From the introduction of defending, the indefensible, by Walter block the impetus for this book is libertarianism. The basic premise of this philosophy is that it is illegitimate to engage in aggression against non aggressors. What is meant by aggression is not assertiveness argumentativeness. Competitiveness adventurousness, quarrelsome, nests or
antagonism. What is meant by aggression is the use of violence such as that which takes place in Murder rape robbery, or kidnapping libertarianism does not imply pacifism. It does not forbid. The use of violence in defense or even in retaliation against violence. Libertarian philosophy condemns only the initiation of violence, the use of violence against a non-violent person or his property. Dr. Block. Thank you for coming on the libertarian Institute and keep my don't tread on anyone.
Where is the best place to find? A wide range of collection of Publications. I guess Walter blog.com would list. All of them are most of them. I try to keep up, keep it up to date. I don't always succeed, but that would be a good start. Otherwise, just Google me. Sounds good today. I wanted to talk about some of our heroes.
In the Freedom Movement. I want to start with page 2 of your book defending the undefendable where you dedicate this book to a number of people, please tell me the most important contribution. You think this person is made to the Freedom Movement or something. You personally learn from them. You thought was really valuable Nathaniel Branden. Well, Nathaniel Branden. Pretty much converted me a little bit turn ism. And, by the way, there are now three defending.
The undefendable is defending. The indefensible. One, two, and three, three just came out, but I think you're talking about defending the undependable one. What happened was? I was a socialist, like, my buddy. Bernie Sanders. We went to high school together and My Views were roughly the
same as his and I'm ran, came. The Brooklyn College to speak and I came to Boone his her, because everyone knew that fan of prize was And we lead to starvation and we needed government and I booed and hissed her and there was a big group and then afterwards and someone said the iron ran studies club that had invited her to Brooklyn College, was having a luncheon. Her honor and anyone could come even if you disagreed and I wanted to convert her to socialism. So I went and there was this
long table. She was sitting at the head of it and the Valium Brandon was next to her. And then it peikoff and Alan Greenspan, and the senior collector. Have they called it and I was relegated to the other end of the table, the foot of the table. And I turned to my neighbor. I said, you know, this socialism is great, capitalism is evil. They said, why don't really know that much about it, but the people at the other end of the table, do So I went up there.
I was maybe 20 and Brandon was 35, ran maybe 50. This must've been 1963, and I stuck my head in between ions and Nathan's. And I said, there's a socialist of wants the baits tomorrow socialism and capitalism. And I said, who is it? And I said, me and Brandon was very, very nice. He said, look, I'll there's no room for you here at this end of the table. I'll come to your end of the table and we'll talk about it on
two conditions. One. You promised to read two books that I recommend, you, Atlas Shrugged and economics in lesson, 1 Lesson by Henry hazlitt and to you promise to keep this discussion going. And so we settled it and you don't stop until we've achieved agreement or we realize we can. So I read the books and I went to his house and her house, and I was converted after all, four or five sessions. I mean, Atlas Shrugged was magnificent. It's my We're book.
I read it then and I read it every ten years since and something the gold speech were trying to find boring. But I love that book. It's my favorite novel and I use it in my classes. And so Brandon meant a lot to me. He converted me to limited government limits journalism. And what was it about economics in one lesson, Atlas Shrugged and your conversations with random Brandon. What was The switching point for you to take you from socialism to libertarian menarche ISM.
I think it was there were a lot of things that lestrade was inspirational. One thing that sticks out in my mind was in capitalism. If you do a good job, you make profits. You can expand your base of operation. And if you do a poor job, you lose money. And you have to go do something else. Whereas in government. You don't have that or Medic feedback mechanism, which rewards doing good and penalizes doing bad. So the market was more efficient and also more moral.
Because in the market, it's voluntary trade, you bought that gray shirt for 10 bucks and it was a voluntary interaction. Whereas your relationship, the government is not a voluntary one, you pay taxes, whether you like it or not. And if you don't, you know, they'll be repercussions. Turns against you, another person, you mentioned in your introduction. Was Ian Rand. Is there anything else from Ein rand's? The Fountainhead of Atlas Shrugged that really stuck out
to you? Well, Atlas Shrugged, I mean, I don't know. I get tongue-tied when I think about that book. It is my favorite novel and a lot of people criticize it. They say it's too. I don't know what unrealistic or something like that but it really struck. Accorded me. I found it very realistic, you know, the bad guys, when they would have a meeting as the, you know, how to screw up the economy. It was just so true. And I mean, she comes from Russia. She is English is a second language.
And yet, the vernacular and the, the way of speaking, it was just dead on and it was just inspirational. I mean, I've read all of her books, all of her novels. I I read a lot of her nonfiction as well. And I agree with virtually all of it. Not all of it, you know, because she's a miniature kiss or limited government libertarian. She rejected the phrase libertarian and she called herself, an objectivist.
She dismissed us Libertarians is hippies of the right, but, you know, I still have a soft spot in my heart for Ian ran because she and Brandon converted me to it and I consider a libertarian. On by that, I mean to compliment her and, you know, that the economics was all that grabbed me how metaphysics and epistemology and all that other stuff as Aesthetics. It never really grabbed me. And also she was a little bit
cultish. As was Brandon, you know, I was at the NBI Nathaniel Branden Institute lectures, and if somebody in the audience would ask a question on page, 44 Miss Rand. You said this, could you Were 80. That would be a good question. But if you said on page 44, you said this on page seven hundred, you said that and I see a contradiction she would kick you out. I mean that was grotesque, you know, sometimes with my own students if they ask me it's
tough question. I threatened to kick them out, but I'm only kidding, she was serious. So she was an imperfect person but I tell you a heart and Ron Paul with a to most Some people in converting people to paternalism harfa, my generation Ron, Paul probably for your generation. So, you know, we owe our we live, it turns over great that and I and I like to pay my debts. Edward Stringham said that he tried to ask you a really tough question. When he was one of your students.
He says these Libertarians I say coercively funded monopolies are bad, but then they justify it in the realm of the production of security and he said, That you took him into your office to really give them the lowdown on what's going on. I just, I love those stories. I remember one of my former students. I must have maybe a dozen or
almost that doesn't. It have former students of mine who are now professors of Economics like Ed and he is done yelman work and I'm delighted that I was able to pass on the Baton that Murray rothbard gave to me that I gave passed on to Ed string on and many others next person. Walter E. Grinder. Most important thing you learned from him.
Well, before we get to him, I have to tell you a little bit more of my Odyssey. I was sort of schizophrenic with Ian ran because I had an approach avoidance thing with her. They were the only Libertarians I knew. So I would go to the meetings and I would be put off by the cultish - and I stay away two or three months and then I'd go back and then I was a student at Columbia and Larry Moss was a fellow student of mine. And he said, you must need the sky Murray rothbard.
He's an anarchist. I said why an anarchist? That's no good. Remember I was a Randy and at the time at least in terms of limited government, but finally, Larry and his roommate, the jury wall has prevailed upon me to meet Marie and I met Marie and Marie converted me to anarcho-capitalism in about 10 minutes.
He said, you know, you understand why the post office and and public sanitation is no good because Because of profit and loss considerations that, I just mentioned a, why can't we apply two armies courts and police and that was like the light bulb that little over my head and then I became a follower Murray rothbard and my big complaint about Marie was stomach cramps. He was so funny. He just kept you laughing and laughing and laughing an hour after hour. You got stomach cramps.
Now that must have been 10 12, 15 people in Murray's, living room. Out. And obviously I couldn't hog up Marie because we had a share him among 15. People Walter grinder was my mentor. He sort of took me aside and he was part of the Murray rothbard living room gang and I Walter took me aside and What's the word worn off my rough edges? He really got me into Austrian economics.
He was a friend of mine for many years and I have a great debt to him for, you know, helping me to understand the finer points of the Roth party. And just most important thing you learned from Henry hazlitt. Well, this business of, you know, we have to look at things not just in the short run, but in the long run, we have to look at things, not on, not the effect, not only on one person that on everyone Atlas Shrugged now, he did great stuff on his book on Cannes, but that came
later. My conversion was not. Not his attack on Cannes. My conversion was economics in one lesson. So and I still use that in my intro courses. I use Henry hazlitt economics in one lesson and I used to use Atlas Shrugged to. But my students rebelled, you know, that they said, what this 1,200 Pages, we're not going to read this.
So at least I have the hazlitt, which is, you know, I don't know how many pages, 100 120 pages, so I can get away with that because I couldn't get away with Sure, Henry hazlitt, I think mises fun said that Henry hazlitt. I forget who it was. Maybe Murray said this that Henry has a, was The Economist who could write best most clearly. And I mean, he was only a journalist. He wasn't a PhD in economics. But, you know, I don't really care about credentials like
that. He was brilliant that he was magnificent. Just applying, you know, this inside to rent control minimum wage from trade. And unemployment Henry hazlitt is one of the key figures in the libertarian movement. Benjamin Klein. And just say that I dedicate the defending the indefensible to him to hide your HEAP. He was one of the names in the
introduction. Then Klein was my college roommate undergraduate and then came with me to some of the Ian Rand Nathaniel Branden meetings, and we were converted together. Ben had an illustrious career as a Professor of Economics at the very prestigious UCLA University of California at Los Angeles. Ben was a stalwart libertarian, but I never could convert them to Austrian ISM. He was a mainstreamer, which is
okay. I mean if you have to be a mainstream or at least be a Libertarian and he was he made important contributions and you know, he was my college roommate. So, you know, I have to tell you a story about my college roommates. My third roommate was no fun. You know, a lot of times, I can't think of a word and I'm now 80 years old and I'm wondering, what am I getting senile?
Well, I remember Ben and Nell and we would have some rule that bike from 7 to 10. Nobody should go into anyone's room because, you know, that's study time except if you couldn't think of a word. And so, I'm comforted by the fact that if I was seeing, if I'm now seeing all this, I can't think of a word I would see. Now then when I was, you know, 20 or E1 or 22 Ben and I have stayed in such as have Bernie Sanders. And I I mentioned that Bernie Sanders and I went to high school.
Together. We don't stay in touch as much but every five or ten years. We we link up and say hello to each other. I have to tell him I Bernie Sanders joke. Bernie Sanders is well known for not running away from anything. He never ran away from the socialism. Many years ago before socialism was as popular as it is now mainly due to his efforts or among other people. He doesn't even run away from
letting convicts vote. Not ex-convicts convicts people in jail voting but there's one person he ran away from. And that's me. Why? Because we're on the track team. Together and he was one of the best runners in the whole city and I was a mediocre Runner and we start off with the same starting line. And then he ran away from me. I could see the rear end of him disappearing around the track. So Bernie Sanders ran away from me that that's my Bernie Sanders joke, I think.
Did he also run away from Jan Health failed in his interview with him. Do you? What do you remember seeing that? No, I didn't know that Jen hell felled the interviewed? Bernie the Jan how felled interviewed. What's her name? Policy. Hello. See ya, beautiful interview. Magnificent interview, and he was saying something. Like, what are the minimum wage? You know, you love the minimum wage. Well, how about do you have
interns? And she said, sure, I have insurance and then he said, well, you know, how much do you pay them order? Nothing is old, doesn't that violate the minimum wage? You know what she said. She's gonna call the cops on him. Amazing. Jen health. Child is a randian. I once had a debate with him over anarchism versus limited government to our debate and hopefully one day, we'll have another one.
A very nice guy for a Randy and I mean, you know, Randy has two little cultish, but what the heck? But he's one of the good people as far as I'm concerned. Next person. Jerry wallows. Well, during Willows was the guy who part he was Larry Moss, has a roommate and Larry was unable to get me to meet Marie because Mary was an anarchist and Atticus is anathema. The, you know, they're chaos, you know, we'll have chaos if we don't have government, I don't believe that.
But that was my view then, and it was jury wallows. Who ganged up with me again, up against me with Larry Moss. They were roommates. And Jerry also took me under his wing sort of like Walter grinder. Unfortunately, Jerry while I sort of dropped out of the libertarian movement, the maybe after about five or eight years that I knew him Jerry and I and Walter grinder were sort of buddies and we hung around together.
So I would say Walter grinder. Was my main Mentor in the rothbard camp and Jerry walls, was my second most important mentor and it was he that Rio to be introduced to Murray rothbard, so I have a great that to Jerry walls as well. So you mentioned rothbard briefly, but at the end you say and especially you dedicate this to Murray rothbard. Is there anything else that you would like people to know about? If they're only Vaguely Familiar with rothbard's work?
Well Murray rothbard is Miss the libertarian. Very wrong chord is the one who combined left wing and right wing and foreign policy Murray rothbard. I mean we live in turns on left-wing on personal liberties. We want to legalize drugs legalized prostitution is legalized. Gambling legalized pornography doesn't mean we like it, we can detest it. But we distinguish between vices and crimes and Marie was solid on. On and then he was solid on on
economics obviously. Yeah, I mean, he was, I think the second greatest Economist who ever lived after after mises and sometimes I think he was the first best Economist who ever lived. And a lot of people thought Murray was inconsistent because on the one hand, he sort of left their shot on the one hand. He's rightish. And then on foreign policy, he was against imperialism which you know, everyone who favored free enterprise like Ian ran was
in favor of a U.s. Number one, we got to kick everyone's but make sure they're like us and Marie said, you know, hold on a minute. It's not the role of the government if there's any role which is not it's not the role of government, the US government to throw its weight around the world. So Marie combined libertarian foreign policy with attorney economics and libertarian personal Liberties. And I mean, his book man, economy and state is right up there with mrs.
Human Action as the two greatest books ever in economics. A lot of my career has been spent standing on the shoulders of Marie. I mean, he in, Atlas Shrugged, he wrote one line of but about blackmail. And I must have I wrote maybe 15 or 20 articles on blackmail and then I put it all into a book on blackmail. It all came from re-injury to Chile. Once wrote a book, it all began with Ian Rand or it all started with Ian. Ran for me. It all started with Murray rothbard Iranians were sort of
the minor leagues. Murray rothbard was the major leagues. I mean, And if you don't, you know, what's his name, who ran for a little bitter and party, Gary Johnson, Gary Johnson. Never heard him, Mary rothbart. Yeah. I heard that. Can you imagine you running for the lp? And you never heard of Murray rothbard? I mean, Murray rothbard. Is this the libertarian and not only miss the libertarian, but Mr. Austrian Economist Murray
rothbard is magnificent. If you want to have an introduction to libertarianism, Read for New Liberty, in the ethics of Liberty. His two major pieces. And if you want to learn about Austrian economics, man, economy and state is the way to go Nori. Rothbard is my man, and I'm honored that I was friends with him, from nineteen sixty three or four until his untimely passing. When he was 68 years old. I think it was 1995 when he passed away Murray rothbard. Bored, I just can't say enough
about him. I owe my career to him. I'm honored in several ways one time. He couldn't teach his class at the Brooklyn Polytechnic and he asked me to substitute for him. And I think I'm the only co-author of Murray's and I co-authored a lot with one people, but I'm one of my co-authors is Marie and I think I'm his only co-author. So I'm very proud of that. That was the when I was his associate. Associate editor for the Journal of libertarian studies.
I think it was, we wrote together some sort of opening Salvo for the JLS. Wow. How about in 1981? You wrote a paper with Walter E. Williams, titled male-female, earnings differentials a critical reprisal. What is Walter Williams? Is greatest contribution to economics. Well, Walter, unfortunately just the late Walter Williams who just passed away this year, you know, if you didn't know he was black, you wouldn't appreciate him as much.
Black people who are Scott, black Scholars, who are free enterprise. They're called Oreo cookies. Because, you know, the idea is, if you're black, you have to be a socialist like a Biden. Once told a black man that if you don't vote for me, you're really not. Black and the guy was black. I mean, this is grotesque Walter Williams wrote this book, The State against blacks very similar to another guy. Forget his name. He writes for the Wall Street Journal.
Something stop, please. Stop. Helping us. I forget the guys name, another Jason Riley. That's it. Jason Riley. So yeah, I'm losing names. I couldn't think of Jason Riley. Who's a really good? Good. What's the word a substitute for Walter Williams or a good follower of Walter lands?
Well, Walter wrote this book, The State against blacks and they rode on and on about how the state screws up black people with all sorts of interventions welfare, minimum wage and you know, regulations and licenses and everything like that, but for a while I was working in Canada, and I was having a competition between Walter. Me me, against Walter Williams and Thomas, Soul. Thomas all was sort of want to lay in his mentor. Just the way Murray rothbard was
my mentor. And what we were trying to do is find out the highest ratio of female to male incomes because you know, there's this what he called a male-female wage Gap. For every dollar that a man earns a woman earns. Oh something like 70 or 80 cents and the gap of 20 or 30 percent is seen as sexism. And what we were trying to do is say that this is due to the fact that all three of us, I was I was in Canada. So I was getting Canadian statistics. They were in the u.s.
That were getting u.s. Statistics. And what we're trying to do is show that if you would never married, The Gap disappeared and sometimes the Gap reversed. So we were, we were in competition with each other to find the highest female to male wage ratio or income ratio for the never married. See the idea is that if you're married and the woman does 3/4 or 4/5, or nine-tenths of the cooking and cleaning and childcare and shopping, and
everything else. Well, even if they have the same ability and And usually they do on average. They're not going to be able to make as much money because they're busy, taking care of the family. So what we did is we compared a never married. It's not widowed not divorce, not separated, not nothing. And I think I think I won. I got 10. 9.8 mainly women are in the 10% more than men for the unmarried. I'm not sure if I beat them, but it was a friendly competition.
And then I co-authored honor that I I wanted an article with Walter Williams. Again. I don't think he co-authored too many things either, and maybe I'm his only co-author. I'm not sure about that, but I'm very, very honored that I can say that I'm a co-author Walter Williams. Walter Williams is magnificent. He's not a Libertarian. He's sort of a conservative. He's a little weak on foreign policy, but on economics, he's not an Austrian either. But what the heck?
He is a magnificent Economist and courageous. I mean, for a while. White person to say, some of the things is one thing for a black person to say some of these things. It's very, very courageous because of people had this idea that all blacks have to be socialists. And if there's one thing about Walter Williams, it's that he's not a socialist. What was the industry where women were earning more than
men? Because when you look at like the top 10 earnings of a super models in the world, all top 10 are women. I was curious. A robe. What you came up with in your research? No, it wasn't industry. It was people. Oh, okay, obviously women make more money as models. They're all male models, but they don't make quite as much money as as female models. I think it's reverse for movie stars.
I'm not sure if singers certainly would models, but my research didn't go by industry went by all women in. Canada. Who never married and now what's the? What's the wage ratio? I was at the Fraser Institute and you see what they, what the census did was? They took single versus married, but we didn't want single versus married because they're a single people who are widowed divorced their single now, but they've been touched by the institution of marriage.
So we had to pay be Canadian what he called the statistical people extra money so that they would get The never married stuff. They never thought to do that and they were sort of resistant about doing it because it would it would show the major thesis. That was incorrect. And most important thing you learned from Ludwig, von mises. Well, Human Action. Oh, I have to tell you my living
Von mises story. I want shook his hand and I never washed it. So if you shake my hand you Channel mises my hands a little dirty. But what the heck? And I shook mrs. Hand. And while I'm bragging, I once beat hyack in chess, what did I learn from? These has, what I learned from nieces, was Human Action, you know? Purposeful.
A synthetic, a priori statements that the idea that there are economic laws that you know, that cat that are not testable and on a particularly necessarily true and for that, he was considered a compass then. Obviously the Austrian business cycle Theory, pretty much started with him. And and, and also the Socialist calculation debate I think would be a very important thing that we learned from these. Has he got into it with langa
and some of these other people. I mean this guy he came to the US when he was 61 and was fleeing the Nazis. It was in, what was it? Switzerland? It was in Austria and he was one step ahead of Hitler and he came over here and an English is a second language, or third language was honey. Out of his native language and sort of like online ran. Then.
I don't know. He, he's either the first or the second best Economist who ever wrote in my view and a lot of what I have in economics comes from those two guys. And just one more point on mises.
Why is it so important to focus on Human Action as opposed to measuring gross domestic product and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Well, those are important to, you know, you don't want to lose sight of other things just because he's Justin specialize in them, but these has specialized in giving us insights about the human action and purposeful Behavior. And the idea that Again, you
bought that shirt for 10 bucks. Let's say you necessarily gain, because if you didn't value it more than ten bucks. You wouldn't have bought it now. It might be that you don't even like the shirt. But the reason you bought it was, you felt sorry for the guy selling you the shirt or maybe it was a gal who's selling the shirt and wanted a date with us. He bought the shirt. We don't know why you gain, All we know is that when you plunk 10 bucks down on the barrel head
for that trick. There was something about that shirt that made you better off ex-ante now exposed. You might regret it, you know, you don't always happy with your purchase and the same thing for the guy who sold to the shirt. He probably had hundreds of them and he was willing to heed probably value to that a buck or maybe - years was, you know, had
so much inventory. And, and he also gained you get this from these has so clearly, And so beautifully and other economists have had that too but they sort of got it from these has. So I would say, Atlas not a mature, Human Action is a magnificent book.
I have a seminar at Loyola University and the first book, we discuss some Human Action and I call it the Human Action seminar, even though now that I started this 20 years ago, but honoring these as human Action by calling at the Human Action seminar. And right now, we're on Hans Hoppy's book. The God, That Failed democracy, The God That Failed. But we've done many, many other books in 20 years, but that was the first book. And that's that's the name of this seminar that I run.
I want to thank everyone for watching the libertarian Institute and Keith Knight. Don't tread on anyone. Dr. Block. Thank you so much for your time. You're very welcome, and it was a delight and thanks for those wonderful questions.