[inaudible conversations] good afternoon and welcome to the Cato Institute. I direct the center for global liberty and prosperity here at cato the title and style of the book were featuring today, socialism sucks, is admittedly more irrev vanity than the typical more staid Public Policy books but i can assure you that the authors that we are featuring today are serious, accomplishments economyis whose decade of scholarly work inform the publication. Thesen title two economists drink the way through the unfree world gives a flavor nor unton generalizational approach. That subtitlele didnt surprise me. I tend to run into ben powell and bob lawson at economic or academic conferences around the country, and around the world, and inevitably they have drinks in their hands. Probably because we chat at receptions, hotel bars and the like. But the conversation is always interesting, informative and fun. And thats also true of this new book. This is a light book about a heavy topic so its fortuitous were featuring this on the birthday of milton freedman, a champion of economic and overall human freedom. We were lucking of the hasnt him for some of to us have worked with him to limited going. Im shoe he would agree with the title of the book but i cant recall him ever putting his opposition to socialism in quite those terms. Today socialism gained an appeal among some americansspecially young americans, as a viable alternative to a market economy, and to this market economy that has prevailed and characterized the United States. This is so much the case that leading political candidates and others openly espouse their admiration for the ideology and the policies it implies. Yet how much do americans really understand about socialism and are there aspects of its appeal that are wellfounded. One of the goals of the authors of socialism sucks is to disabuse readers of any idealism they might have for the ideology by appealing to reality, and direct observation that most readers can relate. To rather than by relying on reames of data, statistics and other empirical hard evidence that are damning but also dry compared to the approach they take in this book. They achieve this by traveling to places where real socialism has been put in place, cuba, north korea, venezuela, for example. Long the way they also visit other countries that have experienced socialism or are set to be socialist and explain through anecdote and observation how those systems really work. The end result, hopefully, is to dispose of any romantic notions of socialism. That the awe fors felt they needed to write such a book is a reflection of pour polarized times, where extreme ideologies on the left and the right, are having far more of a way among the American Public than was imaginable even a few short years ago. We will also be discussing why that has been the case and what else we might do about it. But lets let the authors tell their stories and well begin by hearing from ben powell and bob lawson and then by comments from matt kibbe. Ben powelles the director of the Free Market Institute the professor of economicness the jury s. Howle college of Business Administration at. [technical difficulties] texas tech university. A senior fellly with the independent institute, number of the author of a number of books including out of poverty, and making poor nations rich, published by Stanford University press. Research finding have been reported in 100 popular press outlets such as the New York Times and the wall street journal. Bob lawson is the approximate of practice of chair in Economic Freedom and is a director of the eneil center for Global Markets and freedom at Southern Methodist university at the cox school of business. He previously taught at Auburn University and Capital University and is the coauthor of the widely cited Economic Freedom of the world annual reports that presents an Economic Freedom index for more than 150 countries over the course of decades. He also is a past president of the association of private enterprise education, senior fellow at the Frasier Institute and a member of the help me welcome ben and bob. Thank you for hosting us, and i just learned it was Milton Friedmans birth debefore coming an and its fitting the publishers original blush says social jim suck is the bastard step child of Anthony Bourdain and milton friedman. So good solid economics communicated in a fun, entertaining way that would reach people that who wouldnt usually read the academic stuff we write. The timing is obviously good with the popularity of socialism. Started the book over two years ago, and part of the motivation when the books theme took shape was the glowing popularity of socialism in 2016. This is the everprominent Michael Moore tweeting out that young people like socialism over capitalism but confusing these things with fairness and selfishness. What bob and i wanted to do is write a book that explains what socialism and is is not, how it functions and to do it an entertaining way and the case bob wanted to get drunk in cuba and i wanted to write it off on my taxes and that is the trial chapter. The book does well, im pretty sure i should tell the irs im see reaching a seek quit and writing off my bar tabs from now until then. So, its no surprise to anybody now that socialism is bang and popular. A lot of the focus has been onioning people and millenials, but of course with the president ial dedates you see it month mainstream democratics as well. The New York Times had yearlong on the 100th 100th anniversary of the russian revolution, column called red century. I think exactly one column in that year was dedicated to the economic stagnation of the system. A handful mention atrocities and almost always with stalin, once mao. Instead you have articles like why women had better sex under social jim which even if true i dont know how we weight this against 100 million dead bodies, but this was the atmosphere that was taking hold as we were doing the book. Obviously grown now and we have confusion from pom particulars like Bernie Sanders who cup riz denmark, sweden and nor examples of socialism. Theyre not. I was going to include a quote from alexandria ocasiocortez but i decided it was better to leave is a placeholer. But the book, the tour we go there start in sweden, go to venezuela, cuba, korea, china russian, georgia, and then tending a large socialist gathering in the summer let start briefly sweden. Geoff the definition of social jim. Its some form of collective ownership or control over the major means production, abolishing private property in and the major factors production. Replacing with collective ownership. In practice in any Large Society this means state ownership and or control of means of production. If youre going to have large scale production, that then means youre also goal to have some form of Central Planning in order to do the coordination. A lot of these young socialists say we want socialism from below and everybody will decide cooperatively what to do. You hippie commune wont produce an iphone comrade. You need to coordinate the diverse area of the economy and when you dont use Property Rights that give prices and profit and loss, that has to be replace evidence something and thats a central plan. So, first of all, sweden, these other nordic countries are not socialists. Theyre highly capitalist, the all have private property, they have good contract enforcement, tolerable degree of the rule of law, free trade, light regulation of businesses. They have problems, sweden has big welfare state and high taxes. This is true of the other nordic countries and these interventions in at the freeway market have consequences but dont equal social jimmism, so when we go to sweden the beer is great, the mace is beautiful, its not socialist, bob is the coauthor of Economic Freedom of the world index, and this is true of other nordic countries as well. So, we can have Great Barrier in fact thats the in front of a bellum beer bar it and cost as ton of money and we tranq some in south korea on the other side of the world ask they were cheaper than in sweden. And this big welfare state has dragged down swedens growth theyre not as wealthy relative to rest of the world as they used to be but theyre prosperous because theyre mostly capitalist. Venezuela is dead last in bobs Economic Freedom index. Cuba and north korea are not ranked but we can guess where they would be. But venezuela, its important to remember, this is not a place that was always like that. The easterlye year of the index in 1970, venezuela was among the ten most economically free countries in the world. We saw a long peered of decline of Economic Freedom when they worse worst formates interventionism, but in 1970 when they were capitalists they were wealthy in fact wealthier per capita income that spain itself. Not true with 1998 when chavez comes to power but thats a capitalist, prosperous economy, and also dont have to go back very far to have people pointing to it as successful democratic socialism. Chavez came to hour in a democratic election that International Observers widely say was fair. Began putting socialist policies and place and what was happening is venezuela sits on the Worlds Largest oil reserves. Oil prices were high. As a result his socialist policies were cutting out the core of the economy, Food Production was plummeting. But they were using the revenues from oil to import food and other things for the population, give the free handouts politicians like to talk but and production win dont because the statearound oil company doesnt give very good incentives for maintaining equipment and pipeline and production and prices are down. No longer have the Foreign Exchange to import the necessities and crisis be see today and we saw when we were in in january of 2017, first hap. In fact the picture on the top left corner is of the bridge thats been in the news where they aid trucks were sopped from colombia. That we were there people were free to move back and forth and venezuelans were coming across into colombia to buy basic necessities unavailable in the venezuela economy. It wasnt typical third, world poverty. What you saw crossing the border is people who were middle class, upper middle class venezuelans who still had some access to money to buy goods when they crossed the border. This illustrates what a socialist economy does to those people who are previously prosperous in a capitalist society, theyre struggling to make ends meet. I should also say since we having this beer theme running throughout the book, venezuela ran out of beer. If i were a socialist dictator, like toilet paper, beer, the things that we always have. By the way thats not like election speech. But what actually happened is they had polar, which is a nominally privately opened can i by government planning al oak indicated foreign expect but didnt allocates nut Foreign Exchange and they ran out of beer. So, next on our i should just say about the democratic socialism with them, this what i think Young Democratic socialist mess, the necessary connection 2007 a lack of Economic Freedom and the lack of political freedom. Once you ail bowl issue private property you have to get state control. People dont like that. That means they are going throw you out of power if you let them voluntarily reelect you but youre able to repress them so they constant throw you out of office in a democratic election which is what we have win maduro. Reelectedded last year by wide margin but people on original last Something Like 24 pounds. Didnt all find jenny craig. When your population is not get us enough to eat theres na noh way to get reelect. You food eight stands next to polling place sound that is the necessary connection between socializing your economy and democratic tyranny. Cuba is not starving socialism. This is subsistence socialism. Chugging along. Heres a fewen neck anecdotes. State ownership of means of production, hotels are pat of the minneapolis of production so you heavier state owned hotel industry. You could stay at the hotel national, a fivestar Diplomat Hotel bit the stayowned hotels suck. We stayed at one and we arent trying to sandbag it. Supposedly three stars and a friend recommended the place. Looks okay in its picture from 1979. But looks a little less nice today as youll see the exterior. Going our rooms see how tall this building was, actually four elevators and three are out of service. Thats our bathroom ceiling. This is another state hotel, he hotel carib in central havana. Thats the glass that came out of the sanitary bag in the room with the stain on it. Thats the soap they kindly left us from the previous guest. Thats the hole in the taule they give us. Thats the bolt missing from the toilet so when youre on the seat you slide off. Now, same industry providing lodging, allowed limited operator i private Property Rights and the able for people to rent out papers, now we prearranged one through airbnb which is a miracle because thier is not widely available and your credit carts dont work but enough of them have relatives in miami that people in miami put it up on airbnb. They put the reservation and take the money and callure relative no cuba to tell then when youre coming, this one is the same price as our god awful hotel rooms, kitchen, dinette and we stayed in another one have at that time priced locate above a bar which was great. It had a porch, too so, could chain known cigars. The cuba trip was not funment from 8 00 a. M. To 12 00 p. M. And after that i drank and chain smoked cigars until 12 00 a. M. And that made everything all right sort of. Other oddity. No unsenttive is under the hotel. Incentives under the caution casas. Whats missing . Signs. Signs arent missing because cubans are poor. Its because no one gives a damn whether you come into their store or not. They dont make extra profit biz bringing you in there and if you show up, what youre confronted with a lack of variety. You can count maybe two dozen at most distinct items in the store. With the way, continuing with the beer metaphor, cuba have beer, didnt run out when we were there but two types, crystal and buccaneer. Both roughly 5 alcohol, half percent difference and taste like a skunky budweiser. Thats your variety of cuban beer. Private restaurants. Allowed state ownership of means of production is widespread, but theyve been given limited freedom to open private restaurants. They have restrictions how many people can be seat but widely ignored or worked around and theyre pretty good at first. And its because their trying. The right incentives but theres still in a socialist command economy and have to deal with the supply chain so all the private restaurants have the same 12 to 18 items on the menu, all taste basically the same, which i bland, cuban food in cuba sucks, cuban food in miami is delicious. In miami its a caappy ham and cheese in cuba. The supply chain is not there to provide it so pick a restaurant based on the venue of a rooftop or something lick that because the identified will be the same. Ill end on cuba here. The 1950s american cars in cuba. Then people think its because we havent an embargo on cuba theyre stuck with american car buts we have an they have to use bubblegum to make their 1950 considersic and in a country that is very poor, something on the order of 300ish per capita income and youover 1950s cars selling for 15,000, 16,000. The renault in the picture is a 30,000 car because its better suspension and brakes and might have ac. Doesnt exist in the United States. Dont give this to your High School Kid but if you stamp down supply hard enough, price goes very high. So ill stop with that and let bob continue the tour with you. Im going to talk about north korea. Our wives were very, very generous in letting us travel all over these crazy places but said we cant die or get arrested so we didnt go prison was okay we didnt go into north korea. We wasnt to the border of north korea and china, the northern north korea border, where theres just a river which separates the two countries, and you have many of you have seen the satellite photo of the Korean Peninsula, the north except nor capital is essentially dark and the south is wonderful lights and filaments of light and you see china on the northern side, which has developed quite nicely but a dark section of north korea. When we arrived in north korea, it was dark, and we got to the river, very excited. Were going to see north korea. Across the river and its just dark over there nothing over there. We were worried. The guide book said theres a city over there. We were worried maybe we went to the wrong city. Didnt teach be anything there when we woke up there is in fact a substantial city over there so that satellite photo isnt photo shopped, its real. You can stand on the chinese side and look over into complete darkness. The chinese side meanwhile, the city is not shanghai or beijing but its a substantial, modern, prosperous, chinese city with skyscrapers and lights and advertising of the modern things. So, that was north korea. And you see the dark picture again. The upper left is the north korea and then we wake up in the morning and you can see, theres actually a few hundred thousand people on the north korean side of the border but at night theyre empty. Going up and down the river, at one point i remembered can three chinese patrol boats, chinese navy coast guard, and i was very happy to see them, which is a strange feeling because im like, if our boat, our little ferry on the river, if it breaks down and drifts to in the north korean side i hope the chinese navy would get us before we got to the wrong side of the border. This is typical of what you would see, broken down homees. I still feel sorry we went into some upriver, some farming areas, and everybody we saw working in he fields was like then using hand tools and animals to drag plows and things there was one guy we saw in the field and he had a diesel tractor, looked ancient and you could here the chug of the diesel they make, and it was a little incline on the farm field, and the but he couldnt make it up. You could her hey was and eventually dish really felt sorry for the poor guy. Eventually gave up and the tractor rolled backwards and so very sad situation. Youre looking on the chinese side, look this direction youre see highway is tractortrailer trucks wizzing by. The contrast is you can see in north korea is really stark. Theres the chinese side of the river and then in the river. We do talk in book about the tragedy thats gone on there the irony is if you go back to the end of the korean war the korean war did create massive damage to the entire country but if anything the northern side was the prosperous. The northern side was the industrial, prosperous part of the peninsula. The south was backward farmers and of course its reversed today and we cite statistics but the incomes. Ben it right, income statistics in socialist countries are really almost meaningless in a lot of ways, but the best estimates we have are income in north is maybe couple thousand dollars per person, thats probably generous. North korean south korea is now one of the richest countries in the world. So, segwaying to the china side, we hit beijing and shanghai, and the title of the chapter is called fake stormism. Immediately upon landing you realize when you sigh signs for the gap and gucci and all the western brands, this is not socialist, theyre private firms, making profit, the bore is good again so its a fake fam socialism. We talk but the history of chinese socialism it and is a schizophrenic place. Today theyre trying to have Economic Freedom for a large portion of their country, and as a result of that Economic Freedom, china has developed quite rapidly and people have gotten quite prosperous in general, compared to the old days and still trying to be a to at that totalitarian political regime. We attended a conference. We talked but ayn rand and hayak, the austrian economist in beijing, which was how cool is this, taking but a ayn rand and hayak in china at a conference, but to remind us the communicates communist party is in charge the very next day, morning, thugs shod up from the government and padlocked the doors with chains and the conference was called off. So, chinas tries is trying to do a dance where they are giving away the freedom to engage in commerce and have profits, but also theyre trying to control their thoughts and their minds and their political freedoms, and we suspect this is not sustainable path but there you go. Skinning by fenged mentioned russia. We were standing in line, popularring there in the old soviet union. You still have to stand in line to see lenin. They dont charge for his tomb so when prices for low, sometime outside get lines and you get a line there and still some soviet art but we call this hungover socialism because theres no central plan. Theres no private property has been reestablished nor most part. But its hungover. Still suffering the aftereffects and have not moved the china russia and ukraine havent moved towards Economic Freedom but the country that has. The former soviet republic of georgia is a calalist and the top ten highest ranked countries in world. This is me flipping the bird to stalin in his home town, drinking wine. Just in term of the alcohol theme, georgia is a great wine country and soviet times made lots of bad wine. The central planners nowed over acreage and planted french grapes and it was terrible but the entire social yet world was supplied from georgia with wine. Today all those fields have gone to fallow. Its terrible. Just gone seed but the georgians bringing back their own local grapes and their own old fashioned,phone french style of making wine, different style of making the wine and if youre a wine snob, georgia is becoming a mecca for people who want to enjoy unique wine that just dont exist in the rest of the world. Georgias success since the what it call the rose revolution, we talk about that. In terms of the signaling of in the new country thats correct police station, police stations are always made out of glass in georgia to signal transparency. We dont literally mean transparency when we see that but the georgians took that literally and then last the chicago conference. We went to the socialism conference in chicago, bills itself as the largest gathering of american socialists. When we arrived ben and i stood out not because we were wearing blue blazers but because we were hid middle aged. Wore my Cincinnati Red hat. Thought that would be funny. No one caught the joke. I was angry no one thought that was funny. So, we found a lot of confusion. The same confusion that ben talk but with bernie. Kids were leftist kids who saw the world, saw injustice in the world in various ways and they wanted to do something about it, and somehow or another they thought socialism was the thing and we could ask check, should we get rid of private snort one is like, yeah, and another one is, no, why do that. Thats what socialism immediate so kid calling each other comrade were unclear on what the definition of socialism was. Ill close on talking but the beer theme. Were back in the u. S. A. , capitalist country, brewery in illinois called revolution brewery. Theyre bar tap is a raised fist with a red star on it and all of the labels for beers, a couple dozen varieties of wonderful craft beers, and theyre all come my themed commie themed sort of marketing but the irony is that were sitting near chicago drinking revolution brewery and that company which is a private, forprofit company, makes a greater variety and quality of beer than all the socialist countries combined. The kids thought this is just great, stalin on the label. Okay. The book is done we are number one new release in the category of beer. How about that. There you go thanks a lot. [applause] now well hear from matt kibbe, from an educational organization, turning the next generation on to the value of liberty. He produces a liberty adjust deadlyisms, a documentary series but the dangers of all flavors s of authoritarianism. He is the author of various books most recently New York Times best seller, dont hurt people and dont take their stuff. Matt at the eastbound of the book theres a discussion with matt about what how to interpret the appeal of socialism in the United States and matt was very involved with the Tea Party Movement and so he is always had his fixer finger on the pulse of political sentiments in the country, and thats what he discusses at the end of the book and he can help us understand what is going on in this country. Great do be here. I should start by pointing out that these two economists, theyre not just ivory tower guys. You try to slog through their academic works yao might shock but a serious amount of handson empirical work was done and im counting thing in the under 0 biebs and hangovers. He did a podcast a month ago where we did an empirical comparison of American Craft beers and we had a north korean beer which he smuggled back illegally. We had some from venezuela which is not ironically is made in florida because they cant actually produce it in venezuela anymore. And the north korean beer, youll be shocked to know, was so undrinkable that even ben poured it out. That doesnt happen. You have ask yourself, with all this empirical evidence but socialism failing and all of the slide show you saw, teams stark, pretty visceral, pretty vowels that socialism doesnt work in practice. We have history of the last 100 years of really horrible experiments, pol pot killed one in four cambodians in four years. How do you do senate you have to try really hard and you have to have an ideology that is so dysfunctional as to shut down any conceivable market and yet when he post these videos, someone from socialists of america will say thats not socialism. Thats oligarchy. State capitalism, fell the blanks, work around why mao wasnt really a socialist or yugo chavez are not socialists. Theyre doing something else, maduro. And you get so frustrated because it seems like logic, economics, empirical evidence, up in of these things hold sway as young people as you pointed out in the beginning of your talk are now sort of conflicted. Runs 5050, depending on the scare poll you look at, that young people are saying socialism i want that more than capitalism. So what we are to do with this . I recently reread an old is say i Frederick Hayak because when i dont know that would do. Ask myself what would hayak do . And it turns out he rote anes he ick thinking the darks dives liberal jim free markets are here and were never going to recover and he is trying to figure out how what to do about the rise of socialist sentiments, called the intellectuals and socialism. Please read it. A short read. Will give you a sense that possibly with a few exceptions it was written yesterday because he is dealing with all the same stuff were dealing with today and a couple points he make is want to tease out. The first is and bens bat shty contracts quote aside he said to take your intellectual pundit seriously and we share memes facebook and love to make fun of alexandria ocasiocortez or some other socialist democratic socialist saying things we know are obviously not true. But hayak would say take them seriously. Also say in that same essay i feel like he is talking but Mitchell Mitchell mump here that just because youre criticizing socialism doesnt mean that you have any idea what a cogent critique of socialism is. Mitch mcconnell declared himself the grim reaper of any legislation proposed by democrats that were socialist. Im not sure thats good messaging. I think if im 20 years old and im trying to decide between mitch mcconnell, the grim reaper, the aoy, the happy warrior for democratic socialism, who are you going to choose . We should think about that and take hayak seriously. But i happen to believe that young people, as was alludessed to, if you ask them whether or not they believe the government should own the means of production, and reason did a poll about there is a couple years ago, the answer almost categorically is hell no. Thats a student ideas theyre talking about something else. When they put that qualifier, democratic socialism, socialism that seems to suggest in the narrative of alexandria ocasiocortez a belief in community, a belief in people at the local level working together to solve problems and respecting each other and somehow that bottomup process is a way that we can solve all of the problems. You go back and watch her original viral video that got her elected to congress. You will find yourself agreeing with her probably all the way up until the last minute of the video. 190 90s she is railing against insiders in washington, dc who dont give a damn about her folks back home. She is rail bought incumbents for life. Talking about that sense of Community Uses the word dig nat dignity. Theyre not socialist concepts. Thats us. Thats what we believe. Which leads me to my third point and the most important in this hayak essay, hayak says that the reason that socialists in 1949 have had so much sway with intellectuals and with popular opinion is that they were able to craft a vision that imagines a utopian future that was better than the status quo. Something big. Something beautiful. A promise that just around the corner we could do Something Better together than we have ever done before. And the critics i cato i can pick on mitch mcconnell. Is that okay . Any protests . Mitch mcconnell when he criticize is socialism, he is doing what hayak warns against. Sounds like he is defending the status quo. The wall street bailouts, permanent wars, whenever you see in washington that you find so repugnant. The critics socialism in washington, dc identify what theyre against. Theyre against aoc but are they free markets for the peaceful bottomup cooperation . Im not sure they are but all of us, with we want to win the next generation, we have to imagine something utopian, something beautiful, something bigger and better than we have seen in the past. Which brings me to beer. Thats an ita. From our friend. He actual a reply is his libertarian principles to his production of beer but you go to any Grocery Store anywhere in america and you go to the beer section, that beautiful cooler, it is a shrine to free market capitalism, i a holy place, things get quieter there as you try to figure out which double dry hop triple ipa youre going to choose there. You cant do that in venezuela. Ben suggested this. You cant get even crappy warm beer in venezuela. But maybe theres something about that. Anybody here that is into craft beer, if you go to your local produce are im sure this is truly at the brewery you referenced its a beautiful place. Started by entrepreneurs, people that are thinking about entrepreneurship in the way that when he said entrepreneurship is imagining an alternative future even as people laugh at you. And if you know anything but the craft beer industry, to the triple hop, double ipas, most people sort of make fun of that stuff. The rest of us are waiting in line for six hours by a fourpack. Thats the beauty of creating something that has never been done before, and they come together in cooperation and they hang out and they have a sense of belonging and community, and its all driven by that entrepreneur and his right in a free market capitalist society to create something and to share it with his neighbors. Maybe thats the metaphor. Maybe beer is exactly what were trying to talk about. Always use downward sloping demand curves and if youre real libertarian like me and hanging out of friend you argue but the nonaggression principle and things normal people have no idea what were talking about. But if you dont understand the beer metaphor, theres probably something wrong with you. You probably are not going to be helped by anything we have to say so well write you guys off but the rest of the world, particularly young people. Young people flirting with the idea of democratic socialism, heat connect with. The with the stories, and i have to say as a final thought, the final chapter, where you talk to the young socialists in the United States, it would be easy to make fun of them, easy to troll them, easy to take a picture of the most ridiculous person and post it on instagram and see these guys are silly but you were empathetic, listening, you were trying to understand where they were coming from. If we do that and we explain the beauty of liberty and freedom, i think this generation, the generation flirting with democratic socialism, will prove to be the most libertarian ever. Thank you. [applause] thankes very much, matt. We have time for questions. He if you have a question, please raise your hand and when youre called on, wait for the microphone, identify yourself and your affiliation, and make a brief question. Do we have questions . Well take question right here in the front. We need microphones, please. This gentleman in the white shirt here in the second row. Thank you. Im retired. And it seems to me in most cases when there are really strong disagreements its a question of semantics. People using the same word with totally different definitions youring would the classic marckist definition of socialism and if you look at the young stormis theyre using a totally different definition. Basically thinking in capitalism everything is owned by somebody. You step off your property, youre on someone elses property and they can control whatever it is. And as soon as you have commons, you have public streets, parks, stuff like that, thats socialism. My question is, who gets to define the term . Is it karl marx, Bernie Sanders, wikipedia . Who defines what socialism is . I think language is a spontaneous order so its incumbent upon to us be clear what we mean when we use our words and make sure we communicate effectively. The young socialists, like bob said, many of them dont identify with apolishing private property. A lot of them thing in aspirations and goals rather thank means of achieving. The. In last chapter we do while we are at this socialist conference, we a heard talks on immigration, antiwar, antiimperialism, black lives matter and police brutality. Were like with base cliff agree with you, problem enemy out and need to be better, more proimmigration, antiwar, roll back the police in the United States. Its just the kids were saying and the answer is socialism. Were like, whoa, whoa, the answer is freedom a voluntary system, what matt is referring to. We use the term socialism sucks is the title of the book but in the book we take pains to define our terms, define it in the classical with a and also theres no black and way. Not a zeroone world out there. Theres social jim in the United States. We have public schools. Thats the government is owning and centrally planning the Education System for most of the country. But thats where the Economic Freedom index i work on comes in. A continuum front only the one end of the spectrum, more socialism, thats the venezuelans of the world the other end of the spectrum the more capitalist country. Theres no bright line between when you start being capitalists and we use the index and its really the shades of gray that Something Like an index can give us that helps move the conversation. Having said that, since socialism is the buzz word of the day, we felt it was important to make that the focal point for the book. Bill the way this is why listening is so important, because these buzz words like capitalism and socialism, i generally dont even look to use the words because they have so much baggage that you may be talking to someone and they may not be hearing what youre trying to say. I leak to focus on simple human values based language because thats where theyre is a lot of connection with young people, even whoa then it came to those two words we might find yourselves on opposite sides. A question in that row. The gentleman in the blue shirt, please. Thank you. Im leon, eye retired member of the foreign service. If wonder if outcome help us understand what should we think of when we hear a candidate like Bernie Sanders saying hes for democratic socialism . Help me understand what does he mean if you know what that means and what should we think of when people say, i want 0 social welfare state. I think that when you hear bernie and others say this dont mean real socialism the way we define the tomorrow, the government owning most means of production but bernie and aoc do want to march you down the road to cerfdom. Whether its moving to medicare nationalize the means of production irv theyre elected. Question here in the front. I am a report with voice of Americas Service and i have to ask you about north korea. You said north korea right after the korean war, economically period, superior to south korea. Was socialism the reason behind that and the second question is understand that north korea is right now putting its options to imat that time chinas or vietnams growth path. Do you think its a viable objection for them . So, the chinese peninsula was occupied by japan for many years, and Korean Peninsula was run by the chinese it was sort of a dictatorship but it was mostly private property kind of system. So, what the reality was most of the electricity, most over the heavy industry that existed in korea was on the northern side and wasnt a route of socialism. Just the result of conditions that were present there. But i would applaud north korea moving in the chinese direction. Just because you cant have all the freedom in the world doesnt mean some freedom will not going to help. Millions, hundreds of midges of choice are living dig now identified existences bus the government lets them engage trade and markets and that should be something we applaud. As far as choking not china not going down the road to freedom is regret agency but that would be great for korean. Theyre on the only starvation but opening up the type that happened in china or vietnam is a great idea for north korea and i hope they do it. I hope they move all the way to freedom but if they cant, just move a little way. Ill follow up on that. One to clearly answer the first part of the question, yes, this is like the global example of one place, one people, one language, one history, one culture and you change one factor, your Economic System you get socialism in one, capitalism in the oomph thats a natural experiment and it shows sidebyside what capitalism or what freedom really will do for people versus state control. The second thing, i aglow with bob, moving in the chinese direction of reform would bose incomes and make people bert off. One caveat about china, in china you have vast difference in the Economic Freedom across regions particularly coastal cities and Enterprises Search but within china de facto now you have freedom of movement so you have over a billion people and free migration with income differences and freedom differences between rural interior provinces and coastal cities that are not unlike differences between latin america and the out today where you see immigrants want to move to get the productivity of the place instead of the people and a lot of chinas growling growth has to do with internal participation. Its moving that direction. But i think its important to actually also for our outreach with the book on this to point out that freedom of movement, free trade and labor, is part of the free market system, too. The internal migration in china is the largest mast migration in our times by far. Question in the back, please. There in the corner. Regarding the rising popularity of socialism how much is like a result of shortterm anger on the left against trump, look the among of the dsa member hope and how many is a longer term trend that is their stay. Thank you. The fact that socialism bill be a defining Campaign Issue by a not be a good to go for those who would love for people to fully understand the difference between however you detine trumpism versus what alexandria ocasiocortez and seemingly almost all of the Democratic Candidates for president seem to be espousing. So part of it is partisan and part of the opposition to it is also partisan but i also thing going back to an earlier question, theres a similarity between the attraction of a candidate like ron paul, an outsider, eye iconoclast, raging against the machine, takingen the republican establishment and bernie sans terse. Sanders. Attracting the same cohort of young people and i dont thicket had a lot to do with ideology. I what a sense that guy is authentic. He is angry but the same thing is am the wall street bailouts and permanent wars wars wars ans incarceration. I just described both candidate. They have very different policy conclusions. I dont think this is about a shift in ideology. Think its sort of a cultural those guys seem cooler and, again, ill say it again to pick on mitch mcconnell. Only the cool factor, aoc, mitch mcconnell, you do the math. Second row. [inaudible question] [inaudible question] who opens you on socialism. You dont oyourself. The government owns you. A National Organization of production and National Organization of people, and people do not have choices, and who does that have choice . Slave does not have choice. And what do you think about that . That socialism is just another form of public slavery, and that is why they were disposing millions of people the way they did because the people were not only an asset but they were also liability. Thank you. I agree completely. You are part of the means of production, which means now the people are a means, not an end and i think tate a huge waste and probably for any ideology that puts people as means instead of the ultimate ended. Well take question in the third row there the gentleman in the white shirt. Regard one question, please, and identify yourself, please. You mentioned could prow blow identify yourself. Im just [inaudible] okay. When you said hundred million dead bodies, are you talking also about those have been killed, maimed, destroyedly ah, cia and western countries all over the world, and vietnam in middle east in africa, and all over . And why dont you just why do you close your eyes with what capitalism is not in the sense of equal opportunity but the sense of what they really are doing all over the world. Why venezuela has come to this situation is because of the what the u. S. Is doing to western country or including cuba, including iran, including okay. North korea, even though thank you. Because of that reason . So, first, this book is on socialism sucks. Id love to have it by successful enough to be fascism sucks. But i sympathize with you and a gentrify but i would nothing say they capitalism has killed all these people. Capitalism is voluntary interaction among consenting adults yous described imperialism of states which both bob and i are fully on board with and you would oppose. If could i just add other, become called democide, and the number, the 100 million that we generally use doesnt involve war, and if you add war into that you get a much bigger snub all sorts of ideologies that centralized government power have killed all sorts of people in war and we are not generally supportive of author temperaturans killing poo authoritarians killing people. You and everybody else in this room are invited to our many forum here at the Cato Institute where we have scholars criticizing u. S. Adventurism abroad which is nothing to do with the free market model. Next question. Gentleman over there, please. Mitch spiegel. Private participant. You didnt mention the kibbutzes in israel. Could you peek up. You didnt mention the kibbutzes in israel, it that just an aberration in your thought process . As a successful socialist enclave . Id be happy to take that. Private socialist experiments on the small scale have had some limited success, and probably the israeli kibbutz have been the most successful. They have not been greatly successful. One thing that ben mention its is largescale production an iphone, that kind of scale of operation is very difficult to imagine in the sort of socialism from below modll you have a network of small workerrun democratically worker democracy kind of enterprises. In fact, the israeli kibbutz think have had some staying bauer put mostly economic failures, some closed, some evolved into home owner associations so the empirical reality is that kind of operation is not been all that successful for good economic rope but the wonderful thing but capitalism, proper capitalism, we invite people to it invites anyone to make what managerial style for an operation you want. So is kibbutzes, communes, worker run, cooperatives, these type of things are perfectly legal and allowed within a capitalism system. Applaud the experiments and if they are successful, theyre truly superior, so much the better. I dont think theyre actually frequently very much superior but thats an empirical question. So just delate lated to that, we neither run or family like a market economy we run it along something along the line from im according to his basketball to each according to its needs but the family is an island of socialism interacting in a world of capitalism and makes i function. As soon as you scale um from the small family to the kibbutz you is that right getting bad incentive problems first, and then as you try to scale up bigger societywide thats where your information problems break down. But i mention one of these kibbutzlike experiments in our own history. Plymouth plantation and the pilgrims and they had communallal Property Rights everyone else was to produce together little distributedded by need. Here you have a religiously and culturally homogenous people who are gary ton a new world, like a big family and its not advanced material production, its basic production they starve for years and year. The nice thanksgiving story of planting corn and taught how to do that, why truitt that went the end of the starving theyve starved two more winters until William Bradford i think on plymouth plantation and describes we created private property and all 0 sudden im paraphrasing but all the idle hand became industrialists, women and children went to the fields and thats the incentive on the small scale like that. I think we, all anybody who has a family can identify with that problem. How much money my kid owe me . We have a question way in the back, fleece. A lot of money. Thank you. Rick leads. Have a blahing, 53 government cost crisis. The twoparty system is bainesed on single round voting. How much well, if the republicans dont make the free market argument convincing enough, then for a lot of people, theres just one alternative. So, how much do you think the twoparty system is responsible for the situation . Ill take a stab at that. I think youre in this awesomely democratized and decentralized process were going through right now where everything is shifting back to the end user and the one place that isnt happening is in politics. We still have two parties and on a lot of days from a libertarian perspective its kind of hard to tell the difference if you look at thing wed used to care about like spending and executive authority and war and those kinds of things. But i think the whole idea that there is a left versus right, red and i will blue bill, its simplistic and wrong. The real measure is author tearism on the bottom of authoritarianism at the bottom of the school and then we get to cooperation and dignity and liberty and the bull things that happen when we work together. So, is there a difference between pol pot, nationalis, and Adolph Hitler who was a socialist . I dont think so in practice and i reject that leftright thing. We have to get outside of politics to connect with people. Once we join our political team, the other side were trying to convince stops listening. But if we focus on values and things that we share and agree upon, thats how we connect. If it comes down to a political fight, i think everybody loses. Question in the aisle in the back, please. Robert anthony peters, filmmaker with tank man the movie. Com. I just wonder if theres anything you found that socialism does better, whether its product or services. Propaganda . No. Im thinking about giving a nonsnarky answer. When we interviewing people, we are interviewing a man from belarus, and this was in the ukraine when we enter interviewing him and i said i know year free market guy but you got to pick something. If you think back prior to 1991, what one thing was better for all of you . He pauses, nothing, nothing was better. The russian army sent me to siberia and that was the answer he gave me so thats what ill give you. Misery loves company is a saying for a reason, and just like older americans, like my grandparents generation, they actually sometimes look withfully back to the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a terrible time but we were all in it together, all sort of suffered collectively and a certain nostalgia almost for that. So, if theres any this is a backward compliment, social jim does one thing well, throws everybody in this sort of horrible existence but there is a certain camaraderie that i think might engender among the people who are suffering under it. Thats as good as ill get, robert. By the way theres winners and losers under socialism and i think yugo chaff res daughter nicholas maduros son love socialism, its a very lucrative situation. To follow up on bobs comment, the economist dan kline worked on what he calls the peoples romance and its people wanting to eave a collective experience of us doing it together and comments that people who are mode individualist and libertarian have a harder time making the nonaggression axiom, the collective experience. Which is important why we have substitute collective experience for politics, which means things like professional sports and all in it together. Much hap youre be a member of red sox nation than a political identity. Also works our better my sponsors nations are better than bobs. Thats the truth. Im in the ten seconds while ben was blathering on i came up with a better answer. So, when we were in cuba, one thing you find in cuba is the liveliness of the locals. The music is wonderful. Every Restaurant Bar you go to, get out of the tourist area in central havana, wonderful music and people singing and dancing, and but the plumbing is all falling apart and buildings are crumbling but this is a hallmark of socialism. They leveled wages so mump. You make the sage as a plumber and a musician, so do the math. Who wants to be a plumber. Thats a terrible, dirty job so everybody decides to be a musician so you get oversupply. Almost everybody you meet from soviet times in georgia or ukraine you ask what did you study in college . Physic because people with any integrationwould avoid Political Science because math doesnt have any ideological overtones the overprotoes math ma particularses and chess players and gymnasts and underproducing plumbers, people that can fix brick that is falling down and things like that. So you get weird imbalances but areas that are oversupplied you can say look at all the great art or great music. Any other questions . Right there. Im gray son mcswain, an intern, and recently the Ukrainian Parliament had election where certain people, president zelenskiys party won the majority. They selfselfdescribed libertarian and largely reformists. My question is if that are to implement reforms they have to delve into real complexion issues such as pensions, privatization of land, companies, and these could proverb unpop floor unpopular ukraine. I think you need to do what georgia did. Georgia was exactly the same situation in 2004 when they had their rose revolution, in fact in many ways georgias situation was bleaker than what currently exists in ukraine. And they elected a libertarian leader, and they quickly handled all the issue but i think the thing is quick. You dont get time to dillydally around because theres going to be opposition. Give you a couple of examples. Police corruption was one of the worst problems in georgia. They fired 35,000 Police Officers in a day. As a country of 4 Million People so this i eequivalent of firing every cop in washington, dc. Tomorrow there irno Police Officers. And of course crime went down when you fire the cops because the cops were the criminals and in a span of about 12 to 18 months, year and a half, they tackled pensions, tackled thin red by byzantine tax system. Got rid of tariffs, laundry list of libertarian laundry list of things and the opposition almost didnt have chance to gather itself. Eventually they did and those reforms slowed down and eventually stalled, but they have stuck. Its now were ten years out now. And the georgian the new government which is not a libertarian government by any means in georgia, they have not undone the libertarian reforms in georgia so my advice is look at georgia as a great example of how it can be done, but doing it quick, having a real leader who is willing to take those hits because people criticize from day one but the government stock with it. Time for one or two more questions. Well take question here. Thank you very much. Im todd wiggins. My website is called meetmed. C. I have question but the happiness quo slept. You can actually be happier in a less developed society than you can be in some cases in a more developed society. Did you see that facet and i think you did allude to it whenow taj but musician and so on, things you saginaw cuba that you felt worried. I completely agree with you some people can be happier in a less developed society to a degree but most of the thing wed carry about wife quality of life come with development, which its life expectancy, infant mortality, literacy, going in the same direction, but at least some people would be happier with less of a level on Economic Development than more something else. That said the imperial the me getting punched in nose and mike tyson getting purposed that nose and then asking us both how much it hurt and adding together and averaging as if that meant everything. If everybody has a different scale its meaningless to put people together. Just quickly, it is a mistake equate happiness or satisfaction with material wellbeing, and actually a good example in the history of socialism, the soviet union, when it was created in 1917, was the soviet people, he russian people, got richer. They got richer very quickly and the forced industrialization in fact brought russia into a more modern, industrial capacity grew and soing for but immesserrated people so the developed in a very real way. Killed 50 Million People but the country developed and people got richer in a lot of material ways, but i dont think too many of them were happier. So it is goes both ways, what im saying. You can develop and have happiness developing and also develop in a way that really creates a lot of misery along the way. The means matter a lot. Having said that its true the happiness literature defines as countries grow richer people get happier. Doesnt mean its not junk. That may be so but the actual literature does find that if you are willing to take that literature seriously. Well take one more question from the front here. Wait for the microphone, please. George mason university. When you think about it, socialism is simply silly idea. This i not what i say. I this is what james bow kanaan told me in personal conversation and men was in his 20s he said he was sort of a romantic socialist. Nevertheless said he was in 1950 or 40. Now looks like people have become interested again in the idea of a socialism. Why . Because socialism appeal tower reason, appeals to our emotion. If i remember what kristof lebonne said weight kind of people become interested in socialism . And he says, people who cannot find his place in modern civilization, and then they tend to become socialis and what is their purpose . Should we destroy the institution we have, in other words, destroy the civilization, and he said there is no answer for that. So what do you think if there is no answer he said the cause because the most people are indifferent to this problem, and he says the only thing we can do is be patient, dont panic, but keep on tolerate to go, cope on so i wonder if you have any answer to that pessimism. So, this is related to happiness question as well. Recently alexandria ocasiocortez said that her generation had never known authentic prosperity, which those of us that crunch numbers and bob lawson could help us but by any conceivable measure were living in the most prosperous, more opportunityiic, most buff times in the history of the universe but understanding the context for which she can say Something Like that. He through up watching wall street get bailed out. Her generation grew up saddled with 2050, hundred thousand worth of college debt, and theres a lot of reasons why from her perspective things could suck even though things are the best theyve ever been. So appreciating the context of where people are coming from i thing is part of the key of understanding why they think socialism might be better burt its not economics at all and i dont think most people process the world they live in through economic calculation, fact and figures and also fame now his said its more important to be morally right than factually correct, and we all laugh at that but she is making sort of a values based point about how a lot of people that are attracted to her sort of ideas process the world. So, understanding where the other side is coming from and not just hitting them with that the laws of supply and demand is probably the First Step Towards making that connection. Well, ill just say practicing natalie sin were evenedden on this, we wrote a book that tried to well, we used the lose supply and demand, drinker into talk to people who are willing to listen and might want to be entertained but learn and economics and history along the way. Nice plug. Where can we buy this book . Available on amazon right now, socialism sucks, lawson and powell. Thank you very much. Im afraid we have run out of time. Thank you for joining and eye look forward to your hopefully your next book will in the nationalism sucks. Please join us upstairs for lunch and beer. Theories, everybody. A look on monday along for us thank you Massachusetts Historical Society in boston where Harvard University professor Elizabeth Cohen will look at american urban policy post world war ii through the work of urban planner edward logue. Then at book people book snore austin, texas are no h. W. Brands recount of the settling of the american west. On thursday at barnes noble in new york city, pamly new kirk will argue that workplace initiatives have largely failed. And then on friday on the west coast at romans book store in pasadena, california, too talk on the 1965 debate between James Baldwin and william f. Buckley over the civil rights movement. All events are open to the public. If glory attendance, take picture. And tag us. Good afternoon. Welcome to the school of national affairs, im