Richard Salsman - Ask Me Anything - January 2023

Speaker 0 00:00:00 I'm Scott Schiff of the Atlas Society, along with Professor Richard Salzman, senior scholar at the Atlas Society for an Ask Me Anything. Uh, we wanna encourage people to raise your hand and ask questions. Uh, I've got some from Instagram and other, uh, sources. So, um, you know, it, like I said, we'll, uh, get started. We'll again, raise your hand if you have any questions. We'll be glad to bring you up. Richard, do you have any kind of, uh, starting, uh, comment or do you just want me to jump right in? I think Speaker 1 00:00:36 Jump right in would be fine. Speaker 0 00:00:38 Okay. Uh, well, let me start with this one from Instagram. Aren't patents an infringement on Lassez fair? Especially if I invent without theft or copying? Speaker 1 00:00:51 What, what was that last part? Especially if I invent without what? Speaker 0 00:00:55 Theft or copying? Speaker 1 00:00:57 Yeah, well, that's invention, not stealing. Okay. I, if this is just a question about whether, uh, pat, well, the beginning was to do patents, infringe on, let say fair. This is a, uh, debate that's been going on for a long time within, uh, even the Liberty movement and Rand's position, uh, which I endorse was set out in a chapter in capitalism, the Unknown Ideal. The chapter's literally called, I think, patents and copyrights. And her view is that these are property rights. Uh, now, in her time, it actually was not called intellectual property or ip. And today, IP is, uh, you know, you know, universal ubiquitous phrase. And, and there's a lot of law behind it. And in the quote, information age, which again was, is really the last 30 years or so with the Microsoft and the internet and all that we have now in the virtual world, so to speak, uh, without intellectual property protections, none of that would've been possible. Speaker 1 00:01:57 So I, I actually think relative to when she wrote in the mid sixties, there's a, this is good news actually. There's a greater recognition of the importance, uh, of intellectual property rights and, uh, ironically less respect for what would might be called old fashioned physical property rights. You know, for example, if I wanna work in McDonald's, I am prevented from, you know, exercising my labor, using my body, you know, due to minimum wage laws say, uh, or, you know, factory legislation and things like that. So, um, but in the libertarian side, there's a split where they believe it's a government privilege and, and therefore an improper one. They think it's a grant of monopoly. And, uh, Rand does handle this in the essay. Um, I mean, in effect you have a monopoly over yourself, uh, if you believe in, uh, you know anything other than slavery and therefore the fruits of your labor. Speaker 1 00:02:55 So, uh, you know, just the idea of monopoly itself by questioning that in terms terms of a person's ownership of the products of their brains, or Braun. Here we're talking about brains ip. Um, it's, uh, it's part of the capitalist argument. And, and there are issues, however, of the length of the copywriter patent, it had typically been designated, this is going back two, 300 years in British law, uh, generationally meaning, you know, 17 to 20 years. And the, and the idea was, well, by then the person had profited by sufficiently or could, at least by their invention. And thereafter it goes into the quote public domain. And that is largely still the poi the thing we have today. And I, again, not to monologue on this too much, there ha there has been, I think, an undermining in the courts of patent protection, uh, shortening the length of patents, the F fda, for example, itself taking forever to approve not just the F fda, but others. Speaker 1 00:03:59 I'm using FDA as an example, taking a very long time sometimes to approve, uh, patents, uh, you know, to pharma products and other things. And that the clock starts running for them the minute the applicant submits. So, you know, if it's still 17, 20 years, uh, as a patent, but the FDA a takes 15 years to approve it, you only have the right for three years. So, so a government should protect property rights, including these patents and copyrights. But, uh, but also it should do it rationally. It, the patent office itself should be rationally run the, the, the, the patent shouldn't be over issued for, you know, like minor improvements on things. Uh, but neither should it not be granted for real things. And that requires objective judgment of, unfortunately, this is an example, like say the border where it's a proper government function and the government is doing so many other improper things. Speaker 1 00:04:56 It does not pay close attention to the things it should be doing, like, uh, managing the borders, you know? So there it becomes an issue of all or nothing, open borders or closed borders. And sometimes that happens in the patent office. They'll go through periods of, uh, scrupulous protection, but maybe over overly done. And then periods of complete anarchy, unless they fair where, where people will start businesses just to, just to, uh, as they call it mine for patents. They start the business not for producing anything, but, but seeing if they can get patents from the patent office. So that's more probably than I should have said, but, uh, I I'm of the view that it's a private property, right, that the expert by the was by the way, on this, I consider, and, and it's now coincidence that he's an objective, is Adam Mossoff, M O s S O F F. I've had Adam down to Duke and speak to the students. He is an absolute international expert, not just cause he is an objectives, he's an objectives and an international expert, mostly on international, uh, ip, intellectual property rights. But the whole history of copyrights and patents, the lockian basis for, at the Randy and arguments for it, the libertarian arguments again. So, um, those who wanna explore this further, uh, just put in the, the Google search, Adam Mossoff, um, patents and copyrights. Speaker 0 00:06:20 Great. Thank you for that. Uh, Lawrence, thank you for joining us. Do you have a question? Speaker 2 00:06:27 Yeah. Thanks for having me. It's, uh, funny, uh, you kind of answered my question kind of already, because what I was gonna ask about was actually, uh, intellectual property and sort of the origin of that, because that's not something we see in really thinkers like Locke or in the, in the founders. That's more, Rand talks about it. And I was trying to study more about sort of how the term intellectual property came into being, and it was from Adam Mossoff, but I see it's not something that's even mentioned in US legal cases until I think 1840s, uh, due to a Supreme Court decision by Justice Woodbury, I think it was in New Hampshire. So that seems to be the first time anyone actually calls it intellectual property, the labor of the mine. But, um, how is it, I was curious about that development. Cause it still seems like something that is very nebulous in peoples mind today. They can't wrap their head around it as easy as property rights. That's something physical. Speaker 1 00:07:28 That's a good point. Uh, Lawrence, a couple things. First of all, uh, I, I neglected mention, it's interesting that it's in the Constitution. So the founders recognized the importance of property rights. And again, it wasn't unique to them. There had been, uh, in British, uh, political theorizing and legal theorizing, Blackstone and others, the case for, uh, copyrights and patents being legitimate property. But the fact that it's in the constitution and the, an establishment of a patent office, if I remember correctly, Jefferson actually was the first head of the patent office. So, um, so just historically, that's, uh, interesting that the patent, that its foot in the Constitution recognition of, uh, as right now, you know, as objective, we know that all wealth, you know, from producing potatoes, uh, to manufacturing things in a factory to, uh, coding as they call it today. I, I specifically picked those examples cuz the first seems very physicalist. Speaker 1 00:08:31 The the other ones are intermediate fabricating things in the last, you know, high, highly aerody. But, but all wealth and all property, uh, comes from the mind. So in a way, it's an artificial phrase to call something intellectual property. But, uh, I can't, and I can't quite date to the ophthalmology. I'm sure Adam knows what, what it is, but, but we know it, it connotes mostly the idea of software and in and, and formulas and DNA coating and the coke formula, you know, so the, so for example, the patent of Coke, getting the syrup and the stuff in bottles is one form of patent, say just the pro assembly line type stuff. But the formula itself is a, is a copy written. So, but I think that's kind of an artificial distinction. On the other hand, I, as an economist, I've seen over the years, um, uh, adjectives attached to capital, which I don't really have a problem with. Speaker 1 00:09:29 So, for example, if you say tangible capital that speaks, um, factories, tools, equipment, buildings and things like that, if you say human capital, this is a more recent thing from Gary Becker at the University of Chicago, a Nobel Prize economist started using this in the sixties and seventies. Human capital meaning knowledge, skills, educational achievement, history, experience, the things that humans know, it, it is okay to say there's a certain capital there. And, uh, financial capital would be another example. It's not contributing to the business machinery, but contributing, uh, funding. So that's what Wall Street, so Fu, wall Street provides financial capital. Uh, there's even a concept more recently, I don't even have a problem with this one called Social Capital. It's a very interesting comment. Uh, uh, I think, uh, Fukiyama and others have written a book. Fukiyama wrote a book called Trust, and the subtitle being Social Cap. Speaker 1 00:10:24 Social capital is the extent to which you have a culture where people trust each other. That, that there's a high level of trust. And other cultures, uh, mostly status by the way. And primitive, uh, have cultures that do not trust. And as a result, um, you know, but you can see how they would be seen as something like capital in the sense of making people, uh, able to live, survive, and flourish to a greater extent than if they did not have it. So in economics, there are these four or five different conceptions of, of capital and, and in addition to intellectual capital, uh, which I think is legitimate, I don't know. I, I hope that helps. It's more terminological than anything. Uh, Laurens Speaker 0 00:11:09 It does. Thank you. Speaker 1 00:11:10 Good. Speaker 0 00:11:11 Not to be confused with social credits. <laugh>. Yes. Right. Yeah. Uh, Clark, thank you for joining. Speaker 3 00:11:21 Yes, thank you for having this. And, uh, uh, Richard, I'd like to ask you about Rich, uh, Alan Greenspan. Um, just, you know, the history of him. Uh, you know, obviously he knew I Rand and grew up on I Rand and had that great article, uh, at least one great article in capitalism, known, known ideal. And yet, you know, president Ford, I believe, appointed him, uh, to his Council of Economic Advisors way back in the mid seventies. And then, of course, you know, later on in the eighties, he became all the, got to go all the way up to Ted Chairman. And it just seems like he was such a disappointment. Uh, and I, I realize you may have written, written about this, uh, and you write so many great things, Richard, and I mean, you, you write back so that I can, I can read all your great stuff. So, so I, I, I'm aware you may have already written about it, but basically, I mean, how do we as objectives, um, explain someone like Alan Greenspan? Were we just too irrationally exuberant about it when we <laugh>? Speaker 1 00:12:26 I, I, I like that expression, irrationally exuberant CL Clark. Others may not know that that was Greenspan's own phrase in, uh, I'm gonna say 1995, where he was saying the, uh, the stock market was overvalued and, uh, IRA people were irrationally exuberant and there was a bubble and all that, which did affect his monetary policy. I would put it this way. And thank you, by the way, for the compliments. Uh, I have written on this. I, um, I would put it this way. What the last thing you ask, what can objectiveness learn or observe? You know what, observe, the first thing on the positive side to observe is the man was brilliant. And the man was one of the first, uh, professional economists. He had a consulting firm at the time to recognize the value in the importance of objectivism and of Vine rand and of that circle. Speaker 1 00:13:16 So let's give him credit for that. I think they met in the, in the late fifties, uh, I forget exactly the biographies, but he was a, um, a fledgling business consultant and one of the first economic forecasters. I, I subsequently looked into the method he used that isn't all that, um, scientific, but on the other hand, data was, uh, not quite available as much then. But, uh, now the essays he wrote, it wasn't just one. I think there were four in, uh, capitalism. The Unknown ideal, one of the underrated ones is called the Assault on integrity. And of course, the famous one is gold and economic freedom, the case for free banking and the Gold Standard, and a critique of Central Banking, which really influenced me a lot. And, but also funny because he eventually became the head of the Central Bank, uh, appointed by Reagan in 1987. Speaker 1 00:14:06 Uh, I'll get to that in a second. But, um, assault on integrity is a case for, uh, no regulation. It's very interesting. Um, his view is, of course, there should be civil law. So if there are torts, if there are people who wrong one another, you have a court system for that. But, um, that is the first, uh, time. It took me a while to, to get the concept of prior restraint, that the regulatory state is improper in the sense that it presumes guilt, it presumes you're gonna harm someone in advance and it restrains you and re regulate you. And the Supreme Court specifically has thrown out prior restraint as a standard in, uh, first Amendment, thankfully in First Amendment cases. So for, for example, they can't say to the New York Times, submit your, uh, Obed beforehand, and we'll make sure, you know, there's no libel, slander or quote disinformation in it that isn't done. Speaker 1 00:14:56 At least not yet that isn't being done. But all but all of commercial business regulation is that in effect. Um, so that's a wonderful essay. There's another one on antitrust. I won't, I won't go through all of them. So in that category, I'm saying Greenspan is worth studying in the sense that Nathaniel, Brandon is worth studying, um, just because there were subsequent problems, just because there were subsequent even personal, uh, clashes and things like that. Let's never forget that when these, when put it, put it this way, when, and if these people wrote good stuff and argued in a good, they're still worth studying to this day and building off of. Now this, the, the part, uh, over the years, uh, uh, when I was analyzing Greenspan, I had to analyze them from the standpoint of doing, uh, economic forecasting and investment consulting. So I was reading them, um, as fed speeches and other things which were voluminous, including congressional testimony, which for the most part was incomprehensible, for purposes of advising clients and for, for purposes of trying to figure out what he would do as fed head. Speaker 1 00:16:07 And he was there for quite a long time, 18 years since 1987 to, I wanna say 2006. So also reappointed by people like Clinton. So Reagan appointed him initially. Uh, now the way to interpret this is it isn't a li uh, completely clean linear move, but bu, but basically from the time Iran died in 1982, and you're right, he had been in the Ford Administration as Chief Economic advisors in the seventies. And actually that stint was really badly done. There was inflation was rampant. Uh, Ford came out with those wind buttons, if you remember what a, what a disgrace. People were supposed to put buttons on their lapels with a win win meant whip inflation. Now, and I, I have a hard time believing that God passed, uh, Greenspan without Greenspan knowing about it, and just goofy policies. So, so the whole Ford administration, which e and POV and others really preferred, and they preferred Nixon, the Nixon and Ford to the Reagan administration. Speaker 1 00:17:12 I never understood that. Um, it may have been due to the fact that Greenspan was involved in Nixon and Ford, Nixon in 68, just in the campaign, never in the administration. But Ford definitely in the administration. Now, Ford's administration was briefer. And you may know as a historical point that I actually visited the Oval Office. Um, there's pictures out there because when Greenspan took the job, um, he met with the president and was able to bring guests and her and Frank and I think Greenspan's mother pictures in the Oval Office with Jerry Ford. So, uh, just from the standpoint of Ayn Rand's biography, what an amazing story. Not just that she went from Russia to Hollywood and then Hollywood, you know, to the Fountain Head and the movie. But being in the Oval Office, what a story. But I think it's true that after she died, his ambition and ambition itself is not a bad thing. Speaker 1 00:18:08 And even getting into politics in government is not a bad thing. I would not say that today, but it's very dicey when the whole system is going toward welfare, stateism and authoritarianism. And when, you know, as he did know, this is an issue of what do you know, verse, you know, errors of morality versus breaches, a breaches of morality versus error of knowledge. Being a very smart guy, he knew what a central bank was. Uh, you know, he knew that by the time he got there, the Federal Reserve was not on the gold standard anymore. And he really prized that job. And I think you could describe many of his actions as somewhat power lust, which, which is of course is a bad thing. It's a bad thing. And objectivism placing the idea of my prominence, my position of what people think of me, it was, it's a very, for those of you who don't know who, who know, Atlas Shrug, a very Robert Statler type of story, and the Robert Statler character, and Atlas Shrug, of course, hay Heads, the State Science Institute. Speaker 1 00:19:11 But his origins, he, while he was a professor who influenced Gu right, and Influence, I think his students were right, Gault Francisco and, and Ragner, and then he corrupted and not was corrupted, you know, made choices that were self corrupting. And I, I think Brains Spann did do that. Uh, just as a quick, uh, not to go through the full litany during, during this time, by the way, this might be of interest to people in examining Greenspan. I went from, he's a hero of mine to, oh my God, is he really doing that to a severe critic of Greenspan? But during that time, uh, senior objectives above me were very critical of me being critical of Greenspan. They, some of them ha, I won't name names, but it's not important. Some of them had this view that he was a mole in the good sense that he was in there, uh, preventing things from being worse than they might otherwise be. Speaker 1 00:20:10 And frankly, there was a kind of pride in, hey, one of our guys got in there and one of our guys is in position of power. You know, maybe he'll do some good. And yet I never found him lift a finger at the Fed to do anything about the gold standard. Now, I'm not saying he should have unilaterally gone back on the gold standard, but I mean, he didn't even direct the Fed research departments to research the gold standard issue reports on the gold standard, have conferences on the gold standard. He could have very easily done that, and he didn't. And, um, the last thing I would say is cuz there's much more to say. The last thing I would say is when he left, uh, he left pretty much while a financial crisis was occurring. And famously, I think this is after the oh eight crisis now, he had been there in through oh six. Speaker 1 00:20:58 So he was, I think, brought back two years after the fact to testify as everything was melting down. Dr. Greenspan, what do you, this is before Con, what do you think? What happened? And he basically blamed free markets. It was an outrageous performance. Uh, instead of saying, as it could have said, this disaster was totally due to government intervention. This was due to government artificially trying to promote home ownership to people who couldn't afford homes. Of course, those mortgages would go bad. Of course, Fanny and Freddie never should have securitized those mortgages. Of course, the Fed contributed to all this by manipulations of interest rates up and down. He couldn't do that cuz he was at the Fed, he was part of it. He contributed to that financial crisis in oh eight, but not wanting to blame himself. He did a very dastardly thing. And by the way, it was only then that senior objectives, who had been criticizing me for years, started saying, yeah, I knew all along Greenspan was a rat. Speaker 1 00:21:56 I knew all along Greenspan was a unprincipled prag to sell out. Uh, yeah. But I had been saying it warning about this for, for decades, mostly because I was paid to pay attention to him. Uh, people forget also that there was a Social Security Commission in 1983 where Reagan said, we need to restructure social security and maybe partially privatize it. And Greenspan was head of the commission and he recommended against, and it, this is a year after I died, and recommended instead, uh, increases in the payroll tax, which is the <laugh> is just the thing that funds social security. Uh, also, if you look in the record, and I've written on this, when green, when Reagan in 1982 came up with another good idea, which is there should be a gold commission. And there was one, and we should study whether stagflation member interest rates and inflation were double digit. Speaker 1 00:22:53 Then when Reagan took office, he said, maybe we should return to the gold standard. But instead of just doing it by executive order, as he could have, by the way, he didn't need congressional, uh, action on this. Nixon had gone off the gold standard with just an executive order, not with any kind of congressional approval. Nevertheless, Reagan asked for this gold commission. It was formed. Greenspan was part of it. And Greenspan and Friedman, Milton Friedman, uh, together, convinced Reagan not to go back on the gold standard. I won't get into the details of why, but to me, that was another atrocious, uh, part of his record. So I'll leave it there. Um, I started with the good part. Uh, there are writings he's done, which are, we're studying. He's actually written books since he retired from the Fed. Uh, some of which are interesting. But, uh, I think it's also a testament to how important it is in your career to keep your principles and to have an ambition that doesn't sacrifice those principles. Speaker 1 00:23:55 I, I didn't put that very well, but you know what I mean, uh, the answer, the answer is not. Well, a Alan Greenspan should never have gone into the Potomac Swamp because he got the fever. I don't believe that. I, I do believe it's more difficult if government is corrupt to go in there as an uncorrupted person and do well and do right. But I think he could have, cuz we're talking about the Reagan years, we're talking about 87 to 2006, uh, and it was a better time. And we were moving toward capitalism. And here's this, you know, seemingly pro capitalist, central Bankhead. So he could have done much better than he did. But, um, I'll stop there. Speaker 0 00:24:36 That's incredibly rich historical material. Uh, there could be a whole morals and markets just on that subject, even a deeper dive with the Freedman stuff and what was motivating everyone. But, um, yes, I know, um, Roger has been waiting, uh, patiently. Thank you for that, Roger. Speaker 4 00:24:58 Yeah, thank you. Um, so here's my question. Uh, as somebody that's, uh, participates in, uh, in whatever way I can in the Liberty movement and, uh, which, which makes me adjacent to the Objectivist community, my question is, what is it gonna take for ideas of individual liberty, uh, and economic freedom to become popular? It, I, I look at like the events of the last couple of years, the restriction on, on our freedom in terms of, uh, the lockdowns and mandates. And, and then you look at, uh, the economic situation that we have with them printing all the money and, and, uh, expanding the money supply in, in, in inflation. Uh, you know, that's, I impacting all of us. If, if these ideas are not popular now, what kind of crisis is it gonna take for people to wake up and say, Hey, let me listen to those guys over there. They know they might, they might have some answers. Speaker 1 00:26:04 That's a good question, Roger. And a couple of things I I I'll focus on, um, popularity and, uh, the, the whole idea of what, what it's gonna take. The, the popularity thing is interesting because it brings up an issue which has long been not only in the liberty movement, within the objectives movement, a debate in effect about whether change is wholesale or retail. I hate to use economic terms here, I'm an economist. So <laugh>, but a wholesale, or you might even say top down versus grassroots. Now, the wholesale theory is, and the top down theory, unless we change the intellectuals, that they're the causal factor. And by that, the old school would mean university departments. And for objectiveness it would be philosophy departments. <laugh>, not necessarily libertarians would say that, but you get the idea. And then more broadened in the eighties and nineties when, uh, think tanks started spreading and alternative media started spreading, you could call it not just university professors say, but intellectuals. Speaker 1 00:27:08 So there, if you know, heritage or the Cato Institute or others could, uh, provide alternatives to Brookings, then maybe we could find a way. Now the bottom up or retail approach would be, uh, to hell with the universities. They're corrupt, they're beyond, uh, repair. Uh, maybe they don't have any influence anymore because they're being laughed off the stage and then they're post-modernists. So they're just speaking babble. Um, this is an alternative theory, therefore. Now what would the retail strategy be though? H the retail sounds like populist. It sounds like well reach the common man, not train new professors who will become, you know, uh, public school teachers and private school teachers. Uh, I, uh, maybe cuz I'm old fashioned and, um, I lean still toward the top down model. And so, Roger, when you ask, what will it take, it will take, if, if I'm right, it will take an improvement in the intellectual class. Speaker 1 00:28:11 Now, in my book, uh, aware of all the capitalists gone, I, I define capitalists as ideological capitalists, advocates of capitalism, including not only I, but Meez and Hayek and Buchanan and Friedman. And, and I do believe that the last two decades of the last century was moving us for toward capitalism, precisely because there had been this intellectual revolution, um, and mostly moral that that, that I and Isabel Patterson and others, those who were making moral arguments were really moving the ball. And that's how we got the Reagan Thatcher Revolution. But notice it wasn't sustainable. There, there was something, there was some kind of a stall that occurred. You could market as nine 11 as the turning point, but it's clear that the last 20 years we're going in the, the other direction. Now, does that mean it's not that, that body of work done in the last 50 years, you know, and from 1943, I'll name the fountain head till the end of, it's not like that shelf of work doesn't exist. Speaker 1 00:29:12 It isn't even true that it hasn't been built on, has been built on by libertarian objectives and conservatives alike the case for liberty, the case for, uh, even rational morality. So it, it is somewhat disturbing that there would be any kind of comeback, as we've seen for the Marxists, for the Postmoderns and for the Keynesians. Those are the three that have made, we have to confess an enormous comeback in the last, uh, 20 years. And there's a kind of, I, I don't, I don't want to say that the current generation of freedom of Liberty people have not done their homework. But I think it's something like that. They have not taken the foundational work done in the last 50 years of the last century and built upon it. And, and not just that they need to be much more bold, brazen, I don't, I don't wanna say pugilistic, I'm not saying punch people in the face, but the, the Trump phenomenon, I'm no big Trump fan. Speaker 1 00:30:15 But one part of the that's interests me about the Trump phenomenon is there's a desire among the gen, a large part of the general public who leans toward Liberty America and Constitutionalism to have a fighter, to have someone who will stand up and, uh, eviscerate these crazy people that, I mean, they're arguments and now Trump's not intellectual, so he's not gonna be one to do that. But his posture, his tone, his po his positioning was attractive to people. And that's important. I, I don't think his attraction was authoritarianism. So I'm rambling a bit here, but I'm back to your, I'm, I'm, I'm back to your point of like what it will take. We need more intellectual vigor and we need more within the liberty movement, I would say, and this is one of the reasons I'm so happy to be with the Atlas Society, a much better cadre of intellectuals who can talk to those on the periphery, by those on the periphery. Speaker 1 00:31:14 I mean, to an objectiveness that would mean, uh, conservatives and libertarians, you know, you can like discount the environmentalists and Marxist is completely unreachable. But there is, as you know, large number of objectives who say to hell with those people, don't talk to them, don't speak at their conferences, don't do interviews with them. Uh, insulate yourself, uh, speak to the converted. That's not my view. Uh, but I think that view may has, may have stalled the movement. Now I'm speaking mostly of the objectives movement, but maybe you could find examples, Roger, in the libertarian movement, maybe the same thing has happened where there's a kind of bunker mentality where it feels like the trend is going against you and you huddle up and bunk and hunker down with your own type. You know, you go to the Liberty Fund seminars and they're insular, and we're all, it's satisfying in a stoic kind of way. Speaker 1 00:32:09 The stoics, you know, when the Roman Empire was falling, the stoics at one point said, we're never gonna win this. So let's just enjoy ourselves internally and immunize ourselves from the pain We're all feeling it, all friends of liberty are feeling the pain of what the hell is happening to our country and what the hell is happening to our civilization. And you can either stand up and fight and be more resolute than ever and build on the foundation given in the last 50 years of the last century, or, um, what we're seeing today, which is a, a kind of, uh, dissipation of the movement. Uh, they're not organized, they're not confident in my speeches today, by the way, RO uh, Roger, I, I say to people, and they're, uh, you know, usually on the periphery, I'll say, uh, what is the last line of the national anthem? It is the home of the, of the brave and the free. And it's so, it's not just freedom that people must, uh, explicate, they have to be brave about it. They have to be courageous. They have to be pious in a way, uh, in, in the face of say, cancel culture. So a little rambling there, I'm sorry, but I hope that helps as to, you know, what must be done. Speaker 0 00:33:21 Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, a lot of great stuff there. Um, I do, uh, wanna recognize senior scholar Steven Hicks. Very glad to see him joining us, and, uh, we'll go ahead and jump to you now. Uh, thank you. Speaker 5 00:33:36 Okay, thanks Scott. Uh, hello. Uh, Dr. Salzman, I have a question for you about the place of economics in the overall case for a free society. And I'm often struck by, uh, one piece of rhetoric that we use, uh, in making the case for freedom is something like to say freedom works in most spheres of life, uh, religion, art, sex lives, uh, scientific inquiry and so on. Uh, but economics and money, it, you seem to be the big exception. So we can say, for example, uh, you know, we have a separation of state and religion, and people get it and they like it, and there's widespread sentiment for that. And so we try to piggyback on that and say, well, you know, just like there should be a separation of state and religion, and there should be a separation of state and economics, and that tends to fall flat. Speaker 5 00:34:31 So why is it that right now, do you think, uh, there's great sentiment and understanding that we should be free with respect to religion? You know, for the most part our sex lives, art lives and so on. Uh, and of course there's skirmishes around the edges, but, uh, when we turn to money and economics issues, the, the whole argument falls flat and people are more complacent about the size of regulation, the place of government and the economy. And so what, so is there something unique about money economics business in, uh, our current, uh, you know, battle for liberty culture? Speaker 1 00:35:15 That's a great question, and I would answer it this way. Um, first of all, the issue of state and economics versus state and, uh, religion. If you ask people why are you praising the separation of state and religion? Many people, although less educated today maybe than before, will remember religious wars, bloodshed. I mean, even in modern times, the Protestants and Catholics in, uh, Britain or the Middle East. But if you say to them, um, what about state and economics? Uh, now you and I would immediately go to, what about the absolute destruction rot by, uh, Hitler, Stalin, Mao pulp in those regimes? It's, it's, it is funny that they don't make the same connection. In other words, the same kind of destruction and impoverishment and bloodshed. So, I don't know, maybe we have to make that case better, but I have a, I think I have a different, so that's just one observation, uh, more than anything. Speaker 1 00:36:20 Cause cause I think you're absolutely right. There's a disconnect when you put up those two things and say to people, well, if you recognize the difficulties of the problems, the atrocities of state and religion, why not state and economics? But, but I, as I think about why that is true, I I have to think that philosophically, and you're the philosopher, I mean, not me, but I think there's still this medieval residue of economics is low base, crude, bodily physicalist, and not ennobling. It's not like art. It's not like religion. It's not like music, it, you know, whatever. And therefore the government can do whatever the hell it wants to it. And who cares? That's not gonna do anything to quote humanity. It's a very unfortunate thing. Now, objectivism has a lot to contribute to this, as, you know, because to the extent we can make the case as we can, uh, as as she does eloquently, you know, in Atlas, that it's the men of the mind, and not just in business and commerce, but in every field. Speaker 1 00:37:29 And it's ennobling and it's elevating and it's soaring and it's spiritual in the good sense. And that just is not widely understood yet. Now, I would go just one step further without monologuing too much. I would go a step further and say also that I think, Steven, there is a difficulty when the epistemological, uh, range of motion is so restricted and myopic that it isn't just that economics to them is low, crude, materialistic, money-grubbing. As the system becomes more sophisticated, which is actually a good thing. You know, our economy, our global economy is much more sophisticated with a much broader range of amazing products and systems than existed. We know, you know, 50 or 60 years ago, just take computers and the internet and all that. We know all that, right? But I think that kind of system re requires a public understanding, which is more conceptual, and they, and they can't grasp it. Speaker 1 00:38:33 What I mean, in my own own field, I notice this most in finance, if you think of farming, let's say manufacturing, and then services, and then finance, the sequence I just gave you, everyone will recognize as well, I know what farming is, that's like potatoes, and I know what manufacturing is. That's an assembly line and a, a car with like metal and glass. And now if you say services, they're like, well, services, uh, advertising law. You see how it becomes more abstract? Like, what, what are those people doing? White collar workers shuffling paper finance, uh, of the most abstract, um, people have no clue. And plus they have these longstanding medieval conceptions of usy and the lender and the Jews and the this and that. And so I think it, it, it's so ironic that the more complex and sophisticated capitalism becomes, the more it does require, uh, both an intellectual and a public mind, which is itself advanced enough to say, I understand what these abstract industries are doing. Speaker 1 00:39:44 I understand what Wall Street contributes to the economy. Most people, most students at Duke, which you would think it are very smart kids, which they are, which I experienced directly, I ask them, and many of them are going into finance, do you think the financial sector is productive? And many of them don't think so. It's shocking. They can't explain what the allocation of capital entails, you know, or even when I use analogies like, you know, wall Street is the brains of capitalism and, and manufacturing and agriculture, the sys and the muscles and the, you know, which is not quite true as you know. And still they don't get it. They think there's parasitism, they think there's charlatanism, they think there's theft. So, um, I'll leave it at that. I don't know if that helps, but, uh, you ask a very good question. I'm not sure I have a full answer, but that's part of it. That's part of it. Go ahead, Steven. Speaker 5 00:40:40 May I follow up briefly, Scott? Yes, of course. Okay, thanks. On your, your middle point about, uh, the medieval hangover, so to speak, the mind body dualism and the idea that, uh, money business is low and rubbing, so who the hell cares what happens there? Um, I wonder if, uh, it could be the reverse of that, that it's the same mind body split, but people are now willing to say, well, you know, we're not really that religious, so who the healthcare is, what people are doing in their religious lives. They can be as free as we want there, but now we are much more materialists. So yeah, money is where it's at. And so that's the thing that everybody wants to control, and that's what makes it the exception. Speaker 1 00:41:22 Yeah. Yeah. You may have something there, but by the way, I didn't mean to say the attitude would be who the hell cares what happens? I think it's more the attitude of if it's just physicalist, then when the government, uh, tinkers with it or intervenes with it, it's not much bad can happen, uh, because it's just muscles and they're just like moving people around and stuff. So they can't have the deleterious effects you're worried about. Whereas the delic, the delicate mechanism say of scien what scientists are doing. Like if you ask an American today, should the government start, you know, telling scientists what to do, where to research and this and that, they would say, oh, no. Oh no, they're gonna wreck. They'll wreck those experimental method. They'll corrupt it. They'll do, and why? Because they do. Maybe this is the good news. They do recognize that the mind work, what to them is explicitly mind work, uh, can't have any force near it. Speaker 1 00:42:20 I think Steven, you you would agree with this more than anyone, the most tragic disconnect today is an education. People still do not recognize that the government should be nowhere near it. That's really sad. Even in, even conservatives we know will say, well, we're not gonna be against public schools. We just want school choice, or we want charters, or we want vouchers, or we want school board protests, or, and they will not, um, as far as I can tell, it's really sad. They will not go for the argument that it should be totally privatized. And, um, it doesn't mean that the educational philosophies will immediately improve overnight. But I don't think I've ever, other than money and education, I don't think I've ever seen two sectors, the money being run by the Fed and the schools being run by public schools, uh, bureaucrats where they're heavily socialist and fascistic, and the American people don't even realize it, don't even know it. But money and education are so important. And, and so the overturn of socialism and the Soviet Union and supposedly Capitalism one, but in these two fields, we remain heavily socialistic and the money's being ruined, and the human capital of children is being ruined. And I'm not sure most Americans, uh, know it, but that's a kind of separate issue, I Speaker 0 00:43:40 Guess. Great. Well, with the time, uh, left, I do want to try to squeeze in the others, uh, you know, maybe four minutes per question and answer. Uh, we'll go ahead and we'll start with jp, I know, uh, we skipped him before. Speaker 6 00:43:56 Thank you, Scott. Um, so this is a question for, uh, Dr. Salzman. Uh, first I would like to know if I can ask you if you're familiar with a book and an author and, uh, depending on that, because it's, if if no one else has read this book, then, then probably it wouldn't be be proper for me to go on a rant about it. Speaker 1 00:44:20 <laugh>. Ok. Yeah. What is it? Speaker 6 00:44:23 The, the, it's a, a fairly well known and long career, uh, investigative journalist by the name of g Edward Griffin. And the title of the tome, because he's huge and he's very well sourced, is, um, the Creature from JE Island. Have you read this book? Speaker 1 00:44:41 I have read that book. It's, it's, uh, you want my comment on it? I'll be brief. Speaker 6 00:44:46 I would, because I want to, I want to know how pissed off we am about it. <laugh>. Speaker 1 00:44:52 Okay. Having, having studied the Federal Reserve in central banking for decades, of course, I came across that book, uh, Jekyll Island is the island of, I think, the coast of, uh, South Carolina or Georgia, I forget, doesn't matter near Sea Island, uh, where, uh, in the late, uh, oh 9, 10, 11 bankers and bureaucrats met to, uh, plan and form the Fed. So my, and it, and it's a well-documented book actually, but I classify it as somewhat of a conspiracy theorist book. I hate to use that phrase, but cuz some conspiracies are actually legitimate conspiracies, um, to basically say a cabal of Jewish bankers got together and gave us the Federal Reserve. Now, I'm a critic of central banking broadly, and then of the central of the Federal Reserves specifically. But my reading of the history is that there had been a long decade long, maybe multi-decade long really, uh, case starting in the 1880s in, in Europe, and then ultimately in the US part of what's called the so-called progressive movement to have the government take over the money and banking system. Speaker 1 00:46:08 So it's, it wasn't really a conspiracy of, of people who showed up at Jekyll Island, you know, just before 1913 when the Fed was formed. Uh, we, I think we need to give prominence to the power of ideas that we're building for decades. And, you know, a meeting at JE Island, uh, it was the, the consummation of this and not the real problem behind it. Um, but we'll keep our answers short here, Scott, but that's my view of that, an interesting journalistic account of the get together. But, but too much leaning toward the direction of nobody knew central banking was coming until these people got together. And the other theme of the book, which I also reject, is that central banking was promoted by private bankers like, uh, Baruch and, um, JP Morgan. This was not, that's not true. Thi this was totally pushed on the, uh, status side by advocates of Stateism who knew damn well that the state, uh, had to fund itself with money, and it couldn't do that in a private system, so it had to set up a central bank. But anyway, good question. Uh, PJ Griffin, and it's called Yes, the something of JE Island Creature Creature, Speaker 6 00:47:29 Creature Speaker 1 00:47:31 Creature from the Black Lagoon. Is that the <inaudible>? Speaker 6 00:47:33 I think in the interest of time and for leaving, uh, some time for the others. I'm gonna leave my room for some other time, but maybe, Speaker 1 00:47:41 Yes. Okay, good. And if you get a hold of my email mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, at Atlas Society, email me, I'll, we'll go back and forth on this. It'll be fun. Okay. So, yeah, feel free to do that, Richard, Speaker 0 00:47:52 At Atlas Society. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:47:53 Um, yeah, feel free to contact me there. Speaker 0 00:47:56 Sure. Dan, thank you for joining us. Appreciate your patience. Speaker 7 00:48:01 Well, thank you for having this great room, and I really appreciate, uh, the conversation with Richard Ulman. Um, so I, I wanted to, um, ask where you see the view of externality fitting into your economic view. So, for example, um, when people buy cars that pollute a lot more, there's a cost to all the residents, um, that happen to come or live nearby. Um, so, um, it thus requires government to, to, uh, set rules. Um, likewise, when, um, when you get to the, the, the pandemic, if people didn't wear a mask, um, there would be people that would die because there's a cost of transmitting the disease. And we didn't know in advance who would gonna be susceptible and who wasn't. So there's an externality cost of not wearing masks. So I, I get the, um, idea that everybody should be able to do whatever they want, but when you think about externalities in a block, uh, large number of sectors, we don't, uh, or that it's necessary. And I think schooling is an example where with, uh, the externalities of not doing it properly, it's really, really expensive on society. So, uh, this is Stan. I'm done talking. Speaker 1 00:49:23 Very good. Is this Stan? Who asked that? Stan, that was great. Stan. This is absolutely an important issue in making the case for capitalism, uh, not to be in the weeds too much. You and I know more about this than the general audience, listen, listening. But the externalities argument is an argument for government intervention in the economy. And it's this idea that just because two parties trade, they might have third party external, third and fourth, and fifth and sixth external impacts. Now, by the way, they can be positive and negative externalities. So the typical negative one is pollution. But the typical, um, positive one is something like, I educated my kid and you are gonna benefit dear neighborhood or dear society, because I did that. And now does that mean I should be subsidized because otherwise I'm being screwed? You know, just as in the case of, of, uh, pollution, shouldn't I be, um, compensated for the damage? Speaker 1 00:50:20 Now, my my interpretation of this is that property rights can handle all of this, and that the real problem with externalities and, and there's a litter, I'm not new to this, this is, this is not new to me, I should say. There's a whole literature of this, that the real problem with externalities comes when there's not a clearly delineated private property. Pollution's an obvious example of this. Most pollution occurs on public lands. And so the argument would be to privatize it, not to regulate and restrict industrial activity and other activity. But another broader way of looking at it is all human interactions have externalities. So the idea that this would be used th that this would be invoked as a reason for curbing capitalism is just all too convenient for the status. But, uh, but to be more serious about it, the way a capitalist society handles this is not by regulation and not by pretending, uh, there should be no externalities, but by civil courts. Speaker 1 00:51:15 And the civil courts are interesting because you have to go to the civil courts and you have to bring under rules of evidence, evidence that you have been materially harmed. Materiality is a huge issue in law, if you know, and evidentiary matters that you've been materially not, you know, inconsequentially affected, but materially affected, uh, by someone's, um, activities. Uh, almost no one goes and says, um, please gimme a subsidy for, for positive externalities. But I just put that out there to say that is the solution. The solution really is more privatization of things now public and a greater reliance on the civil courts to sort through these things rather than regulation. So I, I believe no capitalists should, uh, you know, embarrass themselves by saying, let others be injured by my, you know, by my effects. Now, that's not proper. On the other hand, the idea of I'm driving my car down the street and, and, you know, I'm gonna get sued by seven people because of the stuff coming out of the tailpipe, that's improper as well. But that's the shortest answer I can give. But that's a really good question, Stan. Um, there are the beginnings of arguments, uh, on this side, but I'll, I'll just leave it there. Speaker 0 00:52:31 Great. You, thank you. And, uh, we're also very glad to have Atlas Society, uh, founder and scholar, David Kelly joining us. Do you have a question for Richard? Speaker 8 00:52:45 Uh, yes. I came in late and I apologize for that. But, uh, I just wanna go back briefly to the discussion between Steven and, uh, Richard. You know, I, the, the, the answer to that issue, uh, as, as was pointed out, is really the mind body problem that, uh, production, uh, the view of production and along with it sex and, and other allegedly materialist things, uh, being downgraded, um, by comparison with so-called spiritual things. Um, and that's the major theme of Atlas Shrug, the reputation of that. But, um, on, in down, again, going, going down to the political points that you made, I think, um, for many years, um, this division between spiritual and the material realms was, had a, had a big effect on shaping both liberal and conservative thoughts. But in the, in, for at least 30 years, liberals have been moving in now into the regressive era of saying that, um, speech, belief religion are equally, um, subject to, to regulation. Speaker 8 00:54:06 And the reason I think is that one of the reasons that going back to the early part, or 19th century and early 20th century, is that material factors, material things, the economy in general was a Roman, which people felt they were being coerced by economic pressures. And at our individual level by, you know, bosses that didn't hire them or fired them if they were working. And now there's been this movement to say that speech is self is harmful, that didn't used to be the case. And that was, I think, a key distinction between the two realms. So, um, I would just add that to the mix, Richard and, and Steven. Um, it's, and we see it all over now with the, uh, the idea that speech is harmful. Um, the idea of, of, uh, the culture is being, having hegemony over and, you know, forcing people, uh, to, uh, sign, sign into or implicitly or explicitly into a reigning doctrine, which has to be opposed, uh, to the under religious, et cetera. So anyway, that's a just one addition to the equation. Speaker 1 00:55:27 Such such, David, thank you. Such an important addition, because on the one hand, I think of what you're saying as what, what, what is it, David, that the duality is gone now they're perfectly, consistently hateful toward civil liberties and economic liberties. Yes, yes, it does seem to be going that direction, but we wanted it to go in the other direction. We wanted these old liberals of the last century who, who prized civil liberties and free speech to, you know, get the point in commercial, in the commercial realm. And they were starting to under <laugh> under the, the last two decades of the last century, as I put it. But, uh, wow, has it gone the other way? Uh, so one interpretation would be consistency drives things, right, but that's just, but it could be consistently bad or consistently good. And it's our, it's incumbent upon us to make sure the direction in the right way. Speaker 1 00:56:21 But, but here's the other, the paradox for me, David, Steven, others, I wonder what you think it, I think it is undeniable that there has been in the last, uh, couple of decades, a greater appreciation of the mind as the source of wealth. Um, the Silicon Valley social, you know, the, the achievers in Silicon Valley, I'll just put it that way. I wouldn't say they would say it about finance and Mike milking. They hated Mike milking even though he was an innovator. But, but, and so that to me is a paradox because that, to me sounds like, uh, a good trend where people are getting it, that Steve Jobs is a, you know, a brainiac who creates great things. And so, anyway, I just throw that out there. But, um, thank you, David. That's a, that's a really good point. Speaker 8 00:57:12 Thanks, Richard. Uh, Speaker 0 00:57:16 And, uh, yeah, Kyle, do you have a quick question? Are you able to unmute? Well, um, Connie, did you wanna jump in with a quick question, comment, Speaker 9 00:57:38 Um, just, excuse me, A quick comment that, uh, to let Richard know, um, that I and Mr. Kelly know Dr. Kelly know that that was a great interview yesterday and I enjoyed it much. And, uh, thank Richard for sending me the resources and some additional information on the question I had. Um, Speaker 1 00:58:02 And well, thank, well, it's so nice to hear from you directly, Connie. That's nice. I think one of the wonderful things about the, uh, Atlas Society, we have these clubhouses, we have these webinars, uh, but it's really wonderful. And, and Scott and Jennifer and others, uh, Lawrence are so good about follow up where people are in the chat or people are asking questions afterwards. And one great virtue of the Atlas Society, I have found in my two or three years involved with it now, is it's like a service mentality. Like we, we wanna service the client of people who are giving us money or giving us their attention, you know, deserve, uh, a response. And, uh, the yes, it, I was very pleased with, very honored to be interviewed by David last night, but, uh, we didn't have time to get to certain online questions and they were sent to us afterwards, and David and I sent answers, and that's what we do. Um, we take the time. So I'm glad you noticed, Connie. It was a great, they were good questions too. It's always nice to get good questions, but thank you for, thank you for thanking us. This is a value for value proposition here, and you're probably noticing how benevolent, uh, the Atlas society is, so, uh, that's part of it. Speaker 9 00:59:20 Well, that's why I'm a contributor, and I think everyone should, so go to the Atlas Society dot Oregon. You can do a one-time donation, or folks, you can do a, a monthly reoccurring one. So that's, I think everyone should Speaker 0 00:59:36 That's right. Thank you very much for that, Connie. And, and speaking of, uh, upcoming events, uh, Richard Tuesday at 8:00 PM Eastern, you've got a great morals and markets planned about the F T X scam and what effective altruism means in action. And then, uh, Wednesday at 4:00 PM Eastern the Atlas Society asks Peter Warrell, co C e o at Bigelow, l l c, uh, we've got a lot happening this year, our Gugul Summit in July, our gala in Miami. We hope you're around to be part of it. And, uh, this was a great session. I only got to ask one question from the, uh, Scott, do you mind if Speaker 10 01:00:14 I ask a question? Speaker 0 01:00:16 Sorry. Unfortunately, Speaker 10 01:00:17 We, I couldn't find my phone there. I, I misplaced it. Uh, I'll definitely be in the next room though, cuz this is, uh, an important question, I think. Speaker 0 01:00:27 Okay, well good. Well, uh, you know, we have something every, uh, Tuesday at 4:00 PM Eastern, a happy hour, and, uh, we're hosting at least three or four of these with the scholars a month. So there will be, uh, opportunities for you to get a chance to ask. Speaker 10 01:00:42 Perfect. Richard, can you look into what would happen if, uh, Saudi Arabia started selling, um, oil in other currencies? Um, what the repercussions of that would be? Um, and, and that will be the question that I'll ask, uh, in the next opportunity. Speaker 1 01:00:56 Yes, that's a good question. We'll address it in the future. I've, I've discussed that before. That's a good one. Speaker 0 01:01:00 Good thanks. Very, very nice tease for next time. Well, thanks everyone for participating and we'll see you on the next one. Thank Speaker 1 01:01:08 You, Scott. Thank you, Scott. David, Jennifer.