 None of these countries are capitalist countries. Chile is far from a free market. It's better than any other Latin American country. And the people there, even the poor, are richer than in any other Latin American countries. Poverty in Chile has come down dramatically over the last 40 years. And in terms of just the number poor in Chile, it continues, the poverty rating in Chile continues to decline because of the relative free market that that country has. But it's far from a free market. It's riddled with regulations. It's still very difficult to engage in business transactions, start large businesses, do large projects. It's got horrific growth restrictions on housing, on urban growth, which drives up rents and has driven up the cost of housing, particularly for young people, which is a global phenomena, as the environmentalists have become more powerful and as existing homeowners become more powerful politically. The cost of living for everybody else has gone up because what the existing homeowners and environmentalists have in common is they don't want more building. So they restrict building, which drives the cost of housing in London, in Paris, in California, almost everywhere, up dramatically. And that includes in Santiago, Chile. The tax code in Chile is a nightmare. It is so complicated. Nobody knows how to do it, particularly at the corporate level. And over the last, since 1999, Chile has had a series of socialist presidents. But all the presidents, left or right, have promised the Chileans one thing. You're going to get rich. You're going to be as rich as Europeans. And you're going to have a welfare state. So you're going to be as rich as Europeans and have a European-style welfare state. Sound familiar? It sounds like the left is promising Americans, although the left doesn't actually promise that we be as rich as Europeans because we're richer than Europeans, so that would entail a reduction in wealth. But we can attain, the Chilean government has told them, the standard of living of Europeans and have their welfare state. Now, that is impossible. Europe is in a unique position to have had 200 years or 100-something years of relative economic freedom, built up a lot of wealth, built up a lot of capital, built up an art of know-how, created massive amounts of wealth. And now, in a sense, can cruise on that and pay out massive amounts of welfare based on all of this. But it's going to be very, very difficult, if not impossible, to mimic the European experience in the short run. In the short run, it's impossible, but even in the long run. Chile, in order to get as rich as Europeans, needs to do the opposite and needs to deregulate, reduce the welfare state, encourage private capital, encourage private investment, encourage capitalism, and move towards a true free market. And then it could be richer than Europe, significantly richer than Europe. Just like Hong Kong is richer than Europe on a capital GDP basis. But that's not what they do. So on the one hand, they make promises of riches. On the other hand, they impose the kind of system that makes those riches impossible. And part of that is the promise, the promise of a welfare state. So to understand, I think the whole mixed economy, the idea of a robust welfare state, is approaching a kind of a bankruptcy. That people are going to demand change, dramatic change. And unfortunately, almost all of them, when they talk about change, demand change in the direction of more socialism, more controls, and more poverty. But that's where we're heading. That's where we're heading with the Yellow Vest Revolution. That's where we're heading in Chile. The solution the government has proposed in Chile is more welfare, more regulation, more taxes on the rich. The solution the left in the United States is proposing is more welfare, more regulation, more taxes on the rich. The solution, the right in the United States is proposing is not much different. more tariffs, more protection, more cronyism, more subsidies, more government industrial policy. So what you're going to get, and what you're seeing is a massive rise of economic populism. Don't worry, I can take care of it. Economic populism that engages in tariffs, trade restrictions, industrial policy, ever-growing welfare, ever-growing government spending. I mean, government spending in the United States is completely out of control, and nobody speaks out against it. Nobody. If the United States, nobody does it. What hope do we have for the rest of the world? So what we've got is all across the world. We've got people frustrated with the status quo. So let's take Bolivia and Colombia. Bolivia is a different story. Bolivia is a country ruled by real socialists, by real socialist moralists, if I think now 12 years, has turned a poor, is basically a poor country remain, do it poor, has gone nowhere. Now, one thing the internet does is it that makes the world visible to everybody. So, Bolivians know how poor they are. Chileans know they're poorer than Europeans. People know this is one, one of the hopes that for China is that their middle class will demand more freedom, their middle class will demand to become richer, and therefore they will demand more freedom, ultimately. Because everybody knows, everybody can compare standard of living. They can watch U.S. shows, they can watch, they can see our standard of living, our quality of life, our innovation, our growth, and they want that. And they don't know how to get it. All they know, all across the world today, is what they don't like is the status quo, what they don't like is the people in power, what they don't like is being poor. But they have no conception of how to get out of it. They have no conception of how to get rich. They have no conception of who to choose to replace the people. So, in Bolivia's case, it turns out really well. They get rid of Morales, who is now calling it a coup. Everybody these days is calling any opposition a coup. Even Donald Trump, even Netanyahu. It's a coup. Why? Because the people caught Morales cheating and trying to rig an election, and they went out the streets and forced him to leave. But is the person replacing Morales going to be any better? Do they know what needs to be done? When they put in a few reforms, and they don't make the kind of progress as fast as everybody expects, and people go out into the streets again, will they hanker for Morales to come back? Columbia, same thing. Now, Columbia is not as poor as Bolivia. It's not as rich as Chile. And generally, has moved in the right direction towards economic freedom. But not fast enough, not radical enough. And as a consequence, Columbia still has a lot of people who are poor. And a lot of people are middle class, but their middle class is just not that rich. Not that successful. And they're going, wait a minute, why aren't we as rich as Europeans? Why aren't we as rich as Americans? Let's go onto the streets and demand that we be that rich. But the demand is not enough. You have to offer something. You have to offer ideas. And they don't have any. It's not a free market revolution. It's not a revolution to liberate the economies. It's a revolution for another form of mixed economy that will have the same kind of result. And as these tensions build, the people who will exploit them are the authoritarians, the populist authoritarians that will claim to solve the world's problems. And they won't be able to. And it's going to be, it's going to be our job to point out why people are still poor, to point out why people are not much richer, to point out what is necessary to achieve economic success. And without us doing that, the world will just stagnate, will go from one populist to another populist from the left to right to nowhere, to nowhere, because the world is moved by ideas. And what there isn't any today out there in the world are ideas. Even in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon, people are out demonstrating. They're demonstrating primarily because they're poor, because they could be richer, because they see on the internet how rich people are outside. In Iran, they're also unfree in every respect. And indeed, the Iranian regime over the last few couple of weeks has brutally, brutally suppressed the demonstrations in Iran. By the way, not a peep from Donald Trump. Remember when demonstrations were in 2011, I think, or 13, and Obama didn't say a word, and I condemned him, and others condemned him. Where's the condemnation of Trump for not saying a word about the demonstrations in Iran? Not a word. And they've killed hundreds of people in Iraq. People want the promise that they were promised to become rich. There's oil. There's supposed to be one of the biggest producers of oil in the world. And yet they're seeing nothing because of corruption and because of a mixed economy. And in Lebanon, one of the most westernized, at least portions of Lebanese society, westernized Arab countries, again, corruption and radicalization, religious radicalization, ongoing war in Syria and with Israel keeps Lebanon from achieving its potential, which is to be a relatively wealthy country. Why? Because they engage in a conventional mixed economy. There is no respect for property rights. There is no respect for the rule of law. There is no respect for trade. So over and over and over and over again, everywhere in the world, what we're seeing is people getting fed up. But it leads nowhere because while they know what they don't want, they have no clue what they do. And this is true in the U.S. This is true in so much of the world. People want to be richer, they want to be freer. But they don't know what that means. They don't know what freedom means. And they don't know how wealth is attained. Indeed, often they want to be wealthier and safer at the same time. But risk, you can't become wealthy without taking risk. Risk results, higher risk results in higher reward. If you want safety, you get low growth, you get low returns. So the mixed economy is collapsing. And what ultimately will replace it is more authoritarianism. And that will be overthrown. And then the question is in the name of what? In the name of another mixed economy. The world is struggling with finding the answer to how to achieve the people's goals. And the one place they're not looking is towards freedom. It's towards free markets. It's toward capitalism. That's the one thing that's unacceptable because that's the one thing the intellectuals rule out. That's the one thing the intellectuals will not support. That's the one thing that professors at the universities won't uphold is capitalism. But capitalism is the solution. It's a solution to Chile. It's a solution for Bolivia. It's a solution for Colombia. I even would suggest that it's the solution for Iraq, Yuan, Lebanon, and Albania. We've got somebody from Albania listening to show today. It's capitalism. It's a solution. It's a respect for individual rights and respect for individual liberty. It's a respect for the individual. That's the solution. It's Ayn Rand's philosophy. But even not everybody needs to get Ayn Rand's philosophy. It's the political implications of Ayn Rand philosophy, which is the solution or at least movement in that direction, which is the solution. But nobody's interested. And as long as they're not interested, you will continue to see upheaval all over the world, resentment, and we continue to see it in the United States, among the middle class, among the poor, across the board. When you say that society has no responsibility here, I think individuals have a responsibility to themselves. Is that it? I don't like the word responsibility involved here. All right. Well, what should we say then? Help me. What do I want? Do what I wish to do. Is that your point that the more... No. Do what I rationally think is right, according to the right morality, and help others if you can, but not as a primary obligation. And now in regard to society, there is no such thing as society, you know. It's all of us. Now, how can we have obligations which we didn't undertake? See, the parents of a child would have obligations for him up to a certain age since they brought him into the world, but they can't do what is impossible to them. So it doesn't mean that they can, at any moment, throw the burden on the rest of us. With society, everybody's society, we can't have unearned obligations and unchosen obligations. What in the iron rand civil context would be appropriate societal measures to accommodate the ungifted? They're all parents. And a chance to give their parents to earn money. If, however, their parents are poor and cannot assume it, it's a big, heavy burden, then you can appeal to private charity. As it was always done before welfare statism in this country. You want private charity as well for the gifted? If necessary. They usually, in a free society, they won't need it. They'll make the wrong way just so you don't stop them. But private charity cannot be done by means of tax collection, which means by force. Private charity is up to you. And if it's a worthy cause, that says a normal child who certainly cannot help him. It's perfectly all right to help him, but not at the sacrifice of your own child. You probably like to get rid of HEW, then. Oh, certainly. Almost certainly. Much more than that. I'd like to get rid of. A lot of the government, huh? Everything except the basic duties of the government, which is police, law courts, armed forces. You want less government. Well, everybody says that. It's a little hard to put that into effect when we've got a country that has such a maldistribution of wealth. You'll give me that, huh? Too few rich, too many poor. I will give you part of that because if there is a maldistribution, it's to those who have political pull. If some of your money is made with government help and government favoritism, then I grant you that is unfair and improper and unjust. But if you made it yourself in free competition, enough people want to pay you for your services or your product, then you should keep all of it. Why shouldn't you? You made it. You also think if the Middle Eastern countries want to charge, hold us up for the oil at $5 a barrel or a gallon. Excuse me, $5. Well, that day it would be bad. They ought to be able to do it. It's their oil. Is that your point? No. My point is we should not have permitted altruistically to all those nations to nationalize what we built for them. 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 uranbrookshow.com, slash support, or go to subscribestar.com, uranbrookshow, and make a kind of a monthly contribution to keep this going. I'm not sure when the next