Socialism sucks, is more irreverent than most Public Policy books we usually organize events around here at cato but i can assure you the authors we are featuring today are serious accomplished economists with decades of scholarly work. Inevitably, they have drinksn their hand, probably because we chat at receptions, hotel bars and the like. But the conversation is always interesting, informative, and fun. Thats also true of this new book. This is a light book about a heavy topic. So its fortunate, fortuitous rather, that we are featuring today on the birthday of the late milton friedman, one of the greatest economist of the 20th century and the champion of economic and overall human freedom. We were lucky to have known him, or some of us to have worked with him to a limited degree. Im sure he, too, would agree with the title of the book, though i i cant really recallm ever putting his opposition to socialism in quite those terms. Today, socialism has gained an appeal among some americans, especially young americans, as a viable alternative to a market economy. And to this market economy that has prevailed and characterized the United States. This is so much the case that leading political candidates and others openly espouse their admiration for the ideology and the policies that it implies. If how much do americans really understand about socialism, and other aspects of its appeal that are wellfounded . One of the goals of the authors of socialism sucks is to disabuse readers of any idealism they might have for the ideology by appealing to reality and direct observation that most readers can relate to. Rather than by relying on reams of data, statistics and other empirical hard evidence that are so damning in and of themselves, they also drive to the approach they take in this book. They achieve this by traveling to places where real socialism has been put in place, cuba, north korea, venezuela, for example. Along the way the also visit of the countries that have experienced socialism or are said to be socialist and explained through anecdotes and observation how the systems really work. The end result, hopefully, is to dispose of any romantic notions of socialism. That the authors felt that they needed to write such a book is a reflection of our polarized times where extreme ideologies on the left and the right are having far more of us wait on the American Public and was imaginable even a few short years ago. We will also be discussing why that has been the case and what else we might do about it. Lets let the authors tell their story, and will begin by hearing from Benjamin Powell and bob lawson and then my comments from matt kibbe. Ben powell is director of Free Market Institute and the purpose of economics in the texas tech university. Is a north american editor of the review of austrian economics and the past president of the association of private Enterprise Education and the senior fellow at the independent institute. Hes a number of, the author of a number of books including out of poverty published by Cambridge University press, and making poor nations rich, published by Stanford University press. His recent findings have been reported on whether 100 popular press outlets such as in your times and the wall street journal. Bob lawson is the professor of practice at jerome centennial chair in Economic Freedom and is a director of the Oneill Center for Global Markets and freedom at Southern Methodist university at the cox school of business. He previously taught at Auburn University and capital university, and he is the coauthor of the widely cited Economic Freedom of the world annual reports that presents an Economic Freedom index for more than 150 countries over the course of decades. It also was a past president of the association of private Enterprise Education, a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute and the member of the society. Please help me welcome ben and bob. [applause] thank you very much, ian, and kidder for hosting this. I just learned it was Milton Friedmanfor the before can on and its quite fitting that the publishers original blurb for the book said socialism sucks is a bastard stepchild of Anthony Bourdain and milton friedman. Thats exactly what were going for that, good solid economics but communicated in a fun entertaining way that will reach people who would not otherwise read the usual academic stuff the bob and i write. The timing on it is obviously d with the popular for socialism. We started the book over two years ago and part of the motivation of the books themes took shape was the growing popularity of socialism in 2016. This is the ever prominent Michael Moore tweeted out that young people like socialism over capitalism but confusing these things with fairness and selfishness. What bob and i wanted to do was write a book that explains what socialism is, and is not, how it functions, and to do it in an entertaining way. Its also the case i wanted to get drunk in cuba and i wanted to write her off my taxes we decided we do that as a trial chapter. In fact, as less thinking about the book does welcome im pretty sure i should tell the iris im going to be researching a sequel and writing up all my far tabs from now until then. So its no surprise anybody now that socialism is back in popular. A lot of the focus has been an young people and millennials who are attracted to it but, of course, with the president ial debate you see it among mainstream democrats as well now. The New York Times had a a yearlong 1100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution yearlong column called red century. I think exact one call must dedicate to economic stagnation of the system. A handful mention atrocities animals always it was stalin i think once smile. Instead you get articles by women had better sex under socialism, which even if true i dont how we wait this against 100 million dead bodies but this was the atmosphere that was taking all of us as it in the book obvious to grow now. We have confusion from politicians like Bernie Sanders is as countries like denmark, sweden and norway are examples of socialism. They are not. I scored insert a quote from aoc but i decide i was better to leave it like that. The two were we go through, we start in sweden, go to events whether, cuba, korea, china, russia, ukraine, george and in the back in the ssa by attending the largest socialist government and United States last summer. Lets start briefly with sweden and lets get the definition of socialism correct. Socialism is some form of collective ownership or control over the major means of production. This means abolishing private property in a major factors of production, replacing with collective ownership who can practice in the society it means state ownership and or and conf those means of production. If youre going to have largescale production that means you also would have some form of Central Planning in order to do the coordination. A lot of these young socialists say what socialism from below and anybody everybody is just o decide cooperatively what to do. This would be act economy and will not produce it. You need someone to coordinate the diverse areas of economy and would do is Property Rights rights they keep you prices, profits and lost that has to be replaced with something. All that bob talk more about democratic socialism later. So first of all sweden and at the nordic countries. They are not socialist. They are highly capitalist. They all have private property, they had good contract enforcement, a tolerable degree of the rule of law, a sickly freetrade, light relations business. They have problems. Sweden has a big welfare state and high taxes. This entry of the other nordic countries as well and the interventions and free market have consequences but they dont equal socialism. Thats why when we go to sweden, the beer is great. The place is beautiful. Its not socialist. Bob is the coauthor of Economic Freedom of the world index. When we are writing this sweden was 27 freest in the world by the most capitalist and lisa socialist. This is true of other nordic countries as well. We can have great barriers. A belgian beer bar and even the belgian is close but because the tenement was and youll pay for it in washington, d. C. And effect we drank some in south korea on the other side of the world and theyre cheaper than in sweden. This big welfare state has dragged on swedens growth and they are not as wealthy metal to does rest of the world as they used to be but its still a prosperous place because they are mostly capitalist. Ben is what it is other spectrum. Venezuela is dead last in bobs Economic Freedom index. Cuba and north korea are not ranked but we can guess what it would be. Venezuela is important remember, this is not a place that was always like that. The earliest year of the index in 1970 in his wave is among the ten most economically free countries in the world. What we saw is a long decline in Economic Freedom in venezuela after moving away from capitalism into worse and worse front of interventionism. If they stagnated, the back in 1970 when their capitalist they were also wealthy. They were wealthier per capita incomes than spain itself. Thats much of a 1998 when shabbos comes to power but this is a prosperous economy and its also come you to go back for a part of people point to it as successful democratic socialism. Chavez into power in a democratic election that International Observers widely said was fair. To begin putting social policies in place. What was happening is venezuela sits on the Worlds Largest oil reserves. Oil prices were high. As result is socialist policies were cutting out the core of economy, production was plummeting but further using te revenue from oil to import food and other things the population and give big free handouts. Once prices came down shortly after his death in 2013 and by the way production also went down because the state owned oil company, state ownership and control of the means of production doesnt give a good instance minting equipment and pipelines and such so production as well as prices are done. They know look of the Foreign Exchange to import the necessities. With a crisis see today and bob and i saw when we in january of 2017 firsthand. The picture on the top left corner is of the bridge that spin the news recently with the aid trucks or stop going in from columbia. When we were there people freaking back and forth across them and venezuelans by the thousands everyday were coming across into columbia to buy basic necessities that were unavailable in the venezuelan economy. One striking thing we saw in this was it wasnt typical third world poverty. We both went to let poor countries. Witches are crossing the borders, people were middleclass, uppermiddleclass venezuelans still at some access to money they could choose to buy goods when they crossed the border, this was illustrated what a socialist economy does to people who approves a prosperous and a capitalist society. Struggling to make in meet on the border. I should say since we have this beer theme running throughout the book, venezuela ran out a beer. If i were socialist dictator, toilet paper and beer. By the way thats not like an election speech. But what actually happened is they have nominally private in company but government planning over the economy allocates foreignexchange and they didnt allocate them enough for exchange to import the baltic to make the beer. As a result of country ran out of beer. I should say about the democratic socialism with them, this is what i think Young Democratic socialists often this is the necessary connection between lack of Economic Freedom and a lack of political freedom. Once you abolish private property up to move towards planning and state control is of any advance production but thats going to be extremely inefficient and at this technician. People dont like that. They will throw you out of power if you let them voluntarily reelect you. Precise because you centralized the power of the economy theyre able to repress them so they cant the out of office in the democratic election which is exactly what we have seen with maduro. He was reelected by wide margins yet at the same time people ever taught Something Like 24 pounds. Theyve been up all time jenni craig. When your populations by getting enough to eat there some way getting reelected. Yet state employees being ordered to reelect the person or you lose your job. Their food aid stands next to polling places. That is the necessary connection between socializing your economy and democratic tyranny. Cuba is not starting socialism. This is subsistent socialism, chugging along. Ill give you two anecdotes from the travel rather than political economy story. It illustrates some of the dysfunction of a centrally planned system. First member state ownership means of production hotels are part of the means of production say after stateowned hotel industry. Were not trying, you could stay at the hotel national, fivestar which is nice by those the net the state on hotels suck. We stayed one. We were not kind to send back it. This was a post with three starts and one of bobs friends recommended the place. It looks okay, a picture from an open in 19 said in a period looks a less nice today. You see the exterior. And you go to our room, see how tall this building was. Theres exactly four elevators and three of them are out of service. Thats our bathroom ceiling. This is another state hotel in central havana when we stated that would later. Thats the class became out of the sanitary back in the room with the state on it. Thats the soap kindly let from the previous guess. Thats the whole in the towel they gave us to dry ourselves. Thats the bolt missing from the toilet so when youre on the seat you can slide right off. Same industry providing lodging. Theyve allowed limited private Property Rights and the bill for people to rent at their apartment for a profit. We prearranged one through airbnb which is america because one of the internet of wild available in cuba and her credit cards dont work there. Enough of a relatives in miami the people in miami put it up on airbnb, you make the reservation to them. To take the money. Call the relative back in cuba and tell them when youre coming. This one is in central havana, basically the same price as our godawful hotel room. It is a little kitchen, two bedrooms that are nice and bright destroy downtown in central event. We stayed at another one half that price in trinidad. It was conveniently located directly above a bar which was great. It had a porch so i could change book my cigars. Basically the cuba trip was not fun. From 8 p. M. To 12 p. M. After that it drink and chain smoked cigars until 12 p. M. Or 12 a. M. And that made everything all right. Sort of. Other oddity. The power of copyright give incented. Incentive. No incentives under the hotels, whats missing from this picture . Its a commercial district in central havana. Signs. Signs are not missing because cubans are poor. Signs are missing because no one gives a damn what you come into their store are not. If you do show up at the stores which are covered with essen and lack of variety. This this is a wellstocked stoe pachuca count approximately two dozen and most distinct items in that store. Continuing with the beer metaphor. Cuba, they have beer but here two types, crystal and buccaneer. Theyre both lee roughly five is an alkyl and the both taste like a skokie budweiser. Thats your variety of cuban beer. Also private restaurants. First of all state ownership means of production white state. Theyve been given limited freedom to open private restaurants. They had restrictions on serving meat and seafood. They had restrictions on the people to be seated but its widely ignored or worked around. They are pretty good at first. Its because theyre trying. They have the right incentive but there still an socialist command economy have to deal with that supply chain. What you find is all of the private restaurants have the same 12 items on the menu, all taste basically the same which is bland. Cuban food in cuba sucks. Cuban food in miami is delicious. Its because the ingredients but when they have the right incentive the supply chain isnt there to provide so instead just pick restaurant based on the venue, a a rooftop or Something Like that because the food is going to be the same. Ill and on Everybody Knows about the 1950s american cars in cuba. Then people think its because we have an embargo on cuba that theyre still stuck with american cars but we have an embargo not a blockade, i i wod like to call it that. Theres no one stopping key is from going to cuba except the cuban government and as result that to keep using popsicle sticks and bubblegum to make the 1950s american cars go. As result in a in a country ths very poor per capita income statistics rps in socialist country for something on the order 3000ish per capita income. Your 1950s car selling for 15, 16,000 when they trade. This one in the picture, thats more like a 30,000 car. Because it has a better suspension and brakes and it might have a see. It does and the United States. You dont even give this to your High School Kid anymore but if you still dont supply hard enough, price goes very high. Ill stop with that and let bob continue the tour with you. So im going to talk a bit about north korea. Our wives were very, very generous anybody inviting as tl over these crazy places but you did say you cant die or get arrested, so we didnt go prison, yet. We didnt go into north korea. We went to the board of north korea and china, the northern north korea border where theres just river which separates the countries. You may many of you seen the satellite photo of the Korean Peninsula, the north except for the capital is essentially dark and the south of course is wonderful life in filaments of likely every direction. Then use china on the northern side. China is developed quite nicely but this is dark secularist with greater when we arrived in north korea it was dark and we got to the river. We were very excited. We can see north korea. Right across the river 100 yards away. Its dark over there, nothing over there. We will read the guidebook said there was a city. Maybe we went to the wrong city because there didnt appear anything on the other side of the river. In the morning there is, in fact, a substantial city over there so that satellite photo is in photoshop. You can stand on the chinese side and look over in complete darkness. The chinese side meanwhile the city, its not shanghai or beijing but its a substantial modern, prosperous chinese city skyscrapers and lights and advertising and all the modern things. That was north korea. Cute use the dark picture again. The upper left over there is sort of north korea and you wake up in the morning and you can see oh, theres a few hundred thousand People Living on the north korean side of the border at night they are empty. As we went up and down the river, at one point i remember thinking because they were chinese patrol boats, chinese navy, coast guard, and i was very happy to see them. Which is a strange feeling really because if our vote, our little fairy that was on the river, if the breaks down and dressed to the north korean side, i really would help the chinese navy would get us before we got over to the wrong side of the border. This is typical of what you would see, broken down homes. Anecdotally and i still feel sorry, we went into some of river there some farming areas, everybody we saw working in the fields was like using hand tools and animals to drag plows and things. There was one guy we saw in the field and he had a diesel tractor. It looked ancient and you could hear the check of the diesel that they make, and older diesel engine. It was little incline on the farm field, but he couldnt, e just couldnt make it up. You could hear it, and eventually i really felt sorry for the poor guy. Eventually gave up and the tractor sort of rolled backwards, and so very, very sad situation. Meanwhile youre looking on the second you look this direction and using highways with tractortrailer trucks whizzing by. The contrast between the two which you can see north korea is really, really started. Start. Theres the chinese side of the river and then the river. We do talk in the book a lot about the tragedy thats going on there. The irony is if you go back to the end of the korean war, the korean war did create massive damage to the entire country but if anything the northern side was the industrious, prosperous part of peninsula. The south was backward farmers, and, of course, its reversed today and we cite some statistics about the incomes. Incomes statistics and socialist country i really almost meaningless in a lot of ways but the best estimates we have of income in north korea is maybe a couple thousand dollars per person. Thats probably generous. South korea is now one of the richest countries in the world. It is, in fact, a sort of a schizophrenic place. Today theyre trying to have Economic Freedom for a large portions of the country and as result of that Economic Freedom, china has developed quite rapidly and people gotten quite prosperous in general. Police compared to the old days. Its also still trying to be a totalitarian political regime. We attended a conference, it was really weird thing because what were talking about ayn rand and friedrich hayek, the austrian economist Nobel Prize Winner in beijing which was how cool is this . It was still with locals, chinese academics and journalists. But remind us all that the chinese, is part still in charge, the very next day, next morning, thugs showed up from the government and padlocked the doors with james and the conference was called off. China is trying to do this dance now what are giving away the freedom to engage in commerce and better your condition and prosper and the prophets, it also they are trying to control their thoughts and their minds and their political freedoms. We suspected not a sustainable path but there you go. Quickly i will mention russia. Ukraine was a chapter there. Thats the stand in line, standing in line with the popular thing to do in the old soviet union. Guess what, you still just in line if youre going to go see linen because they dont charge for lehmans to soy prices prices are too low, sometimes you get lines. There are still some soviet art but we call this hub over socialism. Theres no central plan. Theres no private property. Its hung over. There still suffering the after aftereffects. They havent moved russia and ukraine we have moved towards Economic Freedom but the country that has come the former soviet republic of georgia is really not a capitalist country and Economic Freedom of the world index that are right, georgia is now in the top ten highest ranked countries in the world. This is me flipping the bird to stall in his hometown, drinking some wine. Just in terms of the all call theme, george is a great wine country and in soviet times and that lots of really bad wine the center planners plowed under massive amounts of acreage. They played a french grapes, french style wine, cabernet and it is terrible but the entire soviet world supply from georgia with the wine. Today all the fields have gone to follow if you let them go to sea. The georgians are bringing back the own local grapes, local old fashion nonfrench style of making wine, a different style of making the wine. If youre a wine snob, georgia is becoming a mecca, worldwide mecca for people want to enjoy unique wine that literally dont exist in the rest of the world. Georges success since, what they call the rose revolution, we talk about that. In terms of the signaling of the new country, the new way of doing things in georgia, thats a police station. Police stations are always made out of glass to georgia to signal their transparency which is, we dont really literally mean transparency when we say that. Georgians took that literally. Last fall talk about the chicago conference. We went to the social of conference in chicago which bills itself at the largest gathering of american socialist. When we arrived we stood up not because were wearing blue blazers overstated because we were middleaged. [inaudible] i were by Cincinnati Reds have. I thought that would be funny, right . No one caught the joke. I was angry no one thought that was funny. We found a lot of confusion. We talked to a lot of kids who are leftist kids who saw the world, they saw injustice in the world in various ways and he wanted to do something about it and some of another they thought socialism whats that thing. We asked them, you think we should get rid of private property . Some suggest. Some said no, why . Thats what socials means. Kits at a socials and conference calling each other, retro unclear what the definition of socialism actually was. All closing documents that beer theme. Beer became a run metaphor for us to talk about your were back in the usa, capitalist country. Theres a brewery in illinois called revolution and the early. Its a red star and all of the labels for the peers, have a couple dozen varieties of wonderful craft peers, they are all connie seemed sort of marketing but really the irony is were sitting here in chicago drinking revolutionary brewery and the company which is a private for Profit Company makes a greater variety and about a quart of beer and all the socialist countries the world combined. We thought that was an ironic thing. The kids who were drink. This is great, stall is on the label. Stalin the book is tempered water we are never when you place in category beer. How about that . So there you go. Thanks a lot. [applause] thanks very much, guys. Now well hear from matt kibbe was a president and chief Committee Organizer at free the people which is an educational organization. Turning the next generation on to the values of liberty. He is an executive producer where he produces the matt kibbe liberty on podcasts as well as deadly isms, documentary series about the dangers of all flavors of authoritarianism. In 2004 matt kibbe founded Freedom Works where he served as president for 11 years. He is the author of various books, most recently New York Times bestseller dont hurt people and dont take their stuff. At the end of the book theres a discussion with matt about how to interpret the appeal of socialism in the United States, and matt was very involved with the tea party movement, and so hes always had his finger on the pulse of political sentiments in this country, and thats what he discusses at the end of the book and he can help us understand what is going on in this country. Great to be here, and i should start by pointing out that these two economists, they are not just ivory tower guys. If you try to slog through some of their Academic Work you might think so but a trace amount of hands on empirical work was done, and im counting this empirical work with a number of years and number of hangovers we did a podcast a a month ago. I cant past dash my podcast, we did a comparison empirical comn American Craft peers and a north korean beer which was Smoke Tobacco lately. We had some poll are from venezuela which not ironically is made in florida because they can actually produce it in venezuela anymore. The north korean beer youll be shocked to know was so undrinkable that even ben ported out. That does not happen. You have to ask yourself what all this empirical evidence about socialism failing and all of the slide show you just saw, it seems pretty start, pretty obvious that socialism doesnt work in practice. We had a history of the last when hundred years of really horrible experiments, pol pot managed to kill one in 410 podiums in less than four years how do you do that . You have to try really hard and you have to have an ideology that is so dysfunctional as to shut down any sort of conceivable market. And yet when i post these videos, when you post these videos, someone from socialists of america will say thats not socialism. Thats oligarchy, that state capitalism, thats fill in the blank. Theres all sorts of workarounds as to why it was that mao was about a socialist or hugo chavez and maduro are not socials. Theyre doing something else, and you get so frustrated. It seems like logic, economics, empirical evidence, none of these things seem to hold sway as young people as you point out in the beginning of your talk are now sorted conflicted. It runs about 5050 been on the skip all you look at that young people are saying socialism, i want that more than capitalism. So what are we to do with this . I recently reread an old essay by Frederick Hayek because when you dont know what to do i always ask myself what would hayek do . What would hayek do . It turns out he wrote an essay 1949, he is literally common is to the left and fascist to the right. Hes thinking the darkest days of liberalism and free markets are here and we will never going to recover and is trying to figure out what to do about the rise of socialist sentiments. Its called intellectual and socialism. Please read it. Its a short read. It will give you a sense that possibly with a few exceptions it was written yesterday. Because he stated with all the same stuff that were dealing with today. Theres a couple points he makes that of what to tease out. The first is, and bens that shit critical to psycho he said to take her intellectual opponent seriously. All of us have participate in sharing means on facebook would love to make fun of alexander aa ocasiocortez or some other socialist democratic socialist saying things that we know are obviously not true. But hayek would say taken seriously if you would also say in that same asset and if you like hes talking about Mitch Mcconnell here, that just because you are criticizing socialism doesnt mean that you have any idea what a cogent critique of socialism actually is. Mitch mcconnell famous a couple weeks ago declared himself the grim reaper of any legislation proposed by democrats that was socialist. Im not sure thats a good messaging. I think if im 20 years old and im trying to decide between Mitch Mcconnell, the grim reaper, or aoc, the happy warrior for democratic socialism, who are you going to choose . Who am i going to choose . We should think about that and we should take hayek seriously. But i happen to believe that young people, as was alluded to, if you ask them whether not they believe the government should own the means of production, the answer almost categorically is hell no, thats a stupid idea. Their talk of something else. When they put the qualifier democratic socialism come socialism that seems to suggest in the narrative of alexandria ocasiocortez, i believe in community, a belief in people at the local level working together to solve problems and respecting each other and somehow that bottomup process is a way that we can solve all of the problems. You go back and watch her original viral video they got her elected to congress. You will find yourself a green with her probably although it up until the last minute of that video. 90 true youre nodding your head now yes because shes ready against tony capitalism, against insiders in washington, d. C. Who dont give a damn about her folks back home. Shes ready about incumbents for life. Shes talking about that sense of Community Uses the word dignity a lot. Immunity, dignity, bottomup, peaceful cooperation. These are not socialist concepts. Thats us, thats what we believe, which leads me to my third point, the most important in this hayek essay. Hayek says that the reason that socialists in 1949 have had so much sway with intellectuals and with popular opinion is that they were able to craft a vision that imagines a utopian future that was better than the status quo, something big, something beautiful, a promise that just around the corner we could do Something Better together than weve ever done before. The critics, at cato i can pick a Mitch Mcconnell, is that okay . Anyone going to protest . Mitch mcconnell when he criticizes socialism, he is doing what hayek warns against. It sounds like he is just defending the status quo, all the wall street bailout, the permanent wars. Whatever it is shes in washington that you find so repugnant, the critics of socialism in washington, d. C. Generally identify as what their against. Their against aoc. What are they for . Are the action for free markets . Are they for the peaceful bottomup cooperation . Im not sure they are but all of us, if we want to win the next generation, we have to imagine something utopian, something beautiful, something bigger and better than weve seen in the past. Which brings me to beer. Look at that. Thats an ipa, state dog ipa from our friends at flying dog brewery, a fellow libertarian. He applies his libertarian principles to his production of beer but if you go to any Grocery Store almost anywhere in america and you go to the beer section, that beautiful cooler, it is a a shrine to freemarket capitalism. It is a a holy place. Things get a little wider there as you try to figure out which double dry hop triple ipa you are going to choose there. You cant do that in venezuela. Ben suggested this, like you cant get even crappy one beer in venezuela. So maybe theres something about that. Anybody here into craft beer, if you go to your local producer, im sure this is true at the brewery that you referenced, its a beautiful place. Started by entrepreneurs, people that are think about entrepreneurship in the way that cassian when is a a entrepreneurship is imagining an alternative future even as people laugh at you. If you know anything about the crapper crappy industry, those triple double ipa, most people make fun of that stuff. The rest of us are waiting in line for six hours to buy a four pack. Thats the beauty of creating something thats never been done before. They come together in cooperation and hang out and they have a sense of belonging and community. Its all driven by the entrepreneur, and his right in a free market capitalist society to create something and to share it with his neighbors. Maybe thats the metaphor. May be beer is exactly what were trying to talk about. We always use downward sloping demand curves and if youre real libertarian like me and hang out with your friend just argue about the nonaggression principle, i think that normal people have no idea what were talking about. But if you owned dont understand the beer metaphor, theres probably something wrong with you. You probably are not going to be help but anything weird to say so were going to write you guys off, but the rest of the world, tickle young people, young people that are according with the idea democratic socialism, lets connect with them with those stories. I have to say, as a final thought, the final chapter where you go talk to the young socialists in the United States, it would be easy to make fun of them. It would be easy to troll them, easy to take a picture of the most ridiculous person at posted on instagram and say look, these guys are silly. Thats that what you did. You were listening, trying to understand where they were coming from. If we do that and we explain the beauty of liberty and freedom, i think this generation, the generation footing with democratic socialism will prove to be the most libertarian ever. Thank you. [applause] thanks very much, matt. With time for questions. If you have a question raise your hand and when youre called on wait for the microphone, identify yourself and your affiliation. Make a brief question. Do we have questions . We will take a question writer in the front. We need microphones, please. Will take this gentleman in the white shirt here in the second row. Thank you. It seems to me in those cases when there are really strong disagreements, its a question of semantics. People using the same or but totally different definitions. Using the classic texas definition of socialism and if you look at the young socialists, their using a totally different definition. Theyre basically thinking in capitalism everything is owned by somebody. You step off your property, youre on someone elses property. They can control whatever it is. As soon as you have public streets, parks can stuff like that that socialism. My collation is who gets to define the term . Is a karl marx, Bernie Sanders, wikipedia . Who defines what socialism is . I think, language is a spontaneous order, right . Its incumbent upon us to be clear about what we mean when we use our words and make sure we communicate effectively. The young socialists as bob said many of them just dont identify with abolishing private property. A lot of them think and aspirations and goals rather than means of achieving them. In the last chapter one of the things we do while were at the source of conference with talks on immigration, antiwar, antiimperialism, black lives matter and police brutality, l bunch of things. We were like, the basic agree. This is a problem in the United States and we need to do better, need for immigration, the more antiwar, rollback the police and the United States. The kids are saying the interest socialism. Wait, the elses Freedom Freedom and the voluntary system like what that is referring to. We use the term socialism, socialism sucks is a puddle of the book but in the book we take pains to define our terms. We the fight and a classical way but we also, theyre still black and white. Its not a 01 world out there. There socialism and the United States. We public schools. The government is usually only and centrally planning the Education System most of the country. Thats with Economic Freedom index i work on comes in. Its a continuum from on the one end of the spectrum more socialism, thats the venezuelans of the world and cubas. On the other end of the spectrum is a more capitalist countries. This no bright line between when you stop being capitalism and starting socialism. Theres a lot of socialism in every nation. So we do in the book we use the index and its really the shapes and gray something i can index can give us that really helps move the conversation. Having said that, since socialism is a buzzword of the day, we thought it was important to make that the focal point for the book. By the way this is why listening is so important, because these buzzwords like capitalism and socialism i jew dont even use the words because they have so much baggage that he may be talking to someone and they may not be hearing what youre trying to say. I like to focus on sort of simple human values, based language because thats where theres a lot of connection with young people, even though when it came to those two words we might find yourself on opposite sides. Yes, a question in that ro, the gentleman in the blue shirt, please. Thank you. Im a retired member of the foreign service. I wonder if you can help us understand, what should we think of when we hear a candidate like Bernie Sanders say he is for democratic socialism . Help you understand, what does he mean, if you know what that means, and what should we think of when people say i want a social welfare state . I think when you hear bernie and of the say this that you dont mean real socialism as in the way bob and i defined the term of the covenant on most of the means of production. However, bernie and aoc and the rest of them do want to march you down the road to serfdom farther in that direction and thats the shades of gray bob is talking about in the index. Whether its moving to medicare for all or socializing healthcare industry. Thats one more means of production that is being moved. Does mean the government will on walmart come but if you listen to Elizabeth Warren she wants government or someone else outside on the boards of directors of these private companies. Thinking about the continued about what the debate is from the candidates. Nobody will nationalize the needs of production if they are elected. Question here in the front. Im a reporter with voice of americas korean service, five to ask you about north korea. You said north korea, right after the korean war, economically superior to south korea. So you think the socialism wasnt the reason behind that . And the second question is, i understand that north korea is right now using its options to imitate chinas for vietnams economic path. Do you think is a viable option for them . So, i mean, the chinese peninsula was occupied by japan for many years, and Korean Peninsula was run by the chinese. It was sort of a dictatorship but it was mostly a private property kind of system. The reality was most of electricity and heavy industry that existed in korea was on the northern side. It wasnt a result of, just a result of the conditions that were present there. I would applaud north korea moving in the chinese direction. I mean, just because you can have all the freedom and the world doesnt mean some freedom is not going to help. Millions, hundreds of millions of the Chinese People are living dignified, comfortable, mitchard existences because the Chinese Government now lets them engage in trade and market, and that should be something we applaud. The fact china hasnt gone as far down the road to freedom as we would like is regrettable, but i think that would be great for the koreans. Right now there on the edge of starvation so moving towards an opening of markets of the type that happened in china or vietnam is absolutely a great idea for north korea and i hope they do it. I hope they move all the way to freedom. But if they cant move all the way, at least move a little way. Ill follow up on that. To answer the first part of your question, yes, this is like the global example of one place, one people, one language, when history from one culture, and you change one factor, or economic system. You could socialism in one and capitalism in the other. Thats a natural experiment and it shows sidebyside with capitalism are what freedom will do for people versus state control. The second thing in terms i agree with bob entirely moving in the chinese and the distraction of reform would boost income to make People Better off there. One caveat about china for people. In china your vast differences in Economic Freedom across regions of china particularly coastal cities and enterprise zones. But heres what interesting. Within china de facto you have freedom of movement. You have over a billion people and free migration with income differences and freedom differences between rural interior provinces and coastal cities are not unlike differences between latin america and the United States today we see immigrants want to move to get the productivity of the place rather than the productivity of the people and that type of the growth a lot of chinas growth has been filled by internal migration of going to free her places. Something a north korea scale is unlikely to get the part of the mammoth but they can still move in that direction. Its important for also outreach with the book on this to point out the freedom of movement, retread of labor is part of the free market system, too. The andrew migration in china is probably the largest mass migration in our times by far. Question in the back, in the corner. Im with the victims of Communism Memorial Foundation took regarding the rise and populated socialism, how much of that you think is a result of shortterm anger on the left against trump and how much of it you think is a longerterm trend thats here to stay . Ill start and ill say first that the fact that socialism is clearly going to be a defining Campaign Issue going into 2020 may not necessarily be a good thing for those of us who would love for people to fully understand the difference between however you define trumpism versus what alexandria ocasiocortez and singly almost all of the democratic seemingly Democratic Candidates for president seem to be espousing. Part of it is partisan and part of the opposition to its also partisan, but i also think going back to an earlier question, there is a similarity in a lot of ways between the attraction of a candidate like ron paul, an outsider, and iconoclast, someone who was raging against the machine, someone that was taken on the republican establishment, and Bernie Sanders a couple years later. He was attracting that same cohort of young people, and i dont think it had a lot to do with ideology. I think it was an ethos, a sense that that guy is authentic, that guy, hes angry about the same things i do. The wall street bailout and the permanent wars and mass incarceration. I just described both of those candidates. Of course i very different policy conclusions. I dont think this is about a shift in ideology. I think its sort of a cultural those guys seem cooler. Again, ill say it again just to pick on Mitch Mcconnell one last time, on the cool factor, aoc, Mitch Mcconnell, you do the math. Here in the second row. [inaudible] [inaudible question] you dont on undersell. Government algae. Its a National Organization not only a means of production when its nationalization of people, people do not have choices. And to does not have choice . Slaves did not have choice. What you think about that, that socialism is just another form of public slavery, and thats why there were disposing millions of people the way they did, because the people were not only as set but they also a liability . Thank you. I agree completely. You are part of the needs of production which means now the people are a means, not an end and its a huge waste and problem for any ideology that puts people as means instead of the ultimate ends. Okay. Well take a question in the third row there, the gentleman in the redshirt. My first question is regarding well take one question please, and identify yourself, please. Im just [inaudible] okay. When you said hundred million dead bodies, are you talking also about those have been killed, maimed, destroyed by usa, cia and western countries all over the world, in vietnam and middle east, and africa and all over . And why dont you just, why do you close your eyes with what capitalists, not in the sense of equal opportunity, but the sense of what they really are doing all over the world . This is a worldwide venezuela has come to the situation is because, only because of what the u. S. Is doing to them other western country or inputting cuba, including iran, including okay. North korea. Thank you. Do you know of that reason . Is, this book is on socialism sucks. Id love for the to have fascism sucks. I agree but i would not say capitalism has come all the people you mention. Capitalism is voluntary interaction among consenting adults. What you describe is imperialism of area sorts of states which both bob and i are fully on board with you and would oppose. If i could advocate of the author, is a book called the number, the 100 million that we generally use doesnt involve war. If you add war into that you get a much bigger number and, of course, all sorts of ideologies that centralized government power have killed all sorts of people in war. We are not generally supportive of authoritarians killing peopl people. You and everybody else in this room are invited to our many forms are at the Cato Institute were we are scholars criticizing u. S. Adventurism abroad, which has nothing to do with the free market model. Next question. Gentleman over there, please. Mitch beagle, progress participate im curious, you didnt mention the speed he could just pick up little bit . You did mention the kibbutz is in israel. Is that just an aberration in your thought process . As a successful socialist enclave . I be happy to take that. Private socialist experiments on a small scale have had some limited success and probably israeli kibbutz have been the most successful. Although they have been pretty successful. One of the things mentioned which is critical is largescale production, and iphone, that kind of scale of operation is very difficult to imagine in the sort of socialism from below model where youve got sort of a network of small worker run democratically worker democracy kind of enterprises. In fact, the israeli kibbutz, although theyve had some staying power, have mostly been economic failures. Most of them up close. Most of them have evolved into those nations. The empirical reality is that the can of operation is not been all that successful. I think for economic reasons. One thing about capitalism, proper capitalism is that we invite people, invite anyone to make whatever managerial style for an operation you want. So is caboose communes worker run cooperatives, all of these types of things, perfectly legal and allowed within a capital system . I applaud these experiments. They are successful they are truly superior. So much the better. I dont think they are actually frequently very much so. But thats an empirical question. Just related to that, neither bob nor i want our family like a market economy. We run it something along the lines each according to his ability and needs but that family, right, is an island of socialism interacting in a world of capitalism everywhere else. Thats what makes it function. So you should scale up from it for a small family. You start getting these bad incentive problems first and then as you try to scale up bigger to the society thats what information problems conflict. I mention one of these experiments at her own history. You know, the nice thanksgiving story that they planted corn, they taught how to do that and feast, true, thats not the end of the starving, they starved for two more winters. William bradford on plymouth plantation, a history that he wrote in 1647, and then he describes we created private property and all of a sudden, im paraphrasing because i dont know old english, all hands are industrial and women and children went to the fields that never did before and thats the small scale like that. Anybody who has a family can identify with that problem. How much money my kids owe me . [laughter] weve got a question way in the back, please. A lot, a lot of money. [laughter] rick leads. Ive got a blog 53 government cost crisis. The twoparty system is based on single round voting. How much well, if the republicans dont make the free market argument convincing enough and for a lot of people theres one alternative. So how much do you think the twoparty system is responsible for the situation . Ill take a stab at that. I think youre in this awesomely democratized process were going through now where everything is shifting back to the enduser. The one place that isnt happening is in politics. We still have two parties and on a lot of days from a libertarian perspective its kind of hard to tell the difference if you look at things that we used to care about like spending and executive authority and war and those kinds of things. But i think the this whole idea that theres a left versus right, theres a red pill and a blue pill, i think its simplistic and wrong. I dont think thats what its all about at all. I think the real measure is authoritarianism on the bottom of the scale upwards towards this thing i was talking about earlier where we get the cooperation and dignity and liberty, and all the beautiful things that happen when we work together. So you know, is there a difference between a nationalist and adolf hitler, a socialist . I dont think so in practice, i reject that sort of leftright thing. Weve got to get outside of politics if we want to connect with people. Once we join our political people the other side were trying to convince stops listening, but if we focus on values and things that we share and agree upon, thats how we connect. If it comes down to a political fight, i think everybody loses. Question in the back there in the aisle, please. Robert anthony peters. Filmmaker with tank man the movie. Com. Wonder if theres anything you found that socialism does better, whether its product or services . Propaganda . No. So im thinking about giving a nonsnarky answer and when we were interviewing a man from belarus, i think in the ukraine when we were interviewing him and come on, i know youre a free market guy, but youve got to pick something. If you think back prior to 1991, what one thing was better for you . And he pauses. Nothing. Nothing was better for me of the the russian army sent me to siberia and that was the answer he gave me, so thats what ill give you. You know, Misery Loves Company is a saying for a reason and just like older americans, my grandparents generation, they actually sometimes look wistfully back to the great depression. It was a depressing time, but we were in it together and there was a certain nostalgia for that. And this is a backward compliment, if socialism does things well, it sort of throws everybody into this sort of horrible existence, but theres a certain camaraderie that might engender among the people that suffer under it. Thats about as good as im going to get, im sorry. Theres winners and losers under socialism and i think that hugo chavezs daughter and nicolas maduros son, they love it because its lucrative for them. To followup on bobs comment, kleins the peoples romance, an experience of us doing it together and he comments that athere are theres a collective experience. By the way, i think its important why we have substitute collective experience for politics, which means things like professional sports, where were all in it together. Im much happier to be a member of red sox nation than some political identity and works out better that my sports nations are better than bobs. In the 10 seconds while ben was blathering on, i came up with a better answer. [laughter] so, when we were in cuba, one of the things you find about cuba is the liveliness of the locals, the music is wonderful. Every restaurant and bar you go to and especially you get out of the tourist area and go to central havana, wonderful music and people singing and dancing, but the plumbing is falling apart and the buildings are crumbling, but this is actually a hallmark of socialism, theyve leveled wages so much. Basically you make the same if youre a plumber as if youre a musician. Do the math, folks, who wants to be a plumber, a terrible, dirty jobs so everyone decides to be a musician. So you get oversupply and we ran into almost everybody you meet who is from soviet times in georgia or ukraine, everybody, what did you study in college . Physics. Because people with any integrity would try to avoid Political Science or economics, they said math doesnt have many ideological overtones so they massively overproduced fizzists and chess players and gymnasts and massively underproducing plumbers, people that can fix brick thats falling down and things like that. So you get these weird imbalances, but in the areas oversupplied you can say, look at the great art, look at all the great music. Any other questions . Right there. Hello, im an intern at the chartwell strategy group. Recently the Ukrainian Parliament had election where president zelenskys party won the majority, described as libertarian and largely reformists. My question is if they are to actually implement reforms to the ukrainian economy, they would have to delve into really complex issues such as tensions, privatization of land, companies, and these could prove very unpopular among ukraine. So for the socialist countries that you talked about earlier, how would you recommend that they start implementing reforms so they can implement them and actually sustain the reforms . I think you need to do what georgia did. Georgia was in the exactly the same situation in 2004 when they had their rose revolution. In many ways georgias situation was bleaker than what currently exists in ukraine and they elected a libertarian leader, and they quickly handled all of these issues. I think the thing though is quick. You dont get time to dill why i dilley dally around and give you a couple of examples. Police corruption was one of the worst problems in georgia. They fired 35,000 Police Officers in a day. Now, this is a country of about 4 million people. This would be the equivalent of firing every cop in washington d. C. Leak tomorrow there are no Police Officers. And of course, crime went down when you fired the cops. The cops were the criminals. And in a span of about 12 to 18 months, about a year and a half, they tackled tensions, they tackled the incredibly byzantine tax system. They got rid of theariffs and they did a libertarian laundry list of things and the opposition almost didnt have a chance to gather itself. Eventually they did and those reforms slid down and eventually stalled, but they have stuck. Its now, were 10 years out now. More than 10 years out and the new government, which is not a libertarian government by any means in georgia, they have not undone those libertarian reforms in georgia. So, my advice is, look at georgia as a great example of how it can be done, but doing it quick, and having a real leader who is willing to take those hits though, because people criticize from day one, but the government stuck with it. We have time for one or two more questions. Well take a question here. Thank you very much, my name is todd wiggins. And my question is about the happiness quotient, its an ab tract idea, but that you can actually be happier in a less developed society that you can be in some cases in a more developed society. Did you see that facet . And i think you did allude to it when you talked about music and art and some of the things you saw in cuba that you felt were ideal. Two different answers, first part i can agree with you, some people can be happier in a less developed society to a degree. We have to realize most of the things with quality of life come with development. Whether its life he can expectancy, infant mortality. Some people could be happier with Less Development than something elsement Empirical Literature that does the happiness stuff is junk science. Its the equivalent of me getting punched in the nose and tice mike tyson getting punched in the nose and saying how much did that heard and adding it together median scale. Its a mistake to equate happiness with material wellbeing. A good example in the history of socialism. The soviet union when was created in 1917. The soviet people, the russian people got richer, they got richer, very quickly, and the forced industrialization, in fact, brought russia into a more modern capacity, but it they killed 50 million people, but the country developed and people got richer in a lot of material ways, but i dont think too many of them were happier, so it goes both ways, i guess what im saying. You can develop and have happy people developing, but you can develop in a way that really creates a lot of misery along the way. The means matter a lot. Having said that, it is also true that the happiness literature finds that as countries grow richer, people get happier. It doesnt mean its not junk. That may be so, but the actual literature does find that if youre willing to take that literature seriously. Well take one more question from the front here. Wait for the microphone, plea please. When you think about it this is not what i say, to say that this is what told me in personal conversation and he was saying this because when he was he was full of romantic, you know, socialist. Nevertheless, lets say in 1950 or 40, now, you know, people have become interested again in the idea of socialism, why . Because socialism appears to our region or because appeals to our emotion . I remember what gustof labon said, what kind of people become interested in socialism and he says people who cannot find a place in modern civilization and then they tend to become socialists and what is their purpose . Should we destroy the institution we have, in other words, destroy the civilization . And he said there is no answer for that, you know, so what do you think if there is no answer . He says the cause is because most of the people are indifferent to this problem and he says the only thing we can do is be patient, dont panic, but keep on tolerate so i wonder if you have any answer gustof labons pessimism. So and this is related to the happiness question as well. Some recently alexandria ocasiocortez said that her generation had never known prosperity. I think bob lawson could help. By any conceivable measure were living in the most profitable, most opportunistic, most beautiful times in the history of the universe, but understanding the context for what she can say Something Like that. She grew up watching wall street get bailed out. Her generation grew up saddled with 20, 50, 100,000 worth of college debt and theres a lot of reasons why from her perspective things could suck, even though things are the best theyve ever been. So appreciating the context where people are coming from, i think is part of the key of understanding why they think that socialism might be better, but i dont think its about economics at all and i dont think that most people process the world that they live in through economic calculation facts and figures. She also famously said its more important to be morally right than factually correct. We all laugh at that, but shes making sort of a valuesbased point about how a lot of people that are attracted to her sort of ideas process the world. So understanding where the other side is coming from and not just hitting them with that the laws of supply and demand is probably the First Step Towards making that connection. Ill just say prague matically since were sort of ending on this, what bob and i did, wrote a book. We used the supply and demand and drank a lot of beer and talked to people who might want to listen and learn economics and history along the way. Nice plug. And where can we buy this book . Its available on amazon right now, social sucks, lawton and powell. Thank you for joining us. Im looking at hopefully the next book will be nationalism sucks, join us for lunch and beer. Cheers, everybody. Week nights this month, were featuring book tv perhaps showcasing whats available every weekend here on cspan2. Tonight, our focus is the founding fathers, first former george w. Bush president ial speech Writer Jonathan horn on his book washingtons end, about George Washingtons final years. And alexis conever forget your first, chronicling the life of the first president and franklin and washington, about the relationship between Benjamin Franklin and george washington. Watch book tv every weekend here on cspan2. Television has changed since cspan began 41 years ago, but our mission continues, to provide an unfiltered view of government. Already this year, weve brought you primary coverage, the president ial impeachment process and now the federal response to the coronavirus. You can watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television, online or listen on our free radio app and be part of the National Conversation through cspans daily Washington Journal Program or through our social media feed. Cspan created by private industry, americas Cable Television companies, as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Next, journalist kate aronoff on the history of socialism and what democratic socialism might look like in america. Its the subject of her book we own the future, democratic socialism american style. This event was hosted by