of our lives. it's a system that extracts coercion and sets out the government. the government's sole job, so responsibility is to protect us from people who would use coercion against this. that's it. protector individual rights, nothing else. that leaves the rest of this free to pursue the values that we believe will lead to a our happiness. pursue the values that we believe for good for us. again, this is why it's the only moral system because the on the system that leaves us free to pursue our values. >> given what you said about government, does that make government morals welcome back. >> salaam is and some are not. it depends. i think that government as institutions, has instituted in america and its founding was actually the first and maybe the only moral government ever because it was instituted with a moral purpose. the moral purpose was to protect

the rights of individuals. as the u.s. government has now drifted away from that purpose and instead of protecting the rights of individuals has become the greatest violator of the rights of individuals it has lost its claim on morality and has become less and less of a moral government. government is moral when a protect rights. government is immoral when it violates rights. >> subtitle of this book, how the ideas can and big government what are some of those ideas? would you say and big government , what would you like to see in it? >> first the most important idea is what we just talked about, this idea of morality. the foundational ideas behind this from the question of who your life belongs to. for whom should you live your life? conventional morality, conventional views, whether they come from religion or whether they come from our secular philosophy, if your moral purpose in life is to be your

brother's keeper, it's how you treat other people, self sacrifice. the most noble thing you can do. grand challenges that, rejects that notion and indeed says, that is the origin of state is in. that is the origin of the government. it's all a consequence of the idea that your your brother's keeper, the idea that your life doesn't belong to you, the idea that you're ultimately, your moral responsibility is ultimately to serve others, and the state just takes advantage and helps to be more moral. she rejects that, at the notion of her morality is that your moral responsibility is to yourself, to making the best, the most of your life, to achieving a penis, turning what you did, turning your values of achieving the self-esteem and happiness that somebody who owns the values deserves. and it's that rational pursuit of values that is the morality is about. people out to pursue their own

rational self-interest don't want paternalistic government on the shoulder telling them of the candy summer, what can the business they can open or what they cannot open, what they should say or should should not say. to those people, what they need to advocate, the morality of self interest income -- rejected the conventional morality. that is at the core of our whole argument, fundamentally the argument between free market and state is an, an argument between morality of self-interest verses and morality of sacrifice, and morality of self sacrifice. if you believe in free market reject south set device of sacrifice. then the question is, well, what kind of government. if we start shrinking? well, ultimately the government we would like to seek is a government that existed at the founding of this country, a government that doesn't redistribution of wealth, that does not regulate business, that

says one thing only and does it really, really, really well, and that is protect the kurds, protect us from prague to protect us from invading armies, and it arbitrates disputes, has a legal system. other than that leave this alone to pursue our rational values, to pursue our happiness. and doesn't intervene in the marketplace. the book talks about how we will things back, take entitlements and get rid of them over time. so we advocate, the phasing out of social security. we don't talk about how we make medicare more efficient, we talk about how we get rid of medicare so that people take care of their own health needs in the future. safer, buy insurance. how'd you privatize the insurance market? the government out of the whole, anything in health care? so we're talking about an ideal,

where the regulatory state goes away, regulations galway, entitlements go way, redistribution of wealth. >> you write and free-market revolution that the argument from greed amounts to in order to protect ourselves from the arbitrary power of business than we have to give arbitrary power to politicians. what we have seen is that the power of businessmen is not arbitrary, it is not the power to force others to bend to their well. it is economic power earned through voluntary trade. regulatory state, government force interjected in peaceful economic affairs is not a necessity of human right to. >> absolutely. one of the most important distinctions that we try to make is between political power and economic power. political power is about force, it's about a gun, it's about forcing you to do something against well. you don't want to pay taxes, there's a jail cell waiting for

you. if you work for microsoft and you want to leave no we can't foresee the state. if you don't want to buy microsoft, you don't have to. there are alternative products for you can use a typewriter. there is nothing that microsoft can do to force you, coerce you into using their product. that is economic power. microsoft has power, but its economic power, not the power of coercion. but government has is coercion. we want to extract the power of coercion and the government only to use force in retaliation, to use force against those who initiate force. that is something business cannot do and, indeed, when business is left alone we believe that everybody benefits. the market mechanisms are such that they were to increase our standard of living, and prove products, create safe and useful products that we value, and we always have the option to opt out of a particular product.

and that's the beauty of the marketplace. we get to make choices. begin to trade in what we, at least goingnto the trade think our win-win situations. >> how you respond to this statement that excessive deregulation led to the 2008 financial collapse of the united states? >> i find a bizarre. i can't find that deregulation people are talking about. maybe they're talking about class stiegel in 2009. by the way, the clinton or bush of illustration. the fact is that no glass stiegel think was a problem during this recession. if you look at washington mutual, countrywide, in the bank, the banks that did all the more stuff, there were all pure commercial s&ls. there were not blasted banks. banks that of commercial banking and investment banking. and if you look on the wall street side, lehman brothers, that in to any commercial banking. it was a pure investment bank.

the only back and think of the people might be referring to his citibank. they'll four times. dispel that every time. so i don't see anything to do with this crisis. this is a crisis that was created by government from the beginning to end, and i think -- i think a majority of economists are going to agree with this position once they look at the data. i think you could already determined. it's friday in fannie, subsidization of home mortgages, but not -- just through freddie in fannie. the taxes. i have a very large mortgage. people who ran and people who bought their house out right are subsidizing mortgage. i get to deduct my interest payments of metaxas. they don't. government incentivizing need take on debt. it makes absolutely no sense. the housing policy, the whole infrastructure of housing policy, friday, fannie, taxability of interest rates, interest payments, the federal

home loan bank. there are multiple government entities that encourage us to buy homes that we can't afford with debt that we cannot payback periods of that's one. the second cause of this crisis was the federal reserve. the federal reserve from 2002 until 2005 held interest rates below the rate of the inflation. two and a half years. what happens when you hold interest rates below the rate of inflation? basically paying people to take on debt. you're telling people, go get that because it's cheaper than, you know, the value. the value of the money is losing faster. your subsidizing debt. guess what american people did after 2002? lower interest rates, they took on debt. we took on debt on everything. this crisis, too much debt, particularly in housing, but that is a government led crisis. some bankers misbehaved. did wall street? yes. again, think of the incentives. if you make money you get to

keep it. if you lose money, will bail you out. that's called too big to fail which is government policy since the mid-1980s. every banker knows it. government has created incentives. they are subsidizing that this behavior from beginning to end. this is a crisis of government that you could have never ever happen naturally free-market. >> in any areas in society right now, the ntsb implemented, used to being successful? >> i think in a lot of people's individual life they are. all the people live for ideas to the extent that they can. i think that millions of people, certainly hundreds of thousands of people will tell you, their lives and changed. they know lead different lives. the way they pursue their happiness is different, the way they think about the world, the way they think about everything in the world around them is different. so an individual lives, yes.

there are businesses that are run based on the principles. you can go look at mission statements, value statements. you can see the influence around at a certain businesses are run based on these principles. beyond that, no. because society has not accepted the ideas. certainly in terms of politics and our political parties, they have not accepted any of these ideas. it's still a long uphill battle. the and ideas are still not prevalent in our universities. they exist and are being taught in many more schools today that even ten or 15 years ago, a significant number more are being taught in high schools, many, many more than ten of 15 years ago. this is a growing movement, and in terms of achieving any kind of real influence on a cultural scale and legal scale, were still a few decades ahead. >> is the tea party sympathetic to the idea is? >> many people are. in a thing that many people were

motivated, whether they know it explicitly and not. the red atlas shrugged which gave them a certain moral confidence in going out there and advocating for what they advocate in saying, you know what kind this is the key idea behind the tea party. enough is enough. the burden of governance is too great. get off our backs. they don't quite yet have a positive agenda that's clear enough inarticulate festival people like me in this book, to help articulate that kind of positive agenda for the tea party. the book is very much written for a two-party audience. they don't yet have a positive agenda. they are inspired. they get them all confidence and backbone to a large extent. he saw that in the signs they would carry. shrugging.

>> i don't know if you know this. library of congress as a new exhibit called books shipped america. what you think about that? >> i'm not surprised. atlas shrugged has shed some many influential people in america. i think it's what kept capitalism as a somewhat positive word in our culture. i think the only author who gave capitalism this positive moral sense. the novel. the fact that it comes to what these are novels. she has kept the ideals of free market, the ideas of couples and live. it's a free market movement that can build and maybe the tea party now can take a lead in helping to shape the political future of this country. she deserves to be on that list.

there's no question. in 2010 and was charged sold over half a million copies since the election a barack obama. so when a half million copies. know of a 54 year-old book has done anything close to that. so this is no world shaping culture shaping novelist, philosopher. >> the executive director of the institute. do you get the proceeds are dishy have family? >> i do not. >> no, i meant the institute. >> no, the institute does not get the proceeds. there is a mistake, for a long time students inherited the entire estate, and the proceeds go to him. he supports the institute, but we don't get the press is directly. >> two is down watkins? >> that's a fellow at the institute. his work with me for 67 years now.

he is significantly and given me, and the future. the political future of the institute. the phenomenal job. >> with your background? >> i was born and raised in israel. i read alice shrek of 16. i was a committed socialist. and it changed my life. i served in the military for three years, got an undergraduate degree in civil engineering. after reading alice shrek of one of the come to america. it's very much one of things that manuel to come here. and so i came here as a student. the masters, my nba, the university of texas in austin.

i was a finance professor in the bay area. then in 2000i took over running the is to. >> what is your enthusiasm level for them and romney? >> it's not high. it's primarily motivated by the current administration. almost anybody of the kern of restoration, and none disaster all. i think he's not a very articulate defender of capitalism, free markets. he can't even unfortunately articulate the case for private equity which again is something about. he can't even defend that. i think he is a week candid, week defender of the ideas that he purports to adhere to i think the republicans could have done a lot better, but he is the ultimate, so i will be

voting for the alternative >> every weekend book tv offers 48 hours of programming focused on nonfiction authors and books. watch it here on c-span2. >> you're watching book tv on c-span2. we are at freedom fest in los vegas interviewing some authors. i want to introduce you to the author of this book, latter-day liberty, gospel approach to government politics. what is the purposeful? >> the basic argument is that women should be libertarian.

contrast to cut my argument is that the doctrines of our faith, the scriptures that we have, the teachings of we embrace release support a more libertarian firmer, political framework. you have to it to penalize them. many people think the libertarians are more of marijuana smoking atheist's that have this conception of what a libertarians. so what libertarians are, and then i write a bunch of resources to suggest why the mormon faith supports the live report a few. >> where the term mormon come from? >> a profit. the book of mormon is another one of our books of faith, another set of scriptures apart from the bible. the profit he compiled a record. so the nickname, the churches that mean, the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints. colloquially we're known as mormons.

>> overwhelmingly republican. is that a fair statement. has that always been the case? >> it hasn't. it's actually an interesting history. talk about how the parties have someone flip flopped. the republican party was formed to extinguish the litany. since the democrats, the democratic party is quite favorable. people fought at the time, the mormon church committee cannot be a good republican and a good mormon. now it's reversed. now the thinking is harry reid can be a good mormon. he's a democrat. he supports abortion. it's quite a flip. vincent talk about parties. and more interested in the underlying principles