and i think everyone looks forward for you scheduling time for are twitter to answer the questions. >> i'll do my best. maybe i can hire a person to answer some of these for >> is there a nonfiction author or book you would like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail at booktv@c-span.org. or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. >> up next on booktv john stossel contends that the government and politicians, regardless of political affiliation, are incapable of addressing the political and social issues facing the u.s. the author, host of fox business network's "stossel," argues that americans need to think as individuals and stop looking to the government for assistance. this is just under an hour. >> thank you all for coming. i'm larry, the president. we're delighted to provide a forum for our good friend john

stossel to talk about his new book, "no they can't: why government fails - but individuals succeed." and here to introduce john today is his colleague and intellectual collaborator, judge andrew napolitano. as you all know, he was a fox news judicial panels provide daily and houses on the fox news and fox business channel's. judge is the youngest life tenured superior court judge in history of the state of new jersey serving on the bench from 1987-95. he also served as adjunct professor of constitutional law at huntingdon law school for many years and is published six books on government and the law. they are all terrific by the way. his latest book, published is focused in entitled it's dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. [laughter] a great title. the case for personal freedom. please join me in welcoming a true champion, judge andrew napolitano.

[applause] >> my friend walter suggested that title. nice to be. the young lady -- you better introduce -- this character, stossel and i, first that he probably doesn't remember this, in 1969 when i was a freshman and he was a senior. not at the institution after which this place is named for but at the one of the block, whose colors are black and orange. john had long hair, was running a newspaper, a left wing rag called the day thursday as wearing a t-shirt that said burn it down baby. [laughter] that's all right. i had a cookout. i was wearing a t-shirt that said bomb hanoi. [laughter] since then -- [applause] since then the two of us have

answered that siren call of human freedom, and have devoted our careers to the defense of it. had the privilege of doing so on the bench in the superior court in new jersey, and in new jersey and new york city court rooms, john has done so on television, like no other person has. john, as you know, is the recipient of 19 enemies. most of my colleagues would kill to have one. contest 19. why does he have 19? because he is intellectually honest. utterly steadfast, and always on top of his game. i will give you an example. the other day i was at princeton university this into a speech, he was comparing the presidencies of two princetonians who became president, woodrow wilson and james madison. you can imagine which one he favored, thank goodness.

seated next to me as a woman that keeps poking in the ribs every time he says something that blasts wilson or praises madison. at the end of the speech he says to me, you should tell stossel that he should come down here and do one of the shows at princeton. that would be 1000 students screaming to hear him. and i said to her, really? she said just. when you and stossel were students or, maybe you were the only two libertarians, but that's not the case now. i think it myself, is this some not job or she is talking about stossel. i said by the way, my name is andrew napolitano. she said yes, i know who you are. i'm surely tillman, the president of princeton university. [laughter] so there's your invitation, john. monday i was getting a little carried away on air. one day i was getting carried away on air. and i used a phrase that are really believe, i know there are

good on the other side and i know not everybody in this room will agree with me, but i happen to other the phrase taxation is theft. john calls me up and said you were killing me. i say what you mean i'm telling you? he said when you say something like taxation is theft, my inbox is filled with e-mails saying, why don't you say that kind of stuff? [laughter] john is a champion of human freedom, who has the gift of explaining it in a way that everybody can understand, and nobody can find him disagreeable. the other day i was looking at a piece of literature, something from advertising, some speech i'll be getting in november. and there was a picture in this publication about john stossel just about two or three months ago playing volleyball on a beach in california with a bunch of 19-year-olds.

now, if you blink your eyes three times, you couldn't tell which of them was killed in the blank, john's age, and which of them was a 19 year old. there are times when i look at him and i say, that's what i want to look at when i grow up. i know when i was on the bench i used to say, that's what i want to be like when i grow up. and now i can say, he is the man i admire most, he is my friend, my colleague, and my mentor, john stossel. [applause] >> wow, andrew, thank you. that is very kind. i should say i interviewed him for my first tv special when i was nervously branching out in your direction, and he was so quiet and careful in timid that we couldn't use it.

[laughter] he has changed since then. he is far more brilliant than the principles of liberty that i, in terms of the law. i come at it as a consumer reporter, not from really understanding it but just seeing how life worked and approach the economic side of it. and that's what "no they can't" is about. and by the way, you say that people of foxglove to get him in this nbc, they don't give emmys to people at fox. it is garbage. that's not how i won the 19 emmys. then i wised up. then i stopped winning any trend toward. -- stopped winning any trend toward. "no they can't," the cover of my book is a play off of the last election campaign where there was all that excitement about the magic politician who said yes, we can. and the intensity of that was

extraordinary. and, frankly, it's all grey if we, mean three people, but we in their minds, in many people's minds has come to mean the state. this is really a bad idea, but as i've come to learn its intuitive that maybe you understand life doesn't work that way, but to most people, there's all this polling information people don't trust government, congress is up 12% approval rating. that maybe true but the next time the crisis happens, peoples instinctive reaction is that governments got to do something. think about after september 11, we have to take over airport security. tom daschle said you can't professionalize, federalize. it was instinctive. people were scared. the screeners had let these people go through. in fact, they had obeyed all the faa rules, the small minds they brought on in the box cutters

were legal, the unlocked cockpit doors, that was all legal. but nevertheless, they were minimum-wage workers often, and tried contractor. now we get the tsa. and how is that working out for us? so, you know, your experience with it. i didn't realize the extent of it. it goes well beyond that. how much more do they spend than the private screeners? not twice as much. 10 times as much. and in the law they put in a part that says, if your city wants to opt out and go back to the system that europe uses and most of the world uses, which is private contractors competing under government supervision, which, of course, is better because they have to compete and you can fire them if they're bad. you can't buy the government. it creates some flex builder if you want to do that is ask tsa if you can do a couple places

have, kansas city, the largest a san francisco. so we go to san francisco and would interview people and they say things like gee, the screeners are nicer. and the line moves more quickly. and tsa undercover studies have found that they're much more likely to catch contraband in services, and the government screeners are. and why is the? we look into. it's a private contractor knows he has to work hard to keep his job. he does all kinds of innovative experiments. they run contests were the best screen and win $2000. who can find a contraband fastest, who can pack the bag most quickly. they then, to keep the airports have become so they get hired next to, they should screen around so the line keeps moving. so all these other airports want to get these private screeners, which is legal under the law, and they provide for permission. the tsa ignores them for you.

doesn't even respond. finally, a few months ago they say, we don't think this would be advantageous to the federal government. that's the new standard. not how can we move people along, how can we keep people safe, what's advantageous to us, the bureaucracy has built an empire and its goal is to keep itself going. this is what happens. this is not intuitive when people shout yes, we can. now, i've learned this the hard wood. i was a consumer reporter on the left, cheering on government regulation to i became a libertarian when i finally saw it did not work. you were smarter about this than i, but it's not intuitive. we really have to work hard to explain this to people. we are not wired to understand that a free society can solve complex economic problems. we grew up in a family where program to believe that mommy and daddy know best and should plan for us. our ancestors grew up in tribes

were if he disobeyed a tribal leader and harvest the fruit of the right time, you died and he didn't give birth to us. we are programmed to follow the leader, the mechanism where adam smith showed us how these invisible hand can do this better. just doesn't, maybe it makes sense to you, but it doesn't make sense to most americans. i do these pieces, which tried to explain to people, and andrea rich are sitting over here, runs a charity who gives and the high school student to so at least we can introduce these ideas, and i support do i hope you'll supporter, give her your card. but it is an uphill climb. and i see this again and again. one example of the success of private markets is in south america. i mean, the basket case that is in central and south america. one country is doing quite well, that's chilly. the biggest reason is because this guy named josé tenure, the finance minister, created private social security

accounts. so instead of trusting the government to give you money, everybody has a little savings book and they can watch the money appreciate and it makes them think about their own money and investment to answer this simple innovation, chile has prospered. and i give president bush credit. he wasn't the best speaker but he went to most every state trying to sign in america. got nowhere because people here are horrified by the idea. so i go to chile, and expect to find people who will say hey, this is great. but everybody i interview, nobody says that the everybody says, you know, the bank that administers is, that is too high and government ought to step in and reduce -- nobody understood the mechanism that had made their lives better. i mean, this is also true in hong kong. milton friedman's famous example of the most popular high school video that andrea gives out is

one that is not going. i ask students why is america prosperous? and thinking for a while and they say it's because of a democracy. then i say well, it is passionate in the is a democracy in india is poor. welcome india is over part of the action, the density population of any is the same as new jersey, okay? they say welcome india come and america has natural resources. so does india. we can say well, what about how complex it doesn't have democracy. it doesn't have natural resources, yet it can reach. they went from third world to first world in just 50 years. they are as rich as we are. what is the? they don't know. it's because of economic liberty. and now we have these heritage and freedom house polls to compare countries but economic freedom, and the places that are free are the best places to live. but this is not intuitive. when i went to hong kong, i try

to open a business in new york. it took me months. in hong kong, i could open one in one day. and that's why they're prosperous. but when i asked people, they did know. they made the same comments that people in chile me. yeah, the government should step in and fixes from, fixed that problem. and chile reminds me, i know all of you are reading the new york times left were canceled your subscription, and i applaud you for that, but i read because i really feel i have to know what my neighbors and my former abc colleagues are working on. ..

>> he went on to say that we would all like education and health care, many other things to be free. when all is said is that none, nothing in life is free. someone has to pay. it seems reasonable. education isn't free. this is a hugely popular president. his popularity ratings were through the roof. these protests started. part of the problem is that the people on our side said look around you. the people on the other side, looked like her.

she's the one being profiled in "the new york times." a 23-year-old communist. she is popular now. as a sebastian chimera is not. she answered him saying that someone has to pay. of course, someone has to pay. why not stay? through taxes on large corporations that just sounds good to people. she went on to say that entrepreneurs have speculated and grown wealthy of the dreams and expectations of the thousands of young people in his family. jose sebastian pinera had the lowest popularity ratings. part of it is because she is young and good-looking. but most of it is because these

ideas just makes sense to people they are intuitive. the idea that our brains are going to do economic reasoning justifies the way that we are wired. we are not wired to reason out how impersonal market forces solve problems. nobody goes to the streets to celebrate these marginal improvements that constantly happened. but it is economic freedom that works. hereto at the manhattan institute, you fight this. this is one of the areas where you lead. peter uber talked about this too. even manage like your paper and procedure, and that makes sense to people. hence, the tort bar has made themselves so rich. they set up the assumption that they will compensate the victims

who are injured by greedy corporate sellers of risky products, and they will deter you from doing it again. this just makes sense to people. big companies selling drugs, it hurts somebody. somebody has to pay. the drug company should have put up more warnings. it is, as you have heard, it is such a horrible system. who but we will compensate the victims? well, there are lots of ways to do so. you can do to government or private charity. but this system is an awful way to do it, because most of the money goes to the middlemen. the tort bar only takes 50%. but 70% goes to the middleman. it takes people 10 years to get paid. in the wrong people get paid. a harvard study found in medical malpractice cases, most people that got paid when i'm victims

of malpractice. most were victims did not get anything. yet, this is the tort system that dominates in america, and allows these guys to buy private jets and to kill product innovation. it even interferes with the information flow that helps a free people to protect themselves. when you fire someone in your business, and someone calls and says you have hired this person, why? let's say you fire him because he's lazy and reckless. don't tell them that he is being lazily and restless. your human resources department will say that you will get a labor lawsuit. you will spend $100,000 defending your good decision. you just say that we agreed to part company. american airlines didn't even say that they fired a pilot because he was a drunk. again, it is so intuitive to say

that we should have more labels on everything. to remind people that this could be risky. what is the result? ever look at a birth control pill label? i happen to have one here. [laughter] [laughter] very well. i have yet to give birth. [laughter] [laughter] so how does this make us safer? this is what lawyers bring us. this tiny fine print. it shows you why you wouldn't want the pill anymore. they don't make us safer, they make us poorer, they deprive us of innovation. will you be fooled this for me? [laughter] [laughter] >> but they win. intuition is on their side. yes, we can make he said. yes, we can make you sleep. capitalism performs ripples all the time when leaving people

alone. nobody in america or notices. the occupy wall street movement once more. we take for granted that supermarkets have 30,000 products and they rarely poison anybody. all the products are cheap. we take it for granted that you could go to a foreign country, sticky piece of plastic in the wall, and cash will come out. and i could give my card to a stranger and i can rent a car for eight weeks. and when i get home, visa and mastercard will have the accounting correct. the government, by contrast, can't even count votes properly. obama was elected on the message that we are going to fix health care. obamacare, by the time it passed, may not have been popular. but most people in the country

one of wanted the government to do something about help chart. health care really isn't a free market before obamacare. it has already been messed up by the government steps that encourage people to buy insurance that someone else pays. but the results are already out there and they are already awful. a couple of years ago the detroit medical center announced that it was using barcodes to use computers to electronically keep track of all of its patients in all of their medical records and the drugs that they took. isn't this great? but think about it. supermarkets to that 40 years ago. coca-cola and pepsi is less important than our medical records. but it took 40 years of insanity before we brought this to the system where insurance companies and governments are pulling the strings. frederick hayek said the curious tax of economic is to teach men

how little he understands about what he thinks he can design. that is what i hope to do with "no they can't." it is a big battle. i thank you for fighting it. clearly, leaving people free is what makes us prosperous. economists tend to focus on the prosperous part of that statement. the free part is -- that sounds vague, but it is just as important. individuals and their freedom matter. it is a moral objection to big government to say that we are free. it's control of our lives is diminished if we can't tell the sell the model or even our neighbors to leave us alone. we are not just free. we are not just less free, we are less. big government makes us all smaller. i thank you for fighting against

that. [applause] [laughter] [laughter] >> john lynch your questions. we have a microphone. it is a big room. please wait for the microphone to get to you and tell us who you are so we can all know. >> i will let you ladies go back and forth and you can pick whoever you would like. >> thank you very much not only for this talk, but for all of your entertaining and educational talks on tv. as a lawyer who is representing corporations and actions of the type being talked about, hiring people and other things, i can

say that unfortunately how much you are being a piker insane that it would only cost $100,000. [laughter] >> what i want to do is ask you this question. i tell you i am a conservative, not a libertarian. and i have always wondered what he would say in answer to the question, because you constantly on tv and elsewhere speak against government intervention in various things, or does libertarianism and and anarchy begin two how do we avoid anarchy, and yet have freedom for people? >> i think the founders had it pretty good. in the constitution. it is much thinner than what we have now. but basically, that you should be allowed -- libertarians say

people should be allowed to do anything that is peaceful. which means there is a role for government to make sure that i don't kill you or hurt you or take your stuff. others would say the tort system would handle pollution, but i'm happy to have government to have pollution control rules. i am happy to have a limited social safety. that is about all we need. america grew fastest during our first 150 years when government was less than 5% of the economy are now it is 40% in growing. under 5% would be good. >> i saw your program last night. i am a professor of political science. i enjoy your program. last night, when i was watching the program, you had something on head start. you showed that head start was a failure. that has been known almost from

the day head start was created, -- >> i didn't know. >> i did. by law, headstart has to be evaluated every year. those valuations are done and stockpiled in a government basement. my question is this. do you really think that headstart is about helping young children become smarter, or is it really a make work jobs program, and many of what you're talking about vast airport security, all of these terrible programs -- they're not really terrible when it comes to making government jobs. that is their real purpose. how would you respond to the fact that government calls their programs all sorts of things, but many of them are not any more than job creation things. by those measures, they are very good. >> they are, and that is what they become. but i am more cynical than you are. i really think people behind the programs think that they are going to work. head start was a good example. how could it not work? intuitively, it just has to

work. we have our kids, we read to them, most have two parents. they're going to have a head start, obviously. why not, the rich country spends the money to give the truly needy children head start. prekindergarten, some caring teachers, so when they start school they won't be far behind. but then finally, as you say, the government evaluates the program. they compare the kids later. it wasn't just by high school there was no difference, there was no difference -- they couldn't tell who had headstart and who didn't buy the next year by the first grade it was all gone, if there was ever anything there. just as in a reasonable world, the tsa would say the private sector does a much better job than one third of the money, we will get out of this business and turn it back to what europe and israel do. but they don't do that. and they start to spend more

money after they found out that it was not accomplishing its goal. >> thank you for coming today and all the work that you do. my name is tom. i work in the commercial real estate investment sales group of regional properties. one thing that we have seen is a canadian pension plan investment board, which manages all the social security money that comes in from the canadian government. this is bringing billions over to the u.s. economy. president bush tried to privatize social security. this, to me, would seem like a terminus winner for candidate romney, because it would appeal to the generation that is younger that has no faith in it. it would appeal to investors and those in construction. if canadians can perhaps spend $30 billion a year in investments, with a structural

300 billion, roughly, are you aware of this? >> i am not. i'm struck by that. boy, you canadians don't publicize successes very well. >> i am a good old american, but i see that money coming in, and i would be happy to share more information on that. >> canada is an unusual success story in many ways. we think of canada as that socialist country with government run health care. but in the economic freedom industries these days, they are ahead of the united states. about 20 years ago, a liberal government saw that they were on the tracks to go broke, as we are now. they cut government spending. not cut it from the way that the washington tax cut it, they cut actual spending. they did raise taxes, but they cut its dollars for every 1 dollar in taxes they raised.

they have no fannie and freddie. they have a slightly higher rate of home ownership without that. they have done well in many ways. the canadian dollar, which was then worth 70 cents, is now worth about 1 dollar. they have done better. >> my name is robert, i am a business manager. the government and republicans and democrats, both want to be -- have the united states be the world's policeman. that is the way they are all working on that assumption. now, if you would ask everybody around you here, you would probably find 80% of the people who say that we should not be the world's policeman. >> in this room? i think this room is pretty -- but that doesn't make any difference. most people look back and say, excellent, good idea.

afghanistan -- we ought to get out. that was a big mistake. >> this is different than economics. you have a comment on it? >> i do. up to have a chapter on defense. i am uncomfortable writing this chapter because i'm surrounded by all these smart people at fox news have studied defense and war and diplomacy all their lives. they say that we need to be in all these places. the government, which has failed at everything it has done that i have looked at. why would we assume it would be good at policing the world? we now still have 50,000 soldiers in germany. i thought we won that war. 30,000 in japan. 30,000 in south korea. all left over from the cold war.

eisenhower's military industrial complex those long -- they're these people that say that if we don't do it, world will be a less safe place. but i look at what the department of homeland security does, and how they waste money, and i just don't believe it. i think we could do much less, we should attack people who attacked us, we should not be isolationists. that is how people say this gets smeared. there's nothing isolationist about it. we should trade with other people and write books that torment the molars and distribute them in their countries. but to say that we can police the world -- we can't afford it, and it makes more enemies. >> my name is mark, editor of the forecasts and strategies and producer of freedom fest. john, i have watched a lot of your shows. it seems to me, and correct me

if i am wrong, that more and more -- when you confront the government agencies with these -- after you told the story of how ridiculous acts, y., and z. is coming we asked the government agency responsiveness, and they refuse to comment -- are you finding this happening more and more, or less and less? what has been your experience now that you have moved to fox news? >> when i was at abc, some of them would see abc and say well, big government lovers. and they would talk. once they see fox news, they rarely want to talk. corporations are no better. most of them don't want to talk to you when you have some bad news about them. >> michael myers, director of the coalition.

john, you said the founders had it right -- [talking over each other] [talking over each other] >> they mostly had it right -- [talking over each other] [talking over each other] >> let me ask my question. they said that we the people and in the constitution. we the people, not the government. then the constitution provides for the amendments. we provide the equal clauses and the right for women to vote -- which provided for a quality of treatment with respect to accommodations so that everyone would be expanded in terms of notions of freedom. my question to you is, would you repeal the fourth amendment protection clause, would you protect the consumer rights act, all in end up in 1965 civil rights act? >> when you give the microphone

to andrew napolitano to answer that question for me? [laughter] [laughter] [laughter] [applause] [laughter] >> i will start it off. i will start off by saying -- being provocative enough to say yes, i would repeal two of the seven -- 11? i forget. parts of the civil rights act did say that i is a private citizen don't have the right to discriminate. i think as adults, we should have a severe privacy around us, and if i want to hire only koreans or one of its people, that should be my right and the civil rights act -- which was the right to prevent government discrimination, most of the horrors of our history were government discrimination and government legalized slavery -- government imposed jim crow.

it's right to get rid of that. it is not right to tell private citizens with whom they can associate with. fiercely, andrew, do want to add to that? he is more knowledgeable and he represents the libertarian point of view better than i do. >> i don't think i can say it any better than you did. john, the whole purpose of the 14th amendment was to ensure that the disabilities visited on the fifth amendment would be visited by the state. disabilities meaning that the state can't discriminate on the basis of race. there is nothing in there about private discrimination. the 14th amendment is a linchpin to freedom. otherwise we would have 50 attorneys in the 50 state governments. the 14th amendment is to be lauded by those who believe in freedom. the civil rights act tells you who can come onto private property. that is a step that the founders never contemplated. >> i would repeal the part that

regulates private behavior, not public behavior. jim crow had to go, and jim crow began to go when unelected justice, thankfully, gave us brown versus board of education. that was public schools. government schools -- if i run a hotel and i want to keep you out,, and the market would correct for that. >> i would boycott that hotel. lots of people would. the market would sort them out -- they would sort it out better them awkward. >> i look at the assets that are deployed by the other side, which include most of the media and the whole educational establishment. then you add demographics to that, increasing numbers of people are getting transferred payments, which intuitively, none of them want to give up. i wonder if we shouldn't apply the title of your book, "no they

can't", to our side. i hope that would cheer me up a little bit because i get very despondent at times. >> yeah, i'm not good at showing up people sometimes. [laughter] [laughter] >> thomas jefferson said it is the natural progress of things for government to grow and at liberty to yield. we'll look at the stuff that is happening in spite of that? some of the things to this group -- i never thought welfare would ever be repealed. charles murray wrote losing ground. the idea of losing ground to change the way people think about things and how many people have gotten off of welfare and found jobs because of that. look at how capitalists produce so many good things. when i said "no they can't", i leapt out of my speech, and i should not have -- that doesn't mean that we can't.

and we threw our clothes and charities and -- and we, through clubs and charities, we have travel and food and things that only once kings and queens had -- the public sector is trying to transform these things. it will get uglier in other places first, in japan and other people our age. they will blow up first, and maybe we will learn from that. look at what steve did. states are paying attention to their bankrupt funds. this was very boring when someone first presented me with this information. no one's going to watch that -- yet, states -- this is now in the news. i'm optimistic about that.

>> i'm heather. i'm heather higgins. i run the randolph foundation. those of us who are in the business of persuading people fully recognize this as that this is an intellectual argument and not an emotional one. therefore, much harder and less intuitive to make good that you have transitioned in being synthetic from the left to the right, and i'm sure that many people have said that they, too, have had the same epiphany. i'm wondering if you could tell us what are some of those arguments and observations that led them to have those transitions and how they thought that our country points to make amends. >> i watched it sail.

i know of no one who took the same path. i have, many times, asked the same question of people. the most common answer that i have gotten is that i believed in not until i started a business or try to start a business and was faced with the taxes and regulations. heck, even george mcgovern said that. but unfortunately, we can't persuade everyone to try to start a business. we have to get it into high schools and charities. >> john, my name is jeff, i'm a private business consultant. we all know about obamacare and what it may do. researching your book, or researching your program -- what are some of the other areas in which you see government getting more and more involved in being under the radar that we ought to

be thinking about? >> every area. i was told by someone here that today in "the wall street journal", it was somebody -- somebody have announced that the federal government is requiring all private contractors to hire sever present disabled people are -- 7% disabled people. once these laws exist, they have constant growth. health care is one of the biggest threats. once it start paying for your health care, they have the right to tell you what you can eat. and they can tell you when to exercise and run laps and do push-ups. nearly, health care is the big one. what will bankrupt the country versus medicare. everybody loves medicare, especially people our age -- people our age vote. people don't know that they are getting back two to three times back what they paid in. because we really refuse to die.

we want all the cool medical stuff that we can get now. >> john, i would wonder if you would address the question addressed by jeffrey sachs, and that we continually refer to the united states and aid that we give to foreign nations, but when you look at the private charities of the united states and what they provide, the churches, educational institutions, foundations -- and the kind of grants that are made to foreign nations, we are by far the most generous nation in the world. we comment on that? >> i think that you have answered your own question. it is not true what they say, and i would add that private individuals give, and all these people go to these countries and do missionary work. what right does my government

have to forcibly take money from me and to have my government give aid money to other countries? i would say that ron paul is right. we should cut foreign aid to zero, and the hb given by private individuals who freely want to give it. americans are uniquely generous that way. it is sort of funny that churches tell people to tithe 10%, and americans are the most generous, but even in america, people don't give 10% of their income. the average is closer to two or 3%. in europe, they don't even give 1%. but americans are more generous than anybody. >> john, my name is steve from the manhattan institute. what you said -- the basis of your book, in some of the same things that the other thinkers have said. it is not obvious how capitalism or economic freedom leads to the prosperity we have, and that is one of the reasons it is such a hard sell.

if that is true, why is it that we have this march towards democracy and capitalism, which not only took hold in the united states, but from here has spread around the world. other people would argue that instead, this is the kind of natural evolution that goes through smaller cycles of regression, in fact, it is natural to outweigh the thinking. how do you respond to that? >> i don't think it's natural to our way of thinking, but when you see what other people have, you have to start to say, gee, what we doing wrong? in communist china, they looked at hong kong and saw prosperity. they said we should try some experiments. now, state capitalism gets the credit, but they have diversified greatly. they left each province to its own rules. like an education choice.

by and large, the bureaucracy that lacks choice only increases and becomes more powerful. but once johnny sees down the street there is a school and he liked school and does well in school -- she sees what he has, and she wants that too. in the comfortable countries, europe, united states, the spider web of bureaucracy does continue to grow. it is intuitive. >> john, heather mcdonald, manhattan institute. you speak about the intuitive appeal of the argument the government can solve our problems. there is another very intuitively appealing argument that is popular these days, which is growing inequality is a serious problem for society. do you agree with the data that shows that that is going on, and that there has been stagnation of the lower half of the

population, and do you think it's a problem, either to the extent that it is the result of governments policies, or what if it was not. what if it simply was the natural result of a capital -- capitalist society that we would have this increasing inequality. would you say that's a problem? >> well, as a libertarian, i say no, it is not a problem. if people are free, there will be some who have much more than others. as a human being, i say it is a problem. it is why there is rioting in chile. one of the big reasons is inequality and education at inequality. as a human being, i am annoyed that others have more money than i have. i want some. and i should have that. that is just part of human nature. the statistics in america are woefully misleading, that they

shall the lowest quintile is stuck in the highest quintile gets rich. of course, the people at the top got richer. the people at the bottom are just as poor, but they are not the same people. they are oprah winfrey. they are the welfare mother that is now in the top, but they don't count them that way. they just compared the lowest quintile with the top quintile. i'm sure that you, as a knowledgeable statistician can tell this better than i., the numbers are distorted. it is a real social and political problem, because people don't like the disparity. >> john, i am john -- i am james. i'd like to say that people are always reaching out something that they want, but without

thought. we have changed from an opportunity country to an entitlement country. as an example, and i will be critical of both parties, they just keep getting into the system. i was speaking to a teacher in new york who is speaking to young ladies that are in high school and one is telling the other one, i'm going to become pregnant. in the process why? and she says because it will get me an apartment. they will give me $310 per month. she says if you ever do, and we get married, because they will stop you. [inaudible] the coverage keeps increasing and increasing -- >> t. want to let that woman starve on the street? >> why not? maybe it will stop her from having children.

i don't know what i want, but you can't have parents out there with four or five children and expect the people around you should support you. let it be loud and clear by both political parties. i saw in the political reform. the government says that you want your redistricting, then you go along with it. that is the problem. >> in america, we are not going to let people starve in the streets. before we had the giant social welfare bureaucracy we have now, practically no one starved and streets then. we have thousands of mutual aid societies all over the country, private charities, who did this better. they were better at saying to the woman who's getting pregnant just because she would get free things -- no, when i point to take care of you for that, and you better not. they were basically not overly driven out of business, by the

welfare state, but people said i don't need to do this anymore. the government will do that. and government does it clumsily and badly. >> i think we are going to have to wrap it up because your car is waiting for you, but thank you very much, john. good luck with your book. [applause] [applause] [applause] >> you are watching 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books on c-span 2's booktv., what's >> mr. burr kaiser, when we talk about the founding fathers, whaa is the era we are talking about? what events we are talking about? >> we are talking about the american revolution and the o writing of the constitution. those are the two key events.vie anybody who played a major roleb in those events can claim to bee a founding father. honestly, some of the older ones had careers before the american

revolution. younger once hackers that went on quite a few years after the signing of the c oonstitution. that is what we are talking o about. >> for some of the older ones de and younger ones? >> benjamin franklin, the oldest -- he was one in 1706. 1706. he knows cotton mather, that's old he is. he died in 1790. he cites both the declaration of independence and the constitution. the last to die is james madison. he is born in 1751, and then hes dies in 1836, 85 years old. he has seen the fight over missouri being admitted to thes union. he sees the nullification crisis. last but he is the last one.er >> that is the other side. >> in 2006, you wrote what would the founders do?

and in that book, you right that the founders invite our discussion when they lived. they were argumentative, expensive know what all is, hanging their ideas out to dry in public speeches and in in journalism. >> well, that's right. they set up a j republic. thi and they are very proud of doiny that.in the this is virtually unique in the world. o there were the swiss cantons, holland had been a republican, although that was kind of going down the tubes -- this was a the unique form of government being created. compared to all the competitorsa markets, etc. -- yes, of of of course the franchises are restricted in a lot of ways, but still there is a franchise. voters, the electorate, have toe

be ctappealed to. it has to be brought along an instructive. they do this constantly. a lot of them are journalists.. they write for the newspapers. some of them are professionaljot journalists. newer alexander hamilton founded ak newspaper that is still going on. the new york post. he was the first publisher.sh benjamin franklin, of course, was the great americaner publisher. f tim adams was a publisher. it is hard to think of founders who didn't write journalism. george washington didn't.y rar that is very rare.one even someone like james madison who didn't particularly like it and wasn't great at it -- heit,h screwed himself up and wrote 29 federalist papers. whi which were pieces in newspaperse these guys -- these men knowherf

that they have toor put themsels out there for the american the public, which is their constituency. they wer >> know what else? >> know it all is. ehey were well educated. look, it's a little country. the colleges we have.leges. we have a handful of colleges. they are tiny. colle, harvard or kings college, which becomes colombia, or youren university or princeton. they have a few dozen students.e unlike the thousands that they have today. most of these men were college g graduates.th those who weren't, made sure that they read all their lives. th they felt that they had to be up on both the news of the day and the political theory of the day. they all know their modesty are. if you listen to the debates,

you would've thought that the first two names were the celebrated, because he is called the celebrated one. they knew their english history. and they neither ancient history. their history of the classical world. their history of rome. tthe their history of greece. hamilton, in the federalist papers, he says that the history of the states go through cyclese of journey in chaos and and chaos and whatnot. that is what hopes america can avoid. but that is a negative example. you have to know the negative examples as well.m >> mr. brookheiser, you also say, and tell me if i'm wrong,es our founding fathers were less well-traveled, perhaps even less sophisticated than high schoolto seniors are today, or veterans a

from iraq and afghanistan.un >> it is harder to get around the world. and crossing the atlantic ocean takes 20 days if you are really. lucky.it can it can take 80 days if you fall among icebergs and storms.in ice john adams crosses a limit on one of his voyages, and everyone on board has to pump until it. makes landfall in europe. all of the passengers have tthor take turns because the ship is filling with water.ited state it is hard to get around. it is hard to get around they united states. to go from new york city to albany new york, -- if you took a horse, that would take you three days. if you took a vote of