WEBVTT

NOTE Defending the Undefendable: An Interview with Walter Block

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.560
How's everybody doing out there? It's the Mike Martin Show here on blogtalkradio.com.

2
00:00:06.560 --> 00:00:10.480
As always, I'm Mike Martin along with Chris Sterk. Sterk, are you there, man?

3
00:00:10.480 --> 00:00:11.200
Yes, I am.

4
00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:17.520
All right. Excellent. So we're going to test some new stuff out here. I got myself a really

5
00:00:17.520 --> 00:00:23.920
fancy audio mixer. So I've been playing around with that, trying to get everything to go smoothly.

6
00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:29.680
And as you know, as always is the case with new technology, it doesn't always go as planned.

7
00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:34.520
the first time around. But today is going to be a great show. As always, Libertarian

8
00:00:34.520 --> 00:00:40.400
Politics and Philosophy, and just general hanging out, playing some good music. And

9
00:00:40.400 --> 00:00:44.400
Stokes actually got a treat for us today. You're going to play your guitar in the background,

10
00:00:44.400 --> 00:00:45.400
right?

11
00:00:45.400 --> 00:00:50.400
Yeah, at some time. I'm sure I'll play a little bit.

12
00:00:50.400 --> 00:00:54.400
Excellent. I mean, this is what it's going to be all about, man, is just hanging out,

13
00:00:54.400 --> 00:00:58.800
having a good time, and talking some real philosophy. And today we've got quite a treat,

14
00:00:58.800 --> 00:01:04.680
And we have a special guest on the line with us who is all the way down in Auburn, Alabama

15
00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:05.680
right now.

16
00:01:05.680 --> 00:01:10.960
His name is Professor Roger Block from Royal University and Professor Block is, I guess

17
00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:14.360
you can say, kind of like a Jedi of libertarian thought.

18
00:01:14.360 --> 00:01:16.200
Professor Block, are you with us?

19
00:01:16.200 --> 00:01:18.760
I am and I'm delighted to be with you.

20
00:01:18.760 --> 00:01:19.760
Excellent.

21
00:01:19.760 --> 00:01:24.000
So we're going to be talking today a little bit about the questions that come up every

22
00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:28.720
time we debate the issues about stateless societies.

23
00:01:28.720 --> 00:01:34.480
Me being an anarcho-capitalist, I'm always faced with the same sort of questions every

24
00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:39.160
time I talk to my friends about how a society would work without a government.

25
00:01:39.160 --> 00:01:43.960
So Professor Block is going to help us out here in talking about some major questions

26
00:01:43.960 --> 00:01:48.400
that always arise when it comes to a stateless society.

27
00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:52.680
So we're going to start right off the bat, but first I want to mention that if you're

28
00:01:52.680 --> 00:01:57.440
interested in calling up and talking to us here and hanging out and throwing out a question

29
00:02:27.440 --> 00:02:34.640
of Experience. I think we're at around the 200th student mark, so it's very exciting.

30
00:02:34.640 --> 00:02:38.660
That is really exciting. And actually, as a matter of fact, I really want to attend one

31
00:02:38.660 --> 00:02:43.360
of these conferences, but it's kind of hard to get away from work for a couple of days

32
00:02:43.360 --> 00:02:50.560
to go see it. Well, one of these days, hopefully. Maybe. Who knows? Yeah, and hopefully we might

33
00:02:50.560 --> 00:02:55.000
have something going on again here in New York, as I missed the Murray Rothbard thing

34
00:02:55.000 --> 00:03:09.000
The Mises Institute does have meetings in New York, either every year or every other year, and maybe we'll all link up at the next one.

35
00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:32.280
and sort of a chaotic spree to run amok and to cause damage and all kinds of things like

36
00:03:32.280 --> 00:03:33.280
that.

37
00:03:33.280 --> 00:03:37.800
And when I usually start off, I talk about the non-aggression axiom, which is a big central

38
00:03:37.800 --> 00:03:40.280
part of libertarian ethics.

39
00:03:40.280 --> 00:03:44.840
So could you elaborate a little bit about what the non-aggression axiom is?

40
00:03:44.840 --> 00:03:45.840
Yes.

41
00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:51.000
I think that you're quite right in pointing to the non-aggression axiom as the, I don't

42
00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:55.000
Basic Axiom or Basic Premise of Libertarianism

43
00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:51.000
1. The voluntary way and 2. The coercive way. The voluntary way is, I say, hey, I'll give you 100 bucks for them, or I'll be your best friend forever, or if you give me your shoes, I'll give you my tie and my wristwatch. Something like that. And if you reject all these offers, I'll try and up my offer. And if you say, you know, sorry, these shoes have got sentimental value and I'm not giving them to you for anything, well then, I just can't get the shoes and it's tough on me because they're your shoes. Now, there's another way to do it.

44
00:04:51.000 --> 00:04:53.800
So there's another way I can get those shoes. I can come to you with a gun and say,

45
00:04:53.800 --> 00:04:59.800
hey, give me those shoes or I'll plug you. Or I can steal them from you when you're not wearing them or something like that.

46
00:04:59.800 --> 00:05:10.200
And all the libertarian non-aggression axiom says is the first way of doing it is the voluntary way, trade, gifts, whatever, is legitimate and ought to be allowed by law.

47
00:05:10.200 --> 00:05:16.800
Whereas the second way of doing it, murder, rape, theft, whatever, is illegitimate and ought to be prohibited by law.

48
00:05:16.800 --> 00:05:22.400
There's nothing really wild-eyed about this. I think most people in our listening audience,

49
00:05:22.400 --> 00:05:26.520
if all they heard was that, yeah, they'd say, sure, you shouldn't steal his shoes.

50
00:05:26.520 --> 00:05:31.800
The difference between libertarianism and most people who would agree with that, however,

51
00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:37.840
is that libertarians are very, very rigidly, dare I say, consistent. We brook no exceptions

52
00:05:37.840 --> 00:05:44.840
to that general rule of non-aggression. For example, suppose I come into your house with

53
00:05:44.840 --> 00:06:14.840
The Theory of Money and Credit

54
00:06:14.840 --> 00:06:21.520
Democracy, we get your shoes. Well, the libertarians wouldn't go along with that because this is

55
00:06:21.520 --> 00:06:27.000
a violation of the Non-Aggression Act, and that's what the government is when it's a

56
00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:32.400
democracy, and that's the best sort of government I suppose. The others are autocracy or monarchy

57
00:06:32.400 --> 00:06:40.400
or something like that, where the dictator dictates. But even in a democracy, you have

58
00:06:40.400 --> 00:06:46.400
Now that's such a thing as called tyranny of the majority. So if the majority of people vote to take your shoes or to take your tax money,

59
00:06:46.400 --> 00:06:50.400
the hell with them, says libertarians, because they're violating the non-aggression axiom.

60
00:06:50.400 --> 00:06:56.400
Now there is one more thing I have to say, because the way I see libertarianism is not really just a non-aggression axiom.

61
00:06:56.400 --> 00:07:00.400
There's the opposite side of that coin, and that is called property rights.

62
00:07:00.400 --> 00:07:06.400
Because if I take the shoes that you're now wearing, strictly speaking, we don't know if I'm aggressing against you,

63
00:07:06.400 --> 00:07:08.400
The Theory of Money and Credit

64
00:07:36.400 --> 00:07:49.760
Robert Nozick tells us any legitimate title transfer from that is compatible with free

65
00:07:49.760 --> 00:07:53.100
enterprise and laissez-faire capitalism and libertarianism.

66
00:07:53.100 --> 00:07:58.220
So for example if we trade, I now get to own the milk even though I didn't produce it and

67
00:07:58.220 --> 00:08:03.660
you get to own the corn even though you didn't produce it, but we can both trace our ownership

68
00:08:03.660 --> 00:08:09.660
to a legitimate title transfer, in this case, border, plus the initial homesteading.

69
00:08:09.660 --> 00:08:13.660
So there you have libertarianism in a two-minute version or a three-minute version.

70
00:08:13.660 --> 00:08:23.660
It's the non-aggression axiom and private property rights based on homesteading and no exceptions, even for government.

71
00:08:23.660 --> 00:08:25.660
And the problem with government...

72
00:08:25.660 --> 00:08:29.660
Now, I should be fair and say that most libertarians are not anarcho-libertarians.

73
00:08:29.660 --> 00:08:31.660
They're not anarchists.

74
00:08:31.660 --> 00:08:35.660
I think that's where Sturck falls in is not... I'm sorry, I can't hear you.

75
00:08:35.660 --> 00:08:40.660
I'm sorry, that's where Sturck falls in is not being an anarcho-capitalist as myself.

76
00:08:40.660 --> 00:08:42.660
Right, right, right.

77
00:08:42.660 --> 00:08:50.660
And the minarchist or minimal archist position, and that's not a pejorative, it's just the way this is called.

78
00:08:50.660 --> 00:08:57.660
The most famous person of this sort is Arne Rand, and she said, I'm for limited government, I'm for laissez-faire capitalism.

79
00:08:57.660 --> 00:08:58.660
and Socialism.

80
00:08:58.660 --> 00:09:02.580
However, government has one legitimate function, and that is to protect persons and property

81
00:09:02.580 --> 00:09:04.740
and property based on homesteading.

82
00:09:04.740 --> 00:09:09.020
She was a libertarian even though she rejected that label.

83
00:09:09.020 --> 00:09:14.220
And to that end, there are three legitimate institutions of government, armies to keep

84
00:09:14.220 --> 00:09:19.740
foreign bad guys off of us, police to keep local bad guys off of us, and courts to tell

85
00:09:19.740 --> 00:09:23.460
who the good guys and the bad guys are, and that's it for her.

86
00:09:23.460 --> 00:09:30.580
The problem that the anarchist libertarian or anarcho-libertarian has with that is that

87
00:09:30.580 --> 00:09:36.380
a government is necessarily a violation of the very thing that Ayn Rand says it's supposed

88
00:09:36.380 --> 00:09:37.380
to protect against.

89
00:09:37.380 --> 00:09:41.260
Namely, it violates persons and property rights because of two things.

90
00:09:41.260 --> 00:09:44.340
One, it taxes people and taxes the compulsory levies.

91
00:09:44.340 --> 00:09:47.700
If you don't believe that, try not paying and see what happens to you.

92
00:09:47.700 --> 00:09:50.180
And the other is that government is a monopoly.

93
00:09:50.180 --> 00:09:57.540
It demands a monopoly of the protection services, and why should it have a monopoly?

94
00:09:57.540 --> 00:10:04.340
We believe in competition in producing shoes and milk and corn, so why not in protection

95
00:10:04.340 --> 00:10:05.340
services?

96
00:10:05.340 --> 00:10:12.680
So, as an anarcho-libertarian, I would say that government is, per se, a violation of

97
00:10:12.680 --> 00:10:18.060
the very axiom of libertarianism that all libertarians agree, namely, minarchists are

98
00:10:18.060 --> 00:10:20.060
are a little inconsistent here.

99
00:10:20.060 --> 00:10:23.060
Right. And you touched on a couple of points.

100
00:10:23.060 --> 00:10:29.060
And one is whenever people ask the question, well, how would an anarchy work without a government,

101
00:10:29.060 --> 00:10:34.060
as long as it's a capitalist anarchy, there's always going to be order because of private property.

102
00:10:34.060 --> 00:10:37.060
The people who own the property make the rules.

103
00:10:37.060 --> 00:10:44.060
And obviously being in a world of chaos is just not conducive to anything that's creative

104
00:10:44.060 --> 00:10:55.060
Creative or anything that's going to bring in any kind of wealth to you. So you kind of find it necessary to create a sense of order, even though there is no government?

105
00:10:55.060 --> 00:11:10.060
Well, I wouldn't say even though. I would say government is the greatest violator of order. I mean, in the last century, governments, apart from wars, have killed 170 million people of their own citizens.

106
00:11:10.060 --> 00:11:15.420
You know, so when you say that you're against chaos and disorder and blood in the streets,

107
00:11:15.420 --> 00:11:20.220
I tell you, I come from New Orleans, and that sounds like what we've got right now, where

108
00:11:20.220 --> 00:11:27.340
government can't protect us out of a paper bag, so to speak, or to mix a metaphor there.

109
00:11:27.340 --> 00:11:32.220
We have, in New Orleans, we have murders every week.

110
00:11:32.220 --> 00:11:38.140
We have the prohibition of drugs, which creates a lot of the havoc, and I'm not talking about

111
00:11:38.140 --> 00:11:43.900
The War. I'm not talking about Iraq and Afghanistan and maybe Iran. I'm just talking about domestic

112
00:11:43.900 --> 00:11:49.820
killing. And then also the fact that some 40,000 people a year lose their lives on government

113
00:11:49.820 --> 00:11:55.580
socialist highways, and somehow it's blamed on, I don't know, drunken driving or speeding

114
00:11:55.580 --> 00:12:00.540
or something, but it's really the government's fault. So I'm not really a big fan of government

115
00:12:00.540 --> 00:12:05.800
when it comes to the tasks that the minarchists assign to it, namely protection of person

116
00:12:05.800 --> 00:12:11.240
and Property. I think government is chaos and it makes us less safe, not more safe.

117
00:12:11.240 --> 00:12:15.880
Well, I totally agree on that. And if you've got any questions about this topic, the number

118
00:12:15.880 --> 00:12:22.400
here is 347-826-7648. Sturck, you got anything here, any questions?

119
00:12:22.400 --> 00:12:27.600
No, as of right now, I think I'm pretty contempt.

120
00:12:27.600 --> 00:12:30.680
Hey, maybe we've got a convert there.

121
00:12:30.680 --> 00:12:35.440
There you go. I mean, it's something that if you talk about it from the very roots and

122
00:12:35.440 --> 00:12:39.860
in the very beginnings of non-aggression, and you explain to people that the government

123
00:12:39.860 --> 00:12:44.540
cannot exist without aggression, then I think you can sell over a lot of people, and that's

124
00:12:44.540 --> 00:12:49.140
been my experience in debating and talking about the issues, is that if you break it

125
00:12:49.140 --> 00:12:55.080
down to let people understand that the government or the state, any state, is based on violence

126
00:12:55.080 --> 00:13:01.140
and it cannot exist without it, then I think you can start to understand how people like

127
00:13:01.140 --> 00:13:06.420
like us are more anarchists because we see the state as violence and it cannot be separated

128
00:13:06.420 --> 00:13:07.420
as such.

129
00:13:07.420 --> 00:13:08.420
Right.

130
00:13:08.420 --> 00:13:09.420
Absolutely.

131
00:13:09.420 --> 00:13:13.300
Now there is one objection that sometimes people mention, they say, look, the government

132
00:13:13.300 --> 00:13:15.700
is not coercive, it's really a club.

133
00:13:15.700 --> 00:13:18.780
And if you join the golf club, you have to pay your dues, otherwise they kick you the

134
00:13:18.780 --> 00:13:19.780
hell out of the golf club.

135
00:13:19.780 --> 00:13:23.900
If you join the tennis club, you have to pay your dues, otherwise they kick you out of

136
00:13:23.900 --> 00:13:24.900
the club.

137
00:13:24.900 --> 00:13:29.940
Well, the US government or the United States of America should more accurately be called

138
00:13:29.940 --> 00:13:36.940
The United States of America club, to just put it in words that articulates what they

139
00:13:37.860 --> 00:13:44.060
really mean. So we have to ask, is the government a club? And the key to being a club is that

140
00:13:44.060 --> 00:13:49.100
everyone has to volunteer for it. You can't be walking down the street and somebody grabs

141
00:13:49.100 --> 00:13:53.820
you with an umbrella handle around the neck and pulls you in and says, okay, you're a

142
00:13:53.820 --> 00:13:58.700
member of the club, whether you like it or not, that's not a club. So is the United States

143
00:13:58.700 --> 00:14:05.700
The Theory of Money and Credit

144
00:14:28.700 --> 00:14:33.420
How do we counter this?

145
00:14:33.420 --> 00:14:36.940
We ask, how did the United States start?

146
00:14:36.940 --> 00:14:42.300
I don't know when it started, in 1776, 1789, I'm not a historian, so I don't know exactly

147
00:14:42.300 --> 00:14:49.500
dates, I'm weak on dates, but a long time ago there was no United States club.

148
00:14:49.500 --> 00:14:52.100
There was Britain, and then we seceded from them.

149
00:14:52.100 --> 00:14:57.540
We had a little bit of a war about that, a revolutionary war, and all of a sudden we've

150
00:14:57.540 --> 00:15:05.620
We've got this supposed club. Well, in the Dolphin Tennis Club, it has to be unanimous.

151
00:15:05.620 --> 00:15:09.140
Everyone who's a member has to agree to join, and for important things, you have to have

152
00:15:09.140 --> 00:15:13.620
some sort of signature. Well, who signed anything? Well, a bunch of people. John Hancock with

153
00:15:13.620 --> 00:15:18.820
a big signature, and maybe 15 other people signed the Declaration of Independence, which

154
00:15:18.820 --> 00:15:23.340
wasn't really the Constitution, which is supposed to be the club rules. Nobody signed the bloody

155
00:15:23.340 --> 00:15:30.380
Now, take an example, some guy is living in Weston, Pennsylvania in around 17, I don't

156
00:15:30.380 --> 00:15:35.460
know, 80 or 85 or so, and he doesn't know anything about the US, he's out in the boonies

157
00:15:35.460 --> 00:15:40.660
and the war passed him by, and out comes a revenue from, I don't know where it was, maybe

158
00:15:40.660 --> 00:15:46.260
not Washington DC, maybe the capital was Philadelphia, or anyway, some tax guy comes out to him in

159
00:15:46.260 --> 00:15:51.540
Weston, Pennsylvania, which is really the boonies, and says, hey, guess what, we started

160
00:15:51.540 --> 00:15:54.100
This is the United States Club.

161
00:15:54.100 --> 00:15:57.700
And the Western Pennsylvania guy says, oh, congratulations, that's wonderful.

162
00:15:57.700 --> 00:16:02.780
I'll be your good neighbor, we'll trade, you know, we'll be friendly, come on for dinner.

163
00:16:02.780 --> 00:16:07.700
And the revenueist says, wait, you don't understand, you're part of this club.

164
00:16:07.700 --> 00:16:08.700
And the guy says, what?

165
00:16:08.700 --> 00:16:09.700
I'm part of this club?

166
00:16:09.700 --> 00:16:12.100
I don't want to be part of this club.

167
00:16:12.100 --> 00:16:15.020
Clubs are supposed to be voluntary things and you're telling me I have to be in it?

168
00:16:15.020 --> 00:16:17.020
And then the guy says, well, if you don't like it, leave.

169
00:16:17.020 --> 00:16:18.740
And he says, what, leave?

170
00:16:18.740 --> 00:16:23.500
We've been homesteading this here patch of Western Pennsylvania for a hundred years or

171
00:16:23.500 --> 00:16:24.500
whatever it is.

172
00:16:24.500 --> 00:16:27.860
We were here before your club started and now you're telling me I've got to join your

173
00:16:27.860 --> 00:16:28.860
club?

174
00:16:28.860 --> 00:16:31.540
You know, take a hike.

175
00:16:31.540 --> 00:16:33.820
So the United States club is not really a club.

176
00:16:33.820 --> 00:16:39.220
The United States government is a government which is a compulsory thing which is a violation

177
00:16:39.220 --> 00:16:45.340
of the non-aggression axiom and the non-aggression axiom is the basic premise of libertarianism.

178
00:16:45.340 --> 00:16:50.640
So, government is per se incompatible with libertarianism, the views of the minarchists

179
00:16:50.640 --> 00:16:52.460
to the contrary notwithstanding.

180
00:16:52.460 --> 00:16:58.100
I love the whole voluntary argument that people make in saying, well, our government is voluntary

181
00:16:58.100 --> 00:17:02.740
because we vote for the elected officials, but what they neglect to mention is that,

182
00:17:02.740 --> 00:17:10.100
well, you know, Hitler was elected by the majority, right, a democracy over there, and

183
00:17:10.100 --> 00:17:14.640
when you're in an election, you're really, as an elected official, you're trying to get

184
00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:19.800
the vast majority of votes. So you're going to give and you're going to give and you're

185
00:17:19.800 --> 00:17:23.780
going to expect that people are going to vote for you and in essence all you're doing is

186
00:17:23.780 --> 00:17:29.000
really plundering the small minority of people in order to get to the majority of people.

187
00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:34.000
So naturally the majority is always going to favor being or plundering the minority.

188
00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:37.640
So you're never going to get any advancement in society because it's always going to be

189
00:17:37.640 --> 00:17:39.640
based on plunder in some way.

190
00:17:39.640 --> 00:17:57.640
Well, I agree with you with two very very minor reservations. One, strictly speaking, Hitler didn't win a majority, he won a plurality. I think there were three major parties and he won like 40% and the other two guys won 30% each or something like that, which was certainly compatible with democracy.

191
00:17:57.640 --> 00:18:03.840
The second point is, it's not usually a majority that exploits the minority, it's usually a

192
00:18:03.840 --> 00:18:10.680
minority that exploits the majority in most western democracies.

193
00:18:10.680 --> 00:18:17.240
What they have to do is then hire the intellectual class, the court historians or professors

194
00:18:17.240 --> 00:18:22.000
or people like that, and they have to convince the people that the government is either necessary

195
00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:25.080
or inevitable or a necessary evil or something like that.

196
00:18:25.080 --> 00:18:31.600
In other words, if the richest 95% try to exploit the poorest 5% of the population,

197
00:18:31.600 --> 00:18:35.400
they can do it, but the pickings are very slim, there's not much to steal.

198
00:18:35.400 --> 00:18:41.920
But if the richest or among the richest 5% of the people want to exploit the other 95%

199
00:18:41.920 --> 00:18:47.560
of the people, then there's plenty of money to steal, but they just have to hire intellectuals

200
00:18:47.560 --> 00:18:53.640
to make the case for them, so you have this unholy alliance of ruling class types and

201
00:18:53.640 --> 00:19:20.920
Well, that's a vicious, nasty question on your part.

202
00:19:20.920 --> 00:19:27.800
I would say that the majority of the professoriate thinks that I'm a loon, and that's the polite

203
00:19:27.800 --> 00:19:32.160
way to put it, a nutcase or nutjob or something like that.

204
00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:39.520
Happily, at Loyola University in New Orleans, all four or all five of us, I forget, we had

205
00:19:39.520 --> 00:19:45.200
some change, I think there are now four professors of economics, and all of them would agree

206
00:19:45.200 --> 00:19:54.600
3 of us are anarcho-capitalists and one of them is a anarchist, but all four are free

207
00:19:54.600 --> 00:20:02.480
market advocates and for many years I was sort of like an ugly duckling, and now I'm

208
00:20:02.480 --> 00:20:07.980
a beautiful swan because the swans at Loyola University in New Orleans very much appreciate

209
00:20:07.980 --> 00:20:13.720
me and we're all on the same page, so hint, hint, if anyone wants to go to a good college

210
00:20:13.720 --> 00:20:18.480
where they've got a great education and they'll have professors who are free enterprise think

211
00:20:18.480 --> 00:20:19.480
of us.

212
00:20:19.480 --> 00:20:24.520
You're listening to the Mike Martin Show here with special guest, Professor Walter Block.

213
00:20:24.520 --> 00:20:33.520
If you want to get on board the program, it's 347-826-7648 and also you could email any

214
00:20:33.520 --> 00:20:40.660
comments you have to mikemartinshow.gmail.com and Professor Block, you wrote a book that

215
00:20:40.660 --> 00:20:45.320
You asked me to talk about a little bit, and I actually read it just recently, and it's

216
00:20:45.320 --> 00:20:47.960
called Defending the Undefendable.

217
00:20:47.960 --> 00:20:52.620
And if you could elaborate a little bit about what's in the book, and just to give you a

218
00:20:52.620 --> 00:20:59.420
little synopsis, it's a book about economic choices made every day by those people who

219
00:20:59.420 --> 00:21:03.740
you think as sort of the outcasts of society.

220
00:21:03.740 --> 00:21:08.420
And I think it's a really excellent way of looking at their conditions, like the prostitute,

221
00:21:08.420 --> 00:21:14.420
The Slum Ward, things like that. So if you'd like to elaborate a little bit about that, now's your chance.

222
00:21:14.420 --> 00:21:26.420
Sure. The book, Defending the Undefendable, first came out in 1976, and amazingly enough, it's gone for about five printings, and it's still selling, so it's got legs, as they say.

223
00:21:26.420 --> 00:21:37.420
Well, what the book is about is really the non-aggression axiom and private property rights and the libertarian theory, and then it applies it to a whole bunch of weird cases.

224
00:21:37.420 --> 00:21:46.420
For example, it applies it to, I don't know, the drug runner, the person who sells heroin.

225
00:21:46.420 --> 00:21:59.420
And what I'm saying there is not that I favor the use of heroin and I actually oppose it, but I think that there should be no log for adults having heroin or cocaine or marijuana or any of those addictive drugs.

226
00:21:59.420 --> 00:22:03.420
Again, I oppose the use of them. I don't use it and I don't advocate anyone use it.

227
00:22:03.420 --> 00:22:05.280
and the

228
00:22:05.280 --> 00:22:11.860
theory of just use of violence and it says only in defense and to stop a

229
00:22:11.860 --> 00:22:17.660
consenting adults from selling and buying drugs to each other is a violation

230
00:22:17.660 --> 00:22:24.940
of liberty so what this book says is that ordinarily in a free enterprise

231
00:22:24.940 --> 00:22:29.180
system to change the analogy for a moment there's nothing heroic about

232
00:22:29.180 --> 00:22:36.180
The Theory of Money and Credit

233
00:22:59.180 --> 00:23:05.180
I agree with you, especially when you have so many laws that just are ridiculous.

234
00:23:05.180 --> 00:23:10.180
In New York City, we're becoming more and more like fascistic with the kinds of laws that they're passing.

235
00:23:10.180 --> 00:23:17.180
For example, here in New York, if you get around, you need a metro card to swipe to get a subway and the buses.

236
00:23:17.180 --> 00:23:21.180
Well, did you know that it's illegal to sell a metro card swipe?

237
00:23:21.180 --> 00:23:27.180
So, for example, if a tourist came to you and they had no idea how to use the system, but they understood American money,

238
00:23:27.180 --> 00:23:48.180
And they said, well, I'll give you $2 if you swipe my MetroCard, and me being a good person, just a kind-hearted person, I agree. I'll take their $2 and I'll swipe their MetroCard. But I can go to jail for that. And that's ridiculous because there's nothing illegitimate of that. There's no violation of personal property in my selling a MetroCard swipe.

239
00:23:48.180 --> 00:23:58.180
Well, I don't know. I agree with you because the government shouldn't be running the, what do you call it, the subways in the first place.

240
00:23:58.180 --> 00:24:11.180
Originally, the BMC and the IRT, not the IND, were privately owned and they were charging a nickel fare and they were going to raise it to a dime and the government nationalized it or rather municipalized it.

241
00:24:11.180 --> 00:24:39.180
The government shouldn't take it over at all. But suppose I'm the legitimate owner of, I don't know what, the Walter playground, sort of thing, Disney World, and I have a rule that to get in you have to pay 10 bucks and you get a card swipe, but it's illegal to sell the card swipe to anyone else.

242
00:24:39.180 --> 00:24:43.020
A private owner could make that rule and it would be legitimate, but you're quite right

243
00:24:43.020 --> 00:24:48.060
in criticizing the government for doing it because the government has no legitimate ownership

244
00:24:48.060 --> 00:24:52.780
right of that enterprise in the first place, but it's not a per se violation of liberty

245
00:24:52.780 --> 00:24:57.280
because, look, suppose I invite you to come to my house and I say you have to wear a pink

246
00:24:57.280 --> 00:24:58.280
hat.

247
00:24:58.280 --> 00:25:02.340
You know, it's a little silly, but, you know, it's my house.

248
00:25:02.340 --> 00:25:06.060
Or if I say, you know, I'll give you the pink hat, but you can't sell it to anyone else

249
00:25:06.060 --> 00:25:13.060
of Money, The Theory of Money and State, The Theory of Money and State, The Theory of Money

250
00:25:36.060 --> 00:25:45.060
It's rather that the government shouldn't be able to do that. Heck, the government shouldn't be able to do anything, because it's, per se, an illegitimate institution.

251
00:25:45.060 --> 00:25:55.060
Right. And it's gone even further in New York now, because not only is it illegal to sell a metric card, but it's also illegal to sell any food with trans fat in it.

252
00:25:55.060 --> 00:26:04.060
Ah, that's totally ridiculous. And they're also pretty much prohibiting cigarettes. You have to hide them and you can't advertise them.

253
00:26:04.060 --> 00:26:10.060
I tell you, in Canada, where I spend my summers, if you ride a bicycle, you have to wear a helmet.

254
00:26:10.060 --> 00:26:16.060
Whereas in New Orleans, you can ride a motorcycle without a helmet. I mean, you know, the nanny state is just going berserk.

255
00:26:16.060 --> 00:26:29.060
It is. We live in a world in which, you know, you're told what to do. I'm an architect by trade, and they basically tell you what kind of toilets you can, you know, excrete in, and what kind of light bulbs you can use in your house.

256
00:26:29.060 --> 00:26:45.060
in Your House. There's no end to it and you know as a matter of course you understand that there never will be an end to it as long as the state is allowed to get away with these things and that's just the state's nature is to keep growing and getting more and more powerful.

257
00:26:45.060 --> 00:26:46.060
for All.

258
00:26:46.060 --> 00:26:49.660
So I think with that we'll take a quick music break and if you guys want to get on board

259
00:26:49.660 --> 00:26:57.660
the program, the number is 347-826-7648.

260
00:26:57.660 --> 00:27:01.100
I have a tune here from Def Leppard for you guys.

261
00:27:01.100 --> 00:27:06.540
It's called Stay With Me and it's on blogtalkradio.com.

262
00:27:06.540 --> 00:27:14.100
And I'm Mike Martin alongside Chris Sturch and Sturch is still there, very quiet, just

263
00:27:14.100 --> 00:27:44.100
Thank you for taking the time, but we also have special guest, Walter Block, here with us, and we're talking about the main questions that come about when you talk about a capitalist anarchy, and we touched already on some good points, primarily the non-aggression axiom and how that relates to a lot of capitalist and anarcho-capitalist thoughts, but now I have some real questions that always come up when we talk about free market anarchy.

264
00:27:44.100 --> 00:28:01.100
The question that comes to most people's minds is how would you deal with utilities such as, or not just utilities, but infrastructure such as roads, water and electricity and all that stuff. What do you think, Walter?

265
00:28:01.100 --> 00:28:06.100
Well, let's take roads first. I think roads are very important.

266
00:28:06.100 --> 00:28:13.100
The problem that I have with the present socialist road system, where the government owns the roads, is that two main problems.

267
00:28:13.100 --> 00:28:16.100
One is 40,000 people a year die on them.

268
00:28:16.100 --> 00:28:20.100
And the secondary problem is traffic congestion.

269
00:28:20.100 --> 00:28:23.100
New York City is known for its traffic congestion.

270
00:28:23.100 --> 00:28:25.100
Just the other day I was in New York.

271
00:28:25.100 --> 00:28:29.100
I landed in the New York airport at around 10 o'clock, and I was trying to get into New York City.

272
00:28:29.100 --> 00:28:34.100
And I made the mistake of taking a cab, and we tried to get through the Lincoln Tunnel, and we couldn't.

273
00:29:04.100 --> 00:29:15.100
I'm kidding, I'm kidding. But just 4,000. In the war in Vietnam, 50,000 US soldiers died, but that was over 7 or 8 years.

274
00:29:15.100 --> 00:29:24.100
So here you have 40,000 people, civilians, mothers, babies, children, grandmas, you know, just get slaughtered like flies on the roads.

275
00:29:24.100 --> 00:29:31.100
And you don't even hear about this. Obama and McCain are now having a battle to see who's going to be the president.

276
00:29:31.100 --> 00:29:35.120
the President and is anyone mentioned here? No, I mean it's not even in the

277
00:29:35.120 --> 00:29:40.300
newspapers. Oh, every once in a while if you have a 15 car crack up and you know

278
00:29:40.300 --> 00:29:46.780
300 people die, well you'll hear about it in the newspapers but it's just sort of

279
00:29:46.780 --> 00:29:52.100
nobody's got any solutions to it. Well the free market anarchists or the

280
00:29:52.100 --> 00:29:58.700
in the minarchists here also would agree that we should privatize roads. Now most

281
00:29:58.700 --> 00:30:01.700
Most people are going to say, well, you know, we're just talking about addictive substances.

282
00:30:01.700 --> 00:30:03.540
What are you crazy?

283
00:30:03.540 --> 00:30:07.700
What addictive substances are you now using such that you think we can have privatized

284
00:30:07.700 --> 00:30:08.700
roads?

285
00:30:08.700 --> 00:30:12.380
If we had privatized roads, you know, you'd have carnage and death and it would be impossible

286
00:30:12.380 --> 00:30:13.380
to have them.

287
00:30:13.380 --> 00:30:16.740
And, you know, every time you went down the street, you'd have to pay some little old

288
00:30:16.740 --> 00:30:21.300
lady a penny as you went moving by our house at one mile an hour.

289
00:30:21.300 --> 00:30:22.940
So they think it's crazy.

290
00:30:22.940 --> 00:30:29.140
So as an actual case in point, the first roads, I hope everyone in the audience is sitting

291
00:30:29.140 --> 00:30:33.300
down for this, because if you're standing you might peel over, the first roads were all

292
00:30:33.300 --> 00:30:35.820
private turnpike roads.

293
00:30:35.820 --> 00:30:41.500
Some guy would build a road and go from A to B and, I don't know, New York to Boston

294
00:30:41.500 --> 00:30:46.600
or whatever, and he would assemble a road that would not cement in those days.

295
00:30:46.600 --> 00:30:52.500
This was during the 18th century, during the 1700s when you had private turnpike roads.

296
00:30:52.500 --> 00:30:57.340
And he would assemble land and he would grade it and get out some of the potholes and try

297
00:30:57.340 --> 00:31:02.700
to make it smooth and it'd be a term like a payment system every couple of miles.

298
00:31:02.700 --> 00:31:03.700
And you'd have a road.

299
00:31:03.700 --> 00:31:04.820
There was a private road.

300
00:31:04.820 --> 00:31:10.660
So don't tell me that it's lunatic to think of private roads and highways.

301
00:31:10.660 --> 00:31:17.060
I think the greatest example of private roads anywhere is Walt Disney World in Florida.

302
00:31:17.060 --> 00:31:18.060
Oh, yes.

303
00:31:18.060 --> 00:31:25.380
The Walt Disney World has many roads within it, many college campuses have got highways

304
00:31:25.380 --> 00:31:30.980
or little streets in them, condominium associations, golf clubs, whatever, they all have little

305
00:31:30.980 --> 00:31:39.860
bits of private roads, but I'm talking about, you know, I-90 or the US-5 or whatever, I'm

306
00:31:39.860 --> 00:31:45.460
talking about limited access highways, I'm talking about arterial streets, avenues, roads,

307
00:31:45.460 --> 00:31:50.940
Main Street, Broadway, Fifth Avenue, whatever you have in Manhattan, 59th Street, it should

308
00:31:50.940 --> 00:31:51.940
all be private.

309
00:31:51.940 --> 00:31:55.900
There shouldn't be any government involvement in the roads whatsoever.

310
00:31:55.900 --> 00:32:01.700
Now, the obvious objection to my claim that socialist roads are killing people is to say,

311
00:32:01.700 --> 00:32:06.020
well, it's not socialist roads, it's rather, now they've come up with a long, long laundry

312
00:32:06.020 --> 00:32:07.020
list.

313
00:32:07.020 --> 00:32:12.620
It's speeding and drunk and driving and vehicle malfunction and driver error and how far the

314
00:32:12.620 --> 00:32:27.620
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has about 125 different causes of highway fatalities, and none of it has got anything to do with the government.

315
00:32:27.620 --> 00:32:33.620
Now, to me, this is a confusion of proximate with ultimate causes.

316
00:32:33.620 --> 00:32:39.500
Look, suppose I took a gun and just shoot some innocent person, and now a whole bunch

317
00:32:39.500 --> 00:32:43.340
of people grab me and they're about to charge me with murder, and I say, hey, it wasn't

318
00:32:43.340 --> 00:32:44.900
me, it was the bullet that killed him.

319
00:32:44.900 --> 00:32:48.900
Everyone would laugh at me and they say that I'm confusing proximate and ultimate cause.

320
00:32:48.900 --> 00:32:53.860
Of course the proximate cause is the bullet, but the ultimate cause is my finger on me,

321
00:32:53.860 --> 00:32:58.900
you know, my purposes, and I'm guilty even though I was 200 yards away from my victim

322
00:32:58.900 --> 00:33:00.900
when I shot him with a rifle.

323
00:33:00.900 --> 00:33:07.820
Take another example. Take the restaurant that goes broke. Suppose we were called in

324
00:33:07.820 --> 00:33:12.380
as restaurant consultants and trying to figure out why the place went broke. And we started

325
00:33:12.380 --> 00:33:16.300
this stupid list of, well, you know, location, location, location, they didn't locate the

326
00:33:16.300 --> 00:33:21.180
restaurant in a good place, and they didn't hire a good chef, and the food was lousy,

327
00:33:21.180 --> 00:33:26.700
and the waitresses were surly and slow, so when the food came it was cold, and they didn't

328
00:33:56.700 --> 00:34:26.700
The Theory of Money and Credit

329
00:34:26.700 --> 00:34:31.780
keeps losing money, what happens to it then? Well, they go bankrupt and the remaining

330
00:34:31.780 --> 00:34:37.460
restarts a little bit better. The problem, and that's true of any capitalist enterprise,

331
00:34:37.460 --> 00:34:44.140
and that's a very salutary effect of bankruptcy. It weeds out inefficient producers. But you

332
00:34:44.140 --> 00:34:49.980
don't have that in highways. If the Lincoln Tunnel is lousy but the Hudson Tunnel is good,

333
00:34:49.980 --> 00:34:57.660
Does the Lincoln Tunnel lose money? No. The government doesn't lose money. I was in New

334
00:34:57.660 --> 00:35:03.620
Orleans and we had Katrina and the Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA. By the way, a great

335
00:35:03.620 --> 00:35:08.100
bumper sticker. FEMA happens, a very popular bumper sticker there. See, I don't mind the

336
00:35:08.100 --> 00:35:12.340
fact so much that they killed around 1,100 people. I don't like it, but what really

337
00:35:12.340 --> 00:35:16.900
kicks me off is that these wretched people are still in business. And that's no way

338
00:35:16.900 --> 00:35:27.900
The way to run a railroad, the way to have a civilized economy is when you screw up, you get out of business and you leave the industry for other people who can do a better job.

339
00:35:27.900 --> 00:35:32.900
Well, that's why we have so many deaths on the highway, because you don't have any competition.

340
00:35:32.900 --> 00:35:38.900
Right. Now, Walter, if I can interrupt you for a second, we have a caller on the line. Caller, are you there?

341
00:35:38.900 --> 00:35:39.900
Hi, I'm here.

342
00:35:39.900 --> 00:35:41.900
Hey, how's it going?

343
00:35:41.900 --> 00:35:48.900
It's okay. This is James. Mike, I'm your friend, James.

344
00:35:48.900 --> 00:35:52.940
I know. James is actually one of my good friends from back in the college days, and he was

345
00:35:52.940 --> 00:36:00.300
also a DJ on WQRI with Sterk and I. So, James, tell us a little bit about what question you

346
00:36:00.300 --> 00:36:06.060
have for Walter. Well, I want to say, first of all, I'm getting

347
00:36:06.060 --> 00:36:10.980
a little feedback here, so sorry if I stutter. I want to say first of all that Walter, thank

348
00:36:10.980 --> 00:36:14.700
Thank you very much. You're one of my personal heroes and I love listening to all your lectures

349
00:36:14.700 --> 00:36:19.020
on Mises.org and I don't know, you've been a great inspiration because to me, you follow

350
00:36:19.020 --> 00:36:24.780
the principle and you let everything else fall to the side and it's just an inspiration,

351
00:36:24.780 --> 00:36:29.420
just in the same line as Murray Rothbard, really.

352
00:36:29.420 --> 00:36:33.340
Oh, you're very kind. Thank you. I'm delighted to be mentioned in the same sentence with

353
00:36:33.340 --> 00:36:35.380
Murray Rothbard, who is my mentor.

354
00:36:35.380 --> 00:36:43.380
And you know, James has actually been my mentor in libertarian thought. So, my political Yoda, I call him.

355
00:36:43.380 --> 00:36:51.380
Well, obviously, I'm nowhere near as good as Murray Rothbard, so let's not mention me.

356
00:36:51.380 --> 00:36:56.380
What I wanted to ask is, I actually work in a coffee center, and it's in a retail store.

357
00:36:56.380 --> 00:37:03.380
And I know from studying economics, I sort of do it on the side, so I haven't really gone to school for economics.

358
00:37:03.380 --> 00:37:04.380
Economics.

359
00:37:04.380 --> 00:37:08.980
It's just something like a hobby of mine, and Austrian economics, obviously, because

360
00:37:08.980 --> 00:37:11.260
I'm a big fan of yours.

361
00:37:11.260 --> 00:37:17.560
What I wanted to ask is, are wages, say, for instance, it's supposed to be that you earn

362
00:37:17.560 --> 00:37:23.860
the marginal revenue product and that determines your wage or the discounted marginal revenue

363
00:37:23.860 --> 00:37:26.700
product, but we don't make anywhere near that.

364
00:37:26.700 --> 00:37:31.260
So we can bring the copy sensor sort of $500 an hour, $1,000 an hour, and we're getting

365
00:37:31.260 --> 00:37:32.940
paid what, $12 or something?

366
00:37:32.940 --> 00:37:38.060
So I just wanted to understand the disparity there.

367
00:37:38.060 --> 00:37:45.300
Well you have to realize if your gross receipts are say $1,000 an hour and let's say there

368
00:37:45.300 --> 00:37:52.860
are three of you so you might think that your contribution is $333 each per hour, right?

369
00:37:52.860 --> 00:37:54.140
That sort of a thing?

370
00:37:54.140 --> 00:37:58.620
And you're making, I don't know, $10 an hour of salary?

371
00:37:58.620 --> 00:38:04.420
And you're wondering about the disparity between $333.00 and $10.00 an hour, am I understanding

372
00:38:04.420 --> 00:38:05.420
you correctly?

373
00:38:05.420 --> 00:38:06.420
Yeah, absolutely.

374
00:38:06.420 --> 00:38:12.340
So if it tends towards equilibrium or it tends towards what we're producing, it doesn't seem

375
00:38:12.340 --> 00:38:15.620
like it's tending that quickly, do you know what I mean?

376
00:38:15.620 --> 00:38:21.900
Well, with regard to the disparity between this $333.00 and the $10.00 that you're paid,

377
00:38:21.900 --> 00:38:29.900
There's a lot that you have to take into account, like that the owner has to pay for the machinery,

378
00:38:29.900 --> 00:38:35.700
he has to pay to set the thing up, he has to pay either rent if he rents the place,

379
00:38:35.700 --> 00:38:41.460
or he has to pay the alternative cost of what he could have rented if he owned it, and he

380
00:38:41.460 --> 00:38:45.820
must have put in, I don't know, a couple hundred thousand or a million dollars in terms of

381
00:38:45.820 --> 00:38:49.100
machinery, which could have been earning interest.

382
00:38:49.100 --> 00:38:54.740
So, when you take all those sort of things into account, he's got a lot of other payments

383
00:38:54.740 --> 00:39:00.460
to make beside you and your two buddies who are working in the Kinko's kind of place for

384
00:39:00.460 --> 00:39:01.460
that given hour.

385
00:39:01.460 --> 00:39:05.660
So, you're talking about overhead and that...

386
00:39:05.660 --> 00:39:09.260
And let's suppose that what you were writing, let's ignore everything I just said, although

387
00:39:09.260 --> 00:39:16.140
I think what I said was pretty definitive, but let's suppose that you guys were really

388
00:39:16.140 --> 00:39:21.900
Producing at the rate of $333, and he was only paying you $10, and he was therefore

389
00:39:21.900 --> 00:39:26.060
making $323 profit off of you?

390
00:39:26.060 --> 00:39:27.060
Sure.

391
00:39:27.060 --> 00:39:28.060
Right?

392
00:39:28.060 --> 00:39:37.380
Wouldn't some other capitalist pig hire you away from him and offer you $11 an hour, and

393
00:39:37.380 --> 00:39:44.300
therefore make only a profit of $330 minus $11 versus minus $10, and wouldn't somebody

394
00:40:14.300 --> 00:40:26.060
I don't think that your marginal revenue productivity is anything like three divided by the thousand

395
00:40:26.060 --> 00:40:27.060
an hour.

396
00:40:27.060 --> 00:40:31.100
Okay, so they let us know their numbers.

397
00:40:31.100 --> 00:40:35.620
So for instance, we know what the margin, the profit margin is on any given service,

398
00:40:35.620 --> 00:40:36.620
right?

399
00:40:36.620 --> 00:40:40.820
And so the copy center generally is around 60 or 70 percent margin, give or take what

400
00:40:40.820 --> 00:40:42.100
you're selling.

401
00:40:42.100 --> 00:40:46.180
And so, yeah, you could discount all the overhead and that goes, you know, and that's reflected

402
00:40:46.180 --> 00:40:47.180
in the margin.

403
00:40:47.180 --> 00:40:53.580
And so, even if, you know, we're being paid 10 or whatever it is, and then we're bringing

404
00:40:53.580 --> 00:40:57.820
in, and it could just be me, I could make the $1,000 sale and, you know, the sale might

405
00:40:57.820 --> 00:41:01.220
come in two days and someone else might ring it out or whatever.

406
00:41:01.220 --> 00:41:05.060
But say it cost them, you know, even $400 to make the sale.

407
00:41:05.060 --> 00:41:09.100
I mean, that's still a margin of $600 or whatever it is.

408
00:41:09.100 --> 00:41:14.300
I made the sale, you know, they only paid me however long it took me to consult with

409
00:41:14.300 --> 00:41:17.060
the customer to bring in that sale.

410
00:41:17.060 --> 00:41:20.260
Well, that's right.

411
00:41:20.260 --> 00:41:25.740
You know, sometimes you get this joke where some technical person, an engineer is called

412
00:41:25.740 --> 00:41:30.860
in to solve some problem and it takes them one minute and he charges, I don't know,

413
00:41:30.860 --> 00:41:34.780
two thousand bucks and the guy says, what, two thousand for one minute?

414
00:41:34.780 --> 00:41:39.420
And the guy says, well, you know, 2000 for one minute to give you the opinion, but to

415
00:41:39.420 --> 00:41:43.420
learn all the stuff that I needed to give you the correct opinion, that took years.

416
00:41:43.420 --> 00:41:44.420
Sure.

417
00:41:44.420 --> 00:41:45.420
Okay.

418
00:41:45.420 --> 00:41:48.060
So you have to put these things in.

419
00:41:48.060 --> 00:41:54.020
I got to say, James, you went from being my political Yoda to being a walking burrito.

420
00:41:54.020 --> 00:41:57.020
That's pretty freaky.

421
00:41:57.020 --> 00:42:01.860
I could do that to you, I guess.

422
00:42:01.860 --> 00:42:10.460
I'm trying to make the thing come alive because economics is supposedly boring and I'm trying

423
00:42:10.460 --> 00:42:12.020
to just make it come alive here.

424
00:42:12.020 --> 00:42:17.420
So I hope I didn't insult you by calling you a walking burrito, but I thought the metaphor

425
00:42:17.420 --> 00:42:18.420
was apt.

426
00:42:18.420 --> 00:42:20.420
I'm sure he'll be okay.

427
00:42:20.420 --> 00:42:22.420
I'll be fine with it.

428
00:42:22.420 --> 00:42:23.420
He'll recover.

429
00:42:23.420 --> 00:42:28.420
I'll certainly never look at you the same way, you know?

430
00:42:28.420 --> 00:42:34.860
Well, if you try to take a bite out of me, I think that's a private property infringement.

431
00:42:34.860 --> 00:42:35.860
I might have to react.

432
00:42:35.860 --> 00:42:42.860
So, I mean, these are great questions because you also have to realize that, you know, people

433
00:42:42.860 --> 00:42:48.500
always, especially Obama supporters, these guys are the worst because they spout out

434
00:42:48.500 --> 00:42:53.860
so much economic fallacy, you know, they're always claiming that the big companies ought

435
00:42:53.860 --> 00:42:54.860
to screw everybody.

436
00:42:54.860 --> 00:43:00.860
The people don't realize there's a lot of overhead that goes into things, especially ATM charges.

437
00:43:00.860 --> 00:43:04.860
This seems to be something that liberals have a tremendous hate for.

438
00:43:04.860 --> 00:43:09.860
They don't think there's anything wrong with paying a $2 charge on an ATM,

439
00:43:09.860 --> 00:43:13.860
but they're all for paying 40-50% of their income and taxes.

440
00:43:13.860 --> 00:43:16.860
But the point is an ATM needs to be maintained.

441
00:43:16.860 --> 00:43:19.860
There's overhead of the place that it's in.

442
00:43:49.860 --> 00:44:15.860
The problem is that we need help there. For example, I keep bringing up New Orleans things, but it's very apt. In New Orleans, right after Katrina, there was shortages of things like, I don't know, flashlight batteries and candles and milk and water and orange juice and stuff like that, and the prices went up very high and they were accused of gouging.

443
00:44:15.860 --> 00:44:21.620
Well, the salutory effect of a high price rise in the face of a shortage, as you had

444
00:44:21.620 --> 00:44:24.940
in New Orleans, is twofold.

445
00:44:24.940 --> 00:44:28.500
One, on the demand side, it rations to goods.

446
00:44:28.500 --> 00:44:34.100
In other words, if the old prices, the first 15 people into the Walmart are going to buy

447
00:44:34.100 --> 00:44:39.740
up everything, and they'll leave nothing for the people next online, it won't be very

448
00:44:39.740 --> 00:44:40.740
salutory.

449
00:44:40.740 --> 00:44:44.820
So, if the prices are tenfold, people are going to start thinking, do I really need

450
00:44:44.820 --> 00:44:49.260
25 quarts of milk, maybe the milk will go bad before I drink it and it'll only take

451
00:44:49.260 --> 00:44:51.260
two or three.

452
00:44:51.260 --> 00:44:57.380
So that's one retaliatory effect of a price rise or a gouge so-called.

453
00:44:57.380 --> 00:45:03.180
Another one is that, you know, Adam Smith said it's not from benevolence that the butcher

454
00:45:03.180 --> 00:45:07.340
and the baker and the candlestick maker give us their wares, it's rather out of a keen

455
00:45:07.340 --> 00:45:09.860
appreciation of self-interest.

456
00:45:09.860 --> 00:45:15.020
So without prices rising and sharply, the only motivation of other people that help

457
00:45:15.020 --> 00:45:16.980
the people in New Orleans would be benevolence.

458
00:45:16.980 --> 00:45:21.180
And benevolence is all well and good, but when you have an emergency, you want to mobilize

459
00:45:21.180 --> 00:45:29.980
all sorts of motivations, not just benevolence, and you want to mobilize greed or profit seeking.

460
00:45:29.980 --> 00:45:34.860
So if everyone knows that prices are skyrocketing in New Orleans, then they'll bring stuff from

461
00:45:34.860 --> 00:45:41.340
from Texas and from Kentucky and from Tennessee, and that'll help reduce the prices back down

462
00:45:41.340 --> 00:45:42.780
to where they would be.

463
00:45:42.780 --> 00:45:46.460
And if you don't allow the prices to rise, you just get a shortage.

464
00:45:46.460 --> 00:45:50.020
And yet, when Governor Blanco heard of that price gouging, she threatened to put people

465
00:45:50.020 --> 00:45:54.100
in jail and everyone was applauding her, and this is just economic illiteracy.

466
00:45:54.100 --> 00:45:55.100
Exactly.

467
00:45:55.100 --> 00:45:58.180
You made a great point there about resources coming in.

468
00:45:58.180 --> 00:45:59.180
It's simple economics.

469
00:45:59.180 --> 00:46:04.340
You know, if all of a sudden in Louisiana, things, because of the natural disaster, my

470
00:46:04.340 --> 00:46:07.820
My products are going to get more money, I'm going to send a couple of truckloads over

471
00:46:07.820 --> 00:46:09.780
there and try and sell it off.

472
00:46:09.780 --> 00:46:14.980
So in the end, everybody is benefiting because there's more influx of resources, more medicine,

473
00:46:14.980 --> 00:46:19.740
more water coming in, so which if you stop that from happening, there's not going to

474
00:46:19.740 --> 00:46:20.740
be that influx.

475
00:46:20.740 --> 00:46:21.740
Precisely.

476
00:46:21.740 --> 00:46:29.580
That's the beauty of the price system, if it's allowed to be laissez-faire, namely

477
00:46:29.580 --> 00:46:30.580
free prices.

478
00:46:30.580 --> 00:46:34.580
And when government steps in, it just boxes up the works.

479
00:46:34.580 --> 00:46:41.580
And now, I mean, that leads to another question now that's a hot topic is oil prices and gas prices skyrocketing here.

480
00:46:41.580 --> 00:46:50.580
And, you know, far beyond, I mean, Obama and McCain are both going to keep blaming their speculators for this problem.

481
00:46:50.580 --> 00:46:56.580
But the real problem, and the way I see it, is that there's an increased demand on oil and gas,

482
00:46:56.580 --> 00:47:03.580
And there's a limited supply, just like anything else that has a limited supply and an increased demand, the price is going to rise.

483
00:47:03.580 --> 00:47:11.580
Right, I think that's absolutely correct. There are really two sources of this. One is inflation. You know, the prices of everything are rising, not just oil.

484
00:47:11.580 --> 00:47:23.580
But oil is rising faster than other things, and that's because of the demand. It's because government hasn't allowed any nuclear, any new nuclear power plants in, I don't know what, 30 or 40 years.

485
00:47:53.580 --> 00:48:09.580
With oil and gas too, there's also a lot of other government meddling beyond just inflation, like you said, the nuclear problems, but there's all kinds of environmental regulations that are really hampering the ability of people to find fuel.

486
00:48:09.580 --> 00:48:20.580
So the next question that comes to mind when people talk about a capitalist anarchy is, well, how do you take care of the environment then, if there's no regulation forcing you to take care of the environment?

487
00:48:20.580 --> 00:48:27.100
Well, I think there would be regulation, there would be laws under anarchy, you know, people

488
00:48:27.100 --> 00:48:32.960
think anarchy is a sin for lawlessness, but I don't see that at all.

489
00:48:32.960 --> 00:48:37.100
Maybe some kinds of anarchy are that way, left-wing anarchism or whatever, but libertarian

490
00:48:37.100 --> 00:48:46.020
anarchism is very predicated on the law of property rights, as we talked about with non-aggression.

491
00:48:46.020 --> 00:48:49.500
And let's take the case of pollution.

492
00:48:49.500 --> 00:48:55.580
Let me tell you a little fairy tale, a story, and as all fairy tales have to, they start

493
00:48:55.580 --> 00:49:00.460
with Once Upon a Time, a long, long time ago in a foreign land, only it wasn't a foreign

494
00:49:00.460 --> 00:49:06.980
land, it was the U.S. In the 1830s, and this isn't really a fairy tale, this is based on

495
00:49:06.980 --> 00:49:13.340
Murray Rothbard's brilliant essay on air pollution, where he bases some of his work on this guy

496
00:49:13.340 --> 00:49:17.180
Morton, I think his name, a Harvard historian.

497
00:49:17.180 --> 00:49:37.300
In the 1830s, there was a state of what we would now call environmental law cases, lawsuits,

498
00:49:37.300 --> 00:49:41.740
only in those days they called them Lucence cases, but it's the same thing.

499
00:49:41.740 --> 00:49:47.900
And typically you get some little old lady who was saying that I hung out my washing

500
00:49:47.900 --> 00:49:53.300
and it was wet and clean and I came back an hour later and it was dirty and dry.

501
00:49:53.300 --> 00:49:55.380
And that's their factory three miles away.

502
00:49:55.380 --> 00:50:02.900
You can see a smokestack and it got its dust particles onto my laundry.

503
00:50:02.900 --> 00:50:06.780
Or there'd be some farmer and the farmer would say, you know, that's their railroad.

504
00:50:06.780 --> 00:50:14.780
I had these haystacks sitting a hundred feet away from the railroad, and the sparks flew

505
00:50:14.780 --> 00:50:24.380
off so hard and fast and high that the railroad got my haystack on fire.

506
00:50:24.380 --> 00:50:26.980
And these would be environmental plaintiffs.

507
00:50:26.980 --> 00:50:34.420
And in the 1830s, not every plaintiff won, but the courts were libertarian courts in

508
00:50:34.420 --> 00:50:39.380
in those days, and they pretty much said, look, these are violations. You've just got

509
00:50:39.380 --> 00:50:43.860
to keep your spark to yourself, you've got to keep your dust particles to yourself. And

510
00:50:43.860 --> 00:50:49.220
they would award the plaintiffs, the little old lady and the farmer in our fairy tale

511
00:50:49.220 --> 00:50:55.060
here, our actual case as it happened, and they would award them two things. One would

512
00:50:55.060 --> 00:51:00.660
be damages, namely they'd make them pay for it, and the other is they would award them

513
00:51:00.660 --> 00:51:07.660
And then you have an injunction, and an injunction was an order from the court saying, if you keep up doing this, we're going to stick you in jail.

514
00:51:07.660 --> 00:51:19.660
So then what happened was that the railroad and the factory owner had to take into account these costs.

515
00:51:19.660 --> 00:51:23.660
Sometimes it's called externalities in economics.

516
00:51:23.660 --> 00:51:30.660
They had to maybe use some research and development into preventing sparks from flying so far away.

517
00:51:30.660 --> 00:51:37.660
Or they had to stick something in their smokestacks match or whatever that would catch most of the pollution.

518
00:51:37.660 --> 00:51:42.660
Now look, you're not going to stop all pollution. There is such a thing in law called de minimis.

519
00:51:42.660 --> 00:51:51.660
The law doesn't take into account trifles. We all do exhale carbon dioxide. But, you know, we've homesteaded that right.

520
00:51:51.660 --> 00:51:58.620
So, there were all sorts of very good things going on in the 1830s. There was even an environmental

521
00:51:58.620 --> 00:52:03.500
forensic. Now, we all know about forensics. I'm watching, what's that TV show ICS or something?

522
00:52:03.500 --> 00:52:12.940
CSI? CSI? CSI, that's it. Where they're always into hair follicles and blood and semen and,

523
00:52:12.940 --> 00:52:17.500
you know, fingerprints and this and that and the other. Why? Because we have laws against murder

524
00:52:17.500 --> 00:52:28.140
In the 1830s, when we had laws against dumping your crap onto the lungs and land of other

525
00:52:28.140 --> 00:52:34.300
people, it wasn't very scientific, it was only the 1830s, but there was a little environmental

526
00:52:34.300 --> 00:52:39.260
forensics, namely, here's the best particle, where did it come from? Let's go get the guy

527
00:52:39.260 --> 00:52:45.580
who is responsible for that and get an injunction against them or get damages out of them. There

528
00:52:45.580 --> 00:52:53.620
There was a move toward sulfur coal which is a bad coal, it's very cheap but it burns

529
00:52:53.620 --> 00:52:59.020
dirty and then there's anthracite coal which is more expensive but it burns much more clean

530
00:52:59.020 --> 00:53:03.860
and there was a move toward anthracite coal and away from sulfur coal.

531
00:53:03.860 --> 00:53:09.020
So all in all things weren't perfect but things were pretty good.

532
00:53:09.020 --> 00:53:12.820
Okay now we move to the progressive period, the so-called progressive period which is

533
00:53:42.820 --> 00:54:02.060
In the 1890s, which country was number one in terms of the biggest, toughest, meanest,

534
00:54:02.060 --> 00:54:04.020
baddest country on the planet?

535
00:54:04.020 --> 00:54:12.500
It was England, UK, and the powers that be in the US wanted us to be imperialistic, and

536
00:54:12.500 --> 00:54:19.500
The Theory of Money and Credit

537
00:55:12.500 --> 00:55:17.700
in the 1920s and with greater industrialization in the 30s, 40s and 50s, you get the China

538
00:55:17.700 --> 00:55:18.700
kind of a syndrome.

539
00:55:18.700 --> 00:55:22.260
You know, now in China they're going to have the Olympics and are afraid the marathon runners

540
00:55:22.260 --> 00:55:27.460
are afraid to run because they'll be like smoking five packs of cigarettes to run through

541
00:55:27.460 --> 00:55:28.460
that gunk.

542
00:55:28.460 --> 00:55:35.540
Well, in other words, what I'm trying to say is that the reason that we have the crisis

543
00:55:35.540 --> 00:55:42.220
is because government, which has abrogated the responsibility for protecting the environment,

544
00:55:42.220 --> 00:55:49.100
has just done the opposite of that by violating the law of private property and non-aggression.

545
00:55:50.460 --> 00:55:54.380
Yeah, the idea that something is for the greater good, you know, they allow people to get away

546
00:55:54.380 --> 00:55:59.820
with too much. But anyway, we're going to go to a quick music break here. If you want to get on

547
00:55:59.820 --> 00:56:07.660
board the Mike Martin Show, the number is 347-826-7648 and you can always email your comments

548
00:56:07.660 --> 00:56:20.660
The Mike Martin Show at gmail.com here on vlogtalkradio.com. It's The Mike Martin Show hanging with you guys here and of course, I'm Mike Martin hanging out with Chris Sturck and Walter Block.

549
00:56:20.660 --> 00:56:30.660
Now, you know, I got some criticism here on The Instant Messenger for playing the pipettes, but I got to say, guys, it's a pretty catchy song and it's not too bad.

550
00:56:30.660 --> 00:56:41.660
And the reason I picked up the album cover is because there are actually three really attractive French babes, so I've got to say that makes it all the better.

551
00:56:41.660 --> 00:56:44.660
I can't say I'm surprised by that one.

552
00:56:44.660 --> 00:56:54.660
Yeah, you know, when we were back in the QRI days, you'd look at an album, most of these people we've never heard of, these random band things, you absolutely have no idea who they are.

553
00:56:54.660 --> 00:57:03.660
So the only really way you have to judge it is by looking at their album art, and so if they have attractive album art, chances are you'll pick it up and take a listen.

554
00:57:03.660 --> 00:57:07.660
That's how I end up with these random songs like that.

555
00:57:07.660 --> 00:57:14.660
But anyway, we're asking two questions about anarcho-capitalism. Sturkey, do you have anything?

556
00:57:14.660 --> 00:57:16.660
What was that? I cut out.

557
00:57:16.660 --> 00:57:20.660
I said, you got anything to talk about?

558
00:57:20.660 --> 00:57:29.580
No, I don't actually. You're surprisingly quiet today. I'm just trying to, you know,

559
00:57:29.580 --> 00:57:35.060
sit back and kind of wrap my head around everything. It's a lot to talk about

560
00:57:35.060 --> 00:57:41.420
certainly, you know, you're asking people a lot of mental power to just think

561
00:57:41.420 --> 00:57:46.620
about a world without government, so it's a little hard to do that and we

562
00:57:46.620 --> 00:57:51.740
We actually have a caller on the line here, so hello, you're on blogtalkradio.com with

563
00:57:51.740 --> 00:57:52.740
Mike Martin.

564
00:57:52.740 --> 00:57:53.740
What's happening?

565
00:57:53.740 --> 00:57:54.740
Hi.

566
00:57:54.740 --> 00:57:55.740
Mike?

567
00:57:55.740 --> 00:57:56.740
Yes, how are you?

568
00:57:56.740 --> 00:57:57.740
Hi.

569
00:57:57.740 --> 00:57:58.740
Fine, thanks.

570
00:57:58.740 --> 00:58:02.300
Listen, I caught the end of your show and I think you guys are real interesting, but

571
00:58:02.300 --> 00:58:06.700
is there any chance you guys can give me a little bit of feedback, go back a little and

572
00:58:06.700 --> 00:58:09.580
tell me what exactly is a libertarian?

573
00:58:09.580 --> 00:58:10.580
Sure.

574
00:58:10.580 --> 00:58:12.580
Walter, you want to handle that?

575
00:58:12.580 --> 00:58:18.080
Well, sure, a libertarian is someone who believes in a non-aggression axiom and private property

576
00:58:18.080 --> 00:58:19.580
rights based on homesteading.

577
00:58:19.580 --> 00:58:22.940
Okay, okay, slow down a little.

578
00:58:22.940 --> 00:58:23.940
I'm sorry?

579
00:58:23.940 --> 00:58:24.940
You're going too fast for me.

580
00:58:24.940 --> 00:58:25.940
Slow down a little.

581
00:58:25.940 --> 00:58:33.820
Oh, sorry, non-aggression axiom, which means that the only legitimate way to deal with

582
00:58:33.820 --> 00:58:36.460
each other is on a voluntary basis.

583
00:58:36.460 --> 00:58:39.460
So we can seduce each other, but we can't rape each other.

584
00:58:39.460 --> 00:58:47.340
We can make each other offers, but we can't make demands or compel people to do things.

585
00:58:47.340 --> 00:58:49.660
And I think most people would agree with that.

586
00:58:49.660 --> 00:58:57.060
After all, if I want to get your dog, let's say you have a dog and I like your dog, there

587
00:58:57.060 --> 00:58:58.900
are only two ways I can get your dog.

588
00:58:58.900 --> 00:59:03.620
One is by threatening you that I'll beat you up if you don't give it to me, which is illegitimate.

589
00:59:03.620 --> 00:59:08.380
And the other way is I try to buy it or befriend you, say if you give me your dog I'll be your

590
00:59:08.380 --> 00:59:26.380
Can you apply that though to libertarian as opposed to democratic or republican views or independent views?

591
00:59:26.380 --> 00:59:31.380
I mean, can you make a comparison across the board like that or it has really nothing to do with that at all?

592
00:59:31.380 --> 00:59:35.380
Oh no, on the contrary, it has everything to do with that.

593
00:59:35.380 --> 00:59:51.380
Because the Democratic and the Republican parties both think that you can grab people's dogs if there are other properties with taxes and compulsions of various sorts, regulations, whereas only the libertarians would be pretty much against that.

594
00:59:51.380 --> 00:59:56.380
So you mean libertarians would like really go for no taxing, in other words?

595
00:59:56.380 --> 01:00:09.380
Well, the moderate libertarians would reduce taxes to that amount that is necessary to support the government to protect people and for that you'd have armies, courts and police and that would be it.

596
01:00:09.380 --> 01:00:14.380
That would be the minimal government libertarians or the laissez-faire people.

597
01:00:14.380 --> 01:00:17.380
So it would be more like a volunteer kind of government?

598
01:00:17.380 --> 01:00:28.380
No, no. Most libertarians would say that government has one legitimate function, that is to detect people, and to that end, they have three legitimate...

599
01:00:28.380 --> 01:00:35.380
But a libertarian would still... Excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm just trying to get the concept. But a libertarian would still be a politician, right?

600
01:00:35.380 --> 01:00:37.380
Yes.

601
01:00:37.380 --> 01:00:46.380
He's just a different type of politician. He'd still get paid like the Democrats do in Congress and the Republicans, and you still get... It's still a paid job, right?

602
01:00:46.380 --> 01:00:52.380
Yes, Ron Paul, for example, is a Lutheran congressman who is running for president.

603
01:00:52.380 --> 01:00:56.380
Yeah, but he never accepted any money while he was in Congress, Ron Paul.

604
01:00:56.380 --> 01:01:01.380
Oh, well, he accepted his salary. He gets paid his salary like every other congressman.

605
01:01:01.380 --> 01:01:15.380
Oh, really? I thought, looking at his website, he didn't get a salary. He gave it up because since he was a physician, he was making his money as a doctor anyway, and he never really accepted the full salary that they gave him. That's what I thought.

606
01:01:15.380 --> 01:01:22.900
No, I think I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that I'm right that although Ron Paul

607
01:01:22.900 --> 01:01:29.740
is a obstetrician gynecologist and he had practiced it for many years, he regarded his

608
01:01:29.740 --> 01:01:35.780
congressional seat as a full-time job and while he did practice when he lost the election

609
01:01:35.780 --> 01:01:41.060
for a couple of years, when he came back, when he was in Congress, he was not working

610
01:01:41.060 --> 01:01:44.660
as a doctor, so he accepted his salary.

611
01:01:44.660 --> 01:01:45.660
Oh, I see. Okay.

612
01:01:45.660 --> 01:01:46.660
Yeah.

613
01:01:46.660 --> 01:01:47.660
So, I mean...

614
01:01:47.660 --> 01:01:48.660
He's not an anarchist libertarian.

615
01:01:48.660 --> 01:01:49.660
Well, he's an anarchist libertarian.

616
01:01:49.660 --> 01:01:52.660
So, you still get a salary, right?

617
01:01:52.660 --> 01:01:56.660
And people still have to vote for you, like any other politician, right?

618
01:01:56.660 --> 01:01:57.660
Correct.

619
01:01:57.660 --> 01:02:03.660
Except you believe in really, like, no, like, reduced government or something like that?

620
01:02:03.660 --> 01:02:06.660
Very, very heavily reduced government, yes.

621
01:02:06.660 --> 01:02:09.660
And then the services would all be privately owned, or...

622
01:02:09.660 --> 01:02:10.660
Yes.

623
01:02:10.660 --> 01:02:16.660
to support the street, the police, and all the other agencies, they would be privately owned?

624
01:02:16.660 --> 01:02:21.660
Well, not police, and not armies, and not courts, but pretty much everything else.

625
01:02:21.660 --> 01:02:30.660
Yes, certainly roads, and I don't know, health care, and social security, and all that would be privatized, yes.

626
01:02:30.660 --> 01:02:34.660
Okay, okay. All right, I'm getting a better picture. Thank you. I appreciate that.

627
01:02:34.660 --> 01:02:42.660
This is a little bit foggy as to, you know, the differences, the distinctions between the different parties and so forth.

628
01:02:42.660 --> 01:02:45.660
Well, I'm delighted that I was able to clarify a little bit.

629
01:02:45.660 --> 01:02:47.660
Thank you very much for being on the show.

630
01:02:47.660 --> 01:02:51.660
Thank you, guys. Keep up the show. It's really like a fun, interesting show.

631
01:02:51.660 --> 01:02:53.660
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

632
01:02:53.660 --> 01:02:54.660
Good night.

633
01:02:54.660 --> 01:03:07.660
Show on blogtalk.com. If you'd like to get on with the show, it's 347-826-7648. And with that, we'll get back to talking about this.

634
01:03:07.660 --> 01:03:23.660
You know, Nicole brought up an interesting point talking about politics. And I make a separation between politics as in Republican, Democrat, fighting about stupid issues, and the deep philosophy of libertarianism, especially anarcho-capitalism.

635
01:03:23.660 --> 01:03:24.660
and Capitalism.

636
01:03:24.660 --> 01:03:30.540
I think you lose a lot when you start picking on little issues like right now they're making

637
01:03:30.540 --> 01:03:34.180
a big deal about Obama not going to see the troops.

638
01:03:34.180 --> 01:03:35.180
Little things like that.

639
01:03:35.180 --> 01:03:41.260
You start getting bogged down in this minutia and you lose sight of the big picture of things.

640
01:03:41.260 --> 01:03:47.180
And I think the big picture in this case is, you know, state aggression.

641
01:03:47.180 --> 01:03:52.180
And that's something that we need to remember that even though there's all these flashy

642
01:03:52.180 --> 01:03:59.180
I couldn't agree with you more. The debates and what's going on with the democrats and republicans, well, the republicans, except for Ron Paul, is just silly. I mean, yes, we can, and we have to have hope.

643
01:04:22.180 --> 01:04:26.980
You know, nonsense like that and we have to stay in Iraq for a hundred years and we have

644
01:04:26.980 --> 01:04:33.980
to be the imperialist country, national greatness, conservatism, I mean, it's just imperialism

645
01:04:35.180 --> 01:04:39.180
and fascism. You know, we talk about Hitler trying to take over the world, well, the U.S.

646
01:04:39.180 --> 01:04:45.260
is trying to take over the world. We've got, what is it, 800 foreign military bases in

647
01:04:45.260 --> 01:04:49.260
140 different countries? If that's not trying to take over the world, I don't know what

648
01:04:49.260 --> 01:04:59.260
So, you've got these gigantic, stupendous problems and, you know, Obama's saying, well, we should take a few troops out of Iraq and put them in Afghanistan.

649
01:04:59.260 --> 01:05:06.260
What the hell has Afghanistan got to do with us? When did any Afghani ever attack us? What's going on here?

650
01:05:06.260 --> 01:05:12.260
You know, why is the U.S. the imperialist, warmongering country of the world?

651
01:05:12.260 --> 01:05:13.260
of the World.

652
01:05:13.260 --> 01:05:18.300
These are the issues that Ron Paul was talking about, and you know, the inflation and getting

653
01:05:18.300 --> 01:05:24.460
rid of the Fed and getting rid of government regulation and legalizing the drugs and stuff

654
01:05:24.460 --> 01:05:25.460
like that.

655
01:05:25.460 --> 01:05:32.580
Those are the important issues, and you know, what was happening during the Republican nomination

656
01:05:32.580 --> 01:05:37.340
that led up to McCain winning was just the seven or eight or ten other candidates were

657
01:05:37.340 --> 01:05:42.500
talking about, I don't know, how old McCain was or how tough Rudy Giuliani was, and only

658
01:05:42.500 --> 01:05:46.100
Ron Paul was talking about the issues that you and I are interested in.

659
01:05:46.100 --> 01:05:47.100
Exactly.

660
01:05:47.100 --> 01:05:48.740
And politics really distracts everybody.

661
01:05:48.740 --> 01:05:53.100
I mean, look at the stupid issues that came up during the campaigning and during the primary

662
01:05:53.100 --> 01:05:54.100
season.

663
01:05:54.100 --> 01:05:59.020
There's, you know, whether or not, is Obama wearing a lapel pin, is Giuliani mistress

664
01:05:59.020 --> 01:06:00.340
getting in the way?

665
01:06:00.340 --> 01:06:05.420
You know, and you completely get blindsided to what the real issues need to be.

666
01:06:05.420 --> 01:06:11.860
And it's amazing how slogans come up like change and hope and all these things.

667
01:06:11.860 --> 01:06:14.980
But there's no real explanation of what these things are.

668
01:06:14.980 --> 01:06:18.420
You know, they're just about, oh, we're here for hope and change.

669
01:06:18.420 --> 01:06:19.420
Right.

670
01:06:19.420 --> 01:06:24.260
Well, the only person who was really going to change things in Washington was Ron Paul.

671
01:06:24.260 --> 01:06:32.060
This guy, what's his name, Barr now, who's running for Libertarian candidacy.

672
01:06:32.060 --> 01:06:33.060
I don't know.

673
01:06:33.060 --> 01:06:40.060
I suppose he's way better than McCain or Obama, but he's not really as libertarian as he could be.

674
01:06:40.060 --> 01:06:44.060
And Bob Barr, isn't that like one of those children stories with the elephant?

675
01:06:44.060 --> 01:06:48.060
Am I the only one that remembers this thing, with the elephant, Bob Barr?

676
01:06:48.060 --> 01:06:54.060
Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, I remember Bob Barr. I used to read my kids those stories.

677
01:06:54.060 --> 01:07:00.060
No, I think I wouldn't go that far as to compare him with the elephant.

678
01:07:00.060 --> 01:07:22.060
I'm not an elephant, it's just his last name. I hear you and I appreciate your sense of humor, but I would, if I had to choose president between Obama, McCain, Barr and Nader, I would pick Barr, head and shoulders above the others. It's just I'm a little disappointed that he's not more libertarian than he is.

679
01:07:23.060 --> 01:07:28.060
Yeah, and so I have another question for you. Hello, are you there?

680
01:07:28.060 --> 01:07:34.380
Yeah, it's James again. I've been here the whole time. I'm just listening. I have a better

681
01:07:34.380 --> 01:07:36.860
feed on it. I have another question if I could.

682
01:07:36.860 --> 01:07:39.460
Sure, go right ahead, man.

683
01:07:39.460 --> 01:07:45.180
It's for Walter. There's a segment of the anarcho-capitalist community who just really

684
01:07:45.180 --> 01:07:49.180
hates Ron Paul just because he's involved with politics and they feel that's sort of

685
01:07:49.180 --> 01:07:54.340
like a sin. And I'm not like that. I think Ron Paul's great because he sticks up for

686
01:07:54.340 --> 01:07:58.580
for what's right, even through all the hardships and all those peers hate them and everything,

687
01:07:58.580 --> 01:08:01.260
or at least they're indifferent to them.

688
01:08:01.260 --> 01:08:04.460
How do you feel about that segment of the anarcho-capitalist community?

689
01:08:04.460 --> 01:08:10.940
If you had something to say to them, I'm not against them per se, or I have no animus towards

690
01:08:10.940 --> 01:08:13.660
them, but what would you say to them?

691
01:08:13.660 --> 01:08:15.780
What advice would you give the segment?

692
01:08:15.780 --> 01:08:20.660
They try to discredit Ron Paul and say, you know, he's just a loser because he's a politician.

693
01:08:20.660 --> 01:08:27.180
Well, it's not just the anarcho-capitalist or the libertarian anarchists who are against

694
01:08:27.180 --> 01:08:32.980
that, but some libertarians who are minimal status are also against any dealings with

695
01:08:32.980 --> 01:08:33.980
politics.

696
01:08:33.980 --> 01:08:40.860
And, I don't know, I think it's an interesting position, but it's not one with which I agree.

697
01:08:40.860 --> 01:08:49.380
There's this guy, Leif Sanders Spooner, who, one of our forebears, he wrote in the 19th

698
01:09:19.380 --> 01:09:24.580
between two evils. I don't see anything wrong with picking the lesser of the two evils.

699
01:09:24.580 --> 01:09:29.620
And I don't see anything per se wrong with running for office. It depends on what you

700
01:09:29.620 --> 01:09:34.660
do when you're in office. Now, I don't agree 100% with Ron Paul's program. I disagree with

701
01:09:34.660 --> 01:09:39.340
him a little bit about abortion and immigration. But apart from those two things, I think he

702
01:09:39.340 --> 01:09:45.020
was utterly and absolutely magnificent. He did more to convert people to libertarianism

703
01:09:45.020 --> 01:09:50.660
and then probably Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman put together, although I'm just speculating

704
01:09:50.660 --> 01:09:51.660
about that.

705
01:09:51.660 --> 01:09:56.420
I don't really know for sure, but he did magnificent yeoman work for the libertarian

706
01:09:56.420 --> 01:10:03.980
movement and, you know, look suppose there was a saint, a saint libertarian who was in

707
01:10:03.980 --> 01:10:09.980
office and every vote that he took he just voted the libertarian line, why is it per

708
01:10:09.980 --> 01:10:12.700
se wrong to be a politician?

709
01:10:12.700 --> 01:10:14.700
I just don't see it.

710
01:10:14.700 --> 01:10:15.700
Okay.

711
01:10:15.700 --> 01:10:18.980
I mean, it depends on what you do.

712
01:10:18.980 --> 01:10:21.220
Do you violate the non-aggression action?

713
01:10:21.220 --> 01:10:23.500
That's the litmus test for libertarians.

714
01:10:23.500 --> 01:10:29.540
And if you violate the libertarian code of non-aggression, then of course you're, to

715
01:10:29.540 --> 01:10:30.980
that extent, not a libertarian.

716
01:10:30.980 --> 01:10:36.220
But suppose every vote and every action you take, whether it's governor or mayor or anything,

717
01:10:36.220 --> 01:10:38.540
president, was totally libertarian.

718
01:10:38.540 --> 01:10:43.060
All you try to do is get rid of excessive government, and for the anarchists, it's

719
01:10:43.060 --> 01:10:47.460
It's all excessive, and for the minarchists, it's not all excessive, but all you do is

720
01:10:47.460 --> 01:10:52.780
get rid of regulations, and you legalize things that ought to be legalized, and you do virtuous

721
01:10:52.780 --> 01:10:53.780
work.

722
01:10:53.780 --> 01:10:55.580
Why is it wrong if you do it as a politician?

723
01:10:55.580 --> 01:10:59.540
There's some sort of fetish that these people have that there's something per se wrong with

724
01:10:59.540 --> 01:11:00.940
being a politician.

725
01:11:00.940 --> 01:11:04.220
I just don't agree with that.

726
01:11:04.220 --> 01:11:10.580
I just think that most politicians are gross and disgusting, primarily because they violate

727
01:11:40.580 --> 01:11:47.460
It's, they're just human beings and, you know, with looking out for their own self-interests,

728
01:11:47.460 --> 01:11:52.020
and very often it's hard to be that politician like Ron Paul and say, no, I'm not going to

729
01:11:52.020 --> 01:11:56.340
take part in this aggression against everybody else, and I'm just going to do, I'm going

730
01:11:56.340 --> 01:12:00.300
to vote to stop it, whereas most politicians won't do that.

731
01:12:00.300 --> 01:12:05.940
Well, I think most politicians are gangsters with shirts and ties, they're thugs, but not

732
01:12:05.940 --> 01:12:28.940
In my book, Defending the Undefendable, I defend the pimp. Now, most pimps are vicious, nasty people, and most drug people are vicious, nasty people, but I'm asking, per se, could we imagine a pimp who didn't beat up his prostitute and just served as sort of an agent and a protector for her?

733
01:12:28.940 --> 01:12:38.940
And yes, we can imagine that, so pimping is not per se contrary to libertarianism, even if every pimp is a violator of the non-aggression axiom.

734
01:12:38.940 --> 01:12:46.940
But being a concentration camp guard, now that's per se invasive. You can't imagine a good concentration camp guard.

735
01:12:46.940 --> 01:12:50.940
Well, I guess unless he's freeing all the prisoners or something like that.

736
01:12:50.940 --> 01:12:55.940
But acting as a concentration camp guard would be, or a rapist or a murderer.

737
01:12:55.940 --> 01:13:09.460
So isn't it true that if the market was completely free and there was no restrictions on prostitution,

738
01:13:09.460 --> 01:13:14.540
there would be a wide open sort of competitive prostitution market and those pimps who beat

739
01:13:14.540 --> 01:13:19.460
their employees, I guess, or their clients would sort of be priced out of the market

740
01:13:19.460 --> 01:13:24.580
because they wouldn't find, you could have a peaceful pimp or you could go to a violent

741
01:13:24.580 --> 01:13:31.580
and Human Action, Man Economy and State, The Theory of Money and Credit

742
01:13:54.580 --> 01:14:11.580
Dr. Paul, if you're Ron Paul, and he was called Dr. No because he would vote against Dr. Boehm-Bawerk and Dr. No because, you know, whenever there was a 434 vote against one, he'd be the one, and he'd usually, not usually, he'd invariably be on the right side of things.

743
01:14:11.580 --> 01:14:23.580
So there's nothing per se wrong with a politician or a pimp. They both begin with the letter P. It's just what you do. And Ron Paul was a libertarian politician if ever there was one.

744
01:14:23.580 --> 01:14:26.580
Excellent point. James, did you have any other questions?

745
01:14:26.580 --> 01:14:29.580
No, I'm just sitting back listening. I'll let you know.

746
01:14:29.580 --> 01:14:39.580
All right. That sounds fair. And if you'd like to get on board the program today, the number is 347-826-7648.

747
01:14:39.580 --> 01:14:44.580
You're listening to the Mike Martin Show on blogtalkradio.com.

748
01:14:44.580 --> 01:14:51.580
You brought up a couple of points here in this last segment talking about crime and stuff.

749
01:14:51.580 --> 01:14:57.500
How would a libertarian society deal with violent criminals such as murderers and rapists?

750
01:14:57.500 --> 01:15:02.780
Well, I'll tell you, one thing is that the police wouldn't be spending all their time

751
01:15:02.780 --> 01:15:07.440
with stopping peaceable activities like drugs or

752
01:15:07.440 --> 01:15:09.060
prostitution or

753
01:15:09.060 --> 01:15:13.980
seatbelts or whatever, and they'd be spending their time on

754
01:15:13.980 --> 01:15:18.740
real bad guys, the ones who violate the non-aggression axiom like

755
01:15:18.740 --> 01:15:47.740
The Economics of Drug Prohibition is that when you prohibit the drug, the price rises very, very high.

756
01:15:47.740 --> 01:15:53.780
According to estimates, the price, if these things were legalized, they'd be very, very

757
01:15:53.780 --> 01:15:54.780
cheap.

758
01:15:54.780 --> 01:16:01.260
Marijuana is sort of a weed, it grows very easily, it's a hardy weed type of product

759
01:16:01.260 --> 01:16:07.900
and the same thing with the poppy field, it's not like asparagus, which is reasonably expensive

760
01:16:07.900 --> 01:16:14.020
because you have to do a lot of care and feeding of it, I'm speaking metaphorically here.

761
01:16:14.020 --> 01:16:21.180
So look, suppose that the price of a marijuana habit was, I don't know, $5 or $7 a week,

762
01:16:21.180 --> 01:16:22.180
$1 a day.

763
01:16:22.180 --> 01:16:25.060
Is anyone going to steal from that?

764
01:16:25.060 --> 01:16:26.060
No.

765
01:16:26.060 --> 01:16:28.980
Is anyone going to have fights over that?

766
01:16:28.980 --> 01:16:29.980
No.

767
01:16:29.980 --> 01:16:34.060
And we have an empirical example in front of us and it's prohibition of alcohol.

768
01:16:34.060 --> 01:16:41.260
Nowadays, is there any fighting over beer or wine or whiskey?

769
01:16:41.260 --> 01:16:48.220
The Elliott Nest needed to stop the Chicago Mafia criminals from supplying the stuff? No.

770
01:16:48.220 --> 01:16:55.220
The whole thing is silly. When we got rid of the horrible experiment with the prohibition

771
01:16:55.260 --> 01:17:01.340
of alcohol, the crime rate in that industry practically disappeared. Well, it would be

772
01:17:01.340 --> 01:17:08.340
similar in drugs. If we legalized them, all of the criminal elements of that would disappear.

773
01:17:08.340 --> 01:17:16.980
One estimates that 60% of all prisoners in major cities are there for drug-related crimes.

774
01:17:16.980 --> 01:17:27.820
So if we legalize that, we'd have many fewer crimes and many fewer people in jail, and

775
01:17:27.820 --> 01:17:32.700
the police would be able to focus on real criminals, the ones who are violating the

776
01:17:32.700 --> 01:17:37.660
non-aggression act, like murderers and rapists and thieves and car trappers and fraudsters

777
01:17:37.660 --> 01:17:44.460
That's a very excellent point because not a lot of people see that, you know, we waste

778
01:17:44.460 --> 01:17:49.660
our time having cops, especially in New York, and the cops are just doing nothing most of

779
01:17:49.660 --> 01:17:50.660
the times.

780
01:17:50.660 --> 01:17:56.060
They're wasting their time looking for people, the teenager smoking pot once in his life

781
01:17:56.060 --> 01:18:00.460
and they waste all the resources of putting that teenager through the system and all the

782
01:18:00.460 --> 01:18:07.460
courts and all that thing, all wasted resources when they could be learning more about criminals

783
01:18:07.460 --> 01:18:11.100
that actually cause damage to private property and to persons.

784
01:18:11.100 --> 01:18:12.980
Absolutely, absolutely.

785
01:18:12.980 --> 01:18:21.340
They should focus on real criminals, not the law violators of the illicit laws that are illicit in the first place.

786
01:18:21.340 --> 01:18:28.420
So, good point. But now, what happens if the police are private? How do they deal with violent criminals then?

787
01:18:28.420 --> 01:18:33.700
Well, the same way. You know, look, you're from New York City.

788
01:18:33.700 --> 01:18:42.200
I'll meet you in Central Park at 3 in the morning tonight. What do you say about those apples? Are you willing to do this?

789
01:18:42.200 --> 01:18:50.000
If you have any sense, you're probably not, because it's lawless under the New York City's finest.

790
01:18:50.000 --> 01:18:57.800
But if I tell you, let's meet in Disney World at 3 in the morning, assuming Disney World is open, then I'm not sure.

791
01:18:57.800 --> 01:19:02.500
Do you have any compunction about meeting me at a certain place in Disney World? Of course not.

792
01:19:02.500 --> 01:19:12.500
Namely, the private... Look, if you're a stripper in Disney World, you're surrounded by a bunch of mice and dogs and ducks, all packing heat,

793
01:19:12.500 --> 01:19:17.500
and they'll come up to you and say, you know, please come with me, and if you don't, they come get you.

794
01:19:17.500 --> 01:19:24.500
The point is that Disney World and Disneyland and places like that have private police.

795
01:19:24.500 --> 01:19:30.500
And those private police... Look, if a rape occurs in Disney World, you know what's going to happen to poor Disney World?

796
01:20:00.500 --> 01:20:05.220
The theory is that private policemen who don't do a good job go the same way of restaurants

797
01:20:05.220 --> 01:20:11.700
that don't do a good job, namely they go bankrupt, whereas public police are like the

798
01:20:11.700 --> 01:20:16.740
Army Corps of Engineers or FEMA, they don't go broke no matter how bad a job they do.

799
01:20:16.740 --> 01:20:22.340
So I think that, you know, it's just lunacy to think that if we go to private police somehow

800
01:20:22.340 --> 01:20:27.100
there'll be mayhem in the streets, because mayhem in the streets now because of inefficiency

801
01:20:27.100 --> 01:20:37.820
Now, can you just imagine, like, you know, police officers dressed as the Seven Dwarfs,

802
01:20:37.820 --> 01:20:38.820
you know?

803
01:20:38.820 --> 01:20:43.500
Excuse me, sir, you're being a distraction, come with me, now!

804
01:20:43.500 --> 01:20:45.500
You know, things like that.

805
01:20:45.500 --> 01:20:51.900
Well, look, Snoopy and Doggy or whatever the Seven Dwarfs are, they keep the peace in Disney

806
01:20:51.900 --> 01:20:52.900
World.

807
01:20:52.900 --> 01:20:55.500
You go into Disney World and it is safe.

808
01:20:55.500 --> 01:21:04.500
You walk around in certain streets in South Bronx or Bed-Stuy or Harlem or whatever, and you think your life is in your hands.

809
01:21:04.500 --> 01:21:12.500
It's madness. It really is. But what I like about private police or private security is they don't harass you.

810
01:21:12.500 --> 01:21:19.500
The greatest difference, since we're talking about Disney World, is my last trip to Disney World was about two years ago.

811
01:21:19.500 --> 01:21:26.500
So in this post 9-11 world, and when I got on the plane in Orlando, actually before I got on the plane in Orlando,

812
01:21:26.500 --> 01:21:29.500
the transportation security people were harassing us.

813
01:21:29.500 --> 01:21:33.500
You know, they make you take everything apart, took my laptop out of the bag,

814
01:21:33.500 --> 01:21:40.500
they were swiping it with all kinds of special swabs and detectors and things like that, like they've never seen it before.

815
01:21:40.500 --> 01:21:44.500
Because you're giving these people the authority to ruin your day or ruin your vacation.

816
01:21:44.500 --> 01:21:51.220
These are the people that were grabbing nail clippers for a while, can you imagine nail

817
01:21:51.220 --> 01:21:52.220
clippers?

818
01:21:52.220 --> 01:21:53.220
I know.

819
01:21:53.220 --> 01:21:54.220
Come on, give me a break.

820
01:21:54.220 --> 01:21:58.020
I mean, if they had allowed those pilots to have guns, you never would have had 9-11.

821
01:21:58.020 --> 01:22:07.020
Most of those pilots are ex-military types and perfectly capable of dealing with a gun.

822
01:22:07.020 --> 01:22:23.020
9-11 was the fault of government in two ways. One, they took a stick and shook it at a hornet's nest in the Middle East and got people very upset with us, and that was the blowback that Ron Paul was talking about.

823
01:22:23.020 --> 01:22:28.020
And secondly, they wouldn't allow the pilots to have guns.

824
01:22:28.020 --> 01:22:39.540
The TSA is just crazy. You can't bring toothpaste with a big 6-inch long or 8-inch long toothpaste

825
01:22:39.540 --> 01:22:47.180
tube. You have to have a 3-inch, what do you call it, toothpaste. If there was competition

826
01:22:47.180 --> 01:22:57.180
and it was the TSA versus the ACME agency, the TSA would be long gone. They're just lunatic

827
01:22:57.180 --> 01:23:07.180
And they make people miss flights, and it's just a hassle, and now they come help with this machine that can see through people's clothes, and you get all sorts of weirdos and perverts in there.

828
01:23:07.180 --> 01:23:12.180
So this is just an illustration of public police. No, private police would be much more efficient.

829
01:23:12.180 --> 01:23:25.180
Exactly. And you know, the thing about, like, private security, and if it came to, say, I don't know, Mises or something, if they have private security guards, they can't harass you, because if they start harassing people,

830
01:23:25.180 --> 01:23:30.180
Customers are not going to go into Mises anymore. They're just going to turn around and go elsewhere.

831
01:23:30.180 --> 01:23:45.180
Look, I think they have police in Mises and Gimbels and those big department stores and what they have, the view there is that the customer is always right and okay, a pickpocket or a person is stealing the goods, you stop them but you don't hassle people.

832
01:23:45.180 --> 01:23:46.180
People.

833
01:23:46.180 --> 01:23:49.380
You know, they're very politically correct.

834
01:23:49.380 --> 01:23:56.460
Most of the problems with airlines have been done by male people of Arabic extraction.

835
01:23:56.460 --> 01:23:59.020
So what are you hassling some black grandma for?

836
01:23:59.020 --> 01:24:03.580
I mean, there's no black grandma that's ever done anything like that or some mother with

837
01:24:03.580 --> 01:24:08.700
three babies and you're, I don't know, when my son was little, they were even searching

838
01:24:08.700 --> 01:24:09.700
his diaper.

839
01:24:09.700 --> 01:24:16.700
The whole thing is crazy, and if it was based on market principles, those people would be

840
01:24:16.700 --> 01:24:20.700
bankrupt and out of business a long time ago.

841
01:24:20.700 --> 01:24:27.700
Now, there very well may be an explosive load in your kid's diaper, but...

842
01:24:27.700 --> 01:24:35.700
I mean, it's political correctness gone berserk, you know, you're not supposed to profile...

843
01:24:35.700 --> 01:24:42.700
Douglas Goldstein, CFPÆ, Financial Planner & Investment Advisor

844
01:25:05.700 --> 01:25:12.300
There was a story not too long after the TSA was formed that a bunch of marines were coming

845
01:25:12.300 --> 01:25:17.720
back from Afghanistan, having just served in the war, and they could not wear their

846
01:25:17.720 --> 01:25:20.220
ribbons on their chest because of the pins.

847
01:25:20.220 --> 01:25:21.220
Ah, yes, yes.

848
01:25:21.220 --> 01:25:24.620
Those pins, they could stick people with them, I suppose.

849
01:25:24.620 --> 01:25:25.620
Exactly.

850
01:25:25.620 --> 01:25:28.620
I mean, like, you know, if you buy into the whole propaganda, these guys are our heroes.

851
01:25:28.620 --> 01:25:30.620
Are they really going to take down a plane?

852
01:25:30.620 --> 01:25:34.020
I mean, it's a little ridiculous.

853
01:25:34.020 --> 01:25:38.620
You know what's really ridiculous is the security checkpoints here in New York City.

854
01:25:38.620 --> 01:25:43.740
I work just off of Union Square Park and today there happened to be the random security checkpoints

855
01:25:43.740 --> 01:25:50.540
screening day and if you've ever been in the Union Square subway station, you have to go

856
01:25:50.540 --> 01:25:55.720
down the stairs to get to the main sort of concourse of the station.

857
01:25:55.720 --> 01:25:59.500
So what they do is the cops set up right before the turnstiles.

858
01:25:59.500 --> 01:26:03.580
So if you're a terrorist, you go down the stairs, you walk down the hall a little bit,

859
01:26:03.580 --> 01:26:08.500
You see in a security checkpoint, if you've got a bomb in your bag, you just turn around

860
01:26:08.500 --> 01:26:09.500
and walk away.

861
01:26:09.500 --> 01:26:12.700
And you come back another day when they're not doing the security check point.

862
01:26:12.700 --> 01:26:13.700
Right.

863
01:26:13.700 --> 01:26:17.580
Look, in the airport, they've got all sorts of garbage cans that are covered.

864
01:26:17.580 --> 01:26:22.780
You know, you slip a bomb in a garbage can before you go to the security checkpoint and

865
01:26:22.780 --> 01:26:24.940
you can take out an airport.

866
01:26:24.940 --> 01:26:27.500
I mean, it's just sort of make-work.

867
01:26:27.500 --> 01:26:29.980
I don't know.

868
01:26:29.980 --> 01:26:30.980
It's government for you.

869
01:26:30.980 --> 01:26:32.700
Look, these are the people that run the post office.

870
01:26:32.700 --> 01:26:35.100
These are the people that run the Motor Vehicle Bureau.

871
01:26:35.100 --> 01:26:37.100
Why do you expect any sense from them?

872
01:26:37.100 --> 01:26:44.100
These are the counterparts of the Soviet bureaucrats who were, you know, ruining Russia for 70 years.

873
01:26:44.100 --> 01:26:47.100
You know, why should we expect any sense out of these people?

874
01:26:47.100 --> 01:26:56.100
I certainly don't. I laugh at people who do expect things to work out, and then they go, they get all teary-eyed when it doesn't work out.

875
01:26:56.100 --> 01:27:01.100
You know, this is what led me to want to do this show, is picking up the paper every day

876
01:27:01.100 --> 01:27:05.660
and seeing these ridiculous things that are happening because of government intervention

877
01:27:05.660 --> 01:27:07.740
and just people do not see the obvious.

878
01:27:07.740 --> 01:27:14.020
Yes, I don't know, I, look, that's part of the reason I'm a professor, that you're a

879
01:27:14.020 --> 01:27:19.540
radio broadcaster, we want to, we see injustice, we see craziness around, we want to speak

880
01:27:19.540 --> 01:27:20.540
out against it.

881
01:27:20.540 --> 01:27:25.140
I think that's wonderful and I'm delighted to be with you as a partner in this show now.

882
01:27:25.140 --> 01:27:32.500
The Mike Martin Show here on blogtalkradio.com. You're home to great alternative talk radio.

883
01:27:32.500 --> 01:27:39.980
Of course, the number you'd like to get on board the program is 347-826-7648.

884
01:27:39.980 --> 01:27:46.740
Now, James is still with us on the line here. So, James, you've got a question that you want to ask Professor Block.

885
01:27:46.740 --> 01:27:58.740
I do. Well, it's not really a question. It's more of sort of I want you to discuss a topic that's pretty heated in libertarian circles right now with intellectual property.

886
01:27:58.740 --> 01:28:08.740
Myself, I'm against intellectual property. I don't think it's property because it's not physical and there can't be borders around it. You can't really touch it. So how can it be property?

887
01:28:08.740 --> 01:28:14.740
It's more like a pattern, an idea, and you really can't own that. I just want to know what you thought.

888
01:28:14.740 --> 01:28:21.380
Well, I agree with you entirely. I am opposed to intellectual property. Now, it's interesting

889
01:28:21.380 --> 01:28:28.380
that Murray Rothbard used to say patents were bad, but copyrights are good. And for a long

890
01:28:28.380 --> 01:28:32.660
time, I agreed with Murray, as I agree with him on most things, not all things, but most

891
01:28:32.660 --> 01:28:38.740
things. And then Stephen Kinsella came along with a magnificent article in the Journal

892
01:28:38.740 --> 01:28:42.980
of libertarian studies. I think it won the award for the best article that year published

893
01:28:42.980 --> 01:28:47.580
in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, and Stephan Kinsella just blew the whole thing

894
01:28:47.580 --> 01:28:51.300
out of the water as far as I'm concerned.

895
01:28:51.300 --> 01:28:57.600
Stephan's idea is that the whole purpose of property is to settle disputes, like we

896
01:28:57.600 --> 01:29:03.180
have to have property in things like oranges and apples and cows and watches and other

897
01:29:03.180 --> 01:29:08.820
tangible things because they're scarce, and there's a question, well, who owns them?

898
01:29:08.820 --> 01:29:12.260
I mean, do you have a right to use this golf club or do I have a right to use the golf

899
01:29:42.260 --> 01:29:49.260
The Theory of Money and Credit

900
01:30:12.260 --> 01:30:21.260
Mr. A gets into the patent office five minutes before Mr. B. Mr. A gets 100% of the value

901
01:30:21.260 --> 01:30:28.900
of that patent, and Mr. B, who is an independent inventor, and if you believe that ideas can

902
01:30:28.900 --> 01:30:34.460
be owned, well, poor Mr. B. He invented it, we stipulate, we take it from a God's eye

903
01:30:34.460 --> 01:30:39.460
point of view so we know exactly what's going on, the facts are not in disuse. Well, poor

904
01:30:39.460 --> 01:30:40.780
from Mr. B.

905
01:30:40.780 --> 01:30:46.940
And then another problem is usually patents are for what, 17 years or 27 years or something

906
01:30:46.940 --> 01:30:47.940
like that.

907
01:30:47.940 --> 01:30:53.540
But look, if I own a pencil, I own this pencil forever and not only do I own it for my life

908
01:30:53.540 --> 01:30:56.380
but I can give it to my kid who can give it to his kid.

909
01:30:56.380 --> 01:31:02.500
So what's with this craziness if property rights are really property rights, they should

910
01:31:02.500 --> 01:31:03.500
be forever.

911
01:31:03.500 --> 01:31:07.380
So patents were just screwy in various ways.

912
01:31:07.380 --> 01:31:15.380
Well, what about copyrights? Copyrights, for Murray, were more sensible because they could emanate from contracts.

913
01:31:15.380 --> 01:31:24.380
Namely, I sell you this CD, or I sell you this medicine, or I sell you this Coca-Cola on the ground so that you promise not to copy it, because I have copyright over it.

914
01:31:24.380 --> 01:31:33.380
And this is a little bit more sensible than patents, because it doesn't have the same problems of stealing from independent owners.

915
01:31:33.380 --> 01:31:57.380
Okay, now what's Stefan's argument against copyrights is, if A sells B something on the condition that B not copy it, suppose B loses it, or suppose B is, suppose what it is is a song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, now I'm going to ruin your radio audience by singing it, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, you see why I shouldn't sing?

916
01:31:57.380 --> 01:32:02.140
Okay, so A sells B the song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and now B is whistling it in

917
01:32:02.140 --> 01:32:07.900
the shower, and he's overheard by C. Well, now C thought singing it, and A says, hey,

918
01:32:07.900 --> 01:32:12.740
you know, you can't sing the song, because I own it, and I gave it to B on the condition

919
01:32:12.740 --> 01:32:17.500
that he doesn't copy it, and you heard him, and you know, you can't do that.

920
01:32:17.500 --> 01:32:20.860
This is sort of a little lunatic here.

921
01:32:20.860 --> 01:32:28.360
Look, the whole idea is incoherent because the idea has to be expressed in words, right?

922
01:32:28.360 --> 01:32:35.260
The idea that you can own property and ideas has to be expressed in words.

923
01:32:35.260 --> 01:32:43.620
Well, if you really had ownership in ideas, words are ideas, so every time I say anything,

924
01:32:43.620 --> 01:32:47.900
for example the word anything, now Mr. Anything probably invented the word anything, and who

925
01:32:47.900 --> 01:32:53.340
Who am I to use the word without paying him or his heirs, and the word heirs, and the

926
01:32:53.340 --> 01:32:57.980
word blah, and the word and, and the word but was created by Mr. But.

927
01:32:57.980 --> 01:33:02.380
So the point is that you're committing some sort of performative contradiction by even

928
01:33:02.380 --> 01:33:09.100
saying that intellectual property is a good idea, because if it was a good idea you should

929
01:33:09.100 --> 01:33:10.100
shut up.

930
01:33:10.100 --> 01:33:14.140
You can't even say it because you're saying it in words that were created by other people

931
01:33:14.140 --> 01:33:15.780
and you're not paying them.

932
01:33:15.780 --> 01:33:22.340
So the whole thing is crazy. Now look, girl A puts her hair up in a ponytail, and girl

933
01:33:22.340 --> 01:33:27.220
B sees this and says, hey, whoop-dee-doo, I'll put my hair up in a ponytail. Did she

934
01:33:27.220 --> 01:33:32.780
un-tail the pony? I don't know if that's the right way to say it, but did she go to

935
01:33:32.780 --> 01:33:38.860
A and mess with her hair so that A no longer has a ponytail? No. A still has a ponytail.

936
01:33:38.860 --> 01:33:49.780
So what did B steal from A? Nothing. The idea is that once the recipe is known, the second

937
01:33:49.780 --> 01:33:54.180
guy can have it without the first one. And if you tell girl B, no, no, no, you can't

938
01:33:54.180 --> 01:33:58.500
have your hair on a ponytail, what you're really doing is committing some sort of rape

939
01:33:58.500 --> 01:34:02.780
on her, in effect, because you're telling her how she can use her body and how she can't

940
01:34:02.780 --> 01:34:06.780
use her body in a way that is not violating the rights of other people, and ponytails

941
01:35:06.780 --> 01:35:11.860
On this empirical issue, it's not as clean as the principle of libertarian position,

942
01:35:11.860 --> 01:35:14.180
but let me make the following point.

943
01:35:14.180 --> 01:35:19.500
See, right now, if I'm going to invent a new machine or a new pharmaceutical, not only

944
01:35:19.500 --> 01:35:25.740
am I going to have to hire biologists or chemists or engineers, I'm going to have to hire lawyers

945
01:35:25.740 --> 01:35:31.100
because I have to invent around all present patents and copyrights.

946
01:35:31.100 --> 01:35:32.100
You see what I'm saying?

947
01:35:32.100 --> 01:35:40.660
Doesn't it have the effect of really forcing people to reinvent the wheel over and over

948
01:35:40.660 --> 01:35:43.780
again instead of just using existing technologies?

949
01:35:43.780 --> 01:35:47.380
You have to sort of remake the technology just in a different way where it could have

950
01:35:47.380 --> 01:35:51.340
worked the first time, just the same, and you could just build upon that.

951
01:35:51.340 --> 01:35:56.020
So really it stifles innovation instead of sort of prodding it on, right?

952
01:35:56.020 --> 01:35:57.020
Well it does both.

953
01:35:57.020 --> 01:36:01.220
On the one hand it does stifle, you know, patents do encourage innovation because they

954
01:36:01.220 --> 01:36:06.140
Thomas, if you invent something, you get to keep the value of it for 17 years or whatever

955
01:36:06.140 --> 01:36:07.140
it is.

956
01:36:07.140 --> 01:36:10.500
On the other hand, they stifle innovation because you just can't innovate.

957
01:36:10.500 --> 01:36:14.820
You have to innovate around other people's innovations and you have to spend a lot of

958
01:36:14.820 --> 01:36:20.460
time with high-priced lawyers who are also chemists who know these kind of laws.

959
01:36:20.460 --> 01:36:23.420
In other words, it's like a landmine out there.

960
01:36:23.420 --> 01:36:25.940
You just can't go out and invent something.

961
01:36:25.940 --> 01:36:30.860
You have to invent things circuitously around all the other excellent patents and you have

962
01:36:30.860 --> 01:36:39.860
It's sort of a police-side in the entire field.

963
01:36:39.860 --> 01:36:40.860
Right.

964
01:36:40.860 --> 01:36:43.860
Take my book, Defending the Undefendable.

965
01:36:43.860 --> 01:36:49.860
Suppose somebody else were to buy a copy and then zero oxygen and start selling it.

966
01:36:49.860 --> 01:36:54.860
Now, if they said that they wrote it, that would be a lie and that would be fraud.

967
01:36:54.860 --> 01:36:59.860
But suppose they kept my name on it and they just sold it and they started making money off the sales.

968
01:36:59.860 --> 01:37:06.980
Would that hurt me? No. Rather, that would drive the price, my speaking price. When I

969
01:37:06.980 --> 01:37:13.460
give speeches, I charge an honorarium speaker's fees. Well, these people who are now publicizing

970
01:37:13.460 --> 01:37:18.940
my book are getting me more gigs. It's the same thing with The Beatles or Elvis or any

971
01:37:18.940 --> 01:37:24.580
of the Death Jam or something that you were playing before. If I make more videos like

972
01:37:24.580 --> 01:37:29.780
that and more people hear about it, more people are going to want to hear them give live concerts.

973
01:37:29.780 --> 01:37:44.780
So it's really unclear as to whether it will stifle or not. It's an empirical issue. On the one hand, yes, there will be out certain royalties. On the other hand, their concert fees will go up. So it's very unclear as to whether there will be more or less innovation.

974
01:37:44.780 --> 01:37:55.780
But as Stephen Consola says, he thinks that the optimal amount of innovation or creativity is the amount that's compatible with libertarianism.

975
01:37:55.780 --> 01:38:03.780
and what's compatible with libertarianism is non-aggression and you're not aggressing when you put your hair in a ponytail just because you saw someone else do it.

976
01:38:03.780 --> 01:38:04.780
Sure.

977
01:38:04.780 --> 01:38:13.780
Right. My biggest issue with this whole thing is when you buy a CD, when you buy something that becomes your property and you're under your control,

978
01:38:13.780 --> 01:38:22.780
how organizations like the Recording Industry Association of America, you know, feel like they have the right to tell you how to then use that product.

979
01:38:22.780 --> 01:38:26.780
I mean, no other thing that you buy has that kind of restriction on it.

980
01:38:26.780 --> 01:38:30.780
You could buy a pair of glasses and use them any way you want.

981
01:38:30.780 --> 01:38:35.780
So I have an issue with that because it's not something that's under their control anymore.

982
01:38:35.780 --> 01:38:39.780
You have acquired it, and in an essence you have kind of homesteaded it.

983
01:38:39.780 --> 01:38:41.780
It's become part of your property.

984
01:38:41.780 --> 01:38:45.780
And therefore I have the right to do what you want with it,

985
01:38:45.780 --> 01:38:51.780
you know, like play it in front of your friends or give it to your friends to copy even, things like that.

986
01:38:51.780 --> 01:38:59.500
Stephen Friesdahl has this magnificent little story in his beautiful, brilliant article.

987
01:38:59.500 --> 01:39:02.580
And what it is is that there's this town.

988
01:39:02.580 --> 01:39:05.100
And I know that the railroad is coming through.

989
01:39:05.100 --> 01:39:09.700
And right now the land sells to $10 an acre because it's just scrub land and, you know,

990
01:39:09.700 --> 01:39:10.860
you can't grow much on it.

991
01:39:10.860 --> 01:39:15.620
But when the railroad comes through, instead of $10 an acre, it'll be worth $10,000 an

992
01:39:15.620 --> 01:39:16.620
acre.

993
01:39:16.620 --> 01:39:23.620
So what happens is that you, Mike, you break into my house and you find the secret letter

994
01:39:23.620 --> 01:39:27.940
that I've got that says the railroad is coming through and now you're a thief and you know

995
01:39:27.940 --> 01:39:34.020
you should go to jail, you're a bad guy but what you do is you go to the local bar where

996
01:39:34.020 --> 01:39:39.060
Clem and the boys are hanging out and you tell everyone that hey, guess what, the railroad

997
01:39:39.060 --> 01:39:41.260
is coming through.

998
01:39:41.260 --> 01:39:42.260
You got that?

999
01:39:42.260 --> 01:39:43.260
Yeah.

1000
01:39:43.260 --> 01:40:13.260
The Theory of Money and Credit

1001
01:40:43.260 --> 01:40:49.260
You ought to be able to make them pay except $10 an acre. Isn't that ludicrous?

1002
01:40:49.260 --> 01:40:56.260
And yet that's one of the logical implications of this crazy idea that you can own ideas.

1003
01:40:56.260 --> 01:41:02.260
You know what? I want to trademark the little trademark symbol.

1004
01:41:02.260 --> 01:41:05.260
I want to trademark the alphabet.

1005
01:41:05.260 --> 01:41:07.260
That would be justice, wouldn't it?

1006
01:41:07.260 --> 01:41:09.260
That's beautiful.

1007
01:41:09.260 --> 01:41:17.260
Libertarianism is lots of fun, come up with libertarian jokes. No one else is going to laugh at them, but we can have a ball.

1008
01:41:17.260 --> 01:41:26.260
Well, that's why I really enjoy listening to your Mises podcast, because you throw in some jokes there that only libertarians would get.

1009
01:41:26.260 --> 01:41:30.260
We ought to have a t-shirt. It's a libertarian thing you wouldn't understand.

1010
01:41:30.260 --> 01:41:38.260
I like the one about antitrust. You go on about antitrust in the room of lawyers.

1011
01:41:38.260 --> 01:41:41.820
Yes, yes, I've got a great antitrust joke, shall I tell it?

1012
01:41:41.820 --> 01:41:42.820
Totally, yeah.

1013
01:41:42.820 --> 01:41:48.180
Okay, it's a two-part joke and in the first part of the joke there are three Soviet prisoners

1014
01:41:48.180 --> 01:41:53.900
and they're all in jail in the Gulag and they're comparing notes as to why they're in jail.

1015
01:41:53.900 --> 01:41:59.420
And the first guy said, well, I came to work late and they accused me of stealing labor

1016
01:41:59.420 --> 01:42:04.020
services from the state which owns all the labor services so they put me in jail.

1017
01:42:04.020 --> 01:42:08.180
And the second guy says, well, I came to work early every day and they accused me of brown-nosing

1018
01:42:08.180 --> 01:42:14.700
The third guy said, I came to work every day exactly on time for the second, and they put

1019
01:42:14.700 --> 01:42:18.540
me in jail because they accused me of owning a western wristwatch.

1020
01:42:18.540 --> 01:42:22.260
So that's the first part of the joke.

1021
01:42:22.260 --> 01:42:26.220
I once told this joke to a bunch of lawyers and economists who make a lot of money from

1022
01:42:26.220 --> 01:42:31.140
antitrust, and they loved this joke, but then they didn't like the second part of the joke.

1023
01:42:31.140 --> 01:42:34.500
Second part of the joke goes like this, there were three U.S. prisoners in jail, and they

1024
01:42:34.500 --> 01:42:38.380
They're all guilty of a violation of antitrust.

1025
01:42:38.380 --> 01:42:42.580
And the first guy says, well, I charge more than everyone else, and they put me in jail

1026
01:42:42.580 --> 01:42:45.980
for gouging and profiteering.

1027
01:42:45.980 --> 01:42:50.460
The second guy said, I charge less than everyone else, and they put me in jail for predatory

1028
01:42:50.460 --> 01:42:53.420
pricing and cutthroat competition.

1029
01:42:53.420 --> 01:42:56.500
The third guy said, well, I charge the same prices as everyone else, which is a little

1030
01:42:56.500 --> 01:43:00.740
hard to see, good for these other two guys, but what the heck, it's just a joke.

1031
01:43:00.740 --> 01:43:07.740
And so I charged the same thing and they accused me of collusion and setting up cartels.

1032
01:43:07.740 --> 01:43:12.740
And it was definitely silence because these people were very bright people and they understood.

1033
01:43:12.740 --> 01:43:19.740
And the point is that in the Soviet system, if you come to work early later on time and they put you in jail, well, you know, that's no law.

1034
01:43:19.740 --> 01:43:25.740
Law is supposed to distinguish between, you know, legitimate activity and illegitimate activity.

1035
01:43:25.740 --> 01:43:27.740
But it's the same thing with antitrust law.

1036
01:43:27.740 --> 01:43:34.620
If you can go to jail for higher, lower or the same prices, what kind of a law is that?

1037
01:43:34.620 --> 01:43:36.180
The law against rape is good.

1038
01:43:36.180 --> 01:43:40.020
If you rape, you go to jail, and if you don't rape, you stay out of jail.

1039
01:43:40.020 --> 01:43:44.980
But with these other kinds of things, you go to jail no matter what you do, which is

1040
01:43:44.980 --> 01:43:45.980
just horrific.

1041
01:43:45.980 --> 01:43:50.700
And yet, that's our antitrust system.

1042
01:43:50.700 --> 01:43:51.700
It is.

1043
01:43:51.700 --> 01:43:56.420
It's really despicable because, like you said, there's nothing you can do.

1044
01:43:56.420 --> 01:43:57.420
What can you do?

1045
01:43:57.420 --> 01:44:13.420
Look, poor Bill Gates, the reason they were after him is because he sat out there in Seattle and he just made computers, and he didn't bribe the Republicans, and he didn't bribe the Democrats, and he didn't play the game the way the powers that they want the game played.

1046
01:44:13.420 --> 01:44:19.980
He was just a laissez-faire capitalist type. He created an industry, he created employment,

1047
01:44:19.980 --> 01:44:27.660
he made the lives of many people happier, but he didn't pay off the boys in Washington,

1048
01:44:27.660 --> 01:44:34.940
D.C. So they got on his case. Now that he's set up his, what do you call it, his foundation,

1049
01:44:34.940 --> 01:44:39.900
and now that he's stuffing money down the throats of everybody, he won't be guilty of

1050
01:44:39.900 --> 01:44:55.900
It's a shame, too, because isn't his capital worth more going into resources so that he can employ people and make more products and get the market going, instead of just giving it away to all these charities and things?

1051
01:44:55.900 --> 01:44:58.900
Right. He could be bettering society.

1052
01:44:58.900 --> 01:45:00.900
Yeah, by profit instead of...

1053
01:45:00.900 --> 01:45:01.900
Right.

1054
01:45:01.900 --> 01:45:07.900
Well, that's a very interesting question as to whether he's doing more good now than he was before.

1055
01:45:07.900 --> 01:45:14.900
And I would tend to think that it's an empirical question, namely, what do you do more good?

1056
01:45:14.900 --> 01:45:16.900
It's not really a libertarian question.

1057
01:45:16.900 --> 01:45:20.900
And I would tend to say, yes, that he was doing more good when he was making computers,

1058
01:45:50.900 --> 01:46:00.100
Well, we've got only five minutes left here on the Mike Martin Show. So I just want to

1059
01:46:00.100 --> 01:46:03.700
let everybody know that if you've got any questions or comments and you didn't get

1060
01:46:03.700 --> 01:46:10.660
them in during the show, you can always email them to mikemartinshow.gmail.com. And always,

1061
01:46:10.660 --> 01:46:16.260
we're going to be here, Sterk and I, on Mondays. Starting next week, we'll be at 10 p.m. Eastern

1062
01:46:16.260 --> 01:46:37.260
and Standard Time on blogtalkradio.com, which will be a lot easier for a lot of people, because I know I'm getting tired here and it's 12.55 a.m. on the East Coast, so we've got now four minutes remaining, so Walter, I want to give you the last word and throw in anything you'd like to add to the program here.

1063
01:46:37.260 --> 01:46:44.860
Well, I think on the email you sent me, there were seven questions, like roads, and police,

1064
01:46:44.860 --> 01:46:48.420
and courts, and I forget other things.

1065
01:46:48.420 --> 01:46:53.860
It's really too late to do justice to all of those things, but I wanted to commend you

1066
01:46:53.860 --> 01:46:54.860
for your initiative.

1067
01:46:54.860 --> 01:46:57.060
I think it's a wonderful radio program.

1068
01:46:57.060 --> 01:47:00.460
I think you're doing the Lord's work, as they say.

1069
01:47:00.460 --> 01:47:04.980
You're promoting liberty, and I'm just delighted to be part of it.

1070
01:47:04.980 --> 01:47:08.580
I'll revisit you again one of these days.

1071
01:47:08.580 --> 01:47:09.580
Excellent.

1072
01:47:09.580 --> 01:47:14.700
We'd love to have you on, you know, Political Jedi, of course, or at least Philosophical

1073
01:47:14.700 --> 01:47:16.660
Jedi more accurately.

1074
01:47:16.660 --> 01:47:20.380
And my philosophical burrito, are you still on?

1075
01:47:20.380 --> 01:47:23.380
Yeah, I'm still here.

1076
01:47:23.380 --> 01:47:25.380
I'm still here.

1077
01:47:25.380 --> 01:47:28.780
I'll go on from time to time.

1078
01:47:28.780 --> 01:47:29.780
I'll be your gnat.

1079
01:47:29.780 --> 01:47:30.780
I'll be your bother.

1080
01:47:30.780 --> 01:47:32.980
And then you can kick me out when you want to.

1081
01:47:32.980 --> 01:47:38.680
Well, a lot of this is fun because, you know, I just came up with the burrito thing, I hadn't

1082
01:47:38.680 --> 01:47:43.900
planned it, I hadn't planned on pulling a stir fat or anything like that, but this is

1083
01:47:43.900 --> 01:47:48.940
part of the creative process, that, you know, you come up with things when you're, in other

1084
01:47:48.940 --> 01:47:53.180
words, the process itself is creative and you come up with new ways of looking at things

1085
01:47:53.180 --> 01:47:57.860
and you've been a great inspiration to me by asking me those very good, provocative

1086
01:47:57.860 --> 01:47:58.860
questions.

1087
01:47:58.860 --> 01:48:03.860
Excellent. It reminds me, Chris, are you still there?

1088
01:48:03.860 --> 01:48:04.860
I am, yes.

1089
01:48:04.860 --> 01:48:05.860
All right.

1090
01:48:05.860 --> 01:48:13.860
Actually, I took a trip to Taco Bell and got some burritos because I was kind of hungry.

1091
01:48:13.860 --> 01:48:14.860
And the munchies, huh?

1092
01:48:14.860 --> 01:48:19.860
Yeah, you know, it hit me. I just kept hearing about it, so I got hungry.

1093
01:48:19.860 --> 01:48:23.860
How do you feel now about capitalist anarchy?

1094
01:48:23.860 --> 01:48:31.060
I feel more enlightened on the topic. I feel like I know a little bit more about it and

1095
01:48:31.060 --> 01:48:37.440
understand it more. So I would like to thank you for taking the time to speak here with

1096
01:48:37.440 --> 01:48:38.440
us.

1097
01:48:38.440 --> 01:48:44.060
Well, if you want to do further reading on this, go to the Mises web, Mises.org and look

1098
01:48:44.060 --> 01:48:53.060
up Roderick Long, 10 Objections to Anarchy, and look up Hans Hoppe and look up Murray

1099
01:48:53.060 --> 01:49:23.060
The Theory of Money and Credit

1100
01:49:23.060 --> 01:49:49.380
If you would like, you could get an entire education in economics just from listening to the podcast, which are great because you just put them on while you go to work, and on your car in the morning, on your iPod, or if you're trying to avoid the bums in New York City, it's always great to put it on your iPod, listen to Mises podcast, but hopefully this show will be ending up as a Mises podcast, so we're spreading the word that way. The Mike Martin Show, of course.