i've been talking to my went to a book signing of face. i listened to him give a lecture to an audience that just aren't on every word. at the end i went up and had him ascribe a copy of this book. i identified myself to him. the next week he went on national tv and said that i was talking have. stalking is a felony. he went on national tv and accused me of committing a felony because i paid for his book and asked him to sign it. let me tell you what happens in the age of the internet when someone goes on tv and accuses someone like me of accusing a felony, for the next three weeks i lived in at 24 by seven world the fate. death threats against my family.

this stuff is blood sport. make no mistake. this is why such a rotten people are in public life. either they are the kind of and sensitive people who'd just are heard by those kinds of things or there are just such a puritanical fanatics you can't get anything on them. so what is the ayn rand lesson? well, you can fight the power. you identify the force of evil. if you want to make it your hobby our mission like i did, take this guy down a peg, pull a few things out to make him less powerful. you pay the price. you can do it. now, we have a book signing coming up. it's going to be in the booth right after year. i want you all to come.

wanted to buy a copy of the book, get the books signed. i promise i will ackees none of your stalking me. [applause] thank you very, very, very much. >> this event was part of freedomfest, a libertarian conference held annually in lost vegas. to find out more visit freedomfest dot com. >> with titles like slender, godless, guilty, and latest, demonic, and kolter has something to say. sunday august 7th, your chance to talk to, you know, and tweak the new york times best selling author and syndicated columnist, in depth for three hours starting at noon eastern live on book tv on c-span2. >> and now more from freedomfest 2011. todd buckles, author of rice to base the merits of the rat race

founder and producer of freedomfest. this runs about 50 minutes. >> all right. hello and welcome back. we are here to debate the race, good or bad for americans. we have to esteems speakers. the first is taught buckle, a former white house director of economic policy, toward winning harvard professor, a managing director of the tiger hedge fund and author of several books, including most recently rushed, why you love and need the race. so he will be arguing the pros side of race. now, taking the opposite point of view will be dr. mark spellman, a professional economist, expert, professor in columbia business school.

founder of freedomfest, the world's largest meeting of three minds, and is also the author of more than two dozen books including most recently the maxims of wall street. now, lily tomlin once said that the trouble with the rat race is even if you when you're still wrapped. but i think he's going to disagree with that point of view. the more lackadaisical will put up a defense, and i have to say, mark once told me how beautiful it is to do nothing and then press afterwards. [laughter] the perfect man to take the opposing point of view. the format today is first buckle will speak for 20 minutes on his book and the advantages of the rat race, and then mark will take ten minutes to rebut his point of view, and then we will open the floor for questions.

please. >> thank you. thank you. that kind introduction. nice enough to read everything my mother had written down, which was good. mark, it's great to be here at freedomfest. i have to tell you, about a month so ago mark called me up. todd, do you believe in free speech? i said, yes and of course. he said, well, are you sure? i said, you know my book on the front cover has a quote from milton friedman endorsing my book. of course of believe in free speech. he said kamal will you come to mike conferencing give a speech for free. here i am today which you know. i'm doing this favre -- not a favor. it is obviously good for me and for everyone here. i am going to ask you to do a

favor. i would like you all to stand up for just a moment. please stand up. thank you. thank you. stand up. i just want to see if i had the power to give 500 libertarians to do what i want. all gone. now you can treat each other for a moment, say hello to your neighbor. very good. and now please sit down. please sit down. thank you very much. you know what, i may have just save your life. i may have just save a life by getting you to stand up. according to the american journal of cardiology people who sit down for too long during the day have a hundred and 25 percent greater chance of developing a cardiac events. now, think about that for a moment and ask yourself, would we all be better off as a society if we quit there race,

retreated, crossed our legs into the lotus yoga position and hound and murmured all day long. i think not. i have to tell you, it took me a long time to come to that conclusion. i made a mistake about five years ago. i began writing a book and researching. the book was going to be called tail hunters, how americans are ceasing success and losing their souls. i was convinced as a result of competitive forces and media images americans were all trying to get to the tail end of the bell curve, tried to be the richest, the thinnest, the best looking. i thought it was making as miserable. i have to tell you, in my career at the white house or harbor your hedge funds i have had plenty of lunches with billionaires' and socialites who have had so much blessed surgery of to look like they're the best looking that they look back they are reentering the earth's

atmosphere. so i have seen some of the damage here. but what i realized was that even though most of us suspect in the middle of the bell curve, the middle of that, and most of those hard point to be the richest of the best looking or have the smartest or most successful children, it is not the end game that matters. it is the progress, the trying, the effort, the endeavor. that is what gives us the best chance of grasping some happiness in this crazy confounding a convoluted world of ours. now, have to tell you, this puts me not just oppose to mark's point of view, but the social psychologist, the behavioral economist, the psychologist, the philosophers, the preachers, the zen masters. they have all concluded that i have to be wrong. they have all concluded that capitalism, commercialism, trade, what they call the race

is driving us crazy. but, in fact, when you look carefully at their assertions, and try to make sense of it from a scientific point of view, have a philosophical, economic, history point of view, their arguments are too easy to spot into shallow to hold water. nonetheless, they tried. why? they concluded that in the 20th century capitalism became the new original standard. forget genesis in the garden of eden in the original san from the bible. the belief that capitalism became the new regional sen. we are infected with capitalism. we are infected with markets, and this has corrupted us, and this is the plate. i call these people hedonists because they somehow think that we can go back in time, there is some perez de but there is some simpler life the weekend retreat to that somehow is going to update us happier.

some examples. and this is not just philosophical musings. they have policy prescriptions behind their assertions. they tell us we need higher taxes in order to discourage consumption, discourage extra work. they believe we need more regulations, more communitarian egalitarian society and are prepared with policies in place to make that happen. daniel gill byrd widely read psychologists and harvard. he summarized tapping his bindings because there are journals of happiness and science of happiness. here is a summary. flow when calls are better. a's are better than cs. everything is better than a republican administration. another behavioral economist has opined that he does not see how anybody could study happiness

and not find himself leading to the left politically. robert frank, a well-known economist. we are like trees and the forest. one tree grows higher than another, casts a shadow. the other tree must try to keep up or it will die and we are in this in this race. if only we could cappings, come to an agreement to stop trying and stop competing. we would have a more blissful life. well, i think this is wrong. you hear this in terms of greed. people should not covet. there coveting their neighbor. of course the bible says don't covet your neighbor, covet your neighbor's life or your neighbors absorb your neighbors wife's livestock. let me ask you this, if kevin is bad what about coveting

somebody's wisdom? patients? freedomfest .. he was a german-born buddhist british economist who ran the british coal board. trying to apply buddhist principles to the economy and came up with enough.

we had enough progress and enough material goods. he said modern society, quote, requires so much and accomplishes so little and that is true i suppose if you forget in 1900 life expectancy was just 47 years of age and polio crippled millions of children. small is not better. we are happier. there's a difference between the simple life and the life of a simpleton. let us look at the flaws. i am not a fan of conspicuous consumption. i don't own a rolex watch. this will be broadcast. i will never be the spokesman for rolex. my children complain because we have the smallest television in the neighborhood. my brother watches football be believe are still watching tv on

that microwave oven. i am not one of these guys who will be jet setting to ski with -- i have to ask myself whether we would be any happier if we got off the treadmill. if we became a hermit and recluses, if we tried to sack the competitive urges and fro the societal treadmill into a bonfire. the problem with social critics is any system involving human beings that lasts longer than a few years and involve more than a few people will be competitive. you don't think the soviet union was competitive? you don't think the hours to china was competitive? they were not competing for the best telephone or computer system. you would compete to get one cold shower once a week. you were competing for the

scraps on the table in a zero some game so there's always competition. the question is if we want to channel our competitive urges towards prosperity and advancement or we want to turned our competitive surges to compete for the last scraps on the table. we cannot go back to eden. even if even existed we have evolve and would find it so pleasant and so much like paradise. we are no longer suited for paradise. the dastardly desire to compete and acquire is not cheaply driven by kraft materialism or snarky advertising executives to trick people into buying products they don't want. we are in the rat race because we are trying to gain self-respect. we are trying to demonstrate our worth to others and ourselves. we go to work not just for the

paycheck but for the slap on the back, the good job done that gives us deep in our dna a sense that our genes will be able to promote themselves and our family lines will live on. that is what is deep down in us. not materialism to fill our closets with a lot of junk. number 4, let's face it. without competitive urges none of us would be here today. wheat here today, everyone on earth today, our forefathers were the folks who figured out how to escape the trembling mastodons. we are the descendants of people who figured out how to escape the saber tooth tigers. we are made of sterner stuff than psychologists and philosophers give us credit for. we could go back in time to a simpler life. let's go back 120 years. there was no internet, no

traffic on the roads, no telemarketer interrupting dinner with your family. but life expectancy was 47. would we want to go back to that simple time? not be. not meet. the enemy of russia around. those who try to quash the rushing around, the enemy is tyranny. let me juxtaposed robert frank's free metaphor. you may be familiar with the canadian band who coincidentally called a "rush," they had a song called the tree and hear the lyrics. there is unrest in the forest. there is trouble with the trees where the maples want more sunlight and the oaks ignored their pleas. sound like the cornell economics department. the maples formed a union and demanded equal rights. the oaks are just too greedy. we will make and give a slight.

now there is no more oak a fraction. they passed a noble law and the trees are all kept equal by hachette, axe and saw. i will argue on three grounds for "rush," for the rushing around. on neuroscience and economic history and culture. from a neurological point of view we have evolve to move forward. not stasis. we have in our brains as human beings large frontal lobes. these are windows to the future. of trouble loeb allows us to move and plan and decide to invent and try something new. we have neurotransmitters, dopamine is a chemical in your brain that gives you an extra burst of pleasure not when you

win a game but when you try. dopamine gives you the sense of pleasure when you are attempting something new, when you are taking a risk. it could be the teenage boy asking the girl to the prom or the entrepreneur deciding to start a new business. these factors show me that human beings are meant to move forward. not to stay in one place. economic history. for most of human history men and women have lived no better on two legs than they had on four. for most of human history we lived no better on two legs than our perhaps our descendants or ancestors did before homo sapiens. there was no prosperity.

there was no move up in life expectancy. it has been the rushing around that fundamentally changed the human experience and at the same time rather than making as greedy and bitter and nasty in "rush" i point out violence levels have gone down as trade and commerce and the rat race has gone up. honesty levels have gone up. the noble savage myth started with the gun shop russo and margaret mead and books like tarzan which try to persuade us that people in the forest who are uncivilized are more noble than people in modern days. that is plain wrong. when you compare honesty levels and trust levels among aboriginal tribes and among ourselves the aboriginal tribes don't come off so well. number 3, culture.

we as human beings like drama. we don't like stasis. we get bored. even children know this. kerri tales. the good ones are not boring. they tend to have some bad characters. they have tension in them. follow the yellow brick road and you get a really scary green which at the end and flying monkeys. who now funny enough are in congress but that is a different story. i was in florence, italy and took my kids to see michelangelo's david. before michelangelo and the renaissance have to tell you i think painting was pretty boring. you look and the madonna ofs that were painted prior to the renaissance and they are so without emotion that you think the painter used botox to freeze

the motion. why are michelangelo's works so appreciated? why do we stand in line to see them? they demonstrate tension. the furrowed brow of michelangelo's david. moses in rome. rippling muscles of arnold schwarzenegger. we like tension. to take it in more in a pop culture kind of way there is a movie festival as part of freedom fest. the movie rocky. at an end of the movie there's the boxing match. the bell rings and the movie is over at that point and we don't care as viewers whether rocky won lost because the winning or losing doesn't matter. it is the trying. it is the effort. it is the exertion of energy and sweat and intelligence. that is what we want to see and that creates success in human

history. when you are in las vegas go to the palazzo hotel and see the showed jersey boys. has anyone seen that? you need to see it again because i am among the investors and co-producer is and really need the money. at the end of that show the frankie valley characters as they ask you what was the high point? was it being inducted into the rock-and-roll hall of fame or selling the records or pulling a song sherri out of the hat? when it was four guys under that lab post when it was in front of us that was the sweetest moment. the sweetest moment for us are not the finale but the effort. the rushing around. i would say this. getting to a conclusion. anyone who is condemning the modern economy must answer this. at what point in the past would

you have said enough? to 1 ab? some fought rome is terrific. we have plumbing. they had malaria and syphilis and fed people to the lions. what about 1955? ozzie and harriet, the eisenhower era. we should have said enough in 1955. we didn't need more material goods. 1954, tens of thousands of children were struck with polio. when did it end? when jonas salk, a lab rat came out of his laboratory with a native chemicals created through his sweat and tireless effort and running around trying to devise something new. thank god he didn't say enough. these questions for anyone who condemns the darwinian raffle

raise without the heated competition with life expectancy have risen from 47 to 80? in 1800 affluent people tower over less affluent people. literally inches taller. wouldn't poor people still be shrunken today if we didn't have this rat race? wouldn't for and median income people be morning over dead infants as they did before the rat race began because only rich people have surviving babies? this is freedom for rest. there is the question of freedom. in traditional societies before the rat race if your father grew corn you grew corn. if your father was a printer his father with a printer and you would be a printer. if your father was a blacksmith you would start looking at horse who for yourself and couldn't imagine doing anything different. freedom burst out amid the competition and that is what we must embrace.

ronald reagan's father was a failed shoe salesman. thank got ronald reagan did not follow his father's half or else the soviet union would still be standing. we would all be wearing hush puppies or whatever ronald reagan successfully sold to us. the world we live in is annoying and confounding and irritating and confusing and at times exasperatingly but i assure you you will never be happy if you listen to someone who tells you, quote, sit-down, you are rocking the boat. thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. [applause] >> let me quote lee new tank y

--yutang the libertarian chinese philosopher of the 20th century. my favorite chinese philosopher who developed the philosophy of letting go. that was the title of his philosophy. oh wise humanity, terribly wise humanity, how incredible is the civilization where men toil and work and worry their hair gray to get a living and forget to play. i thought about this. it is because i had some leisure time, wandering the streets of durango, colorado, i discovered

him. if i was that busybody. if i was the guy with two self phones in each year and i have seen people like that, they're not here or if they are for brief period of time, the concept of leisure time is important. i look in this book "rush" at the index under leisure. it is mention three times and in every case it is mentioned in some what a negative sense. all of us have been involved with the rat race. i was involved with the rat race. we were living in washington d.c.. that was a rat race if there ever was one. we now call it death star for good reason. we decided to get out. we moved to the bahamas for two years and it was life in living color.

it wasn't that we did any work. i wrote my newsletter. i wrote a couple books when i was there. i was engaged. it is all about aristotle's concept of balance. in today's society it is easy to become overworked and overbusy. we're in the age of busyness. i remember in the bahamas in the evenings we threw away our tv. you had a small tv. we simply threw it away. if we wanted to see the super bowl we went to a friend's home and had a great social time. my wife joanne invited one of her friends and her husband. he was a super type a constantly on the run dealmaker. there are no deals to be made at our home in the bahamas. we pulled out a rummy cube and playing that in the evening and

he couldn't take it. he moved to the hotel away from his family, did a deal with the guy at the hotel and left early. the idea of a vacation to him made absolutely no sense. i know what todd is saying. i support what he says about the free economy and we should not discourage freewheeling entrepreneurship. if people want to work 18 hours a day more power to them. i am opposed to the french 35 day week schedule and that kind of interference. we are on the same page but as far as your personal life is concerned you have to have balance. you work and get a lot of benefit from work but you get a lot of benefit -- todd talks about this. the sports figures and their

nicknames. being involved in sports. i played county sports and i play church basketball and i play golf with alan greene. i do not play a competitive game of golf. i make up the new terms. i don't use the term bogey. that with the fabulous baby and it was one over par. it is two over par is a fantastic baby and i am more upbeat about it. so the competitive thing -- i am not a big fan of that sort of thing. here we are at freedom fest and two kinds of people come to freedom fest. there are those who are so busy that they come in and they are lucky to be here a day or two and then they have to go do this

or that. especially speakers. there are two kinds of speakers. we encourage speakers to come and spend all three days at freedom fest and just relax and go to sessions that have nothing to do with what they do normally in business. just take it as a break away from finance. if you are a finance person go to the arts and literature and science and technology. in our music we have music with bob greenberg. that rule should be packed. it was half full when he talked about beethoven. he is the number one teacher, 28 courses on classical music. i am hoping on saturday is in the same room, bob greenberg will talk about music that has caused a riot. it is an interesting topic.

but that is me. i am an eclectic person. i am interested in a variety of topics. i will never forget my first experience with steve forbes. i had known mr. forbes for many years. he spoke at money shows and so forth. i invited him to freedom fast. so his secretary called and said this is mr. forbes's schedule. he is flying in and give a speech and sign a few books and flyback to new york that very day because he is a very busy man. stick around and get a feel for the conference. oh note, he is a very busy man. he is a celebrity doing this or that. he doesn't have time for this. one week later his secretary

called back and said mr. ford has reviewed your three day schedule that has changed his schedule and decided to stay all three days at freedom fest and he has been attending freedom fest every time and he is they're all three days this being the exception because of major surgery. he promised to be back next year and has become ambassador to freedom fest. if you look at my business card it says freedom fest, so good i change my schedule to attend all three days. i talked to him about this. he says i go to these conferences and give the speeches and i leave but your conference is so unique i can learn new things and relax. they treat me as a regular person. i can walk through the fall and have a great time. there is a lot to be said for that. there's a great religious leader

who said happiness. you have a lot of unhappiness which i find fascinating. economists of all people are in the forefront of these studies about happiness. one of my religious leaders said there are four keys to happiness and one is work. you put work first. that is important. if you don't work, work brings a lot of happiness. you also have to have play, leisure time is extremely important. number 3 is love and friendship. that is really important. love and friendship. if your too busy you don't have love and you don't have friendship. you have to spend quality time. you have to spend quantity time with your loved ones and friends. how often does a friend call you up and say how are you doing? just wanted to call and see how things are.

in today's busy world the only people who call are because they need something. they are in business. it is like the rothschilds. they had no friends. they only had clients. there's something to be said for that. i will tell you one final story and open it up for questions and we have a microphone right there so line up to ask questions on these issues that we raise. a dear friend of mine, my publisher when i first started out i was managing editor of personal finance newsletter and bob was my publisher. he was one of those guys that was really in to work, work, work. he died rather young. i will never forget the time i called him up and said bob, live in orlando and you are in tampa.

let's take a break and go to the yankee game together. i will drive down and let's do it tomorrow. what do you say? he said you need to give me at least two months advance notice before we can get together. i get this more and more. if i died tomorrow would you be at my funeral? obviously not. you didn't prepare two months in advance for your funeral and so i am hoping one of my buddies will drop everything to come to my funeral because we are golfing buddies and have done a lot together. friendship is so important. how many of as have friends who are willing to take the time to take a break and play a game of golf or spend a couple days together. plan way in advance -- just get up and do it. people call me all the time.

is this a good time to talk? i try to say any time you call is a good time. occasionally there is an exception. i had a rule in my family. i had five children. my rule was any time -- i work at home. any time my kids say can you take me to so and so or do this or that my rule is to drop everything right then and there, forget the business and go to it. i want you to know in those 30 years, 25 years my kids were at home i never violated that rule and was not easy because i had deadlines writing a newsletter. i had a hard deadline that was due in two hours of riding my newsletter and my son came in and said can we go out on the boat. lived on a lake in winter park. can we go wake boarding?

he loved wake boarding. i knew that was a whole hour of my time. this was my toughest task. i said heck with it. i left it behind. we went out and went wake boarding. i came back in and made my deadline. i was really surprised. not that i am the greatest father in the world. i made a lot of mistakes but that is one thing i am proud of that spent the time to do that. i think in today's world, this busyness, this wonderful book the importance of living which has been recently reprinted by little brown i give you one quote that i put on the blackboard, my first class at columbia business school, if you look the other way, if you pause they are on their blackberries. it is crazy.

so i wrote on the board this quote, those who are wise won't be busy and those who are too busy can't be wise. as a result of that i lost a third of my students at columbia. i ended up with 25 students but those who stuck around really enjoyed it. i have run out of time. if you ask questions let's take the questions. you want to handle that? thank you very much. [applause] >> feel free to line up. i want to say one thing. mark skousen makes a good case for leisure if not downright sloth but todd buchholz makes the interesting point that ninety-five% of human history was pre agricultural land people didn't wonder about the meaning of life. it was eat and survive and get

your genes to the next generation. there was a historian who spoke at freedom fest a couple years ago who said something profound. if you really believe things were better in the good old days i have one word for you -- industry. any way you have a question? turn the microphone on. tell me your question and i will repeat it. [inaudible] >> -- reputation of there are no winners or losers. mark is answering the philosophical question of what is the good life. it seems to me not so much at debate -- if you can answer what

is the good life -- >> microphone is on. >> if you can answer what is the good life, what mark is talking about it makes you more effective in the race. i want your comment on how opposite you opposed to each other or are you really sort of saying the same thing in different ways? >> you make a good point. i am sure we don't have strong disagreements about the value of some leisure time. obviously devotion to children and the like. the question is for me mark was able to go to the bahamas. probably there was some technology involved whether it was telephone or fax machines or

the internet that allowed him that freedom. think of all the people you know today to work out of the home. mark does. i do to a large extent. the reason major corporations like general electric have full time employees who work out of their homes is because this rushing around developed technologies that allow us to spend more time with our children. one of the reputations i wanted to make was this image that the workplace is some nest of intrigue and file motivation. in fact most people who are miserable in their life and don't feel they are living the good life is not because of the workplace but because they're not getting along with their spouse or their children. for most people who are miserable work place is an asylum. of place to go to get away from the misery they have at home. what is the good life?

has aristotle and his protege pointed out the good life involves some balance but the only reason we have the luxury to sit back and philosophize about are we happy is because modern society has given us the luxury, the material means to give us the time to sit around as opposed to scurrying around to subsist or get enough calories to live one more day. >> also if you are an inventor, take thomas edison with more patents than anybody who ever lived he was a workaholic. i don't know if that term is in your book but workaholic -- it

is the rat race. those people are going to exist and mainly are business people who are driven and we know what that is like if we run our own business. all we can think of is 18 hours a day or longer we can hardly sleep. we want to get going and we are driven. you go through cycles in life. i have gone through a cycle. even ben franklin started this whole thing, does work ethic, industrious and hard working. it was very difficult for him. the french, only the french taught him to slow down and relax and finally he could enjoy a card game and play chess because the rest of the time he was so superbusy. there's a difference the tween todd and i. i have learned to enjoy the

present. >> i live in solano beach, calif.. i have palm trees on my lawn. would you come to a conference like this and spend all three days or would you give a speech and leave? how do you handle conferences? >> a conference like this i would have been delighted to be here to hear the lecture on beethoven. "rush" is still a cultural preferences. the four season than the last line from what show? sit down and rock the boat. guys and dolls. that is great. that is important. >> the other thing i will do briefly, there was some fascinating studies done about cognitive ability and work and it compared across countries. individuals in their 60s.

people moving toward senior citizenhood. in france and austria where people retire early compare that to the u.s. and denmark where people are largely still working in their 60s there's a difference in cognitive function. researchers asked people in their 60s to site, and household items. a share or refrigerator and ask the individuals to repeat back those items. in countries where people retire early in france and austria they were not able to complete those simple mental tasks compared to countries where people are still working. the french retire early and think they will spend their time eating pastries and doing crossword puzzles but they can no longer find the cafe or complete the crossword puzzle. >> another question here. >> with full disclosure i am leaning more towards todd

because i work for an online university dealing with military so everyone work with his hyperbusy but the one question i have i worked with a lot of people who are young people and it does seem that there is a cultural difference happening among the objects generation where they're putting in north bend -- inordinate value on the balance side. they have never known life without these luxuries and opposed lehman world when things got tougher for them. is that something that will carry over overtime or as they grow over and have more responsibilities that perhaps may be a different shift. before it was a rat race and that a value of leisure and it may be later with later value of rat race. >> i applaud the recommendation of play but i am very worried.

i have three daughters. i am worried about the self-esteem movement and what it has done to children. one of my daughters when she was 5 years old was playing community soccer. i am not a crazy person yelling at my children to make sure they are the best soccer player. my daughter was 5 years old. her grandmother, my mother comes to watch the game. catherine, what is the score? we are not allowed to keep score but it is 3-2. we have taken children and and even spelling bees. what happens to these children when they realize that in order to get a job you may have to demonstrate some skill? you may have to demonstrate extra effort? i am worried about their ability to handle those sorts of pressures because they have been rais