. It's not possible. Forget about whether it's desirable. Sure. Maybe it's desirable, maybe.
If you get, if you have some perfect definition of, you know, whatever the Second Amendment and it's like somehow this piece of paper can constrain everyone. Maybe that's desirable. I don't know. It's hard to even imagine because it's not possible. So that's the Whole point. He's like look, it's not possible and he walks you through some of the things that you might think of stop your head or very simple. Very common sense. Okay, here's a case of, you know, somebody doing something.
Does it violate the First Amendment and it's like, impossible to come up with an answer that that you can even agree with yourself on let alone. Two different people can agree with right? And he does this over and over again and he's showing he's trying to reveal that you. It is a misplaced. Hope to say. If we just Make a piece of paper. I mean, any libertarian, who thinks that the government today in the United States is in any way bigger or more intrusive than what was intended by?
The founders have already refuted the power of the rule of law by admitting that right like well, they wrote it down. They put it in the Constitution. They got the rule of law and that its most of the stuff in there. Sounds pretty good. At first glance. Certainly, the Bill of Rights. Sounds pretty good. None of it, none of its ever. It doesn't constrain anyone and you know, has it gotten worse probably but it never did even
in the beginning. I mean, you can go back to the earliest president's they were doing all kinds of this shit. They were throwing people in prison for writing bad articles. Bottom. And, you know, I mean like this is like a from like the earliest times. You can't constrain human actors with words on paper, because it requires human actors to interpret and enforce them
period. And so once, Realize that once your disabused of the notion that you can be saved by better laws or better interpretation of laws or better enforcement of laws. Then you have to say, well, what can we look to? And that's where you ask, what process is more likely to lead to better outcomes one with Mission and no consequences for police officers, you know have legal immunity or 4G, you know judges or whatever.
We're politicians can you know concentrate benefits dispersed costs or one where there's competition? Where there's a more competitive Marketplace and you look at the process itself and say which one is more likely to give us the more peaceful outcomes, the more prosperous outcomes. And so, I think it's really powerful to help people the conservative-leaning types or those who came from conservatism
as myself. Like, I used to be very much in this Camp. It was like just you know, just follow the Constitution, you know, or like let's just get you know, whatever. That doesn't mean anything. At the end of the day, at the end of the day. It's always going to be political determinations. So you have to remove politics changing. The laws is not going to cut it, reducing the the and putting thing more things in the marketplace only option you
have. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a really important Insight getting into, you know, voluntarily funded competing organizations because for all the regulation that the state says, As we need to regulate the entire economy and every aspect of life. Well, the vital regulation that the free market has that the state doesn't is the freedom to disassociate with Bad actors. So therefore, it's not even like a level playing Ground cost-benefit analysis.
There really is 11 strength, the voluntarist Libertarians have that the status really do not end up. I think that really is the heart of what were disagreeing with them about. Here, the other one you mentioned was Human Action by maysa, very short book for some bedtime reading. What is the most important takeaway from Human Action by Ludwig? Von mises. Oh my God, the heart that book. I've read it cover to cover and then I've read sections of it
many many times. I mean, to me that's like that's like the best book in all the social sciences to me. It's just, it's so good. It's so clear. It's so well written. It's so how do I get? What is the main takeaway from? I mean, I guess. The main takeaway is probably more methodological than anything and it's that there is a science Of Human Action that you can that you can understand and build from and what and what
does that mean? I mean, especially now with the prominence of like what are called behavioral economists. It's very very popular to say. Oh, well, if people were perfectly rational robots, then We could say we could make predictions or we could understand things about the way, the economy works, but people are crazy. They're irrational. They have biases.
Therefore. You can't understand anything about how they're going to behave which is which is there's a ring of truth to it because what they're really what they're reacting against is a very cartoonish, neoclassical model of homo economicus, which is sort of like, you know, oh people will maximize their like money profit. In all situations and it doesn't take into account.
Really anything larger, any other preferences and a lot of those models are ridiculous and they don't play out in the real world and they get criticized for good reason. What what mises says in Human Action. He establishes economics on a rock-solid foundation that I don't think anyone else has come close to doing, which is, let's start with only what we can prove with a priori is he says
with just reason alone? And before we go start, looking at the empirical data and observations, let's start and let's let's lay out the fundamental axioms that are that are provable with logic alone. So, you know, man, acts. That's the fun. That's the first premise that the first Axiom in the book humans, take purposeful action. And if you try to refute that, it's self reinforcing. Trying to refute. It is a purposeful action, right? You can't. You can't escape it. Great.
People are like, yeah. So what that's? That's a tautology, right? But he builds from that when people act, they choose whatever that is, according to their own subjective preferences, their highest valued action. Now, that right there is really, really powerful. It doesn't say anything about whether or not they're misinformed, whether they might change their mind later.
But by the fact that they chose something it reveals to us that they believed choosing that thing was preferable to To all of the other things they could have done or could have chosen in that moment. And as you see like from this you start to get you. Basically you get supply and demand curves. Eventually you're a few steps away from supply and demand curves because you get the concept of marginal utility, right? You choose your first best option, first?
And then your second best option and then your third best option and you get, you know, you can kind of build the basic laws of Economics on this. Now, it's very, very like, people will say well, so what that stuff is, so stripped down that it Not capable of telling you very much about the real world, because the real world is not, you know, is not ceteris, paribus. It's not all things equal. There's all kinds of other there.
But the same people that will tell you that, you know, like the idea that you can't have interpersonal value comparisons. So because value is subjective. I can't compare. You know how much utility I gain versus you gain from? You know, let's say let's say Somebody, you know, paints a picture and gives it to us as a gift and if we had say, well, the one of us that values, it more should get it. There's no way we can make that determination that possible.
Now we can have a market where we each bid for it and pay for it and then we can determine who values at more in dollars. That's not necessarily. Get a tell us because we value dollars at different amounts. Right? So people will say well, this is all tautological. What's the big deal? And then they'll go on to create an entire field called welfare. Economics that tries to Maximize the utility of all these people, which they just admit.
I mean, I would have debates with people back in the day about they'd be like, I, I lay out these axioms and they'd be like, yeah, of course, I agree with all them. They're all, they're all tautologies. They're just so what? And then they'd be like, so, I'm studying welfare economics, and I'm like, that's not possible. You just said, you can't, the whole thing is bullshit. So I think that's what's so great about mises is like, and that's why economists don't like the Austrian School.
Largely as Hayek said, it's it demonstrates to Man how little they know about what they imagine. They can design. It's very humbling. It really tells you like. Nope, can't make that claim, can't make that claim. Either, you can make these very humble set of claims are very powerful.
But then, from here on out, it's a lot of, you know, that's when you get into the actual empirical part and start looking at what's happening in the world and try to understand it things can't violate these very, very few laws. But when they appear to violate them, you got to figure out what is going on that you're missing and it's a very, it's a humbling task about knowing what you're wrong about, rather than Nice sweeping predictions that you can make exactly.
And of course, you see this on both sides. It's okay for us to invade the country. Kill civilians, install a dictator because in 10 years, the people will be better off. Okay. First of all, you don't know that second of all the intelligence probably based on a lie, and third, you're not going to bear the cost of funding it, or you won't go to jail if it goes bad so you have no incentive.
So I remember at its at the end of democracy, The God That Failed. And Hans Hapa said, people will sort of justify government on utilitarian grounds, which relies on interpersonal comparisons of utility. So that's scientifically impermissible. And he just dismisses the and dismisses like the primary claim that these people make. But you see it all the time.
Bro. Khanna is talking to Ben Shapiro and Ben Spiros. Like, so the Congressional budget office said, if the minimum wage is increased to x amount that 1.4 million jobs would be lost. He goes. Well, yeah. You know, think of all the other people, that that would help without appreciating the other people who won't be able to start up a business, the oligopolies that would create the fewer products and services people would have access to the
fewer employment opportunities. The higher prices, less access to goods and services less investment because more is being put into employees. I mean, it's just amazing how and this is where the Austrian School is. So maddening to people because even free market types of kind
of the non Austrian bent. And they love those sort of debates about the minimum wage and they'll come out with their own study and they'll say, well, look, the minimum wage is going to cost, you know, X number of jobs to go under. And then people will, you know, they'll debate the data. Or maybe they'll go a step back from that. And they'll say, well, when you raise the price of something people purchase less of it, there you raised a price of Labor, people are going to buy less labor.
So more, you know, low-skilled labor is going to be out of jobs in a general sense without putting numbers forward and like Generally speaking. That's true. Generally speaking. That's the way it plays out. But what's what's so powerful? And maddening to others with the Austrian School is you can't really tell me what's going to happen. There's no way to know exactly what's going to happen because again value is subjective.
So there may be some people who like this is theoretically possible that if the minimum wage is raised and you know, you're making ten bucks an hour and I legally have to pay you 15, I decide because I'm a nice guy that I'd rather pay you 15 then fire you and you say wow. I'm so honored by this. I'm going to work harder like that's possible, right? And with the austrians. You don't have to pretend that
that's not possible. But what you can say, is look, we don't know what's going to happen. But what we do know is that when you introduce the use of force, you will get an outcome that is less optimal by people's own subjective preferences than if you didn't introduce the use of force because I can't say to you, here's a group of people, and they want to do certain things with their money. And the only way, we know what they want to do with their
money. We can't we can't decide by asking them because People will say stuff, that isn't true, right? Stated preferences or not. Very useful. We got to watch what they do, whatever they choose to do with their money. That is what they valued most at the time of choosing. Now, we may disagree with it. We may dislike it. We may try to persuade them to do something else. But according to their own preferences, that's what created the most value for them. So them being free to choose is
by definition. Creating the maximum value return on those resources for them individually. And therefore if you group them into a collective and an aggregate on the whole the minute, Say that choice isn't on the Queue. I have by definition reduced, the value in society because now they can't choose that. I don't know how many of them would have, but I know that there is some sub optimal resource allocation because I have taken away a certain set of choices.
And so now we'll never know. We know that people are not allowed to put money to and if you take money from people and spend it on. On you know a road and say oh look, I created more utility. It's impossible for you to know that you can't tell me that all we know for sure is that whatever people would have chosen freely would have maximize their utility and now that they can't choose freely. They have less utility than they used to, that's really it.
Like you can, you can come up with scenarios and say, it's likely that there's a lot of unemployment here because of this and these because of these laws, it's probable, but there's so many other variables, the austrians even like strip away. A lot of the fun from the other free market.
People who want to make like very Specific claims about the exact unemployment rate that will result, you know, yeah, the interpersonal comparison of utilities just so dangerous, and it's really seen in a article titled, or a short book by bastiat that would just seem. And that which is unseen. What is the thesis and most important takeaway from that which is seen and that which is unseen. Dude. That is the book that got me hooked on. Comics.
I came across that it was probably. 2002-2003 maybe long time ago and it was like, oh my gosh, it just blew my mind. I couldn't wait for every next chapter. What? How's it going? How's it going? How's it going to tell the story of this, right? Because like on a gut level.
I was kind of a free market guy anyway, I sort of on a gut level was like, you know, I don't think Government funding for the Arts is a good idea or, you know, subsidies for this or whatever, but when people come at you with these arguments about, oh, well, look at the benefits that it creates. I remember I had a professor at the time. That was like, well, the good thing about, oh, no. He said, he said the old line that WWII.
Got us out of the depression. And I remember being like, Blowing up a whole bunch of resources made the world more like wealthy, like that just seemed weird. But I think I didn't quite like, know how to respond. So what is seen? And what is unseen is the fundamental text for the economic way of thinking, the basic idea of what economics does, which is to help you understand causal relationships. And see exactly.
The title says, what is unseen, so the book opens with the broken window fallacy with, you know, the idea that somebody breaks a window and oh, well that's really sad, but it's actually good for the economy because now you've employed the window guy and he's got to fix the window. And bastiat says well, that's only what's what's unseen the guy who had to pay the window guy. What was he going to do with his?
You before again, he would have put it to fixing the window was not his highest valued use because he didn't need to fix it before. He would have put it to something that he valued more, previous to that window being broken, which would have returned him more value.
Right? And like understanding the again, the like, what would have happened, hasn't this uses the phrase that I've borrowed since then, it's like my absolute favorite phrase, in all sort of political philosophy and economics compared to what like, Compared to what? Oh wealth was created compared to what certainly not compared to if the window was never broken because then you'd have that same amount of money that went to one guy in the hands of
the original guy. It would go to someone else. And by definition, what what he did with it. Then he would have valued more. You can't create value by destroying resources. Right? Like he would have had a window and instead of just having, you know, the window and no longer having the money right? Like that. Simple concept, and then, bastiat goes to explain it in all different examples. He talks about subsidizing, RT talks about trade restrictions.
He talks about all kinds of, and he's so witty. And like the most clear speaking French person I've ever read. It's, it is a phenomenal book and Henry, hazlitt economics.
In one lesson is basically an updated version of that and I love hazlitt, but I'm telling you, nothing comes close to bastiat that original book and like for somebody who's kind of a normie Who falls prey, Way to sort of mainstream arguments about well, you know, it's actually building a sports stadium with tax dollars is actually good for the local economy because it stimulates the economy. Right? Like Give them Basquiat or read
it yourself. So you'll know how to answer them because it's just it untangles the confusion that and helps you understand why your intuition if you think intuitively it's like well taking my money to give it to a sports Stadium. How is that going to make me more money? It feels weird. But when some Economist is like a boost the economy, we got people coming in about you. Just you kind of get like mesmerised and bastiat breaks the spell.
Exactly. Yeah, it's the equivalent of saying, if the government didn't prearranged all marriages, no one would ever be married and we wouldn't be in relationships because let me point to all the marriages that the state has pre-arranged. Well, yes, they have coercively arranged to these, but in the absence of this coercive Arrangement, you wouldn't have people sitting around. Expiring, like, the camel standing between two pails of water and just dies and expired before he could go to one.
You would have people acting voluntarily. Achieving their ends with, you know, any resources, they acquired through original appropriation or voluntary exchange bastiat. So, valuable, did you read economic harmonies? You get through the whole thing? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I feel like it's been a decade since I've read pretty much it thing. I could get my hands on him, boss the ayats and I just love that.
He's so witty. So it I think my favorite individual thing is a short essay the candle makers petition its assets. Lyrical s. A candle makers are petitioning, the government to blot out the sun, because it's unfair foreign competition for their sales of candles. It's so it's so good. You know, what's interesting with bastiat, the seen and the
Unseen cons? I like so immersed, myself in that in like got that mindset clicking, that it applies in so many areas outside of what you typically think of as economic. So when I'm talking with people about schooling and freedom and choice in education, so many parents, you'll run into will say, well, you know, look, I was forced to go to school and I hate but I learned this really He valuable thing that right therefore it was good and I'll say to them.
I'll say look, I could in my basement for a year and force you to listen to The Beatles everyday chained to the wall, couldn't do anything else. And at the end of that time, the odds that you gain, something you could not have gained without having that experience are very, very high. You are. Of some understanding of The Beatles or some appreciation for music or maybe just a greater appreciation for Freedom. After that that you couldn't have had without that experience.
Does that mean that I ought to impose that experience on everyone, right? Like, whatever experiences you had in, life are so unique that the things that you have, you couldn't have had without that experience, that doesn't justify The Experience being imposed on everyone else. It's absurd. What are the costs? What would have happened without that? You know, like, I just that just Suffocation that you know, well, I was treated like shit by teacher out.
Okay. Therefore I better do it to my kids like it's the scene in the Unseen all over again in different context. I use that logic only with previous teachers. So when I see them Marching for higher wages, I make sure to comment on all the Facebook feeds. You get what you get and you don't throw a fit is what you Pricks told me 15 years ago. So you better start embracing your own principles here.
All right, but before Get too upset about that the intellectuals and socialism by Friedrich Hayek. What is the main thesis and thing? You learn from the intellectuals and socialism by Hayek, man.
So what I would say, the thing that I've been the most obsessed with in the last 20 years, which is sort of my entire kind of career, professional life and intellectual life has been trying to understand how social change happens because I'm I'm like, a, you know, I'm a philosophical guy and I'm really interested in Big Ideas. But like, okay, the ideas of Freedom. They're awesome. They're beautiful. They're compelling. They have so much to offer, but I want more than to understand
them. Like, I want to live free and I want to maximize the ability for others to live free. So how do we bring that about? And so that's kind of been my career trajectory first. I was like, oh, we going to politics and I learned the hard way politics is not where you get, you know, social change from It's all my career trajectory and my intellectual journey through parallel to each other. Like I went into politics and then I discovered public Choice Theory at the same time and
realize why politics can't work? And then then I go into policy and like policy. Advocacy sort of Think Tank work and you know, I'm kind of diving deeper and understanding more about bureaucratic. So I remember mrs.
Bureaucracy when I read that I was like, oh no wonder nonprofits, have such a hard time, but like, as I've gone through and eventually sort of Did with entrepreneurship but Hayek's the intellectuals and socialism the first half of understanding and there's a second half that came later to me, which is how in terms of how social change happens. He lays out essentially this theory for social change.
That says, You have this kind of it's almost like the structure of production in the economy, right where you have capital goods that sort of and their value is sort of imbued from the from, I don't want to get too complex. But anyway, you have capital goods and intermediate goods and then consumer goods in the world of ideas. You have the beliefs of the public, the popular ideas, but those are sort of disseminated to them.
Through what Hyatt calls secondhand dealers of ideas and you can add additional strata to this pyramid and get more details. But secondhand dealers and ideas are sort of popularizers spreaders of ideas, podcasters, people who make TV shows and right, popular books and you know, Talking Heads on the news, whatever pastors. But they are getting their ideas, sort of original thinkers. And you know in Hayek's model. There's very few original thinkers, right?
John Locke has his Second Treatise very very influential or Hobbes as I mentioned before but no no person on the street. Like in America, John Locke's ideas about property rights, like my home is my castle and you know, the king doesn't have a right to come in there very much. People hold those beliefs, but they don't know that they come from John Locke. They wouldn't you. Has his terminology. They've never read John Locke. Somehow it's been true. It's trickled down.
It's been imbued to them lock rights. This Treatise a lot of nerd, study it and they start teaching it in universities or whatever else. And talking about it writing books about it and those books or to make their way down and those eventually make it to the popular belief. And so reading Hayek's description of this, sort of structure of production in ideas. It helped me identify higher leverage, activities than arguing.
Someone on Facebook and trying to convince them about something and I thought I don't want to give a man a fish. I don't even want to teach a man to fish. I want to raise the capital to build the factories to make the rope, that makes the Nets that help people catch millions of fish. Right? I want to be way up in the structure production because I want maximum leverage. I've always been attracted at like, what's the maximum Roi? I only live on this Earth for so
long. What activities are going to have the greatest impact and so that the intellectuals and social Come help me. Look at the world of ideas and say if I can focus on maybe what Albert J. Knock would call The Remnant and his masterful essay Isaiah's job. And those people who are disproportionately likely to be potential either in generating ideas or in being second-hand dealers of ideas. And those ideas will influence the broader public.
I'd rather focus on them and go directly to the broader public and that's what led me to IHS. Have you read the the elephant in the brain by Robin Hanson? Yes, that's just so sad. I had them on my show and we talked about it, how it basically discusses the hidden motives in everyday life. Where as opposed to people acting rationally, what eventually, what they actually say is actually their conscious acting as a press secretary for their subconscious, which is
giving us different motivations. The pointed me mentioning that is, when you see, You know, what politicians talking about things that end up coming about. You say, well, then the politician is making that change happen. Therefore. I must occupy politics in order to have said, change. When just, as you said, that is not exactly how it goes and Hayek, I think does a very good job, explaining it in that essay.
But Robin Hanson decades later. Just comes and brings the numbers with regard to Art, charity consumption, religion, politics, and all these other fields. Verifies. What? I understood Hayek to be saying many years ago. Let's go to, I, okay. So let me let me jump on that real quick because I did, I loved, I loved Robin Hansen's book and I think I might have interviewed him about it as well. I can't remember.
But, um, That looks sort of is a good example of where I said, Hayek, gave me the first half of my understanding and that's, and at one point. I was like, cool. That's how social change happens. Okay, you got to change beliefs. And, and again, if you go back to like public Choice Theory, I'm very much influenced by the Overton window of political possibility, right?
Like at the end of the day and and mises himself says this that like, you know at the end of the day, there's no ruler whether a dictator or democratically-elected, who can defy the beliefs of the public. Not public, doesn't get what they want. But they Yet? What they'll tolerate, right? They get something in between what they want and what they'll tolerate right? Like like really shitty politicians, will push it to the max of what they'll tolerate, maybe, you know, any better
environment. They're getting something closer to what they want. Now, maybe what the public wants sucks, too. But, um, but they'll get what they, tolerate the end of the day. The beliefs of the public are The Binding constraint and so I'm like, okay, great. And again, myth of the rule of law, all this stuff plays into that. It's not what's written down on Law at the end of the day. It's what politicians can get away with period.
That's what they'll do and That's determined by what people will. Let them get away with and so I'm like, great. So you gotta change their beliefs through this structure of dealing and ideas. And after several years of working in that I had this Epiphany and when Uber first came out, it really helped me. I wish I was like something is missing here. I feel in my gut like, I'm overvaluing My Own role in this and my own role was to sort of raise money for and create
programs for sort of the future. Jules who are going to help disseminate the ideas of Liberty.
And I saw who Burr come out and all these people start using it and then cities start to try to ban it and then a bunch of people who don't give a shit about property rights or dead weight, economic losses or the morality of cartels were like don't take Uber away and they cities had a very hard time Banning it and in most cities that ended up sticking around and I thought there were Decades of second-hand dealers and ideas writing papers and talking about deadweight, losses caused by
taxi cartels. Talking about the Ality of making it illegal for some guy to start selling his taxi services. None of that made a dent in people's beliefs about those things. The minute they experienced an alternative their beliefs shifted. And that's when it clicked that I had the top of the pyramid ideas flow down to shape beliefs, but experiences flow up to shape beliefs.
And I would argue that experiences shape beliefs probably like 80% of the time and ideas like, Most people's beliefs explicit or implicit are formed in a subconscious way by the things they've experienced and they might come up with ADD hot like post-hoc arguments to justify them later. Very few beliefs are shaped by ideas where someone you read things and you consciously consider them and said, wow,
this is a good argument. I will now change my belief like most people's beliefs about God. For example, are based on their experiences more than sitting down. Or whatever it is government. And so that Epiphany is what led me to ultimately, leave the sort of activist and education world to go be an entrepreneur and say, look, I don't want to argue with people about government institutions that suck. What if I create one that's better?
And I sell it to them and they don't need to believe any of my ideology. Once they've experienced it and say, wow. This is better, practice is better than College. Cool College isn't very necessary. And if College isn't very necessary, neither is high school. Public school is not dead. Important, right? Like if they taste Freedom, then they will want more freedom, their beliefs will change. They will start to justify freedom in their belief system because they don't want it taken
away from them. Not because I got them to read Milton Friedman. And so, that was a big Epiphany that helped put the sort of final piece. Ideas are still very important, they play a part, but I think experience eight ways for people to experience alternatives to the state. That's when they'll shift their belief and say like show them that it's possible. Right. Show them that.
That here's a here's something that's preferable to you know, whatever shitty service, the state is trying to offer. So anyway, and an elephant in the brain, I think is a good example of how people will very quickly change their arguments to justify a belief that they want to hold because it benefits them. It benefits me to use Uber. So now I used to argue that taxi cartels were really important whatever because people paid for those medallions, but now I don't want you to take away Uber.
So I'll quickly change my arguments and say, oh well, it's really important. Contrite, like people will justify them. So you got to give them the experience that they want while we're on that topic. I just want you to introduce us to your company's. What is Praxis? Yes, so I started practice in 2013 and it's a college alternative.
It's a one year program. You do a six-month boot camp, which is all remote on, you know, basically just kicking your ass and helping you learn how to be a value Creator in the market. And then a six-month apprenticeship at a high-growth startup where we place you. It's a paid apprenticeship. So what you pay in tuition you actually earn more than that during the course of the program and then at the end of the year, 96% of our grads, get hired
immediately after the program. This is not a technical bootcamp, not like a coding bootcamp. It's like non-technical kind of Hustler. People are getting placed in roles. Like Marketing sales, design operations, at startups. Most of them have no degree. They're doing instead of college. Some people do it after college. But so I started that in 2013 and kind of been been growing ever since and then I actually I moved on is to launch my second
company a couple years ago. And now it Cameron sores be as the CEO of Praxis. Now. I'm still on the board, but he's cranking away taking the helm there and and crash very briefly. It's like we peeled off one very small sliver of this very intense practice experience, which is just the process of winning jobs because we found we were getting people who are like 17, 18 19 with no degree. They were getting hired in jobs that said four-year degree and two to three.
Of experience required the way. They were winning the interviews and getting hired was by, not applying through the traditional process, not sending in a resume, not clicking, apply and filling out a form. They would find the email of the person, their email them directly a pitch. Say, here's what I'm going to do for you. Here's what I'm all about. Here's what I love about your company here. I created something for you.
I already made you a project. I saw an issue on your website and here's my version of fixing it. I would love an interview and those get like 80% response rate. And so Crash is just that it's helping people anyone on the job. Create video, pitches and pitch pitch employers, instead of going through the traditional application process. And so that's that's my full-time gig right now.
And again, it's, you know, for me, it's all rooted in my philosophy of Liberty, like not being passive, not being like, well, I got my degree by following rules now, I'll just follow the rules on the job hunt and click submit. And then cross my fingers, and my fate is in the hands of some Our bought. It's going to scan my resume. Good luck to me, you know, like no. Take the, take the reins like you've got value now.
Prove it, put together a compelling signal, go out there and turn the job hunt into an active process, where you're hunting down, people you're sending them stuff, that's valuable to them. You're demonstrating your value, creation, ability. And that's just really empowering, right? If you start your career, feeling empowered that you went out and won that job that sets your life on a trajectory of personal empowerment and freedom and responsibility. Possibility, versus I followed
the rules. I did all this stuff and then like somebody gave me a job and I just kept following the rules and like, life just happens to me, right? So that's kind of, that's kind of where that all spring from. I love when you were wrong Tucker Carlson talking about your company crash. Because Harvard had just said, they're not cutting tuition and everything is going to be over
Zoom for the next year. So you just went on there and you didn't, you know, take some, you know, Community College what you could have, you know easily pointed out the flaws. You went to Harvard University and went up against them. So great stuff you are doing now with those organizations. I want to talk about a couple more essays and books. You when I spoke about what is the main message and thesis of the call of Christ to Freedom. By Stephen legate.
This is a really obscure essay from the old magazine. It was called Liberty magazine and used to come in like a like, like gray paper, not even glossy. Asean, paper like that gray, like really cheap stuff and a friend of mine. I was like 19 at the time had it
and he was an atheist. But he knew that I was a Christian and he was like and I was like, libertarian but like still wrapping my head around some stuff and still like like I was sort of dragged Kicking and Screaming to libertarian, is when I wasn't yet Anarchist and I was still trying to understand some these arguments. He's like, oh you might like this essay now, I don't know nothing else about this guy. I've never been able to find anything else that he's done.
It's very hard to come up. Find it. I think I linked it on my website, but the essay is basically just laying out. Why, if you are a Christian and you take the example in Words of Christ, seriously, you have no, you have no option other than I would say anarchism and I think Leo Tolstoy took this position and some other, but it's not,
it's not very common. And essentially he's making the argument that Non-violence that if you use the initiation of violence to accomplish your ends, that's completely antithetical to everything that Christ stood for. And he uses the example in there that I'll never forget, is a quote in there. He says, when the rich man came to Jesus and said, what should I do to be saved? And Jesus said, give all your stuff away to the poor and the
rich man walked away dejected. And then the story ends and Stephen legate said, Jesus didn't send No, Peter and John after him and say go take your swords and threatened to throw him in prison. If he doesn't give his stuff to the poor. He didn't send the Romans. After him. He didn't try to enlist. He didn't he didn't enlist any use of force or law at all.
And so the idea that we should mandate good behavior by force of law or prohibit bad behavior, by force of law is completely antithetical to the message of Christ. And that was really that really hit me at the time was very, it was It was really important for me, not just for myself, but to be able to help, explain my libertarian beliefs to people who were coming from a very sort of Conservative Christian background. Excellent, Isaiah's job by Albert J. Knock thesis and lesson from
Isaiah's job. This is the one that keeps me encouraged when I'm feeling totally beat down. Albert J. Knock is referencing, the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament. How he's out there and he just keeps peeking his message. And speaking, as message and speaking as message, and he's like getting angry and frustrated. He's like nobody's listening, nobody's doing anything and basically God tells him, there's a Remnant.
There's a tiny. Remnant of people who are listening, who are on the same wavelength as you, you probably never know. They are, you probably never meet him. Your message isn't for the masses. It's for them.
And that hits me every time like when you just feel like you're beating your head against the wall and you're like, man, and I mean you can, you know, go on Twitter for five minutes and you start to feel like all the work you're doing with Libertarians to all this stuff and you're like, God, even people who call themselves Libertarians are out here calling for violence and statism and a bunch of, you know, technocracy and whatever and you can just start to feel like what's the point?
What's the point of all this? This and the message in that essay is, it's not for the masses there. Someone out there. There's a hidden audience. You'll probably never meet them, but they're listening. It's exactly what they needed to hear. And this was really bolstered. When I heard For the First Time, The Story by Larry read, and, I know you've interviewed him, Larry Reid, who used to be the president of a fee. He went to communist Poland when it was still under communism.
He smuggled in free market books, and he did crazy stuff back in the day. For the Berlin Wall fell. And he was, he was they're smuggling in books and helping this. There was a whole underground of people who were, you know, resisting communism and this sort of this underground. And he said, this, this couple, he was with they'd both been thrown in prison several times and just been out again. They had this underground radio broadcast that they would do every night and they had no
idea. He's like, well, you just do it every night. Do you know if people are listening? They're like idea, you know, do you know how many people are out? There are part of the resistance. We don't know because it's too dangerous to like meet in large groups or whatever. So like we don't really know.
We just keep doing it and he said one night and went on the radio and they said if you're listening to this and you value Freedom blink, your lights and they looked out the window and all of Warsaw was blinking and it was only like a year later when the Communist dictator literally just walked away. He just said you people are ungovernable and he left and it was just Like peacefully at felt because the underground became
bigger than the above ground. And I think that's an incredible story of someone who just kept doing it. Kept spreading their message of Freedom, not knowing if there was anyone listening and they actually did get a chance to see that the remnant at that point was actually really huge but like that Isaiah's job is just so inspirational for me to know that even when I don't know who's out there, even when I post some something in a million people attack it, there's
someone there. Someone out there. That that message is for and that's who matters more than sort of winning popularity contests. What is the thesis and Main lesson from on doing something about it by Frank shoulder of man? That's the one that like finally was the nail in the coffin. For me of any kind of political activism as a means to changing
changing the world. The I had already started to toy with this hierarchy and idea that politics is a last is a last is a lagging indicator of changes that have already happened in the realm of beliefs in a realm of Shifting, the Overton window and all those things Sheriff says. Is basically like, look, if you play the politicians game, you always empower the politicians. You make them more important.
If you show up even to protest them, your get your basically assenting to the game that they're trying to play. Ignore them. What if they rented a hall to give a speech? And no one showed up, no power, 100% rests in the attention. You give them. That's kind of the theme of that short essay. And I think it's really powerful. I always like to use the analogy like You know politics is like a big nasty casino. And if you say to me, I hate that casino. It's evil and corrupt.
I'm going to put it out of business. I say how you say I'm going to go there and play Blackjack every day until I win all their money. That's what that's what trying to do. Political activism is to in terms of trying to bring down the state. Now. There are there are ways in which you can use the podium of politics to get a message across because politicians get a lot of attention from the media and whatever, right?
Like, I'm not saying that there's No way that you can, like, I think Ron Paul is a good example of this like he was never gonna win presidency or anything like that and his policies didn't really get past as a congress person, but because the role of politician in our society is also the role of celebrity Ron Paul as a celebrity spread the message of Liberty in a lot of ways, right, but not Ron Paul as a political activist trying to, you know, if he wanted to be good at
Politics. The only way to do that is to be bad at being principled, right? So the fact that he was bad at politics is why he was able to have a message. So anyway, that on doing something about it is just like I would say it's an argument for political atheism. Excellent. And finally, what is the thesis of and Main lesson of how I found freedom in an unfree World by Harry Brown? Oh baby. Such a good book. It's out of print. So if you want to buy it, it's like super expensive.
You got to buy it used on eBay or Amazon sometimes. This is an incredible book. It really, I would say it set the stage for all the books that I've written. And even the companies that I've built since then, because Harry Brown, says look. you value Freedom, if you're libertarian and But you're not living free and I found myself in this position when I came across the book. I was very much in this position.
I valued freedom, but every day I was a slave to the things that I would see on the news because they had the power to dictate my mood. I followed politics and political news and I would get into debates with people on forums and the the stupid stuff that they decided to cover and the stupid opinions. They decided to spout was like enslaving me. It had the power to dictate my moods and I was not living and I was angry.
I was frustrated. That's not the, that's not the attitude, you have, when you feel free, right? And I thought, man, I'm not living free on the individual level, right in, any time. You find yourself feeling like a victim. Oh like my boss did this to me. I'm so trapped in this or I'm trapped in my, you know this relationship or whatever you feel like a victim, you feel
angry. Like those are not the signs of someone who's living free and Harry Brown's book is like, this is how you bring freedom into your own life as an individual. And in to put it, in other words of, of Leonard, read the founder of fee, like Being a light, letting your freedom be a light is the most is the best way to attract other people's to it. It's like Live Free Yourself. Yeah. Camus has this quote let you know live so free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
Yeah, and I and that Harry Brown book like whoa, this is how he brings it down, like really practically like, okay, how to be free in relationships, how to be free with your personal finances, how to be free, with whatever, and it just like translating this concept of freedom and saying, look, what
does it matter? If I'm trying to make the world free when I'm living like it, like I'm in shackles in myself if I'm a slave to guilt or shame or doubt or the opinions of others or any of those other things. And so that like myself emancipation realizing that it starts with me. If I can't even be free myself, how can I expect to help help the world be more free? Really, really powerful book in that regard?
Excellent point on the media using repetition as a way of controlling the narrative and thus, Rolling the mind of the populace. I had a Former Intelligence officer Chase, use on the show not too long ago. And he said, if I could describe mind control in one word, it would be repetition. So every time we turn on the news cases are up. There was a shooting this, this terrible war zone happened and you know, the u.s.
Is looking into it. It's like well there were supposed to go to war with North Korea who was supposed to invade Guam. The ozone layer is supposed to be melted. Saddam I guessed or know. Assad was gassing the Kurds Putin hacked, our democracy, and had a puppet president. So like why would I have wasted all that time worrying about something that didn't even come
to fruition it b equal. I don't even respect well and that's where like, you know, I have a lot of respect for, you know, some of the work that like you guys are doing and we're talking earlier about like Scott Horton, doing a lot of stuff on the internet because that's It takes like another level to be able to immerse yourself in like keeping up on the news of a particular area without letting it take away your freedom, without letting make you go crazy.
So what after I read Harry Brown's book about 15 years ago, I stopped watching the news and stop following it all together. I haven't read a newspaper. I mean, I don't know newspapers even exist, but back then, they did, right? I stopped all my subscriptions to newspapers and I haven't followed the new sense. Now, in the age of Twitter, I end up seeing more and more news items come across my Twitter
feed. Because People are talking about them than I used to, but that just utterly Set Me Free. And I used to think why I need to be up on things. I need to understand what's going on because I'm especially if I'm trying to spread the ideas of Liberty. I didn't lose a thing by not knowing. In fact, if anything it gave me so much Freedom, when people would be like, oh, so you're like libertarian.
Well, then you probably think what, you know, Mitch McConnell did is like some blah blah blah, and I'd be like, I don't even know who Mitch McConnell is, I don't care about any of that and I got a smile on my face and then they're baffled. And they're like, well, you're so like free your like free from stress and worry and you don't even care about pot. Like I don't get it. I'm confused.
Then they want to learn more, they want to learn more because you don't you don't even know what these debates are. Let alone take a side in them. And so that was that was very
freeing. But but I think getting to the the like Master Level of freedom is when you can when you can be in the airport when CNN's playing and it no longer makes your blood boil boil like and I'm like, Sort of that than I used to be. I can I can see and take in more news and just laugh at the absurdity of it or even find the silver lining or the Hope or have some righteous indignation
without letting it ruin my day. But if I immersed myself in it all the time, I think it would just it would just destroy me again. So it's a dangerous game. I say if you're mad about stuff and, you know, turn off the frickin news don't ever. Like, I mean, I don't think people are watching TV these days but block freakin block it from Twitter, like, worked work so that you never see a single. Petitions face or hear what they say or hear anyone report, about
what they say. Try that for a year and tell me everything about your life, didn't get better. Yeah. I've tried that a couple times where I've just not been in the mood and I've wanted to sort of throw an argument from intimidation at people. Nobody like so. Well what, you know, what do you think about John Boehner, and Mitch McConnell doing that and I go, I'm actually not part of the religion of statism. So I don't focus on what the high Priests of that religion,
discussed. And they don't even know how to respond to that. And it's just the belief that this group writing words on paper, puts a positive obligation on, 330 million strangers on what they have to fund, and what they have to do. And they're like, they're like waiting for me to say what MSNBC was saying or what Fox was saying and it totally disarms them.
And, you know, sort of plants the seed, when I think of, you know, people being under free in their mind, so it's not just well, no one was initiating violence against Harry Brown on. On September 12 2001, but he was so intellectually free that he wrote a book. Oh gosh. I can't even remember the article the day after 9/11. He wrote. What did you expect?
He goes? Well, the media of course covers up the crimes of the state while focusing on the petty crime, creating, you know, a fake enemy at home. And, you know, we've invaded countries, like Libya. There's been a blockade on a rack for a decade. Bill Clinton was bombing them at an average of two to three. Times a week for 10 people today. Don't realize the balls you had to have to write that article on September 12. Oh my God, everybody and I
remember everybody was bush. Bush had a 91 percent approval rating or something, literally like 90%, which is so typical of the state to fail at their most basic thing. And then get like the best. It's like right after Kim Kardashian gets robbed in Paris. I have the best security ever. I mean it was like the the palpable energy and I was like coming away from conservatism and like early on libertarianism
at that point. But even me the minute that happened, I had this thing rise up in me, like I wanted blood, I wanted Vengeance. I was, I was in a mirror, all these collectivist ideas, all they like dangerous, dangerous stuff. Now, there's a part of like any tragedy where you have solidarity with Humanity. It's mixed with a good impulse, but this other Vindictive patriotic military can do no wrong like that shit, just snuck. I mean, it was everywhere.
So, Harry Brown, definitely he practiced, he lived it. Man. He was not afraid. Check the description below for Isaac more house.com. Isaac. Thank you for coming on and thanks to everyone for watching. Keith Knight. Don't tread on anyone in the libertarian Institute. Thanks so much, man.