Young people are idealistic. They want to believe in some kind of ideal and I think the left is very good. They've got this suit, this bizarre notion of what socialism can do if we get it just right this time. And the right has some idealism in religion and socially. I think it's less attractive to young people, but you know, maybe when Jordan Peterson tells them to make their bed, that's attractive. But we need we need an We
need to be idealistic. We need to portray a beautiful picture of the future. What we do a lot, and we're very good at, is complaining. We complain about the world today. We complain about the present, we complain about the government, we complain about the culture. But we are not very good at projecting our ideal and projecting what is possible and giving people the tools to live the best life that they can do. So today we are
discussing how to make classical liberalism mainstream again. It's obvious that modern politics is dominated by leftists and conservative movements, but there is little place for the classical liberal ideas, or what I would call maybe the true liberal ideas. Right, I think one of the reasons. One of the obvious reasons is that in general, most people don't really know what classical liberalism is and why it could be a viable alternative in modern politics for the mainstream, for the dominant
ideologies. So could you please explain very shortly, what is the essence of classical liberal ideas, how it differs from modern dominant ideologists, and how to revise if its place in the society. The society is awareness soviet. So I think classical liberalism almost purposefully is not a very very clearly defined term, but it is an emphasis in political discussion on liberty, on individual liberty,
on individual freedom. It is the idea, broadly speaking, that the government should be limited, should be limited primarily to protecting our lives and our property.
It should be primarily focused. I think, in the best interpretation of classical liberalism, it should be a focused on the protection of individual rights properly, properly defined, and properly understood, and that generally the government should leave individuals free to pursue their own lives, free to start their own businesses a contract with other people. It should protect property rights, protect contract rights.
It should provide for the national defense and police force in the judiciary. But beyond that, classical liberals tend to be skeptical about anything else that the government does. Some of us would like there to be a complete ban under the government doing anything else, but classical liberals generally have wanted small and limited government. I think part of the part of the reason the classical liberalism is less known today is that many of these liberal parties of a long time ago and
a says, sold their soul to the devil. They compromised and compromised and compromised and compromised to the point where they merged into a left or merged into the conservative movement. They didn't stick to their principles. They didn't uphold this idea of limited limited government to some you know, at some point there was
a crisis and some people needed help, so the government helped them. And then the crisis maybe there's another group that needed help, and then they helped got institutionalized, and we got a welfare state, and the liberals didn't really fight against the welfare state. And then and then maybe there was some business crisis and the states at all we better regulate that because businessmen are behaving badly, and the liberals didn't adamantly object, and then that expanded slowly, and
slowly the liberals kind of lost the passion about fighting over this. So I think for the public, they just really haven't experienced classical liberal ideas in any kind of organized, systematic way. They're not familiar with them because much of the older liberal ideology kind of faded away as the liberals, as the liberal agenda was compromised, and indeed, in the United States, it got so bad that ultimately the left stole the term liberal. Yeah, and today when
you say liberal in America, everybody thinks you're talking about the left. And so if they object to the left, they object to liberalism, and then what are they left with? Kind of a conservative right. So there's a lot of confusion about the term. There's a lot of confusion about its history, and ultimately there's a lot of confusion about what it really stands for. And this is where I think the biggest problem lies with classical liberalism. What
is it? What do we actually believe in? Yeah, I think we will get back. There's a problem of the dark part of me. But do you have any ideas about how to solve this problem? You know, Well, I think I think there are two things that have to be done, and any solution I give you is not going to be a short term solution, and any solution I give you is not a silver bullet that everything changes instantaneously. I think the first is we need to be clear about what
classical liberal is is and what it stands for. And I think we need to boast its defenses. We need to boast its philosophical foundations. For example, classical liberalism is traditionally has always been a dominant primarily of political philosophy, but political phillosophy rests on other branches of philosophy. It rests on certain foundations, small foundations, epistemological foundations. I think to really dominate, we need
a consistent moral and epistemological philosophy. We need a set of ideas that are not just economic and not just political, a set of ideas that don't just involve Yeah, we get a higher GDP, and yes, I value freedom, but I know other people don't value freedom. How do I get them to value freedom? Well, getting people to value freedom has more to do with morality and more to do with philosophy for their own life and what kind of life they want to live, then it has to do with economics and
politics. So I think we need to engage in much more with a cultural debate about what people should live for, how to live, what lives are worth while living, and and and become an advocates of human reason, for example, because I don't think I give you a quick example, right, Plato the philosopher believed that most people lived in this cave ideas, this cave analogy, and we see shadows in the wall, and we don't know reality, and we can't know reality, and we can't know truth, and in
a sense, we can't take care of ourselves. Only the philosopher can exit the cave that we're in and see the actual reality, the sunshine, the world of forms, as he advises, So only the philosopher knows the truth. Now, if that's true, if that's epistemologically true, me and you can't see reality, only the philosopher where they can see it, then freedom is useless to us because we can't we can't discover truth, we can't discover
how to live. We have to just listen to him. Every authoritarian regime in history is basically based on this Platonic idea. We have to be willing to challenge that, not just politically, not just emotionally, but also philosophically and say, no, we believe in reason. We believe every individual has the capacity to reason. Every individual has the capacity to discover truth, discover
his own values, knows what to do with his life. And therefore what we need is freedom so that individuals can pursue their happiness, not so that we can maximize GDP as many people do, right, many classical the bust tend to do, but so that individuals can actually live the fullest, most complete life that they can, and they have the capability to do that because
all beings of reason, man is the rational animal. Let me elaborate a little bit on the issue of truth and maybe put it a little bit differently, right, So, I think part of the problem with statism and with intrusive ideologists in general is maybe even the obsession with the idea of truth,
which is not necessarily the same as truth. You know, But I think for classical liberals, part of the idea is that, you know, many issues, on many issues, truth is subjective, right, or on many issues we don't even have truth, right, So I know you represent an ideology which is called objectivism. So it may sound kind of, you know, mutually exclusive. But on the other hand, I think if you really value truth or value like the most important principles in life, so to say,
you have to be a little bit minimalistic right about this principle. So this is where we disagree and where if I'm as a disagree often with classics. So I think there's a real difference between dogma and truth. Yeah, I think there's a huge difference between being dogmatic and being a truth seeker. But I consider myself a truth seeker, and I think good people seek the truth. I seek a truth to my own life. I want to know, for example, what is really good for me now. I know that
sometimes I'm going to make mistakes. Truth is not reason is not infallible. We're gonna make mistakes. But I'm looking for what's right and what's just and what's true. I want to know that in the physical world, I want to know, you know, I disagree with hum This is a mug and that is water and I am drinking it. There's it's not a probability shit
thing. This is certainty. This is truth, and I think that that that human for example, and others other classical liberals who would become skeptics, and it becomes skeptics partially as a defense mechanism against the truth of communism or the truth of authoritarianism. I think that's a mistake, and I think it
opens the door up to kind of the subjective is left. So my values are my level of my truth, with forgot to my values of mine in that sense, they're subjective, right, you know what how much I value what a versus coke? Only I know you can't tell me what's right regard to that. But whether this is a mug or not, that's an absolute truth that both of us should be able to agree on. Truth is really really important, and having a mechanism to discover truth is really really important,
and understanding the process of discovering truth is really really important. And that freedom part of the reason we want to be free, so that we could go on and discover what's true. But what's good. But we can't force people to have That's why it's not dogs right, right, So you can't. So this is the opposition to a Catholic church that buds people at the stake, or that puts Galileo on the house arrest because he's searching for the truth.
People can be wrong about stuff. I can disagree with them, they might be right. I might be wrong. Absolutely. Politically, we are free to and we can't impose truth and other people, but we certainly can advise people. I certainly want my doctor to be able to tell me I think this is the treatment. I think this is the right treatment. I
think this is true in that sense. I might get a second opinion, But I hope that medical science comes up with truths because I want to live long and I want them to be able to cure diseases, and that require science and truth. So I'm a huge believer in science and truth. What I don't believe is imposing any of that on other people. People have to discuss. Indeed, it's not truth if it's imposed on you. That's one
of the things that philosophically is important. If you accept something because somebody told it to you, it's it's not true for you. It's just it's just
something you accepted. It's just it's it's subjective, it's completely arbitrary. I want people to have to embrace the mechanism of truth discovery, which is human reason, And I think classical liberalism needs to embraceist it needs to embrace the fact that you know that free markets is that they work, is true, and it's it's not questionable, it's not you can be a skeptic about this. That we all the facts line up. They all line up for the
cause of freedom. So I think efpistemology is really important. Having a theory of knowledge is really important. In having a theory of knowledge that leads to actual discoveries about the world is crucial for liberty. To continue with the issue of why modern classical liboralism is weak. So obviously it's mostly associated with libertarians
nowadays. And what do you agree that libertarianism tends to attract for whatever reasons, many people who are dogmatic or radical, and who in turn radicalize or make this ideology more dogmatic appear make it appear more dogmatic to most of the people. So what are the reasons behind that? And what's the possible solution?
So I think a couple of things. Yeah, I mean, I actually like the word radical, so as I embrace the word radical, I think dogmatic is a bad word, but radical means consistent and radical means which I like that would, But I do think it's dogmatic. I do think a lot of people attracted to it. I think a lot of people who embrace these ideas don't fully understand them, don't internalize them into their own life. At the end of the day, I always ask people why do you
want to be free? And if you hesitate and you're not sure how to answer that, there's a problem. You haven't internalized the value freedom, and it can be I just want to do whatever the hell I want. It has to be a real value to you. Why do you want to be free? I know why I want to be free because I want the opportunity to live the best life possible to me. I want to pursue happiness.
And the more freedom is the want opportunities they are for me to pursue happiness for me, and I want to live the most flourishing, successful life I can. Freedom is one of the prerequisites for that. Um so so, I think a lot of people have not internalized, that have not made it personal, don't understand it, and the theory is in a sense of floating
abstraction, and they've studied the theory it looks true to them. It all connects, you know, kind of logically, but they haven't really seen it in reality, brought it into their own lives and understand how it's connected to life and and human human existence and human survival and young people. It's almost inevitable the young people would be dogmatic, right because you just don't have their life experience. I was, and no question when I read I ran for
the first time. I was on a crusade. I was going to convince everybody and kind of a you know, hit the head with a hammer kind of way. And then as you as you go, well, then you you you you you learn how to convince people, how to how to debate people, but also you learn that my goal in life is not convince them.
A goal in life is first to understand and to live a good life and to study the ideas, and convincing others is something you do later, and you certainly don't achieve anything by throwing a hammer at their head right at being being obnoxious and being nasty. I think the other problem that exists in libertarianism is I think, at some point, and I think I think the
point is really more you off bad more than anybody else. At some point libertarianism takes a off ramp off of the liberal highway, if you will, and it goes off in a direction of what I consider an ideology is that that's anti ethical to classical liberal and and and I think to reason and that is the idea of the anarchy. I think anarchy is a disaster. I think anarchy is counter to liberalism in classical sense, it's counter to freedom.
Anarchy devolves, it must evolve logically and existentially in reality into gang warfare and violence. It always has, it always will. There's a reason why in the culture anarchy is a negative term. It's chaos. Chaos is not a good thing. And I think I think one of the things that classical liberals, like the Founding Fallows that make understood, and I think that iran understood, is that government is not a necessary evil. Government is a necessarily good.
Government creates the conditions for human flourishing. If it's the right kind of government, and what we're limited and it's limited by the principle of individual rights. If it's limited by their principle, it's a necessary good. Civilization can exist without some entity. You don't like the world government, call it something else. I don't care. But some entity that has the monopoly over the use of ittalitory force only uses force in retaliation to protect, never to violate
people's rights, And that is what creates the conditions from market stable. It creates the conditions for people to experiment with aught to experiment with their personal lives, maybe sex, marriage, who knows, but it provides the conditions and that make all that possible without violence, without force, without coersion from other people. Anarchy rejects all that, and I think creates a condition where human
floishing is impossible. And I think that too many young libertarians attracted to this I can do anything I want to do kind of an emotionalist attitude, and they get the logical, abstract sequence that Rothbart or somebody else lays out, and they never connect it to actual reality. And an actual reality doesn't work. So you would probably mostly agree with Robert Nozick on his defense of the minimal state. I mostly do. I would do it a little differently,
and man does it at differently, but in spirit absolutely I agree. So maybe another issue is that maybe libertarians are failing really to communicate their empathy to most of people, like it seems like a very anti empathic, so to say, ideology because maybe partly because libertarians refuse to engage with many important issues such as environment in many cases, like some of them do engage, but many don't, and many people that have this kind of perception that they just
don't care, you know, and they're just bad people who only think about themselves, etc. Etc. So what would it be your response to that? Well, I think that a proper political movement has to have answers to all the questions they could serve people. Whether it's whether it's questions like environmentalism or the ament, or whether it's questions like what to do about the poor, which always comes up when you're discussing these things. You have to have
an answer. The answer might not be the most pleasing answer always, but you have to have an answer, and you have to have a program. Environmentalism is a good example. I think libertarianism has a lot of interesting things to say, can have or free market ideologies. Classical liberalism can have a lot of interesting things to say while not negating the fundamental principles of property rights, while not negating the fundamental principles of a limited government that's limited to the
protection of individual rights one. Then what one needs to do is frame the environmental debate in the context of individual rights, in the context of you know, something happening in an environment that actually does me harm. Well, then if something's harming me, then the government has a rule to play, and then we have to figure out exactly what will under what conditions. And it can be complex. It might not be straightforward. Now, obviously the simple
way that the simplest way to deal with it. Most environmental issue, but not all of them, is private property. The more private property we have, the few environmental issues we have. And the reason for that is simple. We know, we've got a thousand years of common law history that says you can drop your garbage in my backyard. Well, if everything is somebody's backyard, yea, even things like lakes and rivers and oceans and stuff.
And we can't find ways to privatize these things, and we have, you know, in the history we have done things like this, then we can we can explain to people how, you know, having water rights solves a lot of the water cleanliness issues and the same, but there are issues that go beyond that. For example, is very difficult to conceptualize in terms of property rights. I'm breeding something that you're polluting, what do we do about
that? And their harm is an issue if if I'm harmed by something you're doing. We know that if you blast your stereo really, really loud in the middle of the night, I can sue you. Even in the lazare capitalist world, I can sue you. You don't have a right to intrude on my on my sleep like that. Well, you don't have a right to throw your snide or whatever they are. And and so you go to courts. You you know, you you you have some conclusion about the damage
that this does to people. The government has a world to look at that and see whom it looks like these particular chemicals are really damaging to human life. They have their ability, they have I think the obligation then to either reduce their use or to bann them, or to do something in that limited way in the name of protecting your rights. But I just want to give
one counter example, because this is it's a dangerous field. Imagine in the middle of the nineteenth century, You're in London, the industrial evolution is happening. Everybody's burning coal. Everybody people are burning coal in their homes, people are burning coal in the factories. The air is full of black stuff. You're gonna get some of you are going to get some of us are going to get sick. Do we stop the industrial evolution? Do we ban cole
at that point? Or do we realize that maybe people are getting sick but overall, something important is happening here and we need to let it play out for a while at least, and then maybe clean it up. But we need to play it out. China faces the same face, I think, the same challenge. If development requires some pollution for a while, but the value of development, the value of becoming rich, the value of bringing a billion people out of poverty is huge, Well, maybe we can tolerate some
pollution for a while and then clean it up. So these are the kind of issues that need to be thought through, and I think governments need to need to be involved in thinking through. But there's real danger of stopping progress before it happens if you do, if you overdo it, if you exceed the limits. Sure. So basically we agree that there is a place for or regulating pollution or other environmental factors because of the need to protect individual liberty
and because of the need to protect property rights. So yeah, of course, But concerning your example, I think you've really touched on another crucial issue here, because many libertarians really have this kind of approach where they just don't want to weigh pro and con factors. They just want to to have this simplistic answer where where they say, you know, if it's noise, why why are you talking about noise? Are you a socialist or something like that.
You know, I've heard these kind of arguments, or you know, somebody can just go in the street and shoot all around him unless he hits you. You know. But but it's obvious from the scientific or truth perspective that if there's somebody running around with a gun and just shooting, you know, there is a chance that he will meet you. And my freedom to some extent includes the freedom to be protected from that risk, right absolutely.
So I mean, take a simple example. Certainly a gun would would qualify. But let's say somebody is driving on the private streets, but they're driving in a way that is clearly endangering people. Right, Maybe they're driving fab, but not just fast. They're swerving and they're cutting off people, and they're going to kill somebody there's absolutely the role of our police force, of of of a law to say irresponsible driving, harmful driving, and you have
to make it objective and you have to be careful. Again, not to give the state too much power, but yes, risk is a fact that let's say you're an extra construction site. I believe there should be no regulations of construction. You know, let the market work. But you notice that the crane is tilted and it looks like it's going to fall and on your house. Can you call the police, Well, of course you can.
There's a real risk. And then a police send an inspective in and say, you know what, you guys, your crane, you've got it wrong. You need you need to fix it. So the risk real risk again, and you have to be careful and you have to be objective, and we have to be truthful. Real risk is a concern. It is something a real threat is a concern, and it's something that a threat of life and a threat of property. Just like today, if I threaten you,
right, I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna do something. The police can stop it. And I think that's completely legitimate. It goes beyond speech at that point. Now, it's a it's it turns into a physical threat when a physical threats faced, whether it's through pollution or whether it's through a crane
that's tilted, or whether it's to somebody driving drunk. Absolutely, I think the state has a role to play, and we should think very carefully and how to make those laws and make them limited and make them limited individual rights again, and how to protect But absolutely I think this idea of anything goes is very dangerous. And we know what happens when anything goes. When you get the chaos of anything goes, people demand order, and the order then
is provided by a strong band the order. You know, anarchy will always devolve into authoritative in it. So, since we've already criticized anarchy, and we've you know, stated that some libertarians have excessively restrictive view of the role of the government, maybe it's at this point not obvious to some of the
listeners. Then what is the essence of our problem with the status you know, like with with the left or with the conservatives, Because at one on one hand, obviously there is place for involvement in the environment and you know, things like that, but on the other there are still lots of areas where there is no need for state involvement whatsoever, and where modern states are increasingly involved. So I don't think of it is there's there's a place for
the goverment to be involved in my environment. I think of it is there's a there's always a place for the state to be involved when life is threatened, When life is exactly that's what, it's a real threat. For example, I don't think there's any role of government in welfare, So what to do about the poor? Nothing, The government has nothing to do with that. Um. But if I'm running at you with a knife, yes, the state is there to protect me. And if I'm throwing siginide in your
face, yes the state is supposed to protect me. So when life is threatened, when property is threatened, or when life is attacked or property is attacked, that's when the state gets intervened. Whether that attack is through the air, yeah, that's climate, or whether it's it's another way. And of course, what what defines the modern left and the modern right is there
are no limits exactly on the state power. The modern left is obsessed with redistributing wealth and using what I produced to help other people and taking my wealth and redistributing it to others. And of course I'm controlling what businessmen do and how they do it, and what they do in central planning, in the idea that they can plan everything. But even when it comes to the environment,
they believe that the environment is an end in itself. It's not only an issue of threats towards us, but we have to protect snails, and we have to protect this, and we have to protect that because they have a value in and of themselves. They have an intrinsic value that does not relate to human beings. The government should only be involved where humans are involved. The government should only be involved in protecting human life, nothing more than
that. And there is no intrinsic value in nature. Value is something that comes from human beings. We value nature, You value nature, you love for us. By some I think there are even more obvious examples, like modern states like Georgia or any European state for that matter, are heavily involved in education, in culture, in sports, you know, like why, because I mean, there nobody's gonna die if we don't have a volleyball team. More than that, I think by by by having a volleyball team.
You're denying somebody the capital to have what he wants to have exactly. And and yes, education, I mean the how is a public education are well known, but more than that, there's they are now. One of the reasons people don't know about classical liberalism, maybe it is because the state is running an educational system and they have no interest in they're knowing about it.
So, yes, the government is involved in everything. I think. I think one of the worst things is the environment because I think it's all encompassing. They use it to regulate everything else. But I agree education healthcare. Europeans love this socialized healthcare with the state is telling you what medicines to take. The state is telling you what treatments to get um and and this is where the right comes in. Right, the right is a little bit more
sympathetic in economics. Okay, you can do your thing in economics a little bit. But they want to regulate culture. They want Georgia to be Georgian, and they want to regulate immigration, and they want to make the movement of goods and services and people and capital. They want to regulate they you know, they want the national sports team or whatever. So the conservatives have given in a lot to the left on economics. It's interesting how the debate
between the left and right has changed over the last few years. It used to be mainly about economics. Now it's mainly about culture, and that the battlegrounds have shifted. Basically, the rights conservatives have given up on economics. They've given into the left. The state can do anything in economics now. Uh. And and now the fight is about I don't know, LGBTQ, right, that's where the fight is. It's not about regulations or anything like
that. But yes, iron Rand said once, the left, because it's Marxist, is materialist. Therefore they care about the material world. Therefore they want to control and regulate the economy. They don't believe in the spiritual world, so they don't care what you do in your bedroom. They don't care how you behave. Generally, they leave you alone in the spiritual world.
The right not even not to anymore. But it wasn't the old left right, and then the old right didn't care about the material world because there's an afterlife, right, So the material world doesn't matter. So, yeah, you can do your capitalism if you want. It's kind of grubby and we don't really like it. But you can do your trade and your free markets. But the spiritual world that's important. What you do in bed, that's
really important. Said that we want to regulate. What's interesting about the modern left and right is now they both care about everything, and they want to regulate everything, and they want to control everything, and they don't want to leave us even a little bit of freedom. That's why we talk about an opportunity for the classical liberalism. Now is the time, I think the left
and the right of proving themselves to be completely bankrupt. People are starting to get it that there's something really really wrong in the culture, something really really really wrong in the economy. The economy is approaching bankruptcy in the West. The culture is approaching bankruptcy in the West. Now is the time to offer an alternative, and I think I think the alternatives you know, and the
way to do that is there no shortcuts here. The way to do that is educate, educated, educated, educate, teach people about this alternative. Teach people about freedom, Teach people about the value of freedom to their own life, Teach people about the value to the culture and to the economy of freedom. And we need to We need to talk talk, talk, educated,
educa educate and get the word out. They write books, write articles, do podcasts, do videos, do whatever we can to get a clear, consistent and this is where again and for truth right, a consistent message of the value of liberty without denying real issues and real problems and real challenges,
and how in presenting we need to present solutions. But I think there we are facing another huge challenge beyond education, because you know, the way democracy is structured, unless it's very restrained by constitution, is that, you know, politicians can spend money essentially, and if you can spend money, you can sell ideas about the ways of spending that money. So one problem is that we don't have any limitation on where the state can get involved,
you know. But the other problem is that the state has no limit on the amount of resources it controls, right, sure, So so it's an upheal battle. It's very difficult for us. I would say that this is a reason why I think the most powerful tool we have today beyond the ideas that we have is the web, is the Internet. I mean, it doesn't cost as much to get onto the Internet, doesn't as much to produced videos. I mean, they're people producing videos and making a lot of money
off of just iPhones and stuff. It doesn't it doesn't require the kind of capital and resources to educate people like it did in the past past, thet a study, university at a study. Now you can do everything online, so I think, I mean, I find it disappointing that people who advocate for free markets have not better utilized and better capitalized on the existence of the Internet and no ability to communicate ideas to large numbers of people at a marginal
cost of close to zero. And uh, and we've left even these channels too. I'd say the right is pretty good at it, you know, the Jordan Peterson's the bit of pewers of the world. And then and of course the left does us a good at it. And where is where's our Jordan Peterson, where's our capturing the imagination of people? Where's us using this new medium to communicate effectively with the world and inspire. That's the other thing
we need. And this is something I think that's really important. Young people are idealistic, they want to believe in some kind of ideal and I think the left is very good. They've got this suit, this bizarre notion of what socialism can do if we get it just right this time. And the right has some idealism in religion, and so I think it's less attractive to young people. But you know, maybe when Jordan Peterson tells them to make their bed, that's attractive. But we need we need to be idealistic.
We need to portray a beautiful picture of the future. What we do a lot, and we're very good at, is complaining. We complain about the world today, we complain about the present, we complain about the government, we complain about the culture. But we are not very good at projecting our ideal and projecting what is possible and giving people the tools to live the best
life that they can do. Again, I think this is one of our Man's strengths because she wrote novels, she told stories, stories would project I think a particularly philosophical ideal that I think young people respond to. It's why she's so popular among young people. But we need to do a much better effort on every fund from economics all the way to morality and projecting and an
ideal and exciting people and getting them excited and passionate about the future. That this free market classical liberal ideology can lead to I think you've touched on a very important point, which is how to attract young people. And I would even specify that we really need to attract creative people. You know, and
you've mentioned Jordan Peterson. Even Jordan Peterson is a part of this problem with the left right dichotomy because you've probably heard the way he describes liberals versus conservatives. His vision is that, you know, like liberalist liberals are in her this creative types, and conservatives are order oriented types. This is liberals in
the American sense. Yeah, exactly. That's the problem because when Jordan Peterson talks about liberals versus conservatives, he really talks about leftists versus conservatisms, and he doesn't see a place for true liberals there. Yeah, but he's also wrong. I mean, it's also wrong because the reality is, if you look at who is a strong leftist in the United States, it's not just the creative types. It's lawyers, and it's it's successful people. I mean,
that's the sad thing. Smart people, smartest successful people attracted liberalism for all kinds of reasons. Liberalism and Americans, the left, leftist partially because they've rejected religion and and and because they they taught that this is techotomy. If you're religious, you're you know, that's conservatives, So you don't want
to be that. So all they've got is kind of this exact And partially because the right rejects science and rejects I think, seeking truth in this world, they tend to go left, you know, So I think, yes, we definitely need creative types. If you know what, I also think we need Nobel prizes in physics. Imagine a Nobel Prize and physicists, you know the Nobel Price speech talking about the liberty to think and to use his
reason on problems that may be the conventional wisdom that you know. This is what I mean by I think what a broader vision of what liberty and freedom mean and how they apply to individual life and how they can inspire individual people. Because the kind of thinking that leads us to say entrepreneurs should be allowed to start any company they want without asking permission also says to the scientist, you can explore any venture you want without asking for permission and without the government
dictating. We're now on this is a hot thing, so we'll give only money to that. So it's it's we need people in all fields. I think the most important ones a creative fields. Arts. I think is aesthetics is crucial. The reason I don't think we would have had any enlightenment without our innascence, right, So you have to have the art, maybe even
before you have the more ideological part of it. So what we need we need sculptures and painters and musicians and novelists and video makers and moviemakers, um. And then I think we need educators. We need a lot of educators. We need people who can teach and educate people, whether they do it online or whether they create their own schools, or whether they create alternatives. We need scientists. We need to link our vision to science because because I
think science is an incredibly powerful tool and a good tool. Again, I think part of the part of the damage libertarians are doing in the post COVID era, if you will, is blaming scientists for what happened, and and and and maybe some scientists need to be blamed. They made mistakes, right and and some of them, some of them just but to blame science to wrap it all up, and we don't want, you know, scientists well, scientists have an important world to play, and they tell us something about
the physical world that we didn't know, that we don't know. Not all of us can know these things. Not everybody's the epidemiologist, even though everybody is an amateur epidemologist these days, among among conservatives and the materials in particular, we need experts. We need scientists, let's not throw that out. So we need a whole We need young people, we need idealists, we need passionate people. We need people to understand how important freedom is to their
own lives and understand it. What they really want is to make their lives the best life that they can live exactly. So, I think if we were more successful at disassociating classical legoralism from conservatism and from anarchy, we would attract more creative types, because this is the ideology of freedom right completely.
And even with your example about London in the nineteenth century, I think there is the answer to the issue why we need scientists, you know, because to weigh the pros and cons to weigh the risks, you have somebody to calculate that right roughly speaking, right, and we're living in it right now. I mean somebody has to calculate the risk of climate change. Yeah.
Somebody has to calculate the risk of not using fossil fuels. Yeah. And and somebody has to give us at least a vision about what is possible in so of alternatives. Yeah, the common man, most of us can do it. I don't know what those all of them and get eat up about it. I'm educated somewhat about it. But those somebody has to provide do the lab work that is necessary to provide data so that we know what we're doing. So absolutely, I think we need I think the classical levels need
to separate themselves from from the right. I think they've been associated with the right, with very negative element within the right, you know, and particularly today with the rise of nationalism and the ways of authoritarian rights and the rise of a of a kind of a kind of paleo right, and it's very dangerous I think for those those who believe in freedom to be associated with them.
And of course I think it's easier to disassociate with the left, but we should make sure that we're not lumped in together with because maybe we use the word liberal sometimes lumped together with the left. We need to define all of the space. We are the advocates of liberty and freedom and individual rights and limited government. Sure, So to wrap it up, let's talk a
little bit about the history how we got here. Right, So, obviously founding fathers of the US they had their own flaws, there were different people. But on the other hand, I would guess that they simply didn't envision all the potential risks which would come with technological progress, which would come with democracy, because you know, like there was not much evidence about democracy back
in seventeen seventy six. Right, Well, they wrote about democracy. So Madison writes about democracy, and he warns us about democracy, and he says, democracy, we are not creating a democracy in America. Democracy is a bad thing. Democracy is always devolved into majoritarian rule where the majority oppresses the minority. It's why ultimately we have a Bill of Rights in the American constitutions. So they were very aware of the risk of democracy. But you're right,
they didn't know all the risks. I mean, in that'sry evolution. We hadn't started yet, the kind of progress hadn't existed. They didn't understand all of its We have now two hundred and fifty years of experience. We know what the flaws are with the Constitution. We could do a much better job, I think. But I'd say the deeper flaws with the founders. And they were philosophical, intellectual And again I'm not blaming them because again they
were writing the Seven the seventies. Uh, they only knew what they knew. But the reality is that that America is founded on on on a certain ideology of quicksand of you know, they weren't quite willing to give up the I find out a foundation that is laid in uh in religion. Um, so they were man an enlightenment that said religion should be in your home. But they didn't really have an alternative methodology for for for living, for values,
for morality, for discovering truth. So they are They're conflicted, man, And that I think ultimately is in UH. Is in the is in the founding. This is why I think to some extent they feel responsible for the common good. And therefore Thomas Jefferson gets involved in public education very very quickly because it's for the common good. Whereas I think we understand that there
is no such thing as the common good. There's the good of individuals that you can aggregate in some sense, but there's know, we're not targeting the common good. We're targeting the good for individuals, and were in the good for individual as a as as as the best within an individual is to be free, and we're leaving people free. And some people would abuse that some
people ruin their lives because they free. But also maybe to give a particular example, like the US was founded on literally on the opposition to the exhaustive taxation, right, So but they probably probably it was hard for them to envision that we would have states like controlling fifty percent of the GDP. Yeah, but they you know, but from the beginning, they had they had
tariffs from the beginning. They they struggled with how to balance this idea that they knew taxes or somehow bad cousion and force and with the needs of the state. And they struggled with their taxes were very low in the beginning. But you know, maybe they couldn't predict the fifty percent, but maybe tens it crept up quite dramatically. Of course, they were founded on the on the great contradiction of slavery, and that should have been a real indication that
something was going to give something was a problem here. But you know, they gave the government the right to coin money. They gave the government the ability to do things that I don't think government needs to do or should do. That open up a Pandora's box in terms of violation of rights. Maybe not now, but as we move forward. You know, they found the beginning banking, for examples, regulated in America. So as good as they were, and they were about as good as any political group of people ever
were, they didn't know, they couldn't predict. We now have a lot more data, We have a lotable knowledge. We also have I think better ideas. Again I will mention I'm mad because I think she's a key figure in some ways in completing the philosophical mission of the Enlightenment, in solidifying our defensive reason and solidifying our defense of this idea, pursuit of happiness, of
individualism. And we have a lot more capabilities today to a create a better constitution, but also just to educate people about life in a way that would pose less of a threat to whatever govern we instudent. Let's remember that no matter how strong the constitution is, if people don't want it, it won't
survive. So you know, when Franklin, I think it was Franklin walked out or maybe Madison walked out of the Constitutional Hall, somebody asked him what government did you give us, and he said, a republic if you can keep it, right, and it's if you could keep it. And then there's a phrase about eternal vigilance for the cause of liberty. We the people always have to be vigilant. We the people always have to be But to
do that, we have to be educated about it. We have to commit to it, we have to believe in it, we have to want it. We have to want freedom. And that's where I think we need to educate people and the value of freedom to their lives, to why it's good for them to be free. Now, you know, we'd like to talk about abstractions and demand supply and how does it affect my life? Well, here's a whole menu of it affect your life in every aspect. Thank you
very much. I think what you just said summarizes our issue, our topic pretty well. So thank you for finding time for this podcast. Thanks for having me. Bye.