 It's always a pleasure to be here. You know, I get in almost every Q&A I do in the United States. And yesterday in the Q&A I did in Ukraine, in Ukraine, I get the same question over and over and over again. You know, everything you say sounds great, but doesn't Sweden stand in direct opposition, you know, that you're wrong. Socialism works. Look at Sweden. So it's always good to be here to collect anecdotes of why they are wrong, so please let me know afterwards. So I'm always interested in picking up tidbits about the counter-argument to Sweden because you guys are the model for the rest of the world. Everybody wants to be like you, except I guess some of you. But that's, you know, we're working on that. And by the way, you can have any standards anytime you want. I'm willing to quite, I'm willing to show you. So one of the reasons Sweden is brought up a lot, and it's such a big deal that's made of it, is because this issue of inequality has become over the last few years a huge issue in the West and certainly in the United States. Last year there was a very well-known book by Thomas Piketti, a French economist who was published. I assume it was as big in Sweden as it was big everywhere else, called Capital in the 21st Century. It could have just been called Best Capital and it would be fine. And, you know, this was one of the best-reviewed books in the last 20 years. I mean, everybody was falling over themselves in terms of positive reviews, at least initially for the book. And it had a huge impact, I think, on the debate, on the discussion in the United States and I think in Europe and since then Piketti's written another book. It's come out in this last summer. Now, what's interesting about Piketti's book is it was a best seller immediately in the United States. I could sold off the charts. We went to number one and all the best seller lists. But I don't know if you know this, but Amazon knows whether you read the books or not. It keeps track because on the Kindle, right, they can tell on the iPad, as long as you're using a Kindle app, they can tell whether you've read the book and how much of the book you've read. And they actually publish a statistic of the least read books of the year. And the good news is Piketti's was number one. So everybody bought it and nobody read it. Or at least nobody, people started it and couldn't get through. So that's a good sign, I guess. But everybody's declared this issue of inequality, rising inequality, inequality getting so-called worse. Everybody's declared it as the issue of our time. Or the Pope, an important figure, whether we like him or not. He seems to be incredibly popular all over the world. He's declared it the most important issue we're facing. President Obama has declared it the most important issue we're facing. Lots of economists and people I call former economists like Paul Krugman have declared this, you know, a crucially important issue. Really the defining issue of the last 30 to 40 years. And this is the story that they tell. Because they tell, and this story relates to the United States, but I think you can relate it really to a lot of other countries. And this rising inequality is primarily an Anglo-Saxon phenomena, although you're seeing it in other parts of Europe as well. But it certainly is in Great Britain, it's in the United States, and it's Australia, it's in a variety of different places. And the story is this, that, you know, nothing really happened in the world until after the Great Depression, when FDR put into the United States kind of all the beginnings of kind of social programs. And then suddenly a middle class was created, primarily after World War II. The American middle class was created. It's an interesting spin on history in terms of what happened in the 19th century. They kind of ignore the 19th century, right? That's child labor, you know, people are miserable and stuff was really bad. But after World War II, suddenly we had strong unions in the United States, and therefore we had a sudden rise in the middle class. What happened was the income inequality was very large in the late 19th century. This is in Sweden as well. In the early 20th century, inequality was very large. After World War II, inequality shrunk dramatically, and it stayed low through the 1970s. And then because of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, inequality has exploded since. And that's a story. And of course they paint the 50s and the 60s and the 70s in utopian colors. There's this wonderful time when the middle class was getting rich and everybody had opportunities in America and the poor were rising. And, you know, it's Ronald Reagan destroyed all that and, you know, with a move towards so-called capitalism, de-regulation of the war taxes and what we get with this dramatic expansion. Now we can talk a lot about the history and the perversion of just the data that that involves, right? They ignore the fact that the middle class was created during the 18th century before the 19th century. There was wonderful equality. I mean, we were very, very equal in the 1800s, in the 1700s and the 1600s. You know, and all the way back to the caves. We were very equal. We were equally poor, equally dying at a very young age. Equally our kids didn't make it to age 10. Equally life was, how did Harbes describe it? Short, buddhish, and nasty, nasty, buddhish and short. I always get the order wrong. But just remember, nasty, buddhish and short. And Harbes was not making this up. At that time, for most people, most people, I mean 90% of the population, life indeed was. Nasty and buddhish and it was short. Life expectancy up until the 19th century was 39. 39, right? I belong dead and you guys would be middle-aged. Almost approaching the end of life. So there's this complete lack of appreciation for the fact that he is the 19th century and in the 19th century, yeah, inequality goes like that, right? But what happens? How does it get there? It goes like that, right? Everything goes up. Everybody gets richer. Everybody gets richer a lot. Life expectancy almost doubles. It goes till about 59, right? From 30 enough. It's adding 20 years of life in a century. That's amazing. And by the way, why did income inequality get reduced after World War II? What happened? What do you have a convergence of wealth and income? Well, the Marshall Plan, you know, helps kind of the bottom a little bit, redistribution of wealth from American taxpayers to Europeans. But no, think about what happened during the war, right? Yeah, World War I, what happened in World War I and World War II? Lots of people died. Lots of people died, which is the real tragedy. But on top of that, if you think about wealth, what happened? Lots of stuff gets destroyed. Lots of stuff gets destroyed. Because not only do buildings get blown up and factories get demolished, but also there's a huge allocation of wealth from productive activity. They're building tanks and bombs, which is not exactly productive, right? The only purpose of a bomb is to blow stuff up. It's not to build other stuff. So instead of building tractors, you're building tanks. Not a good trade, if what you're concerned about is wealth. So what you did is you destroyed massive amounts of wealth. Massive amounts of capital. Who owns that capital? You're ultimately the wealthy do. So yeah, so what happened during World War II is everybody went down to begin with, right? And the wealthy went down a lot because they owned the buildings. They owned the factories. They were the ones who were now having all their capital shifted towards building tanks. So yes, inequality shrunk because of the war. That's one method to do it. And if you think about Keynesian economics, Keynesians, you know, people like Paul Cook with their mind axe, they believe that wars are good in the sense that they create economic activity. And GDP grows during war. Nobody, you familiar with GDP? Why does GDP grow during war? Because GDP is a big fact that GDP is government spending, and government spend a lot during war, right? So during World War II, in the United States GDP grew by 12%. The fact that lots of people were dying, the fact that the quality and standard of life of those living went down, partially because they went trenches, but even if they went home, quality of life went down. They were eating rations. You know, everything was rich. GDP doesn't capture that because it's concerned just with the buying of the bombs. So, you know, they really believe that in some sense, wars are good for economic activity. Conflict is good for economic activity. You hear that a lot. Indeed, a lot of times they hear the left saying things like, the reason America went to war was the spurred economy. I mean, really? I mean, maybe Republicans are that stupid or maybe the people in power that stupid that they think that will happen, but it's never actually, and it cannot actually happen. So they've got an interesting, they've got this economic story, and the economic story is complete. I mean, in many ways it's complete nonsense. Even this, part of the story of this expansion of inequality over the last 30 years, which is probably true, we're probably seeing an expansion, but again, it's probably an expansion where everybody's rising, but some people are rising faster. So the problem they have, you know, so they have to make the argument that not everybody's rising, because otherwise people don't care. Generally Americans don't mind it if everybody's going like that. What they mind is if these people are stuck over here and this is going up. So the other story they tell is that, oh no, the 70s were this wonderful period and nobody is making any more money today than they did in the 70s. Middle class is stuck in the 70s. And a lot of people are buying this. This has kind of become now, because they've got life's graphs and they're very good with econometrics, so very bad with econometrics, depends on how you view econometrics, but they're very good at describing these numbers. You know, it's kind of obvious how silly the argument is if you actually look at human life rather than at the numbers. So I don't know how many of you are around in the 70s. I fear that we're in a minority here, but I remember life in the 70s and it sucked. Certainly in America it sucked. There was high inflation, there was stagflation, there was high crime rates, but really what's important about the 70s is television was black and white and big, thick and really small screens. No, but this is important. Think about what we take for granted today. I have, I should suppose, but I have like an 80-inch television. And it's thin and it costs less than what those huge massive, ridiculous things cost. And it's in color or some TV's on 3D or whatever. But that's an indication of just the quality of life. Americans live in much bigger homes today than the 70s. They drive much better cars. Think about the technologies in the cars. I mean, the car doesn't change that much, but these are much better cars, much more efficient cars, much safer cars. I mean, we have iPhones. I mean, just that is worth a lot in terms of quality of life. So the quality of life of the middle class in America is a gazillion times better today than it was back then. A dollar today by stuff that in the 70s we couldn't even imagine would exist 40 years later. So, I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, I would argue that almost all the empirical arguments that Krugman and Piketty and these guys make are just wrong. And they're misclassified. And a lot of people have already showed that the actual Piketty numbers have lots of problems and that he picks and chooses his numbers. So, let's put aside for a minute the empirical issues, because I think it's wrong, and I think other people have shown in many different ways. Let's assume that it's true. I like to do this in global warming, too. I don't think it's right, but let's assume that it's true. I like to say sweet becomes habitable. I usually use Canada, in fact. I mean, not just this Canada would become habitable, but you can actually have agriculture in Canada, which would have incredibly fertile land, which is not covered in ice. But let's assume even that the story about inequality that is expanded, that's really expanded, is that a problem? Should we care why do we care? And I think most Americans, at least, I know Europeans, this is not true. You guys have a culture which says that there's a problem but that feels bad. But why should we care? Why should we care? So the issue there is why do people make more money than other people? Why is inequality rising? Why is this gap being created? And if the explanation is that some people make a lot more because they're more productive, because they create better stuff, because they offer us better services, because they've earned it, then what's the problem? Isn't justice and fairness demand that people get what they can make in the marketplace? I mean, that would be my argument, obviously not the left. They redefine justice and fairness for us. Justice and fairness mean what? When I say something's fair, automatic, what pops into your head? Equals. Fairness equals fairness is equal. That's never been the case. Fairness used to mean, before they switched it on us, they left us very good at taking terms and switching their meanings. Fairness used to mean getting what you deserve. And economics, what do you deserve? How do you determine what you deserve in economics? What do you create? What the marketplace will bear? How much value do you create for other people as it turns out? What they're willing to pay for the product you're willing to do? You know, Apple deserves a lot. Why? Because they've enhanced our life a lot. And how do we know they've enhanced our life a lot? Because we're willing to pay for it. If they weren't enhancing our life, we wouldn't pay. We need 400 bucks for this. Right? And just before I left the U.S., I went and got my new Apple TV and my new iPad, you know, because it's life enhancing, so it's cool. So they made a lot of money. But it's because our lives are better off. Otherwise, they don't make a lot of money. How much? If I pay 300 bucks for this, how much is a worth 3? More. More. There's a learning. That's good. Now, usually I get equal, right? It's the same. And of course, you wouldn't, you don't do the trade if it's equal. You're indifferent. You're going to stay home. But it's worth more than 300 bucks and it turns out it's worth a lot more than 300 bucks to most people. They would actually pay a lot more than that because it's truly life changing. So you're better off by buying the iPhone than Apple makes a profit. So, when you bought the iPhone, did inequality increase or not? Or when you buy... How many of you read Harry Potter? When you bought a Harry Potter book for, I don't know, 20 bucks in America, did inequality change? Yeah, J.K. Rawlings became $20 richer and if you aggregate all the $20, she became a billionaire. And you became $20 poorer. So when we measure inequality in terms of dollars, inequality just... You got poorer. You literally went down and J.K. Rawlings went up. But is that true? Why not? Because you enhance your life. But as an economist, I can't measure the enhancement. Now, I could value the asset that is the book. But I don't think Piketty does that. I don't think he goes and he ends the books up and he iPhones and he counts those as assets. No. Literally, inequality just increased. You got poorer by 20 bucks, according to that. And J.K. Rawlings got richer. And Apple gets you a chair every time you buy a product and you get poorer, supposedly. But that's how they measure it. That's how economists measure stuff. But it doesn't make any sense because it's life-enhancing. Because our life has actually been better for buying the stuff and for getting rich. So when I see somebody really rich in a free market, assuming they've made it like Apple and like J.K. Rawlings made it, I go, thank you. Because the only way they could have become rich is make my life better. There's no other way to do it. Right? 300 years ago, people got rich by stealing other people's money. Today, again, assume freedom for a minute, people get rich by trading, by making our lives better. So, under a free market, who cares what inequality is? My life is better? Your life is better? Your life is better by more because you've helped lots of people. Who cares how rich the rich become? And really, what you're concerned about from an economic perspective, if you want to be concerned about anything, people seem to be getting wealthier. But the relative weight of which people are getting wealthier, why would anybody care? Morally or economically? Economically, it's just a reflection of what's actually going on. And morally, if fairness means getting what you deserve, people are getting what they deserve. I'm a teacher. I don't deserve a lot. You're not paying much for this. If I charged 300 bucks, you wouldn't come. I mean, that's a market signal. You would rather buy an iPhone. Whether true or not, you believe that iPhone will enhance your life more than coming to an election. I guess I'm okay with that because here I am. So, it's still a voluntary transaction. So, that's what I'm worth from a market perspective. That's the worth that you have. It's what the market will bear. That's fair. You know, for me to complain that you guys are not willing to pay 300 bucks is ridiculous. So, both from a moral perspective and from an economic perspective, in a free market, inequality is irrelevant. Now, you might ask in the world we live in today, which is not a free market. Whether there are problems that inequality, that people talking about inequality might be behind the inequality numbers of you. And I'd argue, yeah, sure. You could say that people are getting rich not because they're producing stuff that makes all lives better, but because they're in with the government and they're getting our tax money. So, they're basically going back to the models 300 years ago, stealing the money, robbing us, being true robber bands. Cronism. Business is bad with government. That's a form of theft. So, yeah. That might be a problem. Indeed, it is a problem. Let's get rid of cronyism. Cool. That has nothing to do with inequality. It's got to do with an issue of cronyism. You could also argue that poor people seem in the United States and in many western countries to be stuck. It doesn't seem to be as much mobility as maybe they used to be. It doesn't seem as much rising as it used to be. Now, again, there's a lot of questions about their perks around this and whether they're true or not. But, you know, I see a lot of poor people in America who are just stuck in poverty. And I'd say that's a problem. Not a problem of inequality, but why are they stuck? And I think it's pretty, if you look at the data, it's pretty obvious why they're stuck. They're stuck because the state tells them that they are incompetent. How does the state tell them that? It sends them a check and tells them not to work. It sets the minimum wage so high that nobody is going to hire them because they can't produce at that level. They create licensing laws that make it impossible for somebody to get a simple job because they have to pay thousands of dollars to get a license. In California, you need a government license to shampoo it. And that's not unusual. To do nails in many places, you need a license. A government license. You have to take a course. You have to spend thousands of dollars to take a profession where you're not going to make thousands of dollars. And by the way, all of these policies are policies that are endorsed by whom? By the left, by the people who complain about inequality. Well, if you, to me, that is an indication that they don't care about the poor. So, there are problems in the world in which we live. There's no question. There are lots of problems in Sweden. There are lots of problems in America. None of those problems have to do with the relative wealth or the relative income of people. They have everything to do with problems with keeping the poor poor with rich getting rich, not justly, not fairly, not through production, but through connections and with the middle class that might be stuck because the economy is not growing and the economy is not producing. All of these problems, problems, by the way, created by the left. Cronism is a phenomenon of the left because as government grows, what does it do to business? It controls more and more of the life of businessmen. So, businessmen are forced, basically, to lobby. Once they start lobbying, there's no stopping. That's the process. I don't know how many of you have heard me tell me, but in 1994, Microsoft executives were brought in front of the Senate in the United States and a Republican Senator got up and yelled at them. You guys need to start lobbying. You don't spend any money in Washington. This isn't good. You have to understand you have to influence government. In other words, bribe me. You're not bribing me. Otherwise, we're going to come after you. I think you've got to build a building in Washington. You're a Seattle company. You've got offices all over the country. You have nothing in Washington. You need a building. Microsoft has nothing. Spends zero dollars on lobbying. No lobbying, no building. No presence in Washington, D.C. And the Microsoft executive said, look, we don't need you. If you leave us alone, we'll leave you alone. We don't want to come here because you'll leave us alone. Fine. Guess what happened the year later? Two years later. 1996. Justice Sopano went after Microsoft over antitrust. What was the evil that Microsoft has done to justify that the government will go after it? They gave away what? Antitrust. Novelical. They gave away a browser for free. And Netscape was a complaint. Netscape was selling their browser. You guys don't remember a time when browsers cost money. It's like any other software. You had to pay to get a browser. And Microsoft offered this for free. That was a sin that violated antitrust laws. Right? I don't know how your antitrust laws work in Sweden. I'm sure you have antitrust laws. But in the United States, there wouldn't be such a way that business in the United States is in violation of the antitrust laws all the time. Because think of it this way. If you offer a product for free or what the regulators consider too cheap, what are you doing? Yeah, it's called dumping. You're undercutting competition. You're destroying competition by dumping. So they go after the Japanese for dumping and they go after people for dumping. And they went after Microsoft because they offered it for free. They were excluding competitors. So you're screwed if you offer too cheaply. What if you offer your product more expensive than the competition? That's proof you have a monopoly. Because how do you get away with it? The whole idea of perfect competition is it drives down prices. So you offer your product for the same price as the competition. You're colluding. It's true. It's true. No matter what you do. And this is the beauty of laws like this, right? How many of you have been after Microsoft? There's a great scene where the government bureaucrat is coming in and talking to Rieden. And he's showing Rieden that he's violated the law. And Rieden says to the regulator look, the way it's written no matter what I do I'm in violation. And the regulator says, well of course. Do you think we want you to follow the laws? The whole point of these regulations is for you to break them and that's how we have leverage over you. That's how we can control you. So the whole idea of these things is to force you to break them so they can impose their will on you. So cronyism is a phenomena of big government intervention in the economy. People stuck in poverty is a phenomena of big government. Of all the regulations that limit creation of jobs and that keep wages down or keep people unemployed because wages are artificially set too high. And the stagnation limit across is to the extent that it even exists is again a phenomena of lack of economic growth which is a consequence of high taxes primarily of government regulations. So if all these are leftist policies what's the left really after? And here I'm talking about I'm talking about not the average voter who's voting for the left. I'm talking about the intellectuals I'm talking about the leaders I'm talking about the parkourments and the Bernie Sanders and so on. I'm sure you have lots of equivalents because take the minimum wage this is economics 101 the higher you raise the minimum wage the more you create an unemployment. This is just if any price you take you artificially raise it demand for that product goes down so if you raise the cost of labor demand for labor that kind of labor goes down it's just the way it works so what you do is you create an employment among people who don't produce at that level and companies convert to machines or convert to something else that is now more effective because you've I mean McDonald's in the United States because a lot of cities are raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour that you're going to go into McDonald's and order on an iPad. I think there's some countries in Europe where you already do this you order it off of a kiosk and there are a number of chains that are experimenting with machines that will flip the hamburgers. They will take the hamburgers, put the pickles on it put the buns and deliver them automated without anybody touching. Now that would probably happen anyway but what's accelerating it is is the higher cost of labor. Now everybody knows this is the leftist economy so what really motivates Piketty and all the whole debate and in my view, and this is kind of controversial, not that anything else is but this one people find it hard to believe they know I don't think, I think this is true of leftist intellectuals in Europe I don't think they care one bit about the poor I just don't think they care about the middle class because they are typically middle class but what really motivates, what really gets them going is hatred for the rich they hate ability, they hate success they hate wealth they hate the people at the time in pretty much any and they're committed to this this is that philosophically committed to this notion of equality but they know what equality means what does equality mean, how do we get equality everyone's poor but how do we get to that situation so I use this example everybody know who LeBron James is LeBron James basketball how do you make me and LeBron James equal in basketball you have to break his legs cutting is a little dramatic you have to break his legs you have to break his legs and you know you haven't seen me play basketball but you might have to break an arm as well you can ban basketball you can ban basketball you can ban basketball that's another way to do it I want, I demand I have a right to be able to go on the court with LeBron James and feel like he's equal I demand it so we break his legs we don't break an arm and my point is this that's always what equality demands that's always what equality demands taking 50-60% of your income it's like breaking legs I don't know I work hard for my money I'm sure those of you who work do as well taking 50% of my money is 50% of my time 50% of my life I mean I sometimes think what would I rather have somebody come in and break my legs once a year or take 50% of my income once a year I'm not sure what I desire I make a good amount of money and 50% is a lot of money I could do a lot with it maybe even fix my legs but it's violence against you is my point it's the same thing somebody is coming and using violence to take 50% of what you make just like they're using violence to break your legs and this is what equality always demands this is what equality always leads to the whole campaign for equality is a campaign of force it's a campaign of violence and I think that's how we those of us who are against it need to hold it because we need to be outraged by it it's not a game it's not nice there's nothing nice about equality equality in my view equality the idea of equality of outcome is the most evil idea I can think of because it demands the Australians are the same if they chop down the tall poppies the poppies grow differently it demands breaking people's legs and when you can't literally break their legs because some people are smarter than other people what do you do there that's a real problem because we're not equal and smart and they want equality and it's not just equality of wealth or equality of opportunity as they like to say it's equality you know what I mean there's one regime in history that actually tried to do this create this equality I mean really equality you know where they thought the commies didn't get didn't get it right and they wanted to do it right they all studied in Paris all the other members of this regime the leaders they studied you know Sartre and Camus and Foucault and all the great French philosophers of equality and then they went home and they took over the government and they decided they were going to establish equality what's that you're talking about Cambodia yeah but you can't give it away you know so some people are living in cities and some people live in the country side so what did they do they pushed everybody out into the country side but even in the country side some people are good at foraging picking berries and nuts and some people are not so they banned foraging that's like banning basketball but still some people could read and some people couldn't some people are smart, some people aren't some people are good farmers, some people are not what do you do if you believe in equality then you get rid of the people who stand a little taller basically they shot they killed them if you had an education, they shot you if you could read, they shot you if you wore glasses, they took that as a sign of intelligence they shot they killed 2 million people out of a population of 5 and a half 6 they killed a third of their own population their own people you can go to Cambodia you can see the killing fields of what these people did all in the name of what French philosophers vision of equality this is what equality actually means we're not equal metaphysically in reality we are all different and that's great makes life interesting I mean isn't it cool that there was a Steve Jobs there who could make this stuff isn't it cool that there are people who love building on reveals and people who love doing painting paintings who has the talent of a Michelangelo we should celebrate the geniuses who make our life so much better we should celebrate the incredible people that really raise us out both materially and spiritually they're the people who should be our heroes the great industrialist the great artist, the greats what a great fellow in the black big basketball place it's cool now for some reason we accept it with basketball sports we somehow accept that it's okay but nowhere else so we should be for inequality passionately for inequality it's a beautiful thing it's fairness it's justice and the people we should be celebrating and not the people in the middle but the people at the top assuming they gained the top for good reason the great writers, the great artists the great industrialists the great computer programs whatever that's what moves civilization that's what makes our life so it really sucks inequality I thought I would questions first of all thank you very much I would like to say that the history that you described in the beginning of your speech is more or less the same history as we are talking about before the social democrats have a poverty then everybody became rich very deeply my question is that during the latest maybe two years so I've been noticing this kind of social justice warrior movement in the United States in different universities in the United States rising and becoming very very vocal and we've also been importing into Sweden would you comment on that? absolutely, I mean social justice movement is a movement for equality of outcome and they have expanded equality to beyond income and beyond wealth to you know how we treat each other at every level schooling has to be completely equal but of course in averted sense right so you can't say things like they don't allow you to say things like in America today I can't say I'm color black I don't care what the color of your skin is I treat you the same they consider that offensive because I'm not taking into account the sensitivity that's involved and past discrimination they've got a long story about these right so because this standard is this platonic form of equality they of course encourage people to be treated differently to compensate for past inequality so it gets very complicated and convoluted but it's driven by the intellectuals it's driven by university professors and writers and thinkers it really comes from the intellectual that's in America it's driven by emotion generally in America today one of the things I think that are most worrisome among young people is that we have elevated emotions to the most important thing in life everything's about emotions so it's how you feel it's not what you think it's how you feel so what they want is equality of feelings there's no end to that but this is I don't know if you know this but at the University of California today if you're a professor and you give people a reading assignment right and let's say in a reading assignment somebody dies of cancer it gets kind of neutral you actually have to let the students know in advance that somebody is going to die of cancer and this might trigger them triggering means they might get a negative emotion because maybe they had a relative died of cancer and then university is setting up safe zones where students can go and play with dolls or play, I don't know what but they can be protected from reality in some way people talk about microaggressions you know little things you might say that people will find insulting and in other words you can't talk you can't teach there's no controversy controversy is not allowed there's a huge attack on free speech because they can't attack free speech in America because we have First Amendment so this is kind of an attack from the bottom rather from a legal attack and it's all after this idea of kind of emotional everybody has to be emotionally okay emotionally stable and it's the primacy of emotion over anything else the death of reason, the death of rationality and yeah I think America is exporting this to you because we got we got German Romanticism from you we're sending it back thank you very much it's inequality the opposite or I guess acceptable for the entire system it's the only outcome of the First System yes but would you say it's just an outcome in which you say it's a good outcome I'd say both it's a just and a good outcome assuming it's under freedom so my view is that freedom is just freedom is good in any outcome there's an outcome that freedom generates is a just and good outcome now does that mean that stuff happens to people that you would say is unfortunate sure people have accidents good people get run over in the streets or whatever people fall in bad luck happens but that's luck is not an issue of fairness or justice luck is just luck it's just reality so you don't say it's unjust that the tornado wiped that village out you say it's sad you say it's unfortunate but it's not an issue of justice why what does justice refer to and this goes to the social justice issue what does justice refer to well it's more than wealth there are lots of things that can be unjust but what does it refer to who is just who can be just what I mean so individuals and this is why another reason I hate social justice because there is no such individuals are just to unjust individual choices are just to unjust individual actions are just to unjust and you can talk about a just society as an abstraction but there's no social justice there's individual justice we as individuals are either justice or unjust nature there's no justice is applied to nature now this is an important philosophical point you guys familiar with John Walls well he's he's our contribution he's our retribution to you guys for getting all these bad European philosophers so he's a bad American philosopher Walls says look we're all born with different genes some of us are going to be very successful some of us we do very badly because of our genes and it's not just our genes he says we're good families and some of us are born into bad families and he says that's not fair that's not just now that's a philosophical perversion you can't apply fairness and justice to their metaphysical yes it's true some of us are born with good genes and some of us are born with lousy genes you can say that's fortunate and unfortunate you can say you can talk about luck if you want some of us have good parents or bad parents what the bad parents do to their children might be unjust but the fact of being born into that condition it's not just unjust it just is it's just reality some of us like the born genes are born tall and very athletic that's not an issue it's not unjust that I wasn't born tall and athletic it just is that's reality apply the terms of fairness and justice to what's metaphysical what just and unjust relates to is human behaviors individual behavior but that generates huge confusion so somebody like Juan Buffett says you know Juan Buffett is the second richest man in America so Juan Buffett says I don't deserve any of this one basically like Obama said I didn't build it you didn't build it he says look I was born with great genes that gave me a particular talent that was useful in the 20th century not useful in the 15th century but in the 20th century so I was lucky to be born in the 20th century with the right genes to the right parents that's why I made all my money so what's wrong with that what's he leaving out choice the big debate in psychology is nature, nurture yeah right it's all about nature and the revolutionary thinking is no no it's both and I'm saying no no there's a third component you're missing yeah nature and nurture make a difference but what's the third component choice pretty well the choices you make the decisions you make shape you much more than your genes it's the choices you make so yeah he was born with the right genes to the right parents at the right time a lot of people probably were he made something of it other people didn't so but the fact that he was born in those circumstances don't make anything he made unjust or unearned that's just a starting point that's just a given that's metaphysical that's nature and morality doesn't apply to nature it only applies to our behavior I want to comment on that in terms of the question but you said you asked the left what's the rationale for the left most and it would only have been April of the rich I could say it would have been okay not okay but think of it like this instead if if you have a model of equality then you can vote about the individual choice and everything and then you're getting closer to the deciding the ceremonial outcome and then you can control control over I was trying to be nice to the left the question is if that's the rationale for the left what is your comment then that what do you say in relation to freedom because it's you can't only tackle that where the equal is unfair it's also it attacks society or freedom what attacks on this if the strive for equality the strive for equality that's a good point let me just say about this hatred of the rich it's more than hatred of the rich much more than hatred of the rich just even in terms of hatred ultimately it's this hatred of life it's hatred of progress it's hatred of human beings because what does equality lead to breaking legs and it turns out not just of the rich but of the smarts of them all of them talented we know what happens when you equate you get the lowest common denominator so they want everybody to be poor and they know that's a consequence because it's been tried a thousand times and it's always that result and yet they rationalize it because nobody can live with that kind of hatred and they claim that it's not the case but what's really driving is in a sense a hatred of life I think you're making up a different point so I'm going to try to answer what I think you're asking but I'm not sure I've got it so part of what they're going after is no freedom and control over people because that's part of what motivates them is this desire for power it's a desire to be the philosopher king who gets to decide how we all live our lives, our miserable lives they get to make the choices such power over us freedom is in a sense the exact opposite it says nobody should have power over you as a human being you get to make the choices for your own life and everybody gets to make the choices for their own life and in that sense I am for equality this is the only sense I'm for equality so there is one sense in which equality actually means something I don't think equality about or any of these other qualities mean anything other than destruction but there's one sense in which equality means something and it's a sense in which the founding fathers in America talked about all men are created equal in the declaration of independence and it's the sense of political equality that is we're all equally free we all equally have a right to our own lives we all equally have a right to make decisions for ourselves we all equally have a right to be to liberty to pursue our happiness nobody nobody should be cursed nobody should be forced not that just tall people shouldn't be forced or just aristocrats shouldn't be forced or just white people shouldn't be forced nobody no human being should be forced forced should be extracted from the equation leaving us all free so the argument for freedom is that my life is mine belongs to me to make whatever I want out of it poor, rich, middle class doesn't matter the outcome is not the issue it's the issue of freedom it's the issue of autonomy it's the issue of where the starting point is the starting point for the left is always the group and therefore they're worried about the starting point for somebody who believes in freedom is always the individual and the question is never how am I doing relative to other people who cares the question should always be how am I doing relative to me relative to my capacities relative to my abilities relative to my values relative to my ambitions that's the question so individualism doesn't lead to envy collectivism always does that's because collectivism is all about the group how am I relative to everybody else suddenly it's a positioning so freedom to real freedom freedom from coercion allows individuals to thrive and of course once we thrive we thrive in different ways in different capabilities but at the end of the day it's all about individual freedom so I think if we can talk about language I think most people have this passive force to sort of you can say it's doing different things how would you how do we even know that maybe the pain that you're causing the witch is greater than the benefit you're giving the poor how do we even measure that I mean I love you so much Terry but if you are talking to me you want to try to do this you can see that I guess because it's more important that but I think more possibly if I can argue that it does in fact benefit the poor how would you do that I would make two arguments and I think you have to make them both first of all I would make the argument that freedom benefits him more because I truly believe that getting a check from somebody else without owning it is really harmful to you it harms your self esteem it harms your pride and it makes it impossible for you to be happy it's really important that people have a sense that they are owning what they have and it's nice to it's nice to give it to them to theft from other people which is what we distribution is so in my view welfare in the American model or the Swedish model people have poverty and into unhappiness so it's not just poverty it's unhappiness so yes they relatively they're less poor because they have no money but what they've lost is much more important than what they've been and I think that's an argument we have to make to prove it is what you've lost is pride what you've lost is self esteem what you've lost is the capacity to rise up incentivize now to stay where you are and you can't rise up but of course you can make the economic argument I don't think it's a utilitarian argument but you can make an economic argument that it's really simple if the rich keep their money what do they do with it you know one of the one of the new theories that are coming out it's so stupid it's hard to even call it a theory no but it is it's the idea that the problem with the rich having a lot of money this is coming out of I don't know if Piketty's actually said this but Kugwin has hinted at this the problem with the rich having a lot of money from an economic perspective is that they consume solar consume solar they consume solar so they're sitting on this massive amount of money that's not being consumed and we know that consumption drives the economy so what we need to do is take that money from them and give it to poor people who have a high propensity to consume then that money will be better for the economy now that is economic garbage because what happens to that money that the rich is so called hoarding it's invested and every economic theory by the way including Keynes Keynes never said this even Keynes says that long term economic growth is dependent on investment which comes from saving and what you want and this is why is China growth so fat Japan growth so fat is because they saved a lot part of the problem in the United States is we don't save now we've done well because the Chinese have saved a lot they've invested in the US but at some point that doesn't work you have to save otherwise there's no long term growth so when the rich can make a lot of money they invest that money which creates more wealth for them but it also by investing it creates jobs it creates new products and again every time I buy one of these I'm actually richer even though financially I'm poorer I'm actually richer so the poor the middle class of enormously enriched poor life by the fact that the rich assuming the rich or the productive rich right a building a creating a producing stuff that we all consume but that's you see the problem with that is nobody's ever convinced by economic arguments either I mean not most people because if they were convinced by economic arguments we would be living in loss if they haven't today I mean we've had I mean people have really been good at explaining this stuff whether it's Hayek or Mises or Friedman Milton Friedman was very good at explaining simple you know all of these so-called complex economics in very simple terms that people don't understand and nobody believed me I mean except the people in the room you're a minority of sweet right now now tiny minority in the United States because people are people have driven by what they believe is fair it's just that I believe people are driven by morality not by economics so they're willing to accept voodoo economics made-up economics completely bogus economics if it justifies their moral beliefs so the reason therefore redistribution of wealth is not for economic argument it's purely because they believe it's fair and it's just it's good even if you could prove to them that it's low economic growth they would still take the fair they would still take you know for most people people want to be good they want to be just they want to be moral they're willing to give up a lot of wealth in order to do it it's why rich Americans vote to raise their taxes all the time on themselves because they think it's the right thing to do and they're willing to be poor and do the right thing and I think most people are like this and so we need to make the moral argument we need to make the moral argument that inequality is fair and equality is unfaith equality is is indeed an evil idea are you familiar with the name step on my one new yes yeah because I think he put it quite well in terms of inequality when he said that most people like free market when they can send themselves from it which means that I can buy the best TV or whatever at the lowest price which incurs competition but me myself I want the minimum wage and stuff because they cannot perform themselves but they would like the free market in every other aspect of their life but not when they themselves have to I mean I think there's an element of truth to that but again I don't think it goes deep enough because I don't think it goes to the core of it which is the moral views about the world you know so so yes they want all the good free stuff but why why do they want good free stuff I don't want good free stuff I want to learn my stuff I don't want just handouts I love working I love producing it's fun it's cool I mean hopefully all of you all have jobs that you love I mean so there's something about it that their assumptions very early in life unfortunately so it's hard to change about the world about work about stuff about where stuff comes from you know they think it's like manner from heaven right it's a damage to the Bible it's done but there's an idea the manner can draw from heaven right there's this Jews wandering around the Sinai desert and you know God drops matter and they eat right so they don't have to fuck they don't have to do anything they just get it now now that's a welfare thing but it's not right somebody has to be sacrificed and we need to talk about this what do you think about the spiritual society where there would be almost no human production how do you think about the quality of the spiritual society which I believe is quite near yeah so let me stop by saying that I hope we get there because if the status continue on the path that they're going the advance in technology might not get us there you know I don't know I think that's part of the beauty of markets so I believe that we will look probably work less work will probably be more fun a lot of the work we will do we can't even imagine today what it will be because what has mechanization done for human beings it's basically taken away all the dull boring work so 90% of human beings once you've needed a farm and a food first to live now only 1% of us farm farming is not fun it's hard it's physical labor it's many hours it's not so a small percentage of people might enjoy that they get to do it the rest of us don't have to farm you remember anybody see Charlie Chaplin's Barna Times assembly line all he does is screw it this way you don't do that anymore slowly all the manual labor will disappear all the dull stuff even the dull programming stuff will go away and then the question is can we as human beings is the boundaries endless in terms of what we can invent that's going to be more interesting and more fun and I believe the answer is yes I mean so far so good we keep finding more stuff to do think about it before mechanization I think in like 1800 there were less than a billion people on the planet I think it was half of it today there are 7 going to 8 billion people on the planet we're living much longer and everybody has a job I mean assuming a little bit of freedom everybody has a job so there's plenty of work to do even though machines are doing a lot of work already so I believe there's always been work to do I don't know what that work will be I mean for example these are things that people don't even think about there are whole professions that didn't exist 100 years ago they existed but they were tiny stuff that I like chefs restaurants didn't exist 100 years ago there were heavens for travelers when they were going through but nobody went out to eat about 100 years ago maybe, certainly not 200 years because there was no wealth, there was no excess you ate what you grew hotels there was no hotel business there were no masseuses massages didn't exist I mean maybe people did it to family members there was no profession so think of all the leisure stuff that we do there was no leisure so that's a whole category of jobs and millions, probably tens of millions of people around the world engaged in but it didn't exist 200 years ago and even 100 years ago were very small who knows where that goes 200 years ago basically all of entertainment there were a few people like there was a Mozart who had a really small audience at the court but there was no popular art people sang in the villages but nobody paid you to sing in the village today think about both my kids who are about your age both my children are in the entertainment business one is in music and one writes comedy and they're entertainers that only can happen in a rich society in a society that's being automated we have so much excess that we can sit around watching YouTube videos of cats think about it of comedians or whatever there's a whole industry called comedy think about the quantity of music you could consume to so sometimes I think about this stuff because there's a lot being written these days about singularity and what happens computers are smarter than human beings I don't buy these computers, we'll be conscious stuff I think there's a piece missing there but but 200 years ago the computer will be inside here we'll be implanting the chips inside our brains we'll be part computer, part human I'm not sure there'll be a separation between the two but who can imagine what we could do that's why science fiction writers get paid so much money because they can imagine the stuff I can't but I'm not worried if anything I wish I could live 200 years to see it because I think it would be fun what worries me is that we won't get there because of status one thing that is very much in use right now in Sweden is that we have in Europe we have a youth refugee crisis what is your view on the policy prospects for an unequal society that is free how should we react to this crisis how should we handle the immigrants there's a number of issues here that have to be untangled why are all the refugees want to go to two countries Sweden and Germany every single one I've seen in television how do we get to Germany and then to Sweden that's the path why because when they arrive here you give them a check hey I might disagree and then you give them a home even though from what I understand there's a housing shortage in Sweden for you young Swedes that they get a home so you created a perverse incentive in welfare state Europe that anybody can get a check I mean that's absurd the welfare state needs to go right so in a free world you wouldn't have a welfare state so the magnet at least that particular magnet wouldn't exist instead of people coming here because they want to work because they want to produce because they want to be part of society they're coming here not to leech off of you which is wrong so that's one aspect of it it's the existence of a welfare state but there's a second complexity and this is politically incorrect to say but I'm not politically correct and that is that I believe the west is at war I believe there's a war going on a civilizational war between between the west and between radical Islam and we haven't declared this war but if there's a war going on then we refuse to acknowledge that we've stuck our head deep in the sand then if there is a war you can't just let the enemy because most of the immigrants are Muslim now I don't know what percentage of them are radical Muslims but nobody knows because nobody cares you can't just let the enemy into your territory America didn't allow Nazis into America during World War II so we are the one that's selling most weapons in Middle East the Swedish people I'm not saying why the war exists we can talk about why the war exists and who's at fault but the point is that if there's a war you don't allow the enemy in so you have to decide if there's a war not I believe there is one and that should be a reason to have a barrier and then you have to do something about the welfare system it's not just it's not fair, it's not right that people can just show up at your door and receive goodies there comes at somebody's expense and why take from them in order to give so in a free society that's not at war then I believe in open migration people should be able to move I'm an immigrant and I did this my kids I come from a long line of wandering Jews so my kids are 4th generation born on a different continent different continent so they were born in the US, I was born in Israel my parents were born in South Africa their parents were born in Lithuania my wife's mother was born in Morocco her father was born in what was then Palestine and her father's grandparents were born in Uzbekistan so yeah, we cross borders, we move cool, so I'm all for migration but it shouldn't be at people's expense nobody paid me to go to America nobody gave me a check nobody paid my ancestors my grandparents to go to South Africa when they left Lithuania they were kind of running because they were being killed so they had a strong incentive to leave just like these migrants have a strong incentive to leave now I mean they're being killed it's horrible what's going on in Syria and the rest of the Middle East and the rest of Africa right and that war started because of the United States, yeah? no why did it went to war with Iraq? well, let's put Iraq aside a second but the war in Syria is not about Iraq but that was the war in Syria started before ISIS it was there it started, yeah? but look I mean let's get Syria right we had Bashar al-Assad a brutal dictator your opinion no, not in my opinion in fact there's such a thing as reality and such a thing as fact he's a dictator, was he elected? no did you have free speech in Syria? no if you did something that he didn't like, did you go to jail or were you tortured? yes I mean he's a dictator that's not an issue of opinion now, some people benefited from the dictator like with all dictators some people benefit and other people don't benefit but the uprising against Assad is the same uprising that started in the late 1970s early 1980s of the Muslim brotherhood against his father and what does his father do when the uprising happened back then? he flattened homes he killed 20,000 to 40,000 people Bashar al-Assad's father so Assad inherited the same kind of regime and again, he had an uprising an uprising led to the current civil war which was complicated and extended by the fact that the United States made a disaster out of Iraq which then helped create ISIS and the whole mess that we have today is a consequence of that but okay, well, whoever's fault it is that's the reality in the Middle East and the fault at the end of the day is not Americans the fault is is a brutal dictator the American went to war with Iraq sorry for interrupting I don't want to really get into the Middle East but look Iraq was ruled by another dictator the fault for the problems in the Middle East are the people in the Middle East they ruled by dictators that doesn't end well ever where America invaded Iraq or didn't invade Iraq, Iraq was a mess Shiites were being killed by a Sunni president who was gassing his own people that's not because of America maybe civilian X would have died under one regime but then Assad resolved them an invasion some other civilians died I don't want to get into it the end result is the same even if you have a moral background to it that it's different I don't know if instrumentally it's the same the point is and the question is the invasion just on but that's a whole other question but the problems in the Middle East were not created by the West the problems in the Middle East are created by people in the Middle East talking about Bashar al-Assad they have a very big song going on singing about him that goes have you heard it before? no my point is in my opinion talking about the conflict it gets hard to take an angle in a specific case talking about the Middle East it's relatively easy if you know the history I don't think it's that hard the government made a 9-11 that the Americans did let me tell my point of view it's my state I listened to it for 2 hours then it's your state you should think excuse me another spin on the refugee on the refugees on the refugees this what do you say you described the West for equality and the focus on it do you think that has impacted much on how we view the refugees or the ones we we accept for our borders we basically in both Sweden, Germany and all other European states have said that as long as you're fleeing from a war it's okay but not if you want to have yourself alive yeah well yes so something is a standard for help which I think is the wrong standard I don't think that's a standard by which you should decide whether to help or not whether to bring people in but I think it's deeper than that and I'm going to say some controversial things um you're just telling your point of view it says my point of view it's only my point of view I happen to think it's the truth but you don't have to agree with me no I think there is a truth but again you don't have to agree with me you can say I'm full of shit that's fine but it's my point of view your point of view look at his back I think the deeper problem in Europe and in the West generally is the issue of multiculturalism it's the idea that all cultures are equal in some way and I think this is a deep deep problem in Europe and I think a deep deep problem everywhere I don't think it's true cultures are not equal and European culture has forgotten or repressed what made it great I believe that the culture developed in Europe during the Enlightenment is the greatest culture in human history and I think every culture in the world should emulate so the problems that are at least in my view would be solved if people were free if people had respect for two concepts one Greece originally but we developed during the Enlightenment in Europe and those two concepts are reason as a means of knowing reality a dedication to reason that went through that period and it's reflected in the founding of America and because of a dedication to reason individualism comes out of our dedication to reason because who reasons, only individuals reason if you combine reason and individualism they are what make a great culture and they are what we should be exporting to the world it's the idea that we should be encouraging every people in the world to embrace and if you embrace reason and individualism many of the problems all over the world South America, Asia and indeed the countries that have embraced it have done well and the countries that have not embraced it haven't done well so to an extent that Asian countries Japan, to some extent China certainly South Korea Taiwan and Hong Kong and Singapore have embraced the ideas of reason and individualism some explicitly some implicitly they've done phenomenally well to the extent that they have other countries have not they've done very very poorly but we in Europe instead of saying this is what we stand for this is what it means to be European if you want this is what if you want to come here this is what you should embrace just like in America the idea was if you come to America if you come to America you should embrace the idea of the constitution, the Declaration of Independence what they represent we don't do that in America today and you don't do it in Europe anymore and I think that's a disaster I find that but it was also it focused too much on equality you don't give the people the opportunity to rise up if the people coming here don't have the same the same level level of income then it will enhance equality here but if you look at the people coming say people from Somalia or up in Somber there's not really more but conditions are harsh then then that could increase in equality here but you would get another view of the refugee but this focus on equality basically says that we only allow I think you're right can we give some examples of these countries that have actually done that with this approach sure I mean Japan is an obvious example I don't know if you know when Japan was occupied in the Second World War Makatha asked the Japanese to write a constitution so he wrote a constitution and he read it and he said this is terrible and he shred it and Makatha and his assistant General Makatha and just some guy who was an assistant wrote the Japanese constitution and it is the only constitution in the world that has the phrase that every individual has an inalible right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness which obviously they took from the Declaration of Independence and it's in the Japanese constitution so this day now Japan has done phenomenally well with that constitution that they didn't want that was crammed on their throat but they wouldn't repeal it today because they've done phenomenally well with it it's allowed them to stay free the economy to grow dramatically standard living to increase they're not a military power anymore which might change in the future but at least today they've done phenomenally well if you look at South Korea South Korea used to be a dictatorship when they abandoned dictatorship and started respecting individual lives when they became free they're rich today, they're one of the richest countries in the world quite far and they're free freedom of speech, all the freedoms that we take for granted they have now they never had it throughout the history of South Korea look at North Korea you've got the contrast of the ethnic group is it that matters right South Korea is right, the North Korea is a dying why? because one adopted freedom and one didn't or you can go on and on Hong Kong no natural resources Iraq in the middle of nowhere was a fishing village 75 years ago today GDP per capita is the same as the United States people took rafts to get there, why? no safety net no protection it goes to your point they weren't looking for a few G's of this or that anybody could come and most of the people came there because they wanted to make a better life and they worked hard today relative to anybody else in Asia or for that matter most of the world they're rich but GDP per capita basis they're richer than sweets South Korea is an example because you can see it right there you can see the contrast I want you to stop well thank you thank you thank you very much for coming here thank you great source of inspiration and it's strange to me that not more people agree with what you say strange to me too of course we got to use some gifts this is TM Canada stuff a postcard showing a beautiful view and of course the classic student beverage