one highly segregated history of chicago expanded to the west side there were lots o of factories and lots of jobs, and now because of the regulations of various kinds, it's not. it is a free zone. there are some streets were people by sheer act of will kept the street in good condition and they are not going to allow anyone to, but then for the most part it's very sad. >> for most place places it is t than brazil or egypt and takes mom is. it's going to be a business license in the famous case of terror in your living braiding hair you need a state to license why should people have to jump through these hoops there were lots of successful businesses and then increasing regulation, very meaning, some people wanted to help and ended up hurting the poor people. thank god in chicago they don't have rent control because that is one thing that hurt poor people but they have enough and it could be so easily fixed if you had made it an enterprise zone where you didn't have to be regularly taxed. disconnected and the trump added incubate coadministration regulate? >> i don'too think so. because i don't approve of mr. trump at all and although on the one hand he's got some people in his administration deregulating, which as it is done intelligently as a good idea, the federal government house one belly and separate regulations that's kind of cra crazy. i'm so ashamed i'm going to organize a group of us to turn him in protest. >> host: in 2016 in your book, b you vote even trump the businessman does a good by doing well. >> guest: when he does well, but he hasn't done well. if he had taken the $400 million he got one way or another from his father and hav and had inveo the randomly chosen stock portfolio, his network would be higher than it is because trump casino and the university, and they all failed. this is something bloomberg pointed out during the campaign. he was a poor boy when he started and he became rich by doing well by doing good. that is the way it is. if you are in business of choosing well, you make profits that the only way is if people like yourself, they don't like trump steaks or they find the trump university degree is fraudulent, that reduces everyone. >> host: isn't capitalism and the economic system about taking risk? >> guest: yes, it is. so you make a mistake then you get hit with it. trump makes mistakes all the time and business and loses overtime by the miracle of the electoral college that as a business man is terrible. >> host: how do you define your economic philosophy? >> guest: i am a liberal in my root sense of the work. iword. it comes from latin,ns which mes a three-person -- and this is in the mind is when they use the word as contrasted one very simple way of describing true liberalism is to say that everyone has the right to say no. that's all. the right to say no. and that means that you don't have to -- if you are a one and woman you don't have to agree and if you are an employee and don't't like it, you can leave. i'm reading a wonderful book by i forget his name but the novel about a soviet union and people couldn't say no. they were being bossed around by someone not voluntarily. i was an employee. we did what our bosse with our d we do and that is really fundamental so the other way of talking about true liberalism is the series of an adult society and economy whereas many of the other options, left or right even social democracy, and i think it's good. it doesn't mean we shouldn't help people. i call myself a christian liberal. >> host: back to why liberalism works. i understan understand that the progressive point of view and i can't remember it attraction as one peruses the pages of the nation or the latest, it feels like one is doing good. >> host: it wasn't that great screen.ebateded last summer in a i think people who feel they want to do something for t the poor should do something for the poor instead of just feeling good about reading "the new yorm times" and thinking yes, i'm a good person. i care about the poor. for example, they should help the homeless as i have. i have some with me for four and a half years. the doesn't meet me a saint it just makes me a person that wants to put my money where my mouth is. but the key point is to let the poor people be free so that they can work and travel and live. that is probably because in your town you can't build a house without a large lot. that is to keep poor people, that's what it's for. going back to what liberalism works and here is a close you will tell us when he was in a minute but the public policy should be designed to advance the moral instincts we all reject every day of our lives. >> guest: not havin >> guest: not having to put money where your mouth is and not pushing people around, there are people that are much better in the administration then im. of course the people can leave if they don't like your management techniques or style, but in any case, people shouldn't like being nasty. the bus driver is wonderful and will givwelcomes people onto thd goes through the snow and slush off chicago the university of illinois chicago. >> i finished my trilogy on the economic and social history last few centuries and finished this book that came out in the fall of why liberalism works and i have a new book coming out from chicago from the university of chicago press in the fall which is kind of a version of the leave me alone and i will make you rich. [laughter] you talked about your trilogy and the virtues of the dignity and the most recent, the a quality. what is theio definition of british law. >> guest: it is the french word for [inaudible] and usually to mean the leaders of the town and the merchants and manufacturers and so forth. it was the common term for the class in english before the phrase middle class became common and they started calling them middle-class before the basic idea of the ability and everyone else. like my grandfather, he was contentious and an electrical contractor and it's an honorable thing to do. >> and wiring of airports. it makes a mythology that makes the tale that is the especially in the history of the soviet union. you make money by doing things people like. >> host: to go to the virtues, however, quote, the christian gospels attack while suppressing the partially by the standards of the rest of the worldt of religious and it's not surprising therefore that in the 19th century, the christian europe invented the idea of socialists. >> guest: it is a secularized version of christianity and many, many ways the apocalypse of the revolution and marxism is very similar to the up and coming of christ. the first ideology among soviet communists in china that when they were sent to the prison camp, they thought it was okay because it must be the party the party knows, and there is a very similar attitude in some versions of christianity and there is a certain protestant element to it as well, and it is quite strange that the most successful economically is spread throughout the world in this ideology of anti-wealth. i just reread the translation of the whole thing and it's not that long. it's a short book. and it's a very social to supplement a christianity was abandoned into this kind of quality and consumption is very sensible and it doesn't make sense. it never has. when it's about friends or family, it works, socialism i'm talking about. >> host: you identify as a long-time agnostic and found they were a christian liberal, liberal small l..ng would have had? >> guest: i changed gender 1995 and in the years after that, i told there was something more that i needed to look into, so i went to the catholics and the unitarians and i didn't like the end then i found episcopalian is on because we couldn't go on calling it anglo after the american revolution an and it suited me very well. in fact right from the beginning it was a middle road between roman catholicism and puritan. >> host: what is it about you that suits you, the customs, beliefs? >> guest: it's the whole spirit of the anglican church that i like. in the united states we are called the frozen chosen because in virginia especially in the upper class and new york for that matter, i, in the upper-cls episcopalian, but the frozen chosen its claim that you don't need to really believe in anything, that you do the ceremonies. you come to church, you do the maths -- >> host: the smells and bells. >> guest: that of a small church. i had a congregation in iowa once and a while we would do that which is kind of funny. but it's a very flexible framework because it's the journey. you don't have to believe in virgithevirgin birth to be a prg non-christian. it's ars practicing that matter. that which is true of economic performance. you don't need to be a theorist of the economy to be an electrical contractor. you just do your job, and you might learn on it after a while thaothers mutual advantage. i keep trying to unify my thinking to see what cross-fertilization there is. i have a paper i'm working on right now about the theological free will, as i think they are connected. they are not opposed as so many modern american or european theologians think. you don't have to be a socialist to be a christian. >> host: let's go back to the trilogy, and this is the virtues. i agree with my favorite marxist economist, named the fulbright, that education should be financed from the center. care and child care should be extended and state financed that in a heretic taxes should be steeped in welfare eliminated in and that military expenditures should be cut to a franey. the tiny fraction of the modest minimum income should be given to every american as the tax law should encourage both men and women combined, paid work with family community work. we followers of adam smith are egalitarians. is there anything in there somewhere? >> guest: nancy is a professor at the university of massachusetts and should get the nobel prize but she is of the left and i'm not. i dreamt i saw joe but as i said, i am a christian liberal which means that i acknowledge a responsibility that they have towards the poor that they can't just take a kind of country club view. all of the losers i don't care about them, i've got my cabala all is well in the world, so i'm all of the policy proposals nancy makes on the left, i agree with. i may not agree on the scale she wants to do them on butwe i agre we should help poor people and n pregnant women and so forth that there should be not exist in people's face, but an openhanded health and that is consistent with capital was some. when you think about this, the capitalist transaction we buy a cup of coffee and it's mutually advantageous in both people are active but furthermore if you make a habit of going to the coffee shop you actually become friends. commerce creates in the same way church creates friendship. they are not forcing each other to things, they are allowed to say no and out of that comes with the 18th century and speed commerce. you've got to pay your taxes and if you don't, we are going to put you in jail. i don't like coercion and i never have. >> host: you say you don't like the word of thest capitali. the word capitalist was used and eawas modified to mean not just rich and investors which is what the word say around 1800 to mean the sole group of people who are the bosses, and then after marx, capitalists and capitalism became the characterization of our commercial society is a terrible word academically and intellectually and scientifically. if convinced economists whether conservative or whatever and marxists and everyone else is the spring of the gears are necessary in the investment and so on but the motive comes from the spring and the spring in modern life for a life two is enormously expanded innovation and this is the view of economics but i'm coming to take the kind of economics i've done for many years is misleading because it looks a bit capital. i thought that it was motivational if i were speaking in brazil a couple of days ago and said to them maybe if they don't like what youtube is very good and you choose among the creator, but you are not the creator and that's why under liberalism first and then slowly women, catholics, what better right down to the remarkable feat of transgendered people. all that work to encourage, bring encourage and it had this amazing effect. income in real terms, the ability to buy stuff you to go to the university 3000%, not 100%, 200%, 3000% and that is from the release of human creativity and free society. >> host: in a general sense we are having a debate about capitalism and socialism and this isn't the first time. >> guest: it has been going on since the middle of the 19th century. they say let's try socialism, and bernie, i don't hate bernie, who could, he is a very charming person. he had died, he was a freshman at the university of chicago in 1960, i was a freshman and we didn't know each other at the time, but at the time, we had more or less the same opinion about the capitalism.e, i prefer to call it speed to which is an accurate word sent, but we both wanted to overthrow capitalism and he was i think probably more systematic than i was. i read half of the comments i manifestoes and thought that was enough, not quite sure. and when it was a hero of mine when i was 16. we had the same opinion and people say that it's consistently wrong. we've tried socialism. as i said, socialism appropriately works in a family. it works among small groups of friends and should. pizza is share with five of my friends, i paid for this, i'm going to eat a bowl, that is and what friends do, but in a big society, 330 million people it doesn't work. the capitalism, no, that is the top capitalism is what i established in my book, and it's not what made the economy which which is what i guess i blushed in the second volume and it's not tested the society which i argued inwh the third book. >> host: when somebody like to invite an author and talk to him or her about the body of work and at thi this month is economs scholar and retired professor of. and here's just a sampling of the 23, 24 books beginning with rhetoric of economics, crossing the transgendered memoir came out in 1999, the bourgeois virtues came out in 26, 2010 and 2016. economical writing the third edition came out last year, as did the most recent why liberalism works, and we quoted a littlquote alittle bit from t. if we are acquainted with the phone lines on the screen if you would like to participate this afternoon, (202)748-2200 for those in the east and central time zones. (202)748-8201 for those in the mountain and pacific time zones and you can also send a text message if you can't get through, just include your first name and city, 20274882. the 003. we will also look for the social media sites because you can make a comment on pace for corporate or o or by e-mail as well. and we will get to those very quickly. first, what is this piece of paper that i'm holding up your? >> guest: i'm an engineer at heart. it's the scientific attitude when we issued quantitative and you ask how many words i've written so we need an estimate as it turned out to mature but i said this 3 million. >> host: you are doing the tenth to the ninth power. >> guest: because i can't not multiply very well. >> was co- and i also want to -- this is a quote from you in the chronicle of higher education. quote, i am a starter and i've noticenoticed that they are oftd writers, george hill, updike, lewis carroll, etc., starters avoid words that they think or know they will walk out and therefore are good at finding another discussion. >> guest: a terribly important discussion of this in the current policy is joe biden. i learned about a month ago which revealed he is a lot like me a lifetime stutterer. people want to know this because his strange way of talking in many of his early political campaigns he would miss state te state of things in a funny way and it's because he's stutteri stuttering. he is avoiding it. the advantage that i am claiming is that people who stutter you get a very good thinking of parallel words. speaking to a friend in brazil the difference in english between say and tell, i said go to sleep and i'm telling you go to sleep and we discovered the words tell house and authority to it. i'm telling you go toca bed nowo that kind of goes on all the time and as i get older, i get p -- as a professional and supposed to talk all the time as a teacher. at the months after i decided to change gender for about two months, my stutter vanished. i didn't even notice it. people said they didn't know i was going to do this, i told my family and very few others, and iar said i hadn't heard you fora few months, what's going on. and i said i guess it's because i realized who i am. >> host: november 2, 1995 on a bridge in cedar rapids, what happened? >> guest: it wasn't quite in cedar rapids, it was a couple of months earlier i had what i called ill advise advised to den epiphany driving home from chicago to iowa city where i lived, and it hits me i could change it should and what is als all about it and kind of stran strange. you might have tenure at the famous person of economics at the university chicago. i have doubts about that. i think on the whole they worked out for me, but i have doubts about that, who you marry, what profession you choose. i haven't had a moment of doubt in the most vulnerable times of day when you wake up at four in the morning. i am here, get used to it. >> host: page 188 of crossing, quote, donald has never left his the way some people do. didn't care when it lasts in australia, she said goodbye to it and didn't care any time afterwards. >> guest: i have a dear friend who said i would do anything, hide anywhere in the world to avoid something in the world that you are welcoming. >> host: let's hear from the viewers. chris in connecticut, you are on. >> caller: hello, chris. >> caller: how are you today? >> guest: kind of exhausted i just came from brazil. >> caller: welcome. >> i was wondering there seems to be a lot of confusion between a welfare state and socialist state. can you elaborate more on what you see a welfare state and socialist state is and i will take my answer off the air. >> host: what is your definition? >> guest: i'm not sure anymore. i've had conversations with friends and neighbors and we can't seem to come to a conclusion except to say a lot of european countries would be considered more of a welfare state and you look a duplicate t to venezuela or the old soviet union ispt more of a socialist state. >> guest: i think that is a sensible distinction. there is a kind of extreme version of not allowing people toay say no which is the socialt state and just reading a wonderful novel of a soviet novelist called forever flowing which is a chilling account of the gulags and the numerous ways in which they were being tossed around by other soviet, but you can view liberalism in that nobody should be a slave to, not a wife to husband were slave to a master or an assent to this date. you are a slave and i don't just mean metaphorical but you were going to get beaten on mondays, every monday. you've are still a slave. so, you know i think that is a role for the government, and i think that many of the welfare programs that we have are bad for the people as i explained earlier sometimes a, and in any case, there are welfare programs towards the middle class people who run the welfare programs that arrived to the poor. my idea of a good welfare program would be to give people income if not by coercing the private enterprise to pay for it, but by taxing units need to give money to the poor, period. that would be satisfactory. and the problem in the welfare state is that is keeps merging the words coercing people. in holland and england and they are much more welfare states and so much mor