WEBVTT NOTE Authors Forum: The Left, The Right, and The State 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:13.000 Well, it's great to be here in this lineup talking about this subject just at a moment when we've moved from a regime of fascism and socialism to one of socialism and fascism. 2 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:20.000 I do want to publicly thank Judy Thomason for saving me from the original title of this book. 3 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:27.400 The dedication page, I mentioned Mises is great, a motto adopted as a boy from Virgil, 4 00:00:27.400 --> 00:00:35.900 Tune Cady Malus said contra identi or eto, that is, do not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it. 5 00:00:35.900 --> 00:00:44.400 So the original title of this book was Tune Cady Malus, and Judy said... 6 00:00:44.400 --> 00:00:49.400 So the present title is the former subtitle, and of course, far better. 7 00:00:49.400 --> 00:00:57.400 I'm just going to read the introduction, the short introduction to this book and then take questions if you have any. 8 00:00:57.400 --> 00:01:08.400 In American political culture and world political culture too, the divide concerns in what way the state's power should be expanded. 9 00:01:08.400 --> 00:01:12.400 The left has a laundry list, the right does too. 10 00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:17.480 Both represent a grave threat to the only political position that is truly beneficial 11 00:01:17.480 --> 00:01:21.360 to the world and its inhabitants, liberty. 12 00:01:21.360 --> 00:01:22.360 What is the state? 13 00:01:22.360 --> 00:01:29.280 It is that group within society that claims for itself the exclusive right to rule everyone 14 00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:34.160 under a special set of laws that permit it to do to others what everyone else is rightly 15 00:01:34.160 --> 00:01:40.200 prohibited from doing, namely, aggressing against person and property. 16 00:01:40.200 --> 00:01:46.800 Why would any society permit such a gang to enjoy an unchallenged legal privilege? 17 00:01:46.800 --> 00:01:49.740 Here is where ideology comes into play. 18 00:01:49.740 --> 00:01:55.520 The reality of the state is that it is a looting and killing machine. 19 00:01:55.520 --> 00:01:58.920 So why do so many people cheer for its expansion? 20 00:01:58.920 --> 00:02:03.160 Why indeed do we tolerate its existence at all? 21 00:02:03.160 --> 00:02:09.440 The very idea of the state is so implausible on its face that the state must wear an ideological 22 00:02:09.440 --> 00:02:14.440 and social garb as a means of compelling popular support. 23 00:02:14.440 --> 00:02:24.440 Ancient states had one or two, they would protect you from enemies and they were ordained by the gods. 24 00:02:24.440 --> 00:02:29.440 To a greater and lesser extent, all modern states still employ these rationales. 25 00:02:29.440 --> 00:02:33.440 But the democratic state in the developed world is more complex. 26 00:02:33.440 --> 00:02:38.440 It uses a huge range of ideological rationales parsed out between left and right. 27 00:02:38.440 --> 00:02:45.440 that reflect social and cultural priorities of niche groups even when many of these rationales are contradictory. 28 00:02:45.440 --> 00:02:59.440 The left wants the state to redistribute wealth, to bring about equality, to rein in business, to give workers a boost, to provide for the poor, to protect the environment. 29 00:02:59.440 --> 00:03:06.440 I address many of these rationales in this book with an eye towards particular topics in the news. 30 00:03:06.440 --> 00:03:24.440 The right, on the other hand, wants the state to punish evildoers, to boost the family, to subsidize upright ways of living, to create security against foreign enemies, to make the culture cohere, and to go to war to give ourselves a sense of national identity. 31 00:03:24.440 --> 00:03:34.440 I also address these rationales. So how are these competing interests resolved? They log roll and call it democracy. 32 00:03:34.440 --> 00:03:39.120 The left and the right agree to let each other give to have their way, provided nothing is 33 00:03:39.120 --> 00:03:45.600 done to injure the essential interests of the other. The trick is to keep the balance. 34 00:03:45.600 --> 00:03:50.440 Who is in power is really about which way the log is rolling. And there you have the 35 00:03:50.440 --> 00:03:56.280 modern state in a nutshell. Although it has ancestors in such regimes as Lincoln's and 36 00:03:56.280 --> 00:04:02.360 Wilson's, the genesis of the modern state is in the interwar period, when the ideas 37 00:04:02.360 --> 00:04:07.920 Because of a laissez-faire society fell into disrepute, the result of the mistaken view 38 00:04:07.920 --> 00:04:12.720 that the free market brought us economic depression. 39 00:04:12.720 --> 00:04:17.800 So we had the New Deal, which was a democratic hybrid of socialism and fascism. 40 00:04:17.800 --> 00:04:21.320 The old liberals were nearly extinct. 41 00:04:21.320 --> 00:04:27.200 The U.S. then fought a war against the totalitarian state, allied to a totalitarian state, and 42 00:04:27.200 --> 00:04:30.480 the winner was Leviathan itself. 43 00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:37.080 Carl Leviathan doesn't always have a chief executive who struts around in military costume, 44 00:04:37.080 --> 00:04:42.480 but he always enjoys powers that the Caesars of old would envy. 45 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:48.480 The total state today is more soothing and slick than it was in its interwar infancy, 46 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:53.280 but it is no less opposed to the ideals advanced in these pages. 47 00:04:53.280 --> 00:04:58.960 How much further would the state have advanced, however, had Mises and Rothbard and many others 48 00:04:58.960 --> 00:05:05.960 We must become the intellectual dissidents of our time, rejecting the demands for statism that come from left and right, and we must advance a positive program of liberty, which is as radical, fresh and true as it ever was. 49 00:05:28.960 --> 00:05:46.960 I keep thinking that we're in uncharted waters. At least in the 1930s there was still a partial gold standard. 50 00:05:46.960 --> 00:05:54.960 There were some restraints on the central bank. Never, of course, in human history have we been in a situation in which no central bank was restrained 51 00:05:54.960 --> 00:06:08.960 and that they all have an entirely discretionary monetary policy and we've seen the U.S. Central Bank create, we don't entirely know, but more than probably nine trillion dollars in new money since the crisis began. 52 00:06:08.960 --> 00:06:21.960 It seems like, as we know, Bush and Obama are duplicating the policies of Hoover and Roosevelt, but building on a much bigger state, much more interventionist, I don't know. 53 00:06:21.960 --> 00:06:29.960 I don't know. I mean, it seems to me, you know, at my worst moments, I think they're actually capable of preventing a recovery from ever taking place. 54 00:06:29.960 --> 00:06:41.960 On the other hand, as Frank Szostak argues, when we begin to have a recovery, and my guess is he's right, that then the banks will discourage their reserves. 55 00:06:41.960 --> 00:06:46.960 It's a wonderful moment when the banks all seem Rothbardian. They're all running practically 100% reserves. 56 00:06:46.960 --> 00:06:53.960 But at that moment the banks begin to discourage their reserves and then he says we have hyperinflation very, very quickly. 57 00:06:53.960 --> 00:07:01.960 So, you know, you don't know which, you know, it seems like we have two bad alternatives. 58 00:07:01.960 --> 00:07:05.960 But they put us into a very, you know, a very bad situation. 59 00:07:05.960 --> 00:07:15.960 And it seems to me like they've, you know, in some sense, even before our eyes, moving from crazy Keynesianism, as bad as that is, to socialism. 60 00:07:15.960 --> 00:07:19.960 and certainly there are many totalitarian impulses in this bunch. 61 00:07:19.960 --> 00:07:25.960 I must say I found it hard to believe there could be anybody worse than Bush. 62 00:07:25.960 --> 00:07:29.960 But, of course, there is. It's always the next guy. 63 00:07:29.960 --> 00:07:34.960 Who was it who said that sooner or later every president makes you nostalgic for his predecessor? 64 00:07:34.960 --> 00:07:38.960 It took a short time in this case. 65 00:07:38.960 --> 00:07:44.960 Not that I think that Bush wouldn't have bailed out everything and run crazy Keynesian policies, too, 66 00:07:44.960 --> 00:07:48.800 He's two, after all, Greenspan and Bernanke are his appointees. 67 00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:52.240 I mean, he comes from the conservative Keynesianism 68 00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:55.320 of the Republican Party that has characterized 69 00:07:55.320 --> 00:07:59.080 the Republican Party, I guess, always. 70 00:07:59.080 --> 00:08:01.760 Except when they were in opposition against Roosevelt, 71 00:08:01.760 --> 00:08:02.960 it didn't characterize them. 72 00:08:02.960 --> 00:08:06.920 But in power, it's always characterized them. 73 00:08:06.920 --> 00:08:07.640 So I don't know. 74 00:08:07.640 --> 00:08:10.160 I must say, it doesn't look good. 75 00:08:10.160 --> 00:08:11.900 On the other hand, the opposition 76 00:08:11.900 --> 00:08:14.400 is far greater than it ever was. 77 00:08:14.400 --> 00:08:17.760 I mean, who was the intellectual opposition in the 30s? 78 00:08:17.760 --> 00:08:21.360 I mean, you had Mises in Europe, and you had Hayek. 79 00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:25.680 You had Hazlitt. 80 00:08:25.680 --> 00:08:28.960 You had Benjamin Anderson, Garrett Gourette. 81 00:08:28.960 --> 00:08:32.160 I mean, there were just a handful of people, magnificent people, 82 00:08:32.160 --> 00:08:35.020 but just a handful. 83 00:08:35.020 --> 00:08:37.960 Now, many, many thousands understand Austrian business 84 00:08:37.960 --> 00:08:38.520 cycle theory. 85 00:08:38.520 --> 00:08:42.240 It has vast new tension. 86 00:08:42.240 --> 00:08:54.240 And Jeff Tucker distributed an article that was in Barron's today about the Austrians' right, even though he thought that the solution advanced by the Austrians is too harsh, as he put it. 87 00:08:54.240 --> 00:09:04.240 So, you know, I think that I still have hope because of the vast amount of learning and education that's taking place. 88 00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:07.240 So I think there's just far more opposition. 89 00:09:07.240 --> 00:09:15.240 The Republicans overnight, of course, are talking like us, as they always seem to do when they're out of power. 90 00:09:15.240 --> 00:09:24.240 So I think maybe there's a chance they're not going to get away with this, but they're certainly trying everything bad. 91 00:09:24.240 --> 00:09:36.240 As I said in a recent call, maybe it's time to reread the Black Book of Communism, just so we realize why we don't want Obama to go where he seems to be headed. 92 00:09:36.240 --> 00:09:51.240 My mom articulates a view that I think is actually really common, maybe not among the people at this conference, but among a lot of Americans, which is that that swing from left to right, that this is a great virtue of American democracy, it's moderation. 93 00:09:51.240 --> 00:10:08.240 We haven't fallen into a Soviet Union, a Bolshevik revolution, nor a Nazi takeover. We're a middle-of-the-road country. Just gently go. And this is a wonderful thing about America. 94 00:10:08.240 --> 00:10:13.240 Well, so we only have moderate Bolshevism or moderate Nazism. 95 00:10:13.240 --> 00:10:19.240 Well, we know Mises said, you know, middle of the road leads to socialism, right? I mean, of course, and that's what's happening. 96 00:10:19.240 --> 00:10:26.240 So that all the interventions lead to more interventions to correct the interventions leading to more. 97 00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:32.240 But this is, you know, I don't believe in democracy. I don't believe in the American democracy. 98 00:10:32.240 --> 00:10:39.240 I think Hans-Hermann Hoppe has cured anybody who's read his great book of that myth. 99 00:10:39.240 --> 00:10:46.240 But maybe this may be a common view, but we're moving, of course, towards the total state. 100 00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:50.240 I mean, whether it's a Republican total state or a Democratic total state. 101 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:54.240 Certainly we don't live in a free country by the standards of Thomas Jefferson, 102 00:10:54.240 --> 00:10:57.240 maybe even by the standards of Alexander Hamilton. 103 00:10:57.240 --> 00:11:04.240 Maybe even Hamilton didn't envision something quite this bad. 104 00:11:04.240 --> 00:11:09.240 But, you know, everybody's convinced that because there's a vote, things can't go too bad. 105 00:11:09.240 --> 00:11:16.240 Well, yeah, this is the biggest, richest, most powerful state in the history of the world, the U.S. state. 106 00:11:16.240 --> 00:11:22.240 And, of course, it's an empire that claims control over every country in the world, that it wants control over. 107 00:11:22.240 --> 00:11:30.240 I mean, claims the right to have its huge bottom mapping ship, 108 00:11:30.240 --> 00:11:42.240 Which is designed to enable the American killer submarines to go in without hitting anything on the bottom going 75 miles off the Chinese coast right off their big submarine base. 109 00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:52.240 And of course the U.S., if somebody brought something in 75 miles off San Diego, you'd capture it or sink it or something because the U.S. says you can't do that here. 110 00:11:52.240 --> 00:12:14.240 But the US claims power and domination, hegemony everywhere and seems to almost have the view of Genghis Khan who believed that the gods had given him control over the whole earth and therefore anybody who was opposing him was blasphemous as well as stupid. 111 00:12:14.240 --> 00:12:24.240 So the U.S. seems to believe that God has given the U.S. government control over the whole earth and anybody opposing it. You don't actually have a right to oppose the U.S. 112 00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:35.240 It's actually a crime for a country the U.S. is targeting to defend itself, just as Genghis Khan thought. 113 00:12:35.240 --> 00:12:38.240 So this is an extraordinary government. 114 00:12:38.240 --> 00:12:48.240 On the other hand, as we all know, who've read De La Brede and Mises and Rothbard and Hume and the others, that governments all depend on the consent of the governed. 115 00:12:48.240 --> 00:12:59.240 And that consent can change. There's some people who think that this whole crisis was brought on deliberately by the power elite. 116 00:12:59.240 --> 00:13:29.240 Power Elite, obviously I don't agree with that, I don't think they're that smart, and they're much too arrogant in their belief in their power and the ability of their printing press and their guns to achieve any ends, but they're one of the reasons they would not bring on a crisis like this is because it's so destabilizing, indeed it's destabilizing for the whole regime, so this is another reason to be optimistic, the climate of opinion can change, 117 00:13:29.240 --> 00:13:35.960 changes, changes can change very very quickly so you know this is why we need 118 00:13:35.960 --> 00:13:39.960 to keep up why you all why you all need to keep teaching we all need to keep 119 00:13:39.960 --> 00:13:46.080 writing and I think we're having an effect now again there's always a fight 120 00:13:46.080 --> 00:13:52.280 between power and market as Murray said we just have to keep fighting for the 121 00:13:52.280 --> 00:14:01.280 I agree with you that the crisis is quite stabilizing, but isn't that kind of what governments want? 122 00:14:01.280 --> 00:14:08.280 I mean, Rob Emanuel obviously wants destabilization. He wants government to take control of the crisis situation. 123 00:14:08.280 --> 00:14:13.280 No, and of course, you're right. I mean, governments also love crises. They love 9-11. 124 00:14:13.280 --> 00:14:16.280 They should have like a holiday, a government holiday for that. 125 00:14:16.280 --> 00:14:46.280 because of course every state would like to be a totalitarian state, although my guess is they've actually learned they don't want public ownership of the means of production because it means they're all poor too, so I think they've learned that, but other than that they want a totalitarian, a fascist state, in other words a public-private, but the reason we don't have it is because of public opposition, but when public opposition withdraws as it did after 9-11, then of course the state immediately expands, 126 00:14:46.280 --> 00:14:54.280 They love crises and they love this present crisis for that same reason but it's still destabilizing because it makes them look bad. 127 00:14:54.280 --> 00:15:08.280 And also one other point of optimism, Tom Woods' book and I think the work of Rod Paul and the work of Rothbard and Mises and so many others 128 00:15:08.280 --> 00:15:14.280 have helped for the first time in history target the Fed. I mean people are actually aware of the Federal Reserve. 129 00:15:14.280 --> 00:15:20.280 When I was a boy, the Federal Reserve was just a name on your bills and it was supposed to make your eyes glaze over. 130 00:15:20.280 --> 00:15:23.280 Pay no attention, you know, it's boring. 131 00:15:23.280 --> 00:15:26.280 Of course, the fact that you're being ripped off is actually very interesting. 132 00:15:26.280 --> 00:15:36.280 And, you know, millions are aware of the Fed and hate the guts of the Fed. 133 00:15:36.280 --> 00:15:39.280 This is why Alan Greenspan wrote that article in the Wall Street Journal. 134 00:15:39.280 --> 00:15:44.280 Don't blame me, don't blame the Fed, you know, it's the Asians or whatever, you know, or whoever. 135 00:15:44.280 --> 00:15:47.280 They loaned us too much money, that was the trouble. 136 00:15:47.280 --> 00:15:54.280 So, there's, again, reason to be optimistic. 137 00:15:54.280 --> 00:16:00.280 Again, because people are aware of the Federal Reserve, many Americans hate the Federal Reserve, 138 00:16:00.280 --> 00:16:05.280 I think this is increasing, and of course it's important to target the villain, 139 00:16:05.280 --> 00:16:09.280 The villain of the piece is of course the Federal Reserve. 140 00:16:09.280 --> 00:16:13.280 You're not supposed to even know about it, think about it. 141 00:16:13.280 --> 00:16:17.280 I think that worries them. I think that animated Bernanke speech 142 00:16:17.280 --> 00:16:21.280 who again says, it's not us. The Federal Reserve always cures the crises 143 00:16:21.280 --> 00:16:25.280 but never causes the crises. That's the rule, believe it, think it, 144 00:16:25.280 --> 00:16:29.280 that's it. Why are they saying these things? 145 00:16:29.280 --> 00:16:33.280 You've never seen a Fed chairman, Arthur Burns or whatever, defend the Fed like that. 146 00:16:33.280 --> 00:16:40.280 It's because of us. So, very good. Thank you very much.