 This weekend, we're departing a bit from our usual topics of money and Austrian economics to welcome a friend of ours, Conor Boyack, who is the author of two very brilliant libertarian books for children. One based on Basjad's famous essay, The Law, and one based on Leonard Reid's great essay on market cooperation, I Pencil. Conor has some great insights about how we can all inoculate our kids against the disease of government propaganda. And from Conor's perspective, even in our state of society, we can raise happy, productive, responsible young people who are knowledgeable about liberty, property, economics, and personal finance. So whether you're a parent now, hope to be a parent someday, or are perfectly happy not having kids, we all have an enormous interest in winning the hearts and minds of younger generations for liberty. So stay tuned for a great interview with Conor Boyack. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back once again to Mises Weekend. I'm your host, Jeff Deist, and as mentioned, I'm very pleased to be joined this weekend by Conor Boyack, the author of both his version, The Tuttle Twins Learn About the Law, and The Tuttle Twins' version of I Pencil by Leonard Reid. So Conor, thanks very much and welcome. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you. Well, as I've gone through these books with a couple of my colleagues here at the Mises Institute who also have kids, I guess first and foremost, I'd like to know what was your motivation to write them? I mean, what prompted you to write a children's book? I've got two young children of my own. We, homeschool, and so it was about two years ago where I was beginning the search for resources that would help educate my children, teach them the values and the principles that I believe in. And it was just, it was more just me trying to find something that I could use for them. And there was nothing. I mean, not only was there very little, there was nothing. You know, you had some American history stuff for maybe like your preteens as like the youngest I could find. You had a little bit of constitution stuff for young kids, like coloring pages and little stories and things. But there was nothing at all that that taught the fundamental principles of liberty, Austrian economics, anything like it to a younger market. And so it was, I run a Libertas Institute in Utah, a libertarian think tank here and we publish a lot of literature and we've had great success educating adults. And so what we finally decided to do is why don't we take those same stories, those same books and works and essays and bring them down to the kids level. And so really it was more an entrepreneurial filling a market void. And clearly there's been a demand. I mean, the books have just been, they've been doing incredibly far better than we thought so soon into doing this. And and so really I wanted it for my kids. The illustrator is a very like-minded guy, Elijah Stanfield. He lives in Washington, good friend of mine. And so we said, you know what, the first book we're going to do, if we only do one book and this doesn't fill a market void, if there's no response, we want this book to exist for our children. And so we didn't care at that point if it's sold or not. We just wanted to bring the first book based on Basti, it's the law into existence and clearly many other parents agreed. So we're going to end up over time with a series of about eight to 10 books total. Well, you talk about this market void in libertarian literature for kids. This amazes me. I mean, here we are trying to convince 30 year olds or 50 year olds to change their hearts and minds about the state or about economics. And it seems a much simpler and easier task to to to instill the values of liberty in young people while they're still in their formative years. I mean, this seems obvious to me. It is. And that's kind of the humorous thing about writing these stories. You know, I've written six books, two of them for children, four of them for, you know, general market adults. And in some ways it's harder to create books for children. You really have to simplify stuff. But the irony in that is that as I work on these stories, I realize I'm not really teaching anything new to these kids that they're not already being taught. I'm simply validating what they're being taught. So, for example, when children are taught, don't hurt people, you know, and don't take things that don't belong to you. These are basic tenants that any good parent is instilling in their child. The problem is that as you get older, the state and society layer on top of that all of the exceptions to the rule, right? Oh, well, you know, it doesn't apply to government. It just applies to you and your siblings. And so we're trying to validate for children that not only are these principles you're already being taught correct, but they do apply to interpersonal relationships and to the government. And here's how. And so it's kind of funny that these children already learned this. It's nothing. It's not a novelty. We're just trying to validate and show some application to the real world that they aren't getting in public school or even in many homeschool families. Well, kind of what I love about your first book, the Tuttle Twins Learn About the Law, a book I shared with my own children several months back, is that your adaptation of this of Bastia's famous essay, it really demystifies government and laws for kids. And I guess in that sense, it does what Bastia's book did for adults, which it takes this mysterious process known as the state and really breaks it down to its fundamentals. The fun thing for us has been that that was what we sought out to do. What we didn't really realize, what was kind of a secondary result from putting that book out there was that it found its way into the hands of a lot of families who've never heard of Frederick Bastia, right? We started doing some aggressive marketing to homeschool families specifically. And so think of your average homeschooling mom, you know, she's not libertarian. She's maybe a little freedom minded, independent thinking by virtue of the fact that she, you know, decided the shoulder, the education of her children on her own shoulders. She's never read Bastia. She's never heard of the guy. And so here she finds this book because she knows freedom is important. She says, I'm going to get this book. My friend recommended it to me. They start reading. And as they start reading, it's opened up all sorts of discussions that we're hearing about. They're just fascinating. So if a child, in one case, we heard is reading a book and they say, well, if it's not OK to take things from other people, then why are taxes OK? And suddenly the parent is on the defensive, trying to figure out a logical response to that question asked by their seven year old. And then at the end of the book, we say, Hey, parents, you know, here's the original source. Here's where you can go find the book. You can read it yourself. And so the secondary response that we've gotten or the reaction has been that adults are getting educated along the way as well. And for us, that's very gratifying. I remember a lot of young kids who came into Ron Paul's office. They were teaching their own parents about Ron Paul and about libertarianism, not the other way around. So that's that's a very happy development from my perspective. Now, the second book in this new series is called The Tuttle Twins and the Miraculous Pencil. Obviously, it's based around Leonard Reid's famous essay I pencil on market cooperation. But what I really interested me in your Lou Rockwell article that's on LRC today that you talk about this book helping dismantle a child's entitlement mentality. And I think as a parent of two young children, that's something I really struggle with, let's say, after Christmas time, the kids just think that houses and clothing and food and toys materialize on their own. And I think that that's something that that you might find a lot of parents struggle with. I fully agree. I experience it myself. One of the things that we tried to do to counter that is not only bring Leonard's essay, the story to kids, which itself tries to kind of dismantle some of that entitlement mentality. But with each book, we also have an activity workbook that we offer. So it's just a PDF download on our website, totaltwins.com and it has all sorts of activities for a wide range of children, age range. And one of the activities is trying the same thought experiment that is in the story in the book. So in the book, it's here's how a pencil is made. Here's this elaborate process. Look how fascinating it is that all these materials come from different countries and people working together. So the story, of course, is about the pencil. But the activity and that the thought experiment is go around your house and do this. And I've done this with my kids. It's provided a very fun activity for them to think about. It creates great conversations for us. And then it begins to help them understand and recognize that the toy we got them for Christmas or the money that they're earning to go buy something is involved in this complex web. And so it turns into a game where you can have these discussions and try and introduce the idea to kids that that iPad they are using or the clothes that they're wearing even don't spontaneously come into existence. I mean, my kids and I, we've watched all sorts of YouTube videos now about how cotton is grown and harvested and weaved into thread and everything else. And it's a fun way to expose them to the education of that process itself. But then they begin to have that foundation in place that the market is just overwhelmingly complex. And yet it all comes together to produce stuff rather than, hey, mom, let's go to the store and buy X, Y or Z. Well, Conor, I know that for myself and for a lot of liberty minded people, they became voracious readers at a very young age. And I think it's a very important antidote to the state and its propaganda. How would you suggest parents go about instilling a love of reading in their children? That's a great question. I, you know, with with my own children, I've tried to ask myself the same thing. I think stories are what's needed, right? So as we've tried to do that, take. And in fact, I was on Tom Wood Show the other week and I joked with them that we're doing eight to 10 books in the series. And perhaps the magnum opus will be if we can ever get human action into child form. I don't know if that's possible, but I think yeah, good luck. But I think stories are important, right? You have praxeology. It's hard to wrap stories around that. It's just so abstract and dry, but but important. But I think stories are important as we so we beta test our books with a lot of families trying to say, is this working? What can we change appealing them? And the fact that that fundamental principles are being taught through a fun and engaging story. The kids that we're seeing, I mean, we get so much feedback from parents. It's really fun. But the feedback that we get is that these kids are just glomming on to this. They're tantalizing ideas. They're not getting it in school. They're not getting it from the parents. But the stories themselves are engaging. And like I said in the Little Rockwell piece, you know, I'm a firm believer in competition, division of labor. Other people should start doing what we're trying to do. I don't, you know, we don't want to monopoly on the children's market for liberty. We'd love to see what other people do. But what we're trying to do is expose them to stories. And there are good stories out there that teach these same concepts in fictional format, but I think as I see with my own kids, it's hard to sit down with them and say, well, let's talk about the non-aggression principle. But if we talk about a playground bully, you know, even if we're reading like Berenstain Bearers or Amelia Macdillia or some of these other characters that they like to read about, the stories are a great delivery mechanism to teach them these principles. The problem that I see is that few parents in the liberty movement are really trying to inculcate in their children or at least expose them to these fundamental ideas. They're just kind of letting them go and focusing on, you know, arithmetic and more general stuff. We really need to have an ambitious program, I think, to expose the rising generation to the ideas that we believe in. Because, yeah, we can go after the 30 year olds and the 50 year olds and we do and we should. But do we have a plan to go after the rising generation? Or are we just going to let them go through the motions and get indoctrinated by the state? I'd rather play offense rather than defense. I agree completely. And I have to say, you know, public schools aside, even if your kids go to a quote unquote good private school or their homeschooled, it's still very hard as parents to keep status influences away from them. I mean, everywhere they go, their friends' houses, television, social media, et cetera, they're bombarded with what I would consider a very false narrative about the state and about the political class. So I think, as you say, it's very important to go on offense, not just with respect to schooling, but with respect to the time outside of school and we are with our children. Yeah, I agree. I mean, first and foremost, I think parents need to recognize that they are getting this. They're getting it in movies. They're getting it in books. It's not just, oh, I took my kids out of public school so we're okay. You know, it is a very ambitious and aggressive propaganda program, even if it's uncoordinated and unplanned. It is what's happening. And we all know this. I mean, every listener of this podcast, I'm sure recognizes that as a self-evident truth. But I really do think we need to make concerted effort at pushing back. And our offering is just one. Ron Paul's got his homeschool program with Tom Woods and others that's just gonna be fantastic. I really, really hope that in the years ahead, there's a lot more actors that come into play in this market space to say, you know what, we need to go after the youth and here's how. It needs to be fun. It needs to be engaging. I love Jeff Tucker. How positive Jeff Tucker always is. It is infectious. Too many libertarians are, you know, the pessimists. And we have reason to be for sure, but that's not going to attract people in general, but specifically it's not gonna attract the youth. We need to expose them to the wonders and beauty of liberty and stories, I think, or the delivery method that we need to focus on to do that. Connor, talk a little bit more about your view of homeschooling. You talk about the tremendous market need for this, but homeschooling and unschooling to a lesser extent must be one of the biggest existential threats to the state in modern times. The question becomes, how long will the state permit this and to what degree will the state permit this? And I really see entrepreneurs such as yourself with the books you're writing, creating a market that's a step or two ahead of the regulators. Well, you know, the best thing that the state can do for liberty is to continue being the state, right? Like especially as you see Common Core happening to the degree that more control is exerted and more central planning exists, it's only going to help us wake people up out of that system. It's only going to help expose people to the problems inherent in the system. So I think Common Core, as one example, has been fantastic for the homeschooling community. Here in Utah, where we operate Libertas Institute, we just got homeschooling deregulated this year in the legislature. And we're just seeing a massive amount of people come into homeschool, or at least doing something a little bit more independent, doing a mix of public school and homeschool. People are starting to think about it a lot more. What I'm seeing in curriculum developers and homeschooling organizations is they're scrambling to put together a curriculum to meet this increased market response. And I think if we don't have the right material for them, they're just going to be bringing the public school books into the home setting. To me, that's not homeschool, right? I see a lot of homeschool families that do the same thing, oh, we're going to learn in half an hour or 45 minute increments. And all they know is the public school model, they're just doing it in a home classroom. And I think that's just, it's not advantageous. It's not what homeschool is meant to be. We favor the more unschooling approach. I like to call it child led learning. And as I beta test the Tuttle Twins books with my children, or as we have several other stories we're working on, as I talk to my kids about it and kind of see what's working and what doesn't work for them. It's fascinating to me because they ask the question, well, oh yeah, that's how a pencil is made. How is the chicken made that we just ate? Or how are my shoes made? And then we can go online. Technology is the great disruptor of state control. We can go online to access for free, all of this information. I mean, I really do believe the future is decentralization of the education industry. It is empowering parents to meet the interests and the passions and the abilities of their own children. But again, I think the state is doing exactly what it should to benefit those of us who are trying to expose people to liberty because the greatest thing it can do is to continue exerting more control. It only affirms the position that we have. So I like to be optimistic about the future. There are a lot of problems out there, especially in the education industry. Our organization here in Utah is, we have a lawsuit over the adoption of Common Core. We're very concerned with it. We should fight back, but kind of the net positive thing is it's waking a lot of people up, especially. I mean, we're a homeschooling family. We're in a lot of these communities here locally. It's a good time for us to exist, but if we don't have the resources, like Ron Paul homeschool and other curriculum out there that will expose them to a pro-liberty agenda, I just worry that they're just gonna still get the pro-state agenda, just sitting in their basement at home. And that's not really a benefit, I think, in the end. Connor, I couldn't agree with you more. And everyone at the Mises Institute wishes you and your illustrator best of luck with your series of children's books. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wanna check these books out again, they use the Tuttle Twins, Ethan and Emily to demonstrate two different books so far. First is Frederick Basiat's The Law. The second is Leonard Reed's Eye Pencil. You can find both of these at tuttletwins.com. That's T-U-T-T-L-E, tuttletwins.com. And you can also find The Law, and I think soon Eye Pencil at the Mises.org website. So Connor, thanks again for a great interview and ladies and gentlemen, have a great weekend.