 I am welcoming back today, Yaron Brooke, who is chairman of the Einrand Institute and host of the Yaron Brooke show. This is number four in a series of discussions produced in partnership with the Einrand Institute. We've talked about Einrand and Objectivism. We have discussed capitalism. We talked, we tried to talk about welfare, but we ended up talking about a lot of other things as well that I think were very interesting. Let's maybe now start to tie in some of the principles you've been talking about and I've been talking about into politics in 2019, maybe starting with what's most immediate around us. What would be the Einrand Objectivist interpretation or critique of something like the Trump doctrine philosophy to the extent it exists and administration? Well, I would say the main critique of Donald Trump would be that he doesn't have one. That is, he doesn't have a doctrine of philosophy. Donald Trump is a narcissist and a pragmatist. He is completely focused on what he thinks will work tomorrow for him in some emotional sense. I'm not even sure how he perceives for him. There is no strategy, there is no policy, there is no agenda long-term and this certainly isn't an agenda that's consistent with Objectivism. There's no real sense in which this administration is pro-free markets. Yes, there are a few areas where there's some deregulation going on, but compare that to raising tariffs or to trying to do what is often called managed trade or even industrial policy where Donald Trump will call up the CEO of a company and say, no, no, you can't close that plant or you can't move that plant to Mexico, which is a complete negation of my view of free markets where the president doesn't get involved in business decisions. And I don't even consider that policy. Like I said, when that happened, that is not even if you like what he did, that's not really a policy that could be extrapolated to the entire country. That's just him calling someone and basically saying, take some money to change your mind. It's him wanting to be the CEO of the country. And I don't believe the country needs a CEO. We need a president who is dedicated to protecting us and to freeing us up because I think we're very unfree as we discussed in previous episodes. And I'd like to see a president loosening the restraints, freeing us up now. So I liked the corporate tax cut. I think that's the one thing that he did, which was good. I liked some of the deregulation, although I think it's too little and too insignificant. But the corporate tax rate was good. But if at the same time you spend like a drunk as salient, there's no tomorrow and you've got to running trillion dollar deficits, I mean, it doesn't matter how much you cut taxes. I believe government shrinking is a stimulant to the economy. It actually increases economic activity. It's not cutting taxes. It's less government spending, which stimulates the economy. So again, this is counter to many of the neo-Kinzians out there and many of the corporate ones. But I believe that the way to get the economy to grow at 45% is to get the government to shrink dramatically. First shrink spending, then shrink taxes. But corporate tax cuts, okay, they were insanely high. And indeed, I wish they would be simplified. I don't like the fact that he left all the exclusions and deductions and loopholes and all that stuff. I, you know, I want taxes on a postcard for individuals and for corporations, flat and simple and as close to zero as humanly possible. So let's explore that a little bit because there's a lot there. So of course, I completely reject the idea that you can cut your way to prosperity, but let's not focus on that because we're trying to interpret the Trump doctrine to the extent that it exists. You talked about keeping us safe. I think that this is an interesting question mark because over the last 20 years or maybe even longer in the United States political dichotomy, the right has talked a lot about how the left are, they feminize the left. They won't keep us safe. They won't use the military. They'll let us be taken advantage of. I'm curious where your framework would interpret that because what I see is that, okay, maybe the left will grow the military slightly slower than the right will, but that basically everybody who's had a serious shot at being president over the last many decades is going to listen to what the generals say and are going to have a very similar policy on national defense. The difference may be how many proactive wars of choice do they get involved in? I think that's probably right for most people on the left. I'm not sure, you know, I haven't really dug into Bernie Sanders, uh, foreign policy and I'd be suspicious of it, but it's hard for me to say. But certainly there was very little difference in foreign policy between Obama and Bush, although there was a difference in emphasis. Bush believed that America should lead. Obama believed that you needed to form consensus and America should follow. You saw that in Libya, I disagree with all of them. I mean, again, like in every area, I, you know, I believe the entire spectrum is wrong. I think none of none of the parties actually engaged in what is truly an American self-interest and I have been very critical of American generals and American military in terms of the way they fight wars and in terms of their doctrines. And I do not believe America needs to have troops in 120 different countries. I don't believe that that makes us safe. I don't believe that. But I do believe in fighting wars when you have to the differences. I believe in fighting wars where you crush the enemy, you really devastate them and then you come home. I don't believe in wars that build democracies. I don't believe in sticking around. I don't believe in rebuilding after the war. So, you know, again, an objective is font policy is a very different font policy than the consensus left and right. But it does sound, Iran, like under that standard, I mean, are there any military engagements from the last 40 years that would be OK under that umbrella where, because again, if the focus is on no coercion and non-aggression and all of these things, I'm having a hard time thinking of recent military engagements that were truly necessary under that rubric. So I would have been, and I ran, was against Korea, was against Vietnam, very much against Vietnam. And I would be against pretty much all the other wars with the exception of they had to be a response post 9-11. And indeed, I believe, and we at the Anduin Institute advocate for response well before 9-11 because we thought that the violence coming out of Islamism or jihadism or whatever you want to call it, had started well before 9-11 and had to be dealt with. And it was the appeasement of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and every other president afterwards that basically made 9-11 possible. But they had to be a response. I think the response that existed was the wrong response. Well, it was the wrong country, right? It was the wrong country. It was the wrong country. Iraq was irrelevant. The only two countries in my view that are relevant for an ongoing war, which I think exists today. I think the jihadists are still alive and well. ISIS, you know, maybe has been crushed for now, but we'll resurrect in a different form somewhere else. The only two countries that matter in this fight are two. One, you know, we've got sanctions against Iran, but, you know, I don't think the sanctions are doing much. And the second is our best friend, which is Saudi Arabia. I think those are the two countries that matter. Those are the two countries we should have in a sense declared war on after 9-11. And we should have dealt with pretty thoroughly at the time. I think because we didn't, these issues faster and will faster and will faster for a very long time because we haven't dealt with the people who fund and ideologically support and encourage these ideas and these actions on behalf of all these other groups that that actually do the violence. Is there a country right now that you would say is the closest to in its form of government and in its application of government, uh, closer than the United States to Randy and Objectivist philosophy? I mean, it's, it's a hard question. I mean, bottom line is no because, because I think every country in the world right now is so far away from my conception of government. There's certainly countries today in the world that are moderately, moderately freer than the United States, uh, not much, but moderately so, um, you know, whether it's and here I hear the problem is you've got social freedoms and economic freedoms and they sometimes clash. Yeah. So Singapore might be a little economically freer, but it's less free on social issues. I don't like it. Right. Hong Kong. We know what's happening in Hong Kong. So I certainly don't want to raise Hong Kong, but certainly Hong Kong before the Chinese took it over, I think what it was closer than the United States. But again, not consistent. New Zealand today in, in certain aspects, but so inconsistently and, and so often for the wrong reasons that no, you know, there's no country in the world today. And, and look, it has to be the United States in this sense. And, and I think the constitution is flawed. I know, I know that's horrible to say. And people said, you know, that's great to say. And certainly people on the right will come after me for saying the constitution is flawed. My favorite document, really my favorite political document in all of human history is the Declaration of Independence because it lays out the foundation and the structure and the purpose of government. And the purpose of government is to protect individual rights, and that's it. And it's that they say that is the purpose for which governments are instituted. And only America has that moral foundation. Only America has that foundation that in the, even at the beginning, it didn't fully, obviously, execute on because of slavery and other things, primarily slavery, which is a big deal. It didn't execute on, but it has, it has that seed of we understand that there's such a thing as rights and government is there to protect them. No other country has that. You know, Japan has it because MacArthur put it in the constitution, even though they didn't want it. But I don't know that they understand it. American culture has that. So I think I've always thought that it's America that's going to move in that direction of any country ever does. I've I've I've reconsidered that position because America's got so far away from my conception of what a good country should be. And in the presidency of Donald Trump has made me far more pessimistic about America than I ever thought I would be that that maybe it'll happen somewhere else. But there's no indication that that somewhere else is imminent. So there's any country moving in that direction today. So let's explore why that is. I mean, one of the arguments that anti socialists will often make is listen, everywhere it's been even sort of tried has been a disaster. And there's a reason why you don't see any great socialist successes today. OK, let's apply a sort of similar idea to Randy and objectivism and the conception of government that you have. What are the forces that have prevented it from taking hold? And is it possible that every time some element of government starts going in that direction, it doesn't go super well? And that's why we've not seen it. No, it's exact opposite. Ah, every time every I mean, and this is the difference between the socialist argument about it's never been tried perfectly. And our argument is different. Socialism to the extent that its practice always fails. And we can talk about examples where you think it hasn't. And I'm fine with that, right? Capitalism to the extent its practice has always succeeded always. And we could go through example after example. It always succeeds only by the standards you apply for success, which I and many others would take a big issue with. So let's start. Let's just apply success as something simple. Economic growth, wealth creation. Now, that's not the only standard. It's not the only stand for me, right? But let's just take one, one standard, that being it everywhere it's tried, it produces economic growth way above any other system and it creates wealth. And I will even add to that the poor are better off everywhere. It's tried every place. It's tried every continent. It's tried every time it's tried. Now, the problem with capitalism is not that it doesn't succeed. The problem with capitalism is it's not that it doesn't create wealth. It does. Hong Kong being a fantastic example of the United States in the 19th century. The whole industrial revolution being a fantastic example. The problem with capitalism is that we don't have a moral foundation for it. It goes back to our discussion, you know, from a few shows back. The fact is that people don't believe that it's OK to be self-interested. And capitalism is a system of self-interest. Look, capitalism is absolutely unequivocally about individuals pursuing their self-interest as consumers. We all want to buy the stuff that makes our life better. And as producers, we all want to produce stuff that will make us rich or that we love producing, we enjoy producing. It's not about social well-being. It's not about the common good. It's not about any of those things. It's about people pursuing self-interest. Unless you have a moral foundation for self-interest, which other than Ayn Rand and Aristotle, nobody has ever presented one. It falls flat. So even the founding fathers, even knowing the founding in the declaration, they say, you have an inalienable right to pursue happiness. They still, though, believe morally, if you look at the Jeffersonian Bible, if you look at what they write about morality, they still are bought into Christian morality. They still believe that the purpose of life is self-sacrifice and the purpose of life is still, to some extent, the idea of sacrifice and social well-being. So even Adam Smith, great wealth of nations, writes, you know, the baker doesn't bake the bread for you. He bakes the bread for himself. So self-interest is what drives the capitalist economy. But then he says, but self-interest is not a good thing. We don't like self-interest. It's kind of yucky, right? It's not a virtue. It turns out, though, he says that if you add up all these vices, it is an invisible hand that turns it into a virtue. Nobody buys that. Nobody buys that if everybody commits vices, there's a virtue at the end of the rainbow. What I try to convince people, certainly what Ayn Rand tried to convince people is, no, the very pursuit of self-interest, done rationally, done long-term, is virtue. And that's essentially what capitalism is about. So I think capitalism is rejected because of guilt, because of morality, because of... But what about those needy over there? How do we help them? And we don't take the long-term perspective. We don't let them rise up by themselves through the market system. I think that's the problem, not any failure within capitalism to actually produce the goods. Well, so it is a very... That is a parallel explanation to what the... And I'm not a socialist. What the socialists would argue, you just disagree that they're actually telling it as it is. They would disagree that you're telling it as it is, right? I mean, it is a very similar line of reason, though. By any standard, by any standard, they can pick the standard they want. They have failed every single time they've tried it. And the more consistently socialist it's been, the greater the failure. In capitalism, the exact opposite has occurred. I can pick 20 different standards, life expectancy. Any standard of human well-being. The more you try capitalism, the more it's been successful. And we can objectively go look. We can look for life expectancy in Hong Kong before capitalism, after capitalism. We can look at life expectancy in the Soviet Union before communism, after communism. OK, but the problem with that is, the problem with that is there were, even if we grant, as we have to, because it's the truth, even if we grant that you saw the life expectancy increases coincide with the introduction of this pseudo capitalist system, it is now reversing that there was an initial... There was low-hanging fruit to be gained. Angus Deaton, I know I've mentioned him before, writes about this as well. We're now seeing life expectancy for many groups in the US actually start to go back down. One group and only one group, and the causes are pretty well known, and the causes that are completely caused by the mixed economy, by the statist element. That is the two things that are killing middle-aged white men. And that is where the life expectancy is going down. And I've read Deaton's paper on this, right? And the causes are the opioid epidemic. And you could argue about what caused the opioid epidemic, but I would argue to a large extent, it's the FDA and socialized healthcare. They're part of socialized healthcare. We haven't noticed that, I disagree with, but okay. Medicaid and the guidelines that doctors have as a consequence. And second, it's suicide rates. And I think there's no question that in the United States, there's a massive number of people who feel disenfranchised, that feel alienated from the culture and from the economic reality of the country. They've been promised certain things that have not come reality. And we can talk about why that is and there's a lot to talk about there. I think it's an interesting topic. But it's why Donald Trump got elected. It's why I think Bernie Sanders does so well. It's the really people who feel disenfranchised and they wanna smash things. They want somebody to think new. And many of those people, unfortunately, the same people taking opioids and the same people committing suicide. And that's the driver. And then add to that a very unhealthy lifestyle that Americans engage in. But if you abstract from that. Yeah, but you're on. I think that it's a little bit unfair to mention opioid and suicide and then throw in and some people live an unhealthy lifestyle when actually that is one of the primary causes of a ton of the preventable conditions. And it is arguably directly related to lack of regulation, the so-called capitalist system that you say needs to be put in full force. We can't minimize that. It's exact opposite. It's completely the consequence of statism. It's a consequence of government-run schools. It is the consequence of a food pyramid that has given people bad advice for 40 years. We've talked about that, yeah. Talked about that. It is a consequence of coddling people. It's a consequence of letting people believe that if they were born in Ohio, they can always live in Ohio and there'll always be a job in Ohio and manufacturing is coming back to America as if it ever left. It didn't. It just was replaced by machinery and computers and robots. And it's giving them false hope. And instead of getting in a car and driving to where the jobs are and there are plenty of jobs in America today, they sit there waiting because they were promised. So I think, yes, we've got a massive cultural problem. I think that cultural problem is primarily caused by too much government regulation, too many government promises, too much government involvement and a loss of what I consider the American spirit, which is bootstrapping yourself, even when you're poor, figuring out a solution, going to where the jobs are. It's hard. I'm not saying it's not hard. It's very hard. But that mentality, that attitude of kind of really going and getting that I think has been destroyed in America by really since the New Deal, by offering people, this goes back to welfare state, by offering people goodies to stay home and not be ambitious as ambitious as they otherwise could be. Yeah, I mean, as I pointed out, the goodies are very, very, anyone who would be satisfied to say these goodies are going to be my livelihood is on a very far end of the spectrum. But because you're mentioning the goodies, this maybe is a good opportunity to raise Scandinavia. So you have asserted during our talk here that the closer a country goes to actual free market capitalism as you would decide it, the more freedom people have, the more prosperity there is. I think we would probably agree, although you'll have plenty of an opportunity to disagree, that in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland in general, there is a tighter business regulatory environment as we would see it. And yet, and I'm preparing for the counter talking point on that. And yet, and there is a stronger social safety net and there are taxes that are robust and can cover the programs they've determined they wanna have. And yet those countries still score very well in terms of the business environment. Those countries score very well in terms of happiness. They score very well in terms of standard of living. So they seem to have reigned in the degree to which they are total free market capitalists, but yet they are doing very well. So I would encourage you to look into the data. Sure. Because I don't think that's true of Scandinavia. Most of what you said is true. I'm not gonna question it, but one ask. Most of it's pretty good. Most of it's pretty good, yes. Yes. We'll get to that. Okay. And one respect I think is false and it's an important respect because I think it makes all the difference. On government regulation of business, Scandinavia regulates far less than the United States. Depends on the country. Certainly Denmark and certainly Sweden. Norway is a special case because of oil and I'd rather just put it aside because it is a special case, but Norway and Sweden, sorry, Denmark and Sweden, which I know less about Finland, those two countries, have a much more robust free market in a sense, if you will, than the United States has. It's easier even in places that have high union membership. It's even easier to fire an employee, much easier to fire an employee in Sweden than it is in the United States. Certainly that it is in California. It's easier to start a business. It's quicker, faster, easier, smoother to start a business in Scandinavia than it is in the United States. The main way in which the United States and Sweden and Denmark differ is that Sweden and Denmark have higher taxes and they redistribute much more wealth. There is much more of a welfare redistribution of wealth. I think here it's important, because I made the point on socialism, to do a little bit of history. So indulge me for a second. Sure. Before 1870, Sweden, and I'm gonna use Sweden because it's the one I know, but I think it parallels to other countries. Sweden was the poorest country in Europe. I mean, literally it was massive poverty. A lot of Swedes left Sweden and that's why we have a lot of Swedes in the United States, which I'll get to later. Between 1870 and about 1950, maybe 1960, Sweden had the most capitalist economy in Europe, arguably, maybe even in the world. It had more capitalism, more freedom, less regulation, less redistribution of wealth, no real welfare state, or very little welfare state. Certainly in the early days, increased a little bit towards the end. Then any other country in Europe, and it was the richest country in Europe, had many, many large corporations. It was an incredible success story. In 1960, around 1960, somewhere in the 50s, they switched to socialism. And they took it more seriously in the 60s and 70s than they do today. They regulated, they nationalized. They took over the means of production, which is what socialism advocates for. They nationalized the means of production. And they basically turned Sweden into a relative by European standard poorer country. It lost its industrial lead. It certainly, it was not anywhere near the richest country in Europe. And by 1979, I liked the joke, but it's not a joke, it's a reality, that the biggest business, the most income-producing business in all of Sweden, was the rock group ABBA. And the second biggest business was Johann Borg, who then left to Monaco and took away all his tax money from Sweden. Sweden was a mess, was a disaster. And indeed, in 1994, Sweden was on the verge of bankruptcy. It was the Greece of Europe. And then since 1994 to today, whether the left or the right is being in power, they have reduced regulations. They have, for example, established school vouchers. They have increased business freedom. They have even decreased the welfare state, still robust, but they've decreased the welfare state. And, you know, they've had just as many right of center governments as they have left of center governments. And indeed, in most of these countries now have right of center governments because of some of the problems socialism created there. So they came back to prominence, became rich again, if you will. And now you're being used as models by the left in the United States as they become more capitalist. Okay, but also, okay, fine. So you've laid out your framework. But I have to tell you, my reading of the history is just completely different than what you're saying. And we can't, we can't possibly both be right. But what you've just presented runs completely counter to my recent reading of the history of the Swedish economy. The Swedish, hold on, let me give you my understanding. The Social Democratic Party of Sweden, which is basically what we would consider like a social, social Democrats in the United States. It's capitalism with significant social safety net redistribution, redistribution, et cetera. It had its golden era from the late 20s, early 30s for many, many decades during which you just described that they were one of the most capitalist countries. That is not at all the history that I understand. It was strongly socially democratic. I then am, I'm aware of the decline of that contingent of sentiment in Sweden. But that's been a decline that's been, as I recall from around 2006 forward, not lining up at all with what you're talking about. And even still they've been modest declines, not what you described. So my understanding of the history is just totally different. So I would suggest looking at one number. I mean, you might disagree that this number is representative of one number. Look at the percentage of government spending as a percentage of the economy from 1870 to today. And I think you'll start seeing a shrink from 1994. I think you'll start seeing it explode in the 1960s and not in the 1920s. Okay, I don't have that in front of me. That may be. That's a good number to look at. And by the way, the same thing in 1994 is a good number to look at Canada. Canada in 1994 starts shrinking government spending as a percentage of the economy. It's reversed lately. But those were years in which a lot of countries that experimented with socialism kind of redirected their efforts. Let me say one other thing about Sweden and Denmark. Swedes and Danes who live in the United States and there were a lot of them in Minnesota and Wisconsin. A richer, buy a lot, it's not even close. Live in bigger homes, drive nicer cars and all of that. Just as happy, just as happy if not happier. Just as healthy, life expectancy is just the same as they are in Sweden. So I'm a little suspicious of happiness studies. I come from a family where admitting to be happy is suspect. I think certain cultures treat happiness differently. Well, yes, if you've ever been at a Shabbat dinner, you would know that that is a... You all complain all the time. And if you're not complaining, there's something wrong with you. So, you know, the culture has a big part of it, but there being studies about this. What are Danish immigrants? How did they do in America? Now, granted, there's a bias there because certain people immigrate. Yeah, there's a self-selection bias because someone who's coming from those countries is coming from a different economic starting point. Acknowledge, very hard to control for self-selection bias in these kind of studies. But it's also, I think, wrong to say, you know, Swedes are X. And if you look at how rich Sweden is in Denmark, isn't... I know wealth is not the only factor, but it is a factor. Sweden and Denmark would score on a GDP per capita adjusted for cost of living somewhere in the 40s in terms of if they were states in the United States. They're far from being the richest. They're far from the mean. They're significantly below the mean. So I don't know why we should strive towards that. Yes, there's less inequality, but there are costs to having less inequality, which means less wealth, less economic growth, less economic success. And also, I suspect less ambition, less entrepreneurship, less innovation, less progress. Yeah, but I think a lot of those statistics maybe are a little bit... They maybe don't inform us deeply about what we're really trying to evaluate because in the United States, a lot of the impressive numbers in terms of income are driven by relatively few people that are earning a lot, a lot of money. I mean, that's just a mathematical reality. I'm not passing judgment on it yet. You can control for that. You can look at medians. Okay, but I think that there's... The same thing when you look at medians, it's just, if it's not true that it's driven that way, that is... It's absolutely true. But let me get to my point. Even if we disagree on that, you're on. I think what's important to consider is if you... We need to somehow account for the positive societal impact of there being less inequality. The positive societal impact of people not having to worry about, I need to choose my job based on whether I can afford the health insurance premium based on how much they pay and how much I pay and knowing that you're never going to go bankrupt if you get sick. There's a lot of these things that have significant value to one's happiness. So I don't think it's good to discount the happiness stuff that don't necessarily show up in GDP per capita. So again, I think if you look at Swedes and Danes here, they're just as happy as over there, and here they face the threat of bankruptcy because of healthcare, whatever. So I think you can control for all that. But look, I think it's exactly the other way around. I think that protecting people from the downside, that giving them this robust safety net is actually destructive to their own self-esteem, to their own ability to thrive, not just to live. Yes, if your standard for living is just surviving somehow, then yeah, welfare state's great, right? But if your standard of living is to live, which is my standard of living, to live to the full extent that a human being can. And I believe, and I believe, and I know a lot of people disagree with me on this, but I believe that every human being on the planet has the capability of living. And I don't wanna discriminate based on where they come from or based on any aspect, or based on how wealthy they happen to be at a given point in their time. I want everybody to have the opportunity, psychologically, morally, and in reality, to fully live their lives to the full extent possible. And I think these societies become mediocre, they become dull, they aggregate everybody to the median, and long-term, and granted, a long-term is a long-term, as Kane said, well, dead in the long-term. But in the long-term, I don't think those models are sustainable, and I think you're seeing some angst in America, but you're also seeing some angst in Sweden. I'm not sure you'd wanna move to Sweden right now. There's a lot of political angst, there's a lot of political upheaval, there's a rise in what I think both of us would think is a really bad, kind of white-leaning nationalism in Sweden, which is really, really bad and has lots of reasons for it, including immigration, that it's not limited to immigration. There's a lot of negative consequences to these robust welfare states that I think affect individuals, but more important, but also affect cultures as a whole and the long-term viability of those cultures. And let me just say this, and I know it's unfair because we're about to close, and there's no time to argue about it, but I think that the more socialized you make America, not socialism completely, but the more socialized you make America, the less production you have here, the less innovation, the less progress, the less new ideas, the less breakthrough stuff will happen and everybody in the world will suffer from it, including the Swedes and the Danes because the fact is that most innovation happens here not by accident, not because we have better genes, not because of anything like that, but there's still marginally in certain parts of our economy, like a little bit in healthcare and much more in technology, more freedom here than anywhere else, and we are carrying on our shoulders the rest of the world. And when the United States become more socialized in healthcare and everything else, everybody in the world will be worse off. Well, my audience knows I vehemently disagree with that, but to go back a little bit, I think you're right that I want everybody to have the opportunity to truly live and not just exist, as you suggested. I believe that most people have that drive and thus welfare programs are not going to serve to dissuade very many people to continue pursuing that. I mean, listen, when I was in college, I worked at the now defunct circuit city chain and at a certain point in when they were, just before they went bankrupt, they laid off a bunch of people and I was one of those people and I was able to collect unemployment for I think it was like 39 weeks or something like that. I was in school, I knew that this was part of a path to eventually doing something else and the money merely allowed me to continue what it was that I was driven to do, which is get my education and eventually become an entrepreneur and start a radio show and a TV show and all of this stuff. There was, it's certainly possible that someone with that unemployment money might have said, this is great. I just want this for as long as possible. I think it is a tiny fraction of the population and I think most people will be driven to achieve regardless of getting a little help along the way. I think people affected by the incentives that they get. If you tax something, you get less of it. If you subsidize something, you get more of it. And yes, you're right. There are lots of people who will do like you and be ambitious in spite of it, but there are a lot of people who won't and who lose because of it because they could have been ambitious, but now you're subsidizing something, you're subsidizing a behavior that you don't want. But beyond that, I've already argued that I think the whole issue is immoral that is taking money from me and giving it to you for unemployment insurance is immoral. You were living off of me without asking my consent and that I think is wrong and immoral. But you chose to move here and work, right? And add to that, yeah, and work and work to have my money taken from me but somebody else. Knowing there are taxes. Just to come here to live off of welfare because I think that would have been wrong. I came here to work and to make a living for myself and create wealth. But I also think that again, we're comparing a mixed economy to a mixed economy and I know this sounds strange to your audience but I have no doubt in my mind, really no doubt that in a capitalist system, there is so many job opportunities that you don't need that unemployment insurance that took a city year would be shutting down and there'd be five other people trying to hire you because in every case again, in every case where capitalism has been tried, there are more jobs than there are people. That is why capitalist countries draw in massive amounts of immigration and status countries, nobody wants to move there because there are jobs in capitalist countries and they're more and more and more and more jobs and the more technology, the more robots, I'm here to tell you, there'll be more jobs, not fewer jobs. So I think capitalism creates an awesome amount of jobs. Then again, there's any simple economic argument for it because we let people have invest and save and make a profit and that's what creates jobs. It's not government that creates jobs, it's not welfare that creates jobs, it's not consumption that creates jobs, it's investment, production, savings that creates jobs. So the more you- So demand has a pretty big role to play as well. Demand, look, you could drop any human being in a mall, demand is easy. Demand is uninteresting economically. Demand should not be studied in economics- No, but demand doesn't mean wanting stuff. Demand in the economic sense. Yeah, but wait, so here's the point about consumption and production. In order to consume, what must you do? Put aside the welfare state, what must you do? You must work and if you don't work because you're getting welfare, somebody else had to work in order for the money to be taken from them and given to you. So behind every single act of consumption, there is production that created the money so you can consume. And but there's a second act of production because you're buying something that something had to be created. So for every one act of consumption, there are many, many, many acts of production. Indeed, there is no such thing as consumption without production. We first, you know, human beings before capitalism, we grew the food that we ate. That we produced and we consumed, that's it. It's only when we started having division of labor and we started to have a capitalist economy, we started actually being having a surplus where we could actually go and consume. But the surplus is created from production. So unless we focus on the production side, economics is a bogus science and indeed today it has become, in my view, a science of charlatans. And I'm serious about this. Well, there's some bad economics being taught, but I would argue it's a lot of the neoclassical stuff, but we probably would not agree on what it is that's not good. The modern monetary theory, the Keynesian stuff, and much of the monetary stuff, much of the monetary stuff. It's just not true, it's not how the world functions. And you hear this consumption drives the economy. It doesn't, guys, to consume you have to produce and produce and produce. So what we should be focused on is maximizing production. So look, I don't believe in equality of outcome. I don't even believe in equality of opportunities because I agree with Paul Krugman that equality of opportunities is a form of equality of outcome. I believe in maximizing opportunities. And I believe in equality before the law and equality of rights, of freedom. And I believe in maximizing opportunities. And the system that has proven itself throughout history, and if it was practiced today, would blow your mind that maximizes opportunities for all of us. And primarily for the ambitious poor, for the poor like you who want a job, who want to be successful in life, is capitalism. And to me, the greatest injustice is to the ambitious poor, the poor in the inner cities who can't find a job because the jobs don't exist. Why? Because we've driven them out of existence through state intervention. And of course, have given him a lousy education through state intervention. Well, a very different perspective for many in our audience from Yaron Brook, who's the chairman of the Einrand Institute and host of the Yaron Brook show. I think we did find some, maybe not minor but moderate points of agreement in some way on a few things. There's maybe the way that I would sum it up. Yaron has been really great having these conversations with you. Absolutely, it was just fun. Thanks for having me on.