In addition to her prolific book writing she serves as a president ial scholar, chairs the board of the coolidge president ial foundation and chairs the Collection Committee for the Manhattan Institute highend prize. And award she herself is one. Teethree latest work Great Society is a stunning achievement. Few decades have them printed on the popular admit admit it imagination as the sixties we remember for its most dramatic and turbulent moments the assassination of the kennedys and mlk junior the march on washington and antiwar protests. But her drama did not play on Television Screens across the country so much as the failure of washington to control the events and direct the show. A generation of politicians came to realize that hierarchical and highly regulated bubble a political economy that dominated postwar america had stopped working but yet more than just a technical failure she captures the stifling feeling of a country from the top down america put up with the schmidt machinery of the two world wars and in the Nuclear Cold War that at some point old american and yearning dishwasher buckling independentminded authority was bound to reemerge this is vitally important for our time we are all grateful shes told it with such insight. Books will be sold at the back of the room ladies and gentlemen, teethree. [applause] thank you. If you cannot hear me please let me know. [laughter] a book about the Great Society deserves great thanks to the Manhattan Institute president the former president who is also here and Vice President and planner for hosting this event and my publisher from harpercollins and my agent and his colleagues in the Coolidge Foundation for supporting me and certain friends including thomas and pearson and the Kings College is specially Josiah Peterson who worked on the research i would like to thank my family and my husband and my daughter who are all here tonight. The first sentence of the book is a question. Why not socialism . This is a question we asked ourselves last night when we watch the president ial debates. [laughter] how do we answer it . All common sense people all markets people to deliver an answer we really feel an obligation to undertake the longterm investment of projects to open american minds to see the challenge and tragedy of socialism we want a record of the past or the record of venezuela so when they leave businesses and faculty the younger medicine one dash americans realize what is not useful policy. Its november 2019 educating is a longterm investment we feel frustrated at the prospect of slow outright failure politics are much more fun with instant gratification all of us have some vanity. People remember politicians we do not always remember educators. So journalists and Business People philanthropists and scholars want to be remembered and sometimes we take shortterm projects for that reason. Tonight i would like to tell you a story of a few longterm projects a story that starts in the 19 fifties features a man and the American Public indeed a story of a failing longterm project of business shame and intellectual failure but the story ends in the 1980s with an unexpected payback some of you know the characters might appreciate hearing about them one more time the name of the company was General Electric. In the 19 fifties General Electric road high the factories in new york and massachusetts to employee many thousands of the Industrial Center every year mayor american spot more tvs it wasnt just a company but an icon the Tennessee Valley authority americans trusted General Electric as much as a trusted baseball. [laughter] the soviets in 1959 invited the United States to play and america has sent several modern kitchens and a lemon yellow one was General Electric. [laughter] most ge executives at the time late fifties like most executives had a view of how capitalism worked the private sector was is invincible. What it was supposed to do was the Public Sector they herded the Public Sector like a domestic animal and to ge or most of it it sounded just fine the milk cow would continue with the government the Tennessee Valley thought the enormous project and those at the top liked it very much ge found it was one of the biggest customers. They didnt mind thwarting the Space Program are the militaryindustrial complex it existed by very strong union law and they demanded bay big pay and ge could pay that. Social experiments by the federal government American Business could pay that maybe expansion of healthcare could pay that or perhaps Something Like longer that we could pay that to. Heavy unions we could pay any loads stalin was said to have joked the only country that can afford communism was the United States. [laughter] why should it not be true . In the 19 sixties as a benchmark the dow jones was approaching a record level of 1000 and only a matter of months when it passed the landmark but there was one aging underappreciated executive who saw things differently he was older Vice PresidentLabor Relations the name of the man was samuel rickets. He believed growth did not come when the board paid taxes to the federal government or wrote out these big plans he believed it took place when a lonely scientist in the lab had an idea to flaunt the world like a lightbulb. A ge idea. He believed the burden of government and Union Defense backed by government to strangle american competitiveness even with socialism said could do damage the reason our kitchens were better the longest Term Investments at the beginning of ge. The reason and the company sought the goods were affordable and they would render ge competitive and the russians would make better kitchens nobody could quite imagine japan at this point. That was the scope of the imagination it was a godgiven assignment of a Pristine Company like General Electric to inspire america to return to the old capitalism of edison and then to say i will read a quote the rapid trend is about to be changed with everything that we cherish the younger executives at General Electric found boulware ludicrous. His superlative irritated them and many agreed this Vice President had the Kentucky Farm background the fervor of a washing machine. [laughter] the other executives did not worry they were the future boulware was pushing retirement by 60 or 65 he would be out let him rant from his recliner in delray beach. [laughter] still determined to make his own longterm investment he wanted to teach americans the gift of they had in capitalism spending billions of ge money explaining the value of markets in towns where ge operated with the high wages and extra social benefits eventually to leave one such town in massachusetts as an Industrial Center and warned people grass will grow if they did not wake up to the importance of competitive prices and cost boulware used new media to reach the people to showcase traditional American Values he hired that aging actor who was a union man a democrat who hired Franklin Roosevelt and the new deal. So this actor was hired had potential. [laughter] we have our cspan audience so boulware had a special house with all modern appliances for the actor to live in and the actor who was Ronald Reagan and hayek he gave a book out like the Manhattan Institute does and hoped they would be read this actor was not exactly popular against ge younger executives didnt like having western propaganda and they complained but for the few remaining years they could not stop boulware and his actor with hundreds of plants with mimeographed pages to explain about the future of injury on dish industry to move west and so on. The actor he wrote the dangers of socialism and it was a bad idea and power could innovate faster when it was free to make its own decision maybe hydropower wasnt the only future of power in the United States. Soon enough reagan began to take boulwares argument seriously. He bought his son some ge stock. In 1960 casting a dark cloud over ge boulware and his propaganda mill. The Justice Department was investigating the company the new attorney general Robert Kennedy pulled together a strong case ge was colluding with other Companies Like westing price when westinghouse to fix the prices the Justice Department went to court and the judge said ge executive went to jail the irony was undeniable here was ge Propaganda Department mouthing off is and as they cheated the american taxpayer. This was a terrible blow for ge and boulware the Company Look Like the worst hypocrite in the world nationwide people felt they were betrayed by their trusted company like in 1919 National Betrayal that was in the toilet the actor was fired ge theater was canceled and boulware got pneumonia and retired to delray beach so the subjects of the Great Society deep in the sense of failure. Ge itself the news mocked his efforts American Voters did not turn away from socialism theyve brought social democracy or government expansion. They voted in Lyndon Johnson and a socializing program we can call it that. Johnson promised to cure poverty and make america an even greater place with an Even Stronger economy and they did create the beginnings of the National Healthcare system with medicare this year the Great Society did strengthen the unions and johnson was only the beginning one of the revisions of the Great Society is Richard Nixon in my research i discovered he actually expanded government as johnson had before him more rapidly and others just added on with that process of programs upon programs the Manhattan Institute was the first to lay out the numbers but here is the scope of what the Great Society yielded by 1980 health and medical costs were 50 times the 1960 cost in constant dollars by 1980 the cost were 13 times social insurance cost were 27 times of 1950 in housing costs were 129 times the 1950 cost. You may recall last night one candidate suggested we need to spend more on housing. So what happened . The Great Society failed the government did not eradicate poverty in fact the reduction of the poverty rate was already coming down pretty fast it flattened out and stayed there. The program shuffled americans into dependence there was a terrible morning after effect the economy began to flail as it never had before we know Interest Rates went past 15 percent the high cost of labor did drive American Companies to leave town grass did grow just as boulware had predicted the great Thriving Center of detroit and i wrote about that in society the Dow Jones Industrial average was the lowest in a generation. Today the americans believe the ever rising stock market is their birthright and expect nothing else. So you want to contemplate that duration in the sixties through the eighties even in nominal terms of great inflation would not pass 1000 imagine today if we had to wait until 2035 to get to the next barrier. What i learned in my book is you dont have to be a socialist all the way to do damage indeed even a little socialism does incredible damage. This is not the paradox of the road to serfdom you do actually eventually get there and sooner than you think the whole while you can imagine boulware who spent decades beating himself up over the failure of his effort and enlightenment but one figure was now enlightened that was reagan and decided to try politics he took the standard ge speech out of the can gave it on tv practically word for word this was known as the time for choosing speech then he ran for governor of california where he challenge the Great Society numerous times including the Legal Department coming out with a Poverty Program and put the policies of ge into practice remember saving money and fighting expansion of welfare respect for markets and when he did and he won it was 1980 and no longer had the morning after effect it could be morning in america. The entire counterrevolution that morning in america came out of those pamphlets that were so lovingly prepared. His longterm investment that no one remembered had paid off in magnitude near unimaginable markets thrived that we did strongly get that rising market. I will stop and say theres several lessons from the Great Society first of all the overarching lesson is government is rotten at planning the matter how much it spends you get a perverse outcome the second is that a private project thats philanthropic looks like a failure in the short or medium term may not turn out to be a failure in the end sometimes its just early and that is good think of it from the point of view of the voters learning about markets from ge when reagan gave talks in the cafeteria of factories some of those meetings between reagan and ge did have an effect because they understood what reagan was saying as a politician there was another way for the American Worker they emerged in 1980 as the bluecollar vote another more obvious worth mentioning is a Great Society offers a lesson of trusting your own judgment if you suspect isnt good it probably isnt if you suspect a program might be good invest in it think of those institutions that inspired you as a child and made a plan for your own institution much of the work that i do at the Manhattan Institute is planting the seeds. A theoretical seed can be the most fruitful finally individuals matter there would have been no broken windows policy or no reagan without boulware. So now i would like to raise a theoretical glass of wine. You may be wrong im standing right here in manhattan in 2193 decades after the death of that obscure ge executive and everyone in this room raises a mental glass but also most of all we are raising a glass to boulware. Thank you very much. [applause] she has kindly agreed to take if you questions. There are two things that come to mind lbj the civil rights of america and the riots and lbj response was the Great Society helping blacks get out of poverty and helping them to overcome race. What i remember about Great Society is that racial spike that lbj was abandoned of the post vietnam war in the only people that stuck with him was the naacp. So my question is how can that not be in your book and how do we explain the Great Society without talking about race relations. It is in my book and very effectively. This is just one chapter. The book looks at civil rights law we have the Civil Rights Act which came before the Voting Rights act. And basically the early rights are great and important and revolutionary. Without them we would not be where we are. The later laws following Howard University speech of president johnson were more about benefits of what people get. And i argue with plenty of evidence that those benefits did not help poor people white or black. They kept them poor. For example today we have hillbilly all edgy book that is so important appellation what can we do a struggling group in its pathology linked to poverty. In the 19 sixties we have an appellation law it didnt help appellation it just made life harder and accustomed people to getting benefits. So in this book i mark the divide at Howard University speech i think johnson got ahead of his skis and we can move on but i do have a long treatment of the 1964 convention at which the mississippi delegation was not seated and the decision which is the trail by organized labor with johnson to turn away those people because they needed the votes of the regular mississippi party. Im very excited to read your book that seems its a successor to the forgotten man there are two schools of thought in the first it is counterproductive and the second is more modern and centrist that basically it does enough or about enough and if you include transfers and tax credits into poverty rates since the sixties well see these programs help to reduce poverty and we should not accept that leftwing narrative to do so many more transfers with that scandinavian or welfare type system. When you come down on that centrist view there is basically enough transfers now spinning thank you thats a very important question and when you count poverty you count with benefits or without. When you go without theres a lot of poor people so what are we doing quex i would argue we are anesthetizing people. One that is they are becoming so accustomed they dont see an opportunity to work they dont believe they can work i think its destructive even if it keeps people quiet rarely some of the benefits of the sixties the money that slowed in chapter four from the office of Economic Opportunity was meant to calm people so they would not riot. It didnt work because the money got caught and bureaucratic traps and people were angry of the problems such as the bigotry of the police in los angeles. But i dont think you can buy out people i think we would be stronger if we had opportunity rather than entitlements. Im with reason i am part way through your book and im glad to learn how to pronounce the names. [laughter] so can you talk about the relevance of your book of redistribution because we are going through a chasm right now of people saying we need to be redistributing things much more and that just makes it more complicated. What is the role to be in the cold war versus how communism as both an alternative model and a threat to the american way of life, how does that play into arguments about benefits. I will answer the second first. It relates to socialism so younger people today have not served in the military by and large and they have not seen a lot. So they love an idea. Younger people in the 19 sixties in my book it has a chapter people born around 1940. They were less naive they were still naive but less because communism was closer and their old and brother on older brother was in the korean conflict so now we have massive nativity day to deal with. And another parallel between that. But they are liberated because of progressives can call for socialism and talk about socialism then we can talk about socialism. This doesnt have to do with moscow but a number of progressives make foolish shares very few are actual traders it was a fatal terrible problem is that they were wrong about their ideas domestically. So we can talk about socialism now also without involving the soviet union. So to say one other thing in the book i tried to capture the romance of socialism if you think of young people today go on a trip they go to a latin American Country they see more social democracy like scandinavia. In the book i have a character who goes on a trip this intellectual tour called looking for socialism. The character is tom hayden recently Peter Collier died and he gave me a picture that tom collier made it was a fuselage of the found american jet worth vietnamese knickknack of pride that said hundreds of americans rained down and someone gave that fuselage of the downed american plane to tom hayden who gave it to peter. So it is a very romantic trip and absolutely intellectually lazy and crazy and sad because he does not see the reality at all. He probably got in the way of the bombings and wondered if johnson called a halt because he didnt want to be blamed for bombing hated. [laughter] but thats a story of the romance of socialism which is so present today. And with toms own confusion the end of the chapter he decides that socialism is wonderful because its never finished and as long as its not finish the nobody can criticize it and thats the beauty of it. We have time for one more question. That was great. Is there a society that has ever successfully broken from socialism or is there a model we could follow to walk back those tendencies click. I dont to Say Something bad has to happen but thats usually the pattern the country is knocked on the head that they regroup. I do believe americans love business and of our young people we can expose to traditional common sense ideas like four h or decca or reading books that they dont get to read in high school or reading about Calvin Coolidge , they respond with great excitement i hope i can plug my foundation we have a scholarship for Academic Merit at the Coolidge Foundation for the is like the road scholarship or its really about Academic Merit and quite serious competition and we only have four scholarships per year because they are very expensive. Its a full ride. And we already have 15000 kids who have registered to apply for four scholarships this year. What do they want . They want the Money Program they want independence from their parents and not fill out the fafsa. But a lot of them also like the idea of doing things on your ow own. I think its important for all of us to send signals that you will be rewarded for enterprise and trying and doing things on your own and going your own way. Currently our system does not do that. The reward system is how to figure out what you can get from the point of view of a 17 yearold. So to change the political culture if you focus on 16 through 20 yearolds for what is in it for them and then play to their National Wisdom we understand you think this and you might not be wrong i encourage all of you to buy a copy for your friend or your enemy. [laughter] they will all be enriched of this experience. [applause] [inaudible conversations] i saw the two planes fly into the twin towers of the World Trade Center i immediately understand the totalitarians are back. If you read the works like al qaeda it is clear again facing a totalitarian ideology. So many people had no idea and to bring us a 40 hour workweek and pensions the Bumper Sticker unions and to explain that unions achieved a whole lot and now they are in decline and as a result things are considerably worse for workers 30 or 40 years ago. So talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Is a fascinating how the media savages the president for the language that he uses while calling him a not see your fascist or every type of despicable name you could hurl at the president of the United States. This is one of the findings of the book all with a modicum of decency they call him far worse things they are attempting to do far worse. Once you have a right i have a right to pass judgment on Donald Trumps language. The press does not. And to be excited. This is a really important book that is called race for profit it is a lot of noise about redlining. I saw an exhibition about