Young people are idealistic. They want to believe in some kind of ideal and
I think the left is very good. They've got this suit, this bizarre
notion of what socialism can do if we get it just right this time.
And the right has some idealism in religion and socially. I think it's less
attractive to young people, but you know, maybe when Jordan Peterson tells them
to make their bed, that's attractive. But we need we need an We
need to be idealistic. We need to portray a beautiful picture of the future.
What we do a lot, and we're very good at, is complaining.
We complain about the world today. We complain about the present, we
complain about the government, we complain about the culture. But we are not
very good at projecting our ideal and projecting what is possible and giving people the
tools to live the best life that they can do. So today we are
discussing how to make classical liberalism mainstream again. It's obvious that modern politics is
dominated by leftists and conservative movements, but there is little place for the classical
liberal ideas, or what I would call maybe the true liberal ideas. Right,
I think one of the reasons. One of the obvious reasons is that
in general, most people don't really know what classical liberalism is and why it
could be a viable alternative in modern politics for the mainstream, for the dominant
ideologies. So could you please explain very shortly, what is the essence of
classical liberal ideas, how it differs from modern dominant ideologists, and how to
revise if its place in the society. The society is awareness soviet. So
I think classical liberalism almost purposefully is not a very very clearly defined term,
but it is an emphasis in political discussion on liberty, on individual liberty,
on individual freedom. It is the idea, broadly speaking, that the government
should be limited, should be limited primarily to protecting our lives and our property.
It should be primarily focused. I think, in the best interpretation of
classical liberalism, it should be a focused on the protection of individual rights properly,
properly defined, and properly understood, and that generally the government should leave
individuals free to pursue their own lives, free to start their own businesses a
contract with other people. It should protect property rights, protect contract rights.
It should provide for the national defense and police force in the judiciary. But
beyond that, classical liberals tend to be skeptical about anything else that the government
does. Some of us would like there to be a complete ban under the
government doing anything else, but classical liberals generally have wanted small and limited government.
I think part of the part of the reason the classical liberalism is less
known today is that many of these liberal parties of a long time ago and
a says, sold their soul to the devil. They compromised and compromised and
compromised and compromised to the point where they merged into a left or merged into
the conservative movement. They didn't stick to their principles. They didn't uphold this
idea of limited limited government to some you know, at some point there was
a crisis and some people needed help, so the government helped them. And
then the crisis maybe there's another group that needed help, and then they helped
got institutionalized, and we got a welfare state, and the liberals didn't really
fight against the welfare state. And then and then maybe there was some business
crisis and the states at all we better regulate that because businessmen are behaving badly,
and the liberals didn't adamantly object, and then that expanded slowly, and
slowly the liberals kind of lost the passion about fighting over this. So I
think for the public, they just really haven't experienced classical liberal ideas in any
kind of organized, systematic way. They're not familiar with them because much of
the older liberal ideology kind of faded away as the liberals, as the liberal
agenda was compromised, and indeed, in the United States, it got so
bad that ultimately the left stole the term liberal. Yeah, and today when
you say liberal in America, everybody thinks you're talking about the left. And
so if they object to the left, they object to liberalism, and then
what are they left with? Kind of a conservative right. So there's a
lot of confusion about the term. There's a lot of confusion about its history,
and ultimately there's a lot of confusion about what it really stands for.
And this is where I think the biggest problem lies with classical liberalism. What
is it? What do we actually believe in? Yeah, I think we
will get back. There's a problem of the dark part of me. But
do you have any ideas about how to solve this problem? You know,
Well, I think I think there are two things that have to be done,
and any solution I give you is not going to be a short term
solution, and any solution I give you is not a silver bullet that everything
changes instantaneously. I think the first is we need to be clear about what
classical liberal is is and what it stands for. And I think we need
to boast its defenses. We need to boast its philosophical foundations. For example,
classical liberalism is traditionally has always been a dominant primarily of political philosophy,
but political phillosophy rests on other branches of philosophy. It rests on certain foundations,
small foundations, epistemological foundations. I think to really dominate, we need
a consistent moral and epistemological philosophy. We need a set of ideas that are
not just economic and not just political, a set of ideas that don't just
involve Yeah, we get a higher GDP, and yes, I value freedom,
but I know other people don't value freedom. How do I get them
to value freedom? Well, getting people to value freedom has more to do
with morality and more to do with philosophy for their own life and what kind
of life they want to live, then it has to do with economics and
politics. So I think we need to engage in much more with a cultural
debate about what people should live for, how to live, what lives are
worth while living, and and and become an advocates of human reason, for
example, because I don't think I give you a quick example, right,
Plato the philosopher believed that most people lived in this cave ideas, this cave
analogy, and we see shadows in the wall, and we don't know reality,
and we can't know reality, and we can't know truth, and in
a sense, we can't take care of ourselves. Only the philosopher can exit
the cave that we're in and see the actual reality, the sunshine, the
world of forms, as he advises, So only the philosopher knows the truth.
Now, if that's true, if that's epistemologically true, me and you
can't see reality, only the philosopher where they can see it, then freedom
is useless to us because we can't we can't discover truth, we can't discover
how to live. We have to just listen to him. Every authoritarian regime
in history is basically based on this Platonic idea. We have to be willing
to challenge that, not just politically, not just emotionally, but also philosophically
and say, no, we believe in reason. We believe every individual has
the capacity to reason. Every individual has the capacity to discover truth, discover
his own values, knows what to do with his life. And therefore what
we need is freedom so that individuals can pursue their happiness, not so that
we can maximize GDP as many people do, right, many classical the bust
tend to do, but so that individuals can actually live the fullest, most
complete life that they can, and they have the capability to do that because
all beings of reason, man is the rational animal. Let me elaborate a
little bit on the issue of truth and maybe put it a little bit differently,
right, So, I think part of the problem with statism and with
intrusive ideologists in general is maybe even the obsession with the idea of truth,
which is not necessarily the same as truth. You know, But I think
for classical liberals, part of the idea is that, you know, many
issues, on many issues, truth is subjective, right, or on many
issues we don't even have truth, right, So I know you represent an
ideology which is called objectivism. So it may sound kind of, you know,
mutually exclusive. But on the other hand, I think if you really
value truth or value like the most important principles in life, so to say,
you have to be a little bit minimalistic right about this principle. So
this is where we disagree and where if I'm as a disagree often with classics.
So I think there's a real difference between dogma and truth. Yeah,
I think there's a huge difference between being dogmatic and being a truth seeker.
But I consider myself a truth seeker, and I think good people seek the
truth. I seek a truth to my own life. I want to know,
for example, what is really good for me now. I know that
sometimes I'm going to make mistakes. Truth is not reason is not infallible.
We're gonna make mistakes. But I'm looking for what's right and what's just and
what's true. I want to know that in the physical world, I want
to know, you know, I disagree with hum This is a mug and
that is water and I am drinking it. There's it's not a probability shit
thing. This is certainty. This is truth, and I think that that
that human for example, and others other classical liberals who would become skeptics,
and it becomes skeptics partially as a defense mechanism against the truth of communism or
the truth of authoritarianism. I think that's a mistake, and I think it
opens the door up to kind of the subjective is left. So my values
are my level of my truth, with forgot to my values of mine in
that sense, they're subjective, right, you know what how much I value
what a versus coke? Only I know you can't tell me what's right regard
to that. But whether this is a mug or not, that's an absolute
truth that both of us should be able to agree on. Truth is really
really important, and having a mechanism to discover truth is really really important,
and understanding the process of discovering truth is really really important. And that freedom
part of the reason we want to be free, so that we could go
on and discover what's true. But what's good. But we can't force people
to have That's why it's not dogs right, right, So you can't.
So this is the opposition to a Catholic church that buds people at the stake,
or that puts Galileo on the house arrest because he's searching for the truth.
People can be wrong about stuff. I can disagree with them, they
might be right. I might be wrong. Absolutely. Politically, we are
free to and we can't impose truth and other people, but we certainly can
advise people. I certainly want my doctor to be able to tell me I
think this is the treatment. I think this is the right treatment. I
think this is true in that sense. I might get a second opinion,
But I hope that medical science comes up with truths because I want to live
long and I want them to be able to cure diseases, and that require
science and truth. So I'm a huge believer in science and truth. What
I don't believe is imposing any of that on other people. People have to
discuss. Indeed, it's not truth if it's imposed on you. That's one
of the things that philosophically is important. If you accept something because somebody told
it to you, it's it's not true for you. It's just it's just
something you accepted. It's just it's it's subjective, it's completely arbitrary. I
want people to have to embrace the mechanism of truth discovery, which is human
reason, And I think classical liberalism needs to embraceist it needs to embrace the
fact that you know that free markets is that they work, is true,
and it's it's not questionable, it's not you can be a skeptic about this.
That we all the facts line up. They all line up for the
cause of freedom. So I think efpistemology is really important. Having a theory
of knowledge is really important. In having a theory of knowledge that leads to
actual discoveries about the world is crucial for liberty. To continue with the issue
of why modern classical liboralism is weak. So obviously it's mostly associated with libertarians
nowadays. And what do you agree that libertarianism tends to attract for whatever reasons,
many people who are dogmatic or radical, and who in turn radicalize or
make this ideology more dogmatic appear make it appear more dogmatic to most of the
people. So what are the reasons behind that? And what's the possible solution?
So I think a couple of things. Yeah, I mean, I
actually like the word radical, so as I embrace the word radical, I
think dogmatic is a bad word, but radical means consistent and radical means which
I like that would, But I do think it's dogmatic. I do think
a lot of people attracted to it. I think a lot of people who
embrace these ideas don't fully understand them, don't internalize them into their own life.
At the end of the day, I always ask people why do you
want to be free? And if you hesitate and you're not sure how to
answer that, there's a problem. You haven't internalized the value freedom, and
it can be I just want to do whatever the hell I want. It
has to be a real value to you. Why do you want to be
free? I know why I want to be free because I want the opportunity
to live the best life possible to me. I want to pursue happiness.
And the more freedom is the want opportunities they are for me to pursue happiness
for me, and I want to live the most flourishing, successful life I
can. Freedom is one of the prerequisites for that. Um so so,
I think a lot of people have not internalized, that have not made it
personal, don't understand it, and the theory is in a sense of floating
abstraction, and they've studied the theory it looks true to them. It all
connects, you know, kind of logically, but they haven't really seen it
in reality, brought it into their own lives and understand how it's connected to
life and and human human existence and human survival and young people. It's almost
inevitable the young people would be dogmatic, right because you just don't have their
life experience. I was, and no question when I read I ran for
the first time. I was on a crusade. I was going to convince
everybody and kind of a you know, hit the head with a hammer kind
of way. And then as you as you go, well, then you
you you you you learn how to convince people, how to how to debate
people, but also you learn that my goal in life is not convince them.
A goal in life is first to understand and to live a good life
and to study the ideas, and convincing others is something you do later,
and you certainly don't achieve anything by throwing a hammer at their head right at
being being obnoxious and being nasty. I think the other problem that exists in
libertarianism is I think, at some point, and I think I think the
point is really more you off bad more than anybody else. At some point
libertarianism takes a off ramp off of the liberal highway, if you will,
and it goes off in a direction of what I consider an ideology is that
that's anti ethical to classical liberal and and and I think to reason and that
is the idea of the anarchy. I think anarchy is a disaster. I
think anarchy is counter to liberalism in classical sense, it's counter to freedom.
Anarchy devolves, it must evolve logically and existentially in reality into gang warfare and
violence. It always has, it always will. There's a reason why in
the culture anarchy is a negative term. It's chaos. Chaos is not a
good thing. And I think I think one of the things that classical liberals,
like the Founding Fallows that make understood, and I think that iran understood,
is that government is not a necessary evil. Government is a necessarily good.
Government creates the conditions for human flourishing. If it's the right kind of
government, and what we're limited and it's limited by the principle of individual rights.
If it's limited by their principle, it's a necessary good. Civilization can
exist without some entity. You don't like the world government, call it something
else. I don't care. But some entity that has the monopoly over the
use of ittalitory force only uses force in retaliation to protect, never to violate
people's rights, And that is what creates the conditions from market stable. It
creates the conditions for people to experiment with aught to experiment with their personal lives,
maybe sex, marriage, who knows, but it provides the conditions and
that make all that possible without violence, without force, without coersion from other
people. Anarchy rejects all that, and I think creates a condition where human
floishing is impossible. And I think that too many young libertarians attracted to this
I can do anything I want to do kind of an emotionalist attitude, and
they get the logical, abstract sequence that Rothbart or somebody else lays out,
and they never connect it to actual reality. And an actual reality doesn't work.
So you would probably mostly agree with Robert Nozick on his defense of the
minimal state. I mostly do. I would do it a little differently,
and man does it at differently, but in spirit absolutely I agree. So
maybe another issue is that maybe libertarians are failing really to communicate their empathy to
most of people, like it seems like a very anti empathic, so to
say, ideology because maybe partly because libertarians refuse to engage with many important issues
such as environment in many cases, like some of them do engage, but
many don't, and many people that have this kind of perception that they just
don't care, you know, and they're just bad people who only think about
themselves, etc. Etc. So what would it be your response to that?
Well, I think that a proper political movement has to have answers to
all the questions they could serve people. Whether it's whether it's questions like environmentalism
or the ament, or whether it's questions like what to do about the poor,
which always comes up when you're discussing these things. You have to have
an answer. The answer might not be the most pleasing answer always, but
you have to have an answer, and you have to have a program.
Environmentalism is a good example. I think libertarianism has a lot of interesting things
to say, can have or free market ideologies. Classical liberalism can have a
lot of interesting things to say while not negating the fundamental principles of property rights,
while not negating the fundamental principles of a limited government that's limited to the
protection of individual rights one. Then what one needs to do is frame the
environmental debate in the context of individual rights, in the context of you know,
something happening in an environment that actually does me harm. Well, then
if something's harming me, then the government has a rule to play, and
then we have to figure out exactly what will under what conditions. And it
can be complex. It might not be straightforward. Now, obviously the simple
way that the simplest way to deal with it. Most environmental issue, but
not all of them, is private property. The more private property we have,
the few environmental issues we have. And the reason for that is simple.
We know, we've got a thousand years of common law history that says
you can drop your garbage in my backyard. Well, if everything is somebody's
backyard, yea, even things like lakes and rivers and oceans and stuff.
And we can't find ways to privatize these things, and we have, you
know, in the history we have done things like this, then we can
we can explain to people how, you know, having water rights solves a
lot of the water cleanliness issues and the same, but there are issues that
go beyond that. For example, is very difficult to conceptualize in terms of
property rights. I'm breeding something that you're polluting, what do we do about
that? And their harm is an issue if if I'm harmed by something you're
doing. We know that if you blast your stereo really, really loud in
the middle of the night, I can sue you. Even in the lazare
capitalist world, I can sue you. You don't have a right to intrude
on my on my sleep like that. Well, you don't have a right
to throw your snide or whatever they are. And and so you go to
courts. You you know, you you you have some conclusion about the damage
that this does to people. The government has a world to look at that
and see whom it looks like these particular chemicals are really damaging to human life.
They have their ability, they have I think the obligation then to either
reduce their use or to bann them, or to do something in that limited
way in the name of protecting your rights. But I just want to give
one counter example, because this is it's a dangerous field. Imagine in the
middle of the nineteenth century, You're in London, the industrial evolution is happening.
Everybody's burning coal. Everybody people are burning coal in their homes, people
are burning coal in the factories. The air is full of black stuff.
You're gonna get some of you are going to get some of us are going
to get sick. Do we stop the industrial evolution? Do we ban cole
at that point? Or do we realize that maybe people are getting sick but
overall, something important is happening here and we need to let it play out
for a while at least, and then maybe clean it up. But we
need to play it out. China faces the same face, I think,
the same challenge. If development requires some pollution for a while, but the
value of development, the value of becoming rich, the value of bringing a
billion people out of poverty is huge, Well, maybe we can tolerate some
pollution for a while and then clean it up. So these are the kind
of issues that need to be thought through, and I think governments need to
need to be involved in thinking through. But there's real danger of stopping progress
before it happens if you do, if you overdo it, if you exceed
the limits. Sure. So basically we agree that there is a place for
or regulating pollution or other environmental factors because of the need to protect individual liberty
and because of the need to protect property rights. So yeah, of course,
But concerning your example, I think you've really touched on another crucial issue
here, because many libertarians really have this kind of approach where they just don't
want to weigh pro and con factors. They just want to to have this
simplistic answer where where they say, you know, if it's noise, why
why are you talking about noise? Are you a socialist or something like that.
You know, I've heard these kind of arguments, or you know,
somebody can just go in the street and shoot all around him unless he hits
you. You know. But but it's obvious from the scientific or truth perspective
that if there's somebody running around with a gun and just shooting, you know,
there is a chance that he will meet you. And my freedom to
some extent includes the freedom to be protected from that risk, right absolutely.
So I mean, take a simple example. Certainly a gun would would qualify.
But let's say somebody is driving on the private streets, but they're driving
in a way that is clearly endangering people. Right, Maybe they're driving fab,
but not just fast. They're swerving and they're cutting off people, and
they're going to kill somebody there's absolutely the role of our police force, of
of of a law to say irresponsible driving, harmful driving, and you have
to make it objective and you have to be careful. Again, not to
give the state too much power, but yes, risk is a fact that
let's say you're an extra construction site. I believe there should be no regulations
of construction. You know, let the market work. But you notice that
the crane is tilted and it looks like it's going to fall and on your
house. Can you call the police, Well, of course you can.
There's a real risk. And then a police send an inspective in and say,
you know what, you guys, your crane, you've got it wrong.
You need you need to fix it. So the risk real risk again,
and you have to be careful and you have to be objective, and
we have to be truthful. Real risk is a concern. It is something
a real threat is a concern, and it's something that a threat of life
and a threat of property. Just like today, if I threaten you,
right, I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna do something. The police can
stop it. And I think that's completely legitimate. It goes beyond speech at
that point. Now, it's a it's it turns into a physical threat when
a physical threats faced, whether it's through pollution or whether it's through a crane
that's tilted, or whether it's to somebody driving drunk. Absolutely, I think
the state has a role to play, and we should think very carefully and
how to make those laws and make them limited and make them limited individual rights
again, and how to protect But absolutely I think this idea of anything goes
is very dangerous. And we know what happens when anything goes. When you
get the chaos of anything goes, people demand order, and the order then
is provided by a strong band the order. You know, anarchy will always
devolve into authoritative in it. So, since we've already criticized anarchy, and
we've you know, stated that some libertarians have excessively restrictive view of the role
of the government, maybe it's at this point not obvious to some of the
listeners. Then what is the essence of our problem with the status you know,
like with with the left or with the conservatives, Because at one on
one hand, obviously there is place for involvement in the environment and you know,
things like that, but on the other there are still lots of areas
where there is no need for state involvement whatsoever, and where modern states are
increasingly involved. So I don't think of it is there's there's a place for
the goverment to be involved in my environment. I think of it is there's
a there's always a place for the state to be involved when life is threatened,
When life is exactly that's what, it's a real threat. For example,
I don't think there's any role of government in welfare, So what to
do about the poor? Nothing, The government has nothing to do with that.
Um. But if I'm running at you with a knife, yes,
the state is there to protect me. And if I'm throwing siginide in your
face, yes the state is supposed to protect me. So when life is
threatened, when property is threatened, or when life is attacked or property is
attacked, that's when the state gets intervened. Whether that attack is through the
air, yeah, that's climate, or whether it's it's another way. And
of course, what what defines the modern left and the modern right is there
are no limits exactly on the state power. The modern left is obsessed with
redistributing wealth and using what I produced to help other people and taking my wealth
and redistributing it to others. And of course I'm controlling what businessmen do and
how they do it, and what they do in central planning, in the
idea that they can plan everything. But even when it comes to the environment,
they believe that the environment is an end in itself. It's not only
an issue of threats towards us, but we have to protect snails, and
we have to protect this, and we have to protect that because they have
a value in and of themselves. They have an intrinsic value that does not
relate to human beings. The government should only be involved where humans are involved.
The government should only be involved in protecting human life, nothing more than
that. And there is no intrinsic value in nature. Value is something that
comes from human beings. We value nature, You value nature, you love
for us. By some I think there are even more obvious examples, like
modern states like Georgia or any European state for that matter, are heavily involved
in education, in culture, in sports, you know, like why,
because I mean, there nobody's gonna die if we don't have a volleyball team.
More than that, I think by by by having a volleyball team.
You're denying somebody the capital to have what he wants to have exactly. And
and yes, education, I mean the how is a public education are well
known, but more than that, there's they are now. One of the
reasons people don't know about classical liberalism, maybe it is because the state is
running an educational system and they have no interest in they're knowing about it.
So, yes, the government is involved in everything. I think. I
think one of the worst things is the environment because I think it's all encompassing.
They use it to regulate everything else. But I agree education healthcare.
Europeans love this socialized healthcare with the state is telling you what medicines to take.
The state is telling you what treatments to get um and and this is
where the right comes in. Right, the right is a little bit more
sympathetic in economics. Okay, you can do your thing in economics a little
bit. But they want to regulate culture. They want Georgia to be Georgian,
and they want to regulate immigration, and they want to make the movement
of goods and services and people and capital. They want to regulate they you
know, they want the national sports team or whatever. So the conservatives have
given in a lot to the left on economics. It's interesting how the debate
between the left and right has changed over the last few years. It used
to be mainly about economics. Now it's mainly about culture, and that the
battlegrounds have shifted. Basically, the rights conservatives have given up on economics.
They've given into the left. The state can do anything in economics now.
Uh. And and now the fight is about I don't know, LGBTQ,
right, that's where the fight is. It's not about regulations or anything like
that. But yes, iron Rand said once, the left, because it's
Marxist, is materialist. Therefore they care about the material world. Therefore they
want to control and regulate the economy. They don't believe in the spiritual world,
so they don't care what you do in your bedroom. They don't care
how you behave. Generally, they leave you alone in the spiritual world.
The right not even not to anymore. But it wasn't the old left right,
and then the old right didn't care about the material world because there's an
afterlife, right, So the material world doesn't matter. So, yeah,
you can do your capitalism if you want. It's kind of grubby and we
don't really like it. But you can do your trade and your free markets.
But the spiritual world that's important. What you do in bed, that's
really important. Said that we want to regulate. What's interesting about the modern
left and right is now they both care about everything, and they want to
regulate everything, and they want to control everything, and they don't want to
leave us even a little bit of freedom. That's why we talk about an
opportunity for the classical liberalism. Now is the time, I think the left
and the right of proving themselves to be completely bankrupt. People are starting to
get it that there's something really really wrong in the culture, something really really
really wrong in the economy. The economy is approaching bankruptcy in the West.
The culture is approaching bankruptcy in the West. Now is the time to offer
an alternative, and I think I think the alternatives you know, and the
way to do that is there no shortcuts here. The way to do that
is educate, educated, educated, educate, teach people about this alternative.
Teach people about freedom, Teach people about the value of freedom to their own
life, Teach people about the value to the culture and to the economy of
freedom. And we need to We need to talk talk, talk, educated,
educa educate and get the word out. They write books, write articles,
do podcasts, do videos, do whatever we can to get a clear,
consistent and this is where again and for truth right, a consistent message
of the value of liberty without denying real issues and real problems and real challenges,
and how in presenting we need to present solutions. But I think there
we are facing another huge challenge beyond education, because you know, the way
democracy is structured, unless it's very restrained by constitution, is that, you
know, politicians can spend money essentially, and if you can spend money,
you can sell ideas about the ways of spending that money. So one problem
is that we don't have any limitation on where the state can get involved,
you know. But the other problem is that the state has no limit on
the amount of resources it controls, right, sure, So so it's an
upheal battle. It's very difficult for us. I would say that this is
a reason why I think the most powerful tool we have today beyond the ideas
that we have is the web, is the Internet. I mean, it
doesn't cost as much to get onto the Internet, doesn't as much to produced
videos. I mean, they're people producing videos and making a lot of money
off of just iPhones and stuff. It doesn't it doesn't require the kind of
capital and resources to educate people like it did in the past past, thet
a study, university at a study. Now you can do everything online,
so I think, I mean, I find it disappointing that people who advocate
for free markets have not better utilized and better capitalized on the existence of the
Internet and no ability to communicate ideas to large numbers of people at a marginal
cost of close to zero. And uh, and we've left even these channels
too. I'd say the right is pretty good at it, you know,
the Jordan Peterson's the bit of pewers of the world. And then and of
course the left does us a good at it. And where is where's our
Jordan Peterson, where's our capturing the imagination of people? Where's us using this
new medium to communicate effectively with the world and inspire. That's the other thing
we need. And this is something I think that's really important. Young people
are idealistic, they want to believe in some kind of ideal and I think
the left is very good. They've got this suit, this bizarre notion of
what socialism can do if we get it just right this time. And the
right has some idealism in religion, and so I think it's less attractive to
young people. But you know, maybe when Jordan Peterson tells them to make
their bed, that's attractive. But we need we need to be idealistic.
We need to portray a beautiful picture of the future. What we do a
lot, and we're very good at, is complaining. We complain about the
world today, we complain about the present, we complain about the government,
we complain about the culture. But we are not very good at projecting our
ideal and projecting what is possible and giving people the tools to live the best
life that they can do. Again, I think this is one of our
Man's strengths because she wrote novels, she told stories, stories would project I
think a particularly philosophical ideal that I think young people respond to. It's why
she's so popular among young people. But we need to do a much better
effort on every fund from economics all the way to morality and projecting and an
ideal and exciting people and getting them excited and passionate about the future. That
this free market classical liberal ideology can lead to I think you've touched on a
very important point, which is how to attract young people. And I would
even specify that we really need to attract creative people. You know, and
you've mentioned Jordan Peterson. Even Jordan Peterson is a part of this problem with
the left right dichotomy because you've probably heard the way he describes liberals versus conservatives.
His vision is that, you know, like liberalist liberals are in her
this creative types, and conservatives are order oriented types. This is liberals in
the American sense. Yeah, exactly. That's the problem because when Jordan Peterson
talks about liberals versus conservatives, he really talks about leftists versus conservatisms, and
he doesn't see a place for true liberals there. Yeah, but he's also
wrong. I mean, it's also wrong because the reality is, if you
look at who is a strong leftist in the United States, it's not just
the creative types. It's lawyers, and it's it's successful people. I mean,
that's the sad thing. Smart people, smartest successful people attracted liberalism for
all kinds of reasons. Liberalism and Americans, the left, leftist partially because
they've rejected religion and and and because they they taught that this is techotomy.
If you're religious, you're you know, that's conservatives, So you don't want
to be that. So all they've got is kind of this exact And partially
because the right rejects science and rejects I think, seeking truth in this world,
they tend to go left, you know, So I think, yes,
we definitely need creative types. If you know what, I also think
we need Nobel prizes in physics. Imagine a Nobel Prize and physicists, you
know the Nobel Price speech talking about the liberty to think and to use his
reason on problems that may be the conventional wisdom that you know. This is
what I mean by I think what a broader vision of what liberty and freedom
mean and how they apply to individual life and how they can inspire individual people.
Because the kind of thinking that leads us to say entrepreneurs should be allowed
to start any company they want without asking permission also says to the scientist,
you can explore any venture you want without asking for permission and without the government
dictating. We're now on this is a hot thing, so we'll give only
money to that. So it's it's we need people in all fields. I
think the most important ones a creative fields. Arts. I think is aesthetics
is crucial. The reason I don't think we would have had any enlightenment without
our innascence, right, So you have to have the art, maybe even
before you have the more ideological part of it. So what we need we
need sculptures and painters and musicians and novelists and video makers and moviemakers, um.
And then I think we need educators. We need a lot of educators.
We need people who can teach and educate people, whether they do it
online or whether they create their own schools, or whether they create alternatives.
We need scientists. We need to link our vision to science because because I
think science is an incredibly powerful tool and a good tool. Again, I
think part of the part of the damage libertarians are doing in the post COVID
era, if you will, is blaming scientists for what happened, and and
and and maybe some scientists need to be blamed. They made mistakes, right
and and some of them, some of them just but to blame science to
wrap it all up, and we don't want, you know, scientists well,
scientists have an important world to play, and they tell us something about
the physical world that we didn't know, that we don't know. Not all
of us can know these things. Not everybody's the epidemiologist, even though everybody
is an amateur epidemologist these days, among among conservatives and the materials in particular,
we need experts. We need scientists, let's not throw that out.
So we need a whole We need young people, we need idealists, we
need passionate people. We need people to understand how important freedom is to their
own lives and understand it. What they really want is to make their lives
the best life that they can live exactly. So, I think if we
were more successful at disassociating classical legoralism from conservatism and from anarchy, we would
attract more creative types, because this is the ideology of freedom right completely.
And even with your example about London in the nineteenth century, I think there
is the answer to the issue why we need scientists, you know, because
to weigh the pros and cons to weigh the risks, you have somebody to
calculate that right roughly speaking, right, and we're living in it right now.
I mean somebody has to calculate the risk of climate change. Yeah.
Somebody has to calculate the risk of not using fossil fuels. Yeah. And
and somebody has to give us at least a vision about what is possible in
so of alternatives. Yeah, the common man, most of us can do
it. I don't know what those all of them and get eat up about
it. I'm educated somewhat about it. But those somebody has to provide do
the lab work that is necessary to provide data so that we know what we're
doing. So absolutely, I think we need I think the classical levels need
to separate themselves from from the right. I think they've been associated with the
right, with very negative element within the right, you know, and particularly
today with the rise of nationalism and the ways of authoritarian rights and the rise
of a of a kind of a kind of paleo right, and it's very
dangerous I think for those those who believe in freedom to be associated with them.
And of course I think it's easier to disassociate with the left, but
we should make sure that we're not lumped in together with because maybe we use
the word liberal sometimes lumped together with the left. We need to define all
of the space. We are the advocates of liberty and freedom and individual rights
and limited government. Sure, So to wrap it up, let's talk a
little bit about the history how we got here. Right, So, obviously
founding fathers of the US they had their own flaws, there were different people.
But on the other hand, I would guess that they simply didn't envision
all the potential risks which would come with technological progress, which would come with
democracy, because you know, like there was not much evidence about democracy back
in seventeen seventy six. Right, Well, they wrote about democracy. So
Madison writes about democracy, and he warns us about democracy, and he says,
democracy, we are not creating a democracy in America. Democracy is a
bad thing. Democracy is always devolved into majoritarian rule where the majority oppresses the
minority. It's why ultimately we have a Bill of Rights in the American constitutions.
So they were very aware of the risk of democracy. But you're right,
they didn't know all the risks. I mean, in that'sry evolution.
We hadn't started yet, the kind of progress hadn't existed. They didn't understand
all of its We have now two hundred and fifty years of experience. We
know what the flaws are with the Constitution. We could do a much better
job, I think. But I'd say the deeper flaws with the founders.
And they were philosophical, intellectual And again I'm not blaming them because again they
were writing the Seven the seventies. Uh, they only knew what they knew.
But the reality is that that America is founded on on on a certain
ideology of quicksand of you know, they weren't quite willing to give up the
I find out a foundation that is laid in uh in religion. Um,
so they were man an enlightenment that said religion should be in your home.
But they didn't really have an alternative methodology for for for living, for values,
for morality, for discovering truth. So they are They're conflicted, man,
And that I think ultimately is in UH. Is in the is in
the founding. This is why I think to some extent they feel responsible for
the common good. And therefore Thomas Jefferson gets involved in public education very very
quickly because it's for the common good. Whereas I think we understand that there
is no such thing as the common good. There's the good of individuals that
you can aggregate in some sense, but there's know, we're not targeting the
common good. We're targeting the good for individuals, and were in the good
for individual as a as as as the best within an individual is to be
free, and we're leaving people free. And some people would abuse that some
people ruin their lives because they free. But also maybe to give a particular
example, like the US was founded on literally on the opposition to the exhaustive
taxation, right, So but they probably probably it was hard for them to
envision that we would have states like controlling fifty percent of the GDP. Yeah,
but they you know, but from the beginning, they had they had
tariffs from the beginning. They they struggled with how to balance this idea that
they knew taxes or somehow bad cousion and force and with the needs of the
state. And they struggled with their taxes were very low in the beginning.
But you know, maybe they couldn't predict the fifty percent, but maybe tens
it crept up quite dramatically. Of course, they were founded on the on
the great contradiction of slavery, and that should have been a real indication that
something was going to give something was a problem here. But you know,
they gave the government the right to coin money. They gave the government the
ability to do things that I don't think government needs to do or should do.
That open up a Pandora's box in terms of violation of rights. Maybe
not now, but as we move forward. You know, they found the
beginning banking, for examples, regulated in America. So as good as they
were, and they were about as good as any political group of people ever
were, they didn't know, they couldn't predict. We now have a lot
more data, We have a lotable knowledge. We also have I think better
ideas. Again I will mention I'm mad because I think she's a key figure
in some ways in completing the philosophical mission of the Enlightenment, in solidifying our
defensive reason and solidifying our defense of this idea, pursuit of happiness, of
individualism. And we have a lot more capabilities today to a create a better
constitution, but also just to educate people about life in a way that would
pose less of a threat to whatever govern we instudent. Let's remember that no
matter how strong the constitution is, if people don't want it, it won't
survive. So you know, when Franklin, I think it was Franklin walked
out or maybe Madison walked out of the Constitutional Hall, somebody asked him what
government did you give us, and he said, a republic if you can
keep it, right, and it's if you could keep it. And then
there's a phrase about eternal vigilance for the cause of liberty. We the people
always have to be vigilant. We the people always have to be But to
do that, we have to be educated about it. We have to commit
to it, we have to believe in it, we have to want it.
We have to want freedom. And that's where I think we need to
educate people and the value of freedom to their lives, to why it's good
for them to be free. Now, you know, we'd like to talk
about abstractions and demand supply and how does it affect my life? Well,
here's a whole menu of it affect your life in every aspect. Thank you
very much. I think what you just said summarizes our issue, our topic
pretty well. So thank you for finding time for this podcast. Thanks for
having me. Bye.