1 00:00:00,500 --> 00:00:03,000 Welcome to Keith's, my don't tread on anyone and the 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,200 libertarian Institute today. I am joined by dr. 3 00:00:06,200 --> 00:00:09,100 Benjamin Powell. He is the executive director of 4 00:00:09,100 --> 00:00:12,600 the free market Institute at Texas, Tech University and a, 5 00:00:12,600 --> 00:00:15,800 professor of economics. In the brawls College of 6 00:00:15,800 --> 00:00:20,000 Business, and a senior fellow with the independent Institute, 7 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:21,600 dr. Powell, thank you so much for 8 00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:23,500 your time. All right, Keith happy to be 9 00:00:23,500 --> 00:00:26,800 with you. You wrote a book called 10 00:00:26,800 --> 00:00:31,500 wretched, refuse, the political economy of Ian and institutions. 11 00:00:31,700 --> 00:00:34,200 What do people need to know about immigration? 12 00:00:34,800 --> 00:00:37,300 All right, so what this does so economists, the social 13 00:00:37,300 --> 00:00:39,800 scientists who study immigration, find overwhelmingly 14 00:00:39,800 --> 00:00:43,500 that this massive economic gains so the immigrants but also the 15 00:00:43,500 --> 00:00:45,800 societies where they arrived, the natives become a little bit 16 00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:48,100 wealthier, there's a challenge to that. 17 00:00:48,100 --> 00:00:49,900 That says, what if they undermine and this will be 18 00:00:49,900 --> 00:00:52,600 relevant for your audience, really undermine our freedoms, 19 00:00:52,700 --> 00:00:54,500 our economic freedoms, our property rights. 20 00:00:54,500 --> 00:00:58,500 They break, you know, imagine socialist, immigrants from Cuba 21 00:00:58,600 --> 00:01:01,300 come and recreate Socialism in Florida. 22 00:01:01,500 --> 00:01:03,900 Well, that would destroy our productivity evaporate, these 23 00:01:03,900 --> 00:01:05,500 economic gains and make us worse off. 24 00:01:05,800 --> 00:01:08,700 Now, of course, I choose Cuban immigrants from Florida for a 25 00:01:08,700 --> 00:01:11,300 reason because I can think of no better anti-socialist voting 26 00:01:11,300 --> 00:01:14,200 Block in the United States then Cuban immigrants. 27 00:01:14,400 --> 00:01:17,100 Well, what this book does is it takes the idea seriously that 28 00:01:17,100 --> 00:01:18,600 they could undermine institutions? 29 00:01:18,800 --> 00:01:21,800 And we look at it, a whole bunch of different ways across lots of 30 00:01:21,800 --> 00:01:25,000 countries doing case studies and say, what happens when more 31 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:27,300 immigrants come? What does it do to the 32 00:01:27,300 --> 00:01:30,200 institutions? And for the most part it Doesn't 33 00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:32,800 affect a lot of them for some it makes us a little bit more free 34 00:01:32,900 --> 00:01:36,100 and in some dramatic cases tends to make us a lot more free. 35 00:01:37,100 --> 00:01:40,400 When it comes to social cohesion, having sort of a 36 00:01:40,400 --> 00:01:43,800 center point that people can rally around, it doesn't seem 37 00:01:43,800 --> 00:01:46,900 like saying, well we're all Americans really matters much. 38 00:01:46,900 --> 00:01:50,200 I think the average person would say, well, America was founded 39 00:01:50,200 --> 00:01:52,200 by colonialist racist slave owners. 40 00:01:52,300 --> 00:01:54,700 So America is more or less nothing when it comes to 41 00:01:54,800 --> 00:01:57,900 building, social cohesion between Americans plus 42 00:01:57,900 --> 00:02:01,700 immigrants coming to America. Do you guys have any ideas as to 43 00:02:01,700 --> 00:02:06,500 what how we can sort of lead the way in harmonizing are Well, 44 00:02:06,500 --> 00:02:09,100 interest like that, yo, I think it matters about what your 45 00:02:09,100 --> 00:02:12,400 social cohesion is around and if there are around the ideas of 46 00:02:12,400 --> 00:02:15,300 the founding principles of the United States and individual 47 00:02:15,300 --> 00:02:17,100 liberty, and freedom. And that's a good thing. 48 00:02:17,100 --> 00:02:20,800 If they're to collectivist, Malik cohesive beliefs than 49 00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:23,000 that's would be undermine our institutions and make us worse 50 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:25,200 off. So I think rather than some of 51 00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:28,400 what's taught in American schools right now, I think would 52 00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:31,500 be better to be proud of American Heritage and where we 53 00:02:31,500 --> 00:02:34,700 come from and teach the ideas of individual responsibility 54 00:02:34,700 --> 00:02:38,600 Liberty and the Melting Pot. The idea of America of the Ellis 55 00:02:38,600 --> 00:02:40,500 Island generation of immigration. 56 00:02:40,900 --> 00:02:44,000 I think the problems that we get in terms of ideology are really 57 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:48,400 more about the education here within the United States rather 58 00:02:48,400 --> 00:02:50,400 than the beliefs of foreigners per se. 59 00:02:51,500 --> 00:02:55,500 You wrote a book out of poverty sweatshops in the global 60 00:02:55,600 --> 00:02:58,300 economy? What is it that people need to 61 00:02:58,300 --> 00:03:02,100 understand about sweatshops that you discuss in this book? 62 00:03:02,400 --> 00:03:04,600 Yeah, well, it's funny that you link these two together right 63 00:03:04,600 --> 00:03:08,200 away because the people who read the first one, don't believe 64 00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:09,700 that. I wrote the second one and vice 65 00:03:09,700 --> 00:03:11,800 versa quite often. Because if you hear me talk 66 00:03:11,800 --> 00:03:14,700 about immigration, they'll say, well, he's obviously a campus 67 00:03:14,700 --> 00:03:16,600 liberal. And if they read the out of 68 00:03:16,600 --> 00:03:19,900 poverty one, I'm obviously a corporatist capitalist shelf. 69 00:03:20,100 --> 00:03:22,200 Instead there's actually something About free trade that 70 00:03:22,200 --> 00:03:23,500 I think runs through both of them. 71 00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:27,100 So the main argument and out of poverty is that sweat, shops, 72 00:03:27,300 --> 00:03:29,900 provide, a step out of poverty. For some of the poorest people 73 00:03:29,900 --> 00:03:31,400 in the world. This was true. 74 00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:33,600 And in our nation's history, I grew up in Haverhill. 75 00:03:33,600 --> 00:03:36,600 Massachusetts The Shoe City, my undergraduate was from 76 00:03:36,600 --> 00:03:38,800 University of Massachusetts Lowell, the heart of the 77 00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:42,100 Industrial Revolution and my ancestors worked in things that 78 00:03:42,100 --> 00:03:44,800 would call sweatshops today. And that was part of the stage 79 00:03:44,800 --> 00:03:47,600 of development as we accumulate more Capital, get better 80 00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:51,300 technology wages Rose working conditions, improved and we We 81 00:03:51,308 --> 00:03:54,900 moved on to a better life. That process is played out from 82 00:03:54,900 --> 00:03:56,500 the United States and Great Britain. 83 00:03:56,500 --> 00:04:00,400 Initially to, if we go back to Sweatshop country, circa 1960, 84 00:04:00,500 --> 00:04:04,900 we're talking about South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong. 85 00:04:05,100 --> 00:04:08,700 And them instead of about 100 Year transformation of something 86 00:04:08,700 --> 00:04:10,900 like pre-industrial, that post Sweatshop. 87 00:04:11,100 --> 00:04:13,600 They're about a generation, then you look at what's going on in 88 00:04:13,600 --> 00:04:16,899 Vietnam today, in places like that, where sweatshops are 89 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:20,200 Workers. Take these jobs because it's 90 00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:22,000 better than their next best alternative. 91 00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:25,000 Now, we can aspire to have better alternatives for them and 92 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:27,400 that's what part of the process of development does but you 93 00:04:27,400 --> 00:04:30,500 don't make somebody better off by taking away their least bad 94 00:04:30,500 --> 00:04:32,900 alternative, which is what these sweatshops often are. 95 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:39,100 So we could maybe see that using the legislative powers to force 96 00:04:39,100 --> 00:04:40,800 people to not be able to work there. 97 00:04:40,900 --> 00:04:43,200 Well maybe that's bad. But shouldn't we sort of 98 00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:47,100 collectively decide to boycott these organizations to decrease 99 00:04:47,100 --> 00:04:51,600 their bargaining power and maybe give them an incentive to pay 100 00:04:51,600 --> 00:04:55,800 the laborers more now. So boycotts, dry up the demand 101 00:04:55,800 --> 00:04:58,600 for the products, which dries up the demand for the labor, that 102 00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:02,000 pushes down wages and destroys jobs and pushes people back into 103 00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:04,800 subsistence agriculture. That's the Direction to go 104 00:05:04,900 --> 00:05:08,700 unless it's something like what goes on in the Weger Province in 105 00:05:08,700 --> 00:05:12,300 China now and what they're doing with forced internment of people 106 00:05:12,300 --> 00:05:15,100 and making them produce things that slave labor and you do want 107 00:05:15,100 --> 00:05:19,100 to drive up the dry up, excuse me, dry up the demand for that. 108 00:05:19,300 --> 00:05:22,000 But for places where workers voluntarily take their jobs, 109 00:05:22,600 --> 00:05:25,500 boycotting them ends up, throwing them back to the worse 110 00:05:25,500 --> 00:05:29,400 alternatives. You go back to sweatshops from 111 00:05:29,400 --> 00:05:33,500 the year, 1780 all the way up until I believe 2020. 112 00:05:33,500 --> 00:05:37,400 Just amazing research in in this book at any point. 113 00:05:37,400 --> 00:05:42,100 Did you sort of find there being a lot of influential politicians 114 00:05:42,100 --> 00:05:46,800 or philosophers that gave us the idea that offering someone a job 115 00:05:46,800 --> 00:05:50,000 as evil exploitation? But offering someone nothing no 116 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:52,400 products and no Services. Well that's great and you're a 117 00:05:52,407 --> 00:05:56,000 member of the proletariat and we need to Riot together how that 118 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:59,300 seems so How did that idea ever come to so many people? 119 00:05:59,900 --> 00:06:02,700 Yeah, I mean I think you find it more in philosophy than 120 00:06:02,700 --> 00:06:04,900 economics baby. But the idea that there's 121 00:06:04,900 --> 00:06:07,500 certain minimum standards that you must agree to interact with 122 00:06:07,500 --> 00:06:10,300 somebody and it would be wrong to interact with them on any 123 00:06:10,300 --> 00:06:12,800 less than that. But that's somehow it's not 124 00:06:12,800 --> 00:06:15,300 wrong to ignore them at all. So, in the context of 125 00:06:15,300 --> 00:06:19,100 sweatshops, the company that exclusively buys made in the 126 00:06:19,100 --> 00:06:22,900 USA, Labor and benefits unionized wealthy workers in the 127 00:06:22,900 --> 00:06:27,000 United States. Is somehow more moral than A 128 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:30,000 company that goes and gives a step up to poor workers in 129 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:33,300 Indonesia, that doesn't meet the threshold that the philosopher 130 00:06:33,300 --> 00:06:37,900 believes is necessary but seems to be making their lives better 131 00:06:37,900 --> 00:06:39,200 than someone who's ignoring them. 132 00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:41,300 I've always found that to be a strange position. 133 00:06:42,400 --> 00:06:46,800 When it comes to us, being able to visually see, all right, 134 00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:49,700 South Korea, Singapore America, Great Britain. 135 00:06:49,700 --> 00:06:52,100 They did have all these sweatshops and now, they're much 136 00:06:52,100 --> 00:06:53,600 wealthier than they were previously. 137 00:06:53,900 --> 00:06:56,700 But in a lot of these places you could find government 138 00:06:56,700 --> 00:07:00,800 legislation or labor supported laws coming about at the same 139 00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:02,900 time as we see these labor improvements. 140 00:07:03,200 --> 00:07:05,600 How are we able to determine whether an increase in the 141 00:07:05,600 --> 00:07:09,000 standard of living is the result of free markets or government 142 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:11,400 legislation? Yeah, I addressed exactly this. 143 00:07:11,600 --> 00:07:13,900 In the book. Keith so by the way, most poor 144 00:07:13,900 --> 00:07:16,700 countries today also have anti child labor laws and things like 145 00:07:16,700 --> 00:07:19,600 that that just largely aren't enforced now but if you go back 146 00:07:19,600 --> 00:07:22,600 and do our history, the United States first anti child, labor 147 00:07:22,600 --> 00:07:25,800 law was passed in the 1840s in Massachusetts. 148 00:07:26,300 --> 00:07:29,100 Here's what it said. Children under 12 years of age 149 00:07:29,100 --> 00:07:33,500 can't work more than 10 hours per day in a factory so 150 00:07:34,700 --> 00:07:38,000 eleven-year-old 60-hour workweek switch for the norm than of 10 151 00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:39,500 hours. Monday through Saturday. 152 00:07:39,700 --> 00:07:41,500 That was fine. Just no more than that. 153 00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:45,300 And once you're 12, that doesn't apply and you can find these 154 00:07:45,300 --> 00:07:48,200 types of restrictions and other US states, you can find them in 155 00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:50,900 Great Britain, you can find them in France back when we were 156 00:07:50,900 --> 00:07:53,700 poorer and less productive. The laws that they passed for 157 00:07:53,700 --> 00:07:56,800 largely symbolic, they weren't binding, they didn't stop actual 158 00:07:56,800 --> 00:07:59,300 child labor and the same goes for health and safety laws and 159 00:07:59,300 --> 00:08:02,300 other things like that. What we find is as the economy 160 00:08:02,300 --> 00:08:08,100 grew children left the workforce work for workplace safety 161 00:08:08,100 --> 00:08:10,200 improved and laws continue to be passed. 162 00:08:10,200 --> 00:08:13,100 The largely codified, what was already going on? 163 00:08:13,300 --> 00:08:16,100 We didn't get National child, labor law and the United States 164 00:08:16,100 --> 00:08:17,800 anti child, labor law, in the United States. 165 00:08:17,900 --> 00:08:20,700 It's all 1938. Basically, once we were past the 166 00:08:20,700 --> 00:08:24,500 stage of sweatshop development. Anyway, and economists when they 167 00:08:24,500 --> 00:08:28,300 study both anti child labor laws and mandatory School, attendance 168 00:08:28,300 --> 00:08:31,000 laws, they find. Once you control for economic 169 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:33,500 growth, these laws did little to change. 170 00:08:33,700 --> 00:08:36,600 Been working or attending school that tells me that they're 171 00:08:36,600 --> 00:08:39,400 basically trailing the market process of development and 172 00:08:39,400 --> 00:08:41,799 codifying what's already happening and, you know, maybe 173 00:08:41,799 --> 00:08:44,400 picking up a laggard here or there, but the thrust of the 174 00:08:44,400 --> 00:08:47,400 change comes from us becoming more productive and returned. 175 00:08:47,400 --> 00:08:50,000 By the way, that makes sense. Most of us don't want our kids 176 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:53,600 working, but when you're in extreme poverty, sometimes that 177 00:08:53,600 --> 00:08:57,500 child labor is necessary to feed clothes shelter, the family, as 178 00:08:57,500 --> 00:08:59,600 soon as you get those needs taken care of child. 179 00:08:59,600 --> 00:09:02,800 Labor tends to decrease and we can see this in modern times 2. 180 00:09:03,600 --> 00:09:06,900 Look, particularly at one study that was done in Vietnam, 181 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:10,100 tracking individual families and it's not just a nice linear 182 00:09:10,100 --> 00:09:13,000 relationship. As economic growth is like this 183 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:15,200 on the screen as economic growth goes up. 184 00:09:15,200 --> 00:09:18,000 Child, labor goes down. Know it's like jumps once you 185 00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:21,400 get out of extreme poverty, like can get 2,000 calories per 186 00:09:21,400 --> 00:09:25,000 family member big drop in child Labour, then around food 187 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:26,600 shelter, clothing, the official poverty line. 188 00:09:26,700 --> 00:09:30,100 Boom, another big drop and that was going on during a decade of 189 00:09:30,100 --> 00:09:33,400 growth in Vietnam in the 1990s, that tracked individual. 190 00:09:33,700 --> 00:09:38,200 Ways and the children working. With things like inflation. 191 00:09:38,200 --> 00:09:42,500 It can be very difficult to measure economic growth because 192 00:09:42,600 --> 00:09:45,400 money doesn't necessarily mean. You have a ton of growth. 193 00:09:45,400 --> 00:09:49,200 We've seen hyperinflation in Zimbabwe in Germany and a number 194 00:09:49,200 --> 00:09:52,000 of other places. What are some reliable metrics 195 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:55,900 that we can use to judge whether an economy is growing stagnating 196 00:09:55,900 --> 00:09:59,100 or shrinking, okay? I'm going to try not to get too 197 00:09:59,100 --> 00:10:01,100 much of an econ, dork on your here right now. 198 00:10:01,300 --> 00:10:04,600 So I mean, when a condom is talk about prices or talk about 199 00:10:04,900 --> 00:10:07,500 income statistics were always Adjusting for inflation, but 200 00:10:07,500 --> 00:10:10,200 inflation adjustments are not perfect. 201 00:10:10,900 --> 00:10:13,200 There's lots of things that make them either under state, or over 202 00:10:13,200 --> 00:10:15,700 State depending what's going on. But when we're talking about 203 00:10:15,700 --> 00:10:20,200 like long-run development, if we look at things like GDP per 204 00:10:20,200 --> 00:10:25,400 capita, life expectancy literacy headcount at the poverty line of 205 00:10:25,400 --> 00:10:29,200 extreme poverty. All these things tend to go in 206 00:10:29,200 --> 00:10:32,500 the same direction, you get some places where there's some weird 207 00:10:32,500 --> 00:10:36,000 anomalies but for the most part they move together, and that's a 208 00:10:36,100 --> 00:10:39,200 Sign of Economic Development and growth, an anomaly would be like 209 00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:42,900 Cuba's Healthcare statistics in the life expectancy in Cuba 210 00:10:43,200 --> 00:10:45,600 verse. How poor they are on other 211 00:10:45,600 --> 00:10:50,500 margins and PS part of that is them cooking the books. 212 00:10:51,900 --> 00:10:56,500 Well, I guess we could measure that to cuban-americans and see 213 00:10:56,500 --> 00:11:00,600 if it's maybe a cultural thing as that ever been done to you 214 00:11:00,600 --> 00:11:03,800 know, of any stats like that. Well, no part of what they're 215 00:11:03,800 --> 00:11:05,400 doing is literally cooking the books. 216 00:11:05,600 --> 00:11:08,600 They make people have forced abortions on high-risk 217 00:11:08,600 --> 00:11:11,600 pregnancies and if you kill the baby before it's born, it 218 00:11:11,608 --> 00:11:13,700 doesn't make it into life expectancy statistics. 219 00:11:13,900 --> 00:11:17,500 If it dies shortly after birth, a one-week-old dying does a lot 220 00:11:17,500 --> 00:11:21,200 to move the number when your average is 80 years old, If it 221 00:11:21,200 --> 00:11:23,500 hurts your life expectancy statistics, that's part of it. 222 00:11:23,500 --> 00:11:25,700 The other part is a centrally planned economy and they force a 223 00:11:25,708 --> 00:11:29,600 lot of resources into Healthcare at the expense of other things. 224 00:11:29,600 --> 00:11:31,800 People would like. Anyway, that's just an example 225 00:11:31,800 --> 00:11:34,300 of a weird anomaly one, but for the most part these things go 226 00:11:34,300 --> 00:11:38,100 together. So if I look at people in 227 00:11:38,100 --> 00:11:40,400 America assume, I'm just a nationalist. 228 00:11:40,700 --> 00:11:44,900 And I say, I want the working class, as if other people don't 229 00:11:44,900 --> 00:11:48,800 work, I want these people to have higher incomes. 230 00:11:48,800 --> 00:11:51,500 I want them to be wealthier. Why should I see Port free 231 00:11:51,500 --> 00:11:54,300 markets. Well, free markets are the best 232 00:11:54,300 --> 00:11:57,100 at delivering that for the working class. 233 00:11:57,100 --> 00:12:00,000 The working class is going to be sensitive to the price of all of 234 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:02,900 the things that they consume if we free trip, if we trade freely 235 00:12:02,900 --> 00:12:06,300 with the rest of the world and bring in more, a greater variety 236 00:12:06,500 --> 00:12:09,000 of products at cheaper prices for them, that makes their real 237 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:12,700 earnings, their income go up. Now what it does is it changes 238 00:12:12,700 --> 00:12:16,300 the mix of the jobs, the working class and for that matter, 239 00:12:16,300 --> 00:12:19,500 everybody else in the United States is best suited to do when 240 00:12:19,500 --> 00:12:20,800 we trade with people in other countries. 241 00:12:20,900 --> 00:12:24,200 Trees who are more suited in econ speak, have lower 242 00:12:24,200 --> 00:12:27,200 opportunity, cost of producing particular Goods. 243 00:12:27,600 --> 00:12:31,000 By the way, the same game is true with immigration or with 244 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:32,800 International Trade. They're both two different ways 245 00:12:32,800 --> 00:12:36,800 to do International Trade, both change, the mix of jobs, that 246 00:12:36,800 --> 00:12:40,700 native-born Americans are best suited to do and both make the 247 00:12:40,700 --> 00:12:44,800 pie bigger for Americans. Overall, as a result, neither 248 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:48,100 impacts the total number of jobs available for the native-born 249 00:12:48,100 --> 00:12:50,300 population. It changes the mix. 250 00:12:51,500 --> 00:12:54,500 And in fact all of the gains from international trade or 251 00:12:54,508 --> 00:12:57,800 migration if you don't Shuffle the mix of jobs you don't get 252 00:12:57,800 --> 00:13:00,500 the games. So the reshuffling that comes 253 00:13:00,500 --> 00:13:04,100 with trade or migration that people bemoan is part of the 254 00:13:04,100 --> 00:13:07,400 necessary process of freeing labor up from things that it's 255 00:13:07,400 --> 00:13:10,800 not relatively best suited to do and reallocating it to where it 256 00:13:10,800 --> 00:13:14,800 can create greater value. You wrote a book called 257 00:13:14,800 --> 00:13:18,100 socialism sucks to economists drink their way through the 258 00:13:18,100 --> 00:13:22,300 unfree world. Now, socialism, I guess you 259 00:13:22,300 --> 00:13:25,800 could Define it, as simply helping people and making sure 260 00:13:25,900 --> 00:13:29,100 that no one's in absolute poverty, what's wrong with that? 261 00:13:29,900 --> 00:13:32,000 Well, that's not the definition of socialism. 262 00:13:32,100 --> 00:13:36,000 If we just talked about Pleasant outcomes in, you know, milk and 263 00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:37,500 honey. Everything feels nice. 264 00:13:37,700 --> 00:13:41,000 So, as socialism meant something to Mark's, it meant something 265 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:43,900 to, you know, more than 100 Years of To have studied it. 266 00:13:44,200 --> 00:13:47,100 And people throw this world are grounded, by the way, on both 267 00:13:47,100 --> 00:13:49,900 the left and the right misrepresent. 268 00:13:49,900 --> 00:13:53,900 What socialism is socialism means abolishing private 269 00:13:53,900 --> 00:13:57,400 ownership of the major factors of production, your Capital, 270 00:13:57,400 --> 00:13:59,800 your Machinery, your businesses and replacing them. 271 00:13:59,900 --> 00:14:02,700 I'll say with some form of collective ownership. 272 00:14:02,800 --> 00:14:05,600 In practice for any large Society, this means State 273 00:14:05,600 --> 00:14:09,600 ownership of the, major means of production, that's what it meant 274 00:14:09,600 --> 00:14:11,900 on your marks. That's what it meant in the 275 00:14:11,900 --> 00:14:13,600 Soviet Union. That meant. 276 00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:16,900 That's what it's meant to both Marxist and free-market 277 00:14:16,900 --> 00:14:19,200 economists who have talked about this for over a century. 278 00:14:20,500 --> 00:14:24,800 When it comes to the backend, the distribution of things, you 279 00:14:24,800 --> 00:14:27,800 might hear a lot of Democratic. Socialist, say, you know what, 280 00:14:27,800 --> 00:14:30,400 it's not the factors of production, we want to control. 281 00:14:30,500 --> 00:14:34,100 Its once all that, once all those goods are produced, we 282 00:14:34,100 --> 00:14:36,900 then want to be able to tax. And then redistribute those 283 00:14:36,900 --> 00:14:41,400 goods is that a different sort of economic system, or is that 284 00:14:41,500 --> 00:14:45,300 as other people would Define socialism the institutionalized 285 00:14:45,300 --> 00:14:46,900 aggression against private property? 286 00:14:47,400 --> 00:14:50,300 No, so lesson that if it is an infringement, Private property 287 00:14:50,300 --> 00:14:52,900 rights but it's not the whole set sail. 288 00:14:52,900 --> 00:14:55,400 Abolition of private property in the major factors of production. 289 00:14:55,400 --> 00:14:58,300 Which once you do you're going to replace with some system of 290 00:14:58,300 --> 00:15:02,000 command and control of how you organize economic activity. 291 00:15:02,100 --> 00:15:04,700 Because some people will talk about socialism From Below or 292 00:15:04,700 --> 00:15:09,300 squishy terms like this as if stuff just comes together like 293 00:15:09,700 --> 00:15:12,800 no you need like prices in a market economy, coordinate 294 00:15:12,800 --> 00:15:14,600 production. When you get rid of private 295 00:15:14,600 --> 00:15:17,100 property, you get rid of the prices that coordinate, you got 296 00:15:17,100 --> 00:15:19,500 to replace it with something that State Central. 297 00:15:19,600 --> 00:15:21,400 Anning. Now, when we talk about a 298 00:15:21,400 --> 00:15:24,000 welfare state, I think that's plenty of problems with the 299 00:15:24,008 --> 00:15:26,000 welfare state. My guess is having a Libertarian 300 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:28,900 podcast, a lot of your viewers probably do too. 301 00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:31,900 However we should not mistake them for socialism. 302 00:15:32,200 --> 00:15:35,000 So Sweden, which is the first chapter of that book that we 303 00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:39,100 visit, is a prime example of this sometimes. 304 00:15:39,100 --> 00:15:42,000 Fox News will say that's socialist, Sweden, and same at 305 00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:43,800 the same time. Bernie Sanders when you say, how 306 00:15:43,800 --> 00:15:45,800 could you be elected as a socialist, just say, well, I 307 00:15:45,800 --> 00:15:48,500 mean, like Sweden, both of these things are bullshit. 308 00:15:48,800 --> 00:15:53,100 Sweden. Is a capitalist economy Volvo is 309 00:15:53,100 --> 00:15:55,400 privately owned. Go to a restaurant or a hotel. 310 00:15:55,400 --> 00:15:58,000 It's privately owned prices coordinated activity. 311 00:15:58,100 --> 00:16:01,300 They have pretty close to free. International trade, strong, 312 00:16:01,300 --> 00:16:03,300 private property, rights sound money. 313 00:16:03,500 --> 00:16:07,000 Light regulation of business. What Sweden does have is really 314 00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:10,500 high taxes and redistribution in a welfare state, and a bunch of 315 00:16:10,500 --> 00:16:13,700 Labor Market race. I think that's messed up, and 316 00:16:13,900 --> 00:16:15,700 when it was at its worst, it dragged down. 317 00:16:15,700 --> 00:16:18,900 Swedish growth Sweden was laissez-faire from mid 19th 318 00:16:18,900 --> 00:16:21,600 century to me. 20th century. They grew to be the fourth, 319 00:16:21,600 --> 00:16:24,200 wealthiest nation in the world. They put in their big welfare 320 00:16:24,200 --> 00:16:27,000 state and high taxes. It didn't impoverish them like 321 00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:29,200 socialism, it's slowed their growth. 322 00:16:29,400 --> 00:16:32,600 So they became bottom half of the oecd countries. 323 00:16:32,600 --> 00:16:34,800 You know the club of rich countries from fourth in the 324 00:16:34,800 --> 00:16:38,100 world down to the bottom tail. Other people group asked, I 325 00:16:38,100 --> 00:16:40,500 think that's a problem but I wouldn't confuse it with 326 00:16:40,500 --> 00:16:43,000 socialism. When you mention light 327 00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:47,100 regulations, can you think of any regulations that America has 328 00:16:47,100 --> 00:16:50,900 that they don't end Sweden? Well, these last couple years. 329 00:16:50,900 --> 00:16:52,200 Yeah, that's really freaking easy. 330 00:16:53,300 --> 00:16:55,600 Yeah, sweet. And in addition to doing pretty 331 00:16:55,600 --> 00:16:57,400 well in the economic freedom index is over. 332 00:16:57,400 --> 00:16:58,900 So there's something. By the way, your listeners 333 00:16:58,900 --> 00:17:01,800 should look it up called economic freedom of the world 334 00:17:01,800 --> 00:17:04,700 annual report. The website is free, the world, 335 00:17:04,700 --> 00:17:07,300 got organs, the easy one to remember and you could get a 336 00:17:07,308 --> 00:17:10,400 listing of countries, measured economic freedom, across five 337 00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:13,599 big areas. Sweden usually falls in the top 338 00:17:13,800 --> 00:17:17,400 quarter of the index, but somewhere, 25 to 35, is 339 00:17:17,400 --> 00:17:20,099 something like that. So to of Norway, A and the rest 340 00:17:20,099 --> 00:17:23,599 of the Nordic countries. But in these last few years of 341 00:17:23,599 --> 00:17:27,099 course Sweden leg regulated covid River relatively right 342 00:17:27,099 --> 00:17:29,100 lightly. And I would say you know we've 343 00:17:29,100 --> 00:17:32,200 seen hygiene socialism around the world or a form of it. 344 00:17:32,200 --> 00:17:35,300 These last few years of command and control bureaucrats telling 345 00:17:35,300 --> 00:17:38,300 us what Market activities and social activities, we can engage 346 00:17:38,300 --> 00:17:41,600 in and not and Sweden did relatively little of that and by 347 00:17:41,600 --> 00:17:43,700 the way, so did the rest of the Nordic countries, they all come 348 00:17:43,700 --> 00:17:44,400 out. Good on this too. 349 00:17:44,600 --> 00:17:48,000 And I actually just published a new study today or released a 350 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:51,400 new study today that a The economic freedom rankings for 351 00:17:51,400 --> 00:17:54,800 the covid restrictions and sure enough, Sweden pops up even 352 00:17:54,800 --> 00:17:57,500 higher into the capitalist rankings and so does actually 353 00:17:57,500 --> 00:18:00,900 Norway and Finland, go up really high, but all of them do very 354 00:18:00,900 --> 00:18:04,100 well on that. So mandatory workplace closure 355 00:18:04,100 --> 00:18:05,800 stay-at-home orders. There's nothing sweet and wasn't 356 00:18:05,800 --> 00:18:07,400 getting that. We all got the last few years. 357 00:18:07,700 --> 00:18:09,100 Yeah. Really. 358 00:18:09,400 --> 00:18:15,500 When it comes to Swedish immigrants to America and taking 359 00:18:15,500 --> 00:18:19,900 their net worth versus the net worth of the average Swede Did 360 00:18:19,900 --> 00:18:21,900 you guys measure that by any chance? 361 00:18:22,700 --> 00:18:25,100 No, we did it. I suspect the average. 362 00:18:25,300 --> 00:18:30,300 Hmm, I don't know. Got it when it comes to. 363 00:18:30,300 --> 00:18:31,500 Yes. But it would really just be 364 00:18:31,700 --> 00:18:36,600 guessing When it comes to the concept of private property, you 365 00:18:36,600 --> 00:18:40,600 might think that this would give some people a great amount of 366 00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:43,700 institutional power, and allow them to be selfish at the 367 00:18:43,700 --> 00:18:47,100 expense of the rest of us. Why is private property? 368 00:18:47,600 --> 00:18:50,100 What is private property and why is it important? 369 00:18:50,700 --> 00:18:53,500 Well, here's the thing with private property of capitalism, 370 00:18:53,500 --> 00:18:56,200 you have competition. So the only way you get 371 00:18:56,200 --> 00:18:58,900 something from somebody else, is by offering them a deal, they 372 00:18:58,900 --> 00:19:02,200 accept? I offer you this. 373 00:19:02,300 --> 00:19:05,000 You can take or you cannot take and it might be that, you might 374 00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:08,400 not have very many other offers that look better, but you still 375 00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:11,300 have the ability to say no under socialism. 376 00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:13,200 There's a Monopoly called the state. 377 00:19:13,300 --> 00:19:16,000 Remember State ownership of the means of production means 378 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:18,800 they're going to dictate how everything gets put together and 379 00:19:18,800 --> 00:19:21,400 made. And by the way, you are part of 380 00:19:21,400 --> 00:19:24,600 the means of production, labor is one of the factors of the 381 00:19:24,600 --> 00:19:27,200 means of production. You can't control an economy 382 00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:29,300 without controlling the laborers there. 383 00:19:29,300 --> 00:19:31,400 You don't have A choice, you have command. 384 00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:34,800 And by the way, you lose your other type of choice to your 385 00:19:35,300 --> 00:19:37,600 political voice, your political choice. 386 00:19:37,800 --> 00:19:40,900 So economists since the great Ludwig, von mises have known 387 00:19:40,900 --> 00:19:44,800 that economic calculation under socialism is impossible, but 388 00:19:44,800 --> 00:19:46,800 there's another type of thing that's not quite an 389 00:19:46,808 --> 00:19:49,700 impossibility, but it almost is. And that's maintaining 390 00:19:49,700 --> 00:19:52,700 Democratic freedoms, while having a socialist government. 391 00:19:53,100 --> 00:19:56,700 So if you look around the world, economically free 392 00:19:56,700 --> 00:19:59,300 democratically. Free tend to go together unfree, 393 00:19:59,300 --> 00:20:01,700 unfree, too. Together the off, diagonals are 394 00:20:01,700 --> 00:20:03,800 kind of rare, you get some exceptions, like Singapore. 395 00:20:03,800 --> 00:20:05,900 We don't have political freedoms, but you have economic 396 00:20:05,900 --> 00:20:09,200 freedoms. But what you don't see is that 397 00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:13,000 other off diagonal of, oh, Democratic socialism. 398 00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:16,000 We have no economic freedom. We have our Democratic freedoms 399 00:20:16,300 --> 00:20:19,400 because once you centralize control over the means of 400 00:20:19,400 --> 00:20:22,300 production, you've centralized the ability to punish 401 00:20:22,300 --> 00:20:25,200 opposition. You can't maintain a free and 402 00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:27,300 independent political voice against the regime if they 403 00:20:27,300 --> 00:20:29,100 control your economic livelihood. 404 00:20:29,300 --> 00:20:32,100 So the only example that I can think of in recent years that 405 00:20:32,100 --> 00:20:36,800 approximated this was Venezuela and notice I said, was so 406 00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:41,000 Maduro, excuse me, Chavez was democratically elected in 1998, 407 00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:44,500 he democratically put in a new socialist Constitution and then 408 00:20:44,500 --> 00:20:49,600 soon thereafter people lost their free democracy, their 409 00:20:49,600 --> 00:20:52,600 economic freedoms, went to hell. Now for a while things look good 410 00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:53,800 there. While oil prices were high 411 00:20:53,800 --> 00:20:55,800 because they sit on the world's largest oil reserves. 412 00:20:56,600 --> 00:20:59,200 They were basically able to export oil, use the earnings to 413 00:20:59,200 --> 00:21:01,900 import Goods. For Venezuela, meanwhile, even 414 00:21:01,900 --> 00:21:05,100 during the 2000s, when things seem good food production was 415 00:21:05,100 --> 00:21:09,500 declining in Venezuela, but once 2013 hits an oil, prices come 416 00:21:09,500 --> 00:21:10,800 down. And by the way, production came 417 00:21:10,800 --> 00:21:12,700 down, because the state wasn't very good at running an oil 418 00:21:12,700 --> 00:21:17,300 company, then the game was up, but like Maduro got re-elected 419 00:21:17,300 --> 00:21:20,300 with something like seventy percent of the popular vote 420 00:21:20,300 --> 00:21:25,200 recently, but in an economy that had hyperinflation and the 421 00:21:25,200 --> 00:21:28,100 average Venezuelan losing more than 20 pounds that year. 422 00:21:28,500 --> 00:21:29,700 They didn't all find Jenny Craig. 423 00:21:29,800 --> 00:21:33,600 Egg usually high unemployment High inflation is a good way to 424 00:21:33,600 --> 00:21:35,600 get. Voted out of office, take 425 00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:39,300 hyperinflation and literal starvation, and you get over 60, 426 00:21:39,300 --> 00:21:42,400 70 percent voter approval. That tells me that their 427 00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:46,800 democracy is a sham I'm sending Dinesh D'Souza there to see if 428 00:21:46,800 --> 00:21:50,200 there were any mules, but casting votes on behalf of the 429 00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:54,200 citizens when it comes to the claim of inequality, you can 430 00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:57,800 walk into places like San Francisco or New York, and you 431 00:21:57,800 --> 00:22:02,100 will see literal homelessness people, starving and wearing 432 00:22:02,100 --> 00:22:03,900 rags. And then you'll see, you know, 433 00:22:03,908 --> 00:22:08,300 these Mansions, you'll see these skyscrapers things that are 434 00:22:08,300 --> 00:22:11,700 worth billions of dollars. Probably, how can you justify 435 00:22:11,700 --> 00:22:15,500 the free market system when It creates such a drastic 436 00:22:15,500 --> 00:22:16,700 inequalities. Yeah. 437 00:22:16,700 --> 00:22:18,600 Actually, I'd say what you're describing is not the free 438 00:22:18,600 --> 00:22:21,200 market system. So, I want to be clear that when 439 00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:24,000 we talk about free markets, that defending capitalism, or things 440 00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:26,100 like that, that does not synonymous with the current 441 00:22:26,100 --> 00:22:28,900 United States on the Spectrum. The United States is more in 442 00:22:28,900 --> 00:22:31,800 that direction than some other places but that's kind of like 443 00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:34,600 being the tallest dwarf. So, it's interesting that you 444 00:22:34,600 --> 00:22:36,400 say San Francisco, New York City. 445 00:22:36,900 --> 00:22:38,600 What's one of the big drivers? Not the only. 446 00:22:38,600 --> 00:22:41,200 But one of the big drivers are homelessness is unaffordable 447 00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:43,800 housing. But why do we have unaffordable? 448 00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:46,800 In those places, it's because of government restrictions on 449 00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:50,200 building things that prevent competition from creating more 450 00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:53,000 housing and driving down its price to make it more 451 00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:56,200 affordable. California has long been a 452 00:22:56,300 --> 00:23:00,100 leader in doing that, with putting land off limits with 453 00:23:00,100 --> 00:23:04,500 putting permit moratoria height, restrictions minimum lot size as 454 00:23:04,500 --> 00:23:08,000 minimum setbacks inclusionary zoning, which is a name for 455 00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:09,300 Price. Controlling, a portion of new 456 00:23:09,300 --> 00:23:11,500 development California's, the worst on this New York's pretty 457 00:23:11,500 --> 00:23:14,100 bad too. I remember a class, Asik 458 00:23:14,100 --> 00:23:16,600 studies, maybe 20 years old now but that's before the problem 459 00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:18,500 even got as bad as it is in San Francisco. 460 00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:22,400 But back then they looked at the difference between the physical 461 00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:26,400 construction cost of a new home and the price of a new home and 462 00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:29,000 said, how much of this is intrinsically scarce land? 463 00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:31,700 It was scarce land. Driving it double the lot size, 464 00:23:31,900 --> 00:23:33,900 hold the rest of the house constant and you should double 465 00:23:33,900 --> 00:23:36,700 that differential. Instead they find about a 10% 466 00:23:36,700 --> 00:23:39,600 change. So 90% of the scarcity was 467 00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:43,600 government permission to build not intrinsically, scarce land. 468 00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:47,500 This homelessness crisis is in part a major part, A government 469 00:23:47,500 --> 00:23:49,900 created. One of not letting capitalism 470 00:23:49,900 --> 00:23:52,700 work to build or as Brian Caplan's new book. 471 00:23:52,700 --> 00:23:54,800 Coming out is called build baby build. 472 00:23:55,900 --> 00:23:57,700 God, does that guy ever? Stop writing. 473 00:23:57,700 --> 00:24:01,000 Don't be a feminist came out two days ago and he's already coming 474 00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:03,600 out with a new one. What are some examples? 475 00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:07,400 Historically of deregulation? Increasing the quality of goods 476 00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:09,800 and services and decreasing the price. 477 00:24:12,100 --> 00:24:15,300 You mean like economy-wide? I mean we have the products or 478 00:24:15,300 --> 00:24:20,600 services or countries. So I think one of the countries 479 00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:22,200 that we explore in socialism socks. 480 00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:25,600 That's one of the inspiring ones to look at today's, the country 481 00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:29,400 of Georgia, the former Soviet Republic south of Russia, east 482 00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:33,300 of the Black Sea, north of Iran, kind of a tough Geographic spot. 483 00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:36,600 It in fact, partially occupied by Russian troops right now and 484 00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:41,100 has been for a while but they had essentially no reform. 485 00:24:41,500 --> 00:24:46,100 Fall of the Soviet Union until the mid-2000s you get the rose 486 00:24:46,100 --> 00:24:48,700 Revolution. Mikhail Saakashvili goes around 487 00:24:48,700 --> 00:24:53,200 handing out roses gets elected he puts kaha been ducats in as 488 00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:56,500 his Finance Minister and kaha would be libertarian enough for 489 00:24:56,500 --> 00:24:58,800 you to have on the show and for him to maybe call you or 490 00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:01,500 somebody else's stateís. He was a hardcore like Roth 491 00:25:01,500 --> 00:25:04,300 party and libertarian type had. They put him in charge as 492 00:25:04,300 --> 00:25:07,400 Minister of Finance. And he did, radical 493 00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:10,800 privatization of State Property going to the highest bidder, no 494 00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:13,200 government Handouts know, anything else and it could even 495 00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:15,300 be a foreigner, even a Russian who would buy it. 496 00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:17,500 So private property funneled to those who could use it. 497 00:25:17,500 --> 00:25:21,200 Most efficiently drastically cut taxes, get down to a ten percent 498 00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:25,700 flat tax rate did massive layoffs of government sector. 499 00:25:25,900 --> 00:25:28,900 So he spiked unemployment up to like 30 something percent is 500 00:25:28,900 --> 00:25:31,400 first year. Now most people here 30% 501 00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:33,400 unemployment they think? Oh my God, that's bad. 502 00:25:33,500 --> 00:25:36,900 Well he was firing - productivity workers so it 503 00:25:36,900 --> 00:25:40,200 actually increased the country's productivity they had to get 504 00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:42,100 reallocated to the private. To where they could create 505 00:25:42,100 --> 00:25:45,600 value. But in fact one of them is he in 506 00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:49,100 fired the entire country's traffic police in one day and 507 00:25:49,100 --> 00:25:51,300 the joke is crime went down because they were some of the 508 00:25:51,300 --> 00:25:52,700 most corrupt people in the country. 509 00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:57,000 So Georgia this is what had been an economic Backwater turned 510 00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:00,100 around and started growing dramatically since then, you're 511 00:26:00,100 --> 00:26:02,900 still relatively poor because of her starting from a very low 512 00:26:02,900 --> 00:26:06,600 level, but they're about 30 percent richer than what they 513 00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:08,100 would have. Been in the counterfactual of 514 00:26:08,100 --> 00:26:10,800 staying, how they were in about a 10-year period of time. 515 00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:13,500 And in fact, they They taught that they cracked the top 10 of 516 00:26:13,500 --> 00:26:16,400 most economically free countries a couple years ago. 517 00:26:17,700 --> 00:26:21,200 You look at a country like America, that's very wealthy. 518 00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:24,000 That just one of the highest GDP is around. 519 00:26:24,100 --> 00:26:27,800 Then you see people without access to healthcare or 520 00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:32,100 education, therefore the state should step in and provide that 521 00:26:32,100 --> 00:26:34,800 education at no cost to those people this way. 522 00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:37,100 No one goes without Healthcare or education. 523 00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:40,100 What if anything is wrong with that logic? 524 00:26:40,700 --> 00:26:45,000 Well, plenty, they might be able to do it at no cost to somebody, 525 00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:47,900 but there's a cost for somebody else always. 526 00:26:47,900 --> 00:26:50,600 And then it's a question of, how do you rational if you're not 527 00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:54,200 using prices to ration it? And, you know, I'm sure you've 528 00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,100 talked before with other guests about the essentially death 529 00:26:57,100 --> 00:27:00,000 panels and other countries that have socialist economic, excuse 530 00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,200 me, Healthcare Systems. So this is like one area where 531 00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:05,700 you think about, you can think about a socialist economy or 532 00:27:05,700 --> 00:27:09,100 socialized industry. And I don't think it's an 533 00:27:09,100 --> 00:27:12,100 accident that you're talking about education and health care. 534 00:27:12,500 --> 00:27:16,600 One of them education K through 12 is probably 80 to 90%. 535 00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:18,900 And socialized in the United States. 536 00:27:18,900 --> 00:27:23,900 Government paid and provided and tremendously, inefficient, and 537 00:27:23,900 --> 00:27:26,200 negligent. And on the job, especially these 538 00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:28,800 last two years, when teachers unions like remote work 539 00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:33,400 vacations, Healthcare isn't socialized in the United States, 540 00:27:33,900 --> 00:27:37,900 but it's almost like a fascist industry where you have nominal 541 00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:42,500 private ownership, but extensive mandated government command and 542 00:27:42,500 --> 00:27:45,100 control over how the industry functions. 543 00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:47,700 And then, when it doesn't function, Manuel, you ask 544 00:27:47,700 --> 00:27:51,800 questions like how can capitalism solve that are? 545 00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,900 Why can't capitalism solve these two problems that seem 546 00:27:54,900 --> 00:27:57,000 essential? It's like, well here to areas 547 00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,500 where we're not really doing capitalism or free markets in 548 00:27:59,500 --> 00:28:04,600 the United States. When it comes to Health Care, 549 00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:10,000 Paul Krugman in 2004 said that 44 percent of healthcare is paid 550 00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:13,800 for and controlled by the state. He didn't also account for the 551 00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:17,200 FDA that was before Medicare Part D before the Affordable 552 00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:20,800 Care Act and Medicaid expansion. It's so corrupt that I'm shocked 553 00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:23,900 that they use that. As an example of, when Freedom 554 00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:30,100 falls short, final question in a free market, the worker goes to 555 00:28:30,100 --> 00:28:34,500 his job as told, where to Sit what to do Hebe lives more or 556 00:28:34,500 --> 00:28:39,000 less like a high-class slave. Therefore, what we need is for 557 00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:42,300 these decisions to not be made by some Elites at the top but to 558 00:28:42,300 --> 00:28:46,400 be made democratically in all working institutions. 559 00:28:46,500 --> 00:28:48,000 What if anything is wrong with that idea? 560 00:28:49,300 --> 00:28:52,000 I work at a university that's about as close to a worker run 561 00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:55,900 firm as you get with faculty governance and the inefficiency 562 00:28:55,900 --> 00:28:59,800 and waste is a parrot for out higher education, when you have 563 00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:05,300 people who don't Have a stake in the outcome voting on how to 564 00:29:05,300 --> 00:29:09,200 allocate resources that other people could otherwise manage, 565 00:29:09,300 --> 00:29:11,100 you get all sorts of perverse outcomes. 566 00:29:11,300 --> 00:29:14,400 Ultimately the recourse for workers in a free market. 567 00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:16,800 If you don't like, the conditions of your job, is to 568 00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:20,200 say goodbye and go get another job from another employer who 569 00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:25,800 offers you better conditions Check out the books socialism 570 00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:28,500 sucks out of poverty and retched. 571 00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:30,200 Refuse dr. Ben Powell. 572 00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:31,500 Thank you so much for your time sir. 573 00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:32,700 All right, thank you. Keith.