My pleasure to introduce David Davenport, the author of rugged individualism dead or alive. 0 also Research Fellow at the Research Institute and previously the president of pepperdine university. David, thank you very much for coming to share this with us. [applause] thank you, george, and ladies and gentlemen, its a pleasure to be with you today. Occurred to me as we collected up yet one more spring rain and were competing with the warriors playoff game and i assume the giants and the dodgers game, i dont need to give a talk on rugged individualism. You are rugged for show up. Youre also brave to come and hear an academic talk of many good stories i think. Scholars and academics can one i heard recently was at a Scholarly Panel i was attending, and the moderator of the panel was a federal judge, and he said, you know, we have some of us during referring to himself who are as Teddy Roosevelt himself a rigged individual once said, were in the arena. Our face is covered with dust and blood and sweat, and then he said, you have kind of out of the way up in their ivory towers the academics who are carefully watching the battlefield and then when the battle is over, they come down on to the battlefield and shoot the wounded. And then the proceeded to say we have the expert marksmen today on the panel. I have to shoot a couple of people probably not the audience but in history, as we think about rugged individualism and where its been been and going. So, my coauthor and i, gordon lloyd im not able to get us going, lets see if i can do here we go. My coauthor, gordon lloyd and i like to, as we say good, back to come back. We like to go back into history but not just for the purpose of staying in history but to see what we can learn some and bring that back to policy today, and so in this book we wanted to go back into American History and see what we could recapture that might be useful for Public Policy today, and we especially spend time in the new deal, and in fact one of the great speeches of Franklin Roosevelt that it up the new dole was given here at the commonwealth club, 85 years ago. Sory re be swound fog what he said here. Rugged individual jim has had an interesting history. My measure who just passed a. At age 99, whenned asked her about sported she would say, theres up and down, theyre up and downed. Thats kind of true of rugged vividdism. Henry kissinger says even a paranoid hass real enemy monday and rugged vesseleddism has had some enemies. Particularly during the progressive era, quite on economic critique of rugged individualism and that continues through today, and i would say theres also been a sociological critique of rugged individualism, form of selfissueness and people withdrawing from to site. Its had its up and downs, people say it is a alive. People say it is dead. So we offer you at the beginning of our book this matrix, where you can decide for yourself where you would place rugged individualism. Dead or alive, and then wherever you plate it, would you say place it, would you that it a good thing for bad thing. President obama referred to rugged individualism as part of americas psyche, but he felt that was largely a bad thing, he would good ton good on to say. And then dr. Loyd i believe that rugged individualism is alive, if only barely sometimes and its good its alive and it would better if it were even more robust. So there have been different people in history and even today who are in different places on this chart. The other thing i would say by with a of overview is that we in the book address this in two different ways. We try look at the political realm and what that has done for and against the idea of rugged individualism, and then we also look at the intellectual realm of ideas. What ideas are about in our society and how have they affected rugged individualism let me take off my giant watch to keep track of time. So individualism was very much planted, would say in americas dna at the founding, and it was gk jesterthon said that america is the only nation founded on a creed and part of the creed of americas founding was individualism. And id said if theres nothing else you remember about individualism to me this describes it right here. The founders of this country no longer wanted the important decisions 0 about their lives to be made by churches or kings or queens or the social class into which you were born. They wanted to make the key decisions about about their own lives as individuals. Thats the found idea of rugged individualism. We want a country where we are free to make the key decisions about our lives. So, of course, declaration of independence, as we know very well, talks about individual rights, how the king how king george abused peoples individual rights, and how that really that was the purpose of founding this country, was so that people could pursue, life, liberty, pursue happiness. These were the individual rights they wanted protected in this country. And the constitution, the companion document, is very much drafted toward protecting individualism. And i speak in part, of course, of the first ten amendments, the bill of rights, a list of individual rights that the drafters of the constitution thought needed to be protected mostly from the danger of their own government, but there are also parts in the main body of the constitution that are very much about protecting individual rights there are checks and balances. There are balances of power. Separation odd of power, all 0 keep the government or majorrist factions getting together and taking away peoples individual rights. So very much stated in declaration, guaranteed by the constitution, and now really entering its golden era, if you well, the golden era of rugged individualism, on the american frontier. And the american frontier, when you think about it, is not just a place, was not just a location, geographic police, place, but it was whole spirit, a whole ethos of the time. And alexis de tocqueville who came here in the 1800s and wrote about democracy in america, said the very availability of land, the vast expanse that allows people to go find more elbow room, to relocate when they want to, is part of what makes democracy in america work. Its part of what allows individualism to flourish. And so he felt that this expanse, this wilderness, that we had in america, was part of democracy itself. An academic at the university of wisconsin, Frederick Jackson turner, wrote about the american front tee, and in particular in 1893 he wrote the frontier thesis, and he said, you know, america is not just different from england by reason of gee gigi geography but is an american ethos in america, and people gathering together, the fishing and hunting, and bill building their open houses fosters a sense of rugged veileddism. He did not use the phrase. I make a note here that the frontier did include, however, collaboration. Sometimes people say, well, you know, they werent really rugged individuals because they had wagon trains and built huts together and they worked together and they collaborated and thats absolutely the case. But i think the could i is the key is rugged individualism means you have at the freedom to consent to join these various groups. They were nothing regulated to join wagon trains or mandated to build each others huts but people consented to do, wanted to do saw the value of doing. So i want make the mistake of thinking rugged individuals never collaborate or cooperate and well talk about that when we talk about america today. This is really sort of a heyday. The wilderness years, the daniel boones, wanting more elbow room. These are the hey days we often think before about rugged individualism. Then as i mentioned earlier, rugged individualism came under attack from progressives, and in 1890, if you want to put a date on it, the American Census bureau said it would no longer count migration to the west. We had reached the Pacific Ocean and that was the end of the migration west so were no longer going to keep track of that. The frontier was in effect closed now in 1890, according to the census bureau. So the arguing of the progressives was, well, this is questioning to create a big change in our country. Its now going to be necessary for us to band together and live in cities, and were going to have to have more government, more regulation if were going to live together in this way. In fact well need to look to europe more as an example, because europe has been living with these limits and boundaries much longer than we have. And then the attacks became more focused. Charles bead wrote the michigan of rugged american individualism. Ive sometimes said that president obama must have been channeling his inner Charles Beard help he gave his famous, you didnt build that talk. You didnt ready build that. You didnt build the internet and roads and infrastructure needed. Now, my reaction was, well, did pay the taxes that built those. That should count for something. But his Central Point was, government really builds a lot of what you needed. That whats argue. Of Charles Beard. Business team talk about rugged individualism but in fact they want a lot of government help, and bored makes bored makes a list of 150 or 20 things Business People want, bridges and canals canals and railroadse their businesses work so the calls the myth of individualism. John dewey, on education philosopher, called it ragged individualism. He said thank goodness we have reached the end of the frontier, the end of the move to the west because we can finely get rid of this ragged individualism which has been a curse on our society. Now, in that same time frame, rugged individualism had some defenders, and ironically, the person who coined the term was Herbert Hoover. I think in a way if you read that is say i mentioned about the frontier thesis by fredic jackson turner. He should have named it. He described it in great detail. Just didnt stick the landing lg and get the colorful phrase. So it was left to Herbert Hoover in 1928 in a Campaign Speech to call the american system, as he said, system of rugged individualism. And this was important to hoover because if you remember your history, hoover had spent most of his career up to that point as a mining engineer in various countries around the world, and specifically during and after world war i he led major food relief efforts in europe, especially belgium. Habit Herbert Hoover is still a National Hero because the saved them from starvation. And so when hoover came back from europe, he said, boy, im really glad to be back in america because in europe theyre taking on these various forms of totalitarianism, becoming socialist, fascists, communists, collectivist to toll tarean ideas and he said im glad to be back in america where we have the american system of rugged individualism, and then he would say, now, this is not a laissezfaire, devil take the hind most individualism. He would say we have equality of opportunity. People have an opportunity to enjoy their individualism. He had the phrase rigged individualism and he always accompanied it with equality of opportunity. Franklin roosevelts new deal became almost a death of rugged individualism. He clearly felt that part of the problem and the economic problem he thought causing the Great Depression was rugged individualism. Were Business People, he called them the titans, economic titans on wall street and in new york, who would run the businesses out of their own selfishness but would not be mindful of other people who needed to be taken care of in the Economic System. So, Herbert Hoover would say when they ran for president in 1932, hoover said right hi, i think, nose a contest between two men. This is a contest between two philosophies of government. Roosevelt wants to move away from individualism, what hoover called the american system, and he wants a different system. The new deal is a different kind of system. This american system versus the new deal. The new deal was about expert administrators, more Central Government planning, emergency measures, government growth, all of this part of the new deal that roosevelt would bring along. The way gordon and i characterize caricature if we were pet are artists the forgotten command the rugged individual. Those are two forgotten man and the rugged individual. Those or two cartoon characters that capture the debate between roosevelt and hoover. Youve have what we think of as the rugged individual on the lift, hoover, and then we have roosevelts forgotten man, here on the right. Roosevelt would say we need to replace the rugged individual with the forgotten man as the focus of government policy, and in fact his secretary of interior said we have turned our becomes for all time on rugged individualists. Its dead. Were now focusing on the forgotten man as a focus for policy. Really, gordon and i argue in fact this is our second book. The first book we argue the new deal is the paradigm for American Economic and domestic policy today. We West Virginia it would expanded by president johnson and expand again by president obama with health care, but its basically the new deal system that Franklin Roosevelt put in place. Interestingly, although in the 1920s, you had a series of president s who tried to roll back the government growth caused be world world war i, mit have expected the same thing after world war ii and the new deal but it did not. Eisenhower did not roll back the new deal measures and other president s grew on it and the growth of the Administrative State is now a given. Thats what we live with today. So we talk the in book, moving to modern time is, about two modern political revolutions, the Great Society revolution and the reagan revolution, and interestingly gist tell this one anecdote about the Great Society. Lbjs Great Society where if possible it was said he wanted to outroosevelt, roosevelt was his mentor, and he was such a effusive character. One time he stopped at a Campaign Stop actually he wasnt supposed to stop and speak, just in a motor cared but the took down and puck awesome bullhorn, were against a lot of things and for for a mighty few him wanted to attack poverty, to improve education, improve the cities, improve the rural areas and want the government improving our Great Society. But when he made the changes that he did to health care for seniors, medicare and medicaid. He nevertheless left room at the table, if you will, for rugged individualism, and so under lbjs health care, he added a safety net, if you well, medicare and medicaid for seniors who would need it, but for others he said if you want to keep your own Health Insurance, if your employer provides Health Insurance, if you want to take care of your own you can still do that, but we will create a healthcare safety net for those who are not rugged and able to do that for themselves. We hold that unin our book as a bit of a model. Would there be room at the table for both the forgotten man and the rugged individual . Wouldnt we want to leave room at the policy table in america for both of these important icons of our history . And as i say, even lbj in his grandosty did that. Then the reagan revolution did a lot of rugged individualism rhetorically but didnt really turn out to trim back government as much as reagan might have liked. He did, i think, rhetorically redefine the role of government in our lives. He famously said that government is not the solution to our problems. Government is our problem and he did carry out some very significant tax reforms. He did move policy and money from the federal government state governments in many ways, but it was really in some ways more of a rhetorical victory than a policy victory. Then we also have philosophical debates in realm of economics. Im going to skip forward to this debate today, the economists are still debating rugged individualism verse the forgotten man today and todays version i stepped cover Milton Freedman and Michael Harrington and others in the 60s and 70s but the debay today is led by Thomas Pikett and i hit capital in the 21st 21st century, income inequality, which president obama called the defining challenge of our time. One thing we think happens in our Society Today is, as thomas sole, another hoover fellow said in his book, intellectuals and society, what happens today thats intellectuals come upon a problem they write about our talk about and then policy people grab ahold of that and try to find and implement policy solutions. Al gore and Climate Change an example. Scientists came up with the ideas and al gore packemmed then up and win on the road and talked but immigrant then it became both domestic and International Policy and that is happening today on the economic side. Thomas and his capital of the 21st century is the latest version of should we do away with rugged individualism and move toward much more 0 of a collective set of ideas and so he argued its a a bold book. He says, safety nets the solution, more education is not the solution for the forgotten man. We have to have income redistribution, he argues. And he said really the only fair distributor of money is the federal government, and he argues that the federal government should be spending more like 50 of our Gross Domestic Product rather than 20 to 30 it now suspends. So its a pretty radical set of social ideas, saying that really in fairness to take care of the forgotten man, education is not enough. Safety netes are not enough. We need redistribute money and the federal government needs more control of that. The second critique of rugged individualism today i previewed it for you comes from the realm of sociology and i would say these two books capture it. Habits of the heart, by robert bella and self of his colleagues, and bowling alone by robert putnam. They basically argue that what we had always feared, what tocqueville said when he wrote in the 1800s, is that individualism could become self European Unions selfishes in in america and people could withdraw from society be content in their own lives and both argue that is what happened. People are bowling alone that bowling leagues could form of civic participation are going away and that needs to be redressed. Me only view would be we opinion this out theres plenty of evidence to the contrary. Plenty of evidence that america is still the most philanthropic and generous country in the world. Still the country that generates more churches, nonprofits, social organizations, than any country in the world. So, im not sure its right to say perhaps some of the old form of Civic Engagement have gone away. I dont month to a bowling league, admittedly. But i belong to some other things and i participate in other things. It may be story it may be the forms of one said america might be antistatist but arent selfish. It may be that americans dont like the government telling them that would dive with time and now but theyre not selfish. Theyre pretty generous with their time and money. This is a bit of a philosophical debate from the sociology side. Then we have policy debates today. One that is still going on about obamacare, and the tough thing about obamacare is the elimination of individual choice, and it was really based entirely on the forgotten man. There was no room left for the rugged individual. I remember when both of my sons, neither of whom is terribly political, each called me up and said dad our Health Insurance was just declared illegal itch said thats interesting. Why . I doesnt have pregnancy care but were not planning to get pregnant. Well, this is kind of the lack of choice that you have. And so heres the case of individualism losing out in the policy realm. So, we close our book with some hope for the future. I guess its probably good to have some hope. I remember a bump i lived in the l. A. For 25 years and i remember a Bumper Sticker on the 405 in classroom letters there, is no hope and then below that in smaller letter, but could i be wrong maybe this the message i have. It seems hopeless but maybe im wrong. So we close our book with reasons to be mess does business mick and to be optimistic. As far as pessimism, the political crimed dim climate doesnt im so the helpful to individualism. Young people dont see how individualism is meaningful to them unless their Health Insurance declared illegal because males need pregnancy coverage or in case the mayor decided you cant have a 16ounce cup for your soda but you it buy two eightounce cups. Examples like that where individual liberty appears to be more pragmatic and more practical. But for a lot of us, especially young people, individual liberty is an abstraction. I think a further problem and i say this as a former College President i think a further reason to be pessimistic about individualism is the coddling of young people today. The socalled helicopter parents who are very real. I have talked to a lot of them. And also on our College Campuses we see today the need for safe spaces, the need to avoid microaggressions or trigger words. One friend of mine on the faculty sid the only thing i know to do about a microaddress is to commit a macro aggression. But thats not very successful. So, were developing young people who are pretty sensitive and pretty well taken care of and the idea of individualism is not really much encouraged for them. Reasons to be optimistic. We think gordon and i think that we are entering today some new frontiers that could be positive helpful for rug individualism and ill talk about that further in just a moment. Immigrants are pretty interested, we find in rugged individualism. Immigrants, i think, more than native born people, have come to this country because they want to start businesses and build a better life for their children, and so in the many of the immigrant communities we see people who are really engaged in and interested in the individualism that is offered here. Of course, the question will doubtless arise in our q a period. What dot donald trump immediate for rugged individualism, and like everything else, i can say, were not sure. Do you remember the very first tweet we have have to not only study president ial addresses now, we have to study president ial tweet is. The president s first tweet was about the forgotten men and women. He said. Who have been heard and wont be forgotten again. And his inaugural address was full of references to the forgotten men and women. So im on the telephone quickly with my co author, this is frank Franklin Roosevelts forgotten man come back to life . We discussed it. We think its different. Roosevelt residents forgotten man were people he thought had been forgotten by in the economy and the economic titans, that big business was running over people and people the common man, if you will, needed the power of the federal government to sort of check the power of big business. And allow the forgotten man to have that sort of protection. We think actually trumps forgotten men and women are a little different. There people who he believed have been forgotten by the own government or being run over or not being wellprotected and cared for by their own government, and so that is the forgot man we think that donald trump is concerned about,ing their gotten men and women who are not being wellcared for or wellattended to by their own government. What we dont know, would say, is what trumps solution to that would be. Is he interested in more individualism . Or is he interested in more sort of Big Government collectivism but just aimed more to protect those kind of people . And theres some evidence both ways. We can talk about that in q a. Finally we see a little hope for their future because young people are living on very different frontiers of individualism. Which is sometimes Call Networks individualism. Have three children in their 20s and 30s and they all spend more time on their own, by themselves in their own rooms, than i did in my teenaged years or at their present ages. Interestingly, of course, even those that are by themes and in their own room, theyre connected to other people through the internet and apps and various tools that are at their disposal. So, this life of network individualism at least they seem to be more interesting in individualism. The second kind of hopeful aspect of the new frontier we see is on the business side, young people seem more interested in doing their own thing than in joining the big new york company and working there for 50 years and retiring. If you go down the street phenomenon my scoffs the stand Business School, young people are inspired to start their own business to join a Startup Company to do something on the social side with their lives, very different from the old Business School aspirations of just moving to new york and join a big company or a big investment firm. So, we see in both their social media lives and in their business lives some greater interest, if you will in individualism, but we dont know how well thats going translate to their political lives. At the same time they say they want more individualism, we have these crazy polls saying that young people are interesting more and more in socialism. And so theres a little disconnect, seems to me, between individualism lives and the kind of political systems that protect that, and an interest in socialism. Again, topic we can take up in a moment. So, at the end, we say we actually turn to the bible, revelation chapter 3 and verse 2 where the writer is addressing custody that are dying and the author says that his advice to them is to awaken and strengthen what remains. So that is the conclusion of our book. We need awake ton the valued of rugged individualism and find ways to strengthen it to identify these liberty moments when our liberty is being challenged, to guard the constitutional protections, the checks and balancesnot do away with them. We especially think we need more Civic Education today. We when people dont know who their senators and is think judge juddis on the Supreme Court, clearly if we have a system of individualism that protects the republic we need more Civic Education. But at the end of the day will government really change . Business has changed, social groups, sick groups have changed. Devolved into smaller, more nimbled inwork kind of businesses businesses and social groups. Will government change . Its hard to see the government devolving into something smaller and more nimble. At the end of the day, we have a modest plea. And that is, doesnt rugged individualism at least desearch seat at the policy table . Eye am in favor of a safety net. Herbert hoover was in favor of equality of opportunity. We all have disagreements on how that is carried out. Im not cargoing we shouldnt have safety nets. Just arguing that we should also have opportunities for rug individuals that they would the policy would also take them into account and not be simply federalizing everything in favor of the forgotten man. Needless to say, i could go on. Theres nothing worse than an author talk bit his own book. Remember the essay the third grader was asked to write on the subject of socrates and he rote. He was a philosopher. He talked a lot. They poisoned him. And so i think its always good to remember that if youre the public speaker. Its possible to good on too long. But we saved ample time for suggestions and questions. I want to remind those who are listening to David Davenport talk about the idea inside the book. One cultural thing in america this myth about rugged individualism and the ideas, and in the early 60s, john kennedy called it the new frontier, and he mentioned we have to reinforce this rugged the equality of opportunity element of it. Didnt have as much time do any work on that and thenline don johnson took then Lyndon Johnson took over. Hollywood must have taken up on the imagery because the movie how the west was won and a way of mythologizing the takeover. Was a tenyearold boy and we went to houston, texas, for a conference, and they showed this on a big cinemascope screen, the huge everything is huge in houston and theres this scene maybe 2030 minutes in where Jimmy Stewart theres the robbers and Jimmy Stewart takes a barrel of a gun powder and throw is into it the fire and it explodes. The its thrown to into the fire, theres a huge explosion and the entire screen goes blank. The lightning struck the building right at the moment that the scene was. So the whole audience of bat thousand people, that was a very dramatic took them an hour to put the movie back together again, but i thought it was very interesting that the myth in that film and the westerns and everything, and then the switch, of course, by the end of the 60s and early 70s of the move individual countering that. Like Little Big Man and hollywood changes because rugged individualism was too much. I think its very true that rugged individualism is most encouraged and most hospitable with frontiers, but the west is not the only frontier, and so i think youre right. John kennedy pointed to pace as one to space as one example of a new frontier. I saw recently the movie aheaden figures about rugged individuals who worked hard to make all of that work, and in the end although they thought they had the new idea that was going to take care of everything well, they had to call for the rugged individual to do this by hand to make sure it played out. And as i mentioned, we think social media presented some new frontiers for ongoing people, and the any world of work is a kind of new frontier. So, i think the notion that individualism is encouraged and nurtured by new frontiers is absolutely right budget dont all have to be the myth of the west. I also like your idea seat at the table. Another question for you about rugged individualism. Clearly individualism is always a minority position because youre taking what you think a different parts of American History what percentage of the American Population referred rugged individualism to be taken care of . As a society and a democracy and a majority democracy, one would whether in the majority want . Have to protect against the majority but in general, what even the height of rugged individualism. What percentage of people that engage need it were. Thats a good and hard question. I would say that when you survey people historically, say, on the economic side, that poorer people have nevertheless been in favor of capitalism, because they see the opportunity, if you will, even if its not their present reality, they dont want to close off the opportunity that they might ben benefit from that system. Theres plenty of evidence that people like the freedom of opportunity that you have in this system like the system of rugged individualism. On the other hand, what were experiencing right now, think in our society, once you have given people more than a safety net, you have given people a kind of guarantee of Something Like health care, then their opinion begins to change. Obamacare was unpopular, very unpopular, until recently, when it appeared it might go away. So, its a hard debate and i think its still a very current debate today, but as i said i think theres often a middle ground where you can create a safety net and you can also leave the opportunity. We argue in our become that the individual mandate, for example, in obamacare, wasnt really necessary to make it work as has been argued, and in fact there have its been eaten up but exceptions such that is hasnt really worked as intended. So, it probably wasnt really necessary in effect to have the individual mandate, and to have in a sense federalized health care. Think thats our plea, is can we find ways to make policy that addresses both the forgotten man and the rugged individual . To take that point of view. Very interesting. The history of the 20th 20th century for how this developed. Seems to me a little bit that the communism totalitarian state, especially in russia, soviet union, was a competitor for the United States and freedom and capitalism, especially during the depression and that the fear oft it actually was what melded this sort of welfare state capitalism that seems to be a more stable thing which is a combination of the two ideas. Takes care of different ports pf society in different ways. To me that is an accurate read of history, and its constantly finding the right balance. In my view we live in sort of a pendulum society and it swings to the left and people say thats gone too despair things swing back to the right. Elections are corrective measures, constitutional corrections, Supreme Court decisions. Even roosevelt faced those, early new deal initiatives were stopped by the Supreme Court as going too far and had to go week in drawing board. So we have these correctives that keep a blend system working in a sense. Who would like to ask the first question . Line up right there. Thank you for the talk. I have two quick questions. So the first is you talk a lot about how equality of opportunity or equal opportunity is a really important part of a system where rugged individualism exists and for it to thrive. Can you talk a bit about why theres such an inequality of actual outcomes in our society . So, is it a problem that rugged individualism has gone too far that creates sort of this inequality in outcomes where particularly minorities or people who are socioeconomically changed, poor, arent able to rise in social status and in incomes . And then the second question is about what type of welfare system you would design to essentially have principles of individualism deeply integrated into the welfare system. You talk about how stanford students are really excited to join this new startup economy but as you know, a lot of people have been left out in this economy. We have Labor Force Participation rates abysmal right now. Particularly uneducated people are finding theyre losing jobs, spending more time playing video games and stuff like that so eventually if we want these people to have a decent quality of life theres going to have to be some sort of welfare system in place, and i agree that the current sort of disability, welfare through disability, is not working for these people. So, i guess what is the type of welfare system that we could design that would adheres to these principles and also allow an increasing number of unemployed and potentially unemployable people to thrive or to be able to have a good life. Wow. If i could answer that, then shy be president , probably. Tracing addressing your first question, think maybe in the inequality debate, which were having these days, that were missing a couplethree key points. The debate has become allege distorted, if if may say. I remember talking a religion class at stanford and the professor said very enemy blue to me, heresies is not an untruth. Heresy is an overemphasis over the unthroughout. One heresy is difficult to clarify and that is to me the really important dat would not be so much the inequality of income but the inequality in mobility scale. In this country the income inequality mobility has been very high. They could go from the top to the bottom, the bottom to the top, 0 to the third. One problem bringing that to the debate is those are longterm studies that are tenyear tieds and the last one has been a while. It showed that income mobility was still pretty good, but it was a little bit dated. So, i think to really evaluate what were talking about it would be good to understand more because i could get more behind income mobility than i could get behind outcomes, making the same kind of income or salary. The second part of the debate i think is sometimes ordered or lost is disordered or lost is at others have said in their books but its a big book to read the problem is not even really at the one percent level. Its the upper one percent of the one percent that has really distorted, if you will, income inequality. Its the entrepreneurs, the bill gates, steve jobs, the hollywood stars, its the rock stars, its the baseball and basketball stars. These are the incomes that have really distorted the income inequality chart. And of course, address that is problematic ump doubt we want steve jobs to be tacked tacked o highly he would start apple in another country. Thats a part of the debate we dont have enough information about. Id love to see the income inequality debate a little sharper and focus on the things we can do. The second question is even harder. If i were the czar of welfare, what would i do . Im not an expert on welfare. This is more a become of political philosophy than welfare policy certainly. I would say that in general i think this addresses both the people who have been in poverty for a long time, and it addresses the newer members of this frustrated economic class that came out and voted surprised everybody and voted for trump in the rust belt and upper midwest and so forth and that is education is really, i think, key issue, and by that i dont just mean the quality of k12 public education, although that is part of it, and even though i tend to be more conservative, im not in favor of testing and the accountability and all of those kind of changes we have made to our education station. But we dont have the right incentives to retraining people. Anymore rust belt places would be happy to work in a startup but the need retraining and we have a system that disenincentivize retraining. So i think education some the tax code and Investment Education to me thats a more promising approach than some others that we have tried. But its a tough question. I dont claim to have all the answers to that. Yes, sir. Thank you for your talk. Im actually from south korea and i also have this question that is rugged individualism, you said its like american mythology, does it no, other kin trues . Does it work in other countries . The u. S. Marines are very republican, and they keep saying, its working because look al all this hollywood but i feel like when i look at asia, for example, japan, still has king and queen, and korea is becoming more south korea becoming more socialism country because of the election we had two weeks ago, and i believe that its not quite working in our country. I would say as someone once said about something else, not so much its been tried and fail, its that it hasnt been tried a lot no other countries, and one requisite is sufficient freedom the declaration of independence and the constitution for people to have individual liberties for rugged individualism. It has to have a enough of 0 free market system where you foltz if you started a business or you worked hard so your son or daughter could have a different Economic Life and career that could be some payoff, and then as tocqueville and others argued, to also have the land available, at least in the incubation period. One thing that i think is an interesting question to study is, for a while we were trying 0 promote democracy to other countries, and its became a question of how can you build a green house that would let democracy grow. You go good a country thats lanlocked and has a power Economic System theres not much there to water and nurture and grow. So, im not aware of other countrieses that have hatted the discuss with this we have, and of course the walk warning we are trying to give, how much of that system do we want to undo in the name of solving other problems and can we keep enough of the system at the table so it can be nurtured and live as well as take cav or other social needs we have. Australias experience closer to ours . They have a lot of land. Yeah. Certainly you have all i know are the myths. Australia, and certainly you have the myth of People Living more that kind of life. But i from a Government Point of view i dont know enough to gave good answer to that question, im afraid. I dont know enough about australia to give an intelligent answer. Can i just quickly follow up i guess what i was trying to ask with my first question about inequality of outcomes was more along the lines of what you were talking about, which is the ability to essentially mobility. What im wondering is, is the reason why this might just be a perception that i have but i dont believe its just a perception, that the mobility is extremely low among particularly like africanamerican poor communities is this because of an excess of rugged individualism where essentially a Certain Group has coopted government power to set up a system where theyre able to thrive, or is the story more of some sort of, like can inefficient government explanation . What i wonder, is there too much rugged individualism sometimes and can it create a system where once the powerful have a lot of money they can afford the lobbies and power becomes concentrated. Is there a need for the rugged individualist to be cutdown to size, so that everyone can have that opportunity again . I think i would say the answer is, yes. In any kind of mixed system, if you will, or hybrid system, you can have heresy. You can have one side or the other of an equation become too powerful. Doubt thats the explanation of our enable to address poverty and inequality. If it is correct, that the problem is that theres very top sort of super wealthy thats not really stopping us from doing things in other places. Its not draining apple is not draining money from the inner city as a general rule. The kind of people who can afford to go to the warriors game tonight and pay steph currys salary are not draining money out of the inner city. Its probably more we havent come up with Good Solutions to problems of poverty, and i would acknowledge i think when Herbert Hoover said in effect, rugged individualism works in america because we have equality of opportunity. I would say equality of opportunity is tougher to get now than it was in Herbert Hoovers day. So if i wanted to boost rugged individualism i think i would also have to work on equality of opportunity for that hybrid to work. Thank you. I think im responsible for that. David, their from personal experience or book, can can you address whether you have seen any correlation or anticorrelation between maybe the strength of organized religion in the u. S. And rugged individualism . One hand it would seem like religion encourages more interdependence and community, maybe antithetical to rugged individualism but a look at history might seen when organized religion and christianity was strong nest the u. S. , thats when rugged individualism thrived. Any correlation at all . Certainly we argue in the book that one of the roots, if you will, or part of the dna of rugged individualism was that planned in in the country was religion, especially christianity, and in that time specifically a certain form of interest in christianity. This was part of the dna that was planned in this country. So a key part, as we point out in the book of that, is mans individual accountability to god; that, sure, you can elect or consent to join a church. Wont have state churches that everybody has to join or follow, but in america you had freedom of religion and could join a church by your own consent or not. If you join by your own consent you accept some community kind of activity but that is your own choice you own decision. But ultimately a religion in america has been more about man or womans individual accountability to god, and so we think that is a strengthening of individualism, and as generally a been a good thing and maybe one of our challenges today. Hi. I actually have like 18 questions to ask you but ill is our time about up, george . I used to be spoiled. I was a student of dr. Davenport at pepperdine so could i ask questions for an hour. Guess what would be a fun question to ask is how do you see the psychological elements of rugged individualism assisting in the turmoil were experiencing in washington right now, where we have that individualistic president who is not really being accountable to the other checks some balanced we created . Our population who is not necessarily in favor of a lot of the policies. It may be a good time to tap into that ideal if eight its ability to blend with the progressive ideas suching a obamacare. Did we need have it as a mandated policy and probably i imagine otherwise the may have left that out, but at the same time, it should probably be illegal for Insurance Companies to deny pregnancy care to women. Theres another half to to whole. So individualism could still exist and be helpful today. Right. Doctor lloyd and i are already at work on our third book, and the working title of the book is how did Public Policy become war and not deliberation and thats how we describe what is can happening in washington. Its about winning and war and our current president is encouraging that further. I would also say congress has not been helpful. It takes up powder whenever theres a big thing to be done it takes a powder whenever theres big things to be done if was working in d. C. When it looked like they would finely have a debate in congress about what we should do in syria. Thought, day, finally as country well come together and deliberate about. And they declared an early holiday to go home and campaign so that wouldnt have to take any hard votes before the election, and one of the congress men said in effect to the president , he said, just bomb the place and tell us about it later. This is our system of checks and balances now. So, i agree with you. Think the checks and balances system has been broken for a long time, and i think to restore any sense of deliberation about our government, we need to be strengthening that and id love to see congress, even a republican congress, stand up and say no to the president. If has bad ideas and then sit down and work out better ideas. One thing you can say in favor of the current president is he does seem willing to negotiate sometimes, and try to find a deal, if you will. So maybe they can take advantage of that. But good question and i think big problem. Right. Yes, sir. Just as a followup. The economists has actually go explanation, the actually say that we have then we have