 All right. And one thing I'll say at the outset is that, you know, I'm not an expert in economics. I'm just sort of a layperson who's interested in these things. And I'm also not coming into this conversation with a particularly strong perspective in any direction. This is just a truth seeking mission. These are these are questions that I'm interested in. And I am just genuinely curious what you think about them. And so, yeah, what I want to start by asking is just a very, very broad question. And then I want to get into a more specific question. The broad question is simply, what do you think the state should do? Well, my view is you have to ask the question, why do we have a state? What's the purpose of the state? Why do individuals need a state? And I would argue they do. I'm not an anarchist. But I think you have to understand kind of the moral foundation of the moral purpose of a state. And I think we have to start with the fact that from my perspective, the moral purpose of a human being is to live the best life that he can, to live a moral life, to live a happy life. And that requires certain things. And more than anything else, it requires that a human being be able to think for himself to use his mind freely to come to whatever conclusions he comes to, and to act on those conclusions. And that that requires freedom. That requires the ability to think, to express oneself, free speech, for example, and then to act on those thoughts. And I think that, you know, in the 18th century, they came up with a concept in a sense, capture this idea of freedom, this idea of the freedom of the individual to live his life as he sees fit. And that is the idea of rights, of individual rights, the kind of the notion of rights. And so I think individuals have rights as a moral necessity, so that they can live their lives to the best of their ability. And the right really means that you have the freedom of action to pursue your rational values, free of coercion, free of interference, free of fraud, free of authority, authority that impose they will on you. And again, this comes from the experience in Europe of authorities, the church, the state authorities that dictate to people how to live, what profession to have, you know, who they could marry, and what discoveries were acceptable and what discoveries were not acceptable. So the state therefore is the guarantor of those rights. So the state therefore sole purpose is the protection of those rights. So state is there to protect you from the fact that when we come into society as individuals, we now are exposed to people who might want to impose their will on us, might want to defraud us, might want to use violence against us. Maybe that's, and typically that's only a minority of people, but it's still a significant minority and force is a significant, you know, is a major deterrent to thinking and acting. So the role of the state is to protect us from force, and it's to help define, or define in legal terms, objective means to decide who initiated force and who didn't. This is not necessarily an easy thing to objectively define what are the boundaries and when are the property rights and when are they infringed and when are they not and property rights are complicated and certainly in the internet age, they've only become in a sense more complicated. So that is the role of the state it's it's to help define these boundaries and procedures, and then to enforce them to protect to protect our rights so police military judiciary. That's it protection from from obviously violence and fraud and theft and all of all of those kind of criminal offenses but otherwise, and to arbitrate disputes of the two of us have a contractual dispute. One option could be for the state to arbitrate that contractual dispute based on the principles of property rights. Okay, so you're not an anarchist you believe there should be a state the things the state should do include. They should make it the state should make it legal for people to acquire private property to inherit it. Well, I see it reverse right they're not making it legal they're recognizing your right to your property they're not making it legal, but they're helping define what it means to own property right okay always straightforward case for the recognizing and an alienable right to private property. To acquire it to inherit it, etc. If society murder would be illegal theft would be illegal there would be a police force to prevent those things interpersonal violence theft etc. I think you also think there should be an army for national defense. Definitely. Correct. Okay. And it was interesting you mentioned fraud because fraud on what. What is the principle argument for having a state. That's an X from committing fraud against person why not in a sense I view fraud as violence fraud is a way of a cheat of gaining, gaining a value from you without your consent. Because your consent is undermined by the fact that I'm lying to you. So, so to the extent that I gain a value from you without your consent that is a form of violence. Interesting. Okay, gotcha. Okay, and again, it's not easy to define right. Yeah. And that's you need legal philosophers you need a legislature, you need laws that clearly articulate what is fraud and what isn't fraud what is, you know, what is just advertising versus what is fraud right because you could have advertising that's, you know, hyping versus what is the two things are not the same. But that's, it's not obvious I don't have an answer to every one of the borderline questions. Do you consider abortion, a form of interpersonal violence or not. No, okay, there's no person. There's a there's a there's a living, a living being but it's not a person it's not an individual human beings and rights can only apply to created human beings you're only getting rights once you're born, once you're outside of the womb. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so two other specific questions about state function. Okay, well actually three so one regarding so how how in your ideal system with the revenue be generated in an ideal system. To some extent it's hard to tell right because there's a lot of time to think about this, but I'd say primarily through voluntary means I think a voluntary contributions to government in support of the police and the military I mean I have no doubt that might my challenge would be that the government would have too much money, not too little. Also, you can imagine certain revenue. Some of the things that the government could do that would generate revenue for example. If if the two of us had a contract, and we could have in the contract private arbitration and private mediation arbitration. But if we wanted the final authority to be the state that is government courts if we wanted that that to be the final authority, we would let's say have to pay a fee to the court system. That would be the final guarantee of the contract and that would fund the courts because think about some of the big contracts that corporations signed with each other. I think patent offices copyright offices would generate significant significant revenue I think I think there are a number of things ways in which you could generate revenue for certain services that are provided. I think that the bulk, particularly for the military things like the military would have to come voluntarily and I think one of the advantages of that is the state would have a very hard time engaging in war, unless it was popular. And they would have to convince the people that it was popular because otherwise people would hold funding that you know and even if you think about even World War one and two, which certainly one I think was one of the dumbest wars in history certainly for the United States but they had to sell war bonds and they made out there was a whole campaign to sell war bonds and they made an effort today they go to war. They don't care, I mean they just run deficits or whatever and they just go to war there's no consideration of how it's going to be funded and convincing people of the just the justness of the war. So, and just hypothetically speaking, if voluntary contributions weren't sufficient to prop up a sufficiently strong police force and army and court system etc. So people will get the society they deserve. Gotcha. Okay, so you, so you, you have an absolute opposition to taxation, like forced taxation post taxation absolutely and, and you know again it when we get to, when we get to everybody paying 5% flat rate across the board and and a bunch of taxes is zero. You know, that'll be a great day I'll be celebrating. It's perfect that it'll be a lot better than the current situation exactly but I do think that the perfect system and the ultimately the system that that is sustainable, because I think a 5% taxes not sustainable, you know first income tax was 7% only on the top 5% of owners I think and it very quickly as a because World War one became a tax on everybody and and tax rates went through the roof very very quickly. Once you establish the precedent there's no limit to it, you need to get rid of the precedent. So, so yes I think that voluntary taxation, I'm against coercion. So I'm against coercion, even if it's done by a majority. Right. I'm, you know, so it's, it's democracy doesn't legitimize coercion. This may be too specific a question to merit much interest but what's the tax situation in Puerto Rico. The tax because because Puerto Ricans are taxed in one way and there's a special tax regime for people moving to Puerto Rico from the United States. And so I pay a lot less than Puerto Ricans do they and nobody in Puerto Rico pays federal taxes. So, no taxation without representation since Puerto Rico is not represented then they don't get tax, but from a state tax perspective there's a massive incentive for people who move into Puerto Rico from the United States. And so that played a role in your going. Yes. Oh, I see. A couple of other questions about func proper functions of the state and then we'll proceed to some more practical issues. So what about monopoly prevention. Do you think that that is a proper function of the state. No, and no and part of the issue is that there are no monopolies in a in a truly capitalist society monopolies a creation of government monopolies you know the board comes from. You know the term was first used by King granting you a monopoly to do trade with India right, and you get the East India Company and only you can do trade with India nobody can compete with you that's where the term comes from and monopolies are the post office is a monopoly and first class mail. If you try to compete with them you go to jail. There's no other monopolies so you could argue. So some economists, I question how, you know, economically minded they really are, but some economists argue that you know, market power is monopoly power but that's nonsense and there's no no examples of it in history, not in a in a in a in a semi even free market to take for example, standard oil in the 1870s had 93% of the refining capacity in the United States 93%. Wow, that sounds like a monopoly right sounds like nobody can compete with them. Today economists tell us that the behavior monopolist is a monopolist who has 93% drives up prices and drives down quality, and yet unequivocally prices went down during the 1870s 80s 90s teens. He went down and quality went up dramatically not even by small amounts dramatically, because Rockefeller understood that in a free market, since he didn't have a government protection competitors would arise as soon as he slipped. He constantly drove for efficiency so why do we care. You know, Google arguably has a market dominant position in advertising, right online. Why does anybody care right Google is free to all of us. Yeah, so this really this really becomes. Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt. Right. Of this actually happening, because there's always competition and let me just finish the standard oil example and now of course, of course, two things one by the time standard oil was broken up I think it was in the 1920s. I think 3% of the oil refining capacity in the United States. So over that 50 years, it's over finding capacity shrunk. It says a percentage of us not because of government, not because I antitrust, but because of competition. Other people figured out how to compete with them. And second, the primary use for oil for overfining in the in the 1870s was for kerosene for lighting. Who ended up competing them out of that business. I mean completely out of that business. Well Thomas Edison and Tesla with, you know, with electricity. So, which, which antitrust official in the government would have predicted in the 1870s that no no it's this monopoly is short lived because you know Edison is going to come around and completely, you know destroy the lighting and for for for nobody nobody could have predicted that and and certainly not a government bureaucrat so no I you know if you look at Alcoa and antitrust lawsuit against them when they had like 80 something percent of all the aluminum production. And I think the way down quality was going up if you look at IBM, being antitrust case for for mainframes and yet digital was producing many computers, many mainframes and then within a decade, you had personal computers that completely blew that business up right and and inside the side of IBM those supercomputers were competing with them. So they'll always you know forget the name of the supercomputer company that was producing supercomputers in those days but there's always competition. And you know, even if you the bureaucrat can't see it. It's there and eventually capital is just eager to fund it because because if you've gained 87% or 90% of a market. This is this there's probably opportunities to compete against you. Right, so you would say like your, your main response to the often made claim, even among fairly libertarian types that the state is necessary for monopoly prevention your response to that is that these people are conflating market power with monopoly power. Well, generally, we have a culture that conflates what we call market power with political power, political power is the power of the gun political power is the governor is the power of coercion economic power is the power of success is the power of voluntary If we don't like Microsoft so called monopoly we can stop buying Microsoft products and they're always substitutes think about Linux think about of course Apple, but they're always going to say they might not be convenient substitutes, but but you don't have a right to convenience. Right, and here's the fundamental point the fundamental point is the state has no role to engage in coercive power over anybody. Certainly not successful people right if you're successful, you get penalized that makes no sense. Last question on state functions. How would infrastructure be developed in your ideal. Yeah, the same way was developed originally in the United States to private actions the first canals were built by private actors. The first ferries were private first roads were actually privatized and then and then government capital flew in and drove out private capital. So, the better railroads were built. So if you look at the, the main railroad was that the Atlantic Pacific railroad that was built during the Civil War was a pathetic endeavor that never made money. And was filled with problems and breakdowns and was not efficient, but the, the one that went north from Chicago, across to Seattle was incredibly profitable incredibly successful and and and very well managed and it was funded 100% by private capital. So, you know, the government, when it builds infrastructure tends to take away private property it tends to violate property rights. And, and who knows what would happen now. I think one of the reasons we got the interstate highway system in the 1950s is because government had already destroyed the railroads. I mean, through regulation. The railroads have been truly private and been allowed to thrive. Why, why does some of these other states have high speed rail we don't well because we took out all the incentives from railroads to develop and then we destroyed the business by creating this the highway system. And of course, highways have lots of trucks on them wire trucks on highways. You'd think those would be much more efficiently moved around by trains. Again, because government destroyed through regulation really going back to the 1870s, 60s and 70s. The whole rail industry and there's a lot of documentation of economic historians looking at how government government did that. Someone said to you, well, if private companies take responsibility for infrastructure, they're only going to do it if they can make a profit the only way they're going to make a profit is if they obviously charge people for a lot of the infrastructure that today is free. For example, driving on interstates would part of your response be that you're paying for it with your tax dollars. Yeah, and why, you know, if I don't drive, you know, some, let's say poor people who you use public transportation today and struggle, particularly in places like California, yet to the extent that they pay taxes, they're paying for the highway system why they're not using it. So I would say it's great, right, pay for use, right, let's have everything told and today tolls are costless in the sense that you put a you put a little track on your car and easy pass bill. You could you could you could tow road every road in the United States and through GPS technology, you could just get a bill at the end for the different owners of the different roads. There's a variety of different ways to do that. But again, the principle, the principle is, yeah, I mean, some people would tow the roads, but in an age without the convenience that we have today. A lot of people would build roads without tolling them and that happens for example, I lived in a gated community in California. There was an there was a nice road led leading to that gated community because it was a little removed from the rest of civilization if you will. The developer had an enormous incentive to build that world and not to toll it. Because you have access to the neighborhood, right, and I had a huge incentive to pay a little bit of money in my community fees to support that road so that people could get to me. Right, and for me to be able to get to places. Business owners who have stores or malls along a highway stretch, certainly have an incentive to pay for the maintenance of that road and maybe to make it free so maybe they pay the developer, or the owner of the road here's a lump sum don't charge at all, because we want a lot of people to drive here because then they see them all and they come and visit me in the mall, or my restaurant or whatever it is. The market is super and you know and this is just me off the top of my head. The market is super inventive. Right, in terms of solutions to these kind of problems. We haven't allowed the market to develop because the state has basically, I mean 70% of all the land Western Mississippi is owned by a state entity, whether it's local state or federal. So, we haven't had any opportunity to develop private infrastructure except in gated communities, and it's infrastructure that tends to be much better than yeah gated communities are really nice. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm vacationing and, and kind of the Jupiter, Florida area and I've been in a number of gated communities is driving around and it's incredibly nice. And that's because they're funded privately, and they take care of the roads because they use them they own them they care for them. And roads in Puerto Rico, just a complete and out of disaster and that's because it's all dependent on a pretty corrupt state. And, and, and you see that across the board and why isn't there. Why isn't there a solution to traffic congestion in in California. Well, because nobody has an incentive to solve the problem, but imagine if you could make money solving the problem. And you didn't have to go through the state in order to do it, you did be tunnels that be I mean people would come up with ideas that we can't even imagine today Elon Musk. The tunneling technology Elon Musk has should be the mechanism I would resolve the congestion problem in LA, but instead we build, you know, I don't know bicycle lanes and, and bus lanes which which only make traffic worse not better. So, so shifting now. So the reason, the main reason I wanted to talk is that, you know, I generally describe myself as a proponent of free markets, I believe that capitalist culture and institutions are responsible for the incredible investments and quality of life over the last one to 200 years. So, that is my view, I consider myself a proponent of limited government, but when people ask me, if I think that the state should play a role in the economy under certain circumstances. I do tend to make the following argument. And I'm pretty sure you disagree with it. And I'm open minded on this subject and certainly not doctrinaire about it. But you know, my current view I think is different from yours and I want to understand what you would say in response to this point of view so let me just lay it out in like three to four minutes and then you can respond so. For the last few years I've been saying to people in conversations about this that even though states rarely succeed in fostering innovation and in turbo charging complex industrialization states can be extremely useful and may even be critical for achieving these objectives, particularly if the goal is to achieve them quickly. And the basic argument here is that private firms have fewer resources than states, and they have to be profitable, unlike states. Having fewer resources than states and needing to be profitable unlike states means that private firms are less likely to have enough resources or enough appetite for risk to make the investments necessary to develop highly expensive companies that take decades to become marketable like aircraft rockets the Internet. States also don't have enough resources to make the initial investments necessary to get really complex industries going steel cars ships electronics computers, and to protect them and nurture them in their infant in their own. So, for these reasons, I've heard it said that the state is necessary for the development of technologies, but that the, or let me say that again, I've heard it said that the state is necessary for developing technologies and that the private sector is really good at commercializing them. What I really like in this regard is that states also at times have really powerful incentives to develop technologies and industries, unlike any and unlike any incentives that companies might have and I'm talking about total war I'm talking about existential conflict total wars provides states with an unparalleled incentive and existential incentive to develop and improve technologies because if they don't they're going to get destroyed. And it's remarkable in this connection to think about how many major technologies in the 20th century in the United States originated or rapidly advanced during World War two, whether it's aircrafts or semiconductors. Now, I want to immediately qualify this by saying, admittedly, in many countries, it might be impossible for the state to drive innovation, or to nurture successful industries of the future the state might be too corrupt. The United States society may not have sufficient human capital so that state investment is relevant. But if the state is not too corrupt. And if there is sufficient human capital, state action may be the only way to innovate and to become competitive and complex sectors or at least to do so relatively quickly. And the two main examples that I have in mind when I think about these arguments are the US in the 20th century I think that's a good example of state investments particularly Pentagon funding being necessary for hugely investments in the 40s 50s 60s and 70s. And then the East Asian Tigers, South Korea and Taiwan, and to some extent China are good examples I think of state investments being necessary for the creation of really successful competitive companies in complex economies like steel shipbuilding cars electronics computers, where these countries if they had just done what they had comparative advantage in, they may never have developed these sectors and they certainly wouldn't have done so as quickly as they did. So, yeah, I'll stop there but so again, I'm generally a proponent of free markets but it does seem to me that the state has played a really important role in developing innovative technologies particularly for example in the United States in the 20th century, and in turbo charging a complex industrialization process, as has been seen in the case of East Asian Tigers in the last 50 to 75 years. So what do you say to that. Yes, so this is a this is a pretty common argument among economists and and among proponents of, you know, the, I'd say the better proponents of a limited government who think government should intervene in basic science and certain issues around technology. I, you know, I think it's, I think it's wrong. I think it's again, I'll start with a moral point with a philosophical point. And that is, even if everything you said was true, which I don't think it is. But it will get to that but even if that were true, then I'd still be against it because so progress will be slower. So technology will take longer. I don't I certainly don't think you use the word necessary a number of times. I don't think any of that is necessary. Right. There's no proof of that and I'll give some country examples. The much more fundamental point is the state has to take money from some people to give to others that I think is morally offensive and morally wrong. It then allocates it based on priorities that have nothing to do long term I think with human well being even in the best run states. We can focus on the. I don't know the exact percentage and nobody's done the research that I know of the exact percentage on the success stories. And we ignore the failures, probably 90% of the investments. All the research grants that went to nothing because and we don't know because we don't know them right. We see the white elephant petrochemical and drug industry investment that Japanese government tried to steer the economy towards and you can travel through Japan and see the massive plants that sit empty today, because because what we know is the industries were successful we forget about the stuff that wasn't. And we don't have a counterfactual. Right, we don't have the alternative. So, so, you know, we now have philosopher kings deciding what technology is going to be good and what isn't who among scientists should be invested in who shouldn't. I think they, while again we see the successes, what we don't see are the things that might have gotten funded on the different system that didn't for political reasons. What are the stem cells stuff that could have happened if not for Republicans under bush and others stopping it. What about all the nuclear technology that would have evolved if not for the state stopping it, you know, if the state is going to fund science the state's going to regulate science. In fact, that it's probably likely that if I do a, if I get a government grant, and my results of my study are, you know what, the world is doing great things are fantastic. Don't do anything. I probably will never get another grant. If my results of my study are the world's going to end in 20 years unless we do XYZ. I need another grant to study how to do XYZ effectively. I'm, I probably guaranteed myself a lifetime of funding. Right. And I take, I take climate change as an example and maybe covert, you know, maybe you could argue some of the stuff in covert is related to government funding of science and the incentive that is associated with that. So I am very skeptical about government funded science. It's true that if you give hundreds of scientists money, thousands of scientists money which is what the government does grants the thousands of scientists, a few of them will do major things that will have an impact and we will all identify yes, you know the woman who single handedly basically drove MRNA technology, right. Yes, she was a bulldog she's a she's a Romanian immigrant to the United States that worked at the University of Pennsylvania for a while, and she just will grant application after most of them will turn down, but she was just a bulldog she just stuck with it and she got it. Now you could say the government did it because they funded her. Yeah, but what about all the grants she didn't get maybe we could have, you know, save 20 years on this. I mean, who knows. But the point is, yes, if you if you diversify enough which is what government does. Some of it will succeed the MRNA technology will succeed what about the the the thousands of scientific grants that were given to people who found no results. Here's one other one other example just came to me. What about all the research into that the government funded government promoted and then the government supported into for example, health. So for example, we should eat you know the government food pyramid. There's major major evidence it's wrong, right. It's just wrong it's not good for you and it maybe it's it's the cause of the obesity crisis, right because it emphasizes simple carbs and sugar and things like that. And fat, you know for a variety of reasons fat might not be that bad for you, particularly in comparison to things like sugar. All government side government driven science, all a disaster, maybe it caused massive obesity in this country, a massive amounts of diabetes and heart disease and so on. Do we weigh the costs of that versus the benefit that we attribute all those stuff I'm not, I'm not convinced that if you weighed that properly, you would get a positive outcome. Okay, now to some of the specifics. So, with regard to government development of technology, and its role in developed technology. I'm going to give you a website that I think, you know, it's just it's just an amazing resource and provide a lot of, and it's not necessarily really disagreeing with you, but it for those arguing for the extreme, just all government driven and everything. This guy really presents some great arguments and he goes through the books and he. So this is called his name is he, it's Nintel NINTAL.com, NINTAL.com, he's Spanish so you have to, you have to put on translate but the translations are really good. So his articles but this guy is just brilliant in my view I mean he went through the entrepreneurial state that that book by I forget her name, and he goes section he goes pretty much paragraph by paragraph, and questions, and he goes to the original he goes to sources, right to shield site something, he'll go to the citation and show what's really going on anyway. This is the conclusion he came to about war because he has a whole thing about the Air Force about about the idea of here two things that he says. Firstly says, most economic historians, including for example, an economist by the name of Joe McCoy, M-O-K-Y-R, assessed the effects of war on technological innovation is largely negative with a few exceptions. Exceptions of economists but most economists right. The reason of the above is that war encourages a conservative approach to technology, inducing demand for existing technology. Thus, most war technology was developed prior to the war. Third point, the more developed the technology is the heart of a spin ups spin ups of military technology to be successful. Research is required understanding the effects of military R&D, but that whole research is plagued with difficulties there's real difficulties in assessing that. So, it seems like most economic historians and I haven't studied the literature thoroughly actually think technology innovation and for example, World War two. One of the things that World War two did very well is leverage Bell Labs and what it went to Bell and it leveraged some British scientists. But what they did is they basically went to Bell Labs and basically accelerated the development of existing technologies or technologies that were being speculated on. And now there was funding to go full throttle and there's no question that happened and that accelerated it. I don't think that's true of the of ultimately the semiconductor but certainly some of the other technologies the semiconductor really did come out of Bell Labs. And you could argue about Bell Labs is that a pure, is that a lab that was really private because it was protected in a sense by AT&T monopoly power that was granted by government so a real monopoly in the sense of government granted it. But there are other corporate labs and other private research labs. He also makes the point about aircraft because there's a lot there's a book about right and he he reviews the book that says aircraft development could have happened if not fall. So this is what he writes about this which I thought, what would it kind of factual look like, he says to the whole question. There was no air mail subsidies, no NACA, which I guess was a was a was an entity that that the government ran. Scientists working for NACA would be elsewhere without military pressure for NACA, GALCET and other Guggenheim funded or other Guggenheim funded colleges would have taken the throne so other Guggenheim funded colleges would have taken the throne of top aircraft research centers aircraft manufacturing would have remained low as research advanced, eventually advances in this technology, perhaps even funded by manufacturers would have enabled the construction of profitable aircraft, following the same row jet engines would have been integrated at some point. So I'm willing to grant that the government support was very important, and that it could have accelerated the pace of development, but the mass manufacturing of aircraft for the war did not. I thus conclude here that war was not necessary for the appearance and growth of an aircraft industry, but that it could have accelerated it could have accelerated. Government isn't an NACA, which is the one entity sites here isn't an example of state entrepreneurship as apparently the ones pushing for the case for NACA forward with an article society who just wanted to see more progress in things they liked, an initial reaction of government officials wasn't very appreciative that is there was a lot of resistance from government, as you'd expect. So, on every one of these technologies, what is the counterfactual. So, and here, I think he undermines the cut. I mean, the kind of fact shows much larger right. What happens if we're not taxing people at 50% of their income. What happens if we're not taking, you know, 20 something percent of corporate profits. What happens if private if government is not crowding out and we know the crowding out effect while documented in economics. What happens of government is not crowding out private entrepreneurs private businesses private philanthropists from investing in science and technology. I can guess I don't have the parallel universe in which it's happening, but we know that private that private entrepreneurs are interested in science for example we know the billion is what imagine if a billion if they're more billion is because under capitalism I believe there'll be many more billion is right standard of living would be much higher partially because I think they would be funding science and they would be funding more science more effectively the grand system science grand system in the United States is broken. It is an effectual even people in the that associated with the state funding of know this. For example, one just little observation used to be that young scientists got the majority of the grants. It's old scientists get the majority of the grants, yet innovation is almost not exclusively but almost exclusively young person's game. Think of the big breakthroughs of Einstein, almost all of them came when he was very young. It's, you know, it just is it's it's true. It's true in almost every field that that particularly thinking outside of the box and thinking new and breaking out of the box is something a phenomena of younger people. You know, just fixing that would probably change the pace of innovation and yet one could imagine the private entrepreneurs private businesses would would be much more oriented towards success, much more oriented towards results orientation much much more just like I think charity would be much more effective at helping the poor than welfare, because I think people who gave to charity would be much more interested in results than the welfare state, which I don't think is that interested in results. So the whole incentive the whole motivation, everything about funding of science would be different now with some things that develop slower. Yes, with something is available faster. I think so. The whole landscape of technology would be different. But would it be different in a negative way I very much doubt it. And let me add one last point. Look, was happen. I don't deny the need for for Defense Department I don't deny the need for Defense Department to fund certain types of technology that help defend the state. That would orient technologies in a particular way, whether that from an economic perspective is the best way to orient technologies probably not, but it's a necessary way in order to facilitate defense. Right. So Defense Department would, would fund certain projects, even if they were not optimal, they would fund them because they need them in order to defend. So, yeah, some developments would happen because of the state some technologies would advance. And again, it might even be sub optimal. But I would be for it because I think the Defense Department has to stay on top of these things and make sure that it can defend the country. So that that would be my answer. But it's actually really helpful for me because I think the main thing that you're offering in this conversation that I haven't really done in my own thinking about this is when someone says the state is necessary for the development of highly innovative technologies or the development of really complex industries from scratch and a generation or two. I think the move you make in the argument is to say, well, compared to what, like, right. And so, so I don't think you dispute that, as a matter of fact, in the last 100 to 150 years, a lot of technologies and industries have been have depended on high levels of state investment. I would limit that to about about 70 years because I don't think that's true. Okay, fair enough for the last 70 years, but I think, but what you're saying I think is, but let's imagine a world in which the state is radically limited and what it does and all of this capital is in private hands. First of all, you're saying there would be more capital, because there'd be more wealth. And, and then a lot of that would be allocated toward the development of innovative technologies and industries and who's to say that that very distant alternative universe would not would not birth a much more innovative, it would be interesting and advanced society than the one I'm currently in habit. I mean, how much universities raise today for buildings for dorms for all kinds of things. Imagine if they needed to raise money for research. I mean they raise a lot today but they could raise 10 x 100x if government wasn't crowding out that the funding and if entrepreneurs and the society generally had more. I would be delighted to fund basic research into an area that I particularly liked or was was enthusiastic about but and that's true of think about it Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos wanting to go to Mars I mean wouldn't they be funding technology and funding science basic science that would make that possible. So I think that's all but let me let me present one counterfactual that also relates to that actually existed that also relates to developing countries right and that kind of factual is the 19th century. Arguably, the century with the most innovations, biggest innovations that change human life more than any other right. The state was not involved in electricity. The state was not involved in it was involved in railroads in the US less so and but but but only to I think the detriment of railroad development not it's its advantage, but they weren't involved in the steam engine they weren't involved in the massive innovation so if you look at government spending on R&D and basic science and technology up until World War two. It's as close to zero as it can be. And yet, if you think about the big stuff, the things that really changed our lives from medical discoveries to, you know, to to electricity to everything we have today. That's the era. You mentioned steel industry. Well, the steel industry was not funded by the government. Indeed, the government tries to interfere because when they try to consolidate the steel industry to create a quote so called monopoly, the steel industry lost the government, ultimately try to break it up. But yeah, I mean that all happened organically, naturally, without any intervention. We got a steel industry we got all kinds of industries at the beginning at the late 19th century early 20th century that really drove everything we have in the 20th century. Now, yes, we got some additional innovations in 20th century but much of that. If you study Bell Labs, the amount of innovation that comes out of Bell Labs is unbelievable. It's phenomenal. Then, I mean, the whole idea that the internet was created by government and all of these technologies, I really encourage you and people to look at the details, detailed, right? Yeah, I will definitely check that out. He admits that sure they had some effect, but it's way overstated and way, you know, to become kind of popular law, but it's just untrue with regard to most of these things and it's a comp, what happened, it's a complex interplay of university scientists. Are we arguing that there wouldn't be university scientists without the government? I wouldn't argue that. With some government funding, with some department of defense projects, with private entrepreneurs, private research labs and venture capitalists, it's a complex interplay of all of those. You know, and it's not true even that the private enterprise is only good at application. They were involved in some of the basic research. So it's a complex interplay of these things. So let's take, let's take the Asian Tigers. Yeah, and by the way, when I mentioned steel, I was talking about the Asian Tigers and one thing here is there's this problem where, you know, once a country has become very economic, once one country, the US or Britain has become very economically developed countries, other countries have, again, like an existential incentive to develop the same technologies and to do so quickly. Sure. And South Korea and Taiwan both develop their steel industries under those kinds of conditions, but I don't think that's really disagreeing with what you're saying. I just wanted to make that. And I think that's, I think, look, it's one path, right? So it's one path that leads to growth. The question is, does it lead to optimal growth? Does it lead to the greatest growth? And I would say South Korea and Taiwan undermine their own people by not letting this happen organically and figuring out what the comparative advantage actually was and feeding off of that comparative advantage. Yes, they became rich very quickly by copy. But is that instilled in their societies a attitude of entrepreneurship and attitude of innovation and ingenuity? Is that a system and a mental attitude that is going to sustain those cultures 100 years from now? They're going to have to evolve pretty quickly away from that if they want to really continue to grow because now they copied everything they used to copy now what? And yet they haven't instilled the right attitude in their culture to develop the kind of things that can grow them beyond just copy. And Japan is an example of a country that had it both. A lot of the innovation happened organically. You know, entrepreneurs like Honda and, I forget the names, but the different entrepreneurs for the auto industry and the electronics industry, they were supported at some point by the state but it required entrepreneurial. It wasn't. And then the state did come in and said, we need this and we need that. And usually when the state said we need this and we need that, they failed. The petrochemical and drug industries in Japan are good examples of that. And yet Japan, because they didn't instill, they didn't support, they didn't encourage the individualism and the entrepreneurial culture that some Japanese had, that wasn't encouraged. That wasn't what was promoted particularly in the 70s and 80s as they got richer and more successful. They crashed. And if you look at economic growth, if you look at economic growth over the last 20 or 30 years in Japan, it's basically flat. Because once they, once they reached the full limits of the copy model, they hadn't instilled in their population ability then to innovate beyond that and now they're stuck. And it's sad to see Japan being stuck because they deserve, you know, they have the capacity for so much more. Yes. No, no, no. Actually very quickly on that. Have you thought much about what conditions, what the, or let me rephrase, you know, why is it that in some parts of the world there is this innovative spirit. Like, how would you, it's probably very complicated. The true answer is I'm sure very complicated, but do you have any quick thoughts on that? It's got to do it. It's definitely got to do with culture. It's got to do with particular cultures and a particular focus on a desire to better oneself. And in a cultural view that that is a good thing, that betterment, that success is a positive thing. And you definitely had a shift in the West with the enlightenment away from acceptance of the status quo, a lack of a lot of, a lot of energy towards self betterment. You know, did your McCluskey, who I know you know, you know, documents kind of the cultural shift towards towards an attitude of no success is good, you know, making money is good and and achieving is good and that happens in the 18th, early 19th century. But it starts kind of in Amsterdam in the, in maybe the 17th century and it's slowly through I think primarily philosophy philosophers and social thinkers and business success and the wealth created in Amsterdam. That model starts spreading in the West and start being embraced. It existed in Greece and ancient Greece and to some extent in Rome, and it exists in China, at least to some extent in the Chinese culture has that attitude of go get it, you know, go go for it and communism is an aberration in a sense that historically China up to up to, you know, it's always advanced a lot being very successful because of individual entrepreneurs and so on, then becomes authoritarian crushes that and then starts all over again and seems to go through these cycles. Throughout its history so I guess maybe communism is not an aberration it's the authoritarian instinct that crushes entrepreneurship, but Chinese culture is very entrepreneurial Western culture has been very entrepreneurial. I think that two ideas that allow the West to do it, and have now been embraced by China and, and, and in Asia. But historically China kind of got away without these ideas so it's interesting how they did it. And the two ideas are basically the efficacy of the human mind, the efficacy of reason, the negation of superstition, mysticism, there's mystical explanations of the world so the elevation of science, but really it's the elevation of the human mind that the efficacy of reason. And second is individualism the sanctity of the individual the importance of the individual and the ability of the individual to use his mind. This is Aristotle so so the West is benefited from the fact that we had Aristotle. Aristotle is the father of the entrepreneurial mind because he gives from more perspective he assigns your more responsibility, your happiness, your success as a human being. And he gives you the tools to be successful IE logic and reason. And to the extent that Aristotle is the dominant attitude in a culture. And it's, it's, it's entrepreneurial and I think Asia's imported that attitude into its culture. So, do you think that China and more generally East Asian countries are capable of innovation going forward, like they're going to be in ways like they're not just going to copy. So it depends. China has shown some significant ability to innovate. So China is ahead in certain areas China is ahead of the United States and ahead of the West in areas where they don't regulate and don't control for example, fintech now. But now that they started to regulate fintech and they just broke up ants which is which is a Jack Ma's big company. Maybe they'll stop innovating because the state will start interfering that's largely probably for authoritarian reasons. So the enemy of innovation is authoritarianism and so China is trying to straddle these two worlds they're trying to embrace innovation right sector. While at the same time have political oppression maintaining control while stepping into the economic sector and shutting stuff down in an authoritarian way and they can have they can either to one has to give and so far the authoritarian instinct is surpassing everything else. Japan has shown signs that they can innovate. I think you're seeing that in other cultures but look the alternative to Korea and Taiwan is Hong Kong. Hong Kong had no industrial policy does not have a steel industry. And yet per capita GDP is higher than both Taiwan and South Korea they're richer than them in a sense. They, they, they developed, you know, and you could argue Singapore somewhere in between, but probably more similar to Hong Kong than Taiwan and in South Korea, and both are richer and both started up poorer. And we're incredibly successful so whenever somebody says well what does it take. I say well look at Hong Kong what did Hong Kong have nothing no natural resources, other than a port. But not much of a trading partner in China in communist China. So what did what did Hong Kong had it had the rule of law, the protection of property rights. It had almost no regulations, almost no welfare state, almost no taxation. If any country adopts those with a culture that respects reason and the individual expects learning and education, to some extent, it will be a successful it will be successful It might take it longer a little bit longer in some places than others, but you're seeing these things these principles being adopted in Africa and the successful day when they are, maybe not to the extent yet of Hong Kong but maybe one day. That's the model, and that's the counterfactual and if I would argue Korea would be richer and would have attained rich, being rich faster if it adopted the Hong Kong model rather than the model they adopted. Let me ask one final question which is kind of taking the conversation in a new direction but just since I've got to one characteristic of the East Asian countries is that they're pretty is that they're pretty mono ethnic. I think some argue. It's a pretty common perception, especially on the right that multi ethnic societies are lower trust societies on average, and trust is really critical for the successful functioning of capitalism. So, what are your views on this I mean I assume you agree that societal trust is extremely important in order for capitalism to function well but do you think that do you take seriously the argument that that more ethnically homogenous societies tend to have higher trust and that might be a reason if you favor capitalism and want capitalism to work well that you should tailor your immigration policy accordingly. No, and the big counterfactual to that is the United States of America and the big and the big period there again as the 19th century where it was very multi ethnic by the standards of the time right in those days Italians and Irish and Germans hated each other's guts and viewed each other as different ethnic groups as they did through World War II if you will right and and Jews and you know Chinese but of course there was a lot of there was a lot of racism towards the Chinese and yet trust developed in the United States and if you compare Europe to the United States in the United States of the past I mean the United States of the past maybe not the United States of today that state says like way more trust than in in in the United States you would do business on a handshake in the 19th century early 20th century. You'd never do that in Europe. Even in in mono ethnic societies like Sweden that everybody touts is these wonderful examples. First of all they're not that wonderful America's richer, more successful than Sweden is by far and much more entrepreneurial and much more much more successful in in in in many many many respects. And yet it's multi ethnic in Israel I would argue is a multi ethnic society because Jews came from all over the world bringing very different ethnicities and cultures. And it's a multi ethnic society that's incredibly successful. I don't know if that if if in China, if sorry even Hong Kong, they would consider it a mono ethnic society. Hong Kong has Brits who are crucial. They have Chinese but they have different Chinese minorities that Cantonese and Mandarin. They also have Indians. They, you know, they have Indonesians they you know they have Filipino. I mean, it's a it's a multi ethnic society by their standards maybe not by ours as Western as we look at it oh they all look Asians there for the money, but that's ridiculous right. Is your guest is your guest at the United States will over the course of the next two to three generations, develop more cohesion, and just right now we're going through a period of kind of ethnic tension and difference. You know I think tension is a consequence of lack of freedom and it's a consequence of bad ideas. So I think tension is completely a consequence of, of, of the mixed economy of the fact that we, we had a mixed economy we had Jim Crow laws we had slavery. Those are violations of capitalism those are anti capitalist institutions, and their anti freedom institutions and then we've had kind of reverse we've had affirmative action we've had a civil rights act that I think is has a lot of flaws in it. And, and on top of that, we have bad ideas we have ideas in the culture both on the left and right that supports the idea that different races think differently different races have different values that we have collectivized American society in unthinkable ways. And it's, it's getting worse not better. So unless. So the only way we will shift back to a society of that's more cohesive, and is if we shift to more individualism. That's the funny thing. The more individualistic a society is the more cohesive it is the more shared values you have, because we all, we all want the freedom to pursue our own happiness. We realize that you're not pursuing your happiness and my expense. But we live under a system, and the system is built in a way to facilitate both of us pursuing our happiness as independent agents that we're not stepping on each other's toes that we're not, it's not a zero sum game. It's a kind of society where you get cohesion, and where we, you know, I think critical race theory right now is, is unbelievably destructive. But, but so was a lot of the kind of the, the, the white supremacy that turned into Western civilization supremacy not in terms of culture which I think it is superior, superior, but associated a culture with race and I see a lot of that on the right. People invented this and white people invented that as long as we think in those terms. It's a, it's a frigging disaster. And so, I think the solutions individualism and reason and individualism and reason would view the view a proper view of individualism reason views racism as those more barbaric, stupid primitive form of collectivism which is really really bad already and this is even that right. We need to go back to individualism that's what will bring cohesion in this country I see no indication we're heading in that direction sadly. If anything covert is as made us more collectivist and made us more and as it has shown that Americans are more mindless. Europe is moving in a more collectivistic direction. So where in the world is a bright spot in terms of moving as towards individualism. I've dedicated my life to that fight. So it's pretty depressing to see that, you know, me losing, you know, us losing those of us who in the fight. But it, but we are losing there's no question and it's, it's, it is. Yeah, it's, it's difficult to watch it's difficult to see. I'm sorry to end on that grim note that I really doing exciting things and I know you know you run the middle series and I think the most series of course is doing exciting things at a great college where smart kids go to study and and I'm sure it's having an impact on those kids, because they're being exposed to a wide variety of ideas and at the end of the day. That's what kids need to have that experience in college and they're encouraged, I think to think for themselves. It's the focus of things like the middle series and we're seeing more and more of that kind of attitude in academia. I still it's still small. It's still, but it's there. Critical race theory is getting a lot of press. Yeah, but I'm not sure it's as dominant as people think it is versus the middle series that probably has a lot of impact on young kids, but he's getting no right is getting no press right. So I'm, as much as I'm pessimistic, there's a sense in which I'm optimistic, but I do think making in rows, my critical race theory and the pervasiveness of it just shows how much a small committed minority can achieve. But yeah, but they can achieve it only because the culture is prepped for it right. And what we need is to work and prepping the culture for better ideas. I think, I think ultimately we will be successful because ultimately our ideas are the right ideas. And, and I think human beings ultimately want to be successful they want to be happy they want to flourish they want to be wealthy they want to progress. And therefore they will get they, you know, once at some point they you know they will gravitate towards a better philosophy a better set of ideas that actually allows for that. And that is a better note to end on. It was great to see you Iran thanks so much for doing it. Thanks Brandon and you know, let me know if there's anything I can do with the middle series. It was fun that debate was fun and it's still getting huge numbers of views online. No it was great and people honestly particularly enjoyed seeing you in person so yeah we'll be in touch again soon I'm sure. Excellent. Excellent. Take care.