 Thank you Mallory. It's always fun to be here though. I'm It's unusual for me to be in a program with so many politicians. I'm not sure what to make of this Only Mallory could pull that one off Inequality the according to President Obama last week. This is the issue that defines our era This is the challenge that we all face Inequality according to the left today is destroying America and is going to be their primary focus. I Travel a lot During the year. I speak all over the country primarily in university campuses and let me tell you This is the issue that seems to be concerning Academia today. This is the issue that's being discussed on Campuses these are the questions that students are asking every talk that I give But what about inequality even from people you wouldn't expect to hear it? This is the issue that today dominates the critique of America the critique of free markets and it fits our universities are dominated by the left That's not news shouldn't be news. I hope it's not used to you guys to anybody and The idea of inequality fits to a mentality that believes that Economic activity is somehow a zero-sum game that some people's gain is other people's loss it's a mentality that doesn't care about economic progress about economic success and driven by a philosophical attitude that is Egalitarianism the most significant philosophical force today on campuses is John Walls's voice the the Harvard philosopher the idea of egalitarianism It is the dominant set of ideas out there They hold if you will on campuses the mall high ground. This is it's on their terms that the debate about About rights, they don't believe there are any about Economics about freedom. It is on their terms that that debate is is handled Now what what should we do about it? And I think the right The right loot tends to lose these debates and the right tends to lose these debates because it won't challenge them at the core You know, so what's the issue with inequality? Well to start off with What's the alternative to inequality? Equality anybody see anybody equal out there any of you guys equal over there? I mean equal you're equal to what I? Mean there's a big confusion in the right about equality right because in the declaration It says all men are created. You know all equal, but in what terms is Is equality referred to by the founders is it equality of outcome? Well, obviously not is Equality of opportunity which Republicans like to talk about is it? What opportunity really the founders thought we should all have equal opportunity they will add delusional How many of you have equal opportunity? There's no equal opportunity out there. It doesn't exist What the founders were talking about was equality before the law We all all of us have rights. We all have individual rights. We all have a right to our own life We don't have a right to liberty and to the pursuit of our own happiness. That doesn't guarantee outcome But it doesn't even guarantee opportunity it guarantees freedom It guarantees our freedom from coercion. That is the only sense in which equality is a valid concept Because every other form of equality equality of opportunity equality of outcome requires what? It requires force it requires coercion it requires taking from some to give to others Equality of opportunity. How do we take care of the fact that some of us are born to poor families? Some of us are born to rich families connected families in unconnected families Nice parents not so nice parents the only way to equate all that Is to try you can't equate all that there is no such thing as equality equality of outcome of opportunity a metaphysically Impossible they cannot happen, but they attempt to try to equalize Necessitates violating some people's individual rights that is making them less equal before the law In order to give to other people they fire making them giving them preferential treatment before the law Exactly what the founders were arguing against What we need is to take the more high ground To show equality for what it really is and I hold I hold a mental picture for equality of outcome You you're telling me to stop without the mental picture This is the mental picture to think about equality of outcome Think Cambodia under the Cameroon Because the camp the Cameroon came back from Paris by the way where they studied with good Western philosophers All influenced by French egalitarians, right and they came back and they said look we want equality But the people in the cities and people in the countryside. They're not equal. So what do we do? Well, we push everybody out of the cities But it's still true that some of the pitted people in the cities that were in the city or some of the people generally are Smart and some are not so smart so I'm educated some not so edgy. So what do we do there? Kill all the educated You laugh, but that meant the killing of two million people out of a population of over five Almost 40% of the population that is equality of outcome. How do you make me and Michael Jordan equal in basketball? There's only one way cut his leg off and if you'd watch me play basketball, you'd realize you had to break his arms as well That is what equality means They're the bad guys We who don't believe that inequality is a problem are the good guys and we need to be aggressive in stating that fact Thank you. Okay for our first question. Listen to that. You got to even know Our first question mr. Riley the Conservatives response to the class warfare argument as I understand it traditionally has been to ensure Mobility economic mobility that should be our focus as long as people can move Between classes no matter how you're born where you come from. There's the opportunity to move between The classes that is what our focus should be on the left's argument today as I understand it is that a The inequality is greater than it used to be and that there is less economic mobility Do either of those arguments have any validity and if so, what's your response? So do they have any validity? You can read a bunch of studies and there's a there's a wide spectrum of opinion about this I tend to be skeptic about the validity regarding the inequality Usually the study showing that inequality is increased don't take into account things like Changes in in household composition They also don't take they're also all done pre-taxes pre-transfer if you take post transfer post taxes take into account household size Inequality has not grown in America. It's still too large for the left now with regard to immobility I would say absolutely the right immobility mobility in the US has declined But I would argue and I think we need to argue that the reason is Statism the reason is over is regulation if you if you need a shamp a license to shampoo hair in California Who does that hurt? It hurts the new entrant the young poor person who's trying to make a living Minimum wage. This is a huge issue right now. It's all over the place California just raised it at $10 We have to make the case that a this is immoral It's wrong for the state to intervene between a negotiation between employee and employee. It's none of the state's business and Who who gets hurt? Who gets hurt? The unskilled laborer gets hurt because he's never gonna find a job learn a skill Advanced and be able to make to move up the ladder in terms of income But not just him the entrepreneur gets hurt somebody's starting a business and wants to pay a few people You know five bucks an hour and they will need to pay the willing to come to work for fuck He's never gonna start that business. That's what is restricting. Let me last thing Cronism, you know, we've got it. You we've got to acknowledge leaving any little left for questions question Somebody asked me about Cronism. Yeah, you're on. I I am in complete agreement with you on left-wing Arguments about equality. In fact, I salute you for my patience. I can barely take them seriously long enough to rebut them However, what I do find very persuasive is Charles Murray's argument that he began advancing in the bell curve and then elaborated I and really focused in on and coming apart About the way in which American society has evolved In the post-war years, and I'll try to give I'll try to give a very brief summary the rise of the knowledge economy the rise of automation has I Increased the value of Intelligence I Universities have done a good job of sorting people by intelligence Intelligent people have associatively mated with each other. They have stable family structures lower-class people do not and this has led to a disconnect between the cognitive elite and The working class in America. I Is he wrong to worry about that you're gonna be our speaker next time? I Don't I think he's wrong I mean He's not wrong to worry about it because the context of the world in which we live in today is such that that is gonna be used For political means which is what the left is doing the fact that there's a huge premium today on talent is Unquestionable the fact is that education you you get paid to be educated you get paid to be entrepreneurial You get paid to create value and that and that payment because of globalization has only increased that is economically The amount of money you make for it for a unit of talent in a globalized world If you will it's far greater than the amount you would get in a isolationist world where you're just dealing with Americans They're just more customers for your product so you can make more money So that is as made the top go up the only but you see in it in my view in a free market In a market in a in a country that is not driven by a morality of egalitarianism a morality of the left Who would care right because everybody's benefiting from these talented people that the workers benefit from it Wages because of productivity increases because of all this would increase. I think what is exacerbating the problem that exists is Government which is not allowing for the for the economy to be as flexible as it should be as it would be in a free market No, you know You mentioned that you think the right is losing on this issue Seems to me that the left has a formidable spokesman for the views that you oppose in the president who just gave a speech about them Can we get your thoughts on on the remarks? He's made I think he's given three big speeches on them and who do you think are the best spokesman for for your views on the right So I don't let me just say that I don't think the left is winning because of the president I don't think it matters who the president is with all due respect to the politicians in the room I don't think you're as powerful as you think you are. I think the left is winning It's because they dominate our educational institutions. They're winning because they dominate You know we get in a sense We get the politicians we deserve in into a large measure and it's the people the people are being educated by Primary school teachers by high school teachers by university teachers, and they're all not all but 80% of them are of the left Many of them are the radical left. That's what's really Dominating this debate. Yes, the president is the spokesman for that group He's got a huge bully pulpit But people are responding because they've been already conditioned to that to respond because of the universities because of the intellectuals They're unfortunately the left dominates the intellectual fields With with obvious exceptions now who are the best voices out there obviously there, you know We've got one here senator Johnson who I think is a is a is a good voice on our on our right now We've got on economic issues. We've got Rand Paul. We've got Ted Cruz But What I'd like to see from all of them is is is I'd like because we have to combat this at the roots and in order to do that We have to stop making not just practical arguments. I mean no bomb a care now is a great example is yes It's a failure, but they'll fix the website the point is that Obama care is him all it is a massive redistribution of wealth It is a perversion of liberty It is a distortion and we need to hear more of why in the details of those moral argument I think at the end of the day people don't vote they pocketbook They vote what they believe it white what they believe is just what they believe is fair We've let the left dominate defining Justice fairness goodness and the white needs to recapture or Lumin to capture those terms from the left Would you believe he was a professor the way he goes on with us? One last question from Jason You mentioned the minimum wage debate. We're having right now the fast food restaurants the demonstrations But you've also got some legislation about the House in the Senate president has endorsed it And it's not a necessarily a partisan issue minimum wage increase passed under President Bush with Republican support you have a Number of people saying the our old views of the minimum wage don't apply anymore that it puts money in people's pockets and It doesn't have that big of an effect on employment Has the literature born out these this new thinking that we hear from some on the left about the minimum wage No, you look this is economics 101. We should never even be debating this. This is price controls The effect is obvious it always is anybody's interested John Cochran from the University of Chicago has a nice little blog post Where he summarizes the literature? You know the left research is nonsense It really is nonsense and you know You don't repeal the laws of economics through a vote in Congress and Republicans have voted to increase the minimum wage a Reneguing on the claim that they believe in markets if you believe in markets You cannot vote for an increase in the minimum wage. That is a repudiation of the of that belief Okay, we have time for one quick question. No, I'm sorry one quick answer There's no such thing Okay Could I just suggest that perhaps Attacking at the roots means we have to take back the universities. We have to take back the why do we sit here and Every meeting I go to everybody just accepts. It's a given that they they dominate the educational system So you know what we've lost permanently because we don't know what's good for us I'm not standing still so absolutely. We need to retake the universities I spent a lot of time in universities debating those leftists Which require a lot of patience and those Tony capitals Which you have to you have to go in the universities. You have to do it The Ironman Institute supports professors who teach You know free markets whether it's in philosophy departments whether it's economic departments Whether it's business schools. There's not a lot of them. You guys you guys have money Don't give you want to do one thing to save America. Don't give money to your alma mater. Do not give them money Find Find some good professors people who teach the right stuff Support them and if your alma mater doesn't have a professor like that Demand that they do don't sign a single check until they do We need we have to if we have if we're going to save this culture You've got to take over back the universities. The only way to do that is through the post strings Use it. You guys have the post strings. Don't just write a check because you went there When they're undercutting everything you believe in that is suicide Which american business is committing every single day are are very unpassionate