What's up, Keith? How's it going? Welcome to conflicts of interest your first time on this show. But of course we've talked in the past on my old show foreign policy Focus. I'll link to the episode episode in the show notes page, but how's it going? It's going pretty well, still very upset with the whole Walter Williams passing, but seeing so many people will keep his memory alive is, is really cool. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's kind of what I want to have you.
On the show. Talk about today in the past. You know, I have the show foreign policy Focus, so never really talked economically, but one of the reasons I picked up in, you know, well as a co-host and then change, the showed name was to talk more about economics and stuff like that. And it, you know, seem like the passing of Walter Williams, who was somebody that I washed everything like that was on the guys, like ten years ago or so, on YouTube. I'm pretty sure I watch every video.
That was on YouTube of Walter Williams, and so, he taught me a lot about economics. I don't know if I read any of his books. Like I read pretty much all Thomas, Al's Buds, and Tom woods. And by Murphy, a couple meets these boats on like he can omits and stuff. But, you know, he's now passed
away. And so I thought it would be a great time to talk a little bit about like libertarian and Austrian economics Walter Williams and you know, capitalism freedom, and all that stuff and couldn't think of a better person to do that with. Then I keep night here who it's just so So well, write on the libertarian, economics. So raid array to get into this. I am, yes, Williams gives us so
much material to work with. I was actually introduced to him because I was in around 2008 to 2009 and a half. I was still an Obama supporter and I think my default just because it's all I had known was that the only reason you could hate Obama. Is one, you're racist and to you hate the poor. So to I think it was just me saying that oh my God, a black guy is criticizing Obama. This he might actually have some ideas and this is what it
eventually. Got me out of progressivism was simply hearing someone talk about actual ideas. And once you hear, you know, principles and history and morality and philosophy being discussed. Then this whole thing of like just one political opponent call. Calling the other socialist, the other calls the other one a racist. It's so trivial, once you get into it. So I think the best thing on I'm sorry. Did you have a starting point with Williams that you wanted to
go to know? I particularly I guess I was wondering if like, because, you know, I do have some listeners to the show who are more interested in the foreign policy side of stuff. I think they will get allow this conversation, but just generally like, maybe a brief Overview of Walter Williams for somebody who's maybe only heard the name once or twice and isn't, you know, hasn't read his work are watch. You know, Tommy YouTube.
Well, born in 1936 Williams, grew up in sort of like a Jim Crow Style America, where, you know, there was very different going from 1936 America to first black, president America, and he was actually commenting in a book called. Comics and race or race and economics. And he basically brings out the idea that you can't judge something just by looking at the results. By the way, if anyone wants a great summary of his best work, it's a 10-page paper called the argument for free markets,
morality versus efficiency. So we really gets to the heart of everything there. So one of the things he mentions in this article is he gives the analogy of a poker game. So Looking at just and unjust outcomes in society. You might say, well, it's unfair that group a has x amount and Group B has y amount. Well, instead of looking at just the results. What we have to do is look at the process of how these things come about. So, imagine small-scale you're in a poker game, and one person
has a lot of money. Someone else has 15%, and someone else has, you know, 10% of the money. Is this Fair? Well, all you're looking at are the results, you're not focusing on the process. The process is what matters. So he says there's a number of things. There's a number of process questions and these would include something like did the players play voluntarily. The fact that that's the first
question on his mind. It's just so vital because he realizes that, it's the foundation of morality always getting back to that which the state is cannot justify whenever Programs are being advocated. They don't pass the first rule of letting people live their lives on aggressed. The second question. He says, where the poker play, were the poker rules, neutral and unbiased Lee applied.
So, when structuring any society or even sort of game you would want to make sure you have rules that past the con thien categorical imperative of universalization. So if I can't do it, It to you. Well, that implies you can't do it to me. This is what makes something like slavery, logically inconsistent. Because if it is Justified, then everyone owns everyone else's body. So again, just with this great poker analogy. He really gets at the heart of
the political philosophy. Well, I can, can I just found something right there that when I start to really learn about libertarianism and, you know, this kind of economic is that I really thought was important was that this isn't just like a prescription of what should happen with health care, but rather what is like, you know, fundamental like a priori like, you know, arguments about Humanity. Like, you are free. Like, that's where you have to start. Not should you have Healthcare?
Not should you have a universal basic income? Or not? And so it seemed to be, you know, there's a lot more consistency. Like philosophy and like philosophy and principle, where it's all rooted in, rather than seeming just arbitrary where as you know, it is is a poker game the you know, right thing to have are not does it encourage, you know, bad behavior, sinful ads and stuff like that. So that's just one of the things I really like about libertarian economics and Walter Williams
and hide describes things. Well, yeah, instead of getting you to think in Don Lemon talking points. You're actually addressing things at a foundational level. So it totally changes. I mean you could read a thousand articles on CNN and none of them will be as intellectually stimulating as this article, especially for someone being introduced to the ideas. And then his final question for the poker game was the game played without cheating?
If the processes were just affirmative answers would be To those three questions and there would be a poker Justice irrespective of outcome. So in other words, it's not justified to look at conflicts of interest and my show Keith Knight. Don't try it on anyone. See you have more listeners than I do. Therefore you're exploiting me and I need to collect device against you with a dictatorship of the proletariat to get just outcomes. Look what?
Are essentially saying if you Advocate statism or violent redistribution ISM of any form, you're essentially saying that consumers, voices, do not matter. And in a situation where A and B want to make an exchange a third party, see Congress or you know, the workers or anyone else has the right to initiate aggression against these two consenting parties. This is what Williams gets at the heart. At he says, he has this great one where he Calls money certificates of performance.
So you can sort of think of them as like these little rewards that you can allocate to people. And if you want more LeBron James, well, you pay LeBron James and then he has an incentive to produce more. That's how Walmart, and Amazon go from these little shops. No one's ever heard of two things that we can always get. Because they've gotten so many certificates of performance from their voters.
So to speak from their customers who have We appreciated the products and services that that they've provided. Well, I mean, can take a quick detour on that because I know there's going to be some people who jump and they say, oh, well, you know, Amazon and Walmart, really, aren't that great. There's just all these government subsidies and stuff like that. And so, you know, we're in a particularly unique situation here in late 2020.
We're basically there in a lot of ways, that's kind of how you could get your stuff. Walmart and Amazon, there's not many other options just legally what's allowed to open or not, you know, small businesses are forced to close and businesses are allowed to stay open and it seems to happen, you know, on the store level on the Restaurant.
Level on even light the car dealership level where if you got like a little lot and you're just some guy selling used cars probably not going to stay, open your big Nationwide car chain. I bet you got the lobbyists to get your business is open. So, you know, just just point that out.
Of course. Well, the that's a vitally important aspect that a lot of people don't appreciate the biggest anti-free Market Advocates, as Milton Friedman, would always say our intellectuals and businessmen since the days of Frederick Engels the capitalist, the business owner who was funding Karl Marx to Jacob Schiff funding, the Russian Revolution, one of the richest Bankers ever to George Soros. Funding moveon.org.
They have always advocated big government and I bet and Bezos comes out and supports the minimum wage laws as does Doug McMullen, and H Lee Scott, the two former CEOs of Walmart. So, the incredible thing is, is that they are so often the ones advocating. This it's generally referred to as a regulatory capture. This is when any industry is regulated, what Congress will essentially do is appoint a committee. T, who will seek people who are extremely informed on on how the industry works?
So they could properly regulate it. The problem is the people with the most amount of information are the CEOs and heads of industry in those, in those
areas. The the perfect example is in 1910. JPMorgan got Frank, vanderlip, Paul Warburg & up and five other gentleman to his house on Jekyll Island, and they Wrote. What today is the Federal Reserve Act One, probably the biggest regulation the single act of Regulation. It just monopolized the currency and into the hands of the state in the year 1913. This was actually verified by one of the guys at the meeting, Frank vanderlip in 1935. So yes, you're definitely
correct. It's not always the result of free markets that companies get so big it's often at the expense of them so that That is important. Right? And I mean, I think where we are now, it's it seems like it's every industry, you know, even talking about Bezos. He owns the Washington Post. I got on the news ticker today for the show one.
I saw reason where there's a proposal to stick another, 25 billion dollar bailout in there where the airlines are 25 billion dollars and they say it's going to save like 30,000 jobs, which about seven hundred thousand. The job and you know, this is going to be a good idea in this is what reasonable people are going to support, because it saves jobs and that's going to be the narrative.
And may I got to say if I worked at if I were like a big huge guy working at Airline or something like that. I'll take the seven hundred thousand dollars directly. If you don't have to give it to the airline at, all, right? I mean, come on, exactly. Great points. You very often have People who have a concentrated benefit and
a dispersed cost. So, the likelihood of anyone, it, let's say everyone found out about the banker bailouts of 2008. I think like, Dianne Feinstein, according to Tom Woods is book meltdown got like, two thousand calls 95% were, don't bail out the bank's. She, of course, voted to bail them out, you know, because our representatives represent us and the so Contracts are totally real thing. So in light of that it doesn't really make economic sense for you as an individual to go
protest something. Because the likelihood of you changing, it's very small and for you, it only is going to cost you ten twenty thirty dollars, which you'll make in a couple hours at work. Whereas with them. They have every incentive to send 50 lobbyists is saying the world economy is going to collapse. Laps, unless you give the bankers trillions. Well, that's pretty convenient. So yeah, of course, with concentrated benefits and dispersed costs. You get a constant growth of the state.
It's in the small interest groups to heavily Lobby so they can reap benefits. And for us, it's like, oh, was there. Another Patriot Act passed? It's going to it's so hard and they never listen to me. Anyways, so that's problem. It's probably not even worth fighting. This is what Hans Hoppers says is the general justification or the general reason? That governments constantly grow, special, interest groups have a big incentive Average, Joe does not have an incentive,
right? But what we can get to that later. Is there anything you want to say on that? Yeah. The the last point I was just kind of make is that it and you have all this stuff that's supposed to be like Private Industry and we show like you are looking at how the government is like heaven. Ali influence and help build these companies up. But then you have other things that are also called private companies like Lockheed Martin in these weapons makers like Raytheon, right.
And there we spend one trillion dollars a year on our military and you know, Trump's secretary, you know, defense secretaries one was a former Raytheon lobbyist. One was a former Boeing lobbyists are board members and looks like Biden's about to appoint. This former retired. General now Lloyd Austin and turns out this guy's Sitting on the board of Raytheon.
And so I mean it's crazy that, you know, even the heads of these entire departments there and charger so much spending now are formally board members, and I'm sure have tons of stock and, you know, Legacy reasons to ensure that, you know, the the profits of those companies go on. And so, you know, that means building more bombs and spending more money on the military. Of course.
Yeah, one of the things that people often mistake is to just say private good public bad, but public if we're assuming funded by the state meaning, it's coercively funded. Yes. It's bad in every case and Immortal. However, just because something is private, doesn't mean it's morally Justified. So let's get back to Walter Williams where he says he starts this excellent paper off freedoms first principle freedoms. First principle is Each person owns himself. Notice.
He didn't say freedom is electing Republicans or voting libertarian or opposing the government. That's 50 steps in the complexity direction that human beings have, you know, created with social constructs and whatnot. If you don't own yourself someone else owns you claiming a better claim to your body than you actually have mean. So they own their own body and they own your body that As slavery. So that is the foundation of slavery. This is an idea that has existed for.
I don't know the beginning of time and today still exists under the guise of conscription and the draft and regulation. It's some people claiming to own the bodies of others. So, when you get into this, well, Boeing's a private company or Twitter's or Facebook, is a private company, or IBM, was a private company working with the national socialist government. Well, Just because they are private, doesn't mean they are respecting. The each person owns himself
principle. You could be a Jeffrey Epstein. Well, that this might be another story but generally Jeffrey, Epstein was a private individual. So, does that make what he did morally Justified? No, because he didn't respect that. Each person owns himself principle in the fact that he, you know, was raping kids who don't have the mental capacity to consent. So, Right, literally enslaving girls and stuff like that. Right? Sorry. I'm sorry.
Yeah, you know, I mean he was like, literally enslaving girls like in forcing them to have sex with other people. So yeah, like obviously he didn't uphold those principle, you know, I mean, yeah. Well, that's why it's someone it's important to have the principal and not just memorize public. Good private, Brad business, good business, but you can be an immoral business person if you were Shinobi consent of one of the parties involved so that does not, but it's not about public or private.
It's about self ownership and voluntary exchange, and voluntary contracts, and then private property, which is implied in contracts and just transfers. So again Walter Williams realizing the value of principles as opposed to I mean if the paper had started out, what year was this written? I'm not I'm not seeing a date on this. Um, if the print, if the paperwork started out, the thing about Bill Clinton is or Ross, Perot is well, that's going to be a relevant real quick.
The fact that he was able to get to the principles is just so, it's so vital. He then says, with the recognition of each person owns himself, we readily discover, what constitutes, just, and unjust conduct claiming that there is a moral All that morality is objective and there is a Justified way to, to fund this. And in the same way. We have a scientific method. We could have a morality method or a philosophical method. Of if, if we say that, you know, this Falls at 1 meter per second
per second. And then we do a test realizing that's not the case. Well, we need to ditch that in the same way. If you have a moral theory, that says, I believe in equality and also Congress has the right. To rule, 330 million peaceful people. Well, you can't claim that, that's a just Theory. So in this first paragraph Walter Williams has contributed more intellect to the human race, then, I don't know, every Professor that I had in college before. I was kicked out all the teachers.
Every single late night show on NBC CNN, MSNBC. Just incredible. Any thoughts on that? Oh, yes, he goes on. WE readily discover. What constitutes? Just an unjust conduct referring to murder. Rape and theft. In other words, what differentiates rape from sex is consent theft from trade, is consent, which does adhere to the each person owns himself. Principal brilliant stuff in such a short amount of time. Right. No, absolutely. And this is something.
I actually have brought up earlier when you were talking about the poker analogy where like this is like, you know, those fundamental first principles that you don't get from other, you know, you point out your professors and stuff. But even for the most part, any like politician who's advocating, any even the Republicans, I mean, you know, there are some exceptions. There's Thomas Massie, right? But for the most part, nobody has, you know, any kind of like,
First principle. I mean, AOC may say she has principles like she supports this, you know, program, she supports that program. She supports a program. But like you can't stand that out, right? Like the she'll vote for a war or vote for defense spending. So it's not like she really thinks everybody is entitled to healthcare because we'll go blow up, somebody's hospice pill and shown care about that. But you know, she's like, oh we have to have Universal Health Care in the u.s.
So, you know, that that's why I think really differentiates wall. Sir, Williams from a lot of the other in this is the importance of the first principles and everything in, like you said, the first paragraph. Absolutely. He talks about there must be an Institutional framework. So if we go to, I don't want to use this example. Let me see if I could think of
another one. Well, if we use the example of marijuana legalization, we could say that there was an institutionalized recognition of it being okay to use marijuana long before there was ever any, you know, states, legalize, a, b, and c. Because if there's no, if no one at the party, Is going to call the police. Well, then you're going to be able to do it and there's going to be an institutionalized recognition of it being a morally, just action. Whereas, you know, something
like I hate to use this example. Also, I got to start coming up with new analogies. I'm sorry, but the analogy of, you know, a child rapist. If you're in prison, and you're a child rapist, you're probably going to get killed if word gets out. So, there again, is an institutionalized. Ignition, it's not about the government writing laws and then telling cops to enforce it. So okay, institutionalized framework. Yeah, he changes he changed it up there. What any thoughts on that? Yeah.
It just I think the weed topic is a good one because they, you know, when I was in college, like it was like the 2010's and even in States who are we'd wasn't legal. It was pretty common for like, you know, different artists and Stuff, and, you know, from like Willie Nelson to, like, a rapper, something to go up on stage and like, light up a joint
and stuff like that. And I mean, for the most part, they got away with it. Like, you know, occasionally people got busted went to jail, but never for like, you know, line up a, join our blunt on stage. I my roommate, my freshman year, went to Kid Cudi concert and get Cuddy. Did I like he had a video? He was like, oh, so cool. And so that's yeah. Like you say, they It doesn't matter what the state says.
And one thing that I always focus on when I think of politics and, you know, when people reacted to Trump gaining elected, I was like, you know, I don't know how bad things are going to because as Andrew, Breitbart pointed out, politics are Downstream and culture. And so, you know, if you have the culture moving against the president as hard as it was, that's really gonna hurt what he's able to do, politically.
Of course, and one of the biggest like, one of the worst things that a politician could do is pass a law that doesn't get enforced or that people just blatantly disrespect because that's a real hit to their legitimacy. People see. Oh, I guess we don't just because they write it down. Doesn't mean we have to follow it. I guess. What else can we do that with? That's why Biden went from. We're going to have a mask mandate my first hundred days to now, he's just asking people to do it.
Like, why? Just mandate it because if a lot of people are going to resist and that looks really bad to the Halo of legitimacy, that Williams actually has a really good term for the legitimacy of the state, but we'll get onto that. He cites the importance of the Declaration of Independence, which you have to appreciate for the time of 1776. It's more intelligent than 99% of people on TV today. Just imagine 200 something years ago. This is a brilliant document
that people seldom appreciate. So the fact that Williams was willing to cite the Declaration of Independence when the founders are just seen. As, you know, dumb racist, slave owners at this time, very unappreciative. So that is another thing. He mentions the frequent reference. To the fundamental principles, is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of
liberty. So, same quoting, the constitution of the state of North Carolina, so his case is that, unless we're able to constantly, refer to the principles. We're going to lose. If we're always arguing on the terms of, you know, there was the latest story about this or that person. And now we're going to have a whole philosophy and Society, based on one single anecdote. Okay? Well, I have another competing, anecdote, then we're just throwing stuff. Stories back and forth at each
other. He really gets at the heart of what we need to preserve. The blessings of liberty is an Unapologetic, appealed of principle. Now, if we look at how Bernie Sanders and AOC have made so much progress with the average person just openly calling them self a socialist or Democratic Socialist. We can see that these sort of talking points do sometimes resonate with the large scale. Number of people. So when they make the moral claim, you have a right to
healthcare. Well, we're making the claim at
least. I am that freedom requires you having a right to not be aggressed against now, I don't think it's too far off for us, to get that message out and get it's widely recognized going to be a lot harder because, you know, we don't have the state and professors and the media, and the Cathedral on our side promoting me ideas, but Look at how that just resonates with so many people and they buy it Hook Line & & Sinker. So I think Walter Williams
again, was ahead of his time. Even though this was and what the 90s or something, this was written. Did you see when this was written? No, I didn't notice. I did want to add, you know, people like AOC and I'm not sure if Bernie signed on to this by know some of the the more left-wing progressives have talking about not only like having a right to health care which It is one thing to say that we're going to give everybody enough money for insurance or something like
that. But talking about Single Payer in actually getting rid of Private health care and making all Healthcare a part of the government. And this is a parent, leave something that's pushed by Biden's pick, for Secretary of Health and Human Services. He's the current California attorney, general, and he's all for Life, single-payer. And so, you know, when they're talking about, Having a right to Health Care.
Well, they mean you have a right to the health care that we say that you could have not you have the right to help the healthcare that you choose to have exactly. It's like don't you love that today? We have free. Universal guaranteed security because government offers us free police. Right? Well, the existence of them claiming to offer you something does not render it immune to scarcity.
In other words. There's still the Looked of Interest, you're not always going to get all the health care you want. It's just going to be decided by a different group, who doesn't even get your funds voluntarily. So they have no incentive to create a good product or service. Well, yeah, but we the people vote on this. You have no influence on what goes on in the mass murder campaigns referred to as foreign
policy. That's about has that's about as much as you're going to influence Health Care once. The state monopolized, just, you know, what? Don't just focus on fixing Medicaid, because that's the whole thing. There's there's two, there's two types of people, according to them in the 1960s, people who can't afford it, who we don't need to worry about, and then people who can't afford it, and that's where Medicaid comes in.
So, just work to reform that and then once you realize that they don't care and they won't listen to you about reforming Medicaid. Well, then you'll realize we are also write about them monopolizing, the entire Healthcare System. Now, saying that you have a right to something that requires labor on behalf of other, people means you have a right to someone else's labor. That is also slavery.
It's you saying another words. If you have a right to this phone, the only way this thing comes about is by individuals trading, investing saving postponing consumption thinking innovating, and I don't know if I said, Investing. So, in other words, it requires the labor of human beings. If I am entitled to this and it only comes about as a causal result of other people's labor. That's me saying, I'm entitled
to the labor of others. That means the only free people that have really ever existed are slave owners Because, unless I have a right to someone else's labor. Well, then my rights are being violated. Also, just take what Williams mentioned earlier that each person. Owns, himself principle. If you and I are Are hanging out and we have a right to healthcare. That means you have an obligation to give me health care, but then you also have a,
right. So I have an obligation to give you health care, even though none of us are experts in the field are no anything else. So the way they will often weasel out of this as well. All, we mean, is that government should pick up the tab? This is literally, as dumb as saying I support food for all. Therefore, the coke. Others have the right to steal trillions of dollars so long as
they help people get food. And I'm going to call that a positive right to food, you know, giving a group a monopoly over a scarce resource Healthcare food. Security Internet does not increase access to the average person. You think like all we had to do in the year. 1400 was passed a law guaranteeing Healthcare. That doesn't mean there's a Novation that doesn't mean there's an increase in products or Us'.
So, yep, AOC is just ridiculous and she's just so, she's so likable to the average person from what I see along with Obama. Now getting loved again, with his new book that it's difficult to fight these people but certainly with the videos of you know, Walter Williams just being so cool. And so funny. I think people like him are rug good competitors. What do you think about that? Yeah.
No, I'm I guess one of the things I want to hit on there was when you talk about, you know, having a right to healthcare something like this, something that people do immediately think about is, you know, you're then demanding in basically construction, scripting the labor of the doctors to give you that Healthcare. Double bond out, who's a really good writer anti-war.com.
And from the Cato Institute was saying in a recent article that when he was in Cuba last one of his Are some anesthesiologist that you met was moved biting as like a waiter busboy or something. Because he, you know, you can't make enough money being a doctor to, you know, survive. So you got to, like, do these like, kind of black market share is Schleich side gig kind of things, right? So I thought that was like, pretty interesting.
And then also something that if you look at the Venezuelan says, I'm so let's say you get what AOC ones, which is Universal Health Care and then free college, right? If you do that, then you're going to like, basically give the state, the control over the lives adopters. And we've seen this in Venezuela, where our Cuba, where they sent their doctors like to Venezuela, and I don't think the doctors have a whole lot of choice of that.
And so, you know, I could see if you move towards the system. Let's say you have a situation situation like the coup going on in Ukraine under the Obama Administration, right? Maybe you know, you're a doctor. You get sent to Ukraine and you guys like treat some of their light. Neo-Nazi militia guys over there were back in the cou or something crazy like that. I mean, it sounds far-fetched.
But this is what your I think talking about when you're moving towards, you know, this level of socialism and State control over, you know, if you have the right to health care, right. And there's a whole bunch of people who live in like, you know, like a part of this city that no Doctors live in. Well, then the state's gonna like, It made doctors go work in that hospital. If that's the only way, provide
the health care. Now, in the free market situation, maybe, you know, they're there will be kind of fundraising opportunities, are like philanthropy to try to like incentivize doctors to live and work in that area or something like that. They certainly like Doctors Without Borders will send you know, doctors all over the world who are willing to do it and go into those places. But stake his scription is a different thing and I think that's the dredge will move with socializing health.
And all that stuff Alex, too. Yeah, the best book that I would recommend on. The reason that Health Care is. So expensive is a book by dr. Mary J Reward Called Death by regulation. She makes the case that there's nothing really unique about Healthcare. So another words, the reason, you know, printers have gone from like this thing that only a few people have to most everyone has access to a printer. Like either you have one or, you know, a guy who has won the reason they're much more.
Portable and readily accessible to the average person is because there is more of a free market. In those areas. This allows for more Innovation, more competition, more risk, more investment, more of an incentive to meet widespread consumer demand. So it's not just a printer thing applies with computers, and fans and refrigerators and routers and phones. I think the best example is the television, especially, you know, for some people like our
age, right? Like I have to TVs in my, you know, apartment right now that I got for free people just gave to me that, you know, 15 years ago when I was a kid, I couldn't imagine having something at that nice like and you know, ten years later, they were like worthless. And so that's like the kind of quick advancement. You get when you have a free market.
Certainly, and you know, DVD players have gone from this amazing thing that you could save up to afford and now there's 50 DVD players at every Goodwill that they have to wipe the dust off of because people now we even have better options. So we have stifled so much Innovation because of the Food and Drug Administration regulations that have started to
heavily exceed since the year nineteen. 62 is what ruark goes into but yeah that that is the book that will really give you concrete examples as to why a third-party, the state violently intervening in. What would otherwise be voluntary. Arrangements between parties is what lowers our access to Goods products and services, and raises the price and make some so us, so difficult, Walter Williams talks about Can we hear them one more thing in there
real quick? Just because I think it's so important which is like the right to try laws. That have been passed in recent years, which I think if we go down the road to really have allies in health is socializing Healthcare, you won't have anymore where, you know, for a long time. It was only the drugs, the FDA said that you could use and had approved you can actually take and then they start passing laws.
I said, well if you're going to die, you could take whatever you want in. There are some more restrictions on but they have opened it up quite a bit. But you know, if we move even more towards socialized Healthcare and you know, eventually it will socialize the drug companies and everything like that as well. I mean, they certainly talk about that and Drug pricing is a huge thing. We talk about Medicare and all that and those certainly massive subsidies.
I'm sure really control what happens in the drug Market. Anyways, but your guy have even less choice because of the government at the FDA doesn't think it's a good idea. It's just not going to get funding and it's not even going to exist at least with some kind of free market, you know. You and even with the restrictions we have at least if you're dying you have right to try something, but you know, I think those drug options just won't existence.
So, you know, again, you know, they talk about free healthcare. Well, you know, but you don't have any freedom within that health care either. Exactly exactly Williams talks about there. Being a number of things that people can do outside of, you know, lobbying to Congress for laws ideas, that people can Embrace to have an Institutional framework of freedom and Society. He says values such as Thrift hard work, honesty, trust and Cooperative Behavior based on shared Norms.
Are the keys to improving The Human Condition and provide the Under grinding for a free market economy. Just as important are such social institutions, as respect for private property sanctity of contracts, educational institutions, clubs Charities, churches and families. So as opposed to you know, what we often hear is the way we're
going to fix. This is we're going to pass a law that says a b and c. Well, even if you happen to choose the wording of the law, you don't get to choose how it's enforced, or how the judges, see it, or if it's enforced at all. So, The fact that he was able to get into the actual ideas of what makes societies free and prosperous as opposed to the you know, dumb immediate thinking of we must sign HR 9 63 in ordered. Its that's a joke. No one reads it.
No one knows what it is. These are the real things that separate, you know civilization from barbarism. Right. Yep, and I mean, I feel like the government especially now has very selective of how they enforce laws and who they enforce them on, especially with, you know, laws that are meant to like, regulate government and government officials. Exactly. He says the rules considered and what David Hume called, the stability of possessions.
So if you think that something's going to get, you know, torn down within a week or they're going to lock down your business. Legal Fiat, you're much less likely to spend time, innovating and investing in something. When you don't have the stability of possessions transference by consent. Another words, construction workers, don't want 50 buildings.
What they want is to build a building get money for it and then spend the money on other things that they like in the division of labor and the keeping of promises. This is also vital. If you can't trust people, it's extremely difficult to have any sort of, you know, Reliable way to achieve your ends in society, but you know needing people to keep their promises does not justify a state or certainly
interventionist State at all. Yeah, actually, I want to hit on one-in-three there because I thought they were really
interesting. When you to think about us sanctions, especially on countries like Iran and Cuba who had like a little bit of sanctions relief under the Obama Administration. Well, once It happened like all the entrepreneurs in these, you know, countries where, you know, opening up new businesses that were appealing to American Tourist in Cuba or in Iran. They were looking to like expand Factory output to do more business with Germany.
And, you know, the the people who were like really excited and seemed to be, you know, really entrepreneurs, who want to connect with people from the West like got on board right away. Want to be the first person in the door. Well, Then Trump gets elected. It comes in and sanctions everything. So all those people I mean at best the contracts were destroyed and all the like the the time that they had invested in their businesses were was completely wasted.
If not, you know people who in Cuba may be opened up like a new business. The appealing to American tourists coming in and you know, it's in the right port and everything like that. Well, the American Stock company
that goes out of business. And now this is the guy who You know, in a long time, communist country was the most entrepreneurial and was the one that like what first went out there to try to like, you know, exploit the opportunities given to them and it wrecked his life probably. Right? And so, you know, what kind of example does that set for the rest of that society?
And, you know, even if like biting comes in to lift the sanctions on, you know, these countries are starts to remove some of Trumps restrictions on Cuba like the travel restrictions. Are you? To go back out and open up the business if it could change in a couple years. I don't know that. You know, and so the these things are hugely important and you know, think about just here but also how it impacts with foreign policy and sanctions and stuff.
Exactly. He actually uses some real world examples, using free more free market examples. He uses the US Canada, Australia, Hong, Kong, Japan, and Taiwan now Japan's an interesting example, because Japan and was it Taiwan? I've no I think it was South Korea. So it was Japan was like the home of sweatshops, you know, in the 50s or something. This all. According to the work of professor at Southern California, Matt.
Jelinski, I forget where it works, but he talks about the history of sweatshops starting in Japan. And then they, the companies, what they did in their own interest, by the way. Not because, you know, they're humanitarians. They Educated the people there. So they could have more productive workers and a more productive Factory so they could sell them more people so they could make more money. So again, we see this.
This harmonious attempt to have the individual interest and societal interest are are not in Conflict, but they are harmonious. Something else that Walter Williams brought up. He said, why is it that Idaho that people in Idaho are up in the middle of the night? Making sure there's Patos for people to have in New York because I love New Yorkers so much. No, it's because it's sort of, in their incentive to do so, or people in Montana work, so they could ship stuff to New York.
What? Why are they so nice? How does this happen? And it's well, because of free markets, voluntary exchange, and freedom of Association. So, in the case of Japan, it started off poor and then slowly got wealthy. So then the Sweatshop moved to South Korea, which were very poor.
And thank God. You didn't just have some labor regulation that outlawed being able to work there or a bunch of idiots, boycotting it. So they go from small wages to no wages, and now they never get any experience in place. Never becomes a civilization that well. I mean Hong Kong is a place that we almost Envy now, so we constantly see free markets going to a place and it just being like a wealth bomb where you go from virtually nothing
sir. Assistance levels to General levels of civilization, at least a framework where people can have opportunities to have families achieve their dreams, get access to the outside world, with computers access to servers, internet connections, cables, and ethernet, cords
alone. Shipping those two places gives people access to ideas thoughts, and, you know, poems and literature that they never would have had access to otherwise He says, these are examples are far richer and have greater human rights protections than people in countries with limited free markets, such as Russia, Albania China, and every other country in Africa, of course, I think Russia moved a little more free market since he went there, but they're going back because
Putin's been bashing. Individualism. It's amazing. You advocate for you Advocate
freedom, and that's greedy. You Advocate the state violently dominating other Well, and that's like that's like the cool hip thing to do. Well, I do just some to point out in this isn't like me trying to justify Putin's policy because he has your move to I think nationalized more but one of the things that he has used as an excuse to do that is to point out American sanctions and say that look what happens because sometimes sanctions went on Russia and like they I think
at one point targeted, the cheese industry or something like that and so it hurt, you know, Russia and sewer rats. Sporting cheese or whatever else they were at supporting to Europe. And now they're trying to sanction like Russia as the the pipeline that's going to bring natural gas from our sharing to Germany. And anyways, he, you know, Putin will make the point that.
Well, it's because of these sanctions that we have to have more nationalism and more planned economy because we had to be able to, you know, do more substance here at home and for exporting too much or whatever then that's going to push. At risk. I believe that's the same thing to some. It says happened in Iran to where the government has taken over like more, the the pharmaceutical industry, because st. James have rat, the the supply chain there.
So that's not necessarily saying that the countries are right to do that. It's going to hurt them more, but it's the US imperialism. That's at least to some extent, giving the cover for the leaders to do it. Correct. Both foreign and domestic regulation is immoral unjustified and totally uneconomic Walter. Then it's amazing that we're in like the third page of this. And he's already getting so
much. He gets into the idea of, you know, why some countries are wealthy and some are poor in reference to, you know, the Canada Hong Kong Australia. He actually mentions Australia and New Zealand again. So many people say things like natural resource endowment is a reason a country as wealthy because of the natural resources not the case. In fact, you have places like what is he site? He cites the Soviet Union Africa, and South America. So two continents and a huge
country. Have a lot of resources. That doesn't make you wealthy. If you don't have the ideas of how to find the resources and create them into things that people value and improve their lives. Well then, You're just sitting on a ton of, you know, resources that are not really yielding, anything positive for the populace. He then refused to the nonsense. That colonialism is what makes a country wealthy. You've had wealth resource, wealth and colonialism.
Since like the days of, I don't know, ancient Sumeria and ganga skon that doesn't make you wealthy. And then the, the funniest one is where they say slavery makes. Wealthy in America alone. We became much wealthier after the abolition of chattel slavery and slavery had existed since the toward in the research. I've done. So, like 3100, BC is a was when there were slaves in Mesopotamia and it was written in the legal code. So he refutes natural resource endowment colonialism.
He says, the world's richest countries, the United States, a former Colony Canada Colony. Australia, was a colony New Zealand was a colony. Any Hong Kong remains a colony, so that does not explain. He says, the sources of wealth are the values and traditions that produce the rules of
several property. So in other words, the institutionalized recognition of property rights allows people to recognize they own themselves and they can make change exchanges with other people who they also see, as people who own themselves. I don't own any one else. So I have to create something of value in order to improve my current condition. Is where we get wealth from, right? Well, I mean, a couple things that, you know, I think to point out there.
I'm assuming he's not saying that, you know, a country, couldn't have been impoverished by being colonized. I'm sure like, there are examples where like they did go in and just write everything and leave in or you know, kill a certain group of people go in and put a certain group of people in charge that, you know, where minority groups. Like all these things happen that like somewhat impoverished just because I know, I have listeners, who will Who made the
point. They'll think of like one example, would be like, oh no, this time. It was and so I don't think that's the point. I'm just saying that. I think he's saying that that's not the ultimate factor, is the colonialism or not. And then the other point least with the US and I'm sure it's the case in a lot of these countries where I mean, it only really increases the wealth of the elite few, who get a benefit
off of the colonialism. I mean, if you were like a British regular, did getting sent to the American, Festival to fight us like did that Umbridge your life, you know, I need to take in that musket ball in the knee and then, you know getting your leg chopped off only to have the SEPTA set in anyways and slowly die, you know, thousands of miles from your family. Like did you did Du Clos nihilism help, you know, did it help the king?
Yeah, and so you don't know, it does, it does it benefit the soldiers? You know, who go to Afghanistan? Really? Does it benefit the, the board members of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and the president. And the people at like West said, his acts and all these think tanks. Yeah, but it doesn't help me or you or anybody I know. Again, it's the benefit of the few at the expense of the many of people wanted to. If people really got in this case.
You wouldn't call it a product or service, you would call it psychological utility of, you know, whenever I fund this organization. I feel better as a result of it. That's a voluntary trade, where people are making a market interaction and increasing their social utility as they see fit with, you know, examples of the East India Company and Where else? You don't have the right to that. So it is literally some some benefiting at the expense of others.
And that's why colonialism and, and things like that are totally on Justified for the same reason, you know, Russia doesn't have the right to invade us or, or you could use the example of Syria. Like, is it? Okay, if someone invades America sanctions it and kills bill. Didn't because he used gas against his own people in Waco Texas. He UCS guess to start a fire and kill everyone inside because they resisted the state, that's better than the mask than the mask mandate being refused
actually resisting them. And the general answer is no because you can automatically see one group of people initiating violence against another. Well, just take that principle and hold it consistently against your own government. So even though the Assad story, Is definitely fake. I think I think mattes was asked what evidence is there? And he says, well at the time we don't have any evidence guys, like Aaron maté have done.
Excellent. Work on how the Assad gassing his own people story is also fake, but we'll just just and again, we're not getting caught up in the story. If you go down to the principle and apply it, consistently, you can see there's no justification for any of this. Yeah. I just wanted to add.
There's a great, new are mate. Peace out today at the gray Zone. With morally documents from the opcw showing, an errand puts together, the narrative on how the opcw actually like basically slow walk to the report on Duma the the alleged chemical weapons attack there until the inspector who was like the main inspector who actually went to Duma and who was saying that this wasn't a chemical weapons attack.
They put them on. Reinforced in sweets until he retired and then they publish the report after he was gone. And so this is like the kind of shenanigans that went on a long that now I'll get into more details on the net show, but that came out this morning. It was such a huge story.
Maybe we should just hit on like one more Point here before I wrap because we're coming up to an hour, but I know that we're only a few pages into this great document that I will link to in the show notes page, that way people who aren't read the whole thing can Exactly get. And this is another perfect example of why you have to take the Walter Williams approach to arguing on principle. Because it takes so long to find out the truth about a story and then you finally find out.
It's a lie, and then the idiot populace has moved on to something else. Hey, remember the Kurds that are getting slaughtered and discriminately. Yep. No, but we haven't heard a word about the Kurds since we heard about them with a fake ABC video. Look, the Kurds are getting murdered. No, it's a shooting gun range video from Kentucky. That was made that up. Or did you did you see Ben, a Alle bad? Give an interview to CNN that five year old girl.
Who's like I blame Bashar al-assad for Syria War. Yeah. No, I think she was the scripted one. Right? I think she did like another interview. We're like, it was obvious that she was on a script because like the first time They asked her like what her favorite food was and she was like, I'm really scared and then they asked her like the question that should have led to. I'm really scared and she said fish so I believe it was likely. Yeah, I think it was Eva Bartlett.
I'll try to send you the link. I'll try to do that up and finally, because it's a few years ago now, but yeah, they they really do try to like it spoiled little stories like, children on this to fuel the regime chamber efforts. It's crazy sickening, just like Babies in incubators, with with Iraq, pulling at the heartstrings. I make a final point on this. Alright, Williams Williams says the intellectual defense, defense of free market capitalism should focus on its moral superiority.
In other words, even if free enterprise were not more efficient than other forms of human organization. It is morally Superior because it is rooted in voluntary relationships rather than force and coercion. And it respects the sanctity of the individual finishing with the rise of capitalism. And the rise of human productivity, people were able to satisfy their physical needs
with less and less time. Economic progress, made it possible for people to have the time to develop spiritually and culturally. The rise of capitalism enabled, the gradual extension of civilization to greater and greater numbers of people. By the way. We're not even halfway through the paper. You great read this, I definitely recommend. This is, I would say this is one of the best introductory.
Papers, because the average person who doesn't, you know, agree with us. It's like, well, you don't want to give them man economy and state 1405 Pages, or something like that, but not going to read it 10 pages, real short, and sweet focusing on them morality and the economics, philosophy and economics. Who, what a great. What a great paper Walter Williams rest in peace, brother.
Yeah. Well, thanks so much for coming on and talking to this in talking to us about this great hero of Liberty. And you know, having a chance to really get into some of these issues and subjects and maybe we'll have to do another show like in the coming month or so talking more about like you can omits and these principles because they are really important but no most of the time my audience lights, you know more hard news stories, but I'm glad that we gave a corporate.
A lot of that into everything we talked about Keith tell people where to find your work or subscribe to you support, you all that stuff. I would ask that people check out my videos on that about 580 videos advocating, the principles of self-ownership, the non-aggression principle truth in history and logical, fallacies, sort of attempting to help people think clearly about certain things. So you can find me at Keith Knight. Don't tread on anyone on places like Library bit shoot.
I also have a YouTube channel, but I've been striked a couple they've Fuck me a couple times. So maybe check out my alternative platforms as well. Under each one of my videos. You can see where, where else to find me. Kyle. Thanks so much for you were bringing the truth to the foreign policy Arena. And thank you for having me on it right on. And also I think you find both our shows that the libertarian Institute. So libertarian institute.org on
the homepage right hand column. If you scroll down, Down. It's got show Pete, show my show and keep show. So check it out and thanks for tuning in.