Transcripts For CSPAN2 Free 20240704

Flock to the capitol in washington dc, attracted only by Political Action committees for able hang the letters that power has accumulated here the past 50 years at the seat of government, the most powerful nation on earth right. Bill henrickson there. How do you do . Glad to meet you. See you. All right. What are you talking about . Guns to. Hello, this is Warren Richardson . Oh, mary. Yes . Whats on your mind . Warren richardson makes his living by knowing who has powe. Trade the word. Ill be here for you. Hes a lobbyist thanks a lot by the official admin position on this bill. However, that its consideration would be at this time. In view of the president , he trades with people like these members of the House Committee on agriculture. They make some of the laws and regulations and among other things, control the food we eat. They are elected officials who the power to spend billions of dollars of our tax money know we always took them out just to and takes all the page it it takes all of page three naturally lots of people would like to get their hands on that money the kind of stuff that never go into the stack of books and. I think anybody who is practicing the Justice Court knows it the other way you get common sense administration is by having common sense administration and common you like. Theres more common sense operation in agriculture access is all important and how you gain access. So it used to be that there only maybe a few hundred lobbyists in this town. Now we record up to 15,000 and lobbyists plus ancillary personnel of secretaries, receptionist and and the the researchers that goki with it. Theyre calling upon all the law firms imaginable. So theres a Tremendous Base out there for the lobbying effort. You dont have walk these corridors very long before begin to realize that the concentration of power in the hands of a few people, however wellintentioned, is a real threat to the freedom the individual. Oh, of course. Warrenay over the years, hes successfully lobbied for special Interest Groups in energy environment, wages and prices point of hes the case for anotr special interest. The National Action committee, labor law reform, hoping to swing influence his way. Hell go overboard in terms of warren much much far legislation theres a time when the corridors of Congressional Office buildings are not peppered, people waiting for their chance to see and influence the elected man at, the center of power within that legislation for funds for communities 50,000 and under the goals of the existing law and certain statutes three k requirements are often very unrealistic for smaller the deals here affect all of us and in ways we dont like. But dont blame the people making the deals. Theyre just pursuing their own selfinterest, which may be as narrow as making a buck orbroade world. We, the citizens, are to blame because weve handed over much of our lives, our personal Decision Making to government and we now find that what government does severely limits our freedom. The leather and wood paneled its mecca of those who try for the scenes influence. I think they need knowledge, but weaving his way between special Interest Groups can be tough for a politician to stay in office. He needs votes to get votes. He often has to make deals. The chances of our party regaining the white house for if the president es that republicans can support. Its frequently a frustrating. So when you have people are coming in not for purposes of debate and and discussion on something but merely they demand their special or their single concern. Thats where it becomes difficult because there might be an equal number on the opposite side of the coin. Every time i come to washington. Im impressed. All again, with how much city. But we must understand the character of that power. It is not monolithic in a few hands the it is in countries like the soviet or red china. It is fragmented into lots little bits and pieces with every specia group the country trying to get its on whatever bits and pieces can. The result is that hardly an issue in which you wont find government on both sides. For example in one of these massive buildings spread scattered all through this town, filled to the bursting with government employees, some of them are sitting around trying to figure out how to spend our money to discourage us from smoking. Cigarets in another of the massive building, maybe far away from the first, some employees equally dedicated, equally hard working or sitting around figuring how to spend our money to subsidize farmers to grow more tobacco in building. Theyre figuring out how to hold down prices in another building, theyve got schemes for raising the prices farmers receive or import prices are keeping out cheap foreign goods. We set up an enormous department of energy with 20,000 employees to encourage us save energy. We set up an enormous department of Environmental Protection to figure out ways to get cleaner air involving are using more energy now. Many of these effects cancel but that doesnt mean that these programs dont do a great deal of harm and that there are some very bad things about it. One thing you can be sure of the costs dont cancel out. They add together each of these programs money taken from our pockets thatgoods services to mr separate needs. All of these programs use variable very skilled people who could be doing productive. They all of them grind out rules, regulations, red tape forms to fill in. I doubt that theres a person in this country who doesnt violate one or another of those or la every not because he wants to or intends to, but simply because impossible for anybody to know what they all are. Those are the bad things. But theres something good about this fragmentation of power to and that is that it enables us to do something about it. If power were really concentrated and monolithic in a few hands, itd be hopeless to reform the but because its fragmented because its split up, we can see how much waste there is, can see how inefficient it is, how the left hand seldom knows what right hand is doing. It wasnt always like this. Like the armies, bureaucrats administering our lives, making our decisions, spending our money, all supposedly for our good. And. Our nation. Founded with something fundamentally different. Mind. Remarkable of men gathered in this room to write a constitution, the new nation that they had helped to create a few years earlier. They were a wise and Learned Group of people. They had learned the lesson of hist great danger to freedom is a concentration of power, especially in the hands of a government. They were the new United States of america from that danger, and they crafted their constitution. With that in mind, that constitution has served us well. It has enabled us to preserve our freedom for close to 200 years. But in the past 50 years we have been forgetting the lesson that the wise of knew so well from regarding government as a threat to our we have come in more and more to regard government as benefactor from which all good things flow. We have a signed tasks of great importance to government. We have turned over government a larger and larger fraction of income to be spent on our behalf and results are plain for all to see. They are disappointing. The great aspect have not been achieved and our freedoms have suffered. The process. We where did it all go wrong wrong. The government began to take an increasing part in our personal affairs nearly 50 years ago. It was 1933, at the lowest of the worst depression in history. The idea failed and that that failure was responsible for the human and economic tragedy. In the early thirties, Franklin Delano roosevelt and his advisers met here to devise programs to meet the problems of the depression. Their answer was to give Central Government more power out of that■ beginning todays welfare state. This Empire State Plaza in albany, new york, is a fine example of the difference between public political power and private economic power. It was constructed while rockefeller was governor of the state. New york. The Rockefeller Family has spent millions of its private money on good causes. It endowed universities like my own at the university of chicago finance, medical research, reconstruct and williamsburg. Yet not all the private money of anything like. R■f the amount of power the Nelson Rockefeller was able to have as governor of the state of new york, he constcted monuments like this all over the state, using expedient he could think of to finance them. When he left office. Taxes per person in new york were higher than in any other state in the country, excepting only alaska. And there was a monumental debt. So much so his successor, who had the reputation as a democratic congressman of being a big spender, had to use his inaugural to preach the virtues of, austerity and to say the time of wine and roses is over. Look at this skyline. It and i think its very beautiful. Much of it is less than 20 years old. Those Tall Buildings were built by private for use by private, not by government for use by government bureaucrats. These are productive monuments, a burden on the taxpayer, a burden that is almost bankrupted. New york city. The irony is that for the part, it was good intentions that led us to where we are today. A nation governed by bureaucratic empires empires. I wonder whether w they realized that it was going to come out looking like a fortress for a modest beginnings. In 1953, the department health, education and welfare has grown into a veritable empire of only a small part of its total is housed in this Headquarters Building a mere 2000. The bureaucrats. Its budget is a Third Largest budget in the whole world, exceeded only■z by entire budget of the United States and of the soviet union. It employs directly. 150,000 full time people and. The empire in rules employs another. More than one out of every hundred people in the United States works in the empire. As we have seen in this series, theh, education and is spending increasing amounts of our money each year on health. One effect is fees and prices fl and Hospital Services without a corresponding improvement in the quality of medical care we receive. It is controlling and more of the food and drugs we buy in the process. Discuss the development and prxy■lenting the marketing of nw drugs that could be saving tens of thousands of lives a year in the field of education, the sums being spent are skyrocketing, yet by common consent, the quality education is declining. More and more money is being and increasingly rigid controls imposed to promote racial integration. Yet our society is becoming more fragmented in e field. Welfare billions of dollars are being spent each yet at a time when the standard of life of the average american is higher than it has ever been in history the number of people on welfare rolls is growing. Social security. The budget is colossal yet it is in deep financial trouble. The young complain and with considerable about the high taxes they must pay and those taxes are needed to finance the benefits are going to the old, yet justice that it is difficult for them to maintain the standard of life they were led to expect a system that was enacted to sure that the old never became of Charity Season number of our older folk on the lf rolls by its accounting agw in one year abuse and wastet of money that would have built well over a hundred thousand houses,■ ■y costing 50,000 a p. Little wonder that those initials are increasingly to stand for how to encourage waste. The event in some cities upwards 20 to 25 of all the people currently receiving welfare are either totally ineligible for welfare or receiving more than they should be receiving. And it appears and looking into this that the main reason for this is not the laws themselves but the way they theyre administrative in a very lax and loose manner. One of the most famous cases was, frankly, just happened last week, arrested a woman in southern. Where they referred to as the welfare queen. And over the past six or seven years, she. Received 300,000 in welfare payments, which, of course, is on an after tax basis. So if put her on a before tax basis might be equivalen to over 1,000,000. And before tax income. And she and her husband were living in a nice 170,000 home and nice cars. And she used a very simple she just use aliases use false names and signed up. I get countless different agencies departments and then drove around and collected her checks. Be done about this scandalous of affairs what better decision than to set up a special department crammed computers and Civil Servants all dedicated to tracking down using taxpayers money, of course in the process to seven and a half Million Dollars in the first year, as adam smith wrote over 200 years ago in the economic market, people who intend to serve only own private interests are led by an invisible hand to serve interests that it was no part of their intention to promote. In the political market, theres an invisible operating as well, but unfortunate it operates in the opposite. People who intend only to serve the Public Interest are led by an invisible hand to Serve Private interests. That it wa no part of their intention to promote the reason as simple as we have seen in case after case the general interest is diffused among millions and millions of people the special interest is concentrated in one. Reformers get a measure through. They go on to their next crusade, leaving no one behind to protect the Public Interest. But they do leave behind some money and some power and the special interests that can benefit from that money and from that power are quick to gain it at the expense of most of the rest of us by now, after 50 years of experience, it is clear that it doesnt really who lives in that government continue to grow so long. The rest of us believe that the way to solve our problems is to turn them over to government. Yet there are many people who want to solve their own, who want to use their own and energy and resources. We found such a person here in Southern California california. John mccomb, a fireman, was planning his retirement. He decided to fulfill his lifes ambition. Hed built his own house with his own hands. He bought a site with a magnificent cleared the ground and realized that he was the first man who ever cultivated this land. It made him feel good. He pulled a trailer onto the edge of his plot and moved in with his wife live there while they worked on the house. He mad. He planted avocado trees, learned about carpentry and plumbing. It was going well when one day a local official arrived with a warning it was all right to build a house, he said but it was against regulations to live in the trailer any longer. The mccombs thought that the rules bureaucratic and foolish, an resented them they decided to leave the trailer exactly where it was and defy the pat. Brennan became something of a celebrity in 1978 because she was delivering mellencamp petition with the United States Postal Office with her husband. She set up business in a basement. Rochester, new york. S thriving. They charged less than the post office and they guaranteed delivery the same day of parcels and letters in downtown rochester. There is no doubt now that they were breaking the law as it stood the post office took them to court. The case against them was simply that they should not be handling letters. The brennans decided to fight and local businessmen provided the financial backing. I think theres going to be a quiet revolt and perhaps were the beginning of that. You see people bucking the bureaucrats were years ago you wouldnt dream of doing that because be squelched now with tax revolts with what were doing people are deciding that their fates are their own. Not up to somebody in washington who has no interest in them whatsoever. So its not a question of anarchy, but its a question of people rethinking the power of the bureaucrats and rejecting it i really very good. The customers were clear about one thing after all the brennan service was cheaper than the regular mail. Were not sure that they have done anything illegal. And id like to know more about this. And i hope that this gets further into the courts than it has already. And someone will listen to their because when we use the brennans we know for a fact that that same day delivery is going to be happening day after day after day, whereas with the other guy youre not sure and youre not sure kind of shape its going to get there and so i am behind the brennan 100 and anything i can do to help them i will. Well the question freedom comes up in any kind of a business whether you have the right to pursue it, the right to decide what youre going to. There is also the question of the freedom of the consumers to utilize a service that they find is inexpensive and far government and, the body of laws called the private express statutes, i dont have the freedom to start a business. The consumer does not have the freedom to use it, which seems very strange in a country like this, that the entire context of the country is based on freedom and free enterprise. The post office, the case and went all the way to the state Supreme Court and the brennans closed down put out of business of delivering mail. What weve been looking at is a natural human reaction to the attempt by other people to control your life. When youhi its of their business, the first reaction is resentment. The second is to attempt, get around it. And finally, there comes a decline in respect law in general, theres especially american about this. It happens all over the world whenever some people try to control other people, for example, take look at whats happening to the british ambassador. For most of the persons britain was known throughout theld for the respect which its citizens gave to the law, but no longer. I think its perfectly fair to say that. We have become, in the course of the last ten or 15 years, a nation of fiddlers. How do they do it . They do in a colossal variety of ways. Lets take it right at the lowest. Take a small in a country area, say, devon, very small turnover. How does he make money . He finds out that by buying regular wholesalers, hes always got to use invoices. But if he goes to the cash and carry and this is goods from there and he comes the profit margin, those goods can be untaxed because the tax inspectors simply dont know hes had those goods. And thats the way he does it then if you take at the top end, if you take a company director, well, theyre all kinds of ways they could do it. They buy their food through company. They have their holidays company. They put their wives company directors, even though they never visit the factory, they build their houses on. The company by a very simple device of building a factory at the same time as a house, it goes, absolutely right through the from they person doing ordinary working class person doing quite menial right to the top end businessman, senior politician and members of the cabinet of the shadow cabinet. They all it i think almost everybody feels the tax system is basically unfair and. Everybody who can try to find a way around that tax system. Now, once that happens, a once as a consensus that a taxystem is unfair, the in effect becomes a kind of conspiracy see. And every body helps each to fiddle. Youve no difficulty fiddling in this country because other people actually want to help you. Now, 15 years ago that would have been quiteferent, would have said, hey, you know, this is this is not quite as it should be. So thats the first reason a very high of taxation. But i think personally theres another factor comes into it and that is that over the years weve had a huge in bureaucracy, government expenditure, cotton wool. If you to protect people from the slings and arrows of, ordinary life, you know Health Service cuts, all kinds of benefits of one sort or another. And i think thats come into the consciousness of people almost a sort of new a feeling that things dont quite have the value that they did. That money is not a thing of value. If you short get it from some government body or other other criminal evasion in britain, laws and regulations defied the United States. Its nothing to celebrate. The hopeful thing is that throughout the free world, the public is to recognize the dangers of government and is taking steps control it. But it will be no easy task to cut government down to size. Today in country after country, the Strongest Special interest has become t entrenche bureaucracy, whether at the national or at local level. In addition each of us gets special benefits from one or another. Governmental program. The temptation is to try to cut down government at someone elses expense while our own special privileges. That way its stalemate. The right approach is to tackle head in government spending. Lets give the government a budget the way each of us has a budget, a movement in this direction is already underway in the United States with so many proposals for constitutional amendments limiting government spending. Several states have already adopted such an amendment. There is strong pressure for a similar amendment at the federal level. Those amendments would force government to operate within a budget each interest would have to compete with other special interests for a larger of a fixed pie, instead of all of them being able to join forces at the expense of the taxpayer. This is an important, but it is only a first step. No can solve our problems for us. What we need is wide public recognition that the Central Government should be to its basic functions defending the nation against foreign enemies, preserving order at home, mediating our dispute. We must come to recognize that voluntary cooperation through the market and in other ways is a far better way to solve our problems than turning over to the government. This is where much of the future strength of the United States lies in places ottumwa, iowa, where ordinary hardworking American People live, people of all economic levels, live in ottumwa. But there are no extremes of either wealth, poverty or all or part of a community, each part of which depends on others for a stable . and, happy life worth living. This is a kind of community that formed the character of democrat america. Who are. We began this series by stressing two ideas. The idea human freedom as embodied in Thomas Jeffersons declaration of independence, the idea of Economic Freedom as embodied in adam smiths wealth of nations, those ideas working together came to their greatest fruition in the heartland of america but the basic character of society that they created has been changing as result of the rise of another set ideas, we have forgotten the basic truth that the founders of this country so well that the greatest threat to human freedom is a concentration power, whether in the hands of government or anyone else throughout western world. More and more of us are coming to recognize the of an over governed society, but it will take more than a recognition of danger. Freedom, not the natural state of mankind. It is a rare and wonderful achievement. It will take an understanding of what freedom is, ofreedom come. It will take the courage to act on that understanding if we are not only to preserve the freedoms that we, but to realize full potential of a truly free society. A mountain all through your discussions you hammer away at two things■g the theories of adm smith on the free market and Thomas Jefferson on central. One thing that troubled me a little bit about your discussions that it seemed to me that you were a little bit the way cycle analysts used to talk about that you believed they had given us the word and that even though 200 years had gone by it was still word that circumstances had not changed the meaning anyway. Are you that fixed about their ideas . Theres a great difference between principles and application of principles. The application of a principle has to take account of circumstances, but the principles that explain how it is in a automobile operate are no different from the principles that explain how horse and buggy operated or how bow and arrow operated. The principles that Adam Smith Smith enunciated the philosophy that thomas enunciated are every bit as valid today as they were then, but the circumstances are different and therefore the application is in many cases different. In addition, there has been a great deal of work and study and scholarly activity that has gone on since then. We know a great deal more about the way in which an economy than adam smith knew he was wrong. In many individual details of his theory. But overall vision, his conception of how it was that without any central body planning it millions of people coordinate their activities in a way that was mutually beneficial to all them. That central concept is every bit as valid today as it was then, and indeed, we have more reason to be confident in it now than he had because weve had 200 years more observe how it works. All right. Well, then lets go back. Jefferson and the oh, you say cut the functions of central tos advocated by jefferson, which was what defense, foreign enemies preserve order at home and mediate our disputes. Now, can we do that in the complicated, the complex world we live in today without getting into very serious trouble . Suppose look at the activities of in the complex world of today and ask to what extent the growth of government arisen because of those complexities and the answer is very little indeed what the area of government that has grown rapidly the of money from some people and the giving of it to others. The transfer area agw budget one and a half times as large as the whole defense budget. Thats the area where government grown. Now in that which technology has entered has not been by making certain functions of government necessary, but by making thingsy couldnt have done before without the modern computers, without modern methods of communication and transportation, it would be utterly impassive to administer the kind a good Big Government we have now. So i say that the relation between technology and has been the technology is made possible for Big Government in many areas but has not required i believe i think i know, but ill say i believe that you felt you blame the government for the great depression. 1929 to 1933. And of course, you had to blame fdr all he did. But most feel that he saved this free economy of ours, given the catastrophe of the great depression. Theres no doubt in my mind that emergency government measures were necessary. The government had made a mess, not fdr. His government government that preceded him, although it was mainly the Federal Reserve system, which really wasnt subject to election. But once fdr came in, he did very different kinds of things. Well have the government made a mess by what it did about. But but by what itidnt. By what it did. By its monetary policies which forced and produced a sharp decline in the total quantity of money. It was a mismanagement, the monetary apparatus. If there had been no Federal Reserve system, in my opinion, there would not have been a depression at that timn that thn occurred and it was a catastrophe of an almost unimaginable kind, i do not fault at all. Indeed on commend ted roosevelte of the measures he took. They obviously werent of the bestbu and you had an emergency and you had to deal with. And the emergency measures such as relief programs, even the wpa, which was a make work program, they served a very important function. He also served a very important by giving people confidence in themselves. His gr only thing we have to fear is fear itself was certainly a very important element in restoring confidence the public at large. But he went much beyond that. He also started to change under public pressure the kind of government system we had. If you beyond the emergency to the what he regarded as the reform measures things like an and triple a which were declared on constitute general but then from there on to the Social Security system to the right or take the Social Security system for a minute, the people wanted that they wanted that protection they were frightened. They wanted welfare, not all. We, you said pressure. Who . Pressure from whom . Pressure from people who are expressing what they thought the public ought to have. There was no widespread public demand for social seriprograms. The demand fell. No demand welfare with 13 million. There was a demand for welfare and assistance. I was separating out the emery from permanent measure Social Security in the first ten years of its existence helped almost no one at all. He took in money very few people qualified for benefits. It wasnt an emergency. It was a long term measure, and it had to be sold to the American People, primarily by the group of reformers, intellectuals new dealers, and People Associated with with fdr, the Social Security, one of the most misleading programs. It has been sold as an insurance. Its not an insurance program. Its a program which combines a bad tax, a flat tax on wages up to a maximum with a very and uneven system, giving benefits under which some people get much. Some people get dental so that Social Security, where would you would you now abolish . Social security . I would commitments that the government has made, but i would certainly reform Social Security in a way that would endwell, youre not f the free market under any circumstances where coops nation which you find necessary, which you believe always comes, fails to come, where competition becomes so fierce and becomes very frequentlywhere it becomest becomes. Take, for example, whats happening. Todays market, the conglomerates which have have been to in our hotel thats run by a conglomerate why should it for example run a hotel and . How are you going to how are you going to stop that . Well, first place wants to get out of government without so much. Again, its government that have promoted the climate. Theyre only the major reason we have conglomerates is because they are a very effective way to get around whole batch of tax legislation. Let me ask a different question. Who is more affected by government regulations, by government controls . I suppose i thought i was supposed to ask the questions you. But i was warned that you might turn these on me. But tell me who is a whos more affected . The big fella who can deal with it, who can have a separate department to handle the red tape o always take care of himsf under any system right . And therefore, you want a system which gives the big fella the can getvantage and the system government to help him out gives them the most advantage. Not the least. You say, am i of of greed, of lack of cooperation, of course. But we always have to compare the real with the real. What are the real alternatives . And if we look at the record of history, if we go back to the always to as the era of the robber baron strode around the land and and ground poorere greatest outpouring, voluntary charitable activity in history of the world . This university, university of chicago, aample. It was founded by contributions by john de rockefeller and other people. The colleges, universities throughout the midwest. If you go back and ask, when was thd cross founded . When was the Salvation Army founded . When were the boy scouts founded . Youll discover all of that came during the 19th century, in the era of of of unrest related, rapacious captains. Id like to go back a minute to the question of conglomerates granted that what to say that the policies concentrate the Central Government, if you will, or whatever you want to call it, are responsible for the growth of conglomerates. What would we what would you do know about them now . No. Of government. To, you know, i should do just let them fail. You should let them fail. Of course i am strongly opposed to government bailing of them out. You should let them fail the best things you can, in my opinion, are to have complete free trade so you can have conglomerates in other countries compete with conglomerates. This countries we may have only two or three automobile companies. Now when theres toyota, theres volkswagen competition from abroad as a factor. But in the second place, when you say complete free trade, you mean all over the world . No, sorry. I mean the United States all by itself, unilaterally should eliminate all trade. We would be better off if all the other countries did the same. What do you think would happen if we just did it . Then i think wed be very much better off in. A lot of others would then follow our example. Thats what happened in the 19th century when great in 1846 completely removed unilaterally all trade barriers so that im not gonna think this country would be flooded with with goods of all kinds from all over the world maybe cheaper and that we wouldnt have white unemployed what would this people what would the people who sold us goods do with their money theyd get dollars what would they do with dollars item if they want to send us goods and take dollars in return, were delighted to have it. No, no, thats not a problem. As long as you have a Free Exchange rate, because we cannot without importing, we cannot import without exporting. You would not have a reduction in employment. What you would have would be a different pattern. Employment. You would have more employment in export industries and less employment. And those industries would go back to conglomerates, larry, for a moment i just want to ask a very different kind of a question. Conglomerates are not very attractive. I would much rather have a lot of small enterprises, but all the difference in the world between a private conglomerate and a government conglomerate in general the government conglomerate can get money from you without your agreeing to give it to them. You and i pay for amtrak and for the postal deficit, we use the amtrak. The postal deficit or not, i dont pay conglomerate unless i rent one of their apartment. I get something for my money so bad as conglomerates are, theyre less bad than one of the alternative is im not supposed i suppose i agree with almost everything. Say and say. It would be wonderful if you starting from scratch everything i say youre a unique human. I didnt say i do dont say i do agree. But i said suppose agree for the sake of argument argument we can start from scratch. How do we undo what we have . How do we undo what we have done . Thats harm. Would you undo it . Not me. Thats the hardest problem. And i agree. That is the real question. How do we get from where we are to where want to go . And we cant get there overnight . We cannot get there by simply eliminating things that should not have been done. As in the case of Social Security, we have it and weve got to live up to our obligation. So we do have to develop a series of policies which will enable us gradually to move from where we are to where we want to be. The first and most important step, my opinion, is to start moving in the wrong direction. Milton, you said a few minutes that throughout the free world the public is coming to recognize the danger of Big Government and is taking steps to control. But how with the example of of freedom does before them. Do you explain the new countries that have been coming up all going in the direction of the client. The intellectual climate of opinion has an influence on what happens and. The popular intellectual attitude within the free countries, for the poor countries has been that they have to have centralized government and that has served interests of small elite groups within those countries. In one backward country after another. What has is theyve gotten their freedom supposedly from colonial rule. Over and they have run country for their own benefit and at the expense of the poor. Its a tragedy of the modern change, the climate of opinion in the major countries as the climate of opinion is changing is the philosophy, the attitude being taught at the universities is different and you will see that these other countries, these backward countries will follow it and there are some there is some evidence that if you look at the countries where doing best for themselves, they are in places like kong, like singapore and like like korea. The the but they have much larger elements of freedom, much greater for individual initiative than do many the other countries of the world which have gone much farther in the communist centralized, controlled direction. How the the singapore for example and taiwan have had you say very free economies now how do their economiesem politics tr human freedom is still curtailed. And as i understand, in many cases, rather severely curtail, they dont have any of the freedoms. We have a press religion, Economic Freedom is a necessary for human or human freedom, but its not a sufficient condition. And you can have an economy thats largely free with large elements, restrictions, for example. Let me take the American Experience before the civil war, we had a mixture of a free economy slaves held in a condition of involuntary servitude. But even where you dont have complete political freedom, the case of singapore or taiwan, human beings are much freer than they are in those societies where there is no Economic Freedom either. If you compare the conditions of, people in a place like singapore, the conditions of people in a place like red china, or for that matter in indonesia, you will say that the Economic Freedom is a very important component of total freedom. Its not something different. Its not something separate. Economic is part of total freedom, but for most its the most important part. Freedom doesnt mean very to a starving man and. If a free society could not the starving man, it would be very difficult for him to free very long. Thats the ability of a free society to improve the lot of the ordinary person is a very, very necessary condition for remaining. But its not the fundamental reason why i want a free society. I want a free society for the human and, ethical and moral values that you stressed as appertaining to freedom. Freedom really rests the value of freedom. Yeah, but suppose the moral values mean a lot to me. Again, as i say, they mean nothing. The man whos hungry and he has time to think means absolutely nothing to him. Are you going to do well . Do you think it does mean something . Know, at first i think it means something to many of them of many men have died for their moral values values much above life itself. But i you and i are citizens of a free society will stand aside. Let me put danforths say suppose you turn and you made a speech to all the people on welfare and you said them look, there are a freedom is as much more important then then the money that youre getting. There ar ethical concepts, there are spiritual things about men have died for this thing. We you told them all all that and then said and were going to withdraw welfare now from what do you think would happen i would tell them something else. I would tell them i dont know also what you do ill tell them both what i would and what i would tell them. I would tell them welfare has been corrupting you. Look at what its doing. You look at whats doing. Your children. You would be far better off in every respect, but suppose he said to you, i dont that at all. Without that welfare wed be in an awful mess. Youre wrong. You wouldnt be in an awful. But i understand your feeling and do not propose to withdraw assistance from you like that all at once. I think it would be intolerable just for all the millions of people who are now depending on welfare onto the streets. Weve got to gradually from here to there, thats why . Ive proposed two negative income taxes to transitional device that it would enable us to give help to who really need help while not at the same time having the kind mess we have now where most of the benefits go to people who are not. But look at the way in which the welfare has been corrupted. The very of our society we have put people in a trap which is of no part of their own making. I dont blame them, but theyve been put in a trap where we are inducing to become dependency, become children, not to become human beings of virtue and the desire is for what people can do. Their freedom. Freedom is not an individual. Its a social big. Robinson crusoe on an island. Freedom is a meaningless concept to him. Milton how how bad is the state of freedom in this country today . Its a mixed bag in areas we have more freedom than weve ever had before in some other areas, our freedom has been drastically reduced our freedoms. Spend our own money as we want has been cut our freedom to go whatever occupation we want has been reduced sharply. Our freedom to enter various businesses has been reduced sharply and restrictions in our Economic Freedoms have carried over to restrictions. The freedom with which we speak and we talk, the activities we carry on, our attitudes toward government officials and all the rest in those areas our freedoms have been very seriously restricted about you yourself. U as ap individual. And we really have to do with deal with millions of 100, 200 million, 220 million individualwhat do you think yo . Well, i have been a very fortunate individual. I always sound a copout. No, itt a copout because i want to add to it. I always said about the only people who have effective freedom of speech these days in the United States are tenured professors at private universities, those who are on the verge of retirement or have retired. And thats been my situation in these years. Consider the freedom of, for example, a professor of medicine at any one of our great institutions. Hes almost certainly having research financed by the federal government. Dont you suppose hed trying two or three times before he gave a lecture the evils of socialized medicine. Or consider one of my colleagues at the university happens to be getting grants of money from the National Science foundation. Do you think he really feels free to speak out on the issue of whether government to be financing such research . Of course, ought not to have freedom without costs, but the costs ought to be they ought not to be disproportionate. Theres no businessman in this country today who can speak out for it. Why is it free . Why is it that the businessmen are so mealy mouthed what they say . There are very few of them who are willintoand say openly. They believe lie about what . About anything. Take, for example, the recent attempts by president caer to impose voluntary wage and price controls. Theres hardly a businessman in this country who doesnt think its terrible. There are only about two or three businessmen who have had the courage stand up and Say Something about that. But again, as i say, go to my academic colleagues. Ma of feel as i do that government is devoting altogether too much money, that theres been altogether too much subsidized in the state universities and colleges all along the line. Yet few of them are willing to speak out. Well, what about the generation that doesnt know what freedom is as you knew it and therefore doesnt doesnt mind. So what has happened just takes for granted what what hes living under now. I think thats a very real problem. I think were living on our we have inherited a philosophy and a set of attitudes and they tend to be eroded. People accustomed to what they know. Theres an enormous tyranny of the status quo. And most people most of the time accept the circumstances that are around them. Theres a natural human drive for freedom, which always expresses, but itstronger or weaker. And i think a great danger continuing along the path that weve been going on is that we will lose still more of inheritance, still more of our basic values of our basic beliefs and freedom. And then we will have still less protesters as more and more freedoms are taken away. The real value of freedom is that it provides diversity and diversity. In turn, the real protection of Freedom People like to live in small cities can live in small cities. People like the impersonality of a metropolis can live in a metropolis. We have loyalty to our churches. We have loyalties to our universities to our schools, to our clubs, to our cities to our states. Its this diversity the fact that there isnt a monolith ethic, conformity imposed on us that is the source of protection for our freedom. And also the fruiof freedom. Its because freedom protects diversity allows. You remember the phrase when mao, he was going to allow a hundred flowers to bloom, but of course he didnt. As soon as people spoke out and hundred flowers bloomed, he cut them off. But its the blooming of many. The fact that you have all of these different of peoples individuality then produces a great achievements, civilization, and that prodes the great hope and protection of our freedoms are you saying then that there are pockets of Freedom Still exist in the country . As i said before, the picture is a mixed bag. In certain respects, we have more freedom than we have ever had, but in other respects we have very much less freedom. Of course, there are great pockets of freedom. This is predominantly a free country. We must not confuse the with the situation. We have been moving away from freedom. Our freedom is in jeopardy, but by no means has been completely destroyed. And i believe i believe that there is a Strong Enough component of freedom in our society that we will be able to preserve it, that were going to turn this trend back, that we are going to cut government down to size. Were to lay the groundwork for a Research Giant for a floring of that diversity, which has been the real product of our free society and