 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Philippe Escher too. I am the vice president of the Sciences Policy Project and I am Adam Lahody. I am the senior director of relations at SP3 And we will be today's masters of ceremony for our conference with Dr. Jiren Brooke Dr. Brooke is an Israeli-American intellectual best-selling author public speaker and host of the Jiren Brooke show specializing in Iran's philosophy of objectivism has developed in many of her works most notably at least shrugged at present Dr. Brooke serves as the chairman of the board of the Iran Institute after having served as its executive director for over 17 years Dr. Brooke has applied the objectivist philosophy through many realms in life having been awarded an award-winning Having been an award-winning professor at Santa Clara University founding his own financial advisory private equity group and hedge fund which he presently directs and lastly as a regular columnist for the Forbes magazine Thus, it is most appropriate that he has joined us today to speak on the ethics of capitalism a topic Which finds much contemporary scrutiny in the halls of academia and public life The format for today will focus primarily on encouraging debate with our students Dr. Jiren Brooke will begin with a 20-minute lecture on the ethics of capitalism providing his thesis in worldview in relation to Today's topic then this will be followed by a question from myself and Adam After which we'll be opening up to engagement from the audience We remind you to be respectful and courteous remaining open-minded to a view which may diverge from your own Before beginning, please note that the Science for Policy project is a not is non-partisan and encourages Speakers from all creeds to come and share and take their opinion on a wide range of political Social and philosophical topics. So without further ado, let us give a round of applause and introducing Dr. Jiren Brooke Thank you Thanks for inviting me and Yes, what I'm gonna say is gonna strike some of you as pretty controversial and might upset some of you. So tough But I'm looking forward to a to a good exchange of ideas and a good debate Afterwards, I'm curious. I think I know the answer, but I just I just want to know How many of you have read anything by Einrand? I figured as much How many of you have even heard of Einrand before you saw the posters or me or anything like that Okay, a number of you have heard of her Some of you have not heard of her at all I'm happy, you know to take any questions about her if you're interested in that but since I've only got 20 minutes Let me focus on the question at hand, which is the question of the morality of capitalism In what way is capitalism model? Is it at all model? But first let's ask the question of What do we mean by morality? What is it that we mean when we talk about morality of a system morality of a social political economic system? I don't view capitalism by the way just narrowly is just economic. I think it's broader than that I think it's an entire political social system And I'll define what I mean by capitalism in a minute But before we get to that we need to talk about what is morality because I have a different conception of morality than many people out there I Believe that when judging a social political economic system There's only one standard that should apply and that is the extent to which that political system enables human flourishing So to me morality is the ability of individuals To flourish to succeed to live a good life To live a life of where they can pursue their happiness Where they can pursue their values Based on their own judgment So now based on some authoritarian telling them what they can and cannot do not based on some dogma that says that they have to live a particular way But what is moral is a system is a system that leaves individuals free To make choices about their life To choose the values they pursue and then to leave them free to actually pursue those values and hopefully attain them No system can guarantee happiness No system can guarantee flourishing The best we can hope for is a system that leaves you as an individual free To try to pursue to achieve the best life that you can live because that to me is what morality is about Achieving the best life you can live when you have one life as far as I know One life You got to live it You got to make the most of it and when it comes to politics when it comes to society When it comes to a political system, we want a political system that gives us that opportunity To go for it So try to live the best life that we can live That's my standard For what is more It's not to impose a particular way of life on anybody But it's to give them the freedom to make the choices about the way of life They want to live and by that standard and I'm open to being challenged on that standard And I'm sure some of you will but on that standard. There's only one moral political system Only one and that is the system of capitalism So what is capitalism what we have today is not capitalism There is no capitalism today in the world Capitalism is a system in which the government Is such that all it does its sole responsibility its only job is to protect our freedom To protect our ability to make choices It's to protect our freedom to act To act in this world to act in pursuit of our values Government has no other role Under capitalism So capitalism the government for example has no economic responsibilities Does not intervene in the economy at all So it does not regulate it does not control it does not centrally plan It does not tell you what you can and cannot do it does not tell you how you should or shouldn't live The whole point of capitalism is that it leaves you free free to make your own choices Free to make your own decisions Free to live your life as you see fit It doesn't try to dictate your life for you whether in your personal realm Or in your economic realm Capitalism is a system That recognizes that each one of us Each one of us as an individual has inalienable rights Rights mean freedoms of action Each one of us should be free Should be free to take whatever actions one wants good actions bad actions whatever actions you want free of coercion free of force free of authority Free of somebody compelling you to behave in a particular way to do a particular thing to act In pursuit of anything in particular The role of government under capitalism is to protect that freedom In other words to leave you alone protect you from your neighbor Take you from cooks and thieves and fraudsters protect you from foreign invasion Obitrate disputes so that we don't have duels in the streets And other than that Leave you alone So that you can make choices about your own life So that you can decide the kind of life you want to live Capitalism is inconsistent with a platonic view of philosopher kings Who know what's good for you and are going to dictate to you what's right and what's wrong and how you should live We abandoned that view of society a long time ago, but we still dabble it We still live today in what I would call a mixed economy what many call a mixed economy We have some freedoms For the most part where you can do what you want you can you know, we still have free speech for the most part You can say what you want most countries sometimes You can sleep with whoever you want in most countries sometimes not everywhere You can live your life as you see fit You know for for most things you can even start your own business if you get the right permissions And if you ask nicely and in some places if you pay off the right people And you can usually employ who you want. You can't necessarily fire who you want, but you can certainly employ who you want So we have limited freedoms. We have some freedoms Some countries a little bit more Some countries a little bit less But in every country We have governments that intervene in almost every aspect of our life in one way or another We are not free Our income is Big chunk of our income is taken away from us We are controlled and regulated in our business lives You are controlled and regulated in every aspect of our economic life what we sell Who we you know, how we hire people How much we pay them is all dictated by a philosopher king who knows better than us We don't have the choices We don't have the ability to act free of courage and free of force Free of authority. We live in a world in which authority tells us what to do all the time so I believe we should reject any model Where we institute before us philosopher kings to tell us how to live and what we can or cannot do You know, we don't call them philosopher kings anymore. We call them bureaucrats Regulators politicians But that's what they are They know better how you should behave. They know better how much you should earn you they know better what you should or shouldn't produce That to me is him all It's none of your business. Leave me alone That to me is the right ethical approach To living to trading To interact So I think capitalism on a theoretical level is the only system that is moral Because it's the only system that leaves individuals free To pursue their own values to live their own life based on their own standards based on their own minds Without coercion We live in mixed economies that curse us constantly But let's what about capitalism in practice Right, how is it done In practice in reality now first, let me say And I know the left says exactly the same thing. I'm going to say but I'm going to make the contrast That there really never has been capitalism as I just defined it There's never been a complete separation of state from economics now the communists say the same thing, of course There's never been real capitalism. There's never been real communism. We need to try it next time it'll get a work next time we'll get it right and This is the difference that if it says That to the extent that you try socialism Certainly to the extent that you try communism It is by the standard of human flourishing An unmitigated disaster It leads to nothing but death and starvation everywhere. It's right Everywhere it fails at whatever scale it is tried whether it is a scale of a commune a kibbutz Or a soviet union of china. It always fails and leads to death and destruction Maybe not death on a kibbutz, but destruction certainly Capitalism is the opposite to the extent that capitalism is tried By the standards of human well-being to that extent it succeeds to that extent People are better off people are wealthier People have more options people have more choices people have more wealth people thrive capitalism Is a system that is being dabbled with for 250 years and everywhere no matter what Place in the world that is tried even a little bit It has unbelievably good outcomes In spite of the anti capitalist propaganda that you hear I mean the story of humanity is a story Of endless poverty If we look at the history of mankind over the last hundred thousand years What you see is extreme poverty Lived by well over 90 percent of all the population everywhere in the world So for a hundred thousand years basically income and wealth were flat They didn't alter they didn't change Maybe they got a little bit better under Greece and Rome and then they went down and they stayed the same pathetic life How long did people live back then anybody know what's the average life expectancy Yeah, it was well under 40 right And then something miraculous happened Because at some point just on a scale of income wealth, but also life expectancy Suddenly Everything went up dramatically not a little bit Not a little Greece or Rome, but suddenly everything exploded so that today in France Your income and wealth are well over on average well over 300 times what they were 300 years ago 300 times But in real in terms of quality of life The quality of your life is thousands of times better than it was 300 years ago. How do you value? You can't value monetarily the value of having running water and toilets How do you value electricity? In economics, we can only measure dollars or francs or euros But in terms of quality of life our life is much better than we can measure it in terms of in those terms We have today the kind of wealth that nobody 300 years ago could have even imagined you live The best lives any human beings have ever lived on this planet By any standard Of wealth income your life expectancy is probably over 100 Mine is probably less yours is probably well over 100 And if the right scientific breakthroughs happen, it could be a lot over 100 And there's no limit to the wealth To the success you can have what happened to lead to this inflection point of exponential growth in every measure of human well-being What happened? How did we go from anybody? You know how many people in extreme poverty 300 years ago globally what percentage of the world population Was extremely poor the u.n. Defines extreme poverty is two dollars a day or less How many people were extremely poor 300 years ago? Yeah, over 95 percent how many people extremely poor today In the world not not not in france, but in the world globally anybody, you know guess Like an important number 20 percent Anything anybody else more than that less than that 10 percent Think africa think asia think the whole world It's 8 percent We went from 90 something 95 percent to 8 percent 40 years ago 30 40 years ago. It was 30 percent in the last 40 years The greatest advancement human beings have ever seen in terms of the defeat of poverty has happened and you don't even know about it We've gone from 30 40 percent of poverty extreme poverty To 8 percent we should be celebrating in the streets. Nobody celebrates It's a good question as to why How did that happen? How did it happen that over the last 300 years poverty is basically Almost completely being defeated and if you project another 50 years it will be there would be no poverty in the world How but it created that inflection point About 200 and something years ago Well, the ideas ideas created that inflection point And those are the ideas the same ideas that are fundamentally behind the system of capitalism 300 years ago Really 200 and 230 years ago or so Ideas behind capitalism were embraced in certain parts of the world And those parts of the world exploded in terms of economic growth and progress human flourishing Took a massive step forward those ideas of free markets of free choices Of their ability of the individual to make choices about their own lives That didn't exist 300 years ago who who decided what profession you would have 300 years ago What your father did if you were a woman we know exactly what you did 300 years ago No profession zero Tony capitalism that made it possible for women to actually work and to actually leave and pursue their own choices and their own values Otherwise You did what your father did you joined the guild Who decided who you married 300 years ago You didn't your family did All choices were done by some authority Who decided what the right science was not scientists religious authorities In every aspect of human life authorities decided what happened 200 Something years ago was that authorities were shattered Individuals were freed to make choices for themselves Entrepreneurs created businesses businesses employed people standard of living rows Wages rows productivity rows and we all became wealthy Because we tried a little bit of capitalism not all the way just a little bit and the more we try it the wealthier we get Most of that happened in in western europe and the united states in the 19th century in the early 20th century But asia over the last 40 years is caught up We see exactly the same pattern in asia You see that once you free up and liberate the individual and let them make choices for themselves economic choices and life choices, but primarily economic choices Suddenly they become rich So when we liberate india when we liberate china when we liberate south korea when we liberate taiwan Suddenly they become rich Because they use the same methodology we all became rich by They tried capitalism again limited not all the way. I wish they'd gone all the way. They would be even richer today if they had But in every single case in human history Place the history of the last 200 and something years Countries that have embraced capitalism have led It's a massive economic growth and individual human flourishing The ability individuals to live their lives pursue their dreams Pursue their values Countries that didn't do that remain poor Where people have limited opportunities limited choices And don't get to pursue their values and those I think are systems that are immoral Systems that allow individuals to live Flourish to pursue choices to pursue values. That's what it means to be a moral political system So even a little bit of capitalism goes a long way If we really had capitalism if we had a truly Capitalist system it's hard to imagine how much better off we all would be We all would be today So capitalism is not only the only The only moral political system To the extent that it is tried it is the only system that has led in human history to human flourishing wealth And the defeat of poverty Thank you Just just a reminder. I'm reminded. I think you will give in a couple of pages like this The first one this one has a barcode You can get a free copy of any one of Inran's books if you'd like one some of you might some of you might not But it's right. It's right there You just scan it and you can pick the book that you want and they will they will get it to you And then the second one is a conference. We're holding the Inran Institute is holding in two weeks in London You invited the information is there. I'll be there. There'll be lots of other speakers. It should be a lot of fun Both so we'll be starting off with a question for me So I'm going to quote GK Chesterton and I'm going to ask the question So it is capitalism that has forced a moral feud and a commercial competition between the sexes That has destroyed the influence of the parent in favor of the influence of the employer That has driven men from their homes to look for their jobs That has forced them to live near their factories or their firms instead of near their families And above all that has encouraged for commercial reasons all that was called dignity and modesty by our mothers and fathers So my question is can a system therefore be called ethical if as a consequence? It drastically perverts priority spurring the destruction of family life by institutionalizing the pursuit of wealth over community Decreasing the amount of time parents spend with their children and eradicating the virtue of humility by idealizing greed God Children How many children before capitalism lived to see the age of 10? Do you want to talk about time with children? Before capitalism, what are children the ones who survived 50% didn't reach the age of 10 the ones who survived. What did they do? How many children went to school in the pre-capitalist world? How many almost none maybe the aristocrats But almost 90 plus percent of children worked in the fields From day in from Sun up to sunset. What time did the parents have with children? Parents were exhausted Parents often died young Women often often died of childbirth. I mean how many women today childhood dying childbirth almost none It's very close to zero. That wasn't the case Not that long ago So no nothing has enhanced the family more than capitalism Indeed, I don't know that there was the concept the concept as a broad concept among Everybody in society not among the people we make movies about the the the aristocrats who yeah, they had plenty of family time But nothing has promoted family more than capitalism because it Makes it the kids stay alive Did you have time? I mean We have more leisure time today than people worked back then I mean restaurants anybody, you know when the first restaurant Came into being first restaurant. I mean real restaurant not not at a large where you slept and also eat But something where you went out just to eat and experience Some gourmet chefs cooking anybody, you know when the first restaurant was created because restaurants are modern What was the first restaurant? It was it was the the late the late The late 1700s so the late 18th century In Paris first restaurant ever people didn't have time or money or wealth to go to eat at a restaurant I eat five times a week at a restaurant today Literally, my wife won't cook. So we eat out all the time vacations So restaurants are completely modern phenomena completely a phenomenon of capitalism. There was no going out to eat There was no that experience of eating gourmet food or eating different types of food I mean the idea that you in Paris can get Japanese food and Thai food and Chinese food and African food And all the stuff that's completely a phenomenon of globalization and capitalism not a phenomena of anything else vacations How many of you guys have been on a vacation? Everybody here has been on vacation in France. You basically live your life around August when you can go on vacation There's no such thing as vacations. There were no hotels There were no resorts There were no swimming pools You you basically work every single day And you stayed at a lodge when you traveled somewhere because you had to travel somewhere Not because you were going on vacation vacation as a concept again a modern concept And a product of capitalism nothing else We'll get to your questions. I promise How is it a product of capitalism vacation is a product of wealth you have to have enough leisure time That is you have to be so productive as to be able to in eight hours build create make enough So that you can live and then have extra above and beyond that to Pay for a restaurant and take some time off. So you don't have to work every single day You can only work five days a week. All of that is a consequence of increased productivity It's a consequence of the fact that today I in an hour can produce what somebody in the past took A month or two months to produce That is completely a product of capitalism that is a product of the industrial revolution the freedom that came about during that period And the dramatic increase in the productivity of labor over the last 200 years and and and that productivity of labor only increases In capitalist in relatively capitalist societies a society that has a little bit of capitalism freedom is a prerequisite For the increase in the productivity of labor. You don't see productivity in labor increase in societies that are not at least somewhat capitalist So vacations restaurants are completely a product a result of the fact that capitalism is so good at creating wealth Because you can't have any of that without wealth We'd still be farming not to mention the fact that we have how many how many people do we have on planet earth 8 billion people You couldn't feed 8 billion people on planet earth without capitalism You couldn't without industrial farming you cannot feed 8 billion people in the world Suddenly you haven't been able to you wouldn't have been able to over the last 50 60 years Every aspect of human life today is possible At the level in which we live it Because we we have maintained just a little bit enough capitalism to keep us going and the more we diminish it The more we put that lifestyle at risk and the more we decay So all of the values that we care about I mean think about I say I love classical music I assume songs you probably do maybe not. I don't know. You're young. Maybe you don't right even classical music think about classical music, right? When was the first time a composer Could actually make a living from his composition and not be dependent on some religious leader or aristocrat to fund him completely Wouldn't it just happen Like us today Musicians can you know, they can they can make money directly from us. They don't need a patron. When did that start? When did the patronage system disappear? What's the same thing? with the beginning of capitalism Beethoven has concerts and he sells tickets And people come to listen to Beethoven concerts And he makes money off of those concerts and he makes a living that way He also had patrons because he was the transitional figure But he makes money off of a new middle class a middle class that's been created by what? By the introduction of capitalism by the introduction of industry And suddenly people can afford people can afford to buy sheet music people can afford to take piano lessons and suddenly Music teachers that profession never existed. Suddenly you have this proliferation of music teaching every aspect of culture every aspect of family Is enhanced by capitalism not degraded by it? I gave a long answer. So there was a second question Oh, okay sure um, any anything from uh, the stories about capitalism that claim and you know, we can make a list of claims claim for example That capitalism leads the economic crisis So for example the story that i'm sure you've all heard because it's it's very successful propaganda It's so successful. It's now in your textbooks that the great depression was caused by capitalism Or something you are lived through you were little but you lived through it that the great financial crisis was caused by capitalism greedy capitalists on wall street caused the financial crisis The technical term for that is bs If you don't know what bs is i'm happy to spell it out for you Um, and i'm happy to explain to you what caused the financial crisis and why it wasn't capitalism It's bizarre even to think it's capitalism All right, i'm gonna give you i'm gonna give you the the the five minute version versus the eight hour one Which is available on youtube if you really want it, uh, which i've done i've done a whole course on this what caused the financial crisis is a whole series of Regulations and attempts to control lending In the united primarily in the united states that then kind of expanded all over europe because of Because of the interconnectivity of the financial of the financial world So in the united states we decided uh sometime in the 1990s, uh, I mean really in the 1930s But it was intensified in the 1990s that everybody should own their own home that renting was passe and and and not socially good And we should encourage everybody to own a home whether they could afford it or not Whether they could so out with the rent make get everybody to get mortgages take on debt And and build a home so we would we by government regulations by government control We reduced the standards by which we issued mortgages Banks were encouraged financial institutions to give mortgages to pretty much anybody No matter what as a consequence One of the consequences of this was rising prices of homes everybody started demanding You could get zero down mortgages at very low interest rates subsidized Holy by the government the government subsidized it they insured it So the banks didn't care because the government was subsidizing it the government was ensuring it So they issued the mortgages you take away all the incentive for them to protect against risk Uh, and of course this can't go on forever Uh, people took out. Oh, yeah in green span in 2002 came out and said It doesn't make sense to take a fixed rate mortgage a 30-year mortgage If you look at history, it's always better to take a variable rate mortgage You know a variable rate mortgage the mortgage rate changes as interest rates changes everybody went out because he's the expert He's ahead of the Federal Reserve. He knows what he's talking about. So everybody took variable rate mortgages What happened when interest rates started going up? Suddenly their variable rate mortgages became much more expensive than anybody had told them suddenly people couldn't afford to pay their mortgage back Suddenly they started to be this cascading effect of mortgages going out uh and These funds that are bought repackaged mortgages and everything else started defaulting and everything started collapsing But it all was a consequence of a central planner A philosopher king deciding You all should own your home. You all should have mortgages and we the government will incentivize you Completely disregarding completely disregarding How markets work risk incentives what that actually does. So again, that's a short version We could go as deep as you want to go, but that's just one example of the the kind of idea that These crises are caused by capitalism when none of them have the the great depression was caused by the federal reserve Which is a government institution not a private institution Um, so that's one myth about capitalism other myths about capitalism. I don't know that employees exploited under capitalism Which is a myth about capitalism I don't I'm sure you guys can think of all your click most of your arguments against capitalism of these kind of propagandum is Let's see in the back Yeah, I get it. So so no your assumption is is wrong completely Everybody benefits everybody can benefit. I'm not saying everybody does and I'll get to why Inequality is not a sign that some people exploited and others were not Inequality is a natural aspect of freedom If you take I mean you guys are all smart You're all pretty brilliant. I'm sure because you're you see university and yet you don't get the same grades I mean, it's weird, but there's no equality in this room. You don't get the same grades Some of you get b's and some of you get a's. I'm sure nobody gets a c ever in this class And some of you might on occasion once in a while get an f Maybe maybe not. Maybe some universities in the United States Don't allow the professors to give f's. I you know, I got into trouble if I try to fail the student, but So inequality is a feature of human nature. We're not the same. We're different Some of us are better at math. Some of us are better in philosophy Some of us are not good at school, but we're good with our hands Other people are really good figuring out business So the idea that we should be equal In outcome is absurd. You don't have that at university You don't have that in school and you shouldn't because the fact is that some of you do better at exams than others You don't all do the same. I'll get to all of your questions. So Relax your hands So so and the fact that you get an a and that she gets a b Doesn't mean you're exploiting her. It just means that you maybe studied harder for the exam. Maybe Maybe And I'm I'm not suggesting this at all. You know, you're more intelligent than she is And therefore you got a higher grade But the fact that you got a great doesn't mean that higher grade doesn't mean you exploited her It just means you have different skills different talents And that you in this particular thing are better than her at it on this day Maybe on a different day. She would be to it So inequality is a feature of freedom not a bug. It's not a flaw It's not a sign of exploitation and exactly the same thing happens in business Why do some people make a lot of money? Because they're good at it And some people don't make a lot of money because in that aspect of life, they're not as good And who benefits who benefits the most from billionaires? Here's one of the mythologies Who benefits from the existence of billions in a free market? I'm not talking about the oligarchs in Russia. Who benefits from billionaires in a free market? Everyone Everyone Why do I buy an iphone? This costs a thousand bucks Why do I buy this For a thousand dollars and apple makes a a profit on it makes a lot of money on this thing A lot of billionaires well at least two billionaires have come out of apple because of this Who benefited more from this Steve Jobs or me? I know that's what I said in the past. I said benefited not benefits I didn't get that but you'll explain it to me afterwards So who benefited in the past more from this me or Steve Jobs or Steve Jobs's widow if you want to go that way, right? What's that? Yeah, but who benefited more? I mean i'm serious who benefited more How do you quantify it's a good question, right? I I I am Convinced that I benefited more He got more money But you know what? I don't value money that much Money's cool, but i'm happy to pay a thousand dollars for the iphone. Why? Why am I happy to pay a thousand dollars for the iphone? I can afford to do a lot of things with those thousand dollars. I can even keep them. I can go to fancy me I can do a lot of things but Why am I willing to pay a thousand dollars for the iphone? By the way, almost everybody today has a smartphone of one kind or another Yeah, because I get more value out of that iphone than a thousand dollars. How much utility do I get? I mean, it's immeasurable How do you measure the fact that I can talk to my kids before they go to sleep from anywhere in the world? Any time from any place? How do you tell them a midnight story? How do you measure that? Steve Jobs made that possible How do you measure the fact that I have access to every piece of music ever written in all of human history at a marginal cost of zero? Steve Jobs made that possible for me to do that And think about the million things the fact that I found this university is only possible because of google maps Who did that? I'm not talking about google. I used apple maps. So it wasn't germanson building And the germanson building ultimately got paid pretty well for that ultimately they were yeah so No, there's no exploitation going on Uh, there's no there's no exploitation going on. I benefit apple benefits Uh, everybody in the ecosystem benefit people use samsung benefit because there's competition That makes samsung better. What's that? Nobody makes one dollar a day, but okay two dollars a day. Why why are they working for two dollars a day? Why are they working for two dollars a day? Why does anybody in the world work for two dollars a day? What choice do they have? Nothing really Really god You guys you guys should should should go to china and ask why they're willing to work for two dollars a day What's the other choice have a choice to do what they did before they had the job with apple? Nothing there's no unemployment in china All these people did something before they worked for apple. What did they do? They they they were farmers Just like all of us were 300 years ago. They were farmers in eastern china western china They cultivated the land and then suddenly there was an opportunity in the city to make like 10 times more money Now for you, it seems ridiculous because you're spoiled Excuse me, but you are in a comfy middle-class europe or upper middle-class middle European life and you can judge the farmer in china that says you know what i'm going to go to the city I'm going to work for apple I'm going to send money home because they usually leave their kids with the grandparents and the farm And the alternative is I stay on the farm and I live a pathetic life that goes nowhere for the rest of my life But I can go to the city. I can build a little wealth. I can Send money home. So my kids have a bit of money. I can advance. I can get better at what I do I can become more productive How do you think we went for 1.2 billion? Chinese Or living at below extreme poverty to a situation today Where only still a big number but only 400 million live in extreme poverty 800 million people have come out of extreme poverty in china because of what? because of social services Because of redistribution of world miles tried that and 30 to 100 million people died The way they got out is because people went to the factories and worked Sweatshops are the only way people come out of poverty We had sweatshops in the west In the 19th century and we got more productive and we earned more and we rose up and we became better But you want to take those choices away from them? You want to tell them no no no no no you can't take that job because it offends my european sensibilities But they choose it they hiked thousands of miles to get those jobs And if you go and live among them They're ambitious. They want to do well. They want to do well at their jobs. They want to get a better job They want to maybe start a small business in shanghai. They want to be a middle class just like you But they only path to middle class. They're no shortcuts in life The only middle the only path to middle class suit is to start with a simple job Now, I know you guys probably come most of you come from families where that's not necessary But when you don't have anything that's the starting point You're not gonna nobody's gonna give you this stuff. Chinese government doesn't have the money to give them They have to produce it and they start at the bottom and they rise up and the standard of living goes up And they become better off and that's how we get a middle class in china So you get a middle class in india india has more people that will have soon more people in china And it was the same story when it was socialist It was dirt poor when it started liberalizing in 1991 it started to become richer Yes, people have to go through sweatshops. It's sad But that's life. That's reality. And if you take that away from them, they will never achieve anything All right, yeah You know, that's it may I don't know the history of France. So it's quite possible that in France This was instituted from above, but it was not instituted from above in the united states and in the uk there was there's always been a tension between labor and In management and there's negotiations and is and and that's that's part of the business but The the idea of vacations Is the idea of enhancing of of allowing people to rest so that they can be more productive It's clearly in the interest of business to allow people to have vacations and indeed in the united states today Most places have more vacation time than the government mandates because You know It works to have happy workers Happy workers are more productive happy workers are more profitable happy workers Do a better job So one of the goals of a productive business is To enhance to make it possible for people to produce at maximum level So we should use uh genetic engineering to make sure we all had the same IQ And we all had the same intelligence because you want to create a start an equal starting point. Is that is that what's implied? Look, there is no such thing as an equal starting point. You you can pretend you can imagine But there is no such thing reality does not abide by quality. There is no such thing as equality in real life The only sense in which equality has meaning that the term equality means something Is equality before the law equality of rights equality of freedoms The the fact that neither that nobody should be cursed that nobody should uh should be defrauded that nobody should be Attacked and assaulted That's the only sense in which we have there's a meaning to equality. We're all different And we're always going to have different circumstances and we're always going to make different choices And we're always going to have different genes always And I don't want to make everybody the same. I mean what a boring horrible world It would be if we genetically engineered everybody to be the same to have the same starting point No You got to make the most of where you are and and it's sad that some people don't have You know even the basic what what are you going to do with the fact that some parents are just more loving And just better than other parents You're gonna take the kids away and raise them like in a kibbutz Well collectively and therefore they don't get they don't get challenged by the particular parents that they have That was a disaster in the kibbutz. I wouldn't recommend it No, you have to accept the fact that people don't have equal starting points And then what you need to do is not equate opportunities You got to you got to maximize the opportunities they have give them the most options the most choices So that they can find their own path in life And that's what capitalism does capitalism maximizes the opportunities All right the girl in the back and then the guy in front of her. Yes you if you have what All right, so what you're saying is That the fact that somebody is sick The fact that somebody cannot access let's say healthcare or cannot access the choices Gives them let's go back to morality gives them a moral right to take my stuff to make my life worse And I say no I have my rights. They have their rights. They can ask for my help They can ask me to help And but you know, I might be generous. Am I not depending on who it is? But they're suffering anybody suffering is not a moral claim and those were not suffering it's Again, they can ask for assistance. They can do it. I mean I'll get to the the reality of this in a minute, but There's a lot they can do But they don't have a right to pull out a gun and take my stuff Now the fact that they ask the government to take my stuff and give it to them for them Doesn't make it any more just they're coercing me. They're using force on me. I think force is evil I think force when if I hold you up in the street, that's wrong If I mug you in the street, that's wrong I think when the government mugs me in the street, which is what they do all the time That's wrong as well force coercion taking people's money against their world is wrong period without exceptions Even if it's for a good cause Now let's be real about health care in america because god, this is one of the big mixed conceptions europeans have about the world But let me correct that that americans have about their own system If you have health insurance in the united states You get the best health care in the world Bar none. I know it's it's a reality. I'm a little older than you I use health care a lot more than you do Young people don't use health care. So yes, socialized medicine is great You can walk into a clinic when you got the sniffles and not have to pay anything. But if I have cancer There's no place in the world you'd rather be than the united states indeed people who have the resources in europe And get cancer where do they go they don't stay in europe even in france Which has the best health care system in the world according to the united nations They get on a plane and they go to the male clinic or the cleavage clinic My health insurance will pay for me to go to the male clinic in the united states so If you have health insurance You can have access to the best health care in the world Not enough people have access to health health insurance in the united states absolute why Not because of capitalism Capitalism creates products for the poor We want the poor to buy insurance. We can make money off of them So why don't the poor have health insurance in the united states? They don't have it because of the of the regulatory regime that restricts The kind of insurance policies they sell in america. So I used to live in california. I don't anymore luckily But in california if I wanted to buy health insurance policy, it had to cover acupuncture I've tried acupuncture. It doesn't work for me. I I don't needed my health insurance I have to have it because insurance companies are mandated include acupuncture. I'm not going to have any more kids A little old for that Yet I have to have pregnancy coverage My wife has to have all kinds of coverages that she doesn't need anymore I have to have all kinds of coverage. I don't want anymore But the state the government mandates that those be included insurance company policies to protect us So what you don't get is cheap policies customized to the customer Like I can buy a cheap car, you know, I could be small You know, I rented a car here in paris manual shift Uh, but it it got me from paris to here and it'll get me back And it's pretty safe and it's pretty good. But if I wanted to I could splurge and get a maserati I don't need a maserati to get to reams. I can use my little citron I learned to drive on a citron. So it was a little it was nice, but But you don't have that everybody has gold plated Maseratis as health insurance policies in the united states most a lot of people can't 10 of the population Can't afford them and they go on and should Other myths about health care in the united states. How many dollars? How many cents do you think of every dollar in health care in the united states is spent by the government? Yeah, I mean, I'm a united states has a private health care system What percentage of the dollar spent on health care in the united states is spent by the government? Well over 50 United states has a socialized health care system with a little bit of privatization The fact is that after you're over 65 you're going to medicare which is basically socialized health care for the rest of your life If you're poor, you're going to medicare Medicaid which is socialized medicine for poor people health care in the united states for You know a middle-class person who has health insurance Is bar none best in the world my dad is a doctor in israel socialized medicine Much rather go to hospital in the u.s than in israel or in France or in any country I travel to All right, I said you yes No, I didn't I Attributed a bunch of different factors one of them being intelligent It could have been hard work It could have been that she partied last night and she's just not completely awake for the exam I mean, there's a multiple Reasons why you would have the but the point is that he got a better grade that she did There are lots of causes I I get it. I get it because I mean you get as much capital as you produce Let me finish right So you think steve job sits around in and off a shuffling paper yelling at people and being obnoxious Right and and he gets two billion dollars for doing that. No steve jobs is the guy Who makes it possible For millions of people to have jobs Those jobs wouldn't exist unless he had the vision had the insight had the ideas the organizational skill The productive ability to imagine iphone and then to assemble an entire supply chain From 50 different countries to bring it all together So that somebody could put all the stuff together and and and and actually do the little bit of physical labor Which in a few years a robot will do and there'll be no jobs in that In order to assemble the iphone, but the fact is that the the the the productive What steve jobs does is worth billions of dollars what I do I I speak in front of groups like you right? It's not worth billions of dollars It's not now. Yeah, I mean you might have an argument. It's not it's it's a negative value, but uh, I get it but It's it's not worth because I I don't access billions of people steve jobs did I don't change the world in the same way steve jobs did I don't produce a concrete benefit to humanity In the moment the way steve jobs did he produced billions of dollars every billionaire out there again in a free market in a relatively free market Is that productive? And the people who do the the simple jobs of assembling iphone are not that productive they how many how many iphone's can one person assemble That you know and all he does is one little piece of an entire supply chain But the brain power the insight the vision that had to go into imagining the whole thing and then putting it all together Is a gazillion times More productive than that one person Yeah, because his capital remains productive his capital is not static if the capital static he'll lose it all Why is he not producing anything more he's imagining future iphone's he's imagining itv's he's imagining you Mac minis he's imagine he's constantly working By what standard how do you decide so so let's say we decide to pay the guys in china 10 times what they make today And and it has an impact on your your iphone price goes up And a certain percentage of you not you in this room But some percentage out there can't buy the iphone anymore because it's a little bit more expensive And they stop buying it so the number of iphone shrinks and some people lose their jobs and that's okay with you By what standard how do you decide how much to pay somebody? No, it's not central authority The fact is it's not central authority. How much you get paid at all Your pay is determined by how productive you are and by the competition for your labor And that is determined by how productive you are the more productive you are the more you will earn And if you follow people in china who started out with sweatshops as they learn the skill as they become more productive Their wages go up some of them go up dramatically because not because of the benevolence of their managers of apple But because they're worth more to apple so apple pays them all and why they're worth more to apple because they're more productive to apple Now why is the capital keep earning after steve jobs are gone because the capital still keeps working? So I I invest in in in companies And my investment is what makes it possible for those companies to hire new people and to create new products And to grow their business and to create economic activity that all of you benefit from so the capitalist Put more effort and more thought and more work than most other people and that's why they benefit the most The the pyramid marks this pyramid of exploitation is upside down The most the people who contribute the most to an economy the people who contribute the most to wealth creation Are the capitalists and the management? And the people who contribute the least to wealth creation and to production are the workers That's why they get paid the least It doesn't mean morally they're different. It's just economically they contribute the least Yeah, yeah, I know I I I get it and I agree, right? So so what about what about The extreme cases and there are such cases of of children and and not just children, but people forced to work in mines It's just forced labor in many african countries to do this stuff Okay, who's at fault there? No no Good our country if those african countries had capitalism, none of this would be happening If those countries because under capitalism you can't force anybody the whole point of capitalism is you don't put a gun to anybody's head That's how I define capitalism the whole point of capitalism is the extraction of coercion from society So what would happen if the mines in africa? And if there was rule of law In in in these countries in africa and there was actually private property in these places in africa And therefore people could compete for labor and labor could compete for jobs Then they would still mine the cold boat for for for apple But now they would have to pay their laborers because if their laborers didn't work They would have to they would they would leave for something else The whole point the whole solution for africa, right the the solution to the poverty and the oppression And the the horrific conditions the children and others live under africa is capitalism africa is the last continent Not to experience a capitalist revolution and as a consequence It's the last continent in which there's such adjunct I mean there's still parts of asia and still parts of the middle east that are still like this But that's because they haven't experienced it yet where you have this this horrific A poverty and this horrific conditions and the horrific coercion But that's because they don't have capitalism That's because they haven't experienced the protection of property rights They haven't experienced the protection of individual rights They don't have a government that respects the rule of law and treats people equally before the law They're not suffering from other other continents capitalism They are if they if they embrace capitalism they would benefit enormously from the demand from other countries For their raw materials, which would raise which would raise their standard of living the problem in africa today Is they generate a lot of wealth from their natural resources and it goes to whom? And don't say apple, please it goes to the warlords It goes to the gangsters who run these countries It goes to their political class who has massive bank accounts in together with all the russian oligarchs in in switzerland It goes to the people in power But the point of capitalism is that the wealth doesn't go to the people who have guns the people who have political power The point in capitalism is that the wealth goes to the people who are productive who manage production who make production possible And that is a completely different system. So if you want to if you care about africa Then you want them to embrace the things that made france rich Which is property rights respect for human life rule of law equality before the law If you did that Then they would get rich because the rest of the world would demand the natural resources they have there But that wealth Would be not just going to the gangsters. It would be going to the people who actually produced the wealth Yes It's fascinating to me, right? So in 1800 50% of all children died before the age of 10 by 95% of them make it to age 10 in 1800 You know the standard the life expectancy of a child born Is less than well less than 40 and by 1900 it's well over 60 In every respect over these if you look at the beginning and then if you look at the end human life has improved dramatically Even the you know by then, you know, you say Their hands were chopped off and they have suffered all these injuries as if on the farm that never happens As if when they worked as as laborers on a farm Before capitalism that never happened if they if they actually lived right because most of them didn't even survive Working on the farm because of the poverty that they inflicted. So yes capitalism in its early stages just like today in other countries is Not pretty not aesthetically pretty But it's necessary There's no other way to get from one point A to point B There's no way to get what do you think children went to school at the late 19th century because nobody went to school before that Why did they suddenly go to school now? I know the conventional wisdom is because governments forced it and that's again BS They went to school because parents now made enough money To be able to pull their kids from work and send them to school And only then did government pass laws that said you have to send your kids to school So it is capitalism that made it possible for kids to go to school Yes, they worked and in every society out there that is poor children work whether they work in a farm or work in a factory Because those societies don't have enough money to send them to school the parents can't feed the kid on what they are making So they have to have the children work so they can feed them and as soon as the parent make enough money So that the kid doesn't have to work they take him out of the factory and send him to school So yeah, it can get unpretty, but that is a necessary step in order to achieve The kind of progress we benefit from today Yeah Well, I don't know because I'm not sure what you know if you have the wrong views and yes drop out and And go do finance because all we don't need more Philosophic king politicians. You don't have to be philosopher kings So, uh, you know my favorite politicians And they're flawed. Don't don't you know, I know they're flawed. I know they're not perfect. So Don't start are the founders of of the us And I know many of them had slaves. I know that is a blemish on them forever But the fact is as politicians not as human beings They generally set up a system that basically was the right kind of political system The system that protected individuals that recognized their rights recognized their freedoms and left them alone And the system they created was so good. I mean the declaration of independence is so good That at the end even the fact that they owned slaves Was inconsistent with the document that they wrote and they had to fight a civil war in order to Change that and it's a was a just war and it's too bad. It didn't happen 60 years earlier, right? So you can be a politician who does the opposite Who doesn't act like they know how people should live and what's good for people and and and what's right for them and And and so on but you can be a politician that actually Liberates people and frees them up and you know, you know I think the people who suffer the most from Good natured politicians are the poor Because you treat them like children not not you but you in the future you're gonna become politicians, right? You treat them like children You treat them like they don't have a mind of their own You treat them, you know what their job should be. You know how much they should get paid. What about all the people? You know, I don't know friends have a minimum wage Yeah I mean Minimum wages minimum wages Basically make it so that the that the least educated Least able people can never find a job They just never work and and You can see this all over the world any country that has a minimum wage There's a certain percentage of particularly young particularly minority Poor kids who will never ever have a job because if I if they if they can only produce a two dollars an hour And the minimum wage is seven dollars an hour. Nobody will hire them But you feel good because you know what you raise the minimum wage to seven bucks an hour and to hell with those kids I say no I say somebody is willing to pay them two bucks an hour and they're willing to work for two bucks an hour because it's better for them Then the alternative they have which is to be on welfare then let them do it or think about the welfare payments You think again the welfare payments is helping people but is it? It's telling people that they can't take care of themselves But that the government is going to write them a check and they can live off of other people Is that a good psychological message to people? Do you think welfare recipient to have the kind of self-esteem that poor people maybe did a hundred years ago when they worked for a living And yes, they had a modest life, but they worked for a living Work is important Psychologically to your self-esteem Yet you want to take people and tell them not to work here give the money UBI is popular now. You know a universal basic income. Yes, let's Pay people not to work You want to destroy people psychologically in their self-esteem? That's a good way to do it So you can do the opposite You can free people up you can you and that's what I hope politicians of the future will do one day doesn't look very promising No, yeah Sure Are you getting me in trouble? I am a strong believer in separation of state from from church And a separation of state from ideas So the state should not have ideas And the people and the state should be so limited So constrained That their ideas should not make a difference That is again, I envision a state in which politicians have very little to do The legislature is primarily involved in helping define new applications of property rights The internet creates a lot of new things in which we need to think about property rights and so on for example Uh, maybe the legista meets. I don't know Six months every two years doesn't have to be there all the time. How do they have to do? I can run my life. I don't need them to tell me how to do it So I think you limit the legislature and you try to keep religion and ideas out Of the state as much as you can. Religion is corrupting. Religion is always corrupted. It's very corrupting of politics It's you know, I won't get into personal life But uh, but no, I I don't want my politicians to be any ism I want them to be I'm protecting you. That's my job. It's to protect you and I'll figure out how the best way to protect you is It's it's a it's a profession. It's not a ideology Yeah, so But the beauty of again the beauty of it is that they don't legislate sex Right because they're leaving you free. So you do whatever you want with their sex life Count it to the conservatives in america who would like to regulate your sex life They don't tell you who to marry and who not to marry because it's not the state's business who you should marry You know, they don't Have any power over your life what they clearly define is When you know, here's the kind of technical boring stuff politicians should be doing They should help define what is first-degree motive versus second-degree motive versus accidental killing What should be the different penalties for the different things? not The intricacies of how we live Oh, okay No, I get it. I get it. So so so I think that's a myth too. I don't think it's due to the protestant work ethic Look capitalism is a consequence Of a a long historical process that starts with the renaissance in europe Yes Prove what so give me something you want me to prove I can prove to you that minimal wage creates unemployment. I'm sorry So I don't understand. I don't understand what it is. You want me to prove Yes, I think it's a scientific process with real proof So parts of it are proofs in economics So the idea that workers are not exploited can be proven In the field of economics and you can prove it by by looking at productivity and by looking at the division of of Value across different work fields. Absolutely can prove that I can prove Mathematically that a minimum wage Creates unemployment a historical question about what role Did the protestant work ethic play in the development of capitalism? I can give an hypothesis I can tell you my historical story It's not mathematics. So you might interpret it differently Right, but I would I would argue that the source of capitalism is not protestant work ethic But the secularization of europe and the elevation of reason the you know By the french enlightenment and the scottish enlightenment the idea Of of of the efficacy of human reason the idea of the value of the individual Over the value of the group or the value of authorities from the church It is the rejection of the authoritarianism Of church authorities or if you want protestant It's the rejection of the authority of a book Right in protestantism, you don't look to the pope, but you look to the book The book is the authority and it's the rejection of those ideas that I think and again if we had the time We could go through a whole history lesson that led to the idea that I have a mind I can reason I can figure stuff out for myself I don't need these authorities and therefore I don't accept that you tell me what profession I go to I don't accept that you tell me who to marry I don't accept that you rule over me. I want at this. I want to say in all those things I want to live their life based on my reason my my not on an ancient book Not on what the pope says not on what the king says about what I say and that liberty That I think was rediscovered by the west during the enlightenment But really the process started in the renaissance is what led to capitalism and Protestantism had something to do with it in the sense that it liberated us from a pope It liberated us from particular hierarchy in a particular authority But it wasn't a crucial thing the crucial thing in my view is the scientific revolution and enlightenment because that's what liberated the human mind That's what led to it now in history. You can't prove things mathematically I you know, you can go and read and try to find cause and effect throughout history. That's my interpretation of the cause and effect I think it's right. Otherwise, I wouldn't say it And I'm pretty sure it's right, but you guys will have to judge for yourself I you know, I can't in a in a q&a Give you long proofs for everything my job here Look, I'm just like just a point by teaching It's not about getting into your mind and changing things I'm not trying to change your mind What I'm trying to do is create doubt Because doubt will cause you to think And it will cause you to go read a book And oh, I wonder he said this point about I don't know. I'm away. So let me go research that Let me go do that's all I want because I know I can't prove everything to you to your satisfaction to every single hand in the room, right? So I'm trying to create what's caught what's called cognitive dissonance enough cognitive dissonance. I hope So it caused you to think about it later and to cause you to read a book and maybe even download one of those iron man books And and and and read them So I don't know what you want to do. There's tons of questions. Are we going to go for as long as two more questions? All right, she's really eager. Yes You were gonna ask he was gonna ask the same question. So we did a two for one. That's good Sure. I mean The industrial revolution is responsible probably for climate change There's a key question you have to ask about climate change You know It's happening. The globe is warming Um the key question is How destructive and how quickly Is it destructive that is how how urgent is it? Is this an emergency? Is this like an asteroid heading towards earth and we know it's going to hit at some point and we're all going to die I mean, let me let me finish because otherwise we'll never end this right Because if it is if if it's unequivocally the asteroid hitting us and and we're all going to die and it's going to destroy the human planet Then yeah, you you've got to do some emergency stuff and in emergencies like that You've got to get together and and and change the change life as we know it and and deal with it That becomes priority number one and look capitalists You know the nice thing about greedy selfish capitalists and I I say those terms with affection Is that they want to live? They want to live So if it's true that the asteroid is gonna Whole if we actually saw an asteroid. I don't know if you saw this stupid movie don't look up But I think the one point that they got right is The billionaires of the world would care because They're gonna die now they ridicule him and they make him look stupid and they make it ridiculous But they would care because they they don't want to die nobody wants to die So indeed I think if we hadn't asteroid wholly towards earth, I think the the people most Component and most able to deal with it. It's probably a long musk and a bunch of people rather than governments who can't do anything right, right? So The first question is it an asteroid wholly towards earth I don't think it is so so let me let me put my cards on the table. I don't think it is So I live in the caribbean. I've I've lived in yes because of the tax benefits. Absolutely. Um Proud proud of it. Um, I I've lived in Puerto Rico for four years now Um So yes, I I moved to Puerto Rico three months after maria devastated the islands I know exactly what you're talking about, but the fact is And and and this is and I'm not gonna we're not gonna argue this This is science You're gonna have to go do your own research I'm sure many of you have but there's no increase in hurricanes intensity or the number of hurricanes yet because of climate change I'm not saying it couldn't happen But the scientific fact is it hasn't happened yet But but let me give you a much more important statistic And I don't have a blackboard because I'd love to have a blackboard to do this What how many people die every year from climate related? issues Is it growing more people are dying every year because of climate related issues Put aside the air contamination. It's a different issue. We're talking about climate change climate climate change from from tornadoes hurricanes heat waves freezes Droughts All of this stuff are more people dying today than 20 years ago. No No I mean go go based on u.n numbers based on whatever numbers you want Go look at the number of people who die from climate related Catastrophes has actually been declining for hundreds of for the last 200 years. Why? I mean, it's obvious to me. Why wait, how did people live in Puerto Rico poor people? Let me finish Unfortunately poor people in Puerto Rico still live in shoddy homes And they're the ones who suffer but as we become richer, what do we do with our homes? We build them stronger we build them better And we don't die because of weather related issues if if if there's a heat wave in a rich country. What happens? You pay a lot of electricity bills because you use the air conditioning. You don't die If there's a freeze in a place where you can warm you don't die because you can use heating The fact is that the solution to all climate crisis is technology. It's to make our life more resilient To it. I was just in Amsterdam Amsterdam is below sea level not because of climate change. It's been below sea level for hundreds of years And yet it's a thriving city. How they build dikes So one possibility. I'm not saying this is the only possibility one possibility to deal with climate change is to enhance our technologies To be able to live well as the climate becomes more variable as the climate becomes less predictable So the only way In which human beings survive the only way we we as far as I know are an animal and a part of nature We're not extra torrentials. We're not something different than nature. We have evolved from apes. We are part of nature And nature has granted us this unique Thing which is the way we survive Is by changing nature The way we survive is by exploiting nature Other species don't if the weather changes they die We don't and everything we do changes nature. We build a house. How do we do that? We chop down trees We blow up our mountain and use the use the the rocks Everything we do. There's not a single human activity. Certainly not a modern times, but even in olden times Once we stop being hunter-gatherers every single activity we engage in is using nature for ourselves And yeah, we do it very well And it challenges not to do it to an extent that it destroys us It hasn't yet as I said life expectancy goes up health is improving. We're living better lives It's never been a better time to live on earth right now than you guys are experiencing You might be Miserable because you've told about all this these horrible things. But the fact is You live in the best of times In spite of the decline in biodiversity, which happens naturally anyway And and he goes in cycles and there are lots of these cycles But even if human beings are doing it so what so they're the fewer animals out there the fewer species out there But we are thriving And what does it matter what matters is the we are thriving. That's the purpose the purpose is not To maximize biodiversity the purpose is for human beings to do well Because we're human beings the lions don't care about about human beings. They don't care about other species They care about lions. We as human beings care about human beings Now we we want to make sure that we don't do things that destroy our ability to live on this planet I don't think we're doing anything destroy ability to live in this planet If anything we're under investing under investing in technology To make it possible for us to live better lives to deal with climate change better To build. I mean one of the best ways to deal with climate change is to eradicate poverty Now eradicating poverty is going to require burning fossil fuels Because the fact is Africa is not going to get rich with solar panels They're too expensive. They're too inefficient Africa will only get rich if they burn fossil fuels So again you middle class wealthy Well to do Europeans are going to get tell Africans stay poor because we want to save the planet Well, if I was an african, I tell you where to shove that And I think they will I don't think if you listen to the to africans. They don't want that They want to get rich just like we are rich and the way to get rich is Industry and technology and jobs and and and it makes stuff in by the way sell you food, you know, do you know why? You know, why the european union doesn't import food from africa If you want to help africans lower trade barriers and buy food from africa But you want because much more important for you to protect rich Transformers than it is to help africans if you really cared about africa You'd advocate for reducing tariffs and allow them to export food to you So that so that they could get rich off of your consumption of food So You know climate change is a problem. We'll deal with it with technology You cannot deal with it by destroying civilization You cannot deal with it by tomorrow stopping to use fossil fuels because that would destroy civilization It's not an asteroid hurling towards earth. It's a slow death if it happens. It's a slow change but Getting the worth getting the earth getting warmer and having more co2 in the atmosphere is not our biggest problem on earth right now It's not the fact The fact let me just one last thought the fact is co2 is good for the trees you love There are actually more trees because of co2. There's more algae in the seas There's more greenery because of co2. That's just the fact again There's more forests in the united states today than there was 200 years ago Because we we don't use as much land for agriculture as we used to because technology is improved in every aspect Human progress is good for human beings. It's not disaster for human beings. The disaster is slow Stop being so depressed, you know every generation Thinks now i'm serious every generation thinks that you will lead to the end of the world Earth every generation you can go back millennial cults have existed forever Climate change catastrophism is a millennial cult It's just another cult of the world's gonna end tomorrow. Let's pay to somebody or let's shut down civilization in order to save ourselves It ain't happening I I remember I still remember when paul earlich wrote a population bomb and said hundreds of millions of people would die of starvation in europe in the 1970s Or Earth is gonna freeze or the million other catastrophisms of the last 50 years around environmental issues. I'm not saying there are no environmental problems I'm just saying it's not a catastrophe. It's not gonna happen tomorrow. Greta is wrong You have many more than eight years to live And enjoy life Stop worrying so much Have fun And think about how to make your life and the lives of the people you care about better into the future Okay, last question, but how do I choose? No, this is boring Yeah, I'm not an inalco capitalist indeed an alco capitalism is a contradiction in terms You cannot have capitalism without government First of all, I'm not forcing them to do anything You don't want to buy insurance. Don't buy insurance. You don't want to pay for your government. Don't pay for your government I know I'm an idealist. I would want to pay for a police and a military and a court system But I'm not gonna force you to do anything. I don't believe in force. I don't believe in coercion. I am consistent Not believe in coercion, right By the mechanisms of voluntary association if people want To have a police they'll have to pay for it And if they don't want to have a police, they'll suffer the consequence of not I mean in america, we're doing experiment right now of defund the police People don't want to pay for the police. They're defunding the police crime rates are going through the roof People suffer when they don't pay for it Uh, you know, so leave it to voluntary association voluntary payment and let's see what happens But um, the idea of making force Something that we trade something that we trade in that coercion is a market product Is it is completely undermines the whole foundation of capitalism markets can't exist Unless you extract force from them and that you have to have a special institutions to do and and you don't want to call the government because Libertarians don't like that. Don't call the government. I don't care But you need a monopoly over the use of retaliatory force, but the only job is retaliation not the initiation It's done voluntarily not wish everybody does and look here's an experiment, right? I told you, you know, here's some homework if you if you want, right You know people want slow growth and and and people so take take this state What is what is the lowest wage people get making friends? What is what is like a poverty wage in france today? annual wage anybody anybody, you know What's that how many euros 20,000 euros 15,000 years? What's a what's that? 1500 a month, which is what which is 18,000 a year. So let's say 20,000 years just to make around numbers, right? So let's say 20,000 a year. Say you make 20,000 euros a year In france today And let's say we grow the economy into the future about what it's going today Which is somewhere between 1 to 2 percent a year and let's assume I mean again a generalized assumption It's not accurate that your wage will grow with the economy Which it does if you look at at wages Some go slower some go faster, but the lowest wage grows with the economy at 1 percent a year 1 to 2 percent Do that so take that and say in 40 years What will the what will the poorest people be making? In so you take you take 1 percent you do it compounded over 40 years And you look at what the wage will be and I don't remember by heart what that number is But it's it's it's the richer than they are today, right? But there's still still not a huge number It's not an amazing number now take that and instead of one or two percent growth put five percent Just just a little bit bigger and compound that over for Over 40 years and what you'll discover is then in 40 years if economies grow at five percent They're no poor people not from an objective perspective They might be relative poverty. There's inequality, but they're no poor people Because at five percent a year everybody gets rich very very quickly And when you give up on economic growth because of climate change because of social justice because of whatever you want to call it What you're doing is you're keeping people poor what you're doing is Preventing them from becoming rich and I'm talking rich Somebody making 20,000 a year at five percent growth within 40 to 50 years is making well over 100,000 euro a year well over 100,000 in in real terms That's a pretty good. That's a pretty good living wage. Imagine the whole population is making more than 100,000 euros a year Right and we don't know why we're about anything. Nobody's really poor in in that kind of society That's what capitalism produces with this close to getting there And you want to put the break on it I mean you're already putting the break on it because we're already only growing one two percent You want us to grow at negative percentage points In the name of climate change. I say let's go at five percent And we'll be so rich when it gets warmer. We'll have Fastly better technologies to deal with it. We'll suck the co2 out of the atmosphere We'll do all kinds of things that we can't even imagine today, but if we stay poor Yeah, we'll have a problem that the solution to most of these problems Is to get rich for that you need more capitalism not dust. Thank you