of his discussion of markets, it's essentially, he is taken an essential regional view of what a market is. he's thinking of the interplay between town and country. >> but also between countries, wouldn't you say? >> oh, yes, between countries, but the notion of moving -- i mean, these are the two poles on which he operates, but it seems to me there's a real ambiguity and it's actually an interesting ambiguity by what he means by a national market, and i think and suspect, although this is speck cuelative, there may be good reasons for that. would there be a scottish market if there was a scottish economy? it was difficult to talk about particular markets in his time.

it was in some respects in relation to the workings of the tobacco trade, but on the other hand, just what the nature of that market is. you know, when you move between the markets that are recognized by a simple patent of interchange between town and country and the sort of market determined by, in fact, customs regulations and operations, i found myself wondering just what smith meant by market in that respects. whether or not it matters economically, i don't know, but for someone whose thinking is as precise usually on these matters, i find that that vagueness is intriguing, and frankly, i don't know quite what to make of it. >> this gentleman right here has been waiting.

>> i'm sorry, i have a cold. i'm the author of a forthcoming book with cam bridge university press on the role of the state. i have to discuss some of these issues. i have just one comment and one question. you know, the comment is that the view that adam smith had a very limited role of the state is really not correct for the time. this was an enormous expansion of the state. he wanted to redirect the role of the state away from the calculus. that's my comment. the question is that adam smith had a lot of confidence in markets. you know, clearly, this is very central. at the same time, he was very spectacle about mergers. lots of statements in the "wealth of nations" and so forth. my question is if you were leaving today after two years of

financial market health, you know, what role would you assign to the attempts of regulations? >> may i make a preface before the answer? >> of course. >> smith was certainly critical of merchants in the wealth of nations, but also many classes the people, not just merchants. professors, priests, and other people who used certain kinds of social institutions to their own advantage. that was the crux of the argument or criticism raising towards merchants. the problems with merchants was when they joined hands with minister of the state in order to protect them from competition, to give them monopolies, special privileges which would enrich those protected merchants and usually indirectly then the politicians who gave them the protections, but always at the expense of the common man. he was criticizing anybody who

tried to use the various social and political apparatuses to enrich themselves at other people's expense. that's my preface. >> [inaudible] >> i absolutely agree with the comment and agree with jim's gloss on it. i believe the important thing is that smith would not have denied there was a role for regulation. the question of regulation was one that had to be taken seriously. the interesting evidence of that is smith on the road of banking in the "wealth of nations" i got interested in this. he spent some time on scottish banking and the banking crisis in 1772. it's the end of the boom, a housing crisis. it's really quite ridiculous. the thing is this is -- the

question he comes up with in the context of 18th century banking is if credit shops should be allowed to fall. fine, but that is a comment, but the point, i think the point that is worth making is that he regards this question of regulation whether there should be or shouldn't be as a highly serious question, and he does not give a yiewn universal answer to it. his answer is historically defined by the limits of the existing system. we know he took this question seriously because he delayed the completion of the wealth of nation by at least 18 months while he attended to it. again, the question -- i read smith as being essentially beginning, a middle, and an end as a pragmatist in the matter of regulation, but always, always

accompanied as jim was saying by an extraordinary acute sensitivity to the way in which interest groups operated in relation to parliament, to government, to civil service, and to the ministry. >> may i say one other thing? >> yeah. >> this may be a difference between -- i think smith would be agnostic with respect to regulators. he wanted to see what regulations we're talking about and what are the effects. he's not neutralment i think his reading of human history is that government intervention tends to reduce productivity, tends to have various kinds of unintended bad consequences. i think the argument of the "wealth of nations" is shifting the burden of proof. we want to assume human human beings should be allowed to lead their affairs without third party interventions without willing exchanges of others

unless you can demonstrate there has to be an enterer venges. it is an important shifting of the burden of proof. this is what smith has in mind in talking about the obvious and simple system of natural liberty. what that is is allowing for protection of people's private property, and that's it unless there's very specific reason why in the burden of proof is on you, the proposer of the regulation and intervention to show why everybody would benefit and no other way to do it other than state intervention. i don't think he's purely neutral with respect to regulation. on the other hand, if you make your case, okay, then you made your case. >> can i just gloss that just a little? because one of the things -- i mean, someone -- jim, you did,

as smith as one the first great social scientists, and as such, one the key interests that comes through his jurisprudence which is absolutely wonderful stuff, richly textured, a tough read, but a terrific one, is how do societies reproduce themselves? the only sis is designed to show at every point how in fact a regime perpetuates itself, its rule, and all the rest of it. now, the point is there's a paradox built into this sort of realism if you like to think of it like that, but the more effective any period of rule is, whether it's the tartars or the futile regime or what have you, the better able it is to main tape the rules of justice and to

secure regularity in the rules of justice. the more that in in fact people sense what is just and have a sense of what is fair will move round, and any government which then wishes to preserve itself is actually on the long term going to have to respond to that shift in the sensibility, the sensibility of fairness, justice, the sensibility of what it is the government can provide, and if it doesn't, it's going to be in trouble, and i think it may be that there is a tension between this sensibility that comes through the letters on jurisprudence and the "wealth of nations". what this analysis allows him to

do is to say the fabric of british society is changing in ways in which its governors do not fully understand. here is an analysis to explain that. it's a profound analysis. it really is, a profoundly serious analysis. what he's then saying is that the public interest and therefore the long term interest of traditional interest groups must be seen as changing, and if it doesn't, there's a french revolution waiting down the road for you, and so i would -- i would put the problem like that, and that is, in fact, what underlies his sense, his desire to try and teach a new sort of prudence in the governors of particularly british and less extent to a french society. >> we'll end today where we

started with the picture on bill's wall that claims rightly that adam smith was a great benefactor of mankind. there's a book written about adam smith written on this great benefactor for human kind. one to consider for your time for reading. i think we have concluded was a libertarian for all that. please join us for lunch upstairs. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> you're watching 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books on c-span2's booktv.

we take you to downtown indianapolis for a look at the new memorial library. >> kurt was perhaps the greatest american writer. he was a world war ii veteran, a hoozier, a political activist, a husband, a father. he was a friend, a friend to his fans. he would write back to his fans. he wrote more than 30 pieces of work including praise, novels, short stories, some of his more familiar books are "sudderhouse

five" "breakfast of champions," and many other books. he brought in his midwestern roots and wrote about indiana and indianapolis specifically. if i may read a quote, many people ask why should have vonnegut library be here? this quote says "all my jokes are indianapolis, all my attitudeses are indianapolis. if i ever severalled myself from indianapolis, i'd be out of business. what people like about me is indianapolis." we took that as a green light to blsh the vonnegut library. we have a reading room, a gift shop and a bookstore.

this is a kurt timeline. i want to read the quote at the top of this beautiful painting which was created by the artist chris king and by a vonnegut scholar named rodney alan. the quote readses, "all moments, past, present, and future always have existed, always will exist. we can look at all the different moments just the way we can look at a stretch of the rocky mountains for instance. they can see how permanent all the moments are. it's just an illusion here on earth that once a moment's gone, it's gone forever." something unique about our timeline is we actually start on the right side and move to the left rather than the left side and move to the right. one thing we wanted to mention

about this quote. we hope that vonnegut would know that while he may think that or may have thought that once a moment is gone it's gone forever, we like to think that the moment of kurt vonnegut lives on forever here at the library. he went to cornell university. he was studying chemistry. he did not plan to go into architecture like his father, but he did think he would move into a science career and discovered at cornell that he was not very much interested in doing that so he enlisted in the army during world war ii. i'd like to point out a moment here on the timeline that's important in the life of kurt vonnegut, and that's 1994. dying from an overdose probably

intentional of alcohol and sleeping pills. he is captured by germans in belgium. he is riding in a boxcar with other americans pows to dresden a supposed german city unlikely to be develop -- bombed. this city was not a military target. as vonnegut road in on a train, he was able to view the city and placed in a slaughter house where the rest of the prisoners of war were held. he was in house five. we have this exhibit called the dresden exhibit. it's really his world war ii experience that was so important in his writing and his world view later in his life. i'll start with his photo that was taken right after he was released as a prisoner of war

along with fellow prisoners. we also have his purple heart donated by his son mark vonnegut to us. he received the purple heart for frostbite. he was embarrassed to receive the purple heart for frostbite when so many of his friends had suffered from other types of physical problems and disease. we have a signed first edition of the book. this is important because slaughter house five is the most well-known book of the 30 some pieces of writing he completed. this was possibly the most famous. >> why? >> why was it famous? vonnegut, let me give you a little history about what happened to him in germany in my

impressions of why it affected people so much. vonnegut as i read was taken to the house. while in dresden, the allies bombed dresden and so his own countrymen as well as allies bombed this city. it was a horrible bombing. it was literally a fire storm, and tens of thousands of people were killed, and these were noncome -- combatants, these were women, children, and elderly people. vonnegut's job was to go out and remove bodies from burning buildings and was required to bury the dead bodies of women and children, and that affected his life tremendously. he came back from his world world war ii experience being completely against war. he was searching for peaceful

resolution to conflict and supported diplomacy and other approaches to solving problems. i will also point out a photo that was taken after he came back from the war. he got married to jane cox vonnegut who was from indianapolis as well. this picture was taken on their honeymoon. he was in uniform there as you can see. they had three children, mark, eddy, and nannet. many years later his sister, alice, died a day or two after her husband died in a freak train accident. alice had four children, and three of them came to live with the vonnegut family, so they had quite a large household. seven children and vonnegut at

that time was writing books that, at that time were less familiar, but he had published several books and articles for magazines as well as working a job as a car salesman for saab. the experience of writing about dresden and what happened to him was tremendously difficult for vonnegut. it took him about 20 years to be able to publish the books. jane, his wife, you know, had encouraged him to write it. she worked as his editor on the book. she asked questions and got clarity on issues and helped him to retrieve a lot of those memories that he had repressed. because of the family situation with the addition of more

children and the success that was coming with the publishing of slaughter house five, his marriage with jane was rocky. just his daughter eddy mentioned about a month ago that experience and in the publishing of the book and all that fame that brought to vonnegut contributed to their marriage di solving, and at that time vonnegut had met the photographer jill cremmons and eventually married her. she was his second wife and was the only other person he was married to during his lifetime. i'll move you over here to the what we call the political activity exhibit, and vonnegut continued to talk about his

interest in finding peaceful solutions to conflicts. i think that's another thing that made him very popular during the vietnam years and after. this photo which was given to us by the "new york times" was taken during the first gulf war, and there is vonnegut there out at columbia university. you know, i'm sure it was a large crowd because even through his dying die, vonnegut attracted a large crowd. i have been told he was like a rock star coming into his different speeches in large auditoriums always filling the auditorium. here we are in the art gallery portion of our library. i want to take you over here and show you a vonnegut quote signed

and given to us by his artistic collaborator. had says, "i don't know what it is about hoosiers, but wherever you go, there is always a hoosiers doing something very important there." it's a funny exchange the main character has with a fellow traveler on a plane, and that fellow traveler gives this quote. next we have possibly his most famous piece of artwork, the -- he associated the asterisk with an anatomical future. we used this asterisk in other pieces of our exhibits including our timeline which you may have

thought had stars in the sky, but they are actually vonnegut's asterisk in the sky. life is no way to treat an animal. this is his tombstone for a famous character that appeared in many, many of his books, and it is understood that kilgore trout is based on vonnegut himself. interesting the character died at the age of 84, and vonnegut also happened to die at the age of 84. >> what did kurt vonnegut die from? >> he collapsed. he fell down the steps of his new york city home, and he went into a coma and never came out of that coma.

he often joked that cigarettes would kill him, and he would see the makers of the company because the warning on the cigarette package said they would kill him, and they had not yet done so, but he actually happened to be smoking a cigarette while standing on these steps. next we have here two pieces of artwork