Welcome to Keith's night. Don't tread on anyone. This is a book summary of excuse me, Professor challenging, the myths of progressivism edited by Lawrence. Read myth. Number one, income inequality arises from Market forces and requires government intervention. Summary response, economic inequality, like the personality traits that make up each individual or a defining characteristic of humanity, when
economic inequality. Is naturally in the marketplace, it largely reflects the ability of individuals to serve others. When it arises from political connections. It's unfair and corrupt allowing economic inequality to occur. So long as it doesn't derive from politics, inevitably raises the standard of living for society. As a whole concern. For the poor is often a way to Simply disguise Envy or disdain for the rich. Myth number two, because we're running out of resources,
government must manage them. It is simplistic to assume that people will blindly use up what sustains them without regard to the incentive structures. They face if they have incentives to conserve, they will do. So private property is a powerful incentive to conserve resources. You lose if you squander, what's yours, when property is held in common you have a license to use and abuse. Sources with little incentive to
nurture and improve them. Myth number three, equality serves the common, good response. If people are free, they will be different that reflects their individuality and their contributions to others in the marketplace. It requires Force to make them the same talents, industriousness, and savings are three of many reasons why we are in different incomes in a free. A society forcing people to be equal.
Economically may make misguided egalitarians feel better, but it does real harm to real people myth. Number four, the more complex the society, the more government control. We need response complexity does not automatically suggest centralization of power. You and I have a full-time job managing our own respective lives. Our task increases
exponentially. If we Try to control the lives of a handful of others and it explodes Beyond Reason, if we try to control the lives of millions, myth number five, income inequality is the great economic and moral crisis of our time. Historically, the worst demagogues demonize a group. They don't like such as the rich for the purposes of political gain and power. Lust hypocritically many progressives Advocate government
income redistribution. Bution in the name of equality, but rarely run their own lives, that way, or spend their own money and accordance with the policies. They support myth, number 6, capitalism Foster's, greed, and government policy must temperate, summary, response greed has become a slippery term that cries out for some objective. Meaning, it's used these days to describe lots of behaviors that somebody doesn't like for others. Sometimes, hidden reasons self.
Interest is healthy and natural how you put it into action in your relationships with others is what keeps it healthy or gets it Off? Track lawmakers and government are not immune to Greed and if anything they magnify it into harmful outcomes, myth number seven, the free market ignores the poor explaining, how a, socialist have a socialized activity, could actually be done better by private voluntary.
Terry means in a free market, is a little, like, telling a blind man, what it would be like to see, but that doesn't mean we should just give up and remain blind examples of the wonders of free and willing, exchange are all around us.
We take them for granted. Just imagine what it would be like if she was in Sox, had been a government of plea for a couple hundred years versus the variety and low cost of shoes as now provided in 40 countries by entrepreneurs free markets open the way for people to Act immorally, but that doesn't mean they always will nor should we assume that when armed with power, our Behavior will suddenly become more moral number 8, the economy needs more planning Central planning that
is consider the Wonders all around you. Perhaps far, more than you ever imagined are the result not of some top down Central plan, imposed by wise, schemers and government, but rather of the dreams and plans of individuals. Owls and their personal initiative Central planning, as an economic framework is rooted in what? Hayek would call a pretense to knowledge. No, group of people, no matter how much government power, they possess can possibly no more than an infinitesimal fraction
of the knowledge. They would have to possess to plan and economy. Myth number 9, human rights are more important than property rights summary. You own yourself and you own those material, things you've created or traded. For freely with others. These are rights to property property in yourself and in your possessions and cannot be separated from Human Rights. America's Founders made no distinction between human rights and property rights for good reason.
There aren't any. They are one and the same. You're right to. What's yours is very different from a claim on the person or property of others. Myth number 10. I have a right summary. Genuine rights. Prior to government. They are part of our of your nature. As an individual human, the desire to have something doesn't automatically mean, you have the right to it. If your alleged or right to something cannot be achieved without forcing another person. To provide it to you.
Then it wasn't a right to begin with. You have a right to read a book, but you have no right to compel someone else to give you one. Myth number 11, rich people have an obligation to give back summary response, the innocent sounding phrase. I want to give back far too often implies guilt for having been productive or successful. If you earned it through wealth creation, followed by free and
voluntary exchange. Don't let others get away with making you feel guilty just because you have it, the people who really should give it back. Are those to whom it doesn't belong or who took it? Mothers in the first place. Myth number 12. I prefer security to Freedom. True security is an outgrowth of Freedom. Not an alternative to, it being dependent, instead of being independent is a move away from True security.
Mr. Reed's observation more than half a century ago that increasing Reliance on a welfare state for security would provide financial problems. Seems positively prescient today. Consider our Seventeen point five trillion national debt as evidence. The real choice is not between freedom and security but between security and insecurity myth number 13, cooperation not competition. Competition is actually a very important kind of cooperation. It prompts people to serve
others in the best ways. They know how a company that gets a high market share because of its efficiency and service is both competitive and cooperative. Sense that it earns the satisfaction, and patronage of customers and economy. Without competition, would be larded with waste and indifference. The core assumptions of antitrust laws are dubious and nebulous. Myth. Number 14. Healthcare is a right. Claiming. That one has a right to healthcare is rhetorical exercise.
The rubber hits the road, when it's actually enforced, which means somebody has to be compelled to provide it or pay for it. Centralizing Healthcare decisions is a movement in the wrong direction, away from Individual consumer and toward planners, who have no special knowledge, that would allow them to make good decisions for others market-based. Consumer-focused options for Health Care deserve more serious consideration.
Myth number 15. We are destroying the Earth and government must do something physics. Teaches us that matter. Is not really destroyed but rather transformed. So the ever-present question is, is it worth it Market transactions? Transform resources, as well as ownership of them. And if enhanced value doesn't result from those transactions, the resulting losses tend to minimize future, mistakes, myth
number, 16 ownership. Must be tempered by sharing progressives are two-faced when it comes to ownership. They are suspicious of it when it's private and personal but supportive, when it's politicized, and centrally directed, whether it's people or property. It will be owned. It's just a matter of whether it's owned by those, to whom it belongs, or to those, who want to claim it for some alleged higher, cause private ownership
of property. Is both a And a necessity, get rid of it and you flush civilization down with it. Common ownership is largely impractical and meaningless. Even destructive. Myth number 17. All we need is the right people to run the government. As Government grows. It creates more and more problems that are systemic. And intractable profit management and bureaucratic management are two very different. At things the former seeks to
generate more value than cost. While the top priority of the latter, is the promulgation and implementation of rules and regulations. The bigger government becomes the more calls you here. Endlessly for reform, which may suggest there's something inherently defective about the political system that prevents its practitioners from ever getting things right from the start government-run running
government like a business. A popular rhetorical point, but essentially an illusion that fails to recognize the Deep differences between profit-driven business and Rule driven government. I would also add it doesn't differentiate from the voluntary sector and the coercive sector myth number 18, Humanity can be best understood in a collective context. If you see the world as a collective lump of humanity, you'll likely come to very different conclusions about life and economics.
Then, if you see it as composed of billions of Unique Individuals, a snowstorm is only as big as its individual snowflakes. Numerous abstractions are just that. Well, individuals are real take individuals out of the equation and you remove humans from Humanity. Myth number 19. Big government is a check on big business, summary big government and big business often play well together at the expense of startups, little guys and consumers.
Artificially politically instigated barriers to entry make markets less competitive and dynamic and established firms. More monopolistic a free market. True capitalism not its adulterated. Crap at ilysm version, maximizes competition and therefore service to the consumer. Miss number 20, government. Can be a compassionate alternative to the harshness of the marketplace, compassion, isn't simply giving something away. Especially if what you're giving away wasn't yours in the first place.
True. Compassion means getting personally involved. In stinka instinctively when we want to help others with our own time and resources. We overwhelmingly tend to do so through donations of time and money to private agencies. Public ones, the marketplace, where self-interest is a powerful motivator for the creation of wealth is therefore the primary source for whatever wealth anybody has to give away myth number 21, capitalism's sweatshops and child labor. Cry out for government
intervention. Sweatshops and child labor were commonplace in pre-industrial pre-capitalist days because production and productivity were so low. Not because people dislike their way. Wives and children more than they do today, savings investment and economic growth, improve working and economic conditions faster and more shortly than well-intentioned. But misguided laws that simply closed doors of opportunity.
Myth number 22, voluntary Market Arrangements, use people summary, Advocates of free markets, have long, been accused of supporting Arrangements that used people. It's ironic because free markets are the one economic Arrangement that most respects and empowers individuals markets because they are rooted in the free choice of individual self ownership, voluntary and contractual relationships. And customer satisfaction, arf arf.
Less likely to use people in the pejorative sense, then Arrangements that are coerced, centrally planned or bureaucratic people should not be treated as objects of benevolence, but rather as Sovereign individuals with whom we deal voluntarily peacefully. And for the mutual benefit that occurs through Freedom of Choice.
Myth number 23, the balance of trade deficit requires government action, each of us as individuals, have a Balance of trade with other individuals, but none of us care about the numbers. What we care about are the goods and services. We are trading for balance of trade figures. Count only merchandise. They leave out the huge chunk of World Trade involving other things from Real Estate to Securities to Services. No trades are deemed as anything but favorable by those engaged
in the trading. So how can anyone add all those? Trades up and arrive at something unfavorable myth. Number 24, American squander, their incomes on themselves while public needs are neglected. If the political class gets more to spend, that means that private individuals have exactly that much less to spend according to their own choices. Authoritarianism.
Always argues for more of what belongs to others authoritarians, never believe they have enough as long as If anybody gets to make his own choices rather than having the state make those choices for him, Freedom means spending your own money, the way you choose. Even if you sometimes choose foolishly and there's nothing about government that ensures that the people in it, who spend other people's money will, spend it more wisely than would those who earned it in the first
place. Myth number 25, if Government doesn't relieve distress, who will summary response. No one can name the names in advance of those who might come to the aid of fellow citizens in distress. The question is illogical without government assistance. A massive amount of private voluntary. Aid. Has poured forth from American citizens, since the first settlement here.
Is there any reason to suppose that politicians are more, caring compassionate or In providing relief with other people's money, then are the individuals who elect them in the first place and he'll get personally involved in the relief of citizens. Nearby government is not true charity and it politicizes, everything it touches. If number 26, historical preservation won't happen, unless the government takes charge summary.
Why sell people And markets short when it comes to history, examples are endless of private preservation and restoration private efforts have not just been a sideshow in historical preservation. They have been the centerpiece by way of prices markets, send signals about what should be preserved and what should be discarded? Private ownership means somebody has a direct incentive to preserve. If government owns it. We all have incentives to use it and maybe even abuse something.
That is historically valuable government. Ownership means, we have to trust. Bureaucrats to preserve, what they don't personally. Own myth, number 27, government must have the power to make people take better care of themselves. It's easy to fall into the Trap of the quick fix that suggests. The use of force to address a perceived problem. A thinking person will step back and consider the consequences of all of them, including the impact on individual rights,
private property rights. Clearly stated and strictly enforce provide a better framework for society's rules than the whims of people who want to dictate to others, what's good for them. Delusion, paternalism dependency. Myopia impatience, power, lust, and self-absorption, may prompt us to call the cops, but are hardly sound motivations for government policy. Myth number 28, government spending brings jobs and prosperity summary the broken window fallacy.
He essentially calls us to be thorough in our thinking, it's not enough to Simply see the immediate or what strikes. The eye. We must also consider the long-run effects of an act or policy on all people. When government spending seems to stimulate, it's because we're not seeing it redistributed nature. If Government spends more, then there is precisely that much less spending done by those. From whom the money is taken.
If the government spends more and borrows to pay for it, instead of raising taxes, then it's today's Capital Market that is smaller precisely to the extent. Government spending is bigger myth. Number 29, Upton Sinclair's. The jungle proved regulation was required summary. Upton. Sinclair's novel. The Jungle is treated by progressives as though it were a documentary, but it Was nothing of the kind, it was a work of fiction full Fabrications.
Even Teddy. Roosevelt said the author was hysterical and untruthful Sinclair was hired to write it for the purpose of advancing. Socialism in America. Government Meat, Inspection existed before Sinclair's book ever was written, if even a portion of what he wrote really described what was happening, routinely in Meatpacking plants, either the government inspectors were complicit or else, they were an Chablis ignorant neither of which makes for a strong case
for new regulation. In the end, the Meat Packers actually supported the Meat Inspection Act because it put the government seal of approval on their product and got the taxpayers to pay for it. Myth number 30, capitalism's
Industrial Revolution curse. The world with the horrors of child labor children worked before the Industrial Revolution. It was the Industrial Revolution fact, which improve productivity so that eventually Really parents could earn enough to afford to leave their children at home in Britain. The distinction between Free Labor, children and Parish. Apprentice children must be
understood. The latter were under the care of often in different government officials, and the result can be hardly laid at the exclusive doorstep of capitalism. Myth number, 31, labor, unions, raise wages. And the standard of living wages can only be paid out of what is produced. No production. No wages there for greater productivity, is the key to higher wages unions. Typically a production Union activity, may result in some people getting more but without
an increase in productivity. That simply means that some other people must get less. Either you bake a bigger pie for One or you just slice the pie up differently. It looks sometimes like unions have actually forced wages higher because of the lower wages in non-unionized businesses. But the latter are caused in part by the outflow of Labor from on unionized sectors to non-unionized ones unionize Auto Workers today, for example, may make a little more per hour than their non-unionized
counterparts, but there are a lot fewer of them to myth. 4:33 FDR was elected in 1932 on a progressive platform to plan the economy, Franklin. Roosevelt delivered, a lot of central planning from Washington, but that wasn't what he was. He asked voters to endorse him. That wasn't what he asked voters to endorse in the 1932 election. FDR attacked Hoover for greatly increasing, taxes and spending. But one selected did even more of both.
FDR's close adviser James Warburg thought that FDR was economically, illiterate and politically opportunistic. Myth number 33. The Great Depression was a Calamity of unfettered capitalism. The Great Depression Did not follow a period of unfettered capitalism. In fact, it was made inevitable by erratic monetary policy from the federal government. Namely the Federal Reserve after years of cheap money and low.
Interest rates the FED, set the stage for A correction with a policy of steep increases in interest rates. And a deflation of the money supply, the Hoover administration took a recession and made it a depression by dramatically choking off World Trade through higher tariffs and doubling the income tax Franklin, Roosevelt promised to undo Hoover spending and tax increases, but after he was elected, he did just the opposite, the New Deal, lengthen, the depression by preventing recovery.
It cartelized Industries with raised costs. And destroyed valuable crops and cattle a depression within a depression occurred in 1937 after the imposition of costly, new labor rules, and higher taxes. Myth number 34, government must subsidize. The Arts Government funding of the Arts is not just music to the ears. It carries pyramid. All the downside of dependence on politics claims that Arts spending is magically multiplied.
Our specious and Ali self-serving and never look at alternative uses of the same money culture arises naturally and spontaneously among people who choose to interact with each other art is part of that. But it also competes with all sorts of other things. People choose to do with their time and money. If art is truly important than the last thing we should want to do is politicize it or divert it towards those things. That people with power think we
should see or hear myth. Number 35, government is an inflation fighter. When you change the definition of inflation, you change the responsibility for it. Inflation is not Rising prices. In fact, you have inflation first, and then as a consequence you get Rising prices inflation properly. Defined involves an increase in the supply of money. Historically the more control government exerts. Over money.
The more likely the money will lose its value, the more that government spends and doesn't pay for with tax revenue. The more likely it will resort to the printing press. It's far more accurate to think of government as an inflation Factory. Not an inflation fighter. Myth number 36, Outsourcing is bad for the economy, Outsourcing occurs. When people shop around for the best deals, we do it all the time as consumers, if it produces savings. Then savings can be utilized for
the purchase of other things. Outsourcing boosts productivity and living standards stopping. It means compelling Shoppers in the case, businesses to settle for a more costly or less desirable option. Myth number 37, if FDR's New Deal didn't end, the Great Depression. Then WWII did Wars aren't cures for depressions. They simply divert, Manpower and resources away from what consumers want to what? Government wants to win the
conflict FDR's. New Deal prolong the depression and fortunately attempts to revive it to keep the economy. Going after World War two were squelched. The economy, didn't collapse after World War Two because reductions in federal spending and Taxation, encouraged entrepreneurship. Myth number 38, the minimum wage helps. The poor billions of people who
are utterly unaffected by the minimum. because, They are already learning something higher to begin with see their wages rise almost every year some even during recessions. It's not a decree of Congress that does this. It's factors such as the productivity capital investment and competition in the labor market. You can't expect employers to pay workers more than their productivity is worth just because Congress demands it at higher prices or wages. Less is purchased.
That's a law that How much more powerful than a minimum wage law from Congress? If raising the minimum wage to $10.10 make sense? Why not stop there?
Why not declare that? Everyone must be paid fifty dollars and our myth number 39, free markets exploit women summary, the Freer, the market, the more opportunities there are for women and anyone else for that matter to progress up the economic ladder, most of the 17.9%, Percent wage Gap in the United States can be explained by a number of hours, worked marriage and age, women who work full-time and who have never
married make ninety-five point. Two percent of male earnings narrowing, the gender wage Gap to less than 5% for those women who want to work. Many paid hours and invest, highly in education. There are more income opportunities in the highest. Quintiles than there ever have been myth number 40, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer Progressive, should be honest. And admit that the anti free-market policies, they promoted and achieved in the last half-century have
disadvantage. The poor and conferred favors upon the rich and politically. Well-connected amazingly in spite of those policies. The poor overall are still better than they were 50 years. Ago. Imagine the progress that might have happened. Had those policies not been in place redistributing. Wealth is just slicing, the pie differently at the risk of shrinking. The pie. It's a static view of wealth one. That's greatly inferior. To a view of baking, a bigger
pie for everyone. Myth number 41, Rockefellers Standard, Oil Company. Proved we needed antitrust laws to fight Market monopolies. If the Standard Oil company was any kind of Monopoly. It was not a coercive one because it did not derive its high and temporary market share from special government favors. There were lots of competitors to it here and abroad. If it was a monopoly then it was
of the efficiency, variety. Meaning that it earned a high market share because customers liked what it offered at attractive prices the prices of standard products chiefly kerosene in the company's early history steadily fell, the quantity the quality steadily improved total production grew from year to year. This is not supposed to be the behavior of an evil monopolist who supposedly restricts output and raises prices accusation against standard.
Predatory price cutting buying up competitors conspiracy to restrict output and raise prices. Securing railroad. Rebates, Etc. Sound plausible on the surface, but fall apart upon close inspection. Myth number 42, Jesus Christ was a progressive because he advocated income redistribution
to help. The poor free will not coercion, is a central and consistent element in the teachings of Christ. It is not recorded anywhere that Christ called, for the To use its power to redistribute wealth Christ, endorse things like Choice, charity generosity, kindness personal responsibility, and voluntary, Association things that are reckon irreconcilable with coercively, financed redistribution schemes.
Myth number 43, the free market cannot provide public education, as long as Government Can tax its citizens, and then provide Educational Services to them at a marginal price of zero much private. Acacia will never come into being most parents would know, more, make educational decisions without consulting, knowledgeable authorities, then they would make medical decisions without consulting.
Doctors. We don't use the small number of neglectful parents as a pretext for government, controlling or Finance of religion. Nor should we use it as a pretext for government control or financing of schooling. Government domination of Education assures that the entrepreneurial Innovation and creativity. We are Touch them to and say, the computer industry will be missing from education. Myth number 44, Warren Buffett's federal tax rate is less than his secretaries.
Warren Buffett, created a new tax metric by combining individual income, taxes and payroll taxes into one federal tax rate. He then asserted that his 2010 federal tax rate of 17.4% was 18.6 percentage. Points lower than the 36 percent average federal tax rate paid. By his office workers the 2010 Social Security, and Medicare taxing mechanisms in place. In 2010 were inherently Fair, ascribing a federal tax rate differential to employee.
Paid payroll taxes as buffeted is analytically incorrect. This 7.65 percentage Point federal tax rate. Is a mirage. I must disagree here. There is nothing. Inherently fair about one person or group violently taking property from another incredibly. Buffett included employer-paid matching payroll taxes into his calculations as well. Thus doubling the 7.65 percentage Point differential perfect ignored in his calculations, roughly 1.6 billion in corporate income taxes born by him in.
Ten as a one-third owner of Berkshire Hathaway. He also ignored his share roughly 400 million dollars of Social Security and Medicare matching taxes paid by Berkshire. Hathaway, the analytically correct comparison, excluding individual payroll taxes and including corporate income and payroll taxes shows that buffets federal tax rate was actually over 10 percentage points higher than the average rate of his office workers in 2010.
Miss number 45, profit is evidence of suspicious Behavior profit earned in a free and competitive market is the target of the Miss informed and uninformed. It's evidence of value-added. Not value subtracted. Profit is a great motivator and incentivize ER, as most economists. See at profit is composed of managerial remuneration, 's interest on Capital invested. David and entrepreneurial or economic profits by itself. The sheer dollar amount of a firm's profit.
Tells you nothing about profit as a portion of sales or as a return on Capital invested, myth number, 46, robots, and computerization cause unemployment the use of robots to increase productivity. While decreasing costs Works
basically the same way as past. Advances like the production line have worked those advances improve the quality of life of billions of people and created new forms of employment that were unimaginable at the time compared to humans robots are cheaper, do employee partly for natural reasons, and partly, because government intervention natural costs, include training, safety needs over time and personal problems.
Such as hiring, firing and on-the-job theft unnatural non-market costs stem from From cronyism dispensed by governments, and increase. Use of robots will cause labor dislocation which will be painful for many workers in the near term. But if Market forces are allowed to function, the dislocation will be temporary myth. Number 47, statistical disparities between races, prove
discrimination. There is no evidence from anywhere on Earth or any time in history, which demonstrates that, but for discrimination, there would be proportional representation. Station and absence of growth statistical disparities by race sex nationality. And or any other human characteristic, casual observation of ice hockey, game suggests that blacks attendance is by no means proportional to their numbers in the general population, but that's not evidence of discrimination.
Myth number 48. The solution to overpopulation is population control. There is no relationship between In high populations disaster and poverty by a considerable measure poverty, and underdeveloped Nations is directly attributed to their leaders. Heeding the advice of Western experts who Champion repressive redistributive and anti private property Solutions. What are called overpopulation problems.
Result from socialistic government practices, that reduce the capacity of people to educate clothes house and feed themselves. Myth number 49 resource. Poor countries need strong, central planning to develop Hong Kong a small rock with little resources, but still a lot of economic freedom shows that freedom goes a long way to ensuring progress. No matter how few your
resources. Are the biggest economic flops of the past Century, were both centrally planned and infatuated with numbers in spite of being resource-rich. Myth number 50, people love the Robin Hood story because he took from the rich to give to the poor Generations have grown up
with the heroic idea. Love Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, but it was only in the 19th century that he amended his modus operandi to include giving to the poor Market forces emerging with the breakdown of feudalism. In the late Middle Ages made the lives of working people and measure. Lee better and the Nobles who lost their bidding wars for their services, didn't like it the targets of Robin Hood and his merry men were Rich from Plunder, not production.
Myth number 51 greedy capitalist, take advantage of people and natural disasters. Price controls are the answers. Prices are not set arbitrarily. They are what they are for a variety of reasons. These reasons are summarized by two words supply and demand government.
Pros, imposed prohibitions, on price gouging mask, the underlying reality shielding people from the truth of it, higher prices in the wake of reduce supplies result in conservation of what remains and the encouragement of new supplies, precisely, what the situation calls for myth. Number 52, progressives have good intentions. So what else is required one thing Progressive. Share with almost everyone else has a very high level of expectations for the private sector and In a very low, one
for the public sector. Good! Intentions are by themselves nowhere near enough. Thank you for watching Keith, and I don't tread on anyone.