The first is this. Government is not a value neutral enterprise that should be open for everybody to use depending on whether they get voted into office or whetherthey control the government. Its not value neutral. There is a right sort of government, a good sort of government, beneficial sort of government and theres an evil sort of government, a wrong sort of government in a destructive government and that really matters. As i said i think the distinction is ignored in the context of cronyism. What is being ignored ultimately is governments proper purpose. The idea is this. He idea is government is just, its a value neutral enterprise and whoever wins the lottery called elections get to use it for their purposes. What is the essential point behind back . Its this. Its might makes right. If i hold the reins of power is pretty much get to use power however i want and the government power which is the power of force. What we need to do to have a proper government is to subordinate the right. We have to understand that government has a limited proper role. That brings me to the second which is the essential principle of individual rights. Again i dont want to go into a great amount of detail on this but the essential point is this, government is only acting properly if its protecting rights rather than destroying rice or destroying individuals ability to be free. What rights get us the freedom to thrive, to pursue our lives, to produce, to pursue happiness and to live. O the purpose of government is to prevent our rights from being violated in the way the government does that is by using force only against those who would violate our rights those who would initiate force. If government goes beyond this in any way and tries to get people not just the pursuit of happiness and the freedom to pursue happiness but actual actual happiness the only thing it can do is in effect plunder other people. That is the essential point and the essential thing we need to understand about cronyism. I referred to it earlier as a formof legalized plunder and i think thats a really apt term. The real evil here has to be and we have to focus on those who would use government the way a mobster does or the way somebody who pays the mobster to achieve our goal. Thats a real essential my point the broader question and it is a broader question here in a free society is there any such thing as corrupting the government or what is the role of bribery laws and had we think about those issues he or . Im going to set those aside and if people want to ask me about my thoughts about that theres a lot to talk about it would be happy to address it. My fundamental point is that this is an issue and what we have to do is criticize the improper use of government power not simply the effort to influence government at all. Think about it like this. When we think about where we talk about the issue of cronyism or what the real evil here is hat Something Like businessmen are trying to get favors. Weignore the fact that sometimes those favors are favors end quote are a guy trying to prevent himself from being destroyed by the very government that is supposed to protect him. Ometimes those favors, and or aors in quotes are a guy group of individuals trying to use the government to destroy somebody else. Theres a really important distinction between the two and its entirely up scared in this issue of cronyism. We ignored entirely. What happens . I mentioned the idea earlier of blaming the victim. So let me talk about that just a little bit. If you think about it when we talk about government corruption and croneyism. Who is tipcally who has the finger pointed at them . I have quoted a number of people earlier across the political spectrum and it seems pretty clear to me that the great villain all the time his business and especially big business. The idea is biggest bad and businesses are always out to use government power for their own advantage and at the disadvantage of others. But there is never a proper understanding of the fact that some businesses or private individuals or private interest so to speak, they have no other choice. We cant ignore that. We have to Pay Attention to the act that the real evil here is sing government in effect to plunder, to steal. Welllets put some more flesh on those bones to redistribute income from one person to another, to put up barriers to businesss ability to compete, to regulate and restrict businesses and prevent them from engaging in business in any kind of an economical way. Let me just give you one quick example. Lets go back to Drug Companies. People complain that Drug Companies in the medical profession in general, the medical device business captured the fda and is using it to their own benefit against others. Here is how i think about that. If i were a drug company and i had to spend billions and billions of dollars trying to get drugs approved, beneficial drugs that people want to buy, and run through the fdas gauntlet i would try to capture it too. I dont blame businesses for trying to do this. Now you can say this whole process is unseemly. I wish it didnt exist. I certainly wish it didnt exist. I wish that businesses didnt have to spend and all sortsof private interest, to want to seem like the only ones affected our business but business is a culprit and held out as the evil bad guy so its worth focusing on. I dont want to suggest that the process is a good thing or or the phenomenon is a good thing. But i really cant blame businesses for doing it. Its difficult evento blame businesses like tesla who are in a sense looking for the best deal from some government because not only does everybody do it but they are operating in a context in which there are so many regulations in such a web of laws that they have to deal with that oftentimes its impossible to figure out how it started, who is the good guy and hes the bad guy and what what is that this is supposed to do . That is what they face. Inability to do business without dealing with government. You can blame them for doing it. Now you can blame people and you ought to blame people whose goal here is to use government to achieve unearned benefits or to destroy their competitors. Butdecision. Evil, now if we dont make that distinction but think about what the consequences of this are. This is one quick consequence i want to go into that is not otherwise obvious and then i will finish by talking a bit about our conception of government and what leads to or allows for the prevalence of this issue of cronyism and what i would call Pressure Group. Consider for a moment if you consider this issue a matter of bad people rather than a flawed system and that ideas that lead to it whats the logical result of . Let me read another quote and i sense of it and ill talk about it. This is the new republic reacting to many on the right criticizing cronyism. Here is what they say. They say quote if conservatives want to improve transparency or curb lobbying so the corporations find it harder to manipulate the political system there is a vast network of progressive leaning Good Government organizations working on that cause already. Ow, i suckle a little bit. Progressive meaning Good Government organization. I litigated campaignfinance laws for longtime championing free speech and that this guy is talking about her all the organizations who want to clamp down on political speech these days. My broader point is that is what he is saying. He is saying what we need to do if conservatives are against this lets join hands and pass more restrictions on peoples ability to influence politics which a couple of examples of this in Citizens United case which you may have heard about at issue was a film that criticized hillary clinton. That is what theyre talking about when they talk about political speech or influencing campaigns. Its people criticizing government. And to the extent that and i can talk more about this in a question period but very recently congress and this will continue Congress Constitutional amendment that would change the First Amendment to allow congress to impose reasonable regulations on political speech. Hat is what this is all about. This is if you dig down a bit deeper this is the logic of this new republic author statement. As i said before i think this is entirely logical. Its indefensible, from a constitutional and i would saymoral standpoint. We have to check your premises here and say wait a minute we are talking about restricting free speech in our ability to restrict government. If you accept the idea that the problem is that people influencing a good system but its an entirely logical result. What are you doing bad people are corrupting something . To pass laws to prevent them from corrupting. So the logical quens if wedont challenge the root of thinking about cronyism is greater restrictions on our free speech or at least the pressure to restrict their free speech and ultimately to restrict our ability to influence the government which is a Foundation Principle of a free country. So with that let me move on and i hope i have motivated you to think more about this issue if you care about it than to think he right way about it. I want to talk about one final thing. Why do we get into this way of thinking about government . One reason at the micro level is that people dont understand the nature of government power and they dont understand that government should be based on what the declaration of independence says switches governments are instituted protect life liberty and property. Thats one component that theres another component at issue here. Let me characterize it as follows. You have heard the term power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I put a spin on that and say democracy corrupts absolutely. The point being if we really think of our government is a democracy and i will explain why this is, this Interest Group warfare is absolutely unavoidable. To do that let me ask you to think of again a common they are looking for something in return. They want to give Financial Support and are looking for return benefit in the form of egislation that is valuable to those businesses and then he asks isnt this obviously a form of corruption and . I think a lot of people would look at it like that. They would say that thing is corrupt. Here is what i want to ask. Why do we think that thats corruption . Why do we think that thats corrupt . Witticisms why . What does corruption main . It means the basement, defilement and destruction of something. How do you have a view of corruption if you dont first have a few of propriety or if you think about it in terms of the deceased body corrupted by disease of germs, you wouldnt know when something is corrupt. You cant think i dont have any idea what the good looks like but what the corrupt version of that looks like. Let me ask you. How can we give the government that we actually have today as corrupt just because individuals individuals, sorry. How can we view the process of a businessman or corporation for private interests trying to access government officials to Campaign Donations or lobbying as corrupt . The reason i asked it that way is i want you to think about not the government as it is conceived of in the constitution declaration of independence but the government would actually have. Think about it like this. So every election seas do we not hear some variant of the following . Vote for me and i will tax the middle class to pay for benefits for the elderly or vote for me and i will tax the elderly and the middle class to pay for benefits for students lets say, student loan forgiveness. Vote for me and i will favor labor over business and i will pass laws that restrict the ability to freely associate with people because thats good for labor unions or vote for me and i will favor of business over labor. Vote for me and i will favor American Companies over foreign companies. Vote for me and i will favor the farmers over i dont know wall street by and what you ultimately get to is this idea that the purpose of government is to hand out favors or to hand out essential to bilk some people with taxes or regulation and redistribute benefits to other people. So i ask you how can you consider any one instance of this to be corrupt without thinking that the entire system s corrupt . How can we view the process of a businessman or corporation for private interests trying to access government officials to Campaign Donations or lobbying access government officials through Campaign Donations or through lobbying as corrupt. And i will tax the middle class to pay for benefits for the elderly or vote for me and ill tax the elderly and the middle class to pay for benefits for students, lets say. Student loan fehr giveness. Vote for me and i will favor labor over businesses, right, and ill pass laws that restrict the ability to freely associate with people because thats good for labor. What you ultimately get to is this idea that the purpose of government is to hand out favors or to hand out essentially billing some people with taxes or regulation and redistribute benefits. How can we consider any one instance of this to be corrupt without thinking that the entire system is corrupt. What is the idea at the root of this view of government . Every election season for politicians to appeal to people but it or me so i can is this idea that the purpose of government is to do what . Solve the will of the serve the will of the people, right . Every election system we vote on who droles reins or power and then they go out and they you know, they supposedly serve all the various interests in society. In practice, what does this ultimately mean . To cut to the chase, if youre a businessman, lets say, or a union or any of the other interests i talk about, what is your natural approach to this going to be . Are you going to sit still and say, ok, ill be destroyed by the government and if the election goes the wrong way, hats the way that went. Of ier i said that our form government makes cronyism and this kind of what i would call legal plunder and Pressure Group warfare inevitable. Under a system in which we really believe that the purpose of the government is to serve the will of the majority or there are other terms for this, the Public Interest, i referred to this before, the Public Interest which suggests that were just one gigantic mass and the government is going to serve all our interests regardless of what they may be. The results of that is a kind of mad dash like a you know, one hour sale where prices are its a tax or be taxed, kill or be killed mentality. Everybody suddenly becomes a threat to my ability to live, thrive, produce, and be happy. Whats the natural result . Of course, peel are going to encombage many this process. How can we say, number one, one instance of this is corrupt but not all instances of this are corrupt. In short, my point is, democracy is the system of corruption. When we conceptualize government, we think about it as its purpose is to serve the will of the majority or some nebulous view of Public Interest we bake right into our view of government the kind of bruppings corruption and corruption and cronyism that everybody is complaining afternoon the ream injustice is that almost always, its precisely the people who were complaining loudest about that sort of corruption that are promoting this view of government. Theyre the ones that support the idea that this is a democracy not a limited constitutional republic. Under a limited government, government is limited to one essential thing, which is protecting your right to live, thrive, and be happy by preventing anybody from acting like the mobster that i talked about before, by abolishing the use of force in human affairs. Cept to protect people the role of the government is not to engage in legalized plunder. When it does, we cant be surprised that people view that as the purpose of government, that they start to see government as very much like the mobster in my example. Except, you know, nothing personal, its just business, right . Eats just business, its ok. That leads inexorableably to the type of cronyism and Pressure Group warfare that people are complained about. If we want to solve the problem, we have to number one think about differently about 2k3w069 and number two, limit government. If i have to boil my talk into two points, if you take away nothing else, at least take away these two points. Number one, the idea of cronyism mixes together good and bad. It is tantamount to blaming victims and ignoring criminals or people who want to use government power to destroy. And that is a massive injustice and it perpetuates the problem. The mobster gets to travel under the idea that the real problem here isnt him being a mobster. Its you trying to influence me, right so you get the blame for that. Thats the first issue to take away. Second issue is baked right into our concept of government. So long as we view governments role as essentially dividing us, which is the practical effect, dividing us would warring factions or warring Interest Groups, corruption will be the rule, or the use of force against one person, one person against another, and warring Interest Groups, legal plunder, the only option. Perhaps a better word for the term that people refer to, or the term they use, cronyism, i would say instead of croney capitalism, which is a horrible term. The better term would be croney statism, statism being the system in which the individual is subordinated to the group or the state, but actually, thats redundant, in my view, because the real essential evil here is that form of government. You really want to pinpoint what the problem is, when people talk about cron anyism, it is the view that the state is supreme and individuals are subordinate. If we want to fix this problem, the only solution ultimately is, i would sum it up as, leave us the hell alone, ok. Let us pursue our lives, let us produce, let us trade, ultimately let us be free. Thanks. [applause] all right. Questions. And i think we want to wait for the there we go. So over here . Why dont we start over here and well move sort of across the room. That will make it a lot easier for the ok. So ive been thinking as you were talking about this line between whats selfdefense versus Companies Going on the offense, and i was trying to think where can i identify, w