Welcome to Keith's night. Don't try to anyone and the libertarian Institute. Today, I am joined by. Lawrence W, read of Lawrence W read.com. He is the president emeritus of the foundation for economic education. One of my favorite organizations. Mr. Reed, thank you so much for your time. Hey, it's my pleasure. Keith. Thanks again for having me. Of course, what are historical narratives and why are they important? Well historical narratives.
Let's say in contrast to a straight documentary tells a story that has a genuinely true background to it, at least, but often the characters are imagined or the specific situations are created and then you write it, you know, as if it happened that's it's not something it's not the style in which I personally write, I tend to write nonfiction. Shouldn't period. But historical narratives, traditionally blend both fiction and nonfiction. So why are those so important? It?
Seems like, well, the past is the past regardless of whatever happened. Let's just focus on the future. Well, I think they tend to be very entertaining and as long as people go into them, knowing that, you know, they are not word for word documentaries, that they do involve imaginary situations and characters, but with a genuinely accurate backdrop. I think they can tell stories,
they can make points. They can advance principles with a background that people can relate to it, because they know something about history. Karl Marx, would generally say things like, they're The Narrative of History. It's we had slavery, and then feudalism, and then capitalism. Therefore, The Logical move in this, but good direction would later be dictatorship of the proletariat.
And then communism, abolition of private property, if you want to give people sort of a narrative to live by who will Advocate libertarianism or conservatism something in this. Small, government, voluntary realm, would you more or less a creative story? Would you have sort of pillars like, Marx, did where we're sort of moving in this direction? How would you give someone a kind of story to be a part of
well, to begin with? I would not use the style of Karl Marx use, because that was more like prophecy by someone who was not a prophet. He had no idea what the A future held and to suggest that history is governed by certain predetermined stages and at some distant point in the future.
One stage will give rise to the next really was just pure supposition, there's no fact factual case or logic to it, it's just Karl, Marx deciding he wanted to fit his ideological narrative into future history, that hadn't happened yet. And of course, we know how in a Sure. He was not only in his prophecies for the future but in the way he understood economics and human nature. So I wouldn't use his Approach at all.
My personal approach is, I mean, I'm very much of a nonfiction writer but I see the value in things like novels or historical narrative that is partially novelized because again, people can relate to the background in which the Situations and characters develop because they are somewhat aware of it. It's not a totally new, it's not like, writing something about life on some planet, we haven't yet discovered. I mean, which case everything is made up.
When it comes to the beginning of American History, the New York Times has sort of pinned the 19th, the 1619 project as the beginning of American History. The new beginning. Why? Because this is, when the first slaves were brought to America. When it comes to the history of slavery in America, where do mainstream historians, get it wrong.
If at all Well, mainstream historians by and large will part company with the 1619 narrative from The New York Times. That that particular narrative is a classic example of somebody deciding here is my Ideology. Now, how do I shape history that already happen to fit my narrative? How can I pick and choose among things in the past? So as to seemingly verify the ideology or the narrative I have, Predetermine.
I don't think that's either history or good storytelling that's a perversion of History. I think the best approach is to look at all things to the extent, we can that happened and try to identify certain patterns or themes or character traits. That seem to stand out as a determinant of, of events of the day. If you do that, then the the episode in 1619 Is, but one of many instances in American history and Harley defining of what America was or became.
I think you could pick say the Mayflower Compact, which was in 1620 and say, well, that's the defining instance or episode in American history. That has so much to say about what came afterwards and Mayflower Compact was between the Pilgrims and the other half of the crew or the, or I should say, the passenger list of the Mayflower in which they agreed voluntarily to a representative form of government once they
landed. That, that tells you more about really what happened in America afterwards with all of its flaws, including slavery. But those are flaws in most cases that we have since conquered and they are not flaws that are or ever work a killer. ER to this country, America did more in many cases in many ways to end the slavery of the individual in one form or another that just about any other country in the history of the world.
One of the things I noticed when I sort started studying history was while slavery and colonialism did exist in America's past. It's one of the probably if they least unique thing about America or the West in general, It's the least unique thing. I mean there's a tablet the code of your namu. I think it's like 2,000 years old. They're 9 of the 34 laws talk about slavery. Why is the least unique thing about American history, constantly being put at the center of the American discussion?
Well, I think the people who do that, who make that error, try to make slavery such a centerpiece and determining factor of just about everything else I think. They first had decided what their personal agendas are and then they are taking certain events out of context and blowing them up into things far, more determined active of our history than they ever were. Yeah, if you look at slavery, I mean that's something that has Afflicted almost every corner of
the globe, ever. Certainly every continent but Antarctica has had at one time or another slavery. And at one time You could say that the great majority of people living were slaves or serfs or at least had to live in constant fear of the people with political power. That was the order of the day for most of human history.
America came along and not by itself, but with a few other places as well within a hundred years or so America came along and said hey it doesn't have to be that way and we're going to start freeing people up. They we didn't do it all in one Fell Swoop but We created a system which allowed us over time to perfect and improve the condition of human Liberty. And although we still have work to do, we've gone further in that direction than just about anybody else.
I want to give you a general summary of what I had learned at Arizona, State University and in high school, you tell me if this is accurate inaccurate, or what's missing, okay? In the industrial revolution, you had the robber barons, Carnegie Rockefeller constantly, the strong exploiting the week. Finally after all this suffering, Teddy Roosevelt stepped in with antitrust laws to protect the public from These exploiters antitrust laws are good because they protect the
vulnerable from the strong. What if anything is wrong with that? Could just about everything. I hardly know where to begin. I know that is common mythology and it's simple it is you just expressed it pretty fully and a matter of 30 seconds and it sounds plausible but it's one of those things that when you dig a little deeper and you examine in particular the Persons and the performance of certain companies that come under attack. So often you find very frequently a very different story.
You mentioned Rockefeller. It's for example, he's the great Boogeyman in American economic history according to those who are hostile to Freedom free markets or capitalism and the story goes well he was a monopolist but you look a little closer and you discover it that's that's a myth, you know, monopolies are Supposed to be firms or companies or even governments that restrict output and raise the price and don't care much about the quality of the product and abused.
The customer. You look at Rockefellers Standard Oil and you find that the price of Standards principal product which was kerosene in the first half century of its
existence. It steadily fell, the price steadily fell dramatically from something like 40 cents a gallon to Three cents a gallon and the quality of the product steadily improved and yes, Rockefeller got big, but he always had to deal with competition, not only domestic but also very fears foreign competition, but because he earned a lot of money along the way, which represented a mere fraction of the benefit that he provided to the world's consumers.
He's often held up as greedy, Robber Baron. But again, you look at the specifics and the Charge that he engaged in predatory price, cutting forces that he slashed the price in order to drive people from the marketplace competitors and then after they were gone erased the price.
Again there's no factual evidence for that and that was proven by professor John Magee. All you have to do is look at the Journal of Law and economics October 1958, you'll find the definitive study saying that never happened. Rockefeller would have been foolish even to And yet that charge is repeated over and over again. Teddy Roosevelt. As you mentioned is portrayed as well. Here's the guy who saved us with
antitrust law. The first antitrust law was in 1890 before, Teddy appeared on the scene, so you can't credit him for that or blame him for that. It was called the Sherman Act and it was one of the most nebulous and ridiculous laws Congress has ever passed. It just simply said, you know, if If you're a monopoly then the government can come after you when we do for morale at the
morale of down. The point is, it did not Define what constitutes a monopoly, didn't describe the behavior that somehow does harm to Consumers and their short, therefore should be adjudicated or reprimanded. It was left to subsequent law to try to put some flesh on the bones. And now we know from A Century of scholarship that most antitrust has actually Harmed. Consumers, far more than it has benefited.
Let's talk about a few other people from the robber baron era when it comes to Cornelius Vanderbilt or Andrew Carnegie Henry Ford. What do we need to know about these individuals to have an accurate understanding of what took place in the past? I think if you look at the I mean you can make some positions till the cows come home. But if you look at data that often tells a story very different from what somebody's ideology would suggest.
The fact is that the service has these guys provided the products that they produce all during the period, that they were getting big in the marketplace, steadily improved, the price went down. Competition was just as fierce when they were done with their work as when they began their work, you had Cornelius. Vanderbilt, for instance, engaged in a number of
businesses. He was in railroads he was in steamships when it was in the steamship business, he had to compete with a government subsidized steamship company. And this is chronicled by a great historian and good friend of mine Burton Folsom in his book, The Rock the middle of the road. Rubber Barons. But Vanderbilt kept saying it's a congress.
Hey why are you subsidizing this other guy to build a steamship line that carry passengers across the Atlantic when I can do it without a subsidy or do it for half the subsidy, and he never took the subsidy but he eventually beat the subsidized one simply because he was better. And I mean, you could say, well, isn't that evil, he did it for greedy purposes. Well, What? He's not in the charity business who is few nonprofits may be.
But the great majority of the goods and services that make us wealthy as a people are produced by for-profit, bottom line, accountable and competitive private Enterprises. Vanderbilt was no exception. So I think a person really has to shed if they have a bias against successful people, if they are envious of those who have more than they do, if they count other people's blessings instead of their own.
Yeah. And they're going to look at history within a jaundiced light and they're going to find a lot of villains and victims but history is rarely. So, simple, as that carers, your would suggest When it comes to the idea of profit, it seems like people think they're making a big point when they were a prophet seeker.
And I said yes and these evil customers only come into my store because they want goods and services for their own self-interest that as if there's anything horrible with though with that from an economic standpoint standpoint as the president emeritus of the foundation for economic education, what is it that people need to have a general understanding of when it comes to the idea of What is the average person missing? It's a great question.
And it's one that I dealt with when I was teaching at Northwood University years ago. Because I had some students who came into class as freshman thinking that profit doesn't that mean greed, and isn't that a bad thing? And so, here's what I used to do. I used to say to students? Okay, imagine a hundred dollars
worth of stuff ingredients. Factors of production, whatever you want to call and some Guy takes those hundred dollars worth of stuff and he plays with them shapes them a certain way and puts them in a certain place where he thinks people will want the end result. And lo and behold, people are willing to give him $150 for that hundred dollars worth of stuff that he played around with and change transformed and putting the right place. Okay, well, we might say, well
he made a profit. Should we be horrified by that? No should say. He added value. He took x amount. And made an X Plus, would it have been virtuous if he had taken that hundred dollars worth of stuff and turned it into something that people would only give him $50 for? I mean any numbskull can do that. All you do is a lot of match to it and somebody will give you a less for it than what they would
have before. But for you to consistently earn that profit by adding value is not an easy thing to do and entrepreneurs will tell you time and time. Again, they didn't succeed at everything. I always had to take a risk, they failed at some things, but they learn from their mistakes. They bounce back, they persevered. And they please customers along the way. So profit is sort of a measure of service to others if you earn it it's because people are in effect saying by their purchases.
What you did with that stuff is now worth more than if I had gone out myself and borrow the ingredients on my own one final thing on the Robert. Ends before we move on, please remind me of the metrics that we could use to determine whether these people were parasitic or they were producers to society. The one that that came to mind was before we determine that, let's see if whatever they were producing Carnegie steel, was it going up in price over time? Certainly evil greedy
monopolist. We should see prices always rising in steel and the workers wages. Constantly, decreasing. What are some metrics? We can use to really make sure we have an accurate understanding. What happened? Well, certainly the price of the product is one metric over time. And in the case of Carnegie, the reason he made his money was he figured out how to make steel cheaper than anybody else and anybody who had to purchase steel for the construction of
this or that or what? Not greatly benefited by Carnegie's genius. That's one. Measure metric. Another one would be to the extent. You Measure the quality of the
product. I mean, if every time you go to the store and you buy Campbell's soup, but tomato soup but it has fewer tomatoes in it than the day before you can say well maybe the price hasn't changed but the quality of the product certainly has well in the case of Carnegie not only did his steel become cheaper, it also became better and tougher and
stronger. Another metric would be return on investment because, you know, great entrepreneurs, rarely Start out with a bundle of money, they don't start with their billions. They often start in their garage and entered their genius, along with the help of their workers and investors into something of Great Value. Well, it's important to know what kind of return that they pay investors, because investors are what they're taking their savings and entrusting them to this gentleman or 122.
Engage in business and they deserve a return. In fact no entrepreneur is going to attract Capital if he or she never pays a return. So return on investment is another good measure and there again, you want value creation. And that's what you get in a free Society. Those who don't create value, those are subtract from it will not attract investors and will not attract customers is over before long, their mistakes are obvious and their history. Or they go to work for somebody else.
So those are among the metrics now, certainly, you'll want to also look at conduct, I mean, you can certainly make money if you cut corners and cheat people sometimes. But that kind of tactic tends to be short term catches up with you. And if government is doing its only legitimate job, it will certainly provide a legal channel for redress of grievances on the part of
Summers are even competitors. But if you're an honest person and you're adding value to society and you're taking the risks needed to build an Enterprise, you will be rewarded in the marketplace and that is the most important metric of
all, of course. And we can clearly see this when it comes to the Fortune 500. If you compare it today, too, I think 1955, I think only 60 companies are still in there, there's this constant turnover, there's this Student Innovation that has to take place which of course, the voluntary sector seldom gets gets the credit. So, that's right.
It keeps my may add, I don't want to suggest that everybody in business is on the up and up to the that some business people use their political connections to get a special favor to get legislators to give them a subsidy you know, as a believer in Freedom and free markets, me I will suffer slowly against that I want to Fairfield of no favors no. I don't want the playing field biased by the intervention of politicians who try to pick winners and losers with other
people's money. So, all that I've said applies to Market entrepreneurs, not political entrepreneurs and certainly not Market entrepreneurs, who mix politics in with their productive activity. And you use the perfect example of Edward, Collins verse Cornelius. Vanderbilt that what? One of my favorite stories when it comes.
As to the Great Depression, General narrative, you had this unregulated capitalism, this gave us a Great Depression because Herbert Hoover basically, sat back and just said, well, it'll take care of itself. Fortunately, the voters got some sense into them, elected FDR, he gave us the New Deal that got us out of the Great Depression.
What is wrong? If anything with what I just said that is certainly one of the most horrific and Aalto commonplace incorrect historical narratives where to start again that narrative, I think was created and propagated over the years because it fits somebody's ideology or a number of people's ideology. It fits neatly into the, we hate capitalism camp. We need bigger government to
take charge of the economy camp. But when you again, look at the actual facts, you'll find that Already had its depression, its first sort of the Federal Reserve System which is a creation of the government. We're still paying a price for that monster today. They the FED expanded the nation's money and credit Supply by according to Murray rothbard 65 percent or so. From 1924 to 29, we know that period as the Roaring Twenties. We had good things happening.
You had Calvin, Coolidge, cutting tax rates so that was helpful. Very positive. But at the same time you had the FED spiking the punch, creating a bubble, driving interest rates to record lows, this easy money flowing into the system. Creating a boom that would have to sooner or later be corrected and that began in nineteen late 1929, worth of Boston, the stock market was a classic bubble
caused by the fed. And it was a bubble pricked by the FED, which had begun to raise interest rates dramatically as Early is early 1929. Well this the depression might have been only a recession and may have ended it a year except there were a series of crazy interventions there after that took a recession and made it a depression in June of nineteen. Thirty didn't have a depression yet but President Herbert Hoover and the Congress seeing nagging
Lehigh on employment. Decided, hey let's close the borders to trade. Let's raise. Is tariffs to an all-time high, the smoot-hawley Tariff Act of 1919 30, that that's shut down World Trade. It led to retaliation by other governments against American Goods at that. Took a recession, made it a depression. That's not a free market phenomenon. That's an act of government 1932 in the midst of depression with unemployment 20% or so, what did they do? They double the income tax.
Imagine that in the midst of the depression. Crashing. If you weren't already flattened by the smoot-hawley Tariff. Now you're really got slammed. The top rate was raised from 24% to 65% and all kinds of other taxes were raised. That was very depressing and then you had an election in which Franklin Roosevelt the Democrat nominee ran against the incumbent Herbert Hoover, the Republican and Roosevelt said, some things that I would have
supported. He said Herbert Hoover is the greatest taxing and spending president in memory and we're going to balance the budget and cut government spending. Get it off your back and out of your way. He was the less a fair candidate if there was one in 1932, so he wins election. But then does just the opposite
of everything that he promised. And that's why you get seven more years of depression because Franklin, Roosevelt being basically an economic ignoramus his own Closer by You're James Warburg made that plain in his book, hell-bent for re-election, he starts jacking up taxes, which he is assailed Hoover for doing. But before he's done, the top rate will go to 91% piles on the regulations price controls and
so forth. In other words that narrative that the economy was less a fair hands off, minimal government is nonsense. The government caused the Great Depression. Oh, and then we lingered in it for a decade because of a series of stupid interventions thereafter. How does something like the smoot-hawley? Tariff one might say, well, yes, it restricted trade with foreigners, which is good because it creates jobs in America and that's how you would
grow the economy. How is it that enacting tariffs would hurt the domestic economy. A fundamental principle Keith of trade is that you cannot close the door to Imports without closing the door to exports. In other words, if foreigners can't sell here, because our tariffs on their goods are so high. Well, then how can they earn the dollars that they need to buy here? The cars don't come from Japan. If they can't sell them here and therefore, the boat doesn't go back to Japan with American
grain. That's why for instance, agriculture in America was particularly hard hit by smoot-hawley. It was one of our biggest, export Industries, about a third of what farmers were producing on American Farms was destined for overseas markets.
But now with smoot-hawley foreigners can Learn Dollar on farmers are stuck with all this stuff, and no markets to sell it. And every business that depended upon the prosperity of the farmer from rural Banks to fertilizer companies, they go into depression as well. So it's an easy alluring temptation to think that you help your economy by forcing people to not buy from a foreigner, but it immediately boomerangs.
And even if the foreign government does don't retaliate, which they usually do it boomerangs anyway.
Simply because you've made foreign Goods, too expensive to sell here, and then for his can turn the dollars, they need to buy from us. So we get a double-dip recession in 1937 1939. Henry morgenthau comes out and says look I've been part of this Administration, we've spent more than ever and unemployment as bad as it previously was, we've had all this time and it hasn't given us what what what we need. So historians have kind of seen this and said okay.
Okay we admit it wasn't necessarily the new deal but we had to try something. What really got us out was Entering into the second world war by conscripting 12 million men. The second world war got us out of the Great Depression. What what, what do you say to that? Yeah, that's another very common, but also incorrect narrative on the surface. It appears to be plausible because unemployment dramatically fill with American entry into World War Two.
Well we took 11 million men and drafted them into the workforce. The government Workforce as Soldiers. They they were taken out of the domestic Workforce so they didn't count anymore as unemployed. So, yeah. You did, you take 11 million unemployed and and take them out of the equation.
Your unemployment numbers got to look better but if you look at various measures of standards of living, during the War years at best, the American standard of living stagnated and that's at best because you can make a strong Encase that it actually declined we had. We were instead of making washing machines and Automobiles for domestic consumption, we were making airplanes and tanks and guns and arguably we had to do that to win the war, but don't confuse that with, you
know, an improving economy. We had to suffer through the War years with an economy at best, that was stagnating. We didn't really see economic recovery until the war ended and there are two big factors. Is that help? Explain why the depression finally came to an end in real terms as well as in those more artificial ways?
In 1945, we had in 46, we had the biggest reduction in government spending in American history, largely demobilization of the military after WWII, you know, a Keynesian Economist would say, uh-oh, government spending collapsed. Well then we surely. We're going to have another depression and some Pilar thought we would.
But we have just the opposite because when government spending went down what that meant was, you had vast amounts of resources that now could flow into the far more efficient private sector. Now, you could make those washing machines and Automobiles instead of stuff, we're going to blow up half a world away. That was one very beneficial thing, a reduction in government spending.
But you also had a new President Harry Truman and you know, I don't count him as one of our better ones but Was a darn sight better than Franklin. Roosevelt Harry Truman was not this new deal, you know, run roughshod over capitalism and kind of guy. He got rid of a lot of the radical new dealers and he signed on baby reluctantly, but he did sign on to a dramatic reduction in the corporate
income tax rate. It went in one Fell Swoop, the income tax rate on corporate income went from 90 percent down The 38% immediately after World War Two Harry Truman signed that into law. Well, just ask yourself if you're if you're a business and on one day the government's going to take as much as 90% of what you've earned. But the next day it says, no we won't take any more than 38, isn't that going to affect your behavior?
I mean, of course, it will mean, it's a dramatically improve situation for things like Risk, taking and expansion of your businesses and the hiring of new workers or so. Also responsible for their recovery, not the New Deal or the war spending. That's simply kept us in a
prolonged depression. When it comes to the well-being of, I hate the term, the workers as if entrepreneurs, don't do any work, as if people who don't get paid and do work around the house as if they're not valuable, it's ridiculous. But when it comes to helping the Working Class People in entry level jobs up to working in their later years in life. What is it about? The free market that you support? That makes it a place where the workers would greatly benefit from the free.
Market means such things as Choice. It means that you have more than one option in so many aspects of life, whether it be as a consumer buying goods, among competing providers who have every incentive to treat you well. And or those who don't usually don't go very far or to where you want to work or even whether or not you want to start a business yourself. A free market means that a man or a woman who is a worker ER today employed by another person can become an employer tomorrow.
I mean, that happens in a free economy all the time. Everyday, most successful entrepreneurs will tell you that they weren't always entrepreneurs from H3. You know, mean, they work for other people for a time, but they had some creative genius, and some risk-taking
willingness. And they, at one point decided, they wanted to create an Enterprise, a free market allows you to do that, the, through the competition among Employers and the competition among creators of goods and services, every worker benefits, you get more stuff at lower prices of better quality. The more competition that you have is forming a union consistent with the principles
of free markets. It depends on what the union is going to do. In other words, once again, just as you would judge a company or should judge a company by its conduct and performance, you should judge unions on their conduct and performance. Union can perform a very beneficial responsibility or activity. If it brings to the attention of the employer issues in the workplace, that a that individual workers may feel reluctant to bring Well, that's a positive contribution.
If they enable the purchase of certain Services by their workers in bulk at lower price. That's a way that traditional unions or trade associations have been beneficial, it's where I draw the line is when a union says, now we want to claim to represent every worker on this site, whether they choose to be a part of us or not, we need the compulsion of government to I'm in here and tell people if we get 50% plus one to join the union everybody else has to join.
Even though you have the 49 plus percent that might say wait a minute, it's not for me I'd rather continue to bargain for myself. No thanks it's compulsory unionism that does a lot of harm and immediately it insulates to a considerable degree. Union leadership from the consequences of their own bad actions because workers can say, no thanks. I think I'll patronize Union, or just handle things myself. I'm in favor of choice, competition, and accountability in every aspect of life.
So when unions employ political coercion, where they use the state to get special benefits that freeze-out competition, or compel workers to pay dues, whether they want to or not, that's that's when they no longer become a, beneficial Organization for the workers, but become a threat every bit as much as big taxi government. How is it that capital investment and competition benefit the workers? Well, without capital investment, no worker would be
making very much a whole. I mean, think of it, capital investment can be thought of in two ways. It's number one, the funds necessary typically from people's savings to buy the tools of production to start a business and capital investment also is can be considered those tools, you know, the the Machinery that enables you to dig the foundation for a home with a backhoe. Instead of a spoon. If you if you're employed to dig
a foundation for a home. But the extent of the capital you have at your disposal is a spoon. You're going to have to work awfully hard and long before you ever get to completing the First Foundation. Whereas with a backhoe you can do in a day or two, your worth. As a worker is far greater when you have tools like, backhoes to get the job done, then then you're worth when or you can produce as what you can do with a spoon. That I think is one of the most interesting things about the
free market. How it's constantly harmonizing self-interest saying how I can't get any money out of your pocket, unless you voluntarily give it to me. I'm not entitled to any of your time, unless you choose to spend it with me, and you have the right to withdraw it in the future. So even these things that appear to be self-interested or even if they are self-interested, you still are benefiting people. Besos with books, is probably the best. Thing it's so funny.
I heard I think it was Pat Buchanan, talking about, you know, the price of books were a higher number of dollars. So even forget about inflation when he was younger or when his first books came out than they are today on Amazon. They've actually decreased in price in spite of the quantitative easing that the federal government's given us. So the capital investment benefiting workers is just the perfect example of harmonizing interests.
Exactly as if politicians don't benefit yet Nancy Pelosi is actually a nun who works for a monastery. She's never profited. Chuck Schumer he's homeless. He just trying to help us. I'm sorry I interrupted you. Oo. That's right. I've often wondered at what point does the politicians motivations cease to be self-focused ourselves interested in some suddenly become other feeling and compassionate and and only Ston others.
It does that happen on Election Day or does it happen on the day or the day they take office or you know, when does that, what does that actually happen? But you know, Adam Smith expressed it so well, 250 years ago when he said, if I can remember it for Batum, he said it is not from the benevolence or Goodwill is not from the benevolence of the butcher or the Brewer or the baker that we get our daily sustenance, but rather through their own For their own self-interest.
I mean, isn't that true? I made, you want to get somebody to give you something or do something for you. There's a couple ways to do it. One, you can take a club and beat the crap out of them, but, you know, whatever you get is going to likely be a one-time occurrence or you can say, hey, I got something for you. And let me say why it would be worth it to you, to give me what you've got. If I give you what I've got, I mean. It's one way or the other folks. Either you can beat the crap out
of people to get what you want. Or you can harmonize your desires with theirs and find peaceful Cooperative ways to deal with them final topic on understanding of of History,
actually, two more. When it comes to Lyndon Johnson's, Great Society. The big ones that come to mind being Medicare and Medicaid. This sort of was a transformation from either leaving people to their own Says, or having unstable things as opposed to ushering in a social safety net, which we benefit from to this day. What if anything is wrong with the general understanding people have of, Lyndon Johnson's, Great Society programs, the Great
Society, of course, encompassed. Number of things only expansion in in welfare payments at entitlements. But also increases or new Ventures. I should say into To medical care for the Indigent. And for those of elderly age, one of the flaws in the whole thing was the failure to look at the long-term. A lot of these kinds of programs.
When government first starts the month, Social Security at first of course, still lots of people were we took money from a lot of people and gave it to a very few people. Actuarially that would pretty good for a time. But all of these programs, Social Security, Medicare Medicaid, you're on the road to bankruptcy, and each time it looked like that was in the offing. Politicians would patch it up a little bit by raising taxes.
Maybe in a few cases is cutting benefits or at least adding years to the time when you could first begin to collect and case of Social Security. But right now the actuaries at those various institutions know, full, well and have been are plenty of Articles written about this then in the next decade or so. Medicaid, Medicare Social Security are going to face calamitous financial problems and that's When we may look back and decide maybe it wasn't, such
a good idea in the first place, people who want to have a secure and free and prosperous future, not only for them, but for their grandkids need to be thinking long term, not just short-term, otherwise they'll go in for any, any suckers scheme, that seems to throw something at you. But what, you know, I often like to say this, I like sure a lot about Roman history and I like to point out, if I could go back to ancient Rome, Let's say very late in the Republic as Liberties were crumbling.
And before long, they were all lost and the empire was created. If I could go back and speak to the Mob, say 50 BC, I would like to say to them. Hey folks you know you've been on this welfare state bandwagon for a hundred years and a lot of you are feeling pretty good. It seems like you're getting more than your pay it in so what's wrong with it? But let me tell you I come from the future and I know where this is headed. It's Bankrupt society and you will. So we can yourselves.
You will become so dependent upon politicians future. Generations will care not a whit about whether they earn their income by theft from others, through the political process or through their own efforts. Your Society will so Decay that in my day will be reading about you in the history books as a civilization that committed suicide and felt, they were having a lot of fun along the way.
Is that what you want? And I'd like to think maybe some of the Romans would have said, maybe we should think long term if we don't want maybe we don't want to go down unsustainable paths that's that's one of the central problems of welfare states. The fact that they make a lot of people feel good for a time but they set into motion forces which destroy Society in the long run.
If they're not turn back but I would also like to tell people hey you know, fundamentally something it's rooted in Wrong is not likely to end well. And when you Advocate things like government, forcible redistribution robbing Peter to pay Paul, you're talking about the theft and even if you're on the receiving end and it makes you feel good and if it makes you feel good that other people who seem to deserve it or getting something you're still justifying theft, aren't there?
Other meat is that this is that as creative as you can get, I mean, a free Society. The we just throw our He's to the politicians and in favor of the crumbs that they send our way and think that's the end of it, a free and creative. People will come up with plenty of ways to solve problems, sending your money to Washington laundering it through a federal bureaucracy that then spits out. A portion of it is the dumbest way to solve problems that I can think of.
I was thinking of the high administrative costs that you get with something like this because there's nothing anti-free Market about pulling your resources together and Back today because of free-market Innovations, it's easier than ever. We could have the acacio, Cortez Healthcare fund where everyone chips in and your names on the list. So then when you need Healthcare later in life, well then you get money out of this thing. That's a, that could be your Single Payer sort of system but
they're not interested in that. I love the idea of taking care of people when they're older. My only beef is not letting people opt out and the state monopolizing the money supply but You get what I'm saying then? Why is this been such a hard sell considering it's not that we hate taking care of people. We hate this groups claim that they have the right to forcibly, take care of people. Why is that been such a hard sell? Well it's in so much of Life. The near term Here and Now
forget the future. Short-term focused stuff is an easier. Sell I wish it wasn't. But it's just the way things are you but we are given braids human beings. Each of us has a braid and the capacity to think and we should be thinking about these things far more deeply than you, what you can put on a bumper sticker.
But people like AOC, you know, they can barely understand it, if it'll fit on a bumper sticker, they just don't seem to care or even think through the long run consequences or the Alternatives that might be. Viable. I think that's the shame of it all but you just have to constantly ask people eighth step up to the plate. Be an adult, you know, as babies were all socialist. Think of it. When you were three years old, you're probably isn't you were socialists?
Why? Because you didn't care what anything costs. You want it, you want it. Now, you don't care where it came from, or who paid for it and you scream bloody murder if you didn't get it. But part of the Says of growing up is realizing wow. There are other people on this planet besides me and they have rights just as I do and maybe I need to find another way to get what I want instead of just holding them up and see because if they get too, if I get to do that, what what are they claim?
The right to do it to me? You know, those are things we have to ponder when we become adults but people like AOC remain babies. And when they get older, they simply And get into the political process, instantly become babies with guns. And you know what? I don't want to use, you know, the term like well they live in a fantasy land but if you say something like X should be free,
whatever you think. X is it's literally like saying the military is free because the government pays for or it could make we could make houses free. We just give the Catholic Church a monopoly on Taxation and then the Catholic Church will buy everyone a house. This way it's free like you would clearly see through that. Immediately even if money is not involved every piece of concrete allocated toward this group is not allocated toward other groups, so it's literally like
they're lying. When they say something is free, do you have, you found any really good seeds to plant in people when they think that there's, there's two ways of there's the freeway and then there's the people like Lawrence read who make me want to pay for things and that's why I hate him. Well maybe a number of things here. You could say that hopefully prod them to be more thoughtful, people, I would say, well, if all their stuff was free, how do we get a thirty?
One trillion dollar national debt and what is it about laundering your money through the political process? That reduces the cost of something explain that to me, please. I'm not going to just assume that you're right about that. Please tell me. How does that work? I defy anybody to tell me how laundering your money through the political process makes things cheaper and you know, other things like, well in the long run is a, is it better for a person to be as independent as
his abilities? Allow them to be? Or would it be better if he were dependent upon people in political power for his livelihood? I mean, that's a pretty big decision, isn't it? I mean, it has massive implications at the personal level, as well as for, Xiety at large and yet we sort of blindly assumed. Well, what's the difference? And in fact if we get it quicker and easier for the political process, well, why not do it that way? Short again, in short-term thinkers are don't look at all
consequences or the long run. End up likes a snake, oil salesman, they're pushing all this stuff. Say look what, look what I'm going to get for you. It's free. It's just repeating. Age-old fallacies, that have never ended well. And again, just Like the earlier example with not looking at the cost of things, they also don't do it when it comes to
subsidies. So the biggest things that are subsidized, Health Care, housing and higher education have all constantly gone up in price to forget college textbooks. Just something for dick ulis. They doesn't seem to care, but we can leave it here because we've gone over. I'm so appreciative of your time. How does subsidizing something make it more expensive?
Well, first of all, you got the cost of the subsidy and secondly, the subsidy tends to have an effect on the providers of that service, which is there less conscious of their costs after all, they're being under written or their customers are being guaranteed in some way, their mistakes are being papered over. So why be careful about such
things. It makes things naturally inefficient, when you're not having to focus on that bottom line, because you're not Up to you, not in danger of going broke if you don't. So, just thinking your personal life, what when does it proper for an adult to say to their children? That's enough. No, I'm not going to continually give you this, let me don't.
We do that all the time. Often parents give in, and they, you know, do things that you could say, is a kind of subsidy for their children, but I think most of us understand that. There comes a point where That's not healthy. It comes a point where you're going to set that child back if you continue to do that, that the best thing for that child is to say, stand on your own, don't expect forever handouts.
So we sort of know that when it comes to our personal lives or at least most of us do why we think it should be any different when the government plays the role of national nanny is beyond me, do you have time for one more question? Oh yeah. Thank you. This is one of the big ones that we get that.
When you have this free market, you are free to do bad things such as discriminate and therefore we didn't see real achievements from Black Americans until the Civil Rights Act. What if anything is wrong about that? That narrative? A number of things. One is we did see Improvement, especially after Jim Crow laws which are again laws of government state and local but still laws of government not
private actors. In a competitive and free Marketplace. We did see Improvement for decades in the loss of previously oppressed peoples as we freed the market freed people, they improve their standards of living in Time and again, no matter what you're measuring, whether it be, you know, the rate of intact Families versus broken families or of economic income, you'll
find those numbers steadily fell until about. 1965 when we started the Great Society with massive subsidies and then progress stopped when we started subsidizing both good and bad behavior. Suddenly the The one measurement of improvement in standards of living of various groups stagnated. And that's what things like subsidies and political intervention do. There's nothing about being in politics. It suddenly makes you wiser than when you were in the private
sector. There's nothing about politics. It says, you're going to be more compassionate than people in the private sector. But there is a lot about politics that says your You will do the things that tend to satisfy your self-interest and your accountability is quite limited as a politician is long. As you can. Sell people the snake oil, they'll keep drinking it. Unless there's a huge Awakening in a free market. You can you produce bad products that you're going to be out of
business? A lot quicker than politicians go out of business even when they produce disaster time and time again. Thank you so much mr. Read for your time, thanks to everyone for watching the libertarian Institute and Keith Knight don't tread on anyone. I want to end with one of my favorite quotes from Thomas, sole author of civil rights rhetoric or reality. But the number of blacks in professional Technical and other high-level occupations more than doubled in the decade.
Preceding, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in other occupations. Gains by blacks, work writer, during the 1940s where there was practically no civil. Legislation. Then during the 1950s, in various skilled trades that income of blacks, relative to whites more than doubled, more evidence that the free market gives us what we need. And the state is constantly, the parasite on society, mr. Reed, thank you so much for your time sir or pleasure, once again. Thank you again.