hello. i'm robert mackenzie at the harper library of the university of chicago, where again this week, a distinguished group of guests have come together to see and to discuss the latest film

in milton friedman series. free to choose is subject this week. is equality. is it a desirable or a possible goal for a society? what do we mean by the term equality among people? and has the phrase all men are created equal acquired a meaning which would not be approved by the founding fathers? well, judge as you see this week's film. from victorian novelist to

modern reformers, a favored device to stir our emotions is to contrast extremes of wealth and of poverty. we are expected to conclude that the rich are responsive both to the deprivations of the poor and that they are rich at the expense of the poor. whether it is in the slums of new delhi during the affluence of las vegas, it simply isn't fair that there should be any losers. life is unfair. there's nothing fair about one man being born blind and another man being born with sight. there's nothing fair about one man being born of a wealthy parent and one of an impecunious parent. there's nothing fair about muhammad ali having been born with a skill that enables him to make millions of dollars one night. there's nothing fair about marlene dietrich having great legs. we all want to watch. nothing fair about any of that.

but on the other hand, don't you think a lot of people who like to look at marlene dietrich slags benefited from nature's unfairness and producing them? marlene dietrich. what kind of a world would it be if everybody was an absolute identical duplex of anybody else? you might as well destroy the whole world and just keep one specimen left for a museum in the same way. it's unfair that muhammad ali should be a great fighter and should be able to earn millions. but wouldn't it be? would it not be even more unfair to the people who like to watch him? if you said that in the pursuit of some abstract ideal of equality, we're not going to let muhammad ali get more for one night's fight than the lowest man on the totem pole can get for a day's unskilled work on the docks. you could do that. but the result of that would be to deny people the opportunity to watch muhammad ali. i doubt very much that he would be willing to subject himself to

the kind of fight he's gone through if he were to get the pay of an unskilled doctor. this beautiful estate, it's manicured lawns, its trees, its shrubs was built by men and women who were taken by force in africa and sold as slaves in america. but then these kitchen gardens were planted intended by them to furnish food for themselves and their master. thomas jefferson. the squire of monticello. it was jefferson who wrote these words. we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. that among these are life. liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness. these words penned by thomas jefferson at the age of 33 when he wrote the declaration of independence, have served define a basic ideal of the united states throughout its history. much of our history has revolved about the definition and redefinition of the concept of equality. about the attempt to translate it into practice. what did thomas jefferson mean by the words all men are created equal. he surely did not mean that they were equal and or identical in what they could do, or in what they believed. after all, he was himself the most remarkable person. at the age of 26. he designed this beautiful house in monticello, supervised it to construct and indeed is said to have worked on it with his own hands. he was an inventor, a scholar,

an author, a statesman, governor of virginia, president of the united states, minister to france. he helped shape and create the united states. what he meant by the word equal can be seen in the phrase endowed by their creator to thomas jefferson. all men are equal in the eyes of god. they all must be treated as individuals who have each separately a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. of course, practice did not conform to the ideals in jefferson's life or an ours as a nation. he agonized repeatedly during his lifetime about the conflict between the institution of slavery and the fine words of the declaration.

yet during his whole life, he was a slave owner. this is the city palace in jaipur, the capital of the indian state of rogerstone. it's just one of the elegant houses that were built here 150 years ago by the prince, who ruled this land. there are no more princes, no more maharajas in india today. all titles were swept away by the government of india in its quest for equality. but as you can see, there are still some people here who live a very privileged life. instead of doing it for. the descendants of the maharajah

financed this kind of life partly by using other palaces as hotels for tourists, tourists who come to india to see how the other half lives. on this side of india, the exotic, glamorous side is still very real. everywhere in the world, there are gross inequalities of income and wealth. they offend most of us. a myth has grown up that free market capitalism increases such inequalities that the rich benefit at the expense of the poor. no. nothing could be further from the truth. wherever the free market has been permitted to operate, the ordinary man has been able to attain levels of living. never dreamed of before.

nowhere is the gap between rich and poor. nowhere are the rich richer and the poor poorer than in those societies that do not permit the free market to operate. whether they be feudal societies. where status determines position or modern centrally planned economies, where access to government determines position. central planning was introduced in india in considerable part in the name of equality. the tragedy is that after 30 years it is hard to see any sickness. elegant improvement in the lot of the ordinary person. ever since the end of world war two, british domestic policy has been dominated by the search for greater equality.

measure after measure has been adopted, designed to take from the rich and give to the poor. unfortunately, the results have been very different from those that were intended by the high minded people who are quite properly offended by the class structure that dominated britain for centuries. there have been vast redistribution of wealth, but it is very hard to say that the end result has been a more equitable distribution. instead, new classes of privileged have been created to replace or supplement the old the bureaucracy to secure in their jobs, protected against inflation, both when they work and after they retire. the trade unions, who profess to represent the most downtrodden workers, but who in fact consist of the highest paid laborers in the land, the aristocrats of the labor movement and the new

millionaires, the people who have been cleverest, most ingenious at finding ways around the rules, the regulations, the laws that have emanated from over their who have found ways to avoid paying tax on the income they have acquired to get their wealth and their money overseas beyond the hands of the tax collector. a vast reshuffling. yes. greater equity? hardly. oh well. can't get --. the hoody menu in school in the south of england is also a place of privilege. musically talented children from all over the world compete for a chance to come here to study.

and. much of the moral fervor behind the drive for equality comes from the widespread belief that it is not fair that some children should have a great advantage over others simply because they happen to have wealthy parents. of course it's not fair. but is there any distinction between the inheritance of property and the inheritance of one at first sight? looks very different. these youngsters have inherited wealth not in the form of bonds or stocks, but in the form of talent. that 15 year old is an accomplished cellist. his father is a distinguished violinist. it's no accident that most of

the children at this school come from musical families. the inheritance of talent is no different from an ethical point of view, from the inheritance of other forms of property, of bonds, of stocks, of houses, or a factories. yet many people resent the one, but not the other. or look at the same issues from the point of view of the parent. if you want to give your child a special chance, there are different ways you can do it. you can buy them an education. an education that will give him skills, enabling him to earn a higher income. or you can buy him a business. or you can leave him property. the income from which will enable him to live better. is there any ethical difference

between these three ways of using your property? or again, if the state leaves you any money to spend over and above taxes, should you be permitted to spend it on riotous living? but not permitted to leave it to your children? the ethical issues involved are subtle and complex. they are not to be resolved by resort to such simplistic formulas as fair shares for all. indeed, if you took that seriously, it's the youngsters with less musical skill, not those with more who should be sent to this school in order to compensate for their inherited disorder vantage.

courage is coming out now. i wanted to mention that highway closed and have nothing back roads to go and thankfully it is going to be nothing. and i used to say nothing. nothing. 320 on side roads and one sixth. all right, against a marker one to make the double sided area. when the evening started, all of these players had about the same number of chips in front of them. but as the play progressed, they surely didn't. someone some lost. by the end of the evening, some

of them will have big pile of chips. others will have small ones. they'll be big winners. there'll be big losers. in the name of equality, should the winnings be redistributed to the losers so that everybody ends up where he started? that would take all the fun out of the game. even the losers wouldn't like that. they might like it tonight, but would they come back again to play if they knew that whatever happened, they'd end up exactly where they had started. we're only one phone away from double jackpot time when we're in the double jackpot. i've watched double jackpot for a number of years, but i'd have just. bought after the countdown. when you hear the what does las vegas have to do with the real

world? a great deal more than you might think. it's one very important part of our life in highly concentrated form every day, all of us are making decisions that involve gambles. sometimes they're big gambles as when we decide what occupation to pursue or whom to marry more often there are small gambles. as one, we decide whether to cross the street against the traffic. but each time the question is who shall make the decision? we or somebody else we can make the decision only if we bear the consequences. that's the economic system that has transformed our society in the past century and more. that's what gave the henry ford the thomas alva edison's, the christian barnard's, the incentives to produce the miracles that have benefited us all. it's what gave other people the incentive to provide them with the finance for their ventures. of course, there were lots of

losers along the way. we don't remember their names, but remember they went in with their eyes open. they knew what they were doing. and win or lose, we society benefited from their willingness to take a chance. lanzmann ollman has an idea. he's taking a chance. who knows? i suppose it's possible that we might all benefit from it. ondawhy he's taking a chance. he's doing just because he wants to get rich. this is his business headquarters in las vegas. empty. except for the idea that he shares with his partner, who will handle the production end of the venture when things really get going.

well, the idea is that if you have an oil spill in the ocean or in the river, you want to try and get it under control. what i'm going to simulate here is put some of this oil down. there's your oil spill of major proportions. now, this product. what i can do is unfortunately what i can't show you here is that if you put this product down with the application system, you ring the oil spill. such a manner. now, the application system will make it much finer and it'll control this. i don't know if you can see what's happening to the oil yet, but it's just literally being drawn into this stuff. and as i spread across the top now it's starting to draw it in.

i've got way more than i need. this controls like ten times its weight in oil, and it will not sink. it's been chemically treated. its cellulose. it's been chemically treated so that it will, in fact not do anything with the water. it hates water, but it loves oil. i don't know if you can see we have contained devices and that's what we're going to use this with now. you can see that it's just taken a very little amount of this oil absorbing product, which we call oil eater, to pick this up. now, the nice thing about it is that after that oil spill is there we have the system to do what i'm doing with my hand. and that's pick all this up. there's the oil out of the product. now, if you want the oil back,

that's not a big problem. if i can keep it all under control, the oil will come out. and there we go, allowing it. i don't know if you can see. all right, go. now, what i've done is i quit my regular job and i mortgaged everything. i've got an. and it's quite, quite a risk to do this. but the product works. you can see it works. and when it goes, i'm going to make millions. it's compatible with a lot of other products and a lot of other systems that are on the market. so the money factor is, is the main thing. it's the kind of thing that that when you see it, you want to take the risk. it's just the kind of thing, you know, you're going to make a lot of money. you know, people talk to me and

they'll say, yeah, but you're crazy. you don't have a job. you don't know where the next paycheck is going to come from. as a matter of fact, i think maybe i've got $10 in my pocket right now, but i don't worry about it because i get up in the morning and it's it's my world. i, i own it. i can sit back and say i'm losing or i can sit back and say i'm winning and i can go out and change the odds in my favor. people who are free make their own choices. these two men do a dangerous no easy, filthy job. they don't do it because they like it. they do it because it's well-paid. that's their choice. this young man has given up any thought of a steady, well-paid career in order to take a job on a golf course.

he wants to become a professional golfer. it's a big gamble, but it's one that he has decided to take. when people are free, they are able to use their own resources most effectively. and you have a great deal of productivity, a great deal of opportunity. the major beneficiaries are always a small man, the man who has power or who's at the top of a society. he's going to do well. whatever kind of a society you have. it's a society which gives a small man the opportunity to go his way, which is going to benefit him the most. and that is why if you ask where in the world do ordinary people have the greatest opportunity for themselves and their children? it's not in russia. it's not, on the other hand, in india. it's in places like the united states, like hong kong, like britain, as it was not so clearly britain as it is. for much of this century, the british have tried to use the law to impose equality with very

indifferent results. the failure of the drive for equality is not because the wrong measures were adopted, not because they were badly administered. not because the wrong people administered it. the failure is much more fundamental. it is because that drive goes against the most basic instinct of all human beings. in the words of adam smith, the uniform, constant and uninterrupted, the effort of every man to better his condition, to improve his own lot, and to make a better world for his children and his children's children. when the law interferes with that pursuit, everyone will try to find a way around. he will try to evade the law. he will break the law, or he will emigrate from the country. all of those things have happened in great britain.

there is no moral code that justifies laws fixing prices or fixing wages or preventing a man from earning a living unless he joins a union and submits himself to the discipline of the union, or forcing you to buy more expensive goods at home when cheaper goods are available from abroad. when the law prohibit things that most people regard as moral and proper, they are going to break the law. only fear of punishment, not a sense of justice, will cause them to obey the law. and when people start breaking one set of laws, there's a strong tendency for the lack of respect for the law to extend to all, even to those which everyone regards as moral and proper laws against violence, theft, vandalism, hard as it may be to blame the growth of crude criminality in britain. all this much to the drive for

equality. in addition, that has driven some of the ablest, best trained, most vigorous people out of britain, much to the benefit of the united states and other countries that have given them a greater opportunity to use their talents for their own benefit. and finally, who can doubt the effect which the drive for equality has had on efficiency and productivity? surely that is one of the main reasons why britain has fallen so far behind its continental neighbors the united states, japan and other countries in the improvement of the economic lot of the ordinary man. over the past 30 years, everywhere and at all times, economic progress has meant far more to the poor than to the rich. wherever progress has been

achieved, it has relieved the poor from backbreaking toil. it has also enabled them to enjoy the comforts and conveniences that have always been available to the rich. during the 19 century, and especially after the civil war and on into the 20th century, the idea of equality came to have a much more definite and specific meaning than the abstract concept of equality before god. it came more and more to mean that everyone should have the same opportunity to make what he could of his capacities. that all careers should be open to people on the basis of their talents, independently of the race or religion or belief or social class that characterize them. this concept of equality, of opportunity. offers no conflict at all with

the concept of freedom and the on the contrary, they reinforce one another. and it is no doubt the concept that even today is most widely held. but in the 20th century, beginning especially abroad and at a later date in this country, a very different concept, a very different ideal has begun to emerge. that is the ideal that everyone should be equal in income and level of living in what he has. the idea that the economic race should be so arranged that everybody ends at the finish line at the same time, rather than that everyone's starts at the beginning line at the same time. this concept raises a very serious problem for freedom. it is clearly in conflict with it, since it requires the freedom of some being restricted in order to provide a greater benefit to others. in the society.

that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. the society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both. provocative stuff. and we now join our guests here at the university of chicago. mr. friedman is right that all over the world, people are beginning to stir and are striving for a measure of equality, for a measure of justice. but i think he demeans and trivializes those struggles when he tells us all that we can't all have. malina dietrich's legs. moreover, he confuses us by using the term freedom. i think what mr. friedman means by the term freedom is economic license and econo mic license. the economic license of those who control property and those who control capital has in fact been a threat not only to equality, but to threat to the

freedom of peoples all over the world and not only in europe and in the united states, but in africa, in asia, and in latin america. let me get two other reactions now to that idea that this new ideal of equality, equality and this world's goods represents a very serious threat to freedom fighter drive. well, first, as the only british person on this panel, perhaps it would allow me to say in passing that i think that many of the things which professor friedman says about the british experience in the last 30 years are a gross distortion and a gross travesty of what's actually gone on in britain. and i hope that we'll have an opportunity to come back in in the course of the discussion. but i think that your question brings up what is to me, the absolute central confusion in the exposition that we saw in the film. and i'm a great admirer of professor friedman. i've studied him, i've listened to him. i've debated with him. and always before i found him at least clear, even when he's been wrong today i found him grossly confused. and in this specific and all important respect is he telling us that absolute equality is a mistake, an objective? in which case i think he's tilting at windmills. he is attacking a straw man. there is almost nobody on the

other side of that argument. or is he saying that any concern at all by societies and governments with reducing inequality is mistaken is not only in conflict with freedom and efficiency and other human objectives, but is absolutely wrong. in which case i think he's talking absolute nonsense. his arguments tend to support the first rather platitudinous proposition that absolute equality is still this absolute sameness is a foolish and exaggerated objective. his arguments do not at all support the second claim that it is wrong to concern oneself with distribution of income and wealth and reducing inequality at all. first of all, i would disagree violently with the notion that the people are stirring a very small handful of intellects. wars have generated an enormous amount of noise. when i look at opinion polls, particularly if i look at opinion polls of blacks, the united states, most blacks, the united states do not take any strong position in favor of equality, of results. in fact, most of the polls that i've seen of blacks put them, if you want to use this expression, very well, to the right of most intellectuals on most of these social issues. it is not the people who are

stirring. it is a handful of intellectuals. the question is not absolute equality is a question of what concept of equality? your you're aiming at whether you're getting it. absolutely. or to one degree or the other. are you aiming at a concept of equality, of opportunity at the outset, or are you aiming at a concept of equality of results? it's also not a question of whether it's material goods, only whether it's material goods status or whatnot. again, the same question comes about are you thinking about equality of opportunity, prospect of equality, or are you thinking about retrospective results at the finish line? and i think that's the crucial distinction. what i mean by equality is the concept i would like to see pursued as a concept of term social justice, cost of equality, of opportunity. the concept that increasingly is being taken up by the intellectual community is in is equality of results. now, nobody and i agree with peter, nobody means identity, no money. so on the film, you should know absolutely nobody. all that argument about what you can produce as a human prototype

and put him in the museum. exactly what you said. nobody, when you press on will say he means identity. and yet, if i take the logic of their argument, almost all the logic of such arguments proceeds as if identity were achievable as if there were some way in which you could measure individual equality as again as a tom solo was saying, you have to ask in what direction are they moving? see the fundamental distinction between you and me on this, i believe, is a very different one. i think there's all the difference in the world between a social or governmental system in which 90% of the people tax themselves to help, 10% who are in distress, and a system in which 80% of the people in the middle try to tax the 10% on the top in order to help the 10% at the bottom. what you end up doing is you end up mr. and b in the you know, the ancient story of the forgotten man. you end up with a and b imposing taxes on c to help d and some of it, after all, in the process,

goes in the hands of a and b, you're dodging the fundamental issue which was brought up by tom. so are you saying to us that the only form of equality that one's entitled as a society, in your view, to be concerned with is equality of opportunity. and any concern with inequalities of result is illegitimate. that any inequality, however great, thrown up by providing it thrown up by a free market system and not by a caste system or a feudal system of which kind you disapprove, that any concerned with that is wrong? are you saying that interesting? because it's all important. concerned with whom? by whom? by the society. the society doesn't have concern. it has governments only. it has parliaments only. people have concerns. people do certain things through government. and i'm not going to talk about society having value. society doesn't have values people. all right. is it wrong for people to be concerned about inequality? it is not wrong for individuals in their private capacity to be concerned. anybody who is really concerned can do something about what's wrong. wrong to let governments do something about you yourself. not wrong for them to act like you yourself have supported a negative income tax, which is a way of doing something about inequality.

it's not wrong for us to do something through government about distress, but there is a fundamental distinction between relieving distress and doing something about it. inequality. i see no justification whatsoever for cutting down all the tall trees in order that there be no tree in the forest. you say? because that's when you say that it is wrong for government to intervene in the free enterprise system to do something about inequality. you evoke a model of a free enterprise system which does not exist and has never existed to significant, significant extent in history or anywhere in the world. that so-called free enterprise system has always used government. the entrepreneurs of the free enterprise system have always used government. and the question that you raise is whether other people can use government to achieve their ends. this enterprise system, as it is spread around the world, as it has spread to asia and africa and latin america has spread through the force of arms, among other things. and those arms were by governments. that was government intervention

under the name of the free enterprise system. but a government intervention which destroyed the freedoms of many people, not least of which are the people of chile. i agree with that. everything called free enterprise is not free enterprise. i agree with you that many things have been done under the name of free enterprise that are not consistent with free enterprise. i agree with you. and we stress over and over again in this series that whenever businessmen have the chance, they will, of course, use government to pursue objectives which may or may not be in the interest of the public at large, but it you always are talking about mixed systems, and i challenge you to find a single example in history at any time of any society where people have been relatively free. and i don't mean merely what you call merely economic freedom, i mean freedom in the full sense. i mean freedom of individuals to pursue their own objectives, their own values, to live their lives. i want you to name me any society in which you have had any large measure of that freedom where capitalism and

freedom price has not been the predominant mechanism for controlling economic activity, not the sole mechanism, but the dominant one. i want you to name me one exception. your conception of freedom. does that apply in chile today, where chile is not politically free? chile today does not have political and i do not condone. but let me go on for a moment, if you will, you raise the question. let me answer it. chile is not a politically free system, and i do not condone condone the political system, but the people there are freer than the people in communist societies, because government plays a smaller role, because the free enterprise that has been has been cutting down the fraction of the total income of the people spent by government, because unemployment has been going down, output has been going up, food has been going up. the conditions of the people for the first for not for the first time, but in the past few years has been getting better, not worse. they would be still better to get rid of the junta and to be able to have a free democratic

system. what i have said and what i repeat here is that it's a necessary condition. you cannot have a free society, in my opinion, and i no counterexample and i challenge you to produce one. you cannot have a free society. on that free chile. we will continue on that. let me come back, though, to your theory of equality, milton, because i'm confused about it. you say there is a wide spread demand for equality of material condition? absolutely. now, i don't know the political party in a democracy that advocates that kind of equality. well, i look at what i challenge you to name major party in a in a democracy which is advocating the kind of equality you presented as a major threat. i'm perfectly willing to take your labor party. i'm perfectly willing to take some segments of our democratic party which have certainly advocated programs directed toward that objective. of course, in the practical political structure of democracies. and there's no question but what britain like the united states,

is fundamentally a democracy in among the freest nations in the world, despite the growth of intervention in a democracy, you proceed slowly. you don't proceeded one fell swoop. if you take the societies which have ostensibly declared free equality as their basic goal, the societies like china and like russia, there's no question we all agree that those are terrible, tyrannical society. and so in a country like, britain and the united states, you have stopped very short of the objective. but there's no doubt what the objective of the parties has been. well, i think peter may want to come in here, and i should say that in this one, i shall take the opportunity to play a bit myself, because you're right squarely in my area of special interest. i don't know that. let me be the moderator for a change. yes, indeed. i don't accept for minute that there has been a calculated move to absolute equality in the social policy of britain since the war. and i've lived there during the time i write the history of it. i teach social policy.

and you're wrong on this one, milton, but i give it to you, sir. and i think that's what's known as a one to milton. there's still equivocating as to whether he is attacking the idea of absolute equality, in which case his examples of the labor party is examples of some sections of the democratic party. just don't stand up, or whether he is maintaining the proposition that any concern to inequality is a result of okay, i'm not of opportunity, but of result is wrong. now if he is saying the second, it seems to me that arguments that he's made don't tend to show that result perfect. well, just let me finish because will let you finish. okay. it is perfectly reasonable for a society to say of people in a society to say and together through their political process to to express the thought that there are many objectives that society has. efficiency is one, prosperity is one. freedom is perhaps the most important of all. that concern about equality, or at least about reducing inequality is another. and that we should ask ourselves the question are all the inequalities that we face, the gross inequalities described in dickens, the gross inequalities which you yourself reported in

india, the gross inequalities which you yourself said in the film, were offensive and were unfair. are all of these justified by the criteria of freedom and efficiency or are some of them unnecessary? in other words, we take the principle that there should only be such inequality as is necessary and justified by one of the other criteria of a society. now, if you're willing to say that, then you're in disagreement with anybody. if you're denying that you've made no arguments to support what you're saying. now, before we have, milton replied, we must bring in thomas. i think we're talking at cross purposes. on the one hand, we're talking about results that we're hoping for. on the other hand, we're talking about processes that we're setting in motion. you're saying should we hope for certain kinds of lessening of inequality and so on. the real question, the political question is, shall we set in motion certain processes? because we hope for that? and do those processes enhance or reduce freedom? and i think the argument that milton's make that i would make is that the attempt at doing

these things and it doesn't really matter is complete straw man to talk about absolute inequality, if you will. no, no, no, no, absolutely. throughout the film, this is the straw man he brings up in order to say how ridiculous to have absolute equality. and then he goes on to say how ridiculous. my point is as well, as a result, you see that you set up processes and that's us whose end result may be any more or less inequality than exists now. but the question is those processes may indeed reduce freedom greatly. i would go beyond the question of equality and put it more generally that any process has to ascribe any status to any group people equality, inferiority, superiority must necessarily reduce freedom because whatever the government wishes to ascribe to any group, whatever, whatever place to use the phrase, it was very common in the south the blacks to have their place, whatever place the government is going to assign to people, that place will not coincide like that place will not coincide either with what all those people are doing or with how others perceive, all those people, because there's

too much diversity among human beings to maintain any system of ascribe status from the top is going to mean reducing people's freedom across the spectrum. that's the point. people have an ascribed status. it isn't as if government, by its intervention, creates it. people are born into this world in a given sector of a society and many, many of them are born at the bottom of the society. the argument for about equality of results was an argument that was linked to equality of opportunity. people recognized that unless there was a degree of in a degree are enough food, enough security and access to education, unless these things were available to all children, then equality of opportunity was merely a mockery. that's why equality of results became an issue and it became an issue for black people in the united states. and they expressed their concern, whatever the view expressed them, --, look, know you did not know they emit

breast size and then replied that to express their will by their extraordinary participation in a protest movement that began in the late fifties. and i have never intellectuals were not in. that protest movement. one last people in that process, you want to answer? i finished good. like people have never supported, for example, affirmative action quotas, anything of that sort, wherever the polls have been taken, a black opinion on such matters of should people be paid equally or should there be this or that black people have never taken a position that you describe. so it is not a question of what black people chose to do. it's what you you choose to put in the mouths of black people. it is what you choose to, to project. it is not what any black people have ever said anywhere that you can put your finger on to put into the mouth of the pollsters. as far as i can see, i let them believe based on the community, like most people, i have never seen the polls do. if you look at the leadership, black. people and i want to go back to the i want to carry it back to the earlier point.

number one, there's no question but what equality of results, if it comes about through a frame work of freedom is a desirable result. number two, i argue in the film, i have argued here that in point of fact, you get greater equality of actual results by a system under which people are to achieve unequal results that for the poor people of the world that frances fox piven was talking about, the most effective mechanism for enabling them to improve their status is not a governmental program which seeks to ascribe to them certain positions, which seeks to provide them with certain goods and services, but a governmental program which tries to eliminate arbitrary barriers advancement. i would say that in this world, the greatest source of inequality has been special privileges. granted by government. that government you may talk a great deal. there may be a lot of talk about

how we're going to eliminate inequality. but if you look at go back to your case of britain, is there any doubt that one of the effects of governmental intervention in britain has been to create new opportunities, needs for special classes, that the way to get wealthy in a society that supposedly is aiming at equality that the way to get wealthy is to get a special government permit to import import, to get foreign exchange or to import goods or in this country to set up a television. those are the ways in which you get inequality. well, i think can you gross to misrepresent the british experience. and here perhaps i might make the points. first of all, the burden of taxation in britain is lower and has been for many years than in any other of the countries of the european community. the overall burden of taxation. secondly, you immediately come back and say, oh, but the marginal rates of personal taxation have been extremely high, perfectly true, but not as high as they were in the united states until the early 1960s. it's interesting to note in passing that when the united states reduced its 90% maximum

personal rate to 50%, the rate of economic growth in the united states and i'm not suggesting cause and effect fell from the previously very low rate of two and a half percent a year to, about 0.4% in the period since, so that any notion that there is an absolutely one for one relationship between the degree of personal taxation and efficiency is wholly mythical. but what you can do is, well, you what you want to read, you want to look at the facts. it's easy to make remarks about statistics, look at the fact look at the fact that in britain over the last 30 years, during which period, according to britain, has been crushed by you got a terrorism, whereas the united states have been soaring away in the glorious days of liberty, the rate of economic growth has been faster than that in the united states. how do you explain that? first of all, i have to look at what the figures mean in britain. i have to look at the way in which you look at them. and i have looked at them and you realize that in judging output in the government that's judged in terms of cost, not in terms of profit. and what i really want to look at is not the rate of growth of gnp. as the statisticians measured, but the consumption available to

people in forms which as people value it, ultimately, consumption. if i look at that, i get a very different picture. the statistics are very, very, as you know very well, a very easy to use. they can be, you. they can be used to throw light or they can be used to cast confusion. one should look at facts. i agree with that. the goods and services consumed by the government as a proportion of the national i put are no higher in britain than they are in the united states. and haven't they have any time since. they have risen very much. maybe the explanation of the low rate of growth in the united states. they have risen very sharp. it has risen very sharply in. the war in both since the war in both countries. it is higher in britain than it is in the united states by any measure in both cases, the proportion excuse me, i want to take excuse me look at again is a statisticians nightmare way to look at? no, the government. you were the one who was talking about whether or not people have freedom to choose how that money is spent. the transfer, which is pensions and other payments from government, leaves the freedom as to how the money is spent in the hands of private individuals. it's only the direct consumption of goods and services the

bureaucrats are making the slaves the decision, the recipient for the government back in the chairman's role can we can we leave the statistical debate fascinating? i'm sure it is. i would i what i want to make the point, milton, it seemed to me in i am not british, i'm canadian. having lived a great deal in the uk, it seems to me that you really have most unfairly used the uk as a whipping boy in the last third of your film. it last study of the film because you say for much of the the british have tried to use the law to impose equality. now the conservatives have been in office for 65%. i am not a partizan. i am not is it? there have been three majority left governments in britain and is not the case at all that unlike other parts of europe, there has been consistent policies aimed at equality. taxation is lower. there's no wealth tax. there's a wealth tax and eight other western european countries capital gains tax came in only ten, 15 years ago. but let me take your case.

first of all, conservative labor, that's not the issue. i have argued again and again. i do again. it does not preclude equality. i do it in a book which is associated with a series. i make the point that the policy of britain in the past 60 or 70 years owes more to the philosophical idea of the tories of the 19th century than it does to the ideas of karl marx in the united states in the 1930s, the socialist party never garnered more than a few percent of the vote. it was the most influential political party in america because its policies were adopted by both the republicans and the democrats in the same way, what you have to look at is not whether the conservatives or the labor party is in power, but what were the basic philosophy and ideas the ideas of fabian socialism, of tory paternalism were being affected by both the tory and the labor. some very surprised tory politicians, some very surprised voters to hear what you say. but let me give you another example of the way you're playing fast and loose with the facts. you talk about crime. britain, i mean, crime in britain is a tiny fraction of

what it is. the united states has been throughout that period when you say that we we're going to counter terrorism. and you also free, you talk about evil people being driven out of the country, more qualified people are living and working in britain than at any time in the last hundred and 50 years of our history. now, this is largely because of the granting of independence for the colonies, the loss of empire, if you like. but in fact, for example, doctors which are endlessly talked about, more british trained doctors, are now working in britain than at any time in our history. and finally, it's also true that the physicians leaving britain, emigrating from britain, amounted to one, one third, as many as a number of people graduating each year from your medical school. it's a mistake to say that it happens to be one of the evidence one's coming back argument for the free enterprise system by selectively using the example of england when you want to the united states when you want to the test of your argument about the free enterprise system and its capacity to produce both freedom and greater equality, to relieve poverty, the test of that argument has to be made everywhere that the free

enterprise system has been extended, has penetrate. the test of your argument is not only what happened to england and the ostensible decline or not, the decline of the english economy or what happened in the united states. the test of that argument has to look at what the free enterprise system has meant for the majority of people who do not live in england and do not live in the united states, who do not live in the other countries, but rather live in that part of the world where most people live and one where most people have had their lives disrupted. peasants have lost their land trau traumatic brain. excuse me, you cannot compare because of the free enterprise. excuse me. you've got to compare. you've got to compare something with something. would you tell me the alternative which has improved the lot of the ordinary people? what is the system which in your mind has been successful? most people through most history have lived in tyranny and misery. it's only a very tiny minority at any time that i've been able to escape from it. that's the real beauty. that's the real achievement.

now, will you tell me what the alternative system is, which is achieving what? tell me one. excuse me. i say that elsewhere. in what? the alternative. what's the alternative? what's your alternative? the free enterprise system is of itself, not an alternative. because as you agree, it does not exist. we are arguing really to defend those interventions which have been made by government on the behalf of people in an effort to reduce inequality, in an effort to reduce oppression, and tell me which are going to which which of those are you defending? and which of these countries where those interventions have benefited the masses in most of the countries where you have departed from the free enterprise system, you have had a small class benefited at the expense of the masses. if you take the african countries which have become one party dictatorships, are you going to tell me they have benefited the masses? what i'm i'm astounded by the examples of the third world that i brought into here. those parts, the non capitalist world in which the capitalist system is penetrated, are

typically higher income places than those parts where they have it all. you're talking into any kind of testable hypothesis or just axiomatic that it's so because the that i've seen indicate that those countries where capitalist are never going near them are poorer than they've ever been. and they were poor before the capitalists got there. they were poor while the capitalists were there, and they're poor after the capitalists of left of wealth are not measures. i have no wealth of people. they are measures, rather, of growth, national product. you've got your measures then which which reflect as in the case of chile, which you don't want us to discuss, which reflect the great advances that have been made by the middle classes and the upper classes in chile. as of this date, at the at the expense of the sharp decline in the income of working people, the catholic churches are not the fact. well, i still think medicine does not tell us the answer to the question, what is he saying? and it's very important we should know what he's saying. it seems to me that he should accept the fact that nobody is arguing for absolute equality and disregarding all other social and human objectives.

he should accept that it is perfectly reasonable, endorsed and perfectly logical for people to say amongst other social, political objectives, reducing inequality is a perfectly sensible one, and that in those cases where you can show that you can get a big gain in equality for only a very small loss in freedom, or only a very small loss in efficiency, that is a sensible and legitimate thing to do. and if it involves government action by, for example, income tax or negative income tax, that is a perfectly proper and sensible thing to do. and if he's denying that, then i still say he's given us no moral or ethical arguments to explain why he's denying that perfectly proper concern with equality, along with freedom, efficiency and other human objectives. the answer to that is that you can only serve one god and that staying that stating that there insinuating that there are many, many of these objectives is evading the fundamental issue. in addition to one sense, as an empirical matter, the attempts to achieve equality along your lines to lessen inequality have generally backfired.

they have generally reduced freedom without in fact, in germany, yes, japan, yes. in fact, the japanese case, which is a marvelous case, not now, but 1867, after the major right. right now with 1867. well the reason for taking it then is because you had a far greater measure of free enterprise then than you have had more recently. that's fine. almost all cases, the way to promote equality is the same as a way to promote as an outcome is the same as a way to promote freedom. if you promote free, if you remove arbitrary obstacles, you open the way for people to use their resources. you will end up, in my opinion, and i think the empirical evidence is overwhelmingly on this side, you will end up with both more freedom, more prosperity. you're accustomed to it. you're a closet egalitarian, richer than i am to both the objective i would like to. there's an enormous difference between liking to see a result and being in favor of a particular method of doing that result. because if i were wrong, if freedom led to wider inequality,

i would prefer that to a world in which i got artificial equality at the expense of freedom. my objective, my god, if you want, is freedom. the freedom of human beings or the individuals to pursue their own values that will. well, there we leave this discussion at the university of chicago. i hope you'll join us for another edition of free to choose. each year, billions of dollars are pumped into the education system, but how many parents are really satisfied with the schooling their children get? teachers, children, parents, taxpayers. it sometimes seems no one is happy with our public schools. what's going wrong and what can be done about it? don't miss free to choose next week.

as we go. exactly. try again. one more quiet.

welcome back, everyone. it is fantastic to see your smiling