Society is more important than government. He wrote a great number of books. He taught at university of chicago for a while. He ended up in his hometown, not his hometown, dutch in germany, freiburg, which means free city which is perfect. He wasnt a conservative. He was a liberal, a libertarian. Host in your most recent book, bourgeois equality how ideas, not capital or institutions, enrichd the world you talk about them as young hayek, middleaged hike and old hightech. Did he change his opinion . Guest not too much. Heres what happened. He was an economist economist. One of the leading economists in the world in the 1930s and 40s. He was commonly thought by everyone as John Maynard Keynes equal. But later in the 50s and 60s and 70s, he turned to philosophy, to political philosophy. I think thats the big change. Its not that he changed his opinions about what we unfortunately call capitalism. He thought it was a good thing. He thought that socialism is hard to impossible to make work. In your book, you write is a great difference between classic liberalism and contemporary and libertarianism. Give us the definition of both of those. Guest im not sure where that came from an in the book because im not sure i believe it. I believe there is, a friend of mine calls it liberalism 1. 0. The liberalism, voltaire and adam smith, the blessed adam smith, jon stewart mills, who believed they key to a good society, and Prosperous Society was to let people have a go as the english say. And that persists in modern libertarianism. What is different is that some of these modern libertarians, especially the americans, how can you say, they are somewhat harsh. I called in brotherly, whereas my kind of liberalism or libertarianism is sisterly, in the sense that it want to include love among the virtues that a society ought to be interested in. Whereas my male colleagues among libertarians tend to say no, all we need is maximizing profits, dont tell me about love. You cant possibly have an opinion, as i purposely and sticking them in the eye like my first book was called bourgeois virtues. Sounds like a contradiction in terms. Second one was called bourgeois dignity, how can that be. Bourgeois equality, how can that be right . I think all three opinions are wrong. You could be ethical. You could be encouraging Human Dignity and you can achieve income equality through what we unfortunate call capitalist. Host several years back french economist hit the book world with what do you think of his guest i didnt pay much attention to it until i was asked to do a review and ended up doing a 50 page review which took most of the issue of the journal. I know that britain especially as the bbc tried organize a a debate between him and the. And, of course, he wouldnt do it. Why would you bother with a retired professor from the midwest when he sold so many copies . Its a brave book. I dont hate him. I dont think you stupid. I think hes concerned with something that might be a serious problem, except that is not. Host what does he get wrong . Guest he gets a lot of things wrong. One of the things he gets, he gets the numbers wrong. The book is mainly quantitative. For someone whos not an economist or doesnt have the soul of an accountant, its an unreadable book. People read the first chapter and then they stop. Its not true that inequality has increased. The only countries where it has, britain, United States in canada. The reasons for the somewhat moderate increase in inequality has nothing to do with the forces he thinks. His book is called capital in the twentyfirst century, and its about the prospects. He claims we are doomed, that the owners of capital are going to take everything. Thats been wrong factually and will be wrong in the future. Thats one thing. The other thing he does just on this matter of the numbers is he ignores human capital. The skills you are and i and at any modern society, and thats gigantically important as a source of income. And so do not include that the accounting is a big mistake. And then more fundamentally, i think he has an ethical problem. He hates the rich, and i dont think thats the way to go. I think the way to go is to love the poor, as i do. I got into economics to help the poor. I told you i was a socialist then. Economics, socialism is not such a good idea for helping the poor. In his book, hes very much about envy towards the rich. I think, i dont think envy is a good social policy. Because in the is insatiable. I can envy you because youre a good interviewer, and you can envy me because im so beautiful, you know . We can envy people endlessly, and so you can solve the problem of poverty, but you cant solve the problem of envying the rich. Host this is a subtitle, what is a it, ideas over capital . Guest a main theme of the book is kind of antieconomics. Im an economist, im a Chicago School economist, an austrian economist but ive been everything. Ive been a keynesian, a social engineer, blah, blah, blah, every kind of economist, socialist. My claim is, what most economists think is that in order to explain what are called the great enrichments, which is an increase in the income of ordinary people, poor people since 1800, in places like japan or finland or the United States by 3000 . Sounds impossible but if you look around and think about it, it is possible and happens. 3000 . The usual explanations are materialists. From the left, exploitation, imperialism. From the right, the savings behavior of the rich or none of those work, trade, foreign trade. No, no, no. What works is ideas. Ideas, mechanical ideas, institutional ideas that exploded after 1800. I mean, thats a hockey stick, boom. And the idea is why didnt it happen earlier . Why didnt these ideas, why not under the song dynasty in china or the roman empire or ancient egypt . Why not . Because the causal idea was liberalism. Adam smith, the blessed at the smith put it, the liberal plan, he called it of equality, liberty and justice. , and those days ordinary people, masses of people in sweden and italy and all over the place, ideas that they could have a go. He got this fantastic explosion of ideas. So its ideas encouraged by a free society that made as rich. It also by the way made as free, which is just as important. Host heres the book. Its called bourgeois equality how ideas, not capital or institutions, enrichd the world. Professor, author, and hightech prizewinner is deirdre mccloskey. Mccloskey. This is booktv on cspan2. Heres a look at the upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. For more information about upcoming book fairs and festivals and watch previous festival coverage, click the book their staff on our website, booktv. Org. Good afternoon. Theres a few instructions. If theres time at the end there will be questions and answers. If you would please go to the mic, i would appreciate it. Im karen lloyd, director of the veterans history project at the library of congress