 I can't serve for life when you see why you call people like Corbyn or the modern socialists. Socialists, because they seem to be the antithesis of what socialism is about, which is a concern about human flourishing. So for example, Jeremy Corbyn hates economic growth. He doesn't like it if he thinks we can't grow our economies at 6, 7, 7 years like China, or even 100 or unlimited economic growth. And if you look back to the original socialists like Marx, what they loved about capitalism is that it grew. It produced wonders greater than the pyramids. Marx was totally infused. Marx was much smarter than a socialist in the socialist era. Yes, precisely. So the socialists today hate all the best parts of capitalism, which is a mistake. But the thing is that capitalism itself, I mean you talk about using one's reason, which is a core Enlightenment idea I grant you. And then you learn from your experience. But the thing about capitalism is that it grows and then it falls. It goes into regular crises. And that experience has shown that capitalism doesn't work. And at present you could even say capitalism is in a rot, in a crisis. We're not growing enough. So what the challenge we face today, I think, as if you would say socialist, is to harness our reason and knowledge of history to come up with an alternative to capitalism which produces human flourishing consistently. And what I think you're doing is giving up on human reason because you are actually accepting a system which you know by experience goes into crisis. And you're saying we should just accept it and not look beyond it. So that's my accusation. No, that's good. And it's a relatively original question. So that's good. One of the reasons to just go back to some of the comments you're making, I'll try to take them all. The reason I call Corbyn a socialist is because he calls it himself and people refer to him as a socialist. I'm not in the business of deciding who is a true socialist and who is not. And because he exemplifies certain socialist characteristics like the nationalization of industries, the idea of putting the state as a central planner over industry, which is a typical socialist policy. No, I understand why you don't think he's a socialist. And that's fine. And I'm willing to accept elements of that. Let me just say, and I have to say this, I don't believe Marx for one second believed in human flourishing and strove towards human flourishing. I don't think that was his agenda. I don't think he believed it. I think generally Marx was a hater, not a lover, and not somebody who really embraced human flourishing. If you read his letters with angles, with its scribe, which people they can eliminate and which people they're good. He was one of the most racist angles in particular, but Marx, of course, endorsed all this. One of the most racist, horrible human beings I can even imagine to associate human flourishing is bizarre. But I'll give you this. Marx projected a system that it caused optimistic about the future. And I think many of today's left are not about the future and they're not about economic growth, they're not about human flourishing. They are essentially nihilist. And I think that is a characteristic of modern leftist ideology is nihilism. It's a post-Nichie and kind of a real nihilistic approach to life. And you can't accuse Marx, at least in that sense, of being a nihilist. I think the results of his ideology are nihilistic. But he at least projected an idea of one day we all come together as the Poletarian and live happy, successful, wonderful, prosperous, rich lives. And nobody today on the modern left actually projects that. I don't agree with you about capitalism completely. I think the evidence is quite to the contrary of what you suggest. Capitalism does not fail. There is no evidence that capitalism has failed. And I will take you crisis after crisis after crisis and show you that capitalism has not failed. And today, the sluggish economy of the world is driven by one major factor and that is statism. The lack of innovation, the lack of progress, the lack of economic growth today is a complete result of the growth of the state, of the fact that the state today. That spending is consumption. It is wasteful. Instead of that money being invested, that money returning to the hands of a capitalist, they can invest it. They can invest it in production, in job growth, in innovation, in creation, in building. So it is the exact rejection of the last 100 years of capitalism that has brought about the Great Depression, that brought about the 2008 crisis, that has brought about the slow economic growth we are experiencing today. And in China, China is a great example because I know a lot of people on the left, or I don't know if you can tell yourself on the left, but a lot of people who want an alternative to capitalism look at China and say, look, they are growing at these astounding rates and they are run by the Communist Party. Well, you have to go look and you have to go to China and actually look at where the growth has happened. The growth and the success of China happens where the Chinese government doesn't pay any attention. When the Chinese government has said, go do whatever you want, we are not going to look over there, we are not going to worry about you. That is where the economic growth, in other words, in the areas where there is a lot of individual freedom, individual innovation, in other words, for capitalism to flourish, those are the areas that have generated astronomical growth. Growth has been held back by the state-owned enterprises and by the central planning of the Chinese government. Every area where the Chinese government has centrally planned has been a disaster. Every area central government of China has embraced has not worked. And I don't know how much you know of the transition from 79 under Deng Cha Peng to today of Chinese economy, but it is absolutely fascinating. There is a wonderful little book called How China Became Capitalist. Now, I don't like the title because I don't think China is capitalist, but it's certainly not socialist. It's got elements of both, like all countries, but where it grows are those elements of capitalism. But it's a book by a Nobel Prize-winning economics by the name of Rana Kos and a Chinese author whose name I can't remember. Rana Kos was 101 years old when he wrote the book, so it's pretty astounding for that fact. But it's a short book, it's wonderful, it's not the best written book in the world, but it's got fantastic information on how that transformation happened. And I'll just give you one story about how China became so successful at growing food. In the 1960s, communal farms generated mass starvation. People died in the tens of millions during the 1960s. That's just an historical fact. Mao Tse Tung knew this and basically did nothing partially because he believed that this was a weaning out process of the week and so on. But also partially because this was a system they believed in communal farms and this is what it generated. Anyway, throughout the post-1960s, farming in China, farmers in China struggled and starved. There was real hunger in those communal farms all over China. And there's one little community in China. I forget the name of the village, but there's a little village in central China. They got together one day and they said, look, this is not working, we're dying. So let's do this. You will pretend that that piece of land over there is yours and this piece of land is mine. And whatever you produce on that is yours and you get to keep the surplus and I'll get to keep the surplus here. And they basically divided all the land of the village communally owned into private or pseudo-private lots that individuals now cultivated, maintained and got the surplus from. And guess what happened? Within a year, they were producing massive surpluses. Suddenly, there was plenty not only to feed the village, but they were exporting to other villages. And the Communist Party went down there and they said, what the hell is going on here? What have you done? This is great. This is miraculous. We want to do this. And the farmers tried to hide it, but ultimately it came out what they done. And the immediate response of the Communist was, well, kill these people. I mean, this is ridiculous. They're embracing capitalism. And to dump Chopin's credit, now that Chopin was a really bad guy, but he did some good things here and there. To dump Chopin's credit, he basically said, no. This works. He was a complete pragmatist. He said this works. So leave it alone. Not only that. If it works in this village, let's see if it works in another three villages. And they tried the same system in other three villages. And guess what? When you get people private ownership, they produce and they create surpluses. So they worked over there and they said, okay, we'll convert all of China's farming or most of China's farming to this model and that's what they did. Even though to this day they don't own a private property. They have what I call pseudo private property. They pretend that they own the land. The government still hasn't given them full rights over the land. So capitalism works. And I'm happy to explain a 2008 crisis and I'm happy to explain a Great Depression. But the fact is that when markets are left alone, they flourish and succeed. Even today, if you look at where innovation happens, where does innovation happen today? What industry? Innovations. Of all the industries out there. Where do you see 8, 9, 10, 12% growth in an industry? Which industry? Technology. Yeah, technology. This industry. Right? This industry happens to be the least regulated, the least controlled, the least government influence of all industries. So it grows. And it's left alone. And yeah, is there a bubble? So there's a bubble, but the bubble is self-correcting and immediately it goes afterwards. Right? There's a bubble in 99 and partially funded by the Federal Reserve, a non-capitalist organization, a very statist entity. But after 2001, it grows again. And we don't get innovation. Well, things like airplanes. We basically fly the same airplanes today as we did 50 years ago. Same engines, the same basic body. You know, they make them bigger a little bit and they use fiber or whatever, carbon fiber and stuff like that to make them lighter. But it's the same basic design as it was 50 years ago. Why? Because it's so heavily regulated. And the one innovation we used to have in airplanes was what? What was the one airplane that broke them all? The Concorde. We grounded that. That's gone. Nobody. I mean, there's one company in our building, a supersonic jet. We'll see if they let it fly. And the same with automobile, the internal combustion automobile. And the same with every industry where the state regulates. Call what we have today. Capitalism is bizarre. The mountains of regulation. The mountains of state control. The fact that for years at Microsoft, a government official used to sit to sign off on any deal they make. Or that today, when JPMorgan opens the door at 9 a.m. in the morning, 200 government employees go to work at JPMorgan to make sure that they follow all the regulations and do all the rules and sign off on every one of the decisions. So many of industries today have been nationalized without saying they'd be nationalized. Basically, the banking sector in the world is run by governments. It's not run by private entrepreneurs. So, no, I think we know what the system is that produces human flourishing. We know what the system is that produces human wealth. And that is capitalism. And it doesn't need altering. We don't need a new system. We just need to embrace it fully and consistently, which we've never really done. We mentioned producers, aside from those people who give us intellectual products. What about the businessman? You've talked about capitalism. I'd like to know his role in this. Well, the businessman also is as recent a product as the intellectual. Before the birth of capitalism, there were no professional businessmen and there were no professional intellectuals. Both the mind and material production and trade were enslaved and ruled by the various combinations of Attila's and which doctor's, which means by a powerful government, by an absolutist type of government, whether it was the feudal absolutism or the absolute monarchies of Europe, of the past Renaissance period, in any case, the producers of material goods, the traders, and the producers of ideas, the teachers, philosophers, the early scientists, were men without official status, without a profession and the total mercy of the political rulers, which means that the mercy of rule by force. It is only since the industrial revolution, the birth of a pre-society, the society of capitalism, that there was a new class of men, which is the pre-producers of material goods, the businessmen, the industries. They, of course, are the producers, in a strict sense of the word, or should be, but they are the greatest victims of today's society. They're the ones who have been betrayed by modern intellectuals. And in this sense, both businessmen and intellectuals will commit suicide by destroying each other, and the fall belongs to the intellectuals. The businessman is the man who has to use his mind to deal with reality, study facts, to produce material goods. He is the man who serves as the transmission belt of the discoveries of science and carries the product of science to all levels of society. He is the one who takes the invention of an theoretical scientist or of an inventor, transforms them into useful products, and putting them into mass production makes them available to all levels of society. The businessman is the man who has achieved the enormous, historically miraculous rise in the standard of living of mankind during the 19th century. He is the one who has lived up to the role of a producer, to the role of a rational, creative man, but the intellectuals have never given him credit for it, have regarded him as if he were an Attila, and being afraid of freedoms themselves have been looking from the start of the Industrial Revolution for some form of an Attila to protect them, the intellectuals, against the free market of ideas. Well, you know, you've been talking about the bankruptcy of our modern intellectuals, and I know that in your most recent book, this is really a manifesto to a group that you call the new intellectuals. Would you mind telling me just who they are in your own words and how they differ from the old style intellectuals? Since the old style, the presently existing intellectuals, have declared their own bankruptcy by abandoning the intellect, what we need today, what are called the new intellectual, would be any man or woman who is willing to think, meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, wins or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism and impotence and does not...