among the finalists. but where will be announced on the 19th. stay up-to-date on breaking news about operas, books, and publishing by letting us on facebook at facebook.com/booktv or folacin twitter. up next, samuel graveyard use of our elected leaders of find the courage to reform the economy and government spending soon the u.s. could find itself in the same terrible economic situation as many european countries to. this is just over an hour. [applause]

>> thank you for your introduction. it's a great privilege to be here. inviting the it council, in many cases the of many people here and heritage for very long time. and also admired the way that heritage works across policy areas so that you really do here and integrated message. not least among which, i think, is the attention of the heritage foundation to the power of culture, by which i mean people of beliefs, ideas, habits, expectations, and the way that these achieve some form of institutional expression. >> on this issue of culture and how it relates to the economy, the heart of my book, becoming europe. because the -- becoming europe is certainly about what has happened to your and why it is now regarded as the sick man of

the global economy. but my book is also about how some of these cultural and economic trends are starting to manifest themselves in the united states, particularly over the past five years. and in some respects i think it's rather ironic that america is seemingly drifting in this direction of economic european rises to stop economic european and asian. whether it is the plot -- colossal levels of debt, the increasingly unaffordable welfare states, struggling banking systems, stagnation or low economic growth, double, even triple-dip recession is, violence on the rise. there is an opinion that what you're experiencing now is no ordinary session. instead, i think their is a sense that western europe's present economic crisis reflects some deeper traumas.

and not primarily because of external pressures, but rather because of some of the inherent contradictions. incurs protocol european economic culture overlong my time. america's economic culture continues to drift in the san direction, i think we can descend safely that over time some trends that we see in europe was there to manifest themselves in the united states. and that, i think, is what americans mean when they use phrases like europeanize asian or like becoming like your. so today i want to do three things. the first is explain what my book means by the phrase becoming europe. the second thing i want to do is sketch out where some similar trends are manifesting themselves in the united states, and since i'm at the heritage

foundation and in a spirit of optimism, i want to suggest how america might be able to avoid going down the same path. now, a good place to my think, to start in explaining what i mean by european economic culture is with david camerons recent speech about britain's future in the european union now, the speech was about many things, but i think the speech also mattered in as much as it represented yet another missed opportunity by major european politicians to address unequivocably a problem that is perhaps even more fundamentally dangerous for britain and much of the rest of the euro in the eu superstate tendencies. and this is a problem of values, attitudes, and how these are given in institutional expression in the economy. as i illustrate in becoming

europe, the prevailing conviction across most of your is that the state is the primary way in which we address : problems and meet our responsibilities and obligations to our fellow citizens. such obligations might be realized outside the realm of politics and that does not apparently occurred to large numbers of european political leaders, including, i have to say, a considerable numbers of center-right european politicians so in this regard have often wondered what a confirmed man would think if you read a particularly important book that was written 180 years ago by one of his compatriots. because although it is about the new world, democracy in america was not written for an american audience.

the intended audience was your. i suspect he would be astonished to learn how the americans built with problems that were beyond an individual's capacity to address but also or not resolvable by things like trade and comments. it just these types of problems through the habit of free association instead of simply expecting government officials the lead into the breach. and the native france was simply astounding. he said this. the weather at the head of some new undertaking, you see the government in france in the united states, you will be sure to find a free association. now, though less than adam smith noted, there are certain things that can only be done by

government. but the constant equivalents of the value of what many europeans call solidarity, the constant equivalence of solidarity with state initiative, a government press, public sector agencies is surely one of europe's biggest long-term headaches. if only because such expectations on the part of the state justify their rick welfare state constant and endless expansion despite the fiscally untenable burden of which which should now be obvious to even the most committed of brussels to ridges. unfortunately, it is not just most of europe's political people who think this way. millions of ordinary europeans share this mindset. take, for example, mr. cameron's own backyard. stella and is currently

dominated by two political parties who fly at being a more social democratic. labor in the scottish nationalists don't controls does politics simply because stalin conservatives are rather and at. they are, after all, elected to parliament but people who apparently want social democratic policies regardless of the long-term economic cost. the former white house chief of staff thing mr. remind us, you never want a serious crisis to give a waste. but this is advice, i think, that europe's leaders have declined to take. because very few of them seem interested in using their country's severe economic challenges as a type of circuit breaker to articulate a grand vision of why the economy and

society need to be enumerated from all the money governments. instead, what you find most european politicians when presenting things like austerity measures, they generally present these changes as necessary evils , embarked upon with considerable reluctance so that we can get back to the way things used to be. no, one reason for this to my think, is that many of europe's politicians know, they know it appeals for greater economic liberty and smaller government and is simply does not resonate with enough western europeans. in recent decades nobel prize economists such as douglas north have illustrated the economic significance of a point made that while laws and policies matter, they tend all the time to reflect with the majority of people in a democracy value.

for better or for worse. they concluded long time ago that contemporary european economies are generally less productive than america because of institutional factors. things like large well versed is to my heavy labor market regulation, large public-sector bureaucracies. so that intuition was that the differences had to come down to america's economy being influenced by a culture which valued things like freedom and risk-taking. they decided to drum down some

of the data that surveyed american and european attitudes towards these things. what he found was that when it came to things like change, competition, notions of freedom more generally, he found that americans were much more favorably inclined toward those things than most europeans. i came away with the impression that differences of cross-country's with respect to a certain well-defined institutions were not as important as prevailing distances and economic culture. he even speculated that economic cultures can become so entrenched that those people who are actually living with them become closed to any other type of alternative or possibility. the second part of my remarks today which is how european attitudes are starting to gain

ground in america. study after study after studies, i show, a marked shift among americans away from favorable views of free enterprise and markets toward what you might call more social democratic positions. to give you one example, in 2011 won international polling firm, very respected firm, released the results of surveys into different countries' attitudes towards the market economy. so in response to the statement the free market is the best economic system in the world, only 19 percent of those in britain agreed with the statement. the numbers were higher in spring, 24%, italy 21%. lower in france, which was 6%. although the european survey, the germans express the highest degree of approval, about 30%.

but the real shock, i think, came in american reactions to the same statement. in 2000 to 80 percent of americans surveyed expressed a favorable view of free enterprise and free markets. see thousand two. eight years later the figure had fallen to 59%. and among lower-income americans, the trend was even worse. in 200279 percent of those groups surveyed expressed favorable views of business, commerce, and the free-market. by 2010 that figure had fallen 44%. and among young americans the trend is even more marked. now, there is no doubt i can get these apparent shifts in american and european opinion poll a great deal to the 2008 financial crisis. as i remind readers of becoming europe, there has always been to

the progress of his era, a strong strain of skepticism about free enterprise and markets among america's political and intellectual elites. not to mention, a considerable body of opinion among those elites that primarily is seceding concern for the people with collective state action. no, judging from his second inaugural address, and this mind set of pension security through the state seems to be shared by the white house's current occupant, but not to mention millions of the americans who voted for him in 2012. this, i think, points to a deeper, maybe even existential problem that many western european nations have long found -- failed to master. it's a crisis that flows from the very end of the nexus between democracy on the one hand and the fact that we now

live in a culture in which many people simply assume as a matter of right, that they are entitled to certain things from the government without too many questions being asked about how sub pay for it. now, this combination is presently putting toxic. it increasingly constitutes a danger to america's economic future. obviously there is an economic dimension to this. a purely economic dimension. the sticky issue of debt. the government constantly spends more when they raise the taxation, borrowing money is how governments have made the difference. no, in many european countries, the subsequent debt burden has now gone to the point where buy it is affecting government's ability to meet the financial obligations. in spain, for example, things

are so bad that many of their regional governments are actually trying to defer payment that they know for certain services to private businesses. but before americans starts coughing, we should consider that as of the for the february february 2013 america's official public debt was an insane $16,448,000,000,000,000. now, the real figure is probably much higher once we include things like unfunded future liabilities such as social security. the existing obligations of all the bankrupt states like california and illinois. but i think beyond the economic there are some more solvent to of subtle cultural forces a work. here western europe's serves as a dividend. many of us know that the contemporary model welfare states origins go back to 19th

century germany. some of the biggest occurred after 1945. given europe's willing for economic security after to devastating world wars and not to mention the great depression, the yearning for security through the state on the part of many western europeans should not surprise us. but what i think was surprising, and a talk about this a link in the book, how quickly european politicians recognize the state's ability to provide social programs and subsidies was a way to build reliable constituencies. governments have all realized they could attract support of making promises regarding things like pensions, retirement, subsidies, and plum benefits of regulations, and government jobs sound familiar?

this was paid for by, as we know in europe, increased taxation. we have to ask ourselves, what happens when some citizens begin doing these democratic mechanisms as means to encourage elected officials to use the states to provide the citizens with whenever they want such as perpetual economic security. what happens when elected officials start to believe that it is their responsibility to provide that demanded security or more cynically start regarding welfare programs, for example, with a useful tool to create constituencies that can

be relied upon to vote for them. now, the end result should not surprise us. it is as by role of expanding debt, welfare, regulation. but now the politicians will all be expanding the number of welfare beneficiaries and have any real desire to stop until things get so bad that there is no alternative. but as a political problem because unfortunately in democracies in which many people see the state as the primary provider of economic security, meaningful restraint of government intervention and spending is very politically difficult. why? because anyone who promises to try and reduce the scope of intervention in real terms is, in many respects, at a severe electoral disadvantage. as luxembourg's prime minister to my jean-claude famous

lamented in 2007, we all know what we have to do, but we don't know how to get reelected once we have done it. in other words, if enough people in a democracy want security through the state regardless of the cost, then the capacity of politicians to oppose, for example, the desires of 51 percent of the population is very limited. because to resist is to court electoral rejection or, as we have seen, riders running amok in the streets of athens. now, it's very tempting to see all this as a purely western european problem. this is a continent in which any normally center-right governments is essential essentially democratic. extensive government intervention is simply seen

normal across the political spectrum in most of western europe's. but can anyone seriously tonight that many american politicians, including some conservatives also played this game. all that many -- were that millions of americans have developed fair -- developed rather inflated expectations a look government owes them in economic terms. and not just those who apparently regard any streamlining of social security as an apparent human rights violation but referring to those american businesses who pursue -- prefer to pursue corporate welfare instead of competing in the marketplace. so, let me move on to the third and final part of my remarks. how can america break this nexus? well, clearly it is essential to have and make long-overdue

political -- politically different -- politically difficult decisions about government spending. on the mental level, we need a significant attitudinal change. somehow governments and legislatures, for example, have to stop viewing public finances as a vote attracting tool. my suspicion is they are not going to do that unless they cents to things, the first is that the american people did not want to head down the path of economic european position in general . secondly, and of americans are willing to embrace what that actually means at the economic europeanization in level of specifics. no, as my book illustrates, even many self-described limited

government americans baca when it comes to reducing subsidies and regulations specifically benefit their business or their industry or their town or their state. so in that sense the bigger challenge, i think, is actually for us ordinary americans. to put it bluntly we need to accept that our participation in democracy can that degenerate into voting for whoever promises to give us the most tough. in short, if we are unwilling to use our democratic freedoms responsibly and america it seriously risks becoming what one german academic described in 2009 as the situation prevailing throughout much of western europe. he called it, "and "c'mon fiscal kleptocracy. what he meant by that is that citizens vote for those politicians who use state power

to give there supporters what they want to add other people's expense. fiscally that translates into tax increases, no substantial spending cuts, growing welfare states, corporate welfare, and a colossal debt burden for our children. welcome to greece. but, also welcome to the state of california and the state of illinois. what is interesting, i think, and the long-term if you look at history is that america's founders understood these challenges will be of the pure economics. thomas jefferson was, for example, let's say, no model of personal financial rectitude. but he understood the things posed by excessive public debt. jefferson wrote, we must not let

our rulers load us with perpetual that. we must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. well, today, i think, our federal government and much of congress seems unable and in some cases unwilling to choose economy and liberty. but, perhaps a more serious question facing the republic is whether enough american citizens are willing to choose non serfdom or whether they are happy to continue drifting toward the failed project otherwise known as the european social model or european social democracy. and at present i am afraid i think the jury seems to be out on a one. so here i would like to conclude, how does america avoid going further down this path of

economic your position? now, on one level it surely is a question of incentives. i am not a philosophical materialist. i do believe there is such a thing as free will. but it is also true that if incentives are aligned in a particular direction it is harder to persuade people not to follow them. and the more, i think, that america moves in a more or less covert, social democratic direction the harder it is going to be to persuade americans that this is not economically or morally tenable. and that, in many respects, i think points to the importance of enacting policies. policies that embody economic incentives for people to be creative, to be competitive, and to not demand it subsidies because such things will no longer be available. now, that said, policy is very important. policy is not enough.

those who want america to become more like western europe are, in my view, much better, those americans who want this, much better, i think, at doing what some people call the vision thing. they are much better at inspiring people to opt for certain policies, no matter how demonstrably counterproductive or even destructive such policies turn out to be. to be very frank, what i think many conservatives and free marketers have very good the policies, some of us find it very, very difficult to move beyond efficiency arguments, articulating a vision for america that can rival, if not outplayed the left constant appeal to a thoroughly corrupted conception of social justice. an appeal that is extremely powerful and western europe, but

i think it has plainly made considerable inroads into some important sections of american public opinion. because there are such things as not economic incentives. we often think of incentives primarily in terms of financial reward. but incentives can also be non-financial. the desire to do good and to be seen as a good person can sometimes incentivize someone to act one way rather than another, even if objectively speaking it is so wrong moral choice. so, what does this mean? it means that if being seen as a good person by your peers is associated with, for example, large welfare states, then some people will vote for a large welfare state and big welfare programs despite the fact that economically speaking it may not be in their best interest. likewise, if the path to social

ostracism lies in arguing that people should be helped to take care of themselves but the incentives to be a prominent advocate of limiting government power are much, much lower. now, if what i said is true, it should radically reshape the way in which we seek to stem and maybe even reverse economic europeanize asian-american. suddenly changing policies, changing the rules of the game is important if we are going to alter incentives. but, as we caution, both institutions and belief systems must change for successful reform. it is the mental morals of the actors that will shape choices. his convictions are so strong that he says attitudes and values and expectations, if they are favorable enough to growth and economic creativity, they

will even, in some respects, overcome institutional restraints upon such things. so, if it does, indeed, come back to values, beliefs, attitudes and expectations, then we need to do more than just shift economic incentives. it is also a question of showing how the normative case, the moral case for free economy goes far, far beyond the logic of supply and demand. now, in becoming europe's concluding chapter, i try and sketch out what i think what the agenda much like. i suggest that if values are as core to economic culture as i think they are, then americans need to be very clear about the value choices they must make if they want to avoid economic european and asian. they have to choose, for example, to prioritize the good of creation over wealth redistribution. they have to pray it -- prioritized transparency and accountability is a falsehood.

they have to prioritize rule of law over the rule of men. they have to prioritize things like property rights over top-down direction of the economy. they have to prioritize hope over fear, and they have to give priority to openness rather than defensiveness. so wealth creation, accountability, rule of law, property rights, openness, and hope. in becoming year but dry and explain what these mean and how they affect institutions and policies. i also point out that these were characteristics highlighted by someone as prominent features of the america that he visited in the 1830's. but he also noticed something else. as to my perhaps, is most defining biographer notes tomorrow one of the first surprises in new york was that at gatherings in the evenings

one would rub shoulders with minuet spent the day in an office or bank, lawyers, businesses, bankers. the pleasures of society came at the end of the day in which they had waged a fierce battle for profit. now, such as state of affairs shot him. why? because the salons of his native france were dominated by men who held government office or who were gentlemen of leisure. captains of industry, merchants, aspiring entrepreneurs were largely absent from these gatherings in france. and that tells us something, i think, about the disdain with which much of 1830's europe regarded commerce and business. but it also reveals the might think, something about american, that it was not as materialistic as many americans opposed in which i'm sorry as many european

supposed in which many europeans today continue to assume. the pursuit of prosperity was not all consuming of americans' lives, despite the fact that the commercial republic was very much that to make commercial republic. achieving economic success gave americans the time and the resources to the material resources to pursue either less material goods, things like fine conversation, the pursuit of knowledge, the children's education, philanthropy to maturity, cultivation of the arts, appreciation of beauty and prayer and contemplation of the ultimate realities. well, this is a vision that is -- of vision that is somewhat at odds with the russian ready frontier in mr. -- imagery that we often associate with that in century america. nonetheless, it is very consistent with the lives and aspirations of many of america's founders. and i think the richest and most

economically successful founder of the mall, charles carroll exemplifies this. as many of you probably know, charles carroll inherited great wealth. but as a seasonal businessmen his own right he multiplied his holdings several times over. and on his journey throughout america he was forever identifying and taking notes about things like what crops might be suitable for particular areas. he also invested heavily in private economic projects designed to promote public works yet, none of these interests and the time and energy they undoubtedly consumed presented to carol from cultivating another scholarly interest. nor did they -- nor did they inhibit him from long-term involvement in public affairs, whether as a representative in several legislatures, a

political commentator, a discussion of america's emerging constitutional framework and, of course, religious liberty. but in the declaration of independence charles carroll put far, far more at risk economically speaking than any other of the signers. he was to after all, the richest man in america at the time. but carroll's willingness to risk all his stuff for freedom demonstrated, i think, something else. carol's conviction that more was a stake in britain's dispute then just texas and that some things are, in fact, more important than money. i think this all points to something, and it is this, that mean it's for conservatives and free marketers to embrace the argument everyone to resist economic european position to embrace the argument that the endgame of america's free enterprise system is not the

endless acquisition of wealth. wealth is the means, but the goal is human flourishing. this is an idea that is as old as aristotle and the blindness, deeply into rope to the american founding and the aspirations contained in the phrase life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. now, no doubt part of the happiness is to be found in pursuit of some of the very wide ranging and often on economic interests of someone like thomas jefferson and benjamin franklin were charles carroll. but although realizations of happiness can occur through the very pursuit of the means that enable us to engage in these interests. in the development, for example, of the moral and practical habits that are so crucial for success in business, trade, and in market economies more generally.

now, in much of western europe, if not most of western europe, i contrary attitude has long been characteristic of the economic culture. it is this. people are to live a fulfilling lives, as far as is consistent with maintaining minimal incentives to encourage some wealth creation, the attitude is that people need to be provided with things and protected from risk. institutionally that translates squarely into the european social model. what is interesting, however, is , there is very little evidence that such policies actually help make people happy. as i illustrate in "becoming europe," many people who are, for example, on long-term welfare are generally less happy than those who earn the same income but who don't do it through a welfare payment but instead through work in the job. no, there have been lots of

studies done this. they talk about these in the book. we have to be careful, of course, not to read too much into the studies because as the saying goes, correlation is not causality. they do, however, suggest that economic cultures which prioritize institutions that are focused upon endless redistribution directly from the top down in an effort to realize ever greater equality instability are much less successful at helping people to flourish as they ought to flourish. money, benjamin franklin road, never made a man happy, nor will it. but hal one achieves love, how one gains and income certainly does seem to matter when we think about something as profoundly and materialistic as human flourishing. because the truth is that

economic cultures that are more or less in float crawled to the values associated with progressive economic epaulet -- equalization tend to have rather materialistic use of human person. collective systems are an extreme example of this. but the american founders and i think, wrote that they knew that they associated the word liberty with the phrase pursuit of happiness. it is in the exercise of freedom, including economic freedom that much of the happiness making things to occur now, there is a trade-off because the down side might be less economic security. but while some economic security is important, is not all important, and it certainly is not enough for human happiness and flourishing. so i think this further underscores the truth that if americans want to resist the european economic -- your position they have to do more

than just engage in policy battles because i think tough fight to take back america's economy from those who have tried to realize this social direct credit dream, / nightmare, not just of the past six years, but i would argue over the past 100 years, it has to be more than an argument about the relative efficiency of markets parses mixed economies. man does not live by efficiency alone. life is about much more than maximizing utility. no one is going to get to the barricades for effectiveness and efficiency. as the society then, america has to consciously choose not to to cut off its economic culture from their roots from which is come. and as a desert in the book, those routes are certainly european. and it the roots in america have been refined and deepened over 230 years through a distinctly

american experiences, so much so that not even politicians as savvy as franklin roosevelt or lyndon johnson were able to pull them out completely. unfortunately, there is no guarantees that these writs will persist in america. economic cultures are like plants. once you tear them up from their roots they tend to die very quickly. creating the values that promote market economic cultures, let alone the institutions that enhance and protect them is extremely difficult. history is littered with failures to do so. americans can, however, cultivate what they have been given. as the founders said come as a sacred trust. the heritage of which is granted deeply in love we shared unashamedly called european civilization. if americans choose to do so, and acting tuesday must, americans can have confidence

that whatever happens to your kaj if we choose -- make the right decisions at the level of attitudes and beliefs and expectations, whatever happens to europe, something of western civilization will not just have been saved. i think it will also have been transformed a new. thank you very much. [applause] >> we will be glad to take a few questions. obviously we have copies of the book, and we will be signing in here afterwards if you would like to talk further. we have a microphone. i will recognize people in the audience, but i'm going to start with one. your quote from jefferson where you discussed the perpetual debt to or three sentences prior to that, however, he says, i am not among those who fear the people. ironically, are you telling us we might be in a time of fearing the people? >> a time of hearing some

people. jefferson, of course, had a tremendous faith in the americans of his time that they would do the right thing. it's like winston churchill when he said, america will always to the right thing after they have tried everything else. but, i do think that given some of the attitudinal shifts that i talk about at length in the book about how americans use on free enterprise and free markets are not as favorable as they used to be and particularly disturbing when it comes to young people just how much they more less seemed to prefer social democratic ideas compared to what america's heritage has traditionally been, that is actually very disturbing in the long term because it tells me that those who are in favor of free markets and free enterprise are not doing a good job explaining to young people who generally are optimistic, they tend to be people who want to be inspired. they tend to want to have an

ideal to follow. if they are opting for a more less social democratic economic europeanize asian model, that is going to create enormous long-term problems for the united states in a sense that in a democracy -- democracy a society will tend to reflect what people want and that most people on social democracy, against over going to get, social democracy. >> down here in front. >> yes. >> thank you very much for your perceptive understanding. you mentioned the 19th century german whose influence as well as that of the great tradition were talking about the mehuman flourishing, do you think that there is an educational program out there -- i mean it, i went sales fell college. very big on this issue. would you point to a other

positive economics to the positive educational forces to back. >> the negative side of that first. i think mark stein said conservatives need to understand in that three weeks of robo calls will for an election is no substitute for a eight to ten years of more or less indoctrination in most educational systems about what -- what business is bad, free trade doesn't work, markets are dehumanizing. you're not going to persuade a lot of people after they heard this type of stuff for year after year. ..

>> i think there is an example of explaining to people of where these things come from by going back and reading great books and explained to people that this is our heritage and this is why it is important. these people were making arguments. there were places atkinson such as the real estate institute to that do these things. the james madison program in places like that, trying to retrieve some of these ideas,

and different aspects of social and economic policy and etc. there are many who are also doing this type of work. many who spend a lot of time. so there are places to go, there are lots of programs for students who are interested in these things. of course, this includes established orthodox of what is going on today. there are opportunities for these things, thanks to places like heritage and many of these things are more vulnerable to people, finding out where they are, how you get into it, and helping people when they go out either into business when they start to work in politics and policy, how they start to apply these things to these very concrete institutional problems that i talked about. anyone else?

>> they were the origin of social welfare in germany. they manage to have a strong economy despite that. you have any insight as to how they manage to do that? >> i actually talk a lot about that in the book. germany is actually the outlier. you are right that the welfare state as we know it originated with the great lover of freedom, and the he serve the wealthy because he noticed that urban industrial workers were voting for the social democratic party. and he thought, well, what we do with this? is very explicit about this. it wasn't the sort of noble idea, but this growing support of large numbers of people for the german social democrats who were at that time marxist political party. but he also has a very long

string of market orientated thinking in germany that has been around for a long time. perhaps the biggest changes that were made occurred in 1948. when people are in charge of the economy and the allied occupation and it was aided by people who were passionate free marketers. he got rid of currency controls, price controls, and he let it work. and that was part of germany experiencing this prosperity. by the 1970s and 80s, it was clear that germany had moved back and the type of social democratic direction. by the 1990s, this was making the economy stagnated. in the early 2000, the german government at the time, it was a

social democrat government, i should hasten to add, decided that it was going this way so they embarked upon an eight-year program and it has paid off. now, the political price had fallen out of office, which goes to prove a point if you want to embark upon serious economic reform in most european countries, you should more or less determine what is going on out of office. the part about germany is that in the own economic history, they have a certain amount of thinking that they can fall back to, because it is within the living memory of what things use to be like. there is a reason why germans in general don't like inflation.

they saw what inflation did and they saw the political consequences. so that type of institutional memory helps to explain why germany has more or less managed to resist some of the european ideas that i have talked about. and there is culture and history that enables them to go back and say, this is part of the tradition. this does not go far enough. this is part of who we are as germans. it is a good example of how economic culture really matters. >> it is nice to talk to you. i have a great idea of communicating and the paychecks

and how it would be very nice wake-up call for everybody. but my question is at the moment with unemployment at seven-point something%, isn't that a critical time to shape the politics that are being implemented and create things that will be left for further generations. like the crisis from 2008 leads to something that persists for a longer time and shapes the landscape of this country far longer than we might want reign. >> that's right, that figure, the 7.9% unemployment, that is the official rate. we know the real rate is higher than now. many are stuck with this. it is security that follows from widespread unemployment tends to

mean that politicians and institutions react in certain ways by trying to provide security. of course, once you set up a program, they will always say, why don't you set these programs, attend to acquire a difficulty to dismantle. they develop their own interests, their own agendas, which often have nothing to do with the people that they were trying to help. so what we do know is that some of these institutions and programs come once they get into place, it gets harder and harder over time. not to dismantle them and even question him. a very good example is the national health service in britain. i lived there for a long time. i can tell you from personal experience that it was nationalized just after the second world war. by any objective standard of quality of health care, speed of

delivery, it is terrible if you talk to enough people living in britain, they will freely say that yes, the service we get is bad, if we really want a serious operation, we will go to germany or the united states for that. but then if you ask, if you ask british people about moving towards freeing up health care, should they move towards liberalization and more market forces at work, simply cannot do that. i remember one very nice lady, very idealistic young girl in britain who talked about the national health services, and i indicated that it was bankrupt it didn't work. so it's important that we care enough that we are willing to accept all of the things. that is an example of a program

or institution and how it becomes so embedded in the economic culture that we have is almost impossible. we just need to think about it here, reform and on the edges, but they won't come out and say that it fundamentally doesn't work. it is actually damaging people and we need to get rid of it or move somewhere else because that is a very quick way of courting rejection. electoral rejection. my point is that once it's in place, it can stay around for a very long time. no matter how dysfunctional it is. >> we will have one more after that. >> okay. >> the marriage-based family of fertility rates are weaker than they were years ago. they seem to be stronger than they were. what impacts of those have with

the policy? it seems that once you eliminate the two leading institutions, all that is left is the individuals in the state. >> oh, sure, i talk a lot about those issues. most of them are population issues and i do get into the marriage issues and the consequences and the like. every single european country is below replacement level. the mediterranean levels are disaster in that regard. the only country that makes the replacement rate is ireland. it obviously has to do with things like falling mortality rates, people living longer, it also has to do babies are born,

they tend to survive, people are choosing not to have more children. there is also a welfare state. and the welfare state mentioned this. that most of the time when it was relatively minimalistic, once they come in, it takes away intergenerational bonds that get replaced and people would often have an economic motive for having more children. that means there would be some children round who could take your appearance in their old age. it is the old age motion for fertility. i talked about how this was important.

it reflects my responsibility to the previous generation and what they do is create a huge problem in that people will be saying that i don't need to have children because i will be taking care of by the welfare station. that means that someone else is paying for you as well as their own children. this creates incentives for fertility. it is a very materialistic issue and it is a real factor. does it have an effect in the united states? yes, i think california is a classic example. california is europe in every measurable institution and also in terms of attitude and expectation. it is not a coincidence that the population level there has existed, it's not just people leaving the state, those having

fewer and fewer children. it's a good example of how these used to take care of some of these social long-term economic challenges. but it also creates a bad result for those that they are trying to help. >> is there anyone that has any other questions? >> i would just like to mention several times the moral cost for democracy. if you could just elaborate on the long-term effects and what it will be? >> i talk about this at length in the book. obviously there are economic cost to social democracy. less productivity, increased regulation, which makes it harder for people to get jobs. but what are some of the moral costs remap one is a decrease and put this in perspective

here, that is one association of it. the other is the moral cost of expectations that i am entitled to certain things as a matter of right, without any rights on where these come from and even the language of moral discourse starts to become corroded and breaks down. things like rights become a trump card to shut down discussion. the program violates the rights. so the type of personality that works its way through political discourse. it's other people that you don't know and they have no idea what their obligations and responsibilities are to basically pay for you and whatever it is that you happen to him.

but i should be responsible for myself and family. especially with these types of conditions. i also think it leads to a doubling of people flourishing, and a sense that when i work i'm not just transforming the world, but transforming myself. it becomes something that i just have to do so i can get on with the serious business of having my vacation. in 2004, and i don't want to keep reading of the subject, in 2004 studies were done of french university students who had gone to places that trained people for political business and bureaucratic leaders of the future. now, people who are graduating, what they wanted to do with their lives, they get paid

pretty well, there's great vacation, and all of this is to say that the cost is like taking risks. and if you just opt for stability, you're going to flourish as a person. you're basically going to be stagnant as economies around her. that presumes a certain understanding, how we flourish as humans. i don't think there's much doubt that social democracy has an effect on our capacity to become what we want to be. thank you. [applause] >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs that you see

here online. type the author or book title on the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click on search. you can also share anything bc on booktv.org by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live on mine for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction book authors. booktv.org. >> i am sure that you are more or less familiar with the postage stamps put out for mathematics, he was supposedly the man in favor of violence ,-com,-com ma but that wasn't the issue. he did support the right of armed self-defense. but he did not promote the aggressive violence. he said power against power, we are not going to convince the segregationists to accept us. we have to build our own forces

until they have no choice but to recognize our demand, and that is powered. and he called this nationalism, he built this whole ideology about it. it meant black pride, it meant the economies of black communities, the northern ghetto, so to speak, it should be run by blacks instead of other owners. he believed in community control and yes, he believed in the economy. he is not an integrationist as such, and he said it's up to us, it's our struggle. >> the university of michigan professor howard breck looks at the struggles for african-american equality at midnight eastern, part of american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >> here's a look at books that are being published this week. matthew goodman recounts the story of two women journalists in the late 19th century who

attempted to break the record for the fastest trip around the world in 80 days around the world. and in the book with charity for all, the ceo investigates u.s. nonprofit organizations and argues that the industry needs to be reformed. reporter michael maas reports the food industry in salt, sugar, fat. and john maynard keynes and the making of a new world order. he recounts the monetary and financial conference of 1944 that took place in bretton woods new hampshire.

now part of the world bank group. education journalist sarah carr almost a teacher and principal through the new orleans school system. one city and the struggle to educate america's children. look for these titles and book stores this coming week and watch for the authors on booktv.org. >> this system is now so deeply rooted in our social and political and economic structure that it is not just going to fade away or downsized out of sight. not without major upheaval and a radical shift in our public consciousness. now, i know that there are many people today who say, oh, there is no hope of ending mass incarceration in america. no, there is no hope.

just as many people were dying to jim crow and they would say yes, yes, it's a shame. but that is just the way that it is. so many people today view the millions of cycling in and out of our prisons today as just an unfortunate that an alterable fact of american life. i'm quite certain that doctor king would not have been so resigned. i believe that if we are truly, truly to honor doctor king, if we are to ever catch up with him, we have to be willing to continue his work. we have to be willing to go back and pick up where he left off and do the hard work on behalf of poor people of all colors. in 1968, he told advocates of

the time it comes to transition from the civil rights movement to the human rights movement. meaningful equality cannot be achieved through civil rights alone. without basic human rights, the right to work, the right to shelter, the right to quality education. without these human rights, civil rights are an empty promise. so in honor of doctor king and all of those who labored the old jim crow, i hope we will commit ourselves to building a human rights movement of mass incarceration, the movement for education and the movement for jobs and not jails. a movement for all of these forms of legal discrimination against people. discrimination that denies them basic rights to work and to shelter. what must we do to begin this? well, i believe that we have to

start by telling the truth. the whole truth. you must be willing to admit that we, as a nation, have managed to re-create a caste system in this country. we have to be willing to tell the truth in our schools. in our churches and places of worship. we have to be willing to tell the truth so that a great awakening of what can occur can come to pass. the reality isn't that this new caste like system comes with signs. there are no whites only signs or signs of the existence of this system of mass incarceration. prisons are out of sight and out of mind, hundreds of miles oftentimes a way from communities and families that might otherwise be connected to them. the people who cycle in and out

of these prisons typically live in segregated and impoverished communities, those that middle-class folks, upper-middle-class folks barely come across. so you could live your whole life in america today having no idea that the system of mass incarceration even exists. so we have got to be willing to tell the truth. to pull back the curtain and make visible what is hidden in plain sight. people can begin to take the kind of creative construction action at this moment in our history surely requires. of course, it's a lot of talk in reasoning, and that's not going to be enough. we have to be willing to get to

work. in my view, that means that we must be willing to build an underground railroad for people like this. an underground railroad for people who want to make a genuine break for real freedom. people who want to escape the system and find work, find shelter, be able to support their families. by the true freedom in america today. we have to be willing to open our homes and schools and open our workplaces to people returning home from prison and provide full support for the families who have loved ones behind bars today. how do we create these safe places? well, one thing we can do is begin to admit our own criminality out loud. because the truth is that we have all made mistakes in our lives. we all have. all of us are sinners.

all of us have done wrong. all of us have broken the law at some point in our lives. if you are an adult, you have broken the law at some point in your life. i find that some people will say oh, yes, i'm a sinner. i have made mistakes, but do not call me a criminal. do not call me a criminal. and i say, okay, maybe you never drank underage. maybe you never experimented with drugs. the worst thing you have done in your entire life is speed 10 miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you put yourself and others in the risk of harm that someone smoking marijuana at the privacy of their own living room. but there are people serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses. life sentences. the u.s. supreme court upheld life sentences for first-time

drug offenders against an eighth amendment challenge that such sentences were cruel and unusual in the u.s. supreme court said no, no, it is not cruel and unusual to sentence a young man to life imprisonment for a first-time drug offenders, even though virtually no other country in the world does such a thing. we have to end this idea that the criminals are them and not us. we need to instead say all of us have made mistakes in our lives. we have taken wrong turns. but only some of us have been required to pay for those mistakes for the rest of our lives. president barack obama has admitted to more than a little bit of drug use in his lifetime. he has admitted using marijuana and cocaine in his youth. if he hadn't been raised by white grandparents in hawaii, if he hadn't done much of his

illegal drug use on predominantly white college campuses and universities, if he had been raised in the hood, the odds are good that he would have been stopped and frisked and searched and caught, far from being president of the united states today, he might not even have the right to vote, depending on the state he was in. >> you can watch this and other programs online apple tv.org. >> you are watching the tv on c-span2. here's our primetime lineup. starting at 7:00 p.m. eastern, a look at lincoln's time in congress, followed by authors who discussed the historical accuracy of the movie lincoln and the companion book. at 9:00 p.m. eastern, a glimpse of life in saudi arabia, an area that is woman has covered for more than