>> guest: but the problem with that is the those who are one of three strands comment now get to more and more rested and they're openly discussing the possibility that to they may setup themselves as the opposition party which is the genesis. so the south african president sees it is very uncomfortable at the prospect and stood much rather try to then have some technocrat but i don't think that what happened. there is another systemic problem that of all southern african nations from anti-colonial wars, where you have political parties

and they came into power, all of those that have liberation are still in power. it is not in the interest of anyone of the other countries lose power because it is a bad precedent. that is the political conflict. >> host: i hope there is a solution soon. the book is "the fear." thank you for being with me today. . .

>> for the next three hours, author and philosopher, tibor machan from the "times" festival of books. he has written extensively on morality, business, capitollism, and it includes "the passion for liberty," "puts humans first," and "the man without a hobby." >> host: hello from the campus of usc in los angeles where book tv is this weekend for the los angeles festival of books. we are taking advantage of the beautiful location to do the monty in-depth program live. our guests this month is tibor machan who is a political philosopher, author of more than 30 books, he's a regular blogger and freelance columnist. we're going to be introducing him to you on the in depth program. thank you so much for being

here. >> thank you for having me. >> let me start with the broadest for people who aren't familiar with your work. i've described you as a philosopher. tell us about your philosophy. >> my area is political philosophy, but i do ethics and general philosophy. like many classical philosophers, i think need an approach to make out the cases. essentially over the years, i have come to believe that the classical liberal, social political stance, one that one associates with john locke, john stewart mil, thomas jefferson is the sound position to take on political issues. as to ethics and ascetics and so

on, that's another story. if you were talking about politics which is what most folks are interested from academic philosophers. what position do you hold on the first amendment? interstate commerce clause? whether one should be able to tell people how do they behave right and wrong and all of that stuff. that's what they want to know. there i think i can even be called a libertarian or classical liberal. >> who in american politics today most closely aligned with your point of view? >> very few. >> very few? >> guest: there are some people who's views in general match mine. and i would say that ron paul would be one of them. rand paul would be one of them. but when it comes down to

detailed public policy matters, foreign policy issues, meetly, you start finding differences. and it's difficult to align yourself to anybody there because some of us think those things through in great detail and others are perfectly happy to live with just basic principals. so i am something of what i like to call defensivist in foreign affairs so that, for example, military action should only be taken in defense of one's country, rather than aggressing against anyone. although the complications arise immediately. what about when you have allies and they do something and you are signed up for it, so to speak, you know? but in political matters, generally, i could be identified with those who think that government should follow the

exact specks of the declaration of independence. governments are instituted amongst us to secure these rights. and those are the rights, life, liberty, and a pursuit of happiness. >> dr. machan, tiger -- tibor machan, send e-mails and tweets via twitter at booktv. lots of ways to connect with us. we have lots of time to do that as well. we look forward to hearing from you and engaging in your questions and comments. we're going to look at a number of the columns and books. great time for a three-hour conversation about essential ideas in american political philosophy on the beautiful sunday morning. the first of may. i little ironic it's may day. >> guest: labor day. >> host: what does that mean to you? >> guest: young, i was born in hungary and lived under the

stalinist regime there until 1953 when i was smuggled out what "time" magazine referred toss a flesh peddler. nasty comment. and their may 1 was a major holiday. this was the holiday of the workers movement throughout the world, okay? and it represented a form of a scary thing to many of us because there was a lot of talk about the dictatorship of the -- there was a lot of talk about how the [inaudible] were pigs and treat them nicely and if possible liquidate them. that's the memory that i have of the holiday. very mixed. >> host: would you tell us about your own life story? a man -- you wrote in your

memoir "a man without a hobby." the journey was quite arduous from that point to the united states. >> guest: i always explain it to those people, remember the black and white bee movies back in the '50s starring dana andrews or ingrid somebody. it was that kind of episode. it was very adventurous. it was contrary to what some adults might think, not a scary. adults always look at children as being frightened of all of this. and even during the world war bombings unless you get hit or blown up, it's more an adventure. at least it was to me going down to the basement and meeting friends from the apartment houses and so on. so to me the whole episode was -- it's about time i get out of this hell hole.

because i was beginning to speak up, just speaking my mind in class when i was told that the most important principal is from each according to his ability according to his needs. i say what if i start with $5 and he starts with $5 and i buy booze, he builds a table, i drink myself under his table, do i deserve the same consideration as my mate. they call up my mother and send me to an technical school, because she consider me reactionary, this is when i was 11. which is peculiar, so i was frightened. but also they couldn't keep my down. because this just didn't make any sense, you know? when something doesn't make sense, i tend to speak up.

maybe it's genetic or something. it's been with me all of my life. eventually my mother who had been divorced from my father nonetheless cooperated on the one last venture of getting me out of hungary. >> host: your mother said good-bye at the age of 14? >> guest: that's right. gave me two days to make up my mind whether i was follow the smuggler or remain inwood mesh. i forever will be bankful. she was an amazing woman, and very smart. >> host: when did you connect with her again? >> guest: in '69. when he was finally allowed to

leave and visit her brother in hamburg. i was apprised and booked a group flight to europe. i had to wait three weeks to see her. but it was quite exciting, you know. there was so many other stories with it. because my father and mother were lifelong enemies. so being under my father's care until i was 18, after which i ran away meant i couldn't have a normal relationship with my mother. i had to do things, send letters through third parties and so and so. it was an intriguing youth. >> host: well, i'd like to also continue the tour about how you got to the united states and when you decided to go into the academy. we have callers already. let's mix our callers in. >> caller: norman, oklahoma, you are on the air for tibor machan. >> caller: yes, i appreciate having him on. he's a great classical liberal.

i came to classical liberalism more through the austrian economist, rather than through john locke or aristotle, which is more of your approach. one of my problems, i think, is that, you know, the austrian economist and the -- that tradition is far more rich in it's classical liberalism than merely like a philosophy of rights. i have a real problem with the philosophies of rights that you tent to expand. for one thing, i think that your approach i guess notes the spontaneous orders of law. you have no -- i don't see how you you have justification, for example, in the law, for the doctrine of adverse possession. my problem is that you tend to

over look how great jurist, such as sir matthew hale and sir edward koch, than john locke who expounded an idea, all you need to have is be born as a reasonable person and have five good senses. >> host: caller i'm going to jump in. if we get real complex, we'll have philosophical debates with each other. the austrian and aristotle. >> guest: it's difficult not to touch on intricate details as the caller noticed. let's say that i am perfectly compatible with hayek, and even

in auburn, when it comes to the broad political system that we think is appropriate for human life in communities, i don't think there's any major conflict there. the details of how to approach, they have had utilitytarians, and there are a lot of others who are far more economic to cant and mil. i think that anybody that takes this stuff seriously simply will have to get into studying it and see how to water it down for political consumption. >> guest: well, let me get back. because i wrote this quote from your memoir. my interest in politics certainly can be placed to the events of my early life, which we just discussed. but i don't think my particular political outlook can be thus accounted for.

if not from your early life experiences, where did it spring from? >> guest: well, this is going to a strange answer. but one of my books "initiative: human agency in society" could explain it better than i can in three or four minutes. let me give you an example. george schwartz is a hungarian who is an avid modern democrat. i am from the same country, roughly the same time, having experienced a certain measure of nazi germany and a certain measure of soviet russia and i ended up pure libertarian, where as he did. we come from same backgrounds and end up with different understanding, politics. human beings, yes, they have to rely on their experiences and

what they have learned. but they are also creative, they also have a mind that builds up answers to questions, not simply takes others and applies them. and i think that a good deal of what i hold is a combination of all of these factors but cannot be used to just one. >> good morning. good morning, professor. >> guest: good morning. >> caller: i was wondering what your attitude is towards the decline of humanities, education, and among our undergraduates, and recent book is studies sociological study has indicated that our students, undergraduates are not learning anything that we traditionally value like critical thinking

skills, communication skills, especially variety. i was wondering what jr. -- your comment is on the status of undergraduate education in the country. >> guest: having been in the field for 40 some years, i do have some opinions on it. i think we have a problem with the fact that early high school elementary, secondary education is so oppressive and so boring and so coercive to so many students by the time they reach colleague at least the first two years they basically are separated having gotten out of high school. they barely attend classes and read their assignments. i'm not talking about princeton and harvard and stanford. i'm talking about the vast majority of people who think they must have themselves a ba

and maybe even an ma in order to get anywhere in life. as far as their own motivation is rather poor. i don't have to happen there's a major problem with the humanities or social sciences or anything. i think they are always in kind of a fluctuation. for a little while, they will be taking the back seat. theatric -- they strike up, and hoping they will involve everything they are story. it's beginning to be evidence that having technical know how is not sufficient to love the problem. i think humanities are going to come back. >> here's a fact about american politics. there was a law that offered free passage to the united

states for all 1952 escapees. you took advantage of that. how long was that in effect? >> i don't have any idea. that was when i was 15. it's my parents and my father and my stepmother who told me about this. and it was probably true. so i included it in this little story. but like with so many things from your past, there's always the qualifier, provided the sources were accurate. but i think that really is the case that under the sway of anti-communism and support for people who managed to survive it and escape it, they made various political gestures that would favor such folks, including myself. >> host: i very much enjoyed and i would like for you to retell your impression of

landing in the united states at the age of 15. >> guest: that i remember very well. we pulled into new york harbor at 1 a.m. it was break. the fdr was full of cars. it was like unbelievable. nowhere in the world -- i'd been a few places by that. i was in spain, switzerland, denmark, germany, hungary. nowhere have i seen as much robust life at that hour of the day as in america. and it fully supported a kind of romantic view of the united states of america. as being full of life, scary, and everything. >> we are if you are joining us in progress, we're on the set of the campus of the united states of southern california. we're here because of the los angeles times festival of books and all kinds of activity under way behind us as they get ready

to open the gates and allow 150,000 people. during our three hours of conversation, you'll see setups going on behind us. then you'll see crowds coming through all part of the experience here this morning in the beautiful may 1 morning in los angeles, california. let's take the next call. from henderson, nevada. you are on the air. good morning. >> caller: hi, my problem with libertarianism, is it's reactionary, and the democratization, meaning a small group can have a large effect. bush administration came up with the 1% solution. meaning if there was a 1% chance that a state could have a false flag operation against the united states, i.e. 9/11 or the first world trade center attack,

or pan am 103, the question becomes how many people will die under 100% libertarian philosophy before we reacted? >> guest: well, i don't think the libertarians are any less determined to defend themselves than anybody else. they assist in the process of defending yourselves, you don't over step the limits of using force on others. this is a little bit like what we expect from police officers. we do expect from them to be efficient, determined, unyielding, competent. but we don't expect them to abandon the principals of proper defensive conduct. that goes for the military of a free society. if it's difficult, so be it. moreover, the libertarian would exist if you took out the

libertarian of government, took out all of the stuff they shouldn't be doing and left all of the energy and resources, devoted to the proper task of securing our rights as st. s from both domestic criminals and foreign agents, you will be in better shape than you are now. >> host: we're talking about the practical application. here's an e-mail. some of my best friends are communist. they have said that communism has not had real trial. and i agree. i have often thought it would be desirable if people could segregate themselves according to how they want to live. i could have my annulartarian paradise and my friends their communism. do you have any thoughts on this? >> guest: yes, i do. the going form of communism, the live option that was essentially

initiateed by carl marx and frederica engles in the book called "the communism manifesto." that political philosophy requires that we achieve a form of humanity which is brand new. marx called it the new man. the idea is that in order for communism to work, you'd have to have a human being with brand new nature. one who renounces all privacy, intimacy, all specialness about friends, family, and so on, and who looks upon the entire human race as his or her brother, or pal, or friend. which is, in my view, totally impossible. a dangerous dream. it's as if you try to take a

practicing jazz band that are just sort of blowing and having a good time and blow it up into the world orchestra. it doesn't work. a lot of people are sympathetic because in certain very limited context like a convent, commune, and intimate fraternity sorority, these kinds of relations at at least partly manifested. they are very enjoyable if you get the right crowd. if you don't have the right crowd, like in the mafia, you are not going to enjoy it that much. communism is favored by a lot of people as an impossible dream. but anybody who has ever tried, anybody who has come near it will tell you it's much more like north korea than it is like canada. >> is it possible for

libertarianism to be an organizing structure for society? >> that's a very good question. i don't have a ready-made answer for that. my suspicious is that countries should be smaller. that this is too big, especially if you have seasonal democratic elements. because the democracy without content -- i mean connections with your fellow citizens and with your political representatives is meaningless. so we have a so-called democracy, but, in fact, what we have is an autocracy with a bunch of people up there who rule with some measure of consent from some members of the governed. that's about it. i think a country should be like luxembourg, or liechtenstein.

this is a bloated system where the state has assumed to do everything. the public interest for a country like the united states of america is like everybody's private interest. which is impossible to fulfill. so there will always be complaints and upheavals and alienation, and disenfranchisement. yes, a smaller political arena would be a better political arena. does it have to be as small as the city of ancient greece? i don't know. this is where it is interesting. we have so embroiled in trying to figure out how to do the impossible, namely run a huge country like that, as a democracy. we are not paying enough attention in our government

departments and political science departments to how to have a better alternative. >> host: tibor machan. next call from seattle. >> caller: yes, i'm so good to be here with you, professor machan. i have your book "individuals and their rights" from 179. gallon >> -- >> guest: you mean 1989. >> caller: yes. i'm sorry. >> guest: i'm sorry. i don't mean to correct you. but let's get it right. i wasn't alive then. >> caller: i have just two questions. two questions one is about political freedom, do you believe that the current health care legislation is socialism? and two, my study of history has brought me to the conclusion that capitalism has a tendency

to exploitation and socialism in it's variation to the tendency to oppression as a matter of economic organization. i want to know what your thoughts are about that. and i'm -- >> guest: first of all, about the health care system. you know there are many, many gradations, there's fascism, liberaltarianism, if you really want to look into the type of system that fits obamacare, you get a heavy handed welfare state, but not quite socialism. because socialism basically means the nationalization making public of all of the major means of production. and remember that also includes human labor. so human -- so socialism really means controlling human beings

labor. that is not part of obamacare. obama has one element that is very -- doesn't sit well with the american political tradition and that is that people have to go out and buy themselves insurance whether they want to or not. and when you object to something like that, in the political rhetoric that you use, you tend to throw around terms like socialist and communist and whatnot. if you want to serious about this, that's not accurate. >> host: this question comes by twitter. please explain the morality of freedom and classical liberalism. >> guest: okay. classical liberalism is not a moral system. ewaltarianism. it is ethics.

if you want to know the answer, what is the most important thing for me to live for or do? when it comes to politics, the question is how should we interact with the fellow members of society? what are the principals of human interaction that might be codified in a system of law? one the things that a classical totalitarianism would argue show that in considering the kind of society that i want to live under with millions of others who may disagree with you on many issues, you have to champion one that respects basic rights, dignity, the willingness

of everyone to under take and live a life of his or her own. you cannot impose on others modes of conduct, ethics that they do not freely choose. freedom becomes a vital element of a good society because only in freedom is one able to choose the right thing, rather than be made to do the right thing. >> host: miami is -- i'm sorry, what's your massachusetts is the next caller? >> guest: good afternoon, my name is albert. all of us who is tired of the call, thank you for calling us miami. >> caller: i'm an autistic all adult, i wanted to ask in the similar setting, the question about the communism versus socialism with the original intend, isn't it basically a variation of prisoners paradox that folks reach a mutually

agreeable decision, you know, where each of the people has to take care of it. i know professor doesn't know me. mental health care has a fine line that recently got out of the department and solved the problems like the -- >> host: caller. >> caller: i have to interrupt you. somehow the question isn't a good one. the answer is muffled. i mean the question is completely muffled. i can barely here one out of every five words. >> host: yeah, the telephone connection wasn't call. i suggest give us another call back -- >> guest: or e-mail. >> host: yes. the phone connection was bad. let's try miami. >> caller: hi, i like to think of myself as a progressive libertarian.

whatever that is. i appreciate you taking my call. >> host: caller, let me stop you. why don't you tell us what a progressive libertarian means. [laughter] >> guest: if you are one, you should know. >> caller: okay. you mention that one the few politicians that you are more or less on the same page with is rand paul, the son. what disturbs me about him is that he's taken the position that abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape or incest. and it seems to me to be both as anti-liberal and as anti-libertarian as you can get and i would like to hear you -- >> guest: i would like to leave the topic aside. because even though i agree with him on the general political position that he takes, as far as his view on abortions is concerned, i think it's wrong. i think there is no human being until about the 23rd or 27th

week of pregnancy. anything before that can't possibly be considered homicide. suppose there is such a thing of killing butterflies. when you kill what is it the before a butterfly, caterpillar. when you kill the caterpillar, you have not yet killed the butterfly. when you kill zygote, whatever rand paul says, you cannot send someone to the gallows because of killing a caterpillar, or a fetus. >> host: new york for tibor machan. >> caller: hi, i was listening to the commentary about the code of ethics in the libertarian

society. i was wondering if you've mean morality, as a social construction, or think it's something to human nature. >> caller: i think it's part of the human nature. you can ask the question what are we to construct which would require the prior morality before we have the construct. so i think morality is so part and partial of human lite. from the moment that you reach any measure of maturity or adulthood, the question of how ought i act comes very naturally. and that's how morality kicks into our lives. >> host: you spent a great deal of time teaching business ethics. i wonder what you think of the 2008 business meltdown. >> guest: here is what i think of it. i've prepared for this one. the united states is what's called a mixed economy. it has socialist, capitalist,

welfare statist, fascist, communetarian, anarchist elements. it's like a spore goes board. you go on a cruise, eat, and in three hours you get food poising. what caused the food poisoning? or what combination did? i don't think people have figured that out yet. i think the exact causes of the meltdown are very, very much up in the air. now as a general political position, i tend to think the more coercion there is in a system the more problems arise with it. but that's a general philosophical position, not one that relies on the detailed analysis of the current crisis. >> host: what do you think on the concept of greed? >> guest: no more than

gluttony or vanity, or any of the vices humans are capable. greed is just one the vices, greed is not something that's instrumental in brings anything about too much. sure, people are greedy. it's when they steal and rob and confiscate and that's where the problems arise. >> host: related tweet, if there was world war iii, would wall street be on the side of democracy, or slave communism and labor camps? >> guest: since i'm not a collectivist, i don't believe wall street being a person whom i can ask where to stand as i can ask my friend george or any sister. wall street is a whole bunch of human being with very different political convictions. look at to whom they contribute funds during the election. all over the map. there's no such thing as wall street doing this, or wall street doing that. i think that people who are

reasonably well off in life and know that in order to be well off, they also have to be reasonably decent human beings, at home, and in their neighborhoods. people who are reasonably well off are not going to champion slavery or surfdom, or any sort of exploitation that involves subduing others against their will. >> host: next telephone. >> guest: yes, hi. >> caller: i was curious your views on libertarian. i'm not clear about what it means. you cited communism, democracy, libertarian,ism, a number of choices. i'm a registered libertarian. i'm not sure what it means. >> guest: tell me explain what it means. just the term suggests, the crucial element is liberty. the kind of liberty is one i

enjoy and others do not hold me up or beat me up or kidnap me or intrude in my life. it's negative, rather than entitlements. libertarianism maintains that negative liberal should be the law of the land. that all laws are legitimate to the extent that they protect people to do as they see fit provided they do not aggress upon anyone. by the way, this position is so ancient that in a discussion, the greek general and parachlese in the book, there's a dialogue in which the position on law is defended. the only legitimate law is defensive law, no aggressive law. that's essentially what the

libertarians are after. >> host: next call comes from the hudson valley in new york. you are on for tibor machan. >> caller: hi, i'm sure you don't remember me. i took one of your classes in auburn. business ethic was the class. i enjoy it. i was troubled how you reconciled your general philosophy and libertarian views that you worked at a tech supported university. i recall in class that you made the statement that taxation, something along the lines if you believe that taxation is immoral. yet, you didn't seem to have a problem working at a public school. it's not like there aren't a lot of good private schools. i was wondering if you could elaborate on that a little bit. >> guest: sure. i actually think that when you come right down to it, taxation is a form of extortion which we inherited from the feudal era

and kind taxization is surfdom. it takes time to carry out a revolution as would be required to overthrow and raise funds to administration a legal system appropriately, properly. however, now let's get to your practical got you question. all right. so my view is when you are in a status society, depending on the degree of statism that is involved, you should not work on committing suicide. you should work on trying to dodge, evade, try to live with the conditions that face you. i've lived under socialism, communism, under a bit of fascism, and i now live with the welfare sate. -- state. welfare state has public road, public education, it has a lot of things supported immorally,

and yet we live with it. the one thing i felt, never ask for a raise from a state school and never promote giving people a raise or increasing their budgets on the back of taxpayers as long as i adhere, make it clear in the work, talking, not in my classrooms, because i'm not an advocate of the things in the classrooms. i sometimes discuss the issues. but my role in the classroom is not to defend some particular position or oppose another position. however, as a human being, who has specialized in a certain line of work, i'll use my work to make out the case for what i think is right. >> excuse me. you've just referenced the various ways that you've communicated over the years. you teach, write books, write columns? >> guest: i have five ways. >> host: please. >> guest: they say five ways

of proving god's existence, i have the five ways of defending society. there's the letter to the editor, column, there's the magazine article, there's the scholarly paper, and there's the book. those are my five ways. >> host: teaching is not one of them? >> guest: teaching is not advocacy. when you are hired as a teacher, the analogy of a midwife comes to mind. you are supposed to explain aristotle and cant and marx and rand and everybody who figures in the discussion. they are not supposed to champion any of these people. anybody who does is engaging in educational malpractice. you don't defend the positions in the classroom. you familiarize students with positions with the pros and cons and nuances and difficulties. you do not advocate. >> host: do you enjoy teaching? >> guest: i love teaching. >> host: what about it sings

to you? what resonates? >> guest: well, i can't deny that i'm something of a showman. you know, look i volunteer to come here. i did not -- i was not drafted. but also the fact that people can get excited about ideas that are important under your tallage. that's a nice thing. even way back to the case of socrates, plato deflected teaching as having an element of alases about them. this is an excitement and not just spiritual thing. you get involved after all of the people that are going to go out and live their life in terms of some of the ideas that you brought home to them. >> host: how many places have you taught over the years? >> guest: quite a few. i taught at cal state

bakersfield, my first position. i got fired from there, partly because a made a speech, a luncheon speech a posed to public education. this was a college that just started public education. i was not prudent at the time. anyway, the next one was fredonia, new york, i was there for ten years. i came back to the west coast and taught in the econ department, where i also taught marxist economists, and then i went from there to a place in san diego. university of san diego, which is the catholic university. i was a visits professor there. from there i went to switzland, where i taught an american university, called franklin college. it was a really interesting experience. almost all of the students there

were from foreign countries. we had the most fascinating debates between people from israel, people from the arab countries, i was there exactly at the time when america was bombing the libyan air force, or whatever it was in 1985, or '86. and it was a fascinating experience. we had public debates, and it was very animated. then from there i went to auburn where i taught for ten years and then from auburn, i went to this place right here, chapman university in orange county which was a wonderful change for me. >> host: what do you think of the concept of tenure? >> guest: i don't like it. i have left tenure position twice in my career and never looked back. tenure is a debilitating, educationally debilitating

aspect of higher education. it may have had some point 120 years ago in germany where it was invented, at least to the best of my knowledge, i'm not a historian of this. but generally speaking, tenure could be achieved through contract. if you are really that good that you have deserved to be kept on for a lifetime, then deal for this. strike a good agreement with the university. don't make it as a matter of public policy, like a right or entitlement. i don't agree with tenure. although it could be part of some institutions, the one-size-fits-all element of it disturbs me. >> our next caller, welcome. are you there? all right. we're going to move on to west lake village, california.

you are on for tibor machan. >> caller: yeah, first of all, i'm a little disappointed that the "l.a. times" foresaked ucla and moved the book festival from ucla which had supported it from many, many years to usc. >> guest: i have nothing to do with that. in fact, ucla is a state university. usc is a private university. if you ask between the two, i tend to favor the second. >> caller: yeah, it's also consistent with your philosophy which is basically change the money. >> guest: that's right. i like to be consistent. >> caller: right. >> guest: i like to be consistent. that's -- >> caller: all right. my question. >> guest: consider it a virtue. >> caller: okay. my question is do you think that the experience of socialism in eastern europe had any position

effect upon those countries? >> guest: i cannot think of one. i cannot think of one. that's like asking me do i think that libya's president gadhafi has been helpful to libya's citizens. no. to me, socialism is anti-human. it is marching people down a line of social existence that maybe appropriate for two or three people, two or three percent. the one-size-fits-all regimenment is totally anti-human. >> host: next call from new mexico.

>> caller: the navy explained that the home country -- because of a germany nazis. >> guest: when i left hungary, it was under stalin moved. it was six months after stalin himself died in 1953. i lived only a little period under the nazi influence. however, my father whom i joined in 1953 and lived with until 1956 was an avowed supporter of anti-semitism. i have a taste of what that means. >> host: knowing that, do you have a question? >> caller: yes, i have a question.

you are having to leave your country, is there a correlation between your story and the native american here across the united states. just of them invading in spain, and others from britain and were subjected to to -- >> host: thank you. he's a native american. who wants to know whether or not you see comparisons. >> guest: yes, that's native americans were invaded. not all of them. some of them were completely agreeable. some of them were invaded. that was 300 or so years ago. we should learn from it and realize that coercive relationships between human beings, whether they be native americans and europeans or

blacks or chinese makes no difference in every case, it is source of deep trouble. >> host: what do you think about the concept, it was generations ago. >> guest: if there was anyone available who can demonstrate that there were personal losses or economic losses, there were any culprit identifiable, i agree that the court system needs to address the issues. i'm with robert, another libertarian who is fortunately now dead. he was the author of anarchy state in utopia. he tended to agree some form of reparations. only that follows due process of law. not some lose, you know, you guys are whites, therefore pay us something like that.

coming to washington, good morning to you. hello. >> caller: yeah, spooking. i wanted to address the fact that the professor said something about being a fetus. i wanted to know the very moment of conception is person of a human being. >> guest: it's a live person, bonos human being. it's a live being. so is my name, hair, and limbs. but they are not human beings. the question is does abortion kill a human being? not whether it kills something that is alive. there are lots of things we kill like chicken and beef and fish that are alive but we are not engaged in homicide. homicide means killing a human being, and murder means killing

a human being wrongfully. and that is the big issue, i don't think we're going to settle this issue, however, i did address the topic in a book of mine called the passion for liberty which a lot of people criticize because they didn't like my view of abortion. >> host: i've got it right here. let's talk about the 30 books that you've done. once you decide to write a book, and what motivates you? >> guest: generally i follow just like almost all academia do what is prominent and whether i have enough to say on the prominent issue. generally i happen to have enough of the unique take on many of these issues so that i can easily convince myself that injecting my voice in the debate

could enrich that debate. that doesn't mean i am humanitarian when i write. i am a professional when i write. i like to lay out the case for a position that i hold, but in a way that my fellow academia can understand and argue about. >> host: let's go back to the biography. when did you decide to choose a life in the academy? >> guest: that's a very interesting question. i was in the united states air force serving at andrews air force base right there by washington, d.c. i was at the time in a theater group that i had helped found called andrews players. we were acting, we were putting on plays, we even had on out skirts called the andy. >> host: a sense of a showman even though. >> guest: that's not. i was a producer more and an

organizer. my english was so poor at the time that many roles i couldn't take. although some of them, i could, because they called for someone with an accent. anyway, what happened there is that i realized that the members of the theater group who were officers were more interesting had an interesting life, traveled more, than those who were enlisted people or draftees if you want. and i wanted to know how you become somebody who gets into that kind of life. and the answer was i had to go to college and get myself a degree. i was a late bloomer, i was this when i entered college. but i realized immediately that this is stuff that i liked. this is where i wanted to be. then, of course, i realize that many of the issues that have

been simmering full force since i left hungary required a serious attention and knowledge of history of philosophy, sociological, psychology, and so on. very naturally, it drove me into the breast of academy because that's where you deal with these issues. but the real critical point was when i was already in college and i was trying to figure out what suggest that i should major in, political science, literature, psychology, and so on, i decided to take a philosophy course. almost the very first class there was something that resonated between me and that subject. if i can put my finger on it, all of this is reconstruction and not essentially reliable and not some shrink, or something

much more profound. what was interesting about philosophy in the philosophy class i took, conclusions weren't being taught. argumented were examined. we were always engaged in debates and the professor never says this this is the answer. i thought that's for me. i can get into the game without being wrong from the get go, you know? and they will leave me to think things through. and that meant a lot to me and then ever since then, i have just majored in philosophy in my undergraduate and masters degree as well as my phd. >> host: staying with the subject, in the later parts of the book when you are ruminating about the impact of your career, you note the fact that you haven't taught at the biggest name universities, you have been attracted to the largest name

publickers. i'm wondering about the aspects of the professor that you've chosen. : anybody that a position that favors so that the classical liberal politics, small government, indeed and very small government, is not widely embraced in the academic world. and almost i would say about 70% of those who deal with these subjects, that excludes, say, physicists or maybe metallurgy or something like that, would be left of center. and i have filled this ever since i entered college. when i was an undergraduate, all

my professors, maybe i'm exaggerating, almost all of my professors >> political philosophy of the new deal. kennedy, he was a rising political star. the wholed idea of the instituting legal principles that kept government to the role that the declaration of independence spells out his to protect our rights was very ill received that yet i held the very early in my career.v i remember when we didn't hold this view of was never a conservative ploy is a classical libertarian so i never experienced a great deal of enthusiasm from my professors her even from my m fellowy students for thets f

content of my thinking. they like me because i was pleasant and i argued reasonably well but as far as elevating me to a position of influence, nothing. every book of mind whether edited or a single was a struggle to get into print. this changed the 1973, 1974 when the book was published by basic books a of new york the very first philosophy book from a major philosopher from harvard university educated atph princeton that had achieved some standing partly because it was brilliance and heroe with fascinating energy and

was very, very smart that afterwards people started to say this libertarian stuff, maybe there is something to it. after which publishing essays are papers or books, for those of us who thought that freedom really is the highest public good became easier. but consider the stars here is a set of lectures showing well the material isn't a sliver to arianism is wrong.>> h >> host: the next zero call is from illinois. >> caller: can you hear me?e i am impressed by the

speaker thispr morning. i am a liberal arts person with political science does art fit anywhere in to what you are speaking about? >> i am sorry. >> that was a long time ago i talked existentialism for about two years. and i always thought theh biggest shortcoming of sark to say that he has ethical pronouncements of human beings haul i could not live

with that inconsistency by an and agreements of the most important aspects of human nature although he denounces the idea of him inn essence, still one of the wit most important things of human beings as they are free to choose. that is something sark help to revive with 20th-century philosophy. >> host: here is an e-mail, would your thoughts about the value and importance of the great book liberal arts program offered by a st. john's college? isn't it also important day to avoid religious single to keep the next generationen-m progressive and open-minded? >> guest: i agree. the great books is a great idea but with everythingsize else one size does not fit all. there are people who should stick top math or to physicsit

and with a little bet bit of intellectual history i don't think they should become experts however but for o those of us to do want to dou with humanities in a competent fashion situate -- the great books program is a good one. >> host: redraft the top of our second hour with tibor machan here on the campus and booktv is here this week because of the los angeles times book festival. we take it vantage to talkc to professor machan who is space-bar out of california. dors you think of california as home?th >> guest: it is a personal issue for me i have ak confused history havingc lived inon germany and switzerland and traveled all over the world to become an american intentionally one

of the reasons i speaks reasonably good english as iis t took it a very determined effort to lose my accent because my model for a hungarian speaking english was a shot jog abort.now [laughter] that was disgusting. i had to get away from it. those who think it is part of their identity, i do not relate to it i think the more cosmopolitan is what i like. at home with the race ishery not where there is prejudice or parochialism but i stilla think most people would recognize i have certain e european tendencies about me. identity politics there was

a book called reasons fortit identity. route from oxford university press. to show those are thinking beings and her they come from. >> host: we will work in a few of your influences with video and people that you write about that affect did you and we will continuee take your messages i. thank you for spending time with us. here is a e-mails.th >> what are your thoughts on the term american dream as used in american politics? >> guest: i think the americani dream is a dream

for every american to bet able to find his or her dream and realize it. it is unique to america and you in many other places you are made to march with other people you are supposed toose embrace. this tradition or religion. that is the exceptional is some that so many people decry about america if you are the catholic girl lutheran or atheist or secular group, you can hordes of life for yourself within reason. rea you have to be reasonably civilized come as speak some english i don't think there is an american dream that can identify. people makean reference to the

economic flourishing ofg of every citizen. i don't think so. are to wants to devote oneself two being a great painter lowered musician or architect or sir for growth is all and good for america. >> caller: hello dr. machan as a fellow classical liberal and i am in complete agreement with your philosophy. >> host: that is great. >> but we're in a small minority. it seems that these days come i am 68 years old like cannot remember a time whentr oury country was more politically fragmented this may findze ourselves right now.d of our founders set up a system

that was supposed be based on a weak central government with autonomyt granted to the states where people can locate in a state that suited their individual political philosophies more closely.s we have moved away from thatty o but there is the current model in our world that works beautifully which is the swiss canton system where they are autonomous if there is a wide variety of political philosophies that exist within the cantons. out where i amis going is is there ever a chance we will see our country move back tom a system to allow us to vote with their feet and live under a political philosophy that matches our own? >> i've lived ine switzerland forh about two 1/2 years, iy

agree there are niceme advantages to r having that canton system to work with.th. there are some disadvantages. those who are anti-semites a court the supply of black that may meanle something terrible for the cantons of that can become very dangerous. having a general countrywide constitution that affirms individual rights, it is a sound approach and not to beand too fragmented at that level. but there is other things. you say we haven't been so badly off for a long time. libertarian thought to be very happy.- like gay-rights comment

women's rights, there is a bunch of issues civil libertarian type issues been maderess has and should we very welcome by those who love freedom. w >> host: we have ae percentor who is asking the question about ayn rand. did you know, her? what did you think of her ideas are barred anything from her? you said she change my life considerably. house? >> she crystallized something i had an all made the: m emotional angling that is the importance of the human individual.ou the fountainhead and even "atlas shrugged" makes ite very clear what is the most important thing in your life is you. and everything else of a

derivative of your mates or your friends if you don't tell yourself, although that is in favor. that is not that ourter original use of love thyselfu our love thy neighbor as. thyself that shouldn't bethe neglected in the christian tradition. ayn rand is very sharp and didactic and i was very taken by her books i actually start in a little play that she wrote before i knew anything about her works in a new theatert i group i helped to start at andrews air force base.a then i became familiar with her works and i met her in 1962 in new york at the empire state building where she had her office.n and had a nice 30 minutes conversation that we had a

breach because i disagreedd harshly. >> host: a very noisy exhibitor behind us. [laughter] our apologies at home to our viewers. >> guest: i benefit in many ways. i wrote a book called ayn rand published by the swiss publisher peter lalane that was just translated into german last summer.l it discusses all of her books, major points of philosophy about my history with her so if you are i interested you should look into that little book probably taken from a library you don't have to go bankrupt because of it. >> host: there is a greatnd v

amount of ayn rand video if people are curious because fuhr movie is out right now. let's listen 21 short clip than we will talk more about it. you will just hear it. >> private post offices. >> when industry breaks down momentarily if there is mass unemployment, we should not be permitted to get unemployment insurance, social security we do not need. we'll depend on the self-interest of the am i and industrialist that we so admire to take care of thingsuoa went the economy needso lubrication and there are millions out of work? >> the economy will now operate down. it is from government interference and secure is often they take more of the poison that causes the disaster.

depression is not a result. >> host: i felt that was relevant for the time. >> guest: yes. i find it she has some more time to discuss this issue could have made t the case more convincingly but all of the supposed good political committees of economic difficulties would be administered by human beings by the same type responsible for the economic problems soct when these people collect themselves in washington or sacramento from when they arine opposed in the marketplace to strike a dealt to make a living lowered be productive or bring up the family is in the mass resources, so they can do

so, are sloppy and irresponsible? i think the issue is the marketplace occasionally, as seen of difficulties, problems. it can we almost problems can arguably be traced to toot much government in the economy, not too little that the monetary system that the fed reserve bank has independent power over the economy. that is not free market economics. anybody who was honest will recognize to call this aali capitalist system is rank distortion. is a mixed economy for thee elements that are responsible for our problems but it lets assume under capitalism, that iran is

talking about, you do have some problems. then all of a sudden people get sode excited about researching car that all ofo the other cars lack of buyers? there will be unemployment of some of the car industry. okay. are people too stupid to cope with this? if they are live with those politicians to remedy this so smart? is a genetic engineering smarter better is it superior? is a perfect? nothing is you know, the

famous saying the perfect isg the enemy of the good? i totally believe in that. people who run theirth political thinking by way of the dreamlike criteria will be misguided and will give rise to systems where the powerful will try to impose their solutions and medicis times. >> host: i will stay with ayn rand. some said did you see the movie? >> guest: i saw part one of atlas shrugged. d"thought it was well done enough, competent enough but i have to be careful. i read the book in 1961 and one solid day. it was reading. i thought it was classic. the train ride gloomy over. now in the movie there is no

way to recapture that first experience like a first love for ehud just cannot repeat that.t i think it is every bit as good as oliver stone movies like wall street's or the seventh day of me which is a didactic movie. is it as good as "gone with the wind" made out of the book? maybe not as good but then it did not have clark gable be there. [laughter] >> host: this could be complicated. you may pass if youhsllpl like i will ask our caller to hold. could you compare ayn rand political philosophy to jesus that the socialist embraces more? >> guest: theue problem is i have a bone to pick with jesus they don't have with

ayn rand.'t jesus is referred to as the prince of peace. but it jesus became violentpoin at one point what was that point*? >> host: i am not answering questions here. [laughter] sorry. >> guest: it is rhetorical. when merchants were doing deals outside of the churchbo anybody whoh holds of jesus as the prince of peace as a man who loses his coelhoom simply because there are traders doing deals that they will support their family and friends andhood neighborhood is not my hero. ayn rand has never

sanctioned any type of force on innocent people who did en not themselves engage inagai force against others for i think she ishi preferable to be in this respect. now, as far as her temperament, she was bellicose sometimes rather disagreeable and very intemperate and impatient. but if you look at almost all of the major thinkers, , or even going back to those who so, all ofe these people have majore flaws. if you dig into their. personal lives, you know, david hume the famous scottish philosopher manufactured a review of his book praising it to high

heaven because nobody else would review it.i this isfahan's prada. levying a bunch of his students fighting with each i other over how to interpret. once hearing someone else in university dared to talk about his mission with a loss of pay he ran to the administration and demand that the man be fired.g they are neoprene madonna's and they have their personal proclivities but compared to what? >> host: north carolina you have been very patient. >> caller: hello. dr. machan, i would like you

to elaborate or talk more i was wondering if you could tell me something about they an richie and how that relatesto to the philosophy. >> guest: i will address the issue just now. in plato's republic, socrates out lines a perfect political order but it does so in the course of trying tong illustrate what it is for a human being to live right. and he then uses a model of the perfect social order to give a large taste of

running someone's own life it is like an chemistry you do not look at the adams involved in the chemical compound you bring out hugeu plastic bowls that is what've plato did with the republic. the republics very well could be understood there are a lot of books and arguing but it could be understood as an illustration of why politics is not the means to the human good life. that has to be your own doing.od you have to achieve human goodness it has to be your own accomplishments. are there things that arear problematic about thee re republic? i think there are. it has built up the deal that is literally impossible the it people are trying too

implement and they went wrong. but the original idea wasa wa simply a little bit like when you see a model when you say does my wife have to be like this? no. it is the model, not a blueprint. the reminder is this awful mess and rationality.tio >> host: welcome to the conversation tucson arizona. >> caller: you saide earlier of the best possible-

political- system what would you see of the government and how would theyu raise tone do the job that it needs to do? >> guest: remember in a bona fide genuine society the government would we very small element like the referees at a baseball game or football game. they are not the central issue. and ejecting those who failed to obey the rules. they are the defenders of individual rights.rs the cost is far less than it is now.

and number two coming here i am speculating and i wish more public finance departments at universities would study this, but they are so busy talking about how to raise taxes they do note consider alternatives. how about a contract the?b charge everyone who enters into a contract with a certain fee to protect the integrity and so if somebody is accused of violating it, you could go to court to challenge? this could take care of the courts, police and maybe military. if you think of the volume of contracts entered into daily, hourly in a country like ours, you can imagineh that the money would be sufficient. however it would not be coercive because you couldus just shake a hand. even a major union contract

contract, but nobody wouldou do that. they could not have the protection of the contract w but it could be possible. that is the essence of refinance.at the payment is not distracted up from the point* o of a gun. right now we have you pay taxes or go to jail. this is comparable to being in the back alley to say your money or your life. that is not what a free society is about -- about.w,stil that they were still in the existence throughout the realm of humante history people used to have service

those that they own the theou c people you charge of the event 270 occupying but once they are devoted from the american revolution demoted the english, hong you will longer have a rationale for a taxation so you have to move out of that system from something more conducive to free men and women. >> host: western virginia welcome to the conversation. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am not day libertarian i am left of center but i appreciate the ideas that have come out of libertarian is some like conditions on the limits of human reason and alsoo i have been attracted to the ideas of spontaneous order. s

it seems that some libertarians, i do not put you in the category dr. but it seems sometimes they fail to remember the notion of the limits of human reason with their owns position. but they are not alone. you mention a nice contradiction in respect to ethics so being inconsistent with your own position is not unique to libertarians but you see that same feeling with respect to our current political impasse, i will rephrase that i think it is a commitment to the dogmatism that makes itism impossible or difficult to talk to each other to comeo ta up with a solution. >> host: do have a question? >> caller: what is libertarianism position orhilo relation to other philosophies are critical

days political positions? what would our world or country look like if libertarian is them won the debate? would that be feasible? or on the other hand, is it more pluralism and competing ideas always generating new positions, solutions, a better approach? >> host: we understand. >> guest: i will try to address this. you can have competing positions the religious communities some tis people who don't want to have sexet and sometimes people onlyant want to have sex they build their communities and live in peace with others those

that would come pot-- comply with their ideals.coer you do not use coercion to factor into relationships you can do things positively different from your neighbors i think the libertarians would agree the multi-cultural or philosophical marvell religiousmuib but as human reason so to discover the limitations of human reason, nothing else they

can do there is no other thing. we can rely on our notes or tradition a loan. all of these need to be examined critically but to experience bumps in the road and the best way to go. and hijack when they dislike him a reason, they qualify and anything that gives a way to massive plan and a society. >> host: we're at the halfway point* a-barrel three hours to take that opportunity to stretch your legs. we w hope if you arewers interested and have information of the otherbrea ridings we will be back and continue the second half of our conversation.

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>> to have surd >> ayn rand to survive and make a life for herself sheneed almost needed that personality. and ayn rand was not treated very well back in the late fifties, early '60s and first of all not an academic.ad second, she was a capitalist which annoys people on the left, and a diaz which annoys people on the right.righ said she was a loner in also her harshness and assistance

that she pass to beat the table every time she spoke did not endear her to people hav who may listen more carefully had she been more pleasant. but her unpleasantness could wee equally justified given the treatment she was given when she came out of the soviet union and told the truth about that country and nobody paid attention. she was terribly upset and had been a fan of america for the symbols, art, the movies, atmosphere and then finally ends up in the middle of the country giving warning about this disastrous experiment and people dismiss terror.

she was terribly upset. different personalities react differently to being upset by that and ayn rand reaction was to become bellicose.kn it doesn't take much away from the substance it just makes a difficult sell. "atlas shrugged" was a catharsis because there were some scenes our absolutely gripping. when i was in the air force i stayed up two nights sleepless, a food this and just read through it.tt i did cut out colts' speech and made tab book of it that a l i would later steady but this train ride for example, was reading. the power of the right-wing describing the train ride with agony would just send

me. mon the money talk was fabulous. the sec stock was okay. a bit old-fashioned i found aynbl rand and sex in compatible. [laughter] but "atlas shrugged" had wonderful caricatures of hateful people who you knew in your life oreo mine under the u rule of the nazi father communist government that this is not a caricature but a depiction and their mentality not to

pay attention to another person's humanity it that is characteristic of thed entrenched bureaucrats andates "atlas shrugged" it demonstrates this very well.y the bad guys are bad because they violate humanity not because they violate god where someone out of this world because they are well grounded like you would like john paul ii represents the human capacity and willingness to take one's life to make the most of it. i think the ayn rand great legacy is to have rescued to this tradition from obscurity to give it a passionate quest and

captured in fiction which excites a lot more people and a dry a treatise would have.se but then to give capitalism a backing where it is pro-life and human beings and to show that without freedom that is usually much worth with bizarre exceptions if you want to know that the free society is the superior alternative that has been thought up on the political front. >> host: you look at live pictures from los angelesus that the campus id university of southern california on may 1st.

the site for our monthly "in-depth" conversation. we are joined by tibor machan the author of morewe'v than 30 books we have anave hour and a half left to go. passion for liberty is one we have referenced we have another column. the their left nor right. and putting h nature first and human agency and a society. man without a hobby weavil reference that heavily in the first half year is a recent title equality so badly misunderstood the one currently available is why is everyone else wrong?f

do you have a favorite? >> guest: you don't have my favorites here. one of them is called capitalism and individualism published in 1990 one is called classic individualism published by rutledge 1998. these are basic laying down in defending positions and the capitalism and individualism addresses the issue of what kind ofin individualism that the free-market capitalist society rest on because there are so many people who claimed that capitalism has a narrow view of the individual and nearly i

selfish as everybody is out t there to grab whatever they can. these are such as pollution to the nature of capitalism. if you know, of anybody doing commerce they have a much richer life and then the doctor in the alleged i am very interested to have the book get out there. >> host: our next caller from south dakota. >> caller: hello? dr. machan i am a libertarian type eight the asperger you were asked if it eastern european contributedded and you said no.in doesn't thatg make a the is some generally acceptable if not respectable? finicky theism is just a narrow position that says i

do not believe god exist for buy you cannot build anything on that you cannot do anything with that except to except faith as a basis. second, the kind of central european essentialism to give it a bad reputation because it imposed in other schools and families and that is not what freedom is about. freedom has its risks and people can believe the stuff that is wrong.pose for those under atheism or the number of beef that you find for communist countries like north korea lowered negative castro cuba.

>> host: you are on the air. >> caller: you mentioned something very early in the interview referring to theleas peddlers to help to get people out of hungary. what was the focused was awere the hungarians or americans? what do you think of the conspiracy theory as the global government? >> guest: the first, the flesh bottlers, that was a termry used by "time" magazine from those that were an enormous help to thousands of and thousands of displaced people, that was very angryery with time for demeaning the work that these people did. i suppose that time

magaziner and other organizations would love to have these people do something for nothing?an they have to collect some c free -- fees from their clients. i am happy they did that so without that they would not exist. he would not have farmers butha anyway that is one thing that i find about this. i was thankful there were professional smugglers were willing to take the risk bringing people like me out to the west away from the tyranny of the soviet-stylewayr socialism progress to the conspiracy theory, i findi all conspiracy theories weird because there is so much of a conspiracy how do we know about it? it seems very odd everybody worries about the things

that are to be secret. that is a great advantage is that nobody knows about them. stu but we all the law about it so there must be something bizarre. i am not sure what n it is. >> host: the next call is florida. >> caller: a question i wanted to raise dr. machan have been answered but perhaps one of his books would be a brief outline on the ideal or perfect libertarian community oritie communities and how the government exist in a smaller form is it a and

umbrella for small independent communities?so i just want more information it on how it would work. >> guest: first of all, i did write a book directly addressing your question called libertarian is some defended." published veryre recently 2006 by a british publisher that addresses the issues. i think libertarianism is entitled is a nine utopia in vision i don't think libertarianism should be theiani ideal but as a practical a solution to people's community problems and as such it introduces and defense and elaborate on the idea that people should rel relate to one anotherth peacefully even when in deepne

need and if they're very angry.y. do not resort to violence towardor other people. that is very crucial element of libertarianism. within the principles upheld in the law, you can started orchestra, up playgroup, a farm, a sports, any type of human activity. one of the reasons people don't readily support libertarianism, they forget that many of the things that they now count on the government to do would be done by people in the free society of their own initiative. bec not because they have to do i it because it would be a good idea.

these things to give iran provides realin guarantees? look at the budgetary>> w situation. >> host: a related question. >> i am conflicted i voted for ron paul and declare it myself libertarian but the admirer operas about creating over 300 national parks, as a libertarian we would not have these places to serve. please, met. >> guest: once again, exactly illustrates what i just said. just because the government does not maintain public parkts or conservation or whatever, i discuss this in my book because i realize a lot of people are a great to champions i do not like to call it nature but you have

the television program very much a part of nature so what they are for to have wild animals surgeries were mountains are so forth and i don't see why if the government has support of the democracy to fund these things to uphold them and maintain them why in a free society is that the case? i happen to think there is just as much room to call for these types of undertakings of one free men and women and right now out of from thoseak t partly free men and women. >> host: the next call is from mississippi. >> caller: you are a hero of mine and it was my birthday yesterday. two brief questions.

i know you started out to but could you talk about what that was light blacks where the publication hasason gone and the future and i'm second, i am young and very interested in the libertarian intellectual movement.er huge change my life. i am in moscow but i want to get it involved with the tradition to make a difference. thank you. i love your ring. >> guest: thank you very much. to answer your first question 1969 we became aware of the small publication with a great local called reason and bob was up there at m.i.t. then he published both him and mezi

in the magazine.ne we liked it so much we wouldo do it on a regular basis on a monthly basis then got together with an attorney here and los angeles who still is and of three of us and including our wives, we put the whole idea into practice. one of the central. >> was to interview with a libertarian think years.ultu not well enough known to uss like nathaniel brandon. jim buchanan we interview

bille buckley and many others. and that became a mag centerpiece of "reason" magazine.time since then it has developed a bit more hip-hop version of the former self for there is emphasis on looking good and being reasonably clear and accurate but not much and death threat of a philosophical bent that was very important to us in the publication earlier is now rdrdly there. i have written 40 books they maybe have reviewed 120 years ago. they are not interested with this kind of approach to political issues any more. and frankly they don't publish and a things that i send them partly becauseor they have changed their

approach they want to appeal to a mass audience andph philosophy has never been appealing to of mass audience. look what happens when socrates was a philosopher. >> host: william f. buckley is in your book one described as a great influence serve for you. in what way? >> . . don't we complain and there's a nice essay if you don't complain eventually you build up hatred and you blow and that's how other countries have these violent revolutions; whereas, more or less democratic societies tend to move from one form of government to another rather peacefully.

and i thought that's a great insight and as i'm woe to do and i took a pen and paper and wrote to buckley. and buckley was kind enough to respond to me even though i was this nobody reader, you know? and we started a correspondence. and he was a very erudite, even a little snooty, and i wasn't, so once i asked him why do you have to use these big words because i want to influence people who use big words. that was his answer. anyway, buckley was also quite religious. he was a roman catholic. i was a roman catholic when i was growing up until i was about 20, so we had some arguments about that. and he wasn't so much of an influence on me as somebody who showed me that with some tenacity and perseverance and some chutzpah you can get your ideas out there and have them

considered. >> host: next question, minot, north dakota, hello, caller. >> caller: hello, yes, earlier in the program, the professors said the taxes are immoral and that you would raise funds by putting a fee on contracts. now, to raise the money for national defense and highways and big, big projects, are you suggesting that this is a form of value-added tax of that? >> guest: let me answer your question is a more general political and theoretical way and this is it. try to deal with someone like a no, ma'amnist who is trying to bring about communism and ask him about these details. what would he do about this, about that, about the arts, about the opera, about tennis or what not? you'll find that most of the

people who are sketching you broad approaches to political affairs don't have answers to those questions. they will allow them to emerge but within the confines of basic principles. so as far as how we finance various things in a free society. the only answer that an honest libertarian can give you is without coercion. the rest of it needs to be discovered, explored. that's what think tanks are for. that's where university political universities and public finance are for. they are not something that you can lay out. you can hint at them. you can sort of speculate at them, but the details are in emergence. >> host: we've gotten variations of this from a number of viewers. here's one, as the libertarian, how do you feel about the

patriot act? >> guest: i'm not very enthusiastic about the patriot act. any act that leaves such a heavily loaded biased name to it you have to look at with some suspicion. it's probably not really patriotic. my view is that if the government could find itself to what it really ought to be doing, it would not have to propagandaize its legitimate job. it could just do it and it would serve us well. >> host: next call is from boise, idaho. welcome. >> caller: hi there. this is a real pleasure. first time caller. recently i've discovered the world of ideas and i've become very interested in it. and i was wondering, doctor, if you can comment on the relationship between these three disciplines and even though it's

this is going to be very simplified, have the hard sciences reveal typical facts. do soft sciences reveal statistics through clinical studies, et cetera? and then you have literature which seems to speak to human truths. i'm interested on any comment how those two interplay with one another and how they feed to you as a philosopher and i'll take your comments off the air. >> host: the hard sciences and the soft sciences of literature? >> guest: they're really different things. literature is a sort of creative process and the soft and the hard sciences are a discovery process. now, there's a creative element through the hard and soft sciences and that would be technology. but on the whole i think that

they are all of this world. at some basic level, the most important thing in all of them is that they remain internally consistent and do not degenerate into meaninglessness and fuddy-duddy stuff and into deconstructionism, and into methodologies that are inherently incoherent and champion themselves as more sophisticated than simple old good thinking. so but as far as i'm concerned, the sciences, the soft sciences, and the rest of our concerns, are all pretty much consistent, mutually re-enforcing, but not the same. >> host: will you tell me about this book. >> guest: "cute is not enough" is a little book that i decided to write with my daughter who

was at the time 5 years old and pretty much didn't write any book. but she was very cute, and i knew with little girls who are very cute, there's this danger that they -- they might grow up counting too much on their looks to get them by in life. so i wanted to have this little memory for her to remind her that, yes, cute is wonderful. it's great. being beautiful is a very wonderful asset to have, but it is not something that one should rely on to carry one for life. >> host: and how does she think about it? >> guest: she loves the idea. she's completely with it. she's now 27. my 32-year-old older daughter is stunning. none of them have tried to capitalize with their looks. i actually want them to do some more because it might make them rich so i don't have to pay for so much. [laughter] >> host: next call, laguna

woods, california. hello, caller. >> caller: good morning and thanks, professor, for a dynamite, thoughtful discussion here. it occurs to me -- i'm libertarian, too, it occurs to me that the flip side of big government is citizen. and an the big extreme is north korea where you're the property of the leader and the other extreme libertarians which has the idea that you're fully capable of running and owning your own life and the role of the state is to protect your rights, not to impose morality no matter how popular that morality might be. in the middle are the democrats or republican parties that view you as a public/private partnership where in my view you're increasingly the junior partner. and for them the role of the state is to impose morality. >> guest: i agree with you. i don't know exactly what we're going to argue about. [laughter] >> guest: but let me just say

this, neither the north koreans, nor a possible libertarian society is going to have everyone conform to the theory that puts them into play. after all, there are people in a relatively and in a fully free society who would be unlikely, who will have impediments, who will need help. i just happen to think that free men and women will provide that help much more readily and efficiently than governments do. as far as north korea is concerned, i'm sure there is a black market in north korea. i'm sure there are men and women who are carved out a little sphere of freedom for themselves, just like we did in hungary, just like people in cuba do, just like people who have been doing it in venezuela when that dictator gets full power over everyone. so nothing is ever like a

gemetrical, clean system. >> host: i want to play a clip from president obama on april 13th. it was his widely viewed his philosophical speech setting the groundwork for his next election campaign. here's just one little bit of it. you're going to listen, okay? >> there's nothing serious about a plan to claims to reduce the deficit by spending trillions on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires and i don't think there's anything courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don't have any clout on capitol hill. that's not a vision of the america i know. the america i know is generous and compassionate. it's the land of opportunity and optimism. yes, we take responsibility for ourselves but we also take responsibility for each other. for the country we want and the future that we share.

>> host: tibor machan? >> guest: well, if we take what the president said here literally and we were really talking about generosity and help toward our fellow citizens, i would have absolutely nothing against this except with the sacrifice bit. i think that's not a sacrifice. that's just reaching out. the problem is that he's not really proposing generosity and help. he is proposing forcing people to provide for other people, whether these people want to do so or not, which is not generosity. the virtue of generosity must be exercised voluntarily, not at the point of a gun. if you're not generous the way president obama wants you to be generous, you'll go to jail. you may even get shot if you try to escape as they take you to jail. so to me, this whole talk is an

empty rhetoric he doesn't mean it and whatever little he does mean of it is probably impossible because you cannot sustain the kind of welfare state that he advocates by relying on the voluntary contributions of citizens. moreover, the rich are perfectly capable of spending their money productivity. they don't need president obama to come and take it from them and then go out there and spend it themselves -- himself. this is like saying that the bank robber has a better idea of what my money should be used for than i do. it's not true. the rich, if they earn their wealth, if they came by their wealth without ripping anybody off ought to have every right to

allocate their resources to redistribute the wealth, if you want to put it that way, free of any government intervention. this is the myth of government as the big brother, the nanny, the all wise and all good entity. as if those people knew better what our money ought to be spent on. they don't. bureaucrats and politicians spend money according to their agenda. there is no such thing as the public interest apart from the one that the american founders identified and that is to protect our basic rights. that is the public interest and that's what governments are established for. >> host: back to calls. this one is from california. hello, caller. >> caller: hello, good morning. hello? >> host: you have a question for us. >> caller: yeah. i really -- i wonder about libertarian philosophy because it doesn't seem to make a lot of

connection between power in the private sector and liberty. i mean, there's all kinds of things you can point to. alan greenspan got up in front of congress and pretty much said i was wrong. you gave all this power to a few people and they tend to abuse it -- for their own best interest. and that would cross over into the whole idea of transnational money, which is power and the speech which is declared by our supreme court rarely influencing america and being -- you know, i can't see the transnational is a patriotic institution. i'm not sure what john locke would say about that, but i know jefferson and many others would not agree. >> host: let's pick it up from there. thank you, caller.

>> guest: well, i'm not sure what this caller is talking about because alan greenspan was the chairman of the federal reserve bank, which is a completely anti-libertarian institutional society. in a genuinely free society, banks print money. and back it up with wealth. it's not a federal issue. having a federal reserve bank would have a federal flower bank for the libertarian. it is not appropriate for the federal government to mess with our finances. it's supposed to mess with keeping the peace amongst each other and between the country and other countries. so this entire equivocation between libertarianism and some of the current posturing as free market and capitalists has to be

rethought and a careful thinker is never going to commit that kind of equivocation. >> host: were you surprised alan greenspan a student of ayn rand changed the position? >> guest: alan greenspan thought, i believe, that it's better to have him there than to have, say, ralph nader there in that position. so he took it. but a position like that corrupts people whether they like it or not. and when you have that much power over other people's lives and economic affairs, it is very difficult to keep your hands clean. and did he make any bad judgments? probably because he shouldn't have made any judgments. that's not his role in life. now, there is the thing about alan greenspan maintaining that self-interest would drive the

market toward good behavior. it would if the institutions surrounding the market weren't so stateist so that everybody sees a benefit from cozying up to the government and getting favors. and so under the circumstances, the kind of assumptions that operate in a genuinely free market are not operative. >> here's an email from a viewer who picking up your discussion on "reason" magazine wants to ask you, can you please discuss the split between the beltway libertarian such as "reason" magazine and the cato institute with the more radical libertarians such as the mises institute and ron paul? >> guest: you know, i have very interest in these disputes. at the bottom of them is truly a turf war. everybody would like to have the leadership position in even the smallest movement. you look at any movement anywhere in the world, whether it's the communists, the

socialists or the moonies or the haddi krishna, those kind of risks are ubiquitous and i don't think the libertarians can escape these human proclivities any more than any other group of people. >> host: we have 45 minutes left in our three-hour conversation on "in depth" this sunday morning in may with tibor machan. our next telephone call for him is from lafayette, louisiana. you're on the air. >> caller: hi. i got to tell you i have had some great people in my life, my father, ronald reagan. i'm a big fan of william f. buckley and a man by the name of goldwater, if you remember him. and i now get to add your name to that list. i very much have enjoyed your philosophy. i was fortunate enough after i made my second fortune, i lost

the first one, going to your country in budapest. and it was in '72 and was on my way to moscow to the world petroleum congress, and i was so -- it was so hurtful to see no smiles, no happiness when everybody got off the tram to go to work in their dull surroundings. thank god it's not that way again. and that that horrible thing called socialism is gone in that country. >> host: thank you, caller. let me ask you -- i'm sure you've been back to budapest? >> guest: yes, i have. and this caller actually reminds me of a trip that i took two years ago. i was at a conference in budapest and my mother at the time was living in austria so i decided to take a train the first three days that i was there to visit my mother. and the most amazing thing is that the train went through exactly where i went to when i

escaped in 1953. nobody looked at my passport. nobody asked me anything. no cops walked up to me. nothing. and at that time is when the beginning of this financial fiasco hit in america, and i wrote a column saying, you know, it really could be much worse. and i compared the improvement of having finally gotten rid of the soviet colonialists. the soviet has got their problems with the western states but compared from what they lived through from 1948 to 1989, i mean, it was heaven. and you can see a lot of smiling citizens of budapest now. >> host: next call, edmonds, washington. >> caller: hey, all right. hello? >> host: caller, we can hear

you. >> caller: okay. hey, listen, i need to find out the libertarianism -- [inaudible] >> guest: of the social darwinism kind of. i need to know how libertarianism might deal with the mentally ill population. we have quite a bit downtown where i work in seattle. yeah, that's it. >> host: that's another tough call. it was on a cell phone. it was how libertarians feels about conservation. i hope i got that right, caller. >> guest: the libertarian's very general answer is we do not need the coercive state to achieve any of our values with the muslim -- museums, the

facilitation of our wildlife conservation, space exploration. free men and women do all of this much better than coercive states do. this is the confidence that stems from an underlying philosophical building that libertarians all same. libertarians are not in the same philosophical bag but they generally think human beings can be trusted to solve their problem better without a gun in their hands than with a gun in their hands. and that the comparison is between a free society and a coercive society, not a free society and one led by angels. >> host: next is albany, new york. caller, you're on the air and welcome to the conversation. >> caller: thank you. i have a question about what

process congress could use for reasoning. and here's what i mean by that. because of the greeks and the success of western civilization, we use argumentation in our -- in advocacy in our court system but it seems we're using that in our courts -- we're using that in congress to make decisions. and so instead of an adversarial decision-making process, is there a different form of reasoning and argumentation that would be more productive and make our congress be able to get through the significant problems we have with financial deficits, et cetera? >> host: okay, thank you. >> guest: well, i would say there's a big difference between the role of the adversarial process and the law versus its role in arriving at public policy conclusions in congress, for the bureaucracies and so on. i think there's a lot more to

depend on when it comes to the forging a public policy than merely a kind of hostile argument. however, in the courts, the courts start with hostilities out there. somebody says, you did it to me. i want some restitution or rectifycation and the proof is there and those who can come back and challenge this truth and this is part of the so-called adversarial process and it's adversarial only because when people enter the court they are already on a different page about a certain issue. >> host: so many people who watch this program are interested in the process of writing. how do you write? >> guest: when i was about 30, i was watching the huntley

brinkley report. you can tell that i'm not a young person anymore. and i noticed that some idea occurred to me while they were reporting the news. and i thought, oh, well, i'll deal with it in a couple hours and then i stopped. i said, no, i'm going to turn off this tv and i'm going to go to my remington typewriter and i'm going to knock out a few paragraphs about this issue before it becomes hazy. i have never departed from that approach. in the middle of the night, if i wake up and some idea occurs to me, as much as i'm tempted to turn around and bury my head in my pillow, i get up, go to my computer and i will write something on it. and over the years, this has become second nature to me. and so that's one of the reasons that i'm so prolific. it's not because i'm that

ambitious. it's because i do think that many of the ideas i how old are sound ones, are good ideas. let's get them out there. >> host: were you one of those who were sentimental about the news that the last typewriter came off the production line this month. >> guest: i'm not a sentimental type. i figure computers are pretty good. laptops are good. maybe even ipads are pretty good. you know, instruments are instruments. what really counts is the people. >> host: colorado, springs, hello to you. welcome to our program. >> caller: hello. in atlas shrugged, ayn rand said she was opposed to robin hood, a legendary character. when errol flynn played in my view the definitive robin hood, he as robin hood stole taxes --

>> guest: it's just -- rand is a victim of a false legend. she did not realize that robin hood was actually not stealing from the rich and giving the loot to the poor but taking back what belongs to people that the taxpayers -- i mean, the tax-takers have taken from them, so you're dead right. >> host: next telephone call, river view, florida, hi, caller. >> caller: hi, can you hear me. hello. >> host: yes, sir, we can hear you. >> caller: thank you. when i was wondering -- i'm a mark twain and has he read any mark twain writings especially what i think is as important from his writers from earth and the adam and eve diaries?

i think he gives a lot of insight about human nature. >> guest: i grew up on mark twain. when i was a kid, i was 9, 10, 11 years old. i read huckleberry finn, tom sawyer in hungarian. i became a fan. and i continued reading all kinds of american fiction. zane gray, i must have read 40 zane gray novels. i read all of the earl stanley -- in fact, my nickname in budapest when i was only 9 years old was perry ma-shon because i didn't know how to pronounce mason. i'm a big reader of all kinds of books. my favorite novelist is, of course, somerset mom although i

can't chasm up with him. although i'm reading them regularly and loyally. but i read all kinds of other authors and i -- and one of the most interesting interesting things about fiction to me is how these authors put you in the minds of other people. things that you would never be able to achieve by your relationship to other people unless you are extremely close to them. instead, you have these wonderful novelists, of all kinds -- and i have -- i mean, i have favorite novelists who are commies like what's his -- menchel, the swedish guy. and they're just artists about penetrating human consciousness and looking outward from a new person. and to me that is without a doubt a major value in human life. >> host: here's an email and you've addressed the first half but the not second.

the first half how does the mortgage crisis and banking foreclosure fit in with ayn rand and we talked about it but what is the solution for the $14 trillion problem we have in u.s. >> guest: i don't have a solution. suppose somebody throws you out of the building and you're down in the 30th story. i'm sorry it's too late -- you could maybe have solved the problem before you got thrown off the 70th floor. right now the only thing we can do is perhaps tighten our belts and make enough room and give enough incentives to people who work harder and invest more even though for a long time they are probably not going to reap the fruits of that investment and hard work. >> host: well, this is a good time to bring in this book, i think. and you said you wanted to be sure to talk about it and your

co-author here. >> guest: jim chesher is my best friend in the world. he's a wonderful guy. he and his wife, vicky, are just dears of mine. they don't agree with everything i believe. and vicky is a very much more a conservationist and an environmentalist than i would be, but jim and i decided to write this book because we both find it very annoying that so many people have a prejudice against wealth. the rich-bashing that goes on, even in america, which has a legal system and culture that is more hospitable to commerce than any others around the world. nonetheless, there is this

animosity, whether it comes from envy or whether it comes from the historical experience that for centuries and centuries on, it was indeed through pillaging and robbing and oppression that people got wealthy but that is not no longer necessary. it still happens around the world but now you get wealthy through trade, through a win-win situation and not a zero-sum game. and we make out this case and travel around it and examine the sources of the hostility toward prosperity. >> host: york, pennsylvania, next telephone call. hello, new york. >> caller: how are you doing, professor machan. >> guest: i'm doing fine. >> caller: i always considered myself for a long time a conservative but more and more these last years i think i'm becoming more libertarian. and -- but my biggest question about libertarianism and how to

use that as a form of government would be the transition from what we have now to libertarianism. and let me preface that with an example. if you were to transfer the government from what we have now to a libertarian form of government, a truly libertarian form of government -- if you've done it over a period of time, it would perhaps take too long and it would end up reverting back to what it is now, or if you did it too fast, it would be such a disruption that -- it would cause chaos and that's my question. thank you. >> guest: well, i don't think you can get too chaotic compared to the middle east right now. so i think whatever you have here that moves in the direction of a genuinely free society would be far more peaceful, someone upsetting to rent takers, people who live off other people. people who are in the

entitlement mentality and believe other people owe them a living. this would be problematic for them and for their supporters in the academy and there are zillions of them. however, it has to be remembered changes come through slowly. try to get rid of a bad habit. try to quit smoking, try to stop scratching your head when you're not supposed to. it's very, very difficult. i think that there's greater hope in moving in the direction of freedom than in reverting in the direction of slavery. >> host: this is an email question about anarkism. do you think that anarkism is a system that can protect individual rights? >> guest: anarkism literally means no foundations. arcism is foundations. ankitch

anarkisms is the opposite, it beliefs in no god. it's just a negative. you have to have a solution of the problem of law maintenance and law enforcement. and there are anarchists who are socialists, who are communists, who are pacifists and they maintain they have the solution. one of the most prominent solutions advanced by so-called anacrh libertarians or capitalists is what i like to call a mobile government, government that moves from one region to the other. takes on the task of settling disputes and then moves on. i don't think it's really a workable system. i've written on it on and off. some of my writing is a little bit speculative about this.

i think that regional integrity is necessary for a functioning legal system. so since i don't see this regional integrity evident under any of the anacho libertarian principles i've encountered going all the way back to benjamin tucker and josiah warren and to mary rothbard and to roderick log, my coeditor of the book, which is called "is government part of a free society" also from ashgate, i think it's an idea that needs to be explored, not categorically rejected. it's an idea for political philosophers to chew over. i don't have a quick answer but i am very skeptical that you can

combine sound defense of human liberty with it. >> host: eugene, oregon, our caller. welcome. >> caller: this is a very interesting program. i have wondered about libertarianism practical application and the questions i have are -- what if there were 50,000 libertarians and given a nice plot -- an ordinary plot of land to build their community? they would want a school. how would that be funded? >> guest: you never heard of private schools? there are thousands of them in

the united states alone despite the fact that you are already made to pay for public schools. your property taxes support public schools and yet a lot of parents decide it's more important to have schools out and far away from the state and, therefore, they support private education for their kids. so the schooling example is not one. now, here are some difficult ones with roads, would roads be public or private? many libertarians think that you could sustain a private road system and it would be better, for example, and it would be better than a public road system, yes. i mean, these are all interesting issues. and if you are really serious about liberty, you would spend some time examining what solutions have been offered. that's what i do. >> host: eagle, colorado, your

question for tibor machan. eagle, colorado, second try. all right. all right. we're going to move to our next call from texas in the town of laredo. welcome, caller. laredo, texas. >> caller: hello, god bless. i figured we could all use a god bless at this point. >> guest: hello. >> host: all right, caller, i'm going to move on. and let me go to an email then and we'll get some calls lined up that are connected for us. this one is a viewer and i don't want to move up asking the framers of the constitution referred to the american government as a republican forum in contrast to democracy which referred to the past failed experiment in popular government. if this is correct, when did the u.s. revert back to democracy? >> guest: well, officially it has quite never revert back to democracy because, for example,

the first amendment to the u.s. constitution clearly bans any kind of vote establishing some national religion or coercing members of the press to behave in various ways. so these are off limits to the democratic method. there are a lot of other things, unfortunately, that have become available for democratic decision-making. and that is unfortunate, however, one reason that democracy is so prominent and widely embraced, not only here but abroad is that for centuries on end, no ordinary human being had been recognized as having a right to make a difference in public policy.

they were always ruled by czars, by monarchs, by pharaohs, by groups of well-dressed thugs. and so now finally after so many centuries the idea came up that maybe everybody who was being ruled ought to have a say about what is to be enforced? what is to be made part of the rule of the land. that became a substitute for almost a fundamental value and that is liberty. >> host: next telephone call comes from orange county, california, not too far away from where we are right now in los angeles. orange county, go ahead, please. >> caller: thank you. bravo, dr. machan. and thank you for answering my call -- my question through the email. this is my second question to you. dr. andrew altman from georgia state, his law and morality, presents judgment at nuremberg.

he has a clear account of this controversial trial. now, do you agree or disagree, not personally, but on the merits of this trial as it pertains to following the rule of law? thank you. >> guest: i think that the nuremberg trial had some technical difficulties about it given the kind of systems of law that we have around the world. however, i do think that you could have a perfectly legitimate world court of the sort that that trial kind of assumed was in operation. and have people who committed war crimes and genocide put up for serious criminal violations and examine the issue under the rule of law, so i am not really

that upset about nuremberg not being technically an exact manifestation of good legal process. >> host: next call is little rock, arkansas. >> caller: yes. >> host: little rock, are you here? >> caller: yes, i'm here. can you hear me? >> host: yes, sir. >> caller: my question is regarding -- is the doc making -- or what does he think of partial birth abortions? where the birth process is over 23 weeks? and also an unrelated question is what does he think of the writings dr. thomas so and dr. walter williams. thank you. >> guest: okay. well, i do not agree with partial birth abortions. i think that by the time they tend to occur, there is indeed a little tiny infant human being in existence, and such a being

has the right to life and everybody owes such a being the respect of that right. and in a legal system that is concerned with human liberty, the law should defend that right. this doesn't apply to embryos but it does apply to fetuses that are now in their -- whatever 40th week of development. so i do not believe that partial birth abortions are conducive, consistent with individual liberty. >> host: i want to get back to this book again. >> guest: there was a second part to this question and i don't remember exactly what it was. >> host: i don't have it. >> guest: i lost it. >> host: if it comes back to either of us we have 15, 20 minutes be left. i want to come back to this book in our last bit of time here. i'm curious -- we talked about environmental aspects and conservation but about animals

and animals role in our society. why did you tackle this topic? >> guest: partly about because i wrote a lot about individual rights and human rights and the rights and the theory of rights and so on. and in the early '90s, late '80s, but even earlier, there have been talk about animal rights. there was a particular philosopher named thomas regan at north carolina state university. and there was another philosopher who's still very much active, peter singer at princeton university, who defended something like animal rights. regan defended animal rights. and singer defended animal interests and maintained that all public policies and all personal conduct must take into consideration its impact on the lives of animals, at least

animals up to a point. they draw the line lower than i do with human beings. they went to go down, for example, monkeys and zebras or something like that. anyway, i consider animal rights basically a category mistake. animals don't have rights. they couldn't have rights because rights depend upon human beings having to make moral choices free of other people's intervention. now, there's a big argument about, well, how can you then say that infants have rights. they're not making the kind of big decisions that need this kind of protection so i got into that and we have been arguing about it back and forth, and i'm still writing some essays on the issue of animal rights and animal interest and how to tackle all this, although the book is a little bit more comprehensive, it also enters into the issue of wildlife

preservation and the whole bunch of things. >> host: what do you think the way americans treat pets. does that fit into your thinking about it? >> guest: well, you know, i have had a bunch of pets myself but i never treated them like my kids. although you don't even -- you treat pets -- most people treat pets as if they were invalids. and i think that's an insult to pets. [laughter] >> guest: but generally, i mean, what -- i don't think about everything all the time and this is an area -- >> host: you've not explored. i did remember that viewer's question when you answered it. we want to know what you think of thomas so. >> guest: i think thomas so is a brilliant academic thinker, economist, political economist. i think he's a fascinating columnist. unfortunately, i don't think he got a very good public persona.

he tends to be rather gruff and brusque and so he's better writing but not appearing in public, in my opinion. that's honest. whether i'm right or wrong is not the issue. what do i think, okay? thomas, i think he is over the top by saying no mental illness exists. i think there can be mental illness. it's totally reductionistic to think it's physiological. but he's a great champion of human liberty when he opposes involuntary mental hospitalization. >> host: 15 minutes until the end of our three-hour interview. we are live today on the campus of usc, which is where the "los angeles times" 16th book festival is being held this year and we're tag advantage of that

to talk to a california writer today. our next question from him is from uniontown, pennsylvania. you're on, caller. >> caller: hello, c-span. hello, professor. i'm glad for this opportunity. >> guest: hello. >> caller: i agree with you wholeheartedly -- i think it's 27 weeks you said a fetus has to develop before it's actually a person. along those lines, when do you think a corporation should actually be recognized as a legal person as it is? thanks. >> guest: you know, the technical aspect of the legal status of a corporation is really not my specialty. however, i will tell you this, corporations are made up of human beings. the managers are human beings. the employees are human beings. the advertisers are human beings. the h.r. people are human beings. the customers are human beings. in that sense, corporations are no different from teams or

orchestra or choirs or universities, which are all made up of human beings. and so in a derivative sense corporations can have rights just the same way as universities can or the los angeles philharmonic can have rights. obviously, the exact nature of the rights and how to establish it are complicated matters but i don't think that this badmouthing of corporations is somehow some super-duper monstrous entity has any justification going for it. >> host: well, here's a related email from james from new york. first of all, he says machan has been evading too many questions from the left and here's his. he refers only to the power of the government in taking away individual freedom. are there not powerful corporations that strip freedoms from individuals? why are only the government -- why assume only government creates these corporations? what is the evidence?

do nonregulated markets always produce an incorrectliable and he demonizing his critics claiming they are hostile to prosperity. >> guest: okay. can you tell me whether the first sentence includes the word "evades"? >> host: evading too many questions. >> guest: that's an insult. i have evaded absolutely nothing in all of this interview. i have answered everything that was asked of me. some things weren't asked. i don't have any responsibility of producing questions for myself, not here. i do that in my books and in my scholarship. now, as far as corporations are concerned, whatever businesses do in the marketplace, they do not have the legal authority to invoke force and to jail people or to impose involuntary fees on

them in the form of taxation. you can always have the exit option with a genuine free market corporation. you can leave. you can go to mcdonald's to burger kings. you can go from chevy to ford. you can go from volvo to saab. you cannot do that with your government that holds a gun over your head. therefore, the government's power backed by lethal forces is far more interesting and important for a political theorist to worry about than the power, so to speak, or influence or impact of the large organizations. let's face it, there are many, many large people in the world. all you got to do is watch a basketball game. and if you meet a large person in a back alley you're at a disadvantage if he were to be hostile to you.

we can always focus on free market or possible hostility but the likelihood of people in the free market actually exercising lethal force against one another, unless they are out and out criminals, and that's what the government is there to stop, is much lower than the government doing it if it gets out of hand. >> host: estes,

contained in her philosophical essays. i don't know her personal life enough to know whether she has done something grievously wrong or not. >> host: colorado, springs, another coloradoan. you're on. >> caller: hi. a number of years ago barbara brandon wrote "the passion of ayn rand" after ayn rand's death. and a year or so later her husband, nathaniel brandon wrote a book i believe entitled "my life with ayn rand" are you aware of the book "the passion of ayn rand's critics" and are you familiar with and the brandons have slandered ayn rand

and have largely shaped a lot of the public impression of what ayn rand was like? >> guest: you know, i have never taken an interest in any of this gossipy stuff about ayn rand or against ayn rand or for ayn rand or nathaniel brandon or barbara brandon. all of this to me is just a side show. i'm interested in whether their thinking has any merit. >> host: i want to talk about your most recent book, widely available. how did you come up with this title? >> guest: well, it's always been interesting to me what people tell themselves when they realize that they're in disagreement with so many other people. i mean, just think the christians who disagree with the hindus, who disagree with the muslims. disagree with the this, and the that, the republicans the democrats, the utilitarians. the world is rife with people thinking that other people are

wrong. so i was wondering, what do they tell themselves why they are wrong? how do they handle that? i mean, they walk, they eat, they sleep. they do pretty much what they do and yet they think they're wrong. and those guys think they're wrong. what do we make of this? that's how i came up with that title. >> host: i'll have to let people buy it to find the conclusion? >> guest: right, exactly. >> host: five minutes left, the next caller is from laredo, texas. >> caller: largely there's no perfect system because there's not perfect people who participate in one. if people were perfect, we wouldn't need a system anyway. >> host: it's a bad connection and i want to move to boise, idaho because our time is short. >> caller: hello. >> host: you have a question?

>> caller: my question is, ayn rand, listening to rand paul when he came to visit and now i'm listening to this program and so far all i've been able to get out of it is that these people are shells for corporations. thank you. >> host: libertarians are shields for corporations. that's the question. >> guest: yeah, i'd wish. >> host: why? >> guest: i'd be richer. obviously, i'm not a shield for a corporation. i don't even know too many people in corporations. i work at a university. this is all kind of this badmouthing and besmirching and ad hominems you don't argue with a system based on whether you have this fantastic idea that they are shields of anybody. come on! this is nonsense. let's just talk about whether there is any validity to your arguments, whether history

supports you? not this badmouthing and bemeaning and besmirching of your opponents. >> host: don in atlanta asked, do you agree humans have a hurting mentality and, therefore, almost desire restricted freedom in exchange for direction? >> guest: i don't. i think that may have been true at very early stages of human development because people were so vulnerable alone that the idea -- it's not so much an instinct but a good idea to get together with others in order to fend off anyone who might attack you. and that still goes. i think that there is strength in numbers. but i think intimate friendships, family are far more important than belonging to a union or a club or some other large group of human beings. i think the idea that human beings benefit froat