the hell coppers, and if they hear hell cometters in the valleys, that's not their buddies. it's bad guys; right? really quiet as they walk up, and all the sudden, they see three guys running on the -- louis sees three guys running on the top of the valley, and one of them's got a gun. watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> host: joining us here at george mason university is the professor with the recent book "the coming prosperity: how

entrepreneurs transform the global economy." here's the cover the book. professor, what role does fear play in economic development? >> guest: well, that's a great question, and maybe i'll talk about what role does fear play in our conversations about development, conversation about our presence so when we talk about our reality and share our ideas in a marketplacek competing with other ideas, and we know three things about marketplaces for ideas. short term sells better than long term. fear sells better than hope. negative sells better than positive that is to say, and exaggerated sells better than moderated. we see a disproportioned number of short term narratives of negative e exaggerated stories

essentially. short term, negative, exage -- exaggerated. we're cree chars that grew up in environments where we were always subject to threats. we're no longer in those environments. we're in a complex economy that's interdependent, that -- that really relies on organizations to provide us with our necessities, and so we have to update our thinking and think longer term, focus on stories that actually represent trends and not exaggerate noise, and we have to get away from fear so fear played a role in the development of human societies in the earliest stages. it's encoded in our dna, but to evolve to this sort of complex modern environment we live in, we have to update.

that's what the question speaks to. >> host: a fearful venture capitalist? >> you know, so the opposite -- maybe, well, you know, venture capitalist has to be inherently optimistic, you know? why invest in something with uncertain returns and so forth? telling the story about the coming prosperity, that's a story that's, you know, easily characterized as an optimist's book; right? i don't see it that way. i mean, from my stand point, you know, when i think about optimism, i think the definition of an optimist is somebody's who's systematically right, who doesn't get what the true distribution of outcomes is; right? a pessimist is early, you know, there an hour in advance, anything could have happened, had to be sure; right? we know these people too; right? you don't want to be systematically wrong about the

true distribution of things by underestimates the bad or unexpected things that happen or overestimating them. i'm not doing either. it looks at the true tends. you asked about venture capitalists, they are in the same world and can't survive as an optimist or pessimist. they have to look at the capabilities, what the team is, what the market is, what demand is, and put resources where they are needed to create the future, and that's what i'm talking about. >> host: you're not app optimist, but the book is optimistic with the time of economic upheaval in the world. >> guest: see, so, again, it's -- it goes beyond the semantic point; right? we're in a time of tremendous economic upheaval. i agree with that; right? contextualize that in two ways. first of all, ours is the most dynamic and promising era in

human history, bar none. why? because in our lifetimes, the majority of the world's population is joining the world economy. what's that mean? when japan industrialized, they brought 30 million people out of poverty. china, so far to date, brought 300 million people out of poverty. that's a big story. chinese savings in the world financial markets were a part of what drove the most recent housing bubble because all the new wealth in the world. greenspan couldn't figure it out. he did not look at the historical reality. he called it the conundrum. he was unable to grasp the reality of our historical moment. it was in part due to the failure that systematic errors were made that led to the melt down in the housing markets; right? inadequate response, policy to

what was really a change in financial markets in the world. in the next 20-30 years, 3 billion people join the economy, a transformation ten times what we saw from china's change, ten times what happened in japan. now, if 3 billion people are suddenly given cognitive freedom, suddenly not thinking just moment to moment, day to day, but are creators, collaborators, are new contributors; right? yes, consumers as well. people, human beings are not just consumers. they are producers. that's what this is about. it's all the possibilities that are created when that happens. i'm not the only person telling that sorry. well, professor, who is one of the entrepreneurs you profile? >> guest: talking about global trends, and there's an

inevidentability to that. talking about the increasing prosperity, it's a great thing, but the oir piece of it is what you asked. what role do people play in that? nothing happens in human societies unless people make it happen, and i use the word "entrepreneurs," but i'm just talking about the creators of the future. venture capitalists, artists, creating the future; right? so when we think about, you know, those stories, a centerpiece of the book, a big part of why i wrote the book, share the stories that i learned, people live gotten to know in the eight years of editing a journal of innovations and solutions to global challenges. one is a gentleman who is an on the tom tryst in southern india, and in the late 1970s, he retired. he was about 57, and he wanted to do something for his

community, and so he decided he was going to try to address the problem of needless blindness due to cataracks. in the united states, it's a minor procedure, but in the rest of the world, there's 1 # -- 100 million people blind because it. dr. v, as he was known, wanted to address. he started the clinic in the home, had 11 beds and family members helped him, got it off the ground. anyway, cut forward not just three great ideas, but hundreds of innovation, tenacity of an entire global team of people involving larry, who is one of the folks who contributed to the eradication of smallpox, a brilliant entrepreneur named david green. they worked together to build this hospital, and to this day, the hospital cured 3 million

people of blindness. now, you imagine the entire washington metro area, 3 million people, imagine all of those people blind, and now they can see. that's not -- that's not an obscure story; right? it's not an obscure story in the worlds of people where i circulate. people know about the hospital and respect it. people traveled from all over the world to go to the hospital to train to bring the same programs to their countries. it's a movement to end needless blindness. it's just one example. you might say, well, that's crazy. has to be an exception, but there's hundreds, hundreds of stories like that. those are the stories that are transforming the global economy, and not just the economy, but the societies, building the future. >> host: as you say in the next 20 years, 3 billion more people intrt in the world of -- enter in the world of economic

freedom. 1 it the wild, wild west, should it be managed? how should it be managed? >> well, my core metaphor in describing the economy and the interaction of the economy is reenforced, and when we go to iran or the rain forest, there's a sense of life around you and complexities of life, and that's what human society is; right? rain forest is a self-regulating environment. when we put these in, it's part of self-regulations. we create rules for ourselves, that's self-regulation; right? we regulate each other in competition. there's scarce resources like there is in the rain forest.

what keeps a forest vibrant is that you is the canopy, you know, which in the u.s. economy is the big firms, ge, gm, wal-mart, all of that, and then you is the scrub, the small business, but it's the small and growing, it's the things that were small, but can challenge the big, and it's what happens when the big tree falls over, and we've been to the rain forest, and new trees grow right out of the old tree; right? it's a metaphor, but it's real. when we lose something big in the economy, it's vital we know how to recon figure resources and create something new out of it. do we need control? we need feedback loops. we need the capability to repurpose. in this country, we need a robust platform for people to realize what they have inside of them. that's why people came to the country, and that's why people hear, look for a better future

that will be like the better future their ancestors who lived here when they came so, you know, i would say, yes, you know. we need control, but we need control -- interdependencies, regulations, understanding what's happening, what's working, what's not, where do we want to go, and what gets us to the end point which is better human lives? it's not gdp or increased transactions but what lives do we live? that's what we have to focus on. >> host: professor, one of those trees, to take the analogy, gm, couple years ago, nearly went bankrupt, bailed out by the federal government. should it have been bailedded out or allowed to fall? >> you know, i think i'm just on the verge of flipping op that one. i'm just on the verge of

flipping -- >> host: same thing with chrysler. >> guest: if you read the book, i talk about gm, you know, and, you know, charles wilson, a guy that allegedly said gm is good for america, but he actually never said that. i looked into that. i was going to use the quote because i thought it characterize the the worse, feeding the industry. he's a courageous guy cutting budgets by 20% in the 50s, and those defense budget cuts in the late 1950s were the number one reason we had silicon valley. a lot of radio engineers moved out this. it was a beautiful part of the country. suddenly, they didn't have jobs. those people were saying, well, you know, we want to stay here, and they created, eventually intel and the rest of it; right? we were in a very tenuous

moment. adding on top of that psychologically the failure of the big 3 auto makers, tough, tough call. by the way, i don't know why anybody in the presidential election mentions this was a bush program. i have about left, right, forward, but not concerned on partisanñsr politics, but we hae to get history right. start with one administration, continue on the other. that's not what it's about either. what happens if we let it go? stranded manufacturing, contracts out the door. could they have brought three factories and scaled itself by a factor of ten; right? out of those resources? what would have happened?

again, i'm thinking that that would have been a big risk. it would have been exciting, and it might have been a great thing for american auto workers. >> host: talking with phil lip, professor here at yornlg -- george mason university. you served as an adviser to the clinton global initiative. what do you advise on? >> guest: well, thank you for asking me that question. i was at the global initiative the last three days, working with them for the last three year, and i thank you because i really appreciated that afghanistan. they have a -- i really appreciated that affiliation. they have a wonderful platform there, and they need advisers on the program, what to feature, what people bring new ideas, and challenge that audience to think about differentñhr ways to engae in the world.

it's relevant because in every participant's bag is a registered for the clinton global initiative this year, received a copy of "time" magazine in which clinton authored an essay titled "the case for optimism," and at the clinton global initiative this year, chelsea clinton led a session called ""the case for on optimism," and so, you know, i am totally synced with that message and the focus op finding collaborative solutions to the world's greatest challenges, and we have a lot of great challenges, but we don't -- we don't address those challenges by propagating exaggerated narratives of fear, but finding creative potential in all people and working together to build a

future to all believe in. we work -- we solve problems by focusing ons positives. >> host: a lot of big companies in america, and i don't know if "caters" is the right word, but sells to the government, develops policies good for selling to the federal government. the federal government's a big customer. is this a good trend? is this the way our economy should be structured? >> guest: yeah, well, again, it actually ties back directly to the question you just asked, and, you know, it's good contextualization. they talk about believing in markets and entrepreneurship, he must be over this, but on the other hand, i have a high regard for president clinton, and hillary clinton, okay, it's just because i was just there, i heard her speak. she gave a speech, and you can take away the secretary of state title, take away the hillary

clinton name, just look at the text. the speech she gave on development assistance was one ofññr the most accurate, honest, and even courageous speeches i've seen on the topic of international development. what did she say? a couple things no one says that everybody knows to be true. number one objective. she listed three, but the third and most significant that assistance programs should be to work themselves out of business. she said that. development assistance is not in the business of self-prop pization. there needs to be a time line. when do we stop, leave, in haiti, pakistan, anywhere in the world. time line to zero. vitally important, she said that. second thing back to the question, had to do with corruption. she talked about corruption as an obstacle to development, but title lined directly between

corruption in poor countries and corruption in the united states inside the beltway crags -- contracts that are fed back. we can talk about a lot of other systems, and tieing that line that we are also part of the world, subject to the same forces of economic interests capturing the political process, getting government contracts, and effecting outcomes. we are also subject to that. to see her say those things, you know, it more than what i say in my book. what you say is true and deeply important. >> host: philip auerswald, you write about the current telecommunications revolutions we're all living through and trying to understand and manage. help us. >> guest: well, okay. so first of all, we have to understand the difference between a mobile phone and a rich country. a mobile phone and most of the

world. right. so before the mobile phone, only two technologies had spread as widely as the mobile phone, no technology's ever spread as rapidly as the mobile phone. the only other recent one was the radio, and arguably before that, it was fire. spread widely. what is the -- we know what mobile means and smart phones mean, but what's that mean for the majority of the world's population? well, it's the -- it's the communications highway. we built highways communication highways into places connecting people never connected before. in afghanistan, you asked about entrepreneurs, there's one named kojo for creating the after -- afghan cell phone company. we don't hear about it. why? you know, the fact that more after gaps --

afghans have more access to phones rather than reading or writing that a decade ago, they had to walk 700 miles to make a phone call. that's a big story. it means a lot to them in terms of capabilities, but what's more exciting, think about when we built the railroads; right? there's a lot of lore about this, movies made, what happens when you build a railroad? well, the land on either side of the railroad and station are valuable. you can provide services you p couldn't before. it's the next generation. it's when we build on the side of the new highway, mobile health, mobile banking, an array of services we can deliver because we're connected using frontier technology, and that is such a powerful thing, and it has legs for the next 20 years, and not to mention everything

else my friend talks about in his book, " abundance," and other stuff coming down the line. >> host: who is this written for in >> guest: well, you know, it's written for the folks watching this show, and it's written for general add yenls in the united states, but globally. i start in the u.s., enof the u.s., and i feel as the this story is particularly needed in the united states. i don't believe that people in pakistan or china need to hear this because they see it. even a grown up like pakistan struggled. there's so much potential. it's the noangs growth style. if i had enough resources, i wouldn't tell people that and reap my dividends forever sharing it with other people. it is on the cusp of happening. very exciting.

there's really three people in the country, and it's for anybody who believes there's possibility in the future and wonder why it's not happening more quickly. >> why are china, india, pack tan, why are they where they are economically if they are on the cusp? what's beginning not right in those countries that's going right here in the united states. >> well, pakistan does not have the moe men them of china and -- >> host: take brazil. >> guest: again, highly growing, evolved, but the thing that con trains growth in every country, and the simple -- you know, i go to places like the world bank, and if i'm invited to share thoughts with folks working on policy issues there and the united states government, and, you know, i can boil down policy recommendations to one thing, policy messages from the book favors incumbents

less, economic incumbents favor incumbents less. pakistan had an era of dramatic growth. in the 196 # 0s, pakistan is carerra today. think about korea today, but in the 1960 #s, that was pakistan. people thought it would be a success. they were a huge ally of ours. you had open space, people rushing in to take advantage of a newly created country, a strange country, came over, partitioned, but that created economic opportunity. the problem was there was no act two. those families got control of the political apparatus. talk about the unstability, and there's not been enough instability, but behind the scenes, the economic structure dominated by the same small

group of people, same thing in egypt, you know, mubarak left, but, you know, pakistan and egypt, different stories. the military in both country controls upwards of 40% of the economy directly, and the rest of it is a small group of elites so that's what holds development back. it's the lack of big trees falling and creating anew back to the gm question, you know, really gets back to the gm question. you need to have the capabilities on society to repurpose out of the -- what's released when something dies. when something old falls, but there's not enough that in pakistan or egypt. i didn't talk about china or india, a different story, but that gets to the point you talked about. >> host: what do you teach here at george mason? >> well, i teach economics and social entrepreneurship. i teach in the public school,

believer in entrepreneurship as a transformative society, but a social interneerpship course thinks about addressing public challenges in an intrerp entrepreneurial manner, new pathways to make the most of that. there's folks in the book who saw you, folks who are social entrepreneurs, but they are entrepreneurs. i love the environment, great teaching here. i have colleagues lie tie lar colin, great man on economics, and a lot of other colleagues in different disciplines, louise shelly, a global leader in documents and researching and working on human trafficking. president obama was at the clinton global initiative announcing a major new direction on the topic, and there are many people who work on this topic who have helped move it forward in the agenda, but she's one of them and really deserves a lot of credit. >> host: talking with philip

auerswald. book tv on location at george mason university. >> it was almost two years ago i decided it was time to write a fact based primmer on gay rights, specifically targeted to the right of center voters, hence the subtitle of the book. to do two things. number one, challenge religious right on its own turf and show that much of what they deer risively call the gay agenda is consistent with republican and

libertarian voters, and show voters who believe in social tolerance not only are they not a voice in the wilderness, but represent a majority of republican voters. the book has three major things. the first one i just eluded to that many on the right don't understand that properly understood gay rights are, in fact, perfectly compatible with republican principles of limited government, individual rights, and equal protection of the laws. the essence of the classical liberal or libertarian philosophy is one of live and let live, all people created with certain inalienable rights. the government does not dull out rights depending on what religion you are, what economic class you're in, what your gender is, or theoretically what your sexual orientation is. that's the way it's supposed to be. certainly most libertarians get

that, and that's why they have a special obligation to teach fellow conservatives and right of center voters why gay and lesbian voters deserve the same rights as everybody else. the second theme of the book is that because of the constant over the top rhetoric we often hear from the religious right, most people have little understanding of what ranken file republicans actually believe about gay issues, and i think that the conventional wisdom is that all republicans hate gays, opposed to gay rights, and nothing could be further from the truth. watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. here's a look at the upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. next weekend, booktv live from the texas book festival. our event cove rav includes presentations by h. w. brand and many more. check booktv.org for an updated scle