 We come to our question and answer session. The rules are quite simple. You can address the question to the entire panel. You can address individual panelists. And the panelists also are entitled to make comments on each other. I would like to start with the question for Sean Gabb regarding translations. I'm, of course, somewhat familiar with the difficulties of translations myself. My question is, does it make a difference as far as the quality of translations is concerned if the person who does a translation is an accomplished writer in his own language as compared to people who are just translators and don't do anything but translating? It certainly gives you a more glossy final product if the translator is also a very good writer. However, I've done quite a lot of translation into English from various foreign languages. And although I thought I knew those languages very well, professional translators often said, no, you have failed to understand the subtle meaning of this particular phrase. And so the quality of the translator's writing is of very great importance. But also the translator's feel for the very small subtleties of the original text is also very important. And that is not something that you acquire just by knowing the language and thinking that you can translate a text from one language to the other. It does require a great deal of practice. What about bilingual? Does that make any difference to me? Depends on the bilingual person. Of course, if you... Hans, do you translate your own things between English and German? Do you translate your own work between English and German? Which means that you've produced two different works which one day will confuse your biographers no end because I'm sure that there are small differences of emphasis between the two versions. One day people might kill each other over those differences. Also a question for Sean. Sorry about that. Should have come in later, but still. Looking at politicians in the UK, Sean, over the last 100 years, I would guess that 100 years ago, indeed much less than 100 years ago, a lot of people in government would have read the classics. And that today, maybe nobody in government has had that background. Do you think that change has affected perspective of government over those decades? Every so often I denounce the politicians currently in charge as stupid. And it strikes me as undeniable at the moment that the conservative politicians who have put themselves in charge of our leaving the European Union do not understand the complexities of the task they've set themselves and refuse to listen to anybody else who may understand those complexities. And so it is very easy to say in the olden days when politicians had read Plato and Tacitus, you got a better quality of government. It's just that you have mentioned 100 years ago. And 100 years ago, the British government was taking bribes from various commercial interest groups, primarily the armaments makers, to keep the Great War running and running and running, even though the war could and should have finished in December 1916. And much as I despise Theresa May and her friends, they have not done anything as shockingly immoral as that. So the politicians 100 years ago, yes, they were accomplished men. They had many more interests, many more respectable interests than the current crop of politicians in charge. But I don't think it made them any better. This question is for Peter. You mentioned that corruption is a problem in China. And just to be the devil's advocate, I was thinking about what Mises said, that capitalism breathed through loopholes. And I thought to myself, well, you mentioned that the CCP is almost like a monarchy. And this, if we think of King CCP as it being one man, sort of like I'm one man deciding what to buy when I go shopping. It's not a problem that people try to corrupt me when I try to spend money shopping by offering something very enticing at a low price. And similarly in China, if a businessman is presented with the fact that he's broken a law and he faces execution or something, for him to say, well, I can perhaps help your son set up a new business and this can all go away. It may not be that bad a problem because the wealthy people in China, like anywhere in the world, are successful entrepreneurs who have commanded resources efficiently to satisfy consumer demands. So these are people who should command the ability to avoid being prosecuted by these laws. So, I mean, it's an outrageous thing to say, I think. But do you really believe that if corruption were eliminated in China that this would be an improvement? Well, most people think it's a problem. But I think, well, sometimes it's also a solution. But I really have to say that corruption now in China has deteriorated in terms of quality compared to the corruption 30 years ago because in those times, basically the bribe you need to pay the government... It's like a market price. But now, because China is so big and the interest... So you need to rely on the government. The interest involved is so huge. And also the government keeps saying... I mean, the ruling, the leadership keeps saying they need to crack down on corruption. So the government official would not receive bribe as easily as before. You need to be connected to bribe the people. So in the past, everyone can bribe and it becomes a market price. But now it's getting more confluited. And if you are not connected enough, you don't know how to bribe, then it becomes a problem because it is no longer a market price. So it's changing. I don't think I'm the first one to say corruption is maybe also a solution for China. Another Chicago economist, his name Stephen Jern, used to be saying, yes, corruption functions like a market price. In fact, the current president, when he emphasized cracking down on corruption, which many of us think is just one fashion, using corruption as an excuse to cleanse the other fashion. But anyway, two years ago, when China economy slowed down and also the stock market crashed, partly because the corruption, the anti-corruption campaign, it was so bad that most government officials start to stop to receive bribe, bribery. And everything just stopped, halted into ground because they just don't want to do anything. When they can receive bribe, they are very energetic and they like to see bridges building. Yeah, so, yeah, in a sense, I think, well, but I think the nature is changing. It was healthier in the past, but now it's getting worse. I have a remark to Mr. Bandulet, if possible. There are two visions of Germany. One is that it's a powerful Germany. It's exploiting all the European Union to its own goals and the vision you presented is Germany is being looted, robbed by them. Those two visions are not contradictory. We have an example with Russia who has been exploited by the Soviet Union. Exploited by the Soviet Union. The Russia as a republic was the poorest republic. They are replying to the other republic to be in the Soviet Union just to have all the republic to fight with American imperialism. And I think there are some people in German political class you can say this, is it true, who want to have European Union around the Germany and pay them to have a powerful European Union to fight with American imperialism for a revenge for the Second World War. Well, of course, it's more complicated than I could tell the story today in half an hour. For instance, European integration also serves the purpose for the German elite to be able to hide behind the European construction. Yeah. Or to quote Margaret Thatcher, she once said, as the Germans are not able to govern themselves, they deny the right to the others. Yeah. This would be a nice circumscription for the German attitude. And I'm speaking of the political class, of course. Not of ordinary citizens. Or just take Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe receives a lot of money out of Brussels. If you break it down to German net payments, so far considerably above 20 billion euros came from Germany into Poland. Now, one purpose behind the whole thing is, of course, well, to buy the Europeans so that they keep quiet. They behave within this European construct and the problem now is they don't abide by their deal any longer. Countries like Hungary, Poland insist on their sovereignty. And they give nothing in return for the money they get from Brussels. So, I think they are right because they've suffered enough from another kind of hegemony, the Russian ones, and they don't want to throw it away, the independence. In any case, we might not be able to do anything in any case, we must clearly see that the European Union is in a big, big crisis now. The biggest crisis ever since the integration started in the 50s. And it might break up somehow. And the biggest mistake, of course, was the euro because the euro is not sustainable in its present form. And this is what Macron knows. And that's why he wants a common budget and common European debt and so on. If he doesn't get it, what he wants. Which really is possible because the German government can only go thus far. Then the euro would break up quicker. And don't forget, for the first time, the German parliament will have an opposition party starting after the September elections with the alternative for Germany, alternative for Deutschland. And they are the only party which are eurosceptical, EU skeptical, which don't believe in man-made climate change, and so on and so on. It's really for the first time an opposition party which, of course, might be an obstacle for the government to just go on and on with more and more integration like Juncker wants. So the whole thing is more or less open again in Europe. And if you would ask me what Europe looks like in five or ten years, I couldn't give you an answer. I have a question for Peter Wong. There's another issue about China that I find very interesting. First, China holds significant amounts of gold and they recently launched an exchange of gold with oil. And second, they hold very significant amounts of the US public debt of the Treasury bonds. How do you think that these two issues will affect the further policy of China and how it will affect the further development of China on the global scene? That may seem strange while you keep buying physical gold and on the other hand, buying toilet paper from the US. But don't forget, China also produces its own toilet paper and the confidence of the Chinese people believing in the currency comes from also mostly from US dollar because China is still yet an open economy. It still has capital control. So the Chinese people when they need to trade with foreign countries or if they need to travel to foreign countries they cannot sell the R&B or the Chinese Yuan in the market. So the final counterparty must be the central bank. So the central bank must keep some US dollar. IMF calculated, believe it or not, but they kind of have a number. For the economy like the size of China, they need at least 2.8 trillion US dollar in order to satisfy the trading activity or kind of economic activity. So if you need to keep your US dollar just putting in your own vault, why not you invest some money into the national debt to buy the Treasury? So yeah, I think somehow China has no choice to keep buying the US dollar or the US Treasury. But on the other hand they are working ways to try to ditch it. But I think last year or two years ago they tried they always talked about international life, the Chinese Yuan which means fully flowed, fully convertible, eventually fully convertible Chinese Yuan. But it was backfired last year because of the credit bubble or the asset bubble that I just mentioned. The Chinese, they are now at least on paper so rich. So if they all go to the People's Bank of China and redeem the USD, basically the Central Bank would run out of US dollar to pay them. So I think China is kind of stuck. But by the way, there is also a good development upon China when for the past two years we see, superficially we see the state, the state enterprises are gaining momentum and squeezing the private sector. But on the other hand because of the housing bubble in China in terms of wealth, the private sector in China owns more property or in dollar, I mean in Chinese Yuan, the proportion of the wealth hold by the private sector becomes bigger and bigger because of the housing bubble because most real estate are owned by private sector. So it's kind of strange like the productive capacity, that kind of thing, more going into the hands of the state but in terms of wealth, in terms of property, people own more money than the government. So just in development I want to update everyone here. I just want to add that I'm completely convinced that the Shanghai Gold Exchange will grow in importance and one day will be as important as in New York. I mean the strange thing is that China is the biggest biophysical gold in the world. They take up all their production and they import gold and the Americans trade mainly paper gold but still the price is more or less set in New York which you can watch on a daily basis and Shanghai which trades much, much more physical gold doesn't seem to make the price. What is always interesting to watch is the premium or discount of Shanghai gold prices. When there is a premium which I mean when gold is more expensive in Shanghai than in New York that's a good sign for the gold market then you can buy gold also in Europe. But I don't know what you think but China is the gold market of the future. This is an alternative or an insurance against their exposition in dollars because the dollars can be blocked or expropriated in case of a conflict and the normal thing in history has always been the conflict between the leading power and the coming power. Like the First World War, England, Germany this resulted, this was one reason for the First World War and now the difference between previous examples Portugal, Spain, Spain against England then France versus England the difference is, if I may say so, the Chinese diplomacy is very clever, very clever very cautious and patient just compare it to this extremely stupid man Hitler he had in 1938, he had all his cards in his hand and he threw them away, he was extremely stupid so I have a high regard for China because they seem to do it and they are perfectly right in amassing gold and the government encourages Chinese to buy gold this is also a difference to the West Just a quick add on question for Peter what's your general assessment of the economic rationality or irrationality of the CCP? It's often claimed and I was mentioned right now that they tend to have a more long term rationality and that even projects like New Silk Road which may be considered cross misallocations of capital in the short few might turn out in the long term to be economically beneficial what's your take on that? Is it true that there's a long term rationality or is it real political totalitarian irrationality? I think Dr Hopper explained it very well like if the CCP thing or the founding families they think they own China then they would have a more long term view and just in response to your question I think if you want to invest or anyone here want to invest in China the problem is the US could shut down whatever like confiscate your property whatever but China also can shut its gate because it still has capital control so the problem with China competing with the US has not yet a fully convertible currency but on the other hand I think the comparison like Steve Bannon's comparison with China and Germany in the 1930s are wrong in the aspect I don't know what's the intention of Hitler to start a war when as you said in 1938 he basically made a great profit already you know Chinese people if you ask them really in their heart I'm not saying I mean people on the street they do have an aspiration like China to become number one not necessarily GDP per capita but I mean GDP as a nation to surpass US but because of the sheer size of our population we don't need to go to war we just need to improve the productivity of Chinese people and that's it we don't need to be aggressive and I do have times feel skeptical on China but recently I kind of changed my view because of all the technological advancement going on I think about the Chinese living in the rural area but basically Chinese living on the coastal area they are as productive as most western economies but the major problems come from the rural area but now you have smartphones not to mention that you have physical bridges connecting the interior area but also informational highways you know this is like the capital goods for the Chinese for the rural Chinese so yeah so I think the Chinese don't need to follow the German way to become number one Japan they didn't have the same kind of precursor to become number one simply because they are too small number of Japanese people where Chinese you just need to increase their productivity that's it China has been a pioneer in the development of special economic zones starting with the massive economic success of Shenzhen and today as I understand it almost 40% of the Chinese population lives in an SCZ and in many ways the Belt and Road Initiative is a continuation of this strategy do you see China slowing down in this or why is the end game do they see most of the population living in a special economic zone in the future while the pros and cons of this kind of centrally planned political decentralization what can the rest of the world learn from this I don't know whether the special of course the special economic zone offers more freedom compared to other areas but I think the one more major question like on the Chinese economy whether it can keep going I have to say somehow I agree with Donald Trump or Steve Bannon in a way Chinese benefit a lot from stealing ideas intellectual property from the US regardless whether this happens in special economic zone or not basically we do not have R&D expenses we just took it from the Americans but I mean so that's what I feel like I feel pessimistic if the West would go down and China replace the West simply because the West can be suicide because this is not a good sign I still think that the Chinese they are not as innovative when you compare the top elites in the Silicon Valley it's because as I said we do not have freedom of speech and if you do not have freedom of speech that limits what you really want to do you can't be really innovative so I think the best scenario would be obviously China we have our own system and the West you have your system and then we compete with each other then that would be good for the human civilization so yeah I think China if the West stop here and then there is as much as the China can steal and after we have steal everything every intellectual even some of us don't believe in intellectual property but I mean there is so much you can steal and then I think that would be bad for human civilization so yeah that would be my comment question for Kier thank you very much for your speech it was great immediately as I was thinking as you were talking 2007 Peter Teal called the top for globalization he said we are going to kind of fragment a little bit in Paracana in 2009 he followed up with an article calling for the new middle ages he said that what was going to happen was not only going to fragment we are going to kind of have ten or twelve kingdoms or something like that where you would kind of everyone kind of return to a neutral corner and then redevelop their own systems and then perhaps come together again sometime in the future do you see any parallels between what you were talking about that ordered anarchy in the middle ages and any potential future governing structures later on and gentlemen if you want to help them out as well feel free but I'd like to hear a second yes broadly speaking I would say that there are three phases of history I mean in Europe at least when it comes to government there's the pre-bureaucratic age when there was no ability to fund and organize a bureaucracy then there was this very long bureaucratic age and I think we've come to the end of it it's breaking down before our eyes what replace that I don't know my preference would be and I think everyone's preference here would be a Europe of Liechtenstein whether that's practical I don't know because as I said the system in the middle ages was even though it varied from place to place it was heavily based on very strong communities we don't have that nowadays some places do but and some good has resulted from the breakdown of overly strong communities but an awful lot of bad has also resulted so it would be very difficult to simply ape the middle ages because the system the systems in the middle ages were bottom up and not top down they all emanated from the way people behaved and the way people thought and I don't see any real potential for the recreation of anything of anything like for instance one of my favourite aspects of medieval law which was common in the early Anglo-Saxon system is that of compugation that could only work compugation I should explain what it is is you commit a crime I swear an oath, a set oath that you have committed a crime against me and then you have to if you want to deny it you have to deny it in set terms then the local elders the local the local great men would decide how many oaths how many more oaths of other people in the local community you would need to help you out oath helpers becomes compugators hence compugation now that's a very good system in a very local kin based community and it seems to me that most things in the middle ages could only operate in that way one thing that I didn't talk about and I regret not doing but then I don't know very much about it I don't know very much about urban leagues and city states and that might be what I'm neglecting I think yes the Hanseatic League is a very good example the Hanseatic League acted very much like a state it was able to protect its members it was able to make sure that people could make sure that convoys could trade around the around the Baltic and the North Sea but it wasn't a state and it it had very loose fluid structures it had a sort of parliament very rarely and at its peak I think 38 towns were represented so yeah I would say rather than looking at chieftains and kingship and so on and so forth which probably can't be resurrected or can only be resurrected on a very small local scale I would say look at look at systems like urban leagues city states and things like that Peter mentioned that Brexit especially was quite inspiring last year for us who wants a retreat from an overarching global government or sort of global governing entity this question is for all four of you what advice would you give to the British government I mean for Sean especially beyond stop being stupid I mean what would be the advice of what to do to continue negotiations what would be in the negotiations how do you extract the concessions from the European Union you four are from very different backgrounds so I'll be interested to know how would you advise if they were to listen Shall I start well I would drive a very hard bargain and in the end if necessary just recurred to the World Trade Organization and even confront them with an ultimatum because my feeling is that the European Commission and the European Union are weaker than they seem to be London should should understand this I mean it was really a front to put Monsieur Barnier in charge of these negotiations by that they really ensured a bad outcome another question is which I can't answer is the ruling class in Britain still like it used to be let's say on the Thatcher a weak people who give in in the end it really boils down but if you confront them and act strongly you can get away with a much better deal than it looks now during these negotiations and they wouldn't have to pay 50 billion euros but I'm actually quite happy with the people in in charge of putting putting Brexit through I quite like David Davis I quite like Steve Baker they both I believe they've both actually addressed former Libertarian Alliance conferences they're both pretty hardcore Libertarians so far as any politician in Britain goes and the public line at the moment I think is as solid as it can be which is we're perfectly prepared to rely on world trade organisation rules and we're perfectly prepared to come away with no deal even if that's not possible I don't see how if you want to negotiate properly I don't see how that shouldn't be the default line to maintain in public to maintain anything less in public would automatically weaken your position but I know Sean disagrees I don't necessarily disagree my concern is that the the conservative politicians who as I said earlier have taken control of our departure from the European Union give every indication of being stupid I may of course be mistaken it may be that the British Ministers have a very clever plan and that we shall walk away from the European Union with a very good deal which gives us everything that we could reasonably want it's just that I have spent the past 40 years looking at these people and I have never been impressed by them and I have never seen them do anything remarkable the Conservatives know there is one thing they know for sure and that is that if they do not give us a decent leading from the European Union then we shall just ask what is the function of the Conservative Party this is their last chance they've lied to us too often they've betrayed us too often they have now found themselves in the position of having to negotiate an exit from the European Union they know that it has to be a departure which is acceptable to us the people and which generally works my concern is that although they are aware of the demands placed upon them that they have no idea how to satisfy those demands the the moral quality of our politicians has never been particularly high politics doesn't tend to attract people of great moral integrity the intellectual quality of our latest crop of politicians really must be seen to be believed so I don't share I don't share Keir's optimism about our current situation I don't think I'm in a position to give an answer rather I have a question which is I heard the revival of the Anglo-Saxon former colonies like basically forming kind of like a new EU among Australia Canada New Zealand and the United Kingdom in response to Brexit I don't know how it sounds a marvellous idea to me but I don't know how serious it has been discussed in Britain one thing we keep reading in the newspapers that these negotiations will go on for two or three years and are terribly complicated now what they tell us is something about the nature of this Brussels monster if you look at the legal paperwork which exists in Brussels this is nearly 100,000 pages now this explains by negotiating this or negotiating well leaving the system is terribly complicated how long does it take to go through 100,000 pages it's just crazy it shows how crazy the whole construct is so in the end it really is possible that the British have no choice but to tear it up and just throw it away and walk away Peace's question how serious is this possibility of an Anglo-Saxon alliance I don't think it's very likely at all one of the reasons we joined the European Union or the European Economic Community in 1973 was that our existing trade with the Commonwealth was not thought sufficient it was not thought a good and viable alternative to our likely trade from the European countries and apart from the fact that we all have cousins in Australia and New Zealand and Canada why should we why should the Australians want to trade with us they have a very lucrative trade with China and the other Eastern markets there is not much that we have to offer them and although their butter and lamb can be very nice we get that we get that from much closer to home from our European neighbours we shall need some kind of deal with the Europeans but let me put this very quickly the zero option the idea of leaving the European Union and relying purely on world trade organisation rules would be an excellent idea if we had a low tax likely regulated economy with politicians in charge who are prepared to make very rapid and intelligent adjustments to the remaining burden of regulation but Britain is not a low tax likely regulated country the people in charge are not intelligent the Theresa May lost her majority last June which means that her ability to do anything radical is effectively zero and so if we crash out of the European Union without a deal in our highly regulated economy there may well be indeed there will be serious problems it's very well to say well if the British government were to have a bonfire of controls if it were to repeal all of these regulations yes of course that would be an ideal scenario it's just that looking at the correlation of forces in London that is not going to happen and so I I do think the politicians should at least be honest with us that they don't know what they're doing and they don't know what they will do next they don't even know what they ought to do sorry that's very depressing but then what do you expect it's made I have a last question to first of all I wanted to thank you for the tribute to the Greek and Roman classics and second I want to ask you whether you agree with the view that Europe developed very well as long as it's based on three pillars first of all the Greek the view of Aristotle in an objective the view and belief in an objective truth of how Aristotle has described it the Roman view of law especially Volentino and Fittian Yurya so that the willing one is no harm done and third of all the golden rule so the Christian ethics with the golden rule that basically the principle that you want others to be treated as one should be treated it is arguable that Greek philosophy the Christian faith and Roman law together have made Europe what it is it's equally arguable that Greek philosophy the Christian faith and Roman law are symptoms of the ultimate forces that made Europe as it is but undoubtedly there has been something special about European development to even take I'm not talking about the past 400 years Europe over the past 2500 or even 3000 years there are so many divergences between Europe and the rest of the world and even when civilization in Europe has temporarily collapsed this has not stopped those divergent tendencies it's merely put them into hibernation as soon as the recovery has come Europe moves off again in its very different path of development and so I don't have an answer to your question I would just say that we are probably very lucky that the Roman Empire emerged in the second and first centuries BC it unified Europe it enabled the spread of those three forces the Greek philosophy of Roman law and of the Christian faith and it gave a degree of unity to Europe that it has never possessed before or since we should be very glad that this happened and at the same time we should be very, very glad that it didn't last the Roman Empire was an excellent idea and letting it fall to pieces was an even more excellent idea Question for Dr. Bandulet in view of your description of the looting of Germany what do you think about the current so-called migration crisis and the inflow of hundreds of thousands maybe millions of people which have nothing to do with German traditions, German culture and so on is this a problem that will eventually destroy Germany and maybe the whole of European civilization? Yes This part of of my subject Boiteland I wouldn't go so far as to mention these young Arabs who rape German women women now on a weekly basis by the way they seem to regard them as prey but this is something else it will be very expensive we have in Germany two experts for generational accounting and one is Professor Raffel Huschen and he has tried to calculate how much this kind of immigration will cost and don't forget 80% of them have no professional qualification whatsoever 80% and if you import them into a highly developed social state then you have a problem to give you one example our daughter has from her professional position the ability to look into personal accounts and many money transfers for instance in Munich a couple of refugees a married couple with two children they get more than 3,000 euros now compare these countries to their own countries where they come from or compare it to what they would get in Italy in Greece in Eastern Europe or in any other countries so this really draws them in and this makes it expensive now coming back to Professor Raffel Huschen he came out with the following calculation if until 2020 not more than 2.1 million refugees come all together and if they need only six years to be fully integrated in the market in the job market I mean then it costs Germany all together and that's the whole equation nearly 1 billion Deutschmark in English I would say 1 trillion because I'm talking about 1,000 billion English billion so that's a lot of money and don't forget the annual budget national government in Berlin is now around 330 billion so this whole thing will certainly cost a lot of money and it's also a prey country and again partly I understand it they were invited but they all want to go to Germany not to other countries and again here the government has kept silent during the election campaign but everybody knows next year the families of these more than 1 million refugees who are mainly male young male will be allowed to join them then nobody knows how many will come okay the interior minister the present interior minister wants to stretch it out to postpone it by one or two years or whatever but the story is not yet over by the way it really will go on and on the last calculation is that this year will be a bit less than 200,000 so called refugees coming into Germany but nobody knows and the same thing with the Euro the Euro has dropped out completely of public discussion in Germany but it's not solved I mean it's kept alive artificially by zero it's which always favor the debtors of course and by this European central bank buying up bonds, government bonds so nothing is solved situation is not very good okay