 topics today we're going to be talking about. One is this new organization called American Compass, which I think is a new think tank, run by a guy named Aaron Kass, who is Aaron. Aaron used to be in Mitt Romney's campaign in 2012 and is a senior fellow at Manhattan Institute, which is a very famous well-known think tank in New York. And Aaron has now funded his own think tank called American Campus and Compass. And I think it's really important and a real trend within the right. So we will look at them and we will look at the manifestation, at least of some of the ideas in the actions of the British Prime Minister recently, so with Boris Johnson's, sent to the Prime Minister's ship of Great Britain and we'll see the connections there. And then I want to talk about science and government funding. There's a fascinating article in the James Martin Center for Academic Renewals, I guess, website, fascinating article about science and government funding. And I think it's a crucial, crucial topic, crucial, crucial issue to be discussing because so much... Anyway, we'll get to talk about government funding of science and how government funding necessarily corrupts the science and why it's really, really bad to have government funding of science, which is my conclusion from the article, not the authors. But let's start with this new phenomena that the organizers are actually calling conservative economics, that is, not economics, not good economics, bad economics, not Marxist economics or free market economics, but a different kind of economics, a different kind of approach to looking at economics, a different kind of approach, a looking at the world which they call conservative economics. Now, as we go through this, you'll notice that it's quite familiar because it's a kind of a topic I've been discussing for many, many, many, many months, actually for a few years now. And that is my expectation of where the right is going to go. That is with the election of Trump. What are the consequences to the right? And I've said one of the probably the most damaging consequences of the Trump election is the complete decimation of whatever factions within the right believed in free markets to any extent. They're decimated. They're either kicked out of the Republican Party, completely marginalized by the right, or they have folded and completely surrendered and completely retreated into kind of a nationalist view of economics. And I provided plenty of evidence, plenty and plenty of evidence that that is indeed happening. We saw that with that conference last year of the nationalist, of the conservative nationalists. They were focused more on issues like immigration. They were focused more on issues of culture, of social programs, of government's role in regulating morality and instituting certain criteria, moral criteria, into government programs, into government stuff. So conservative nationalism was a big thing last year. And it delved into the realm of economics a little bit by discussing industrial policy. But that clearly wasn't a focus. The focus was nationalism, immigration, culture, and everything that that kind of implies and restrictions on our social liberties and our social freedoms. This new idea of conservative economics is filling in the blanks. It's saying, okay, yes, we need to move towards this conservative nationalism. But don't forget economics. Economics is very crucial. It's very crucial to the family. It's very crucial to society. It's very crucial to communities. And we need to think in terms of the economy as conservatives, not as free marketers. Indeed, what we need to do, the conservative economists now tell us what we need to do is abandon the idea, the false God of free market economics. We need to abandon the idea of markets, of profit, of freedom, of free trade, of free trade within the United States of free trade outside of the United States. And we need to look not just economic efficiency, not just the economic production, not just at maximizing economic success, but we need to look at things like the impact of economic policies on the family, the impact of economic policies on the working class, the impact of economic policies on inequality. Yes, on inequality. The right now led, I guess, by American compass, a very influential, new brand new think tank, established by Cass, now says what we have to do is look very carefully, very carefully at inequality. Inequality is a real problem they identified. And we need economic policies that take that into account, to take all the social stuff that the left has been telling us, all the social stuff that Tucker has been talking about. And what we need is a new approach to economics that does not just look at the numbers. And it's kind of founding editorial in the national review. Orin Cass writes that American compass, an organization dedicated is dedicated to helping American conservatism recover, recover from its chronic case of market fundamentalism. So the problem we are told with American conservatism, the problem we are told with American right is that it has been overly dedicated to economic freedom. It has placed economic freedom above all else. And as a consequence, I guess we got laissez-fait economics in the United States, we just failed. And as a consequence, we need to look for another alternative. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. That didn't happen. We never had laissez-fait economics. We've never had free market economics. But what these people are saying is, maybe we've never have it, but the right has always been obsessed by it, focused on it. That would be a shock to Ayn Rand. That would be a shock to those of us who actually consider ourselves capitalists, free marketeers. Conservatives have always held back. Conservatives have always compromised. Conservatives have always emphasized non-economic issues, non-freedom issues, in trying to manipulate, maneuver, you know, centrally plan our economy. Conservatives have been the last people to defend free markets, to defend capitalism, to defend true freedom and liberty. And now, conservatives are saying, oh, no, we went too far. We defended capitalism too much. It is truly insane. It is truly insane to associate free markets with anything conservative. Conservatives abandon free markets at their birth, the birth of conservatives. William M. Buckley was never a free marketer. The National Review, which published this announcement by American Compass, was never free market. The Neoconservatives have never been free market. No version of conservatism has stood for the free market. I mean, Ronald Reagan, who might have given a great talk, a great speech about the virtues of free markets, when he was in power, was not a free market president. Indeed, government deficits grew out of control under Ronald Reagan. George Bush, maybe? Was he this free market icon? Defender of free markets? Well, no. Regulations was under, you know, was out of control under Bush. We got Saban's Oxley, one of the largest regulatory bills since the Great Depression, was passed by Bush and Republican Congress, 99 to zero, it passed the Senate. I mean, when was this great era of free market economics in the Republican Party or in conservative thinking? Passed over me. I never saw it. Where is this great libertarian, so-called libertarian free market influence on the Republican Party? I don't know. I've never seen it. Now it is true that most conservative think tanks, more think tanks on the right, present themselves as, oh, we're here to advance the principles of limited government, free enterprise of individual liberty. And then they propose Obamacare from Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. I'm talking about heritage. They all talk about free markets, limited government, free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, but none of them actually live up to that. They're all, almost all of them are compromises. That's what differentiates conservative from the free market think tanks. They're a really free market and are not conservative. It's not just on the social issues. But now we are told by the remnants that the parts of the right that are trying to be intellectual, while recognizing that Trump has completely shifted the political map, while recognizes that the new constituency that supports the Republican Party is not pro markets, is not pro trade, is not pro liberty. Then I'm telling us that the Republican Party, that the conservative movement has been way too dedicated to market fundamentalism. They've been sane. They're lying to us. But this is the story they're telling. Now they on the other hand, they on the other hand, are gonna be much more aware of the impact of economic policy on the working class, on inequality on the family. I mean, they could be from the left. So what they're advocating is what they're calling a conservative approach to economics. They want to prioritize. They want to prioritize in economics. The traditional structures of family and community that provide the foundations of a flourishing society, or the capabilities that a nation must nurture and sustain to remain strong. They say, look, we've done all this economic freedom. Really? Where? What economic freedom? We have capitalism in America today. We have economic freedom today in America. They tell us the consequence of all that economic freedom, consequence of economic freedom are collapsing families, shuttering communities, stagnating wages, and declining life expectancy. That is the consequence of too much economic freedom. I have to say these people are dishonest. They know better. They know we do not live in a capitalist society. They know the government regulates everything, right? Everything across the board. They know the taxes all over the place, all kinds of taxes. They know that we massively redistribute wealth. And yet all the problems of the world we have today, all the problems of America we have today, are too much economic freedom. This is what you get from the Trump Revolution. This is what you get on the right when you elect Donald Trump. He has basically eviscerated the right. There is no voices on the right anymore. To the extent that they have existed, but they're none now who advocate for actual economic freedom, for actual economic liberty, for actual capitalism, or partial capitalism. Capitalism now is the straw man. Capitalism now is the excuse. Capitalism now is at fault for every problem that we faced. So take, and I've talked about this guy, Senator John Hawley, who is a big supporter of the American compass and this new approach to conservative economics. And I've talked about Josh Hawley as a freshman senator from the state of Missouri, I think. And again, the support of American compass, and he has written recently, quote, public philosophy says liberty is all about choosing your own ends. Yep, liberty to a large extent is about choosing your own rational values and having the freedom to pursue them. That's what liberty means. So he writes public philosophy says liberty is all about choosing our own ends. That turns out to be a philosophy for the privileged, for everybody else, those whose life is anchored in family and home and nation. For those who actually want to participate in our democracy, today's philosophy robs them of the liberty that is rightfully theirs. So the right today is more left than the left. The right today in the name of family, home and nation, wants to regulate, wants to regulate and control our economic lives. But more than that, it wants to regulate and control our values. It wants to tell us that liberty is not about choosing your own ends, not about choosing your own values. Then what is it about? Marco Rubio recently wrote quote, we have become defenders of the right of business to make a profit, the right of shareholders to receive a return on their investment, and the obligation and the obligation people have the obligation of people to have to work. But we have neglected the rights of workers to share in the benefits they create for their employer and the obligation of business to act in the best interest of the workers of the country that have made their success possible. What's the difference now between the left and the right? What's the difference now between Marco Rubio and John Hawley and Sanders? The only difference is that Sanders is honest. He calls what he advocates socialism. Somebody says I'm straw manning. I'm reading that these are quotes from conservatives. Marco Rubio is a conservative tea party conservative. John Hawley is a rising star within the conservative movement. Where is the straw manning? These are conservatives. This is published in the National Review, a conservative magazine. I'm reading their words, not my words, their words. Conservative economics, they write, will take seriously the effects of social and market forces on each other. Pernicious effects, the high levels of economic inequality. That's a talking point from the left. Pernicious effects at high levels of economic inequality can have on the social fabric, the markets functioning and people's wellbeing, regardless of absolute material living stardust. This is straw manning. This is an exact quote I'm reading from the words of a conservative waiting in the National Review talking about the evils of inequality, talking about the talking points of Elizabeth Warren, the talking points of Bernie Sanders. They've adopted them. I'm not chair picking. Go read the article. I'm basically reading you the entire article. Read it. National Review. I'll give you the date. It's called American Compass. Economics with people included. Article by Oren Cass. From Manhattan Institute, Conservative Institution published in the National Review or Conservative Magazine. Quoting, quoting John Rawley, Josh Rawley, a Republican from Missouri, considered a conservative, Senator Marco Rubio, a tea party conservative. And by the way, I've talked about Marco Rubio. I've showed you video of Marco Rubio. I've showed you video and talked about Josh Hawley. These people are conservatives and yet they are leftists when it comes to economics. Strongmaning, stop the dishonesty people, stop defending the indefensible, stop defending a right that is completely changed, that is completely shifted under Trump to being socialist in its essence from an economic perspective, having abandoned whatever little bit of economic freedom they believed in. Conservative economics, he writes, will also quote equal respect for the conservatives of capital and labor. Where have we heard that before? Rather than claiming that whatever is best for shareholders in the short run, nobody argues that what's best for shareholders in the short run is good. That's a complete misunderstanding what shareholders are. The people strongmaning are the conservatives. The people strongmaning are the people who claim that all our problems today are consequence of economic freedom, economic liberty. But that's what these people, these conservatives are saying. The mission of this American compass is to establish an American consensus that emphasizes the importance of family, community and industry to the nation's liberty and prosperity. That is the new conservatism. That is what they're about. You don't believe me? Go read it for yourself. You know, you don't have to. What's interesting, I found, is as I'm reading about this, right, as I'm reading about this, as I'm reading about the new right, this particular form of conservatism, which is heavily associated with the conservative nationalism that I talked about last year, you know, that had a whole conference and has now journals and people arguing and a huge debate within the conservative world. By the way, I'm doing an event in two weeks at Clemson University with Andrew Sullivan. And Andrew Sullivan is a Catholic gay conservative who I think very much agrees with many of these points. He's become more and more anti-capitalist over time. And it's going to be fascinating to actually have a conversation with one of these guys. So tune in. It's going to be videotaped. It'll probably be livestreamed. It's my conversation with Andrew Sullivan, one of the, you know, a significant voice on the right, a real critic in a good way of Donald Trump, but a compromiser when it comes to suddenly economic freedom and economic liberty. But one of the interesting things that happened is as I'm researching this American compass, I come across an article in Bloomberg. Yeah, Bloomberg, the guy running for president. I come across an article by Bloomberg. This is the title of it. A counter revolution is brewing in the UK and Europe. And this is the subtitle. Popular enthusiasm for government intervention is upending traditional distinctions between left and right. And that's exactly it. What we're seeing today is that the right is abandoning the free markets. And that's the case that this article makes about the UK. So here's the argument being made. Boris Johnson was elected recently, not only on a platform that committed to Brexit, but also on the platform that committed to massive government spending. Indeed, to reversal a past conservative governments that have instituted caps, at least to some extent, on government spending. Johnson promised to spend on infrastructure, to massively increase spending on the NHS to grow government. Indeed, he competed with Jeremy Corbyn on how much government would spend. Now, the problem is that there are people within the conservative government in Great Britain who are more traditionalist free market types. In this case, the leader of that part of the conservative party in the UK is a guy named Javid, sorry, Sajid Javid. And I'm probably mispronouncing those names, but that's his name. Sajid Javid, who was chancellor of an exchequer under Boris Johnson and a well-known Ayn Rand fan. He was a former manager at Deutsche Bank and a real free marketer, you know, as real as anybody in government these days can be. Somebody who wanted to have controls over spending, somebody who wanted to reign in government. So Javid was one of the good guys and he was the chancellor of the exchequer, which is basically Treasury Secretary in Boris Johnson's government. And a few days ago, he was unexpectedly fired. And he was unexpectedly fired because he was basically told that his positions in government spending, his positions on the free market, his positions on, thatcherite positions on the role of government, were not in line with Boris Johnson. So while I've said positive things about Boris Johnson, it appears here that he wants to roll back the ideology of thatcher, roll back the ideology of free markets. He believes, Johnson, because I don't think Johnson believes in anything, but he believes, as I think the right in America now believes, that the populist wave that elected Donald Trump, the same populist wave that has given us Brexit, does not want limited government, does not really want free trade, does not want economic freedom, but actually wants a government that actively reduces inequality, that actively reduces profitability among companies, that actively engages in central planning to bring about conservative goals, goals centered around, as you heard, the family and community and reducing inequality. The working class is what elected Boris Johnson, just as the working class in America is who elected Donald Trump. The working class is not interested in free markets, they're not interested in economic liberty. They are interested in government redistribution, government control, government investment, government spending, government programs, government central planning. They're not concerned about business, they want labor, they want unions. Indeed, you could argue that the left and the right in the UK and in the United States on economic policies, and we saw this when we analyzed some of Tucker's videos where, for example, Tucker supported Elizabeth Warren, we have seen that the right and left are converging on many economic policies, hatred of Wall Street, hatred of private equity, hatred of restructuring of business, hatred of markets, hatred of letting markets determine outcomes, hatred, fear of technology. We see this now in England, conservative party under Johnson basically competed with labor during the election and who would spend more? Indeed, since being elected in the last election, Boris Johnson has nationalized, this is straight out of Corbyn and at Boney Sanders, has nationalized the Northern Rail, one of the railroads in the UK, and has increased public spending and has committed to increasing public spending even more. And Sajid Javid, in the article it says, Sajid Javid with his tattered copy of the fountain head clearly stood in its bosses and neighbors way, insisting that Britain should run a balanced budget, God forbid, by 2023. So the right is completely gone when you think of a right that stands for economic liberty. The right is completely gone. When you think of standing up to the left in economic terms, the right on the left is converging in economics. And now what differentiates them are the social issues, immigration, trans issues, nationalism, issues like that, abortion, not really in the UK. But in economics, there is no right. And indeed, if you look at France, and you look at Marie Le Pen, who heads up, you know, the kind of the white wing party in France, the nationalist anti-immigration party in France, she is going to run a campaign against Macron, pitting Macron as the free marketer and arguing for more government intervention, for more government control, for more government spending. The right in Europe, across Europe from Poland to Hungary to Germany to France to the UK is now a right of economic intervention is now a right of central planning. This is the trend. I don't know to what extent Trump caused this, probably not. Trump is just the symptom. Trump is part of it. Trump is one of these characters on the right that are basically of the left. So I've been wondering about this for a long time. It's coming to pass. It is becoming a reality. It's becoming a reality faster in a more extensive way, in a broader way than I expected. It's indeed, to me at least, stunning. And how quickly it has become just everywhere. This complete taking over of the right by leftist economics, conservative economics, is basically leftist economics with family thrown in, family and maybe some religion thrown in. All right, we got some super chat. What is the rationality of those who expect to take people into freedom, cheat them into justice, pull them into progress, turn them into preserving their rights. And while indoctrinating them with statism, put one over on them and let them wake up in a perfect capitalist society some morning. Such unfortunately, are a great many of today's conservatives. Gentlemen, if you want to save capitalism, there is only one type of argument that you should adopt. The only one that has ever won in any moral issue, the argument from self esteem. Check your premises, convince yourself of the rightness of your cause, then fight for capitalism with full moral certainty. Using the super chat and I noticed yesterday, when I appealed for support for the show, many of you stepped forward and actually supported the show for the first time. So I'll do it again, maybe we'll get some more today. If you like what you're hearing, if you appreciate what I'm doing, then I appreciate your support. Those of you who don't yet support the show, please take this opportunity, go to Iranbrookshow.com slash support or go to subscribe star.com Iranbrook show and and make a kind of a monthly contribution to keep this to keep this going. I'm not sure when the next