[inaudible] i get everyones attention. I am keith, im the director of the program here at george university. Today we are thrilled we have Deirdre Mccloskey and and conversation with my good colleague tom, deirdre has come out with a third volume of her trilogy the bourgeois inequality, well talk about that in the introduction but i want to personally congratulate deirdre on this collection. I think it is the most ambitious work and economics done done during my career at least in economics and an amazing achievements for what you have done and generating the conversation in economics. Hopefully hopefully well have a great conversation today. Will turn it over. Thank you. When Claire Morgan asked me if i would lead, conduct a conversation with deidre immediately jumped at the opportunity, not only is it an honor, but there are a few books that one reads in a scholarly life that is as fundamentally changed or deeply change the way that you look at the world. These books have done that for me. So, i am honored to be here with deidra. Deirdre mccloskey has taught at the university of illinois, chicago from 2000 chicago from 20002015, she is now emeritus. I would list all of the departments in which she talked with our take us the entire hour. One of them was economics. Before that deidra taught at the university of iowa and also at the university of chicago. She is a longtime is been a longtime friend of the Economics Department at george mason and of the mcinnis center. I believe you have a scholarly articles of number about 400, i dont dare put a number on the number of other popular posts and magazine articles that you have written. I i also believe this is your 17th authored book, as pete noticed, the final book in a remarkable trilogy which will consume the bulk of our time today, but before we get to the actual conversation let me quote from deirdres website which i encourage you to visit. Its a great website and has access to most of deirdres work, on her website she protests that she is not a conservative economist. So here is what she is, if you do not mind me putting your words in your mouth. In deirdres words she words she is quote, a literary, quantitative a postmodern, ms. From boston who is once a man, not conservative. Im. Im christian, by a christian libertarian. Indeed she is. Were i i to list all of deirdres achievements, i would again, this would be a monologue and and not a conversation with deidra. So lets get to it. Congratulations on the publication of the third volume. I remember being in the market is sponsored transcript seminar and that is when i read it. That i have not yet gotten through the entire will i remember the transcript. Telus, what are and where did this trilogy come from. Well the germ was the notion of the virtues by social class. Aristocracy, the peasantry, that, that i thought g, the bourgeois virtues, but all they are our virtues as understood in the west and the east, the south and the north, of Human Society in a commercial context. So courage it will would be entrepreneurship, love would be solidarity or personal reiteration in a business for example. There is not anything specifically bourgeois about the virtues. I simply taking the virtue which was the longtime way in which people talked about being good and saying well, you can be good and be an economy too, that comes as news to a lot of intellectuals. That is why i wrote the books is to bring the good news to our wonderful friends on the left and some on the right who, regarding Market Society as as an abomination, as corrupted. Let me be presumptuous in summaries wrote quickly what i think to be the main thing of these three volumes. He knows what i do better than what i do so im looking forward to this. This is a very short summary of complex ideas. Economists, so this is with adam smith they have asked what causes material progress, it is really no question that there has been a major increase in the rate of material progress since the time of adam smith. A factor of 30s me you called the great enrichment, you rightly called that one of the greatest events in human history, probably right after the invention of agriculture. Yes. You found, or find every other explanation that economists have offered for the great enrichment to be wanting. Your explanation of the great enrichment is that ideas change, particularly and specifically ideas change in such way that practitioners of a bourgeois virtues, people people who would act as a bourgeois, merchants, innovators, they, they for the first time in history started about 200250 years ago in the northern part of europe became dignified in the eyes of most people, not everyone, that unleashed this creative energy. So thats the key. It is not so much that psychology changed, thats what was claimed to hundred years ago. I do not not think that its very plausible. It is not that people got better, its that the surrounding society changed its evaluation of what they did. So, the word innovation for example or that scare word, and till the 19th century, to innovate was to change religious beliefs or to disturb the social hierarchy, what we did not want any of that innovation. So. So thats the main thing that change. In fact in the last month or so ive decided that this last volume should have been entitled, i should add one more word it has long title anyway. Its called bourgeois equality. How i shouldve said it and this will shock you. How liberal ideas, not capital institutions, enrich the world. Because it is is the basic literal bowl idea in the older sense that people are equal before the law and equal in social standing. It is that a quality that inspired people. They get more and more evidence of this every day, im reading an extremely good biography of the great Norwegian National hero frenchman after who im name. All throughout your scene these poor swedes in the regions inventing stuff in the 19th century. You know the stove for example which made arctic exploration so much easier, because theyre being allowed to. Really has a nice review. A wonderful review. Last sunday in the london times. But he pushes back a little bit. He wonders, and i wonder how you would respond to this question, yes, how do you know the causal direction, it is true you documents the change in rhetoric occurred in 250 years ago, bourgeois came to be more respected and spoken with greater dignity, they wonder it was that the cause or was it was an effective some other changes. Is clear that there is a backwash, that is the idea of equality. , not what i what i call french equality which was the idea that equality of income which is what we usually think of, but scottish equality, namely equality of human dignity. Socially before the law those of course were raising prestige prestige by the success of this formula. You see it in scotland itself or example in england, and holland to begin with. It all begins in holland than the United States, australia and so forth. And then scandinavian and elsewhere. Then you see the great success. Of course then that increases the proceeds of market tested betterment as they call it. But i would say to ridley, you you have to look at the timing. And the comparisons. But lets lets look at the timing. The increase in status of economic behavior and bourgeois activity and innovation happens before any substantial economic success. Well before. So in 1700, well actually it starts in holland, so holland, so 100 years before in 1600 you have the showering of dutch commercial society. Then about 100 years later the english adopted dutch king, a dutch central bank, a dutch exchange, unfortunately Dutch National debt. Im surprised they did not adopt the dutch language they became so very dutch by 1700. That was way was way before there is any substantial payout. So the real payoff comes not so much in the classic Industrial Revolution of the 18th century but as you said the great enrichment of the 19th and 20th century when innovation and betterment just goes completely wacko. As ridley himself says, instead of having sex and maybe the eye grandbabies idea is you get all of this amazing innovation of mechanical inventions what we can see all around us but also certain organizational ones. Do you have any idea why the ideas change. Yes, that is what i devote much of this third volume two. As you have said, i shown my satisfaction in the second volume that the standard economic arguments, cole is a big favorite,. Which met really favors. He does and hes wrong. Hes very nice and smart, but even very smart people are sometimes wrong. And Foreign Trade or the slave trade, or exploitation of the poor, or Something Like that. All of those dont work, they dont have enough room from an economic point of view. If you think it carefully of economics involved theres just not big enough to explain a factor of 30 which is what were trying to explain. Then thirdly speaking they dont make any sense because often well, the chinese were exploiting coal for 3000 years without an Industrial Revolution. But, in the third volume i say okay, why did this liberal idea become so powerful . All of of a sudden and it was all of a sudden. And im sorry i dont have a snappy answer. Heres a simple answer it is it was accidents. It was accidents of the politics and sociology of europe starting in 1517, that famous year up to 1789, that created hierarchy began to break down. Now hierarchy is what agricultural civilization, not hunter gatherers, but agriculturists, they had these horrible hierarchies. You know too bad for you, you have to give me ransom in taxes. That started to break down. And ordinary people, a clear example of this date in the process were english quakers. In which even women were allowed to speak at the meeting. In which there is no hierarchy at all. There is no priest. There is no person even appointed by the congregation. And i say it was not for much of the doctrine of salvation again, but Church Governance that made people bold. And i get some evidence for this. Heres why say, was the point of calling it accidental. I do not want people to believe that there is something deeply european about all of this. It couldve happened in china, with sufficient time it couldve happened in my in guatemala. It couldve happened and in lots of places, maybe a little later, wyatt did not happen in china earlier is a puzzle that it is a great enrichment. But its not so european, its obvious for the successes of liver policies, in china and india right now, i think without those two recent examples it would have been much harder to make this argument. We have been before we started filming about a book that you and i a most good economists love, adam smith, the wealth of nations. If course famously at least among people who know his work to not say very many favorable things about Business People. No he didnt. At least on the surface that was the intention. But for one thing he did not say much about entrepreneurship. Spoken of smith and the stupidity as the free forces that we need to be concerned with. Smith is about efficiency and hes about innovation in the real cause of my Economic Growth and stupidity thats about the government small so, smith lets say this way, smith didnt know what his radically deleterious ideas about equality before the law and socially quality was going to do. He did not quite realize that he was creating a document that would sustain this move of egalitarianism. So smith is a great economist, but no one saw it coming. Let me try this on. When smith does talk about business its almost always in the Business People live in the state abusing privileges. Yes, thats what he said. People thinks its napoleon to coin the phrase. But its adam smith who spoke of it as a nation of shopkeepers. He said this commercial system as he called it and what we still have, namely capitalism and protection alyssum and licensing of occupations and all the horrible features that have hung over from the middle ages. He said, this is a system not appropriate to a nation of shopkeepers but appropriate to a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers. That is exactly right and it is still true. One of the remarkable things about, you do it in the last two volumes you give this example of how much better, materially. Its astonishing. Why is it that most people do not recognize or most people somehow think it is not a big deal as you believe it to be . Or that its doomed . Most people like a phenomenon. Were talking about it at lunch. Why do why do people like to say the sky is falling . They always do. Bob gordon a friend of mine has just written a book, book, the sky is falling, this guys family. Well, bob may be, i dont think so it hasnt fallen yet, i dont see pieces of it. So people feel their are sophisticated if they are pessimists. Its very easy to forget to or romanticize ones youth. My mother is 93 and is very intelligent and sharp person in every way. Im icing to her, while well mom, she saying things are terrible and i say but they were worst when you were a kid. She was born in 1922. She said oh no, were happy then. Well, her mother would in the Great Depression would put pieces of cardboard in her shoes so the holes wouldnt leak. I mean you yourself has done Excellent Service and showing how much cheaper so many things are, a refrigerator, a color tv, psychotropic drugs, all kinds of things. And will not those kind of drugs but like lithium and so forth which the richest people in the world didnt have to fight their Mental Illness in 1950. But i do not know how to get people out of this dismal mood. In addition, nor nor do i. Im pessimistic about that. [laughter] in addition to the internal pessimism today, not today but in the past several years we have seen a return of inequality , were taken about a book in 2014, which he reviewed brilliantly and then her favorable review of the Financial Times from your book, diane coyle. She talked about a two. She wonders if you are a youre a bit too complacent about the future because of the current concern about inequality. Well without for a while that we had taken socialism out to the crossroads by the light to the full moon and pounded a wooden stake through its heart and it was dead. But, socialism said to be virtue of 19thcentury, one of the great intellectual inventions of the 19th century along with nationalism and if you like those to try national socialism. But it is a popular. I think it the size of government has just kept going out. We keep thinking that we will help the poor instead of letting the poor help themselves. So i think people like equality and socialism and so on because they can grow up in families and families are socialists enterprises. Mansas social planner and so forth. In fact, think of it from an ethical point of view, equality is not the problem. There is a line in one of shakespeares sonnets that i cannot quote it im afraid, where he points this out he says that, i would like to have this mans handsome smithson this mans intelligence in this mans strength. It is a hopeless project for us to be equal but it is not a hopeless project for us to be rich, to enrich the poor should be our purpose. That, i think is an honorable and liberal, and sensible and achievable purpose. Its a purpose for Public Policy if you want to talk about it that way, not equality. This change in rhetoric and the way that people view those that pursue this, if i was sufficient to to bring about this enormous, wonderful great enrichment, i presume it is the case that the rhetoric moves back in the other direction that we can be doing. Yes. I think you see this in the sluggishness of the economy of europe. The treaty of the world was wonderful documented broke down trade barriers among european nations, all to the good. That of russells they thought, well you know and here again is this kind of deal whats the phrase, we have to make the playing field. Level the playing field. Yes level the playing field, look cadburys milk chocolate is not really chocolate said the bureaucrats in brussels, it doesnt have enough cocoa in it. So we are going to declare cadburys chocolate not chocolate. You can imagine how this played in britain. Or when you have to take nonpastures i tell you and she is and outlaw because after all the other stuff is pasteurized, are good daesh cheese is pasteurized, whats wrong with the italians. It just means, it is the quality idea that the purpose of a modern society is to make everyone equal and it is a crazy program. And a pointless one if we achieve what john argued was the raising of the bottom. That is what we should be doing. The improvements of the worst off. Thats not to be done by whining about how many yachts william, the air to the loreal fortune has. All they just hate and i agree that shes a jerk. With the inequality and social standing so we respect each other. That is what makes for the entrepreneurial society. Id want to show that pessimism that i fight against but but the rhetoric of the last couple years. That has been terrible the political rhetoric may want is as bad or worse my lifetime is a possible we see the beginning of a return of the age of the hierarchy . Are you still optimistic . You cannot change gender without being an optimist. [laughter] but of us a demonstration effect is very powerful because with the liberalization growing at 1 per year going to 5 or 7 from 1991 because they saw the chinese doing it will use to call the red chinese saw hongkong doing it. Me so roughly i think the world will become more liberal in my sense over the next 50 years and i expect that to result in a gigantic worldwide in richmond for example, subsequently Subsaharan Africa i predict a great pitcher it has more genetic variability is banned and the other part of policy paeans so when they stop misgoverning themselves like the europeans who only had the first and Second World War in the holocaust and communism and fascism we were so clever by comparison this is all ironic but when they have the quality and dignity and stop having government control their large government indians of robbers because of the genetic variability the greatest mathematicians intellectuals artist will all have black faces which i feet will be a wonderful irony of racism. I hope that you are. I know that i am. You were trained as an economist in the 60s. ledger system assessment today compared to when you began . Or in some ways it is worse economists very surprisingly have become more arrogant which is almost unbelievable considering the 60s thinking that they have the solution, that sociologists and english professors are stupid and they are just the cats meow that every way. In there is no basis for it one of the great problems of modern economics is the lack of understanding and like hightech art earlier economist you need to have a full culture a humanist as well as a quantifier it you have to have both were. What some my friend who coined the term economics that does not lose the math to fate quantitatively when appropriate and that is the humanities. And the study of categories that is not a system of philosophy. Is the categorical inquiry. It is categorical talk and not to take seriously but to is your question is reportedly in the other direction of the other proverbial are aiming for the clef. If i first met you april april 1986 were 30 years ago i was 12. [laughter] i was younger. And i was struck by something that you said this of the karl marx had a lot to teach us. My joke is i say to my libertarian friends the greatest social scientist without compare and then to my left wing friends to say he was wrong of almost everything. En you can see with a pattern to history. Had are our ideas independence . Cars that structure a mere consequence . And got all the answers wrong. So i admire him a lot of ways. But as the kid i was a marxist i know more leftwing songs then most of my leftwing friends. Anbar cost coined the term Industrial Revolution . No. The first prominent use was a follower of marks. Not his goal or nephew of universal history ended age 31 he gave lectures on the Industrial Revolution and basically a communist manifesto and that became what most people to this day think happened in the Industrial Revolution. That was a brilliant spoof and then around 1800 all the sudden realized to work 25 hours a day without many of them becoming excessively deforms. And basically that idea as the reports on the Industrial Revolution. After most of his life in london which was not having the Industrial Revolution. So was it slow . So here is the history of the world in one diagram. Isar earlier times it goes along at 2 a day. Ended 1800 goes like this. A factor of three. Everyone in this room of unspeakably port ignorant people as some historians say with other Industrial Revolutions. And it has been a lot of times. Has in the Industrial Revolution. That was strange as this one. And it continued and it continued to this day and with of water wheels so turn them into airplanes. And requires a deep change in how many people there are to have they go. That is day key point. You are not permitted. But thats Something Else is day better institution. And with the institutional is some who died a few months ago advocated along with other people. With the institution of the world Bank Orthodoxy in my description is add the institution and a stir. [laughter] if you what the legal system of your style that will do a. En there needs to be a much deeper epochal changes in society. And to change of ones own behavior and how you evaluate commercial honesty. That is a change that has to do with the institutions but it is not as if you can switch to take on the case that is sobersided from britain. To say now we have could Property Rights and it just isnt so. And to establish the famous phrase there were antimonopoly 70 years before the glorious revolution so comparatively china has very Good Property laws and for hundreds of years they had security of property the emperor did not bother them. How those liberal ideas not capital or institutions you have to have capital and you put the brakes on the capital is of no use unless you had the idea for innovation before he and. Before he and i am not a big keynesian but the capital could be driven down to zero. If you dont have any new ideas of course, that will happen in the same thing holds for institutions their intermediate. You have dash Property Rights have the property is home of an organized society dame is, and succeeded because he insisted the mongols obeying Property Rights. If you steal a horse or wifi will kill you. And there were a great power. It is common but but these causes are intermediate and is the quality. And social dignity. Ice 1776 those that are created equal with certain inalienable rights was somewhat common place believe 100 years old with the clear Political Program the idea that people were equal was extremely radical and dangerous in to suppress these primitive communist and quakers and stop all of this. I love to focus on ideas. Why are economist . [laughter] and then to recognize the rules. I will that leave him because he is an excellent scholar bet a historian friend of mine all through the paper they put ideas into the square quotation marks. Some the people clave from ideas so i guess it is a reason to about 1980 which is nice. Most thinkers or intellectuals were materialists. And even conservative people. And certainly the marxist were an adages part of the life with of the suspicion to say you claim your dominated the you have stockinette General Motors corporation but my friend wayne booth calls the attribution and motive is some that you are motivated by a selfish interest. Economists are special like journalist and professional cynics and motivated to think of materials prices but then they tend to say the great economist are other grey tea economist and the trouble is what the english professors call because these are professors and journalists to say it is are pointless. Interest is all that matters. And you can see there is a lunacy about that. There is a third. I have a story about that. Then around since 1969 to i was in in the coffee room of Milton Friedman who often played tennis in milton was very short window of the comic scenes of academic life. Did one havent advantage over the other . It is very funny to watch but here is the conversation i admire them both very much to see where such a preacher to tell people we should go for free trade i believe people are against free trade is against their interest. In say that is the difference between us. I am a teacher and i believe in with the protection because they are misled. And if we can get them to understand to say you are crazy in there just a preacher. In to play a role if there was one criticism to play even a larger role. So his main idea is the ultimate resource is creativity and human effort from the bush off bourgeois attended the. You must not die young to have that effect. And i completely agree that the top of resources is silly. Rather earthas nor are rare and tell they could be used for computer batteries. We thought one item was your intel realized it could be made into aluminum. And israel points out the great enrichment was a free lunch because of follette was was a marginal existence to put a little more money into ships to run the slave trade will make us rich that would not make them rich as it did. With the production curve leading up. Others that keep tending but mostly economists learned how the marginal benefit of marginal cost but then they cannot remember to say anything else ive always advocated for efficiency but it isnt modern Economic Growth is in the imperfect Property Rights that is not what did it. Is the explosion. As you alluded to the production possibilities and one of the standard ways is to say that their production impossibility curve is rediscover more resources. Spirit that is the artistry way to talk about it. I imagine and those inhabitants were probably upset it wasnt a resource. So back to the book of 1848 plays a prominent role. So what happened . Around europe is the revolution the bourgeois that is radicalized the great german migration to the United States is to a surprising extent a direct result of the failures of the revolution was revolutions the only large country is europe but it has the irish famine so it becomes important than symbolic and with this terrible idea to use compulsion to organize society instead of the agreement and persuasion. Along the formerly liberal intellectuals. And i love john stuart who was both in the most eloquent and clear my did exponent of liberalism and also one of the first major intellectuals to turn towards socialism and what is remarkable by bt 80s 80 80s all intellectuals have turned against capitalism. Why . I dont know this is such a thick book because i was quick to write six and sell a lot of books but that i thought that doesnt satisfy bourgeois virtues a like cram it all into the last one and some of my speculation are these observations may be this bothers and sons and those that turn against capitalism in the most famous examples who own that Textile Factory so hayak to summarize is the gobetween for the researchers said that the scholars in the etf that ideas matter. So when intellectuals are changing it is filtered down to the general public. If the intellectuals begin to change their ideas 160 years ago so why is that still occurring . An earlier fight the good fight to change the way intellectuals the we are a small group of were smart and hardworking. And as to why it continues and there is the basic and control ability as i was driving here looking at the richness that this cannot be stopped the junior senator from massachusetts i am sure she is a nice person. [laughter] that they see kids the way to go adding more and more regulation is very hard to control its economy in the United States even with the gigantic size of government i will make a confession i had a lot of work done in my apartment in chicago it is done by a nonunion worker and i havent ever gotten a building permit. Now hoping this on national tv will get me into trouble but it probably will. If you thought the laws were effected of and that they are obeid and that is a shocking fact but i bet half of the construction in chicago of smallscale does not have building permits. And we dont obey the you year monopoly. Maybe theyre not as influential as we think . So the idea is that keep it going are added different levels. Because of breath or the depth of the serious political opinions i dont mean team speaking in an upper level but it is much bigger than it once was in there are many, many people who believe bin trade tested to think it is great we have the suburbs with the icehouses what a wonderful country of of america even though even with the National Review they are railing against each other in this society in which they live there is momentum towards capitalism that is a hard stop it is not impossible but how do i know . That he believed an infant baptism . I have seen it. Do you believe that Economic Growth can be stopped by excessive regulation and over taxation with wars and stupid policies . I believe i have seen it. Manchin hi you document that a pretty much came to a stop economically in the 30s and i agree with the argument with the leftwing friends but the other thing that happened in the thirties as the historian has shown that even though the government was screwing it up in the background how innovation was continuing so they were threatening to move to socialism or fascism so when we got over that we had a great boom. So first it was published 20,062nd in 2010 that the third volume is the sheer. Praise the lord. I am working on a popular version that we are going to make thinking of airport type of book disease are all wonderful books theyre not exactly Summer Reading i have to with it you can try. [laughter] i have short chapters i learned that a long time ago that is the way to go you can put it by your bed like a bible you can read a chapter and flawlessly. So we will do that and i have a longerterm project that you and i are involved in to revise a micro economics books because i really want to get economist understanding price theory i have a style book called economical writing that the university of chicago will bring out as a third edition then after that i am thinking of a book called god and economic servants im episcopalian i know it is shameful but there you are. I want my progressive episcopalian friends to realize that capitalism is not necessarily corrupting of the soul so this will be a short book which will show that jesus was not a socialist. Now we will turn to the audience for questions directed at deidre if anybody has any questions about our discretion discussion anything you have read now is your opportunity recently with Donald Trumps discussion about the increasing class divided in the u. S. Of the upper middleclass educated elite and the general population so given your book that there are some similarities how they approach the problem and that the values are transmitted to the upper class and lower class and there is the reason for that decline but not as the same level of success. That particular argument is older but my friend and colleague revoke about 16 years ago called forth greater enlightenment which made exactly that argument the problem in the United States is not poverty of material character that is not the problem it is spiritual poverty so to speak he was rather exclusive about it but it might be good to know he was a paid organizer for the communist party and was married to a black woman for all of his adult life way before was fashionable to be a biracial couple. Is an older argument and is possible to me that you can have Cultural Values that cripple you and they say it is blaming the victim it isnt a just hoping that they will see for a while i was at university of california for fellowship and and i kept being told by the administrators there that the large hispanic population in Southern California was the working class did not think of college in would be tempted to join the lawn mowing firm instead. And was a constant problem of these bright his blunt hispanic kids for go if i worry about that but on either hand i worry more about the other obvious imposition of what comes from the government i am here from the government and i am here to help like the war on drugs we would have much more prosperous hispanic and africanamerican neighborhoods if we never had a war on drugs. Thanks for talking about your book so using the recent examples of india and china to support your thesis if what matters is these ideas and then how does it change happen in such a short period of time . And it indicates i had a student who worked on a dissertation and he showed that it did graduate dont think it was the bottom here is the central planners in top intellectuals but what matters is what goes on in between of the conversation of society with the ethical discussion but he noticed in hollywood movies after the independence in the 50s and 60s the heroes were government bureaucrats the enemies are people in business than it started to change then they finally realized the government officials were not their friends and it switched around by the 70s the late 70s and 80s with the unpopular culture was staring at the police that the planners and regulators not the people in enterprise. So that is one example like think you are right with the point that i make frequently that ideas can change very quickly some people say i see what you are saying that culture matters. Not all. Not quite the rhetoric matters and how people talk matters and that can change quickly not always but it can. What is the relationship between interest and ideas in a hot style environment . What is that incentive structure to mention africa but you are optimistic so have we bring about that change of ideas with such a high style structure . That is the big historical question or the fact that for millennia the power structure was hostile to new ideas of the economy is very noticeable like geology imbedded in the 18th century a scottish invention and why did that happen . Why did this system of liberalism we call economics develop rather suddenly out of a Little Corner of northwestern europe . The ideas can change by your right if the powers that be worked on it they can stop them as they successfully did over 70 years in the soviet union. But why they changes crucial for the idea is to have any effect they have to be new ideas and where you get new ideas . Sometimes it is internal to the logic. With the quality is shockingly novel that has the tendency to get bigger and bigger to apply to more and more people women in the United States and britain have our big forces in the Antislavery Movement in the early 19th century and then they say to the men and what about us . And out of that came the Womens Movement and then gay people in the 60s and that wonderful time and they started to say wait a minute and the drag queens fought the cops in new york so the ideas i do think this is internal logic sometimes but sometimes it makes them collapse but it isnt just a sociological forces all of in the case of europes it is the accidents that i talk about. We are taking this one day after the u. S. Treasury announced that they will appear. I am simply appalled that jackson was in it for so long that we will change the 10 bill. Go after Jackson Citizen just blacks that he owned but the treatment of native americans. I have two questions the first is broad i have been listening because i dont have the patience to read the empress book of the lewis and Clark Expedition expedition that is 18 03 and what struck me in the beginning of a book in st. Louis and theyre having a conversation the diary says we cannot remember the name but he is more adams smith and adam smiths book and that was 18 03 so in a short period of time so there is something about ideas and a clarity that was already there in a way so reminds me when i was a graduate student that was told about john a thin shoes the great teacher and said he said if you think the government is growing you should receive the colonials there is nothing new about trying to interfere someone to ask when do ideas sustain steering oar when does it become so great that they survive . I will say i dont know. [laughter] but we have to take ideas seriously it would be very strange to give a history of the United States that did not take seriously all men are created equal or the gettysburg address i have a dream come on. Words and ideas matter but how . One part of the intellectual world is the humanities and my colleagues and friends in english and history are students and can tell you how the idea of equality for African Americans developed and to some degree tell you why for fit was obstructed. With communist russia and that popular characterization that people have to become non skiers to have at bush or ross society Bourgeois Society one way to interpret irradiance is there is a lady is an institutions and practices and without that spark they dont go in the right way stowe yenisei it doesnt matter. No not at all but if you dont have the idea of the brick building in you cannot build a brick building but it would be crazy to say that the bricks caused the building to be built but it is the idea. If you have a car and was picked up you see all the wealth over the last 25 years is washington d. C. Has become the hub of a lot of the richest counties in america it wasnt because of the creation. [laughter] so you have an expansion of the renewed idea of Wealth Creation but there is a line and adam smith that says the natural effort is so powerful it is along without assistance to carry on the society of wealth and prosperity to serve man out those instructions with the quality of human laws so when we look around we have this rent seeking state but then all the of the ways to get around it so the role that ideas play for us to tip that balance one way or the other . Take a look at the local example the public choice approach to think about the role of the government also the Virginia School and if we can get across the idea that the government is not composed of swedish philosopher kings we will have accomplished a great deal i have cousins that work for the cia and theyre nice people but every time i come to washington i am appalled that all these intelligent people like my cousin is working for the great beast so here is a fact that i calculate for the book. Have a 170 ranked countries for honesty of Public Administration there is about 170 countries take the top 30s and call them honest and for those sweden minnesota new zealand you may think it is not completely insane to give the government more money actually i dont think so but to be generous as someone said giving more money to the government is like giving whiskey to a teenage boy but pretend to if you are honest swedish bureaucrats it is okay then ask what percentage is governed by these top 30 . It is not a High Standard of those top 30 and it is 14 . Mac i dont get it. They know that giving more money to this government is a terrible, terrible idea. Yet, it goes on. We have. We have time for one more question. There are some of that care. I think as alumni one of the most shocking things about your second book was that downgrading the status of trade and talking about its just moving stuff around in it doesnt really help. And, im i dont know if this is the right venue i guess but im very curious about this idea of, it really is the nature of local production that matters, sorry this dory i get out a standard economics are libertarian fair would be, free trade had something to do with the Industrial Revolution, the reason for the potato mn was the british restricted trade. But in your your book you specifically say it was straightforward, so i dont know. You know trade is an extremely important context. Free trade, but you know, i ought to have labeled this concern that i have in the second book, should have called it the harbor problem. Because after mild colic al harbored her who pointed this out over and over again, the efficiency effects of trade are fine and admirable. I, lesher bought an accordion, of the lady was someone who knows how to play an accordion but doesnt. I could not have it built the accordion myself. It came from czechoslovakia and i was delighted to have it. It was a wonderful instrument. So trade is good. If you cut off trade entirely we would all be going back to 1 dollar per day or worse. But, the rea