WEBVTT NOTE The Anticapitalists: Barbarians at the Gate 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.600 I would now like to introduce our Mises Memorial Lecturer, Larry J. Seacrest. 2 00:00:05.600 --> 00:00:12.100 Larry is Professor of Economics and Director of the Free Enterprise Institute at Sol Ross University in Alpine, Texas. 3 00:00:12.100 --> 00:00:16.900 He's a foundation scholar with the Foundation for the Advancement of Monetary Education in New York City, 4 00:00:16.900 --> 00:00:20.300 a research fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California, 5 00:00:20.300 --> 00:00:25.200 and an adjunct scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, 6 00:00:25.200 --> 00:00:30.200 as well as being a former fellow of both the Mises Institute and the Institute for Humane Studies 7 00:00:30.200 --> 00:00:31.920 in Fairfax, Virginia. 8 00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:36.200 He also serves as a trustee of the Free Radical Foundation in Wellington, New Zealand 9 00:00:36.200 --> 00:00:38.520 How'd you get that gig? 10 00:00:38.520 --> 00:00:43.880 and on the board of advisors of the Defense of Freedom Foundation in Newport Beach, California. 11 00:00:43.880 --> 00:00:45.000 He is listed in 12 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:47.600 Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in America, 13 00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:50.920 Who's Who in Business and Finance, and Who's Who in American 14 00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:51.920 Education, 15 00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:57.960 The Global Economics and Finance, Who's Who's Directory Online, The 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals 16 00:00:57.960 --> 00:01:03.440 of the 21st Century, The Guide to Public Policy Experts, published by the Heritage Foundation, 17 00:01:03.440 --> 00:01:08.520 and in the 1996, 1998 and 2005 editions of Who's Who Among America's Teachers. 18 00:01:08.520 --> 00:01:13.640 In addition, he has been elected to membership in the prestigious New York Academy of Sciences. 19 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:19.240 He is a member of the editorial boards of the quarterly journal of Austrian Economics, 20 00:01:19.240 --> 00:01:25.860 The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies and the ICFAI Journal of Public Finance. 21 00:01:25.860 --> 00:01:31.560 His BA, MA and PhD are all from the University of Texas at Arlington where his undergraduate 22 00:01:31.560 --> 00:01:35.860 work was in history and philosophy with graduate work in economics and finance. 23 00:01:35.860 --> 00:01:41.700 His research interests include monetary theory, business cycles, economic theory, maritime 24 00:01:41.700 --> 00:01:44.360 history and law and economics. 25 00:01:44.360 --> 00:01:47.360 So I present Professor C. Crest. 26 00:01:47.360 --> 00:01:51.360 Thank you, Bill. Appreciate it. 27 00:01:56.360 --> 00:01:59.360 Well, this is fun. 28 00:01:59.360 --> 00:02:04.360 First, let me say very quickly, thanks to everybody at the Mises Institute, 29 00:02:04.360 --> 00:02:10.360 to Lou, to Jeff, to Pat, how much I appreciate being invited. 30 00:02:10.360 --> 00:02:21.520 One thing is abundantly clear. Both the spirit and the genius of Ludwig von Mises are alive 31 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:27.080 and well here at the Mises Institute. The breadth and depth of the scholarship encountered 32 00:02:27.080 --> 00:02:34.560 at these annual conferences is indeed remarkable. Indeed, the transdisciplinary nature of much 33 00:02:34.560 --> 00:02:41.700 Much of this work may be unique in the academic world. Mises would, I believe, be enormously 34 00:02:41.700 --> 00:02:48.220 proud of the research being carried on in his name, even and perhaps especially by those 35 00:02:48.220 --> 00:02:53.120 whose conclusions diverge in some particulars from his own. 36 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:58.460 Guido Huelsmann's masterful biography, Mises' The Last Night of Liberalism, has carefully 37 00:02:58.460 --> 00:03:04.360 documented the fact that this was truly a man of the mind, a man utterly devoted to 38 00:03:04.360 --> 00:03:07.200 and the Pursuit of Truth. 39 00:03:07.200 --> 00:03:11.600 Now Ayn Rand once made an observation that I think is very germane to Mises, though it 40 00:03:11.600 --> 00:03:16.340 appeared in the context of discussing educational theories. 41 00:03:16.340 --> 00:03:24.480 She exhorted her readers to, quote, observe also the intensity, the austere, the unsmiling 42 00:03:24.480 --> 00:03:30.440 seriousness, with which an infant watches the world around him. 43 00:03:30.440 --> 00:03:37.400 And if you ever find in an adult that degree of seriousness about reality, you will have 44 00:03:37.400 --> 00:03:41.400 found a great man. 45 00:03:41.400 --> 00:03:47.440 Well in his pursuit of truth, this great man, Mises, unfailingly exhibited what I like to 46 00:03:47.440 --> 00:03:51.600 think of as dignified ruthlessness. 47 00:03:51.600 --> 00:03:55.880 To comprehend complex phenomena was what was important. 48 00:03:55.880 --> 00:04:02.280 To grasp reality was the objective that fueled Mises's life. Not popularity, not winning 49 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:09.760 debates, not currying political favor, that's for sure. Moreover, this quest was to be undertaken 50 00:04:09.760 --> 00:04:16.160 within an interpersonal context of civility and even elegance. 51 00:04:16.160 --> 00:04:23.800 Now all that is so alien to our present world. Today, the kind of impregnable integrity that 52 00:04:23.800 --> 00:04:33.400 that Mises possessed is decried as dogmatism, because truth is thought to be limitlessly malleable. 53 00:04:33.400 --> 00:04:39.920 His sort of aristocratic grace is slandered as elitist and reactionary, because so many 54 00:04:39.920 --> 00:04:47.120 collectivists are mesmerized by all things proletarian. His deep concern with the epistemological 55 00:04:47.120 --> 00:05:06.120 The fundamental foundations of economics is demeaned as pedantic babbling, because ours, tragically, is a humane world in which the profundity of the law of causality is routinely brushed aside in favor of the glamour of statistical correlation. 56 00:05:06.120 --> 00:05:25.120 The heroic defense of laissez-faire capitalism is dismissed as being out of touch with reality, on the grounds that, what, that such an economic system is callous, crass, wasteful, inequitable, and exploitative, not to mention insensitive to real human needs. 57 00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:30.480 It is this last issue, capitalism, in Mises' powerful defense of it, as well as both the 58 00:05:30.480 --> 00:05:36.660 grave implications of the common assaults on capitalism, as well as the characteristics 59 00:05:36.660 --> 00:05:41.680 of those assailants that I wish to examine today. 60 00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:48.540 Allow me first to state clearly what I mean by capitalism. Now, it is true that I would 61 00:05:48.540 --> 00:05:55.540 We can shrink the state by more than would Mises, but we have the same broad objective. 62 00:05:55.540 --> 00:06:04.540 I mean a totally unregulated laissez-faire capitalist economic system, one in which property rights are sacred, 63 00:06:04.540 --> 00:06:12.540 where profit-seeking is seen as a noble enterprise, where money is a symbol of honorable achievement, 64 00:06:12.540 --> 00:06:19.900 of being castigated as some sordid tool used only by those devoid of humane qualities. 65 00:06:19.900 --> 00:06:24.460 It is liberalism in the classical sense, of course, applied to the everyday business of 66 00:06:24.460 --> 00:06:26.580 life. 67 00:06:26.580 --> 00:06:31.960 Recall that Mises insisted once, quote, freedom is indivisible. 68 00:06:31.960 --> 00:06:38.300 He who has not the faculty to choose among various brands of canned food or soap is also 69 00:06:38.300 --> 00:06:43.700 Also deprived of the power to choose among various political parties and programs. 70 00:06:43.700 --> 00:06:46.740 He is no longer a man. 71 00:06:46.740 --> 00:06:51.540 He becomes a pawn in the hands of the supreme social engineer. 72 00:06:51.540 --> 00:06:57.980 Elsewhere, Mises declared that if he must compress it into one word, liberalism meant 73 00:06:57.980 --> 00:07:04.520 property, privately held and earnestly protected by law. 74 00:07:04.520 --> 00:07:11.320 In terms of concretes, by capitalism I mean an economy with no progressive taxes, no central 75 00:07:11.320 --> 00:07:20.320 bank, no pure paper currency, no drug prohibition, no gun prohibition, no affirmative action 76 00:07:20.320 --> 00:07:27.680 employment mandates for any ethnic group, no government-run healthcare, no federal departments 77 00:07:27.680 --> 00:07:39.340 of Education, Energy, Labor, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, DEA, BATFE, SEC, 78 00:07:39.340 --> 00:07:49.980 EPA, FTC, FDA, no minimum legal wage rates, no price controls, no tariffs, no welfare, 79 00:07:49.980 --> 00:07:57.260 neither foreign nor domestic, rural or urban, for the rich or for the poor. 80 00:07:57.260 --> 00:08:00.340 You know, a free economy. 81 00:08:00.340 --> 00:08:05.620 Parenthetically, I am constantly amazed by how often I hear people speak of the free 82 00:08:05.620 --> 00:08:11.460 market, but somehow manage to incorporate within that notion the presence of the Federal 83 00:08:11.460 --> 00:08:16.500 Reserve, Social Security, the IRS, ad nauseum. 84 00:08:16.500 --> 00:08:21.560 What part of the word free do they not comprehend? 85 00:08:21.560 --> 00:08:29.960 In any case, I for one obviously do not refer to that tortured, disfigured, tormented, twisted 86 00:08:29.960 --> 00:08:35.400 gargoyle which usually masquerades as capitalism today. 87 00:08:35.400 --> 00:08:42.040 Who would be willing to risk his life, liberty and sacred honor to protect and maintain that 88 00:08:42.040 --> 00:08:43.520 monstrosity? 89 00:08:43.520 --> 00:08:45.720 Not I, I assure you. 90 00:08:45.720 --> 00:08:51.280 If this be capitalism, then what drives so many people to oppose it so strongly? 91 00:08:51.280 --> 00:08:59.040 Indeed, how could anyone find capitalism objectionable once one realizes that it has, even in its 92 00:08:59.040 --> 00:09:05.040 attenuated form, increased the standard of living so dramatically that an average person 93 00:09:05.040 --> 00:09:11.640 now daily enjoys luxuries which hereditary monarchs could not boast of a mere 200 years 94 00:09:11.640 --> 00:09:12.640 ago? 95 00:09:12.640 --> 00:09:18.640 Well, Mises offers two basic answers to this question, envy and ignorance. 96 00:09:18.640 --> 00:09:22.640 First, regarding envy, he declares, quote, 97 00:09:42.640 --> 00:10:11.640 He elsewhere observed that, for many, feudalism actually offered psychological comforts, comforts, mind you, not available within capitalist society. 98 00:10:11.640 --> 00:10:20.640 In a society based on caste and status, the individual can ascribe adverse fate to conditions beyond his control. 99 00:10:20.640 --> 00:10:26.640 There is no reason for him to be ashamed of his humbleness. It is quite another thing under capitalism. 100 00:10:26.640 --> 00:10:31.640 Here, everybody stationed in life depends on his own doing. 101 00:10:31.640 --> 00:10:39.640 Envy and resentment, as we all know, has been condemned by virtually every known system of ethics, secular or religious. 102 00:10:39.640 --> 00:10:46.360 but yet it seems to lie hidden deep within some primitive part of a great many human psyches. 103 00:10:47.320 --> 00:10:53.880 That such emotions are in fact primitive is explored in detail by Helmut Schuck in his famous book 104 00:10:53.880 --> 00:10:59.560 Envy the Theory of Social Behavior. There he explains in memorable terms the mechanism at 105 00:10:59.560 --> 00:11:06.600 work so allow me to quote him because he puts it beautifully. What is decisive is the envious man's 106 00:11:06.600 --> 00:11:19.600 A man's conviction that the envied man's prosperity, his success, and his income are somehow to blame for the subject's deprivation, for the lack that he feels. 107 00:11:19.600 --> 00:11:31.600 A self-pitying inclination to contemplate another's superiority or advantages, combined with some vague belief in his being the cause of one's own deprivation. 108 00:11:31.600 --> 00:11:38.760 This is also to be found actually among educated members of our modern societies who really ought to know better. 109 00:11:38.760 --> 00:11:46.080 The primitive people's belief in black magic differs little from these modern ideas. 110 00:11:46.080 --> 00:11:50.600 Whereas the socialist believes himself robbed by the employer, 111 00:11:50.600 --> 00:11:56.840 just as the politician in the developing country believes himself robbed by the industrial countries, 112 00:11:56.840 --> 00:12:13.600 So primitive man believes himself robbed by his neighbor, the latter having succeeded by black magic in somehow spiriting away to his own fields, part of the former's harvest, end quote. 113 00:12:13.600 --> 00:12:20.680 Well, consider what follows if one couples this repugnant urge toward envy with a broad misperception of reality. 114 00:12:20.680 --> 00:12:33.680 That is, what if one fails to see that all economic and technological progress has been brought about by industrious individuals striving to apply reason to the problems of life? 115 00:12:33.680 --> 00:12:47.680 It is likely then that such progress will be thought of as some automatic gift from God or nature, and therefore that all humans deserve to share equally in these natural blessings. 116 00:12:47.680 --> 00:12:57.680 But what then if one's neighbor or one's employer or some famed industrialist possesses a noticeably larger basket of these goods? 117 00:12:57.680 --> 00:13:06.680 The conclusion must be clear. He must have unfairly appropriated the excess. He must be an exploiter. 118 00:13:06.680 --> 00:13:14.680 Further, the social system that permitted, nay even encouraged, such a result, must itself be corrupt. 119 00:13:14.680 --> 00:13:19.680 As Mises frames the thoughts of the purveyors of this sort of attitude, 120 00:13:19.680 --> 00:13:24.680 quote, capitalism crowns the dishonest, unscrupulous scoundrel, 121 00:13:24.680 --> 00:13:29.680 the swendler, the exploiter, the rugged individualist. 122 00:13:29.680 --> 00:13:34.680 As conditions are under capitalism, a man is forced to choose between 123 00:13:34.680 --> 00:13:39.680 virtue and poverty on the one hand, and vice and riches on the other. 124 00:13:39.680 --> 00:13:47.680 In other words, capitalism does not just evoke sober and reluctant comments about its unfortunate inadequacy. 125 00:13:47.680 --> 00:13:52.680 It provokes vitriolic and self-righteous denunciations. 126 00:13:52.680 --> 00:13:57.680 It's not something like, oh well, too bad capitalism didn't work. It seemed like a good idea. 127 00:13:57.680 --> 00:14:05.680 It's instead something like this. No decent, self-respecting human being can be in favor of laissez-faire capitalism. 128 00:14:05.680 --> 00:14:09.680 It is rife with racism, sexism, the rape of Mother Earth. 129 00:14:09.680 --> 00:14:12.680 It's fueled by avarice. It's driven by malice. 130 00:14:12.680 --> 00:14:17.680 It's the very institutionalization of exploitation. 131 00:14:17.680 --> 00:14:24.680 Well, in rebuttal, one can, of course, correctly describe socialism as the institutionalization of envy. 132 00:14:24.680 --> 00:14:31.680 For instance, Karl Marx famously and explicitly presents the process of economic progress 133 00:14:31.680 --> 00:14:34.680 and its concomitant rise in real wages 134 00:14:34.680 --> 00:14:40.680 in relative rather than absolute terms. He says in his quote from Marx, 135 00:14:40.680 --> 00:14:48.680 If capital is growing rapidly, wages may indeed rise. The profit of capital rises incomparably more rapidly. 136 00:14:48.680 --> 00:14:54.680 The material position of the worker hasn't improved, but at the cost of his social position. 137 00:14:54.680 --> 00:15:01.680 The social gulf that divides him from the capitalist is wider. 138 00:15:01.680 --> 00:15:20.680 It is by such sleight of hand tricks as this that Marx could be confronted, as he was, as you may know, with the fact that British agricultural workers experienced a 40% rise in real wage rates between 1849 and 1859, and yet eerily dismissed this as insignificant. 139 00:15:20.680 --> 00:15:29.680 Actually, it is not just Marxian communism that enshrines envy in its doctrines and practices. The modern welfare state is, of course, guilty. 140 00:15:29.680 --> 00:15:35.840 Schock, again, writing in the 1960s, gives fascinating examples of nations in which its 141 00:15:35.840 --> 00:15:42.320 citizens, driven by envy and resentment, have demanded to know the incomes of others. 142 00:15:42.320 --> 00:15:49.320 Schock, again, quote, The procedure of making tax returns public is found, incidentally, 143 00:15:49.320 --> 00:15:55.520 in Swiss communities, where it is possible to find out, without valid reason, the amount 144 00:15:55.520 --> 00:16:00.080 Out of income and assets declared by one's neighbor or competitor. 145 00:16:00.080 --> 00:16:06.440 There is further in Sweden a private firm which yearly produces a much consulted list 146 00:16:06.440 --> 00:16:13.120 giving the incomes of all families where these are more than $3,600 a year. 147 00:16:13.120 --> 00:16:21.920 And even in the United States between 1923 and 1953 in that hallowed state of Wisconsin 148 00:16:21.920 --> 00:16:29.920 There was a law permitting anyone to inspect any of his fellow citizens' tax returns, with all details and particulars. 149 00:16:29.920 --> 00:16:35.920 Of course, progressive taxation is itself a profound manifestation of envy. 150 00:16:35.920 --> 00:16:44.920 All taxes, by the way, whether sales, excise, income or other, are unavoidably devices of redistribution, as I and others have argued in print. 151 00:16:44.920 --> 00:16:49.920 However, progressive income taxes seem to be the most blatant. 152 00:16:49.920 --> 00:17:00.920 On the one hand, if taxes were a proxy for some justifiable fee levied as a payment for governmental services actually demonstrably demanded by the nation's citizens, 153 00:17:00.920 --> 00:17:07.920 then such taxes should probably be on a per capita basis, not set as an accelerating percentage of one's income. 154 00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:14.920 Or, if the value of the service were related to the monetary magnitude involved, such as protecting property against theft, 155 00:17:14.920 --> 00:17:20.320 At most, the tax should be a fixed percentage of the value, thereby made secure. 156 00:17:20.320 --> 00:17:26.960 To adopt progressive income taxes is to declare openly that the goal is punitive. 157 00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:31.080 As Shoke again points out, envy lies at the heart of the matter. 158 00:17:31.080 --> 00:17:38.000 Quote, the subjective sense of well-being of every income group is prejudiced by the 159 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:40.740 income groups above it. 160 00:17:40.740 --> 00:17:48.140 In order to be rid of this feeling of deprivation, recourses had to the progressive income tax. 161 00:17:48.140 --> 00:17:54.100 Beyond identifying envy as a key motive for their hatred of capitalism, Mises also offers 162 00:17:54.100 --> 00:18:00.700 an entertaining sociological commentary on the various subcategories of anti-capitalists. 163 00:18:00.700 --> 00:18:06.260 There are, of course, the intellectuals. Lawyers, teachers, artists and actors, writers and 164 00:18:06.260 --> 00:18:11.820 Journalists, Architects and Scientific Research Workers, Engineers and Chemists. 165 00:18:11.820 --> 00:18:17.500 Their antipathy toward capitalism is largely a macro-level projection of micro-level pettiness. 166 00:18:17.500 --> 00:18:22.660 For the typical intellectual, the passionate dislike of capitalism is a mere blind for 167 00:18:22.660 --> 00:18:26.440 his hatred of his more successful colleagues. 168 00:18:26.440 --> 00:18:31.540 White-collar workers specifically tend to suffer from an additional affliction, in Mises' 169 00:18:31.540 --> 00:18:36.640 In other words, sitting behind a desk and committing words and figures to paper, such 170 00:18:36.640 --> 00:18:43.960 a worker is prone to overrate the significance of his work. Full of conceit, he imagines 171 00:18:43.960 --> 00:18:50.160 himself to belong to the enterprise's managing elite and compares his own tasks with those 172 00:18:50.160 --> 00:18:56.780 of his boss. In other words, why should one think highly of capitalism when it is a system 173 00:18:56.780 --> 00:19:07.780 A system in which the CEOs of corporations are granted multimillion-dollar salaries for accomplishing tasks that could be equally well performed by the typical office worker. 174 00:19:07.780 --> 00:19:17.780 Arrogance of this kind on the part of white-collar workers is, of course, encouraged and reinforced by the confused declarations of many leftists. 175 00:19:17.780 --> 00:19:23.000 If running a profitable business required nothing more than meticulous record keeping, then 176 00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:27.300 any competent filing clerk could indeed be a successful entrepreneur. 177 00:19:27.300 --> 00:19:33.800 However, as Mises frequently reminds us, the task of the entrepreneur is far more challenging 178 00:19:33.800 --> 00:19:35.600 than that. 179 00:19:35.600 --> 00:19:39.080 His is a task for the active and agile mind. 180 00:19:39.080 --> 00:19:43.940 Abstractions, concretes and endless alternatives abound. 181 00:19:43.940 --> 00:19:50.180 chains of causality must be discerned and then sorted out. In Mises's own inimitable words, 182 00:19:50.180 --> 00:19:55.300 the entrepreneur must deal with the inevitable scarcity of the factors of production, 183 00:19:56.100 --> 00:19:59.860 the uncertainty of future conditions for which production has to provide, 184 00:20:00.660 --> 00:20:06.820 and the necessity of picking out from the bewildering multitude of technological methods 185 00:20:06.820 --> 00:20:12.820 suitable for the attainment of ends already chosen, those which obstruct as little as possible 186 00:20:12.820 --> 00:20:18.420 the attainment of other ends, in other words, those of which the cost of production is lowest. 187 00:20:21.060 --> 00:20:26.340 No allusion to these matters can be found in the writings of Marx and Engels, he says, and all that 188 00:20:26.340 --> 00:20:31.380 Lenin ever learned about business from the tales of his comrades, who sometimes sat in business 189 00:20:31.380 --> 00:20:39.700 offices, was that it required a lot of scribbling and recording and ciphering. Then too, Mises says, 190 00:20:39.700 --> 00:20:46.700 Mises says there is an intrafamilial phenomenon that plays an important role in this anti-capitalistic propaganda and machinations. 191 00:20:46.700 --> 00:20:55.700 Mises here distinguishes between groups he calls the bosses and the cousins in those families of great wealth. 192 00:20:55.700 --> 00:21:03.700 What are they? Well, the former, the bosses, consist of those few whose entrepreneurial talents make them capable of running the family business. 193 00:21:03.700 --> 00:21:09.700 This is probably no more, he says, than one or two of the Founder's sons or grandsons in each generation. 194 00:21:09.700 --> 00:21:13.700 Wholly dependent upon the bosses are the cousins. 195 00:21:13.700 --> 00:21:25.700 Now, the cousins include brothers, cousins, nephews of the bosses, more often their sisters, their widowed sisters-in-law, their female cousins, their nieces, etc. 196 00:21:25.700 --> 00:21:37.700 The members of this latter group, quote, have been brought up in fashionable boarding schools and colleges, whose atmosphere was filled by a haughty contempt for bonossic money-making. 197 00:21:37.700 --> 00:21:48.700 Some of them pass their time in nightclubs and other places of amusement. They bet and they gamble, they feast and revel, and indulge in expensive debauchery. 198 00:21:48.700 --> 00:21:58.700 Others amateurishly busy themselves with painting, writing and other arts. Thus, most of them are idle and useless people. 199 00:21:58.700 --> 00:22:05.700 Actually, they're worse than useless. He was being kind. 200 00:22:05.700 --> 00:22:11.700 Since they are woefully ignorant of the principles of economics and the daily practicalities of business, 201 00:22:11.700 --> 00:22:23.700 They leap to the conclusions that 1. The capital created by their ancestor must be an unending, self-sustaining fount of income for all his descendants. 202 00:22:23.700 --> 00:22:34.700 2. The greater share of that income enjoyed by their kin, the bosses, who actually run the business, must be an unearned excess. 203 00:22:34.700 --> 00:22:44.700 And three, thus, they are justified in railing at and rebelling against both the bosses and the system they represent, namely capitalism. 204 00:22:44.700 --> 00:22:53.700 The cousins are enthusiastic in supporting strikes, sometimes even strikes in the factories from which their own revenues originate. 205 00:22:53.700 --> 00:23:01.700 They endow progressive universities and colleges and many institutes for social research. 206 00:23:01.700 --> 00:23:11.700 They sponsor all sorts of communist party activities. They are parlor socialists and penthouse Bolsheviks. 207 00:23:11.700 --> 00:23:19.700 They play an important role though in the proletarian army, that has to be in quotes, fighting against the dismal system of capitalism. 208 00:23:19.700 --> 00:23:26.700 Mises seems to have had a particularly low opinion of actors because he mentions them as a species of would-be intellectuals 209 00:23:26.700 --> 00:23:33.700 and then returns to them in full force when he blasts Broadway and Hollywood for being hotbeds of communism 210 00:23:33.700 --> 00:23:39.700 and home to many who are, quote, among the most bigoted supporters of Sovietism, end quote. 211 00:23:39.700 --> 00:23:49.700 His explanation for this fact is interesting, but it hinges on his perception of entertainers as bedeviled by a bottomless well of insecurity. 212 00:23:49.700 --> 00:24:12.700 The essence of the entertainment industry is variety. The patrons applaud most what is new and therefore unexpected and surprising. They are capricious and unaccountable. A tycoon of the stage or of the screen must always fear the waywardness of the public. He is always agitated by anxiety. 213 00:24:12.700 --> 00:24:18.700 This seems a commonplace observation. Alright, entertainers of all sorts are probably very insecure people. 214 00:24:18.700 --> 00:24:22.700 So what then pushes them so strongly toward the left? 215 00:24:22.700 --> 00:24:30.700 Mises' two-fold response to that is that they lurch toward communism because, A, being poorly educated like most others, 216 00:24:30.700 --> 00:24:36.700 they believe the propaganda which declares communism to be a panacea for all unhappiness. 217 00:24:36.700 --> 00:24:43.700 And B, they perceive themselves as hard-working people and therefore comrades of all the hard-working people everywhere. 218 00:24:43.700 --> 00:24:48.300 Frankly, I don't find this a terribly satisfactory explanation. 219 00:24:48.300 --> 00:24:52.900 Immediately one wonders why the same statements could not be used with equal force 220 00:24:52.900 --> 00:24:57.000 to explain the leftist bias found in many particular strata of society. 221 00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:01.600 Why is this peculiar to entertainers? And of course the phenomenon of the 222 00:25:01.600 --> 00:25:02.800 Hollywood commie 223 00:25:02.800 --> 00:25:07.400 is indeed striking. Furthermore, it continues to the present day as we know. 224 00:25:07.400 --> 00:25:11.500 It is not merely some dusty artifact from the red decade of the 1930s. 225 00:25:11.500 --> 00:25:21.500 Note in just the last few weeks, the adoring murmurings that have poured forth on the occasion of the retirement of that cheap little dictator Fidel Castro. 226 00:25:21.500 --> 00:25:32.500 Fame director and producer Steven Spielberg called his audience with Castro, quote, the most important eight hours in my life. 227 00:25:32.500 --> 00:25:38.500 Actor Jack Nicholson characterized the man as a genius. 228 00:25:38.500 --> 00:25:43.500 Popular culture is indeed deeply infected by such warped perspectives as these. 229 00:25:43.500 --> 00:25:48.500 Thus, it would be worthwhile to have a sound grasp of the reasons that lie behind them. 230 00:25:48.500 --> 00:25:54.500 To that end, allow me to offer a modification and amplification of Mises' hypothesis. 231 00:25:54.500 --> 00:25:57.500 But first, a disclaimer is in order. 232 00:25:57.500 --> 00:26:02.500 I possess no direct experience in the world of actors, directors and playwrights. 233 00:26:02.500 --> 00:26:06.500 However, my son is a professional actor. 234 00:26:06.500 --> 00:26:12.500 who has, among other interests, a keen interest in the plays of Shakespeare. 235 00:26:12.500 --> 00:26:20.500 I should add, by the way, to leaven that recipe, I should add, by the way, that he is also a radical libertarian 236 00:26:20.500 --> 00:26:26.500 who was exposed early on to the writings of Rothbard, Rand, Spooner and Heinlein, 237 00:26:26.500 --> 00:26:30.500 which in the theatrical world makes him a very rare bird indeed. 238 00:26:30.500 --> 00:26:35.500 More important for the present purposes, it means that he does not view his craft 239 00:26:35.500 --> 00:26:39.500 Through the Distorting Lens of the Broadway Commie 240 00:26:39.500 --> 00:26:43.500 Well, conversations with my son have illuminated several of the darker corners of this issue. 241 00:26:43.500 --> 00:26:47.500 First actors, and it was an interesting discovery for me, 242 00:26:47.500 --> 00:26:52.500 first actors had for centuries been condemned as belonging to one of the lowest social classes. 243 00:26:52.500 --> 00:26:57.500 Theatrical folk were kept separate from polite society. 244 00:26:57.500 --> 00:27:02.500 For instance, it is alleged that until well into the 20th century, in many American cities, 245 00:27:02.500 --> 00:27:07.500 Deceased actors could not legally be buried in church cemeteries. 246 00:27:07.500 --> 00:27:13.500 And that famed and incredibly charming, in my opinion, journalist H. L. Mencken, 247 00:27:13.500 --> 00:27:19.500 expressed something of this contempt when writing in 1926 he declared, 248 00:27:19.500 --> 00:27:41.500 Men are not alike, and very little can be learned about the mental processes of a congressman, an ice wagon driver, or a cinema actor by studying the mental processes of a genuinely superior man. 249 00:27:41.500 --> 00:27:48.500 Because of this pervasively negative image, it has long been traditional among actors to see themselves as outcasts. 250 00:27:48.500 --> 00:27:53.500 And that leads most of them to identify strongly with the poorest of the working class. 251 00:27:53.500 --> 00:28:02.500 Given also their mistaken belief that socialism actually serves the interests of the proletariat, they automatically embrace the left. 252 00:28:02.500 --> 00:28:10.500 Further, actors think of themselves as avant-garde intellectuals, despite the fact that they rarely can boast of much in the way of scholarly training. 253 00:28:10.500 --> 00:28:26.500 And since the left, especially in the United States, has long been successful in portraying itself as the progressive, enlightened opposition to the bigoted, priggish, witless members of the right, actors gravitate toward the former. 254 00:28:26.500 --> 00:28:37.500 Actors and playwrights are, above all, storytellers, interpreters of the human condition, whose words and gestures evoke powerful emotions from their audiences. 255 00:28:37.500 --> 00:28:43.500 Stories that engage and move an audience are usually tales of conflict, struggle and triumph. 256 00:28:43.500 --> 00:28:54.500 These can be internal stories of personal awakening, or they can be tales of resistance against external forces, injustice, ignorance, corruption. 257 00:28:54.500 --> 00:29:02.500 Of these latter, it is far easier apparently to excite an audience with the stark drama of a poor working man, 258 00:29:02.500 --> 00:29:08.580 Man, struggling merely to survive than it is to glory in the success of a brilliant entrepreneur. 259 00:29:09.940 --> 00:29:14.740 Those currents of altruistic and egalitarian sentiments which are so common in our society 260 00:29:15.300 --> 00:29:19.460 work to sharpen the appeal of the former and to tarnish the luster of the latter. 261 00:29:20.500 --> 00:29:26.580 From Charles Dickens to John Steinbeck, this has been the path chosen by also too many writers 262 00:29:26.580 --> 00:29:31.460 and most actors have reveled in bringing such stories to life on stage and in the movies. 263 00:29:32.500 --> 00:29:40.500 Furthermore, the world view of most actors is apparently heavily influenced by the micro-level environment in which they function. 264 00:29:40.500 --> 00:29:51.500 As my son has pointed out, a group of actors combining their efforts in some cooperative project, a play, a movie, develop powerful communal bonds with one another. 265 00:29:51.500 --> 00:29:58.500 Their work is highly interdependent. The success of each depends upon the success of all. 266 00:29:58.500 --> 00:30:05.500 Moreover, in creating that final product, they may spend most of their waking hours together for long periods of time. 267 00:30:05.500 --> 00:30:11.500 All this is particularly true of live theater, but also often characteristic of film actors. 268 00:30:11.500 --> 00:30:18.500 The result should not be too surprising. Possessed of an intense familiarity with communal enterprises, 269 00:30:18.500 --> 00:30:27.500 actors value what they believe to be that socioeconomic system which enshrines the communal impulse within it, namely socialism. 270 00:30:27.500 --> 00:30:36.500 Finally, I wish to bring attention to an additional factor, one not suggested by my son, so don't blame him, which may be of considerable significance. 271 00:30:36.500 --> 00:30:48.500 It is the Marxian notion of alienation. I believe that many persons, not just actors, succumb to the attractions of this idea, even those who otherwise might reject the pronouncements of Marx. 272 00:30:48.500 --> 00:30:56.500 Recall that Marx and Engels insist that capitalism alienates both proletarians and capitalists. 273 00:30:56.500 --> 00:31:01.500 That is, both lose touch with crucial aspects of their essential humanity. 274 00:31:01.500 --> 00:31:11.500 Workers are reduced to simply being trivial, easily replaceable parts of the industrial process, little better than components of machinery. 275 00:31:11.500 --> 00:31:16.500 Their only solace lies in drugs and degradation. 276 00:31:16.500 --> 00:31:27.500 Capitalists are crudely driven to accumulate ever greater wealth at the expense of a more balanced life, one graced by the gentle delights of literature, family and friends. 277 00:31:27.500 --> 00:31:36.500 In either case, the products of man allegedly take hold of and in a sense come to dominate and corrupt man himself. 278 00:31:36.500 --> 00:31:42.500 This proposition is pregnant with implications for various disciplines, especially psychology and sociology. 279 00:31:42.500 --> 00:32:01.500 Every person who finds his current occupation, or life, boring or unfulfilling, is, unless bolstered by sound philosophical and economic principles, likely to drift toward alienation as an explanatory device, one which soothes as much as it miseducates. 280 00:32:01.500 --> 00:32:10.500 And the next step may well be wholesale adoption of the socialist dicta in whose service alienation was concocted in the first place. 281 00:32:10.500 --> 00:32:22.500 Considering how avidly actors seek to explore the inner workings of the human soul, it is perhaps understandable why movies and plays might turn so often to this prepackaged tool. 282 00:32:22.500 --> 00:32:33.500 Marxian alienation is seductive. Much as Freudian psychoanalysis did a bit later in history, it offers an instant explanation for a wide variety of human phenomena. 283 00:32:33.500 --> 00:32:42.500 And, as long as one does not look too closely at the premises upon which it is constructed, the explanation appears rich with insight. 284 00:32:42.500 --> 00:32:53.500 I wish to emphasize at this point that none of the foregoing is intended to exonerate those actors or other entertainers who endlessly repeat the bromides of that nonsense which is socialism. 285 00:32:53.500 --> 00:33:00.500 My purpose is merely to offer a more complete picture of the motives behind this off-cited connection. 286 00:33:00.500 --> 00:33:10.500 Allow me now to turn to the second prong of Mises' explanation for the prevalence of anti-capitalistic sentiments, ignorance. 287 00:33:10.500 --> 00:33:20.500 As he himself puts it, people are socialists not only because they are blinded by envy, but also they stubbornly refuse to study economics, 288 00:33:20.500 --> 00:33:25.500 and spurned the economists' devastating critique of the socialist plans. 289 00:33:25.500 --> 00:33:31.500 Because in their eyes, economics being an abstract theory is simply nonsense. 290 00:33:31.500 --> 00:33:37.500 They pretend to trust only in their own experience. 291 00:33:37.500 --> 00:33:41.500 But why should there be this stubborn refusal to study economics? 292 00:33:41.500 --> 00:33:47.500 Surely not all the enemies of capitalism are uneducated boobs scarcely able to read and write? 293 00:33:47.500 --> 00:33:57.700 Note that Mises links the failure to study economics with A, objections to all abstract theory, and B, a dependence on personal experience. 294 00:33:57.700 --> 00:34:08.060 In other words, universal principles of human action, true for all times, all places, and all persons, are to be rejected. 295 00:34:08.060 --> 00:34:16.220 In their place have been installed what a necessity must be, an endless stream of statistical applications. 296 00:34:16.220 --> 00:34:21.940 The stream is endless because no one can ever exhaust all the possible particular scenarios. 297 00:34:21.940 --> 00:34:26.700 A new database always lies just around the corner. Moreover, new and better methods of 298 00:34:26.700 --> 00:34:31.540 regression analysis or simulation techniques can always be applied so as to refine and 299 00:34:31.540 --> 00:34:37.860 improve upon past studies. This is not the broad reality-based empiricism of Carl Menger, 300 00:34:37.860 --> 00:34:43.740 but the data mining of the modern econometrician. I would suggest that it adds nothing significant 301 00:34:43.740 --> 00:34:51.340 to our understanding of economics, but it does greatly increase the number of potential journal articles. 302 00:34:51.340 --> 00:34:57.280 It creates the illusion of an advancing science when all it really accomplishes is to flood 303 00:34:57.280 --> 00:35:03.080 the field of economics with a large number of applied mathematicians, and sometimes not 304 00:35:03.080 --> 00:35:08.380 particularly good ones at that, who possess a rather superficial understanding of economic 305 00:35:08.380 --> 00:35:13.380 and no grasp of the history of economic science whatsoever. 306 00:35:13.380 --> 00:35:17.380 Worse yet, they do, of course, replicate themselves, so to speak. 307 00:35:17.380 --> 00:35:23.380 That is, they expect and require their students to approach economics much as they do. 308 00:35:23.380 --> 00:35:30.380 We now have had several generations of economics majors who seem to know less about real economics with each passing graduating class. 309 00:35:30.380 --> 00:35:37.380 This orthodox version of economics described above also plays into the hands of postmodern enemies of reason. 310 00:35:37.380 --> 00:35:51.380 If economics is no longer to be seen as a body of universal principles, which are grasped via the application of deductive logic to certain axiomatic propositions, then a whole variety of concrete conclusions becomes viable. 311 00:35:51.380 --> 00:35:56.380 The door opens wide, for instance, to what Keith Winschuddle has described as, quote, 312 00:35:56.380 --> 00:36:06.380 The argument that Western sciences have no universal validity, but are merely expressions of those in authority within Western culture, end quote. 313 00:36:06.380 --> 00:36:16.380 Now, his primary concern was admittedly with trends among historians and anthropologists, but the fundamental issue cuts across all academic disciplines. 314 00:36:16.380 --> 00:36:20.380 As he puts it elsewhere, this is a quote from Winshettle, 315 00:36:20.380 --> 00:36:25.380 Cultural relativism began as an intellectual critique of Western thought, 316 00:36:25.380 --> 00:36:33.380 but has now become an influential justification for one of the contemporary era's most potent political forces. 317 00:36:33.380 --> 00:36:38.380 This is the revival of tribalism in thinking. 318 00:36:38.380 --> 00:36:41.380 Here is the core issue at stake, I believe. 319 00:36:41.380 --> 00:36:45.380 Primitive tribal thinking is opposed to abstract reasoning. 320 00:36:45.380 --> 00:36:49.380 It focuses on the particular, the personal, the concrete. 321 00:36:49.380 --> 00:36:55.380 It reorients knowledge so as to abandon the powerful processes of integration and differentiation 322 00:36:55.380 --> 00:37:00.380 in favor of the narrow perspective of the clan, the caste, or the tribe. 323 00:37:00.380 --> 00:37:07.380 It leads ineluctably to epistemological relativism as well as cultural relativism. 324 00:37:07.380 --> 00:37:12.380 Moreover, we should note well, and Mises stated it forcefully in Human Action, 325 00:37:12.380 --> 00:37:18.380 that the modern rejection of reason actually began as an attack on economics. 326 00:37:18.380 --> 00:37:23.380 Quote, the revolt against reason was directed against another target. 327 00:37:23.380 --> 00:37:27.380 It did not aim at the natural sciences, but at economics. 328 00:37:27.380 --> 00:37:35.380 The attack against the natural sciences was only the logically necessary outcome of the attack against economics. 329 00:37:35.380 --> 00:37:44.380 It was impermissible to dethrone reason in one field only and not to question it in other branches of knowledge also. 330 00:37:44.380 --> 00:37:51.380 He, of course, here is referring to that beast he calls polylogism and to its progenitor, Karl Marx. 331 00:37:51.380 --> 00:38:00.380 He says further, Marxian polylogism asserts that the logical structure of the mind is different with the members of various social classes. 332 00:38:00.380 --> 00:38:20.380 Racial polylogism differs from Marxian polylogism only insofar as it ascribes to each race a peculiar logical structure of mind, and maintains that all members of a definite race, no matter what their class affiliation may be, are endowed with this peculiar logical structure." 333 00:38:20.380 --> 00:38:25.380 To question the power of reason is to question the value of the human mind. 334 00:38:25.380 --> 00:38:38.380 Once such doubts are raised, abstraction departs through the window. Analysis is made impotent. Education becomes a cluttered attic in which unrelated odd items are piled randomly. 335 00:38:38.380 --> 00:38:54.380 Further, as Mises well realized, human reason is coextensive with human action. One virtually cannot conceive of one without the other. Reason, divorced from action, is sterile. Action, undisciplined by reason, is aimless. 336 00:38:54.380 --> 00:39:02.100 To shackle the mind is to constrain action, to make action teleologically incompetent. 337 00:39:02.100 --> 00:39:07.980 In order to survive and to flourish, man must turn to that one wonderful tool that he does 338 00:39:07.980 --> 00:39:11.860 possess his rational faculty. 339 00:39:11.860 --> 00:39:17.640 Political chains may limit a man's actions to a great extent, but no external constraint 340 00:39:17.640 --> 00:39:24.340 is so effective in hobbling a man as the philosophical proposition that his mind is not to be trusted. 341 00:39:24.340 --> 00:39:39.340 The deep currents of skepticism that have risen to prominence over the past 200 years have in this way gravely damaged the bedrock that underlies economics and further science, technology and education. 342 00:39:39.340 --> 00:39:49.340 As examples of these insidious influences, Mises cites the following, David Hume, the utilitarians and the American pragmatists. 343 00:39:49.340 --> 00:39:57.340 Being concerned about very similar issues, Ayn Rand once wrote of education that it was 344 00:39:57.340 --> 00:40:05.740 a by nature theoretical, that is, conceptual, quote, the student has to be taught to think, 345 00:40:05.740 --> 00:40:12.620 to understand, to integrate, to prove, but that this is precisely what the colleges have 346 00:40:12.620 --> 00:40:17.900 renounced, failed in and defaulted on long ago. 347 00:40:17.900 --> 00:40:23.060 What they are teaching today has no relevance to anything, neither to theory, nor practice, 348 00:40:23.060 --> 00:40:27.740 nor reality, nor human life." 349 00:40:27.740 --> 00:40:30.180 I doubt that Mises would disagree with that sentiment. 350 00:40:30.180 --> 00:40:32.920 I certainly do not. 351 00:40:32.920 --> 00:40:39.260 And those of us who are academics have almost all been sad witnesses to one prominent manifestation 352 00:40:39.260 --> 00:40:43.700 of the default that was noted by Rand, the proliferation of special additions to the 353 00:40:43.700 --> 00:40:56.700 College Curriculum, mandatory multicultural courses, plus whole new programs in women's studies, black studies, gay and lesbian studies, Mexican-American studies, and so forth. 354 00:40:56.700 --> 00:41:09.700 Six decades ago, Mises cautioned against the pernicious effects of polylogism, and now we see that very thing embedded in college mission statements and degree plans. 355 00:41:09.700 --> 00:41:39.700 To his everlasting credit, Mises fully comprehended what some free-market advocates still have not, namely that the debate over capitalism is not merely about which socioeconomic system will more efficiently produce goods and services, nor about which will accord more closely with consumers' individual preferences. He understood that the debate involved that but much more besides. He understood that to attack capitalism was to attack civilization itself. 356 00:41:39.700 --> 00:41:46.700 to attack the role of reason in man's life and thus to undermine the value of life itself. 357 00:41:46.700 --> 00:41:58.700 As he put it with his typical candor, quote, present-day collectivists advocate measures which are bound to result finally in general impoverishment, 358 00:41:58.700 --> 00:42:08.700 in the disintegration of social cooperation under the principle of the division of labor and in a return to barbarism. 359 00:42:08.700 --> 00:42:15.260 Now, if that wasn't strong enough, and not sufficient perhaps to drive the point home, 360 00:42:15.260 --> 00:42:17.580 Mises adds the following crescendo. 361 00:42:17.580 --> 00:42:22.080 In fact, it's the pronouncement with which he ends Human Action. 362 00:42:22.080 --> 00:42:27.500 It rests with men whether they will make the proper use of the rich treasure with which 363 00:42:27.500 --> 00:42:33.840 economic knowledge provides them, or whether they will leave it unused. 364 00:42:33.840 --> 00:42:52.840 But if they fail to take advantage of it and disregard its teachings and warnings, they will not annul economics. They will stamp out society and the human race. 365 00:42:52.840 --> 00:43:01.600 Well where do we stand given that? As we know, socialism is calculational chaos. Rational 366 00:43:01.600 --> 00:43:07.640 appraisement and allocation are eternally elusive. It is a gigantic negative sum game 367 00:43:07.640 --> 00:43:12.880 in which each player quickly grabs a piece of the pie while all the time the pie shrinks 368 00:43:12.880 --> 00:43:20.100 before their very eyes. The warfare welfare state, the interventionist state, is really 369 00:43:20.100 --> 00:43:25.100 and No Improvement. Each intervention begets yet another intervention. 370 00:43:25.100 --> 00:43:31.100 Bureaucracy is the only industry that's guaranteed to experience growth. 371 00:43:31.100 --> 00:43:42.100 Each new regulation taxes the private sector, relentlessly shifting resources out of the hands of the productive and into the hands of the unproductive. 372 00:43:42.100 --> 00:43:46.100 Capitalism is the only positive sum game in town. 373 00:43:52.740 --> 00:43:59.300 I think it fair to say that the case against capitalism is indefensible. It is smoke and 374 00:43:59.300 --> 00:44:06.420 mirrors. It is rooted in envy and in malice, is fueled by a stunning ignorance of sound economics, 375 00:44:06.420 --> 00:44:12.420 which is part and parcel of a broader rejection of reason itself. 376 00:44:12.420 --> 00:44:19.420 These anti-capitalists, these new barbarians, will, if they get their way, 377 00:44:19.420 --> 00:44:31.420 finally destroy not only capitalism, but also education, science, technology, literature, art, individual rights, prosperity, civilization itself. 378 00:44:31.420 --> 00:44:38.620 No, it will not come like an avalanche of snow cascading down some mountainside. 379 00:44:38.620 --> 00:44:45.160 It will be, it has been, more like a stream of water slowly but inexorably eroding the 380 00:44:45.160 --> 00:44:54.340 surface of a rock until eventually the rock simply is no more. 381 00:44:54.340 --> 00:44:59.560 One could say that mankind is slouching, shuffling toward collectivism. 382 00:44:59.560 --> 00:45:02.600 What are we to do? 383 00:45:02.600 --> 00:45:04.680 I would suggest the following. 384 00:45:04.680 --> 00:45:10.240 We can and must continue, first of all, the magnificent legacy of Ludwig von Mises. 385 00:45:10.240 --> 00:45:14.920 We must extend Austrian economics in every way and direction. 386 00:45:14.920 --> 00:45:22.200 We must encourage the application of Austro-libertarian insights to every field and topic imaginable. 387 00:45:22.200 --> 00:45:28.380 We must engage other scholars and policymakers and molders of opinion, both in print and 388 00:45:28.380 --> 00:45:30.500 and in person. 389 00:45:30.500 --> 00:45:34.980 We must educate the public whenever the opportunity presents itself. 390 00:45:34.980 --> 00:45:38.020 Listen, we know the task is not easy. 391 00:45:38.020 --> 00:45:40.060 Let's face the truth. 392 00:45:40.060 --> 00:45:46.220 The collectivists have their tentacles firmly inserted into every shadowy orifice of the 393 00:45:46.220 --> 00:45:50.060 body politic. 394 00:45:50.060 --> 00:45:57.560 We can, we must, root them out by mercilessly exposing them to the light of reason, liberty, 395 00:45:57.560 --> 00:46:03.720 and the Economics of Menger, Boehm-Bawerk, Mises and Rothbard. 396 00:46:03.720 --> 00:46:08.960 In this grand endeavor, we may perhaps take heart from an observation offered long ago 397 00:46:08.960 --> 00:46:13.720 by a great American patriot, Samuel Adams. 398 00:46:13.720 --> 00:46:23.680 He suggested this, it does not require a majority to prevail but rather an irate, tireless minority 399 00:46:23.680 --> 00:46:29.720 keen to set brushfires of freedom in people's minds. 400 00:46:29.720 --> 00:46:38.040 Until that day of liberation finally comes, let us dedicate ourselves to being that irate 401 00:46:38.040 --> 00:46:39.840 and tireless minority. 402 00:46:53.680 --> 00:46:55.680 Thank you very much.