>> julia i think of as the ma don -- madonna. she once posed as a model, which

was frowned upon. she was nope as the rose of long island. by all accounts was bewitching, bewitched 57-year-old john tyler, who married her, and she loves being first lady. she had the job for less than a year but it was julia tyler who ordered the rain band to play hail to the chief whenever the president appears, and also julia tyler who greeted her guests sis sitting on a raised platform withpurple plumes in her hair. almost as if she receded to the more queenly role that marge that washington deliberately rejected.

>> now former vice president al gore discusses his book "the future: six drivers global change." the talks about the global policies that are, in his word, reshaping the world. from the savannah book festival in georgia, this is an hour. >> u.s. senator, vice president of the united states, nobel peace prize recipient. oscar winner. best-selling author. any ounce thereof these superlative alone would be enough to suggest that our next speakers is a force with which to be reckoned. but when combined into one individual, it is evident that al gore is a force of nature. he has always been on the leading edge of promoting the internet as a tool for greater communication. of climate change as one of the greatest perils of our time.

and in this latest book, "the future," of the key medical technological and philosophical drivers changing our world, ever the big picture thinker. al gore explores how we might harness these entick -- epic change agents for the good although his public professional life has not been without controversy, he record of accomplishments speak to the life lived on the precipice of passion, purpose, and possibility. on behalf of the savannah book festival, it is my great honor to introduce to all of you, al gore. [applause] [applause]

[cheers and applause] >> thank you very much. thank you. thank you very much. [cheers and applause] >> thank you so much. oh, it's so great to be here, and thank you for that very generous and warm welcomement and it's always great to be back in savannah. one of the most beautiful cities in the entire world. i always enjoy coming here. [applause] >> and i want to thank howard for that very kind introduction and we have had a chance to visit this morning, and howard and mary are great folks here and contribute so much to this community, and congratulations to the savannah book festival and this sixth year. it keeps on getting better and growing and people are excited about it. i've got some friends here, andy

wright used to work for me in the white house, and -- as a lawyer, and i'm so glad that he and his family have settled here in savannah. thank you to the trinity united methodist church for the beautiful venue, and independent book stores or the bedrock of our whole civilization, so let's support them. [cheers and applause] >> so, i want to tell you about this book "the future: six drivers global change." i've always been fascinated with those who tried to look over the horizon and see what is coming at us, and back when i was a young congressman, i had the privilege of chairing a group called the congressional clearing house on the future. and it was started by a north carolina congressman, charlie

roast, the other charlie rose we say now. charlie has passed on, but he was a great man and asked me to chair it in my second term in the congress. and i had a chance to invite to the congress alvin toffler and margaret immediate and carl saggan and it was a wonderful experience. in any case, i learned from them and have been trying over the years to try to use some of those techniques. and about eight years ago, i was in a conference making a speech in europe, and somebody asked me, what are the drivers of global change? and i gave an answer that i thought was adequate, and -- i thought it was a little better than adequate. but when i got on the plane to

fly back to the u.s., that question kind of nagged at me a little bit, and i took out my computer and started outlining a better answer. and that ended up becoming something of an obsession. a couple years after that it turned out that the outline had some value in the real world. i had cofounded an investment company called generation investment management, with my partner, david blood. i wanted to call it blood and gore. [laughter] >> and i -- [laughter] >> i hope you won't think less of me when i tell you i really did want to call it that. [laughter] >> but we used this outline as a one of the influences for our investment models, and it has

worked pretty well. and a couple years ago it had green to be so elaborate i decided to turn it into a book. so i had a scoping exercise with some of the smartest people i could find who spent two days trying to sort of look over the horizon and help to get all this in perspective, and i asked one of them at the start to -- kind of an emotional question, how do you feel.the future? and -- feel about the security in he said, feel fine. i didn't think that was very helpful but it did remind me of a story i first heard 35 years ago, when i was a young congressman, representing 25 rural counties in middle tennessee, and on a saturday i had had town hall meet little all day long, and i was driving back in the evening to my farm. and i was listening on the car radio to the grand ol' opry, and back in those days there was a

wonderful comedian named cousin minnie pearl, and a few of you may remember her. she had the price tag still on her straw hat, and calico dress, and she told a story about a farmer who was involved in an accident, and he suffered damages, and went to court, sued the driver of the other vehicle. and that other driver hired a lawyer who put this farmer on the witness stand for cross-examination, and he asked the farmer, isn't it true that a immediately after this accident, you said, i feel fine? and the farmer said, well, it's not that simple. you see i was taking my cow to town in the back of my truck, and this feller came driving across the center of the highway, and the lawyer said, object, yourself, we're in the middle of a trial here if we don't want to hear a long and involved story. just answer the question, yes or no. did you or did you not say, immediately after the accident,

i feel fine? the farmer said, well, was leading up to that. you see, i was taking my cow to town in the back of my truck, and this feller came driving across the center of the highway and ran smack dab into the truck and knocked it over and threw me out and threw the cow out. i was on one side and the cow was on the other, and the highway patrolman looked at the cow and said, she is suffering. pulled out his gun and shot her right between the eyes. [laughter] >> then he came around to my side of the truck and said, how do you feel? i said, feel fine. [laughter] [applause] >> i think honestly that sometimes our attitudes about the future are a little bit like that. compared to what? we are now living in a time of

absolutely revolutionary change, and the power of these changes and the simultaneousness of these changes is something we have never seen before. never have so many revolutionary drivers of change been coming at us at the same time. so, i want to run through all six of them briefly, and then i look forward to your questions, and i'll do my best to answer them, and then i'll sign your books, and i did a presigning. ink is barely dry. so i look forward to visiting with each one of you who comes through over at fellowship hall. now to begin with, let's talk about change itself. we are used to experiencing change of a particular kind.

short-steady, incremental change, what they call linear change, yesterday wasn't too much different from today, and tomorrow will be not much different either. but there are big changes that burst forth after piling up the potential for change without anything seeming to happen much. because the potential change can be held back by a barrier of some sort, or old habits and customs, and then when it reaches critical mass, this potential change can break through the barrier and there it is, all of a sudden. and that is sometimes called emergent change, and back in those days when i was a young congressman, one of the scientists that came to talk with us that had a -- made a big impact on me was a man from

belgium, short, balding. he had been born in russia three months before the russian revolution, in 1917. and he discovered a new law of nature, a major corollary to one of the -- to the second law of thermodynamics, which is best known as entropby. the law that says systems break down over time. think about a smoke ring. starts as a coherent doughnut and then as the molecules separate and the energy dissipates it breaks apart. and everything is that way. in some systems the entropy occurs quickly or take place over a long period of time. but this man discovered what is in some ways the opposite of that. he studied open systems that have energy flowing into it and

through it and out again, and what he found was that when the flow of energy into an open system increases enough, beyond a certain threshold, then two things happen. it breaks down the -- the pattern of the system breaks down, but here's the surprising part. then the system re-organizes itself at a higher level of complexity. and the whole field of complexity science came from that discovery, and the way we use the word -- emer gent" comes from that discovery. so, think for a minute about what happened over the last 20 years with the internet. when bill clinton and i went into the white house in 1993, there were 50 sites on the world wine wed. -- world wine web. and now there's a trillion of them. and look what happened to

newspapers all over the world. that's part of the breakdown of the old patterns. but now we've got facebook and twitster inextra gram and paintress and zap cat and you can name your open list. i spent some time in silicon valley and there are 20 new companies that have reached a bill dollar value asia in the last year and a half. our world is changing dramatically, some of the old is breaking down and dissipating, but the new patterns are quite complex and challenging and bring a lot of changes. so these six drives of global change are all emergent changes. they've been building up for a while, and now they're all kind of happening at the same time. so, let take them one-by-one. chap per one. earth inc., a new interconnected

global economy that operates as if it is a single entity. we have been seeing the outsourcing of jobs and the connection of supplies. now we have virtual factories with supply lines running to hundreds of countries and almost every business has to see its competitive landscape in the global dimension. earth inc. has a different relationship to national governments and national economic policies now. a different relationship to labor and capital and natural resources. the three classic factors of production. look, for example, at one of the changes that illustrates this new reality of earth inc. we had the great recession back in 2008, and normally after a

recession, when we get a recovery, and growth resumes, the jobs come back. and that this way it's always been. but in the last couple of recessions, it hasn't happened that way. because we now have this global reality, and some businesses that lay people off during a recession, they're not hiring them back the way they used to. some of them, yes. burt we now have outsourcing in a completely different way. and when a business is faced with the need to give their employees a raise, if they can just shift the jobs over to some other country, then it's so easy now, they -- they're doing that. but it's not just outsourcing. it's also robo sourcing, which is the word i use to describe a

brand new level of automation that is different from what we have seen in the past. from hundreds of years since the days of the luddites -- you remember that story -- organized people smash apart the machines taking the jobs of the weavers in england, and we've always kind of snickered at him and the economic evidence has proven time and again that new technology is almost always create more new jobs than they displace, and that's been the pattern. but there are an increasing number of economists who are now asking whether or not that is still the pattern? and here's the difference they point to. new technologies now include many nat not only extend and magnify our physical capacities but also our cognitive capacities.

it may not be so significant that a super computer won jeopardy but i was impressed. and a few years ago one captured the international chess championship. but in addition to these niche applications, now a lot of these intelligent machines and al go rhythms and robots can do lots of different things. i'll give you an example. there's a now algorithm that some law firms are beginning to use that makes it possible for a single first year lawyer, working with this computer algorithm, to do the same amount of legal research that used to require 500 first-year lawyers. and they don't -- and he doesn't make as many mistakes. way fewer mistakes, in fact. so, the way we idea to think about a situation like that is, new and unusual, but there have been precedent. we always assume that those

other 499 lawyers would go and get a job somewhere else. but when the other law firms start using that, and other businesses, then my point is, we are seeing the combination of outsourcing and robo sourcing really transforming our economy, and the middle class, let's be candid about this in the united states, for quite in time now, has been really struggling. the middle class jobs have been hollowed out. and by the way this trend is not just happening in our country. it's in europe, and japan, and it's also in china. and in india. you may have heard of the chinese company call fox-con. it makes a lot of the smartphones and digital devices. well, they just announced over the next three years, they're installing one million robots.

now, these young chinese men and women who have migrated in such large numbers from the impoverished rural areas to china to the other centers of manufacturing closer to the export terminals, what are theying at the to do when they compete with these robots? and they're getting the -- the robots are getting smarter. the algorithms and the thinking machines are getting smarter all the time. morris law, which everybody knows about, makes the computers twice as fast every 18 to 24 months and by the law of doubling you don't have to go very long before they get in much smarter than they are now. and they are now beginning to take on tasks we have always assumed would remain the unique province of our species. so, we are talking now about

economic policies in our country. that represent a pattern that really is rooted in the past, and, again, the jobs are not coming back in the same way, and in a minute i'm going to tell you where the income is going some of the reasons why. but i'm going to move on from earth inc. because i've got -- if you want to know more about these i have a discussion on where you can go if you want more. [laughter] >> chapter two is the second driver of global change. the emergence of the global mind. digital networks, including principally the internet, coupled with digital devices that connect the thoughts and feelings of billions of people instantaneously, and connects them not only to one another but to those intelligent machines, and to intelligent devices and

computers that are getting more and more common all over the world. and sensors being imbedded in the physical world at an incredible rate. and connecting us to these vast databases that contain a significant percentage of all the knowledge ever compiled in the history of human civilization. available to us at our fingertips. it changes the way we organize our thinking. it really does. just as every significant communications advance in history has brought about changes in our thinking? back when the ancient greeks perfected the phonetic alphabet. all of a sudden the symbols used in written language were not representative of the ideas they

conveyed. not little stylized pictures, but they were abstract symbols that had no meaning at all in and of themselves, but win you use them in combination, we find gestalt meanings to them, and it's miraculous in a way that we can read in books and pick up these symbols just instantously. we have organized our brains to do that. well, there are lot of people who think that the reason why ancient greece marked a point of departure in civilization was that when people organized their minds in that new way, all of a sudden what came out? philosophy, and dramatic theater, and complex ideas like democracy. fast forward 1800 years after ancient athens and the introduction of the prisoning press. all of a sudden the knowledge that had been reserved for a elites was distributed

throughout society, and it triggered a wave of literacy and people began to get access to knowledge of the ancients. and then a demand grew for contemporary works and we need to start making decisions for ourselves, and the reformation began to challenge the medieval church, and the whole world was made over, and within just a few decades the voyages of discovery began, and when columbus came back from the bahamas there were 11 princes sailing around europe and opening people's imaginations and within two generations the whole world has been scoffed, circumnavigated, and everything changed. now, these changes we're

undergoing now, if you think about how powerfully the printing press transformed the world, just imagine what the changes are that are being caused by the emergence of the global mind. 40% of the people who have smartphones look at them first thing in the morning before they even get out of bed. and then of course you got 0 to be careful driving to work because of all the people working on them while they're driving in the other lanes. and you've probably been in dinners, conversations, with friend and loved ones when everything stops when somebody looks up what you're talking about. you've been in rooms where nobody is talking because everybody is looking at a different device. so, these kinds of changes are quite remarkable. but remember, we're not only connecting to the databases and to ourselves but all of thiessen0s.

-- all of thiessen are -- these sensors. dairy farmers in europe, using the milk machines and the force feeding and the new new diet. the cycle come presses a little bit so if they want to breed the dar dairy cattles and get calfs, they have to be on their toes so they put the sensors in the cow, and when the cow comes into heat, she text s the farmer now. [laughter] >> i'm not making this up. it's the first example of interst. pete's sexting. there arelets of similar examples. by the way, every one of these emergent changes brings with it the fraternal twins of opportunity and peril. there are some risks that we

need to manage as we all move our lives into the global mind. if you go right now on your smartphone to dictionary.com and look up a word, without you knowing it, that business will put 200 and -- 234 small computer programs or cookies on your smartphone that will track your movements around the internet from now on. and there are lots of business that do that. we have a stalker economy out there. and they're compiling these digital files on everybody. and most of it is be -- bee nine, just selling it to advertisers so they can better target the ads they send you so you'll be more likely to want to see what they're showing you. but they're selling them to other people now, too. and there have been all too many examples of where this has

caused tremendous problem, and hackers are getting into files, and foreign governments. many of our high-tech businesses here in the u.s. have been penetrated by hackers who steal their intellectual property. one business in silicon valley lost a billion dollars worth of multiyear research in a single weekend. and a lot of these businesses that are hacked and penetrated don't even want to talk about it. ...

are inspired by the values that we have demonstrated in our country, and they want to be like us. but things are changing quite a bit. in a few short years china will be the most powerful economy in the world. they just recently passed us as the largest trading nation and have passed as an a number of categories. our relative strength seems to have been declining. it does not have to continue. by the way, one of the themes of this book that is particularly emphasized in chapter three is that the united states of america is and remains the only nation that is capable of providing an example of a leader in the world. i have been doing interviews

with journalists and foreign countries and sometimes i will say that. they say, well, that is an american point of view. no it is not. i'm proud of my country. yes. i will plead guilty to that for sure, but you tell me what other country has the potential to do it. the european union has its hands full. does not even have a president or executive. china does not have the perceived moral authority that will induce the rest of the world to ever in the foreseeable future look at them as a leader. they don't have democracy. they corrupt. they have all of these problems. who else is there? and at a time when we are facing these six major drivers of change, these are global issues. we have to confront them in a global dimension, and that requires leaders. so we, as americans have a particular responsibility in my view and a particular challenge

to help restore the potential of the united states of america because the ship -- shift in power relationship is not only taking place shifting from west to east, and china is the biggest example, but there are others. it is also presorting power to reemergence centers of economic strength over the world in sao paulo and jakarta and istanbul and johannesburg. in fact, the aggregate size of all of the economies in the developing world is now larger than the size of all of the economies in the advanced industrial nations. so the world is changing. and inside the united states we have seen a shift in power here as well. as a matter of fact, ladies and zimmerman, i use this phrase in

a considered way. our democracy has been hacked. the phrase -- the word hacked, you know, is a computer word ready operating system of a computer is taken over remotely and they make the computer do things you don't want to do. well, our operating system was handed to us by our founders in the constitution. it is not working the way it should. as speak as one who serves as an elected official in the federal government for 24 years, and i have watched it all my life. and i wanted just very simply explain what the differences today compared to the weight is supposed to work. back in those years when i was listening to the grand old opry on the car radio, i would have

these town hall meetings regularly. i was first elected in 1976. i started going to all of the county courthouses in these counties in and i would get to the smaller communities. people would come. you remember that norman rockwell painting of a man standing at in a town hall meeting? it was like that. and telling you. i don't want to sound corny, but i can barely find the words to describe the genuine thrill in my heart that i felt when i was able to play the role of our founders carved out for a member of the house of representatives, listening to them, doing my best to understand what could be done to improve there lives, hearing their suggestions on what needed to be changed and then going to the seat of government in washington d.c. and fighting on their behalf and learning stuff that might cause me to of vote differently than they would necessarily expect and then

going back and explaining why, telling them what i learned on their behalf. it was an amazing experience. honestly, again, i don't want to sound corny, but it just filled my heart with joy, no kidding. it was wonderful. now, here is the difference. here is the difference today. we have good people up there that are now trapped in a bad system. and the main thing is the role of big money. back in the days when our country was founded and everything was on the printing press. people could easily go and get the knowledge that they wanted and could contribute their own ideas. if somebody agree with them they might tell their friends. sort of like a pack googol search it would start rippling out. he was an immigrant from england but could think and write clearly.

he walked out his front door and found low-cost print shops within ten blocks imprinted common sense. it became the harry potter of the late 18th century. [laughter] and it helped to ignite the american revolution. well, starting in the last third of the 20th century, television displays to the printing presses the main way we communicate and how democracy. it had a profound impact. it is not a 2-way conversation. the printing press, you can get what you want to know and then you can contribute your own ideas. with television you talk back to the tv screen, but it does not hear you. you are calling in on that c-span show, that is one of the exceptions. my point is, mostly it is a 1-way flow of information, and

it is mostly sponsored by a large advertisers, but they are increasingly sponsoring political ideas as well. when they show those ads on tv you think they're trying to convince you to say to your spouse or partner, i'm going to go down to the store and buy as some cold? no. they're trying to convince you to adopt their political point of view. but what happens when thomas paine today with revolutionary ideas that can make everything better watch out his front door and goes to the nearest tv station and says, okay, i have this video. when do i go on the air? ready? well, of course, you know what happens. we will take $10 billion or whatever the cost is. and so the only people that are able to communicate with the masses in the way that it happens today on television by

ones with huge amounts of money, mostly corporations and special interests. and so when a congressman or senator wants to run for reelection, they have got to get on that tv in by those 302nd ads. where did they get the money? well, they go to the special interests because the special interests are waiting for them to come. anonymous billionaires'. the ones that were just elected and when to orientation, here is what they told them. you will need x million dollars by the time you want -- run for reelection. we have calculated the number of days between now and then. you have got to raise 12, 15,

20, $25,000 every single day between now and then. take the rest of the day off, tomorrow we have this special room set of with groups of special interests and lobbyists and rich people. they spend five or six hours a day making those calls. here's the thing. inspired. if you have to spend five or six hours a day begging for money from rich people and special interests human nature being what it is camino that the next time they vote they're going to think about what the impact is going to be on their telephone calls and on the people in the end these fund-raisers. ladies and gentlemen, we need to reclaim the integrity of our democracy. we need to overturn -- [applause]

we -- [applause] we need to overturn citizens united. corporations are not people. [applause] you know that. we all know that. [applause] we need to require that these people making anonymous contributions disclose who they are so that we can see what they are trying to influence. [applause] and it is an important and urgent matter. a lot is a stake. no, i am hopeful, just as we have gone from the printing press to the television age, we are now seeing the emergence of the internet age and even though it is still in in infancy and television is still dominant we are already seeing individual bloggers affect the course of debate, young people use the internet to get more involved in

their communities and in the previous generation. we have some good and positive developments that are going to help us. they're putting wind in our sales, but we, the people, as the president reminded us the other night in the other day, week, the people have the main responsibility said do this. we emerged as human beings and it took 200,000 years before we reach the population of 1 billion people. that is how many people we have added in the first 13 years of this century. it will get another billion next 13 years. in the 14 years after that

another billion. i'm not that old. i'm getting up there. it has quadrupled in less than a century. it's going to level off somewhere around 10 million or 10 billion, i mean. the cities are growing. and urbanization trend that is incredible. the economic activity is growing so rapidly that it is putting pressure on some key resources like underground water supplies, fresh water, black topsoil, in many areas, my father's generation responded said the challenge from fdr to conserve the soil. well, in many places around the world, including our own midwest we are losing topsoil at an unsustainable rate. and our own underground aquifers are going down, many of them

several meters per year. it is out of sight, out of mind. and so nothing is being done and done it. so with this crowd we have got to do something about it. here is the main point i want to make about growth. growth has become the holy grail. every nation's economic policy is focused on bringing gross. every corporation's business plan is focused on growth. so if growth is just sort of seen as the same thing as progress, growth is good, lack of growth is bad. that is sort of the general presumption. it matters than what we mean by growth. but is growth? well, it turns out that it as a very specific definition. it goes back to the 1930's. it is all in this book here.

a man named simon was one of the economists and the one who got credit for it who came up with the gdp, gross domestic product. that is our compass. if the gdp is growing, that is a big win. if it is not, we are in trouble. so it is interesting that in 1937 and thereafter he said, thank you very much for this honor, but i need to tell you something. please do not use gdp as a guide for economic policy. why did he say that? well, he understood it thoroughly, and he pointed out that it leaves out a lot of important things. and if we don't pay attention to what is left out of gdp, we're going to get in trouble. that is what we did, and we have gotten into trouble.

what does it leave out? he called them externalities'. it is like george orwell's memory whole that something is in externality. you're saying it is ignoring it and forgetting about it. negative and positive. -include pollution. not on the balance sheet, not in the national accounts, out of sight, out of mind, forget about it if you can. well, we can't anymore. there are positive externalities'. if we invest in music and art and culture and education and mental health care and community centers and family services that is an expense. when the benefits start rolling back into society with more vibrant communities and better educated young people that is

not measure. that is a positive externality. it is one of the reasons that we in our country is chronically under invested in public goods that make life better for every one but it does not show up on the balance sheet. so let's just cut, cut, cut. they're cutting out all the benefits that come back and make the economy is stronger as well. what else is missing from our definition of growth, the depletion of the underground water, minerals, what else? the distribution of income. now, this is a big one. this is a big one. because if all of the extra income goes just to the very top , that is counted as a wind. gdp has gone up. who rate. the middle class is not cheering about that.

and, in fact, here are the statistics. since the great recession of 2008, all -- well, not all. 93 percent of all the extra national income has gone to the top 1%. now, that is not an occupy wall street slogan. that is reality. that is what has been happening. we in the united states have an economy today where we are more on -- unequal than either egypt or kidneys -- tunisia. the inequality is growing. the middle-class has been struggling. again, the gains have gone right up to the very top. now, we can change that, but we have got to have a clear understanding of what we mean by

growth so that when we implement our economic policies we do so in no way that helps the great majority of the people. i'll give you one example that illustrates this. sam and bud walton founded walmart. their heirs and the next generation, between the two of them they had five children and one daughter-in-law and these six individuals now have a greater combined net worth than 100 million americans, the bottom third of our country. again, it is not the waltons fault. it is the results of the policies that are producing this pattern. and inequality is growing in europe, japan. inequality is growing in china, india. one of the reasons, again, the

emergence of outsourcing and robo sourcing, but it gives us in macroeconomics challenge, and let me explain what i mean by that. since the early part of the 20th century, since henry ford doubled his employees and since mass advertising started stimulating demand the manufacturing, we have had a consumer demand economy so that the middle-class his wages and salaries so that they can keep the economy going. the consequences of growing inequality extends beyond just the fact that it offends our sense of fairness and it is contrary to we think our country ought to be like and it threatens the continued vibrancy of the economy because of the

middle class can't continue providing that demand then we get into real trouble. i am running overtime. let me go chapter five, the reinvention of life-and-death. while the most powerful revolutionary drivers of global change is the revolution in biology, genetics, a genomics, party mx, the microbiologist, the connector own, the mapping of the human brain new material sciences, a 3d printing, molecular manipulation. we now acquiring the ability to change the fabric of life itself and to change the makeup of solid matter. brand new life forms are being created that did not appear in nature. now i'm not saying that any of

these little new microscopic critters -- these technology people always say we have it under control, and i'm sure they do. but we need to the pay attention to some of these trends. anybody here have any spider hoods? i did not think so. that is one of the your attention because a one to tell you about spider silk. if you have enough of it, it's incredibly valuable, started and steel, as all the qualities that spider silk has, but you cannot get much of it -- you cannot farm spiders. the are aggressive and cannibalistic. that's two of the reasons i don't want to farm spiders. here is where you can do. and they're doing it. you can take war but weaving

spiders and take their genes and splice them into gusts and get spider goats. and they look like goats, but they secrete the spider silk through their others with their milk. everybody okay with that? sublease said creepy. creepy is not the year. creepy is kind of pre-year. something going on, but you don't know what it is. it might be something we need to emma worry about. well, in truth there are so many magnificent blessings coming away out of this life sciences revolution. hit the diseases that cause suffering since time immemorial, alleviation of conditions that we never imagined.

just yesterday they announced kaj new device that can help some blind people begin to see by sending the signal straight to the brain and there are so many wonderful things. again, we need to participate in making choices about how we're going to use these new powers. we are now in charge a revolution, and it is hard for us to think of evolutionary time scales, but we are now in charge of it. what will happen when parents are given, as they will be in some countries may be the ability to pick trades that there would like to see in a children. hair color, eye color. the you want to dial the intelligence up? well, parents are competitive, and sore nations. china has announced it is

determined to be the world's genetic engineering superpower. it is mind blowing. and matching children with the professions they make, trying to isolate genes that will be markers for more intelligence. we have already seen modifications with pharmaceuticals. it said challenge for us. how many of these and kids feel like they have to take, you know, concentration in dancing medications to compete in school? what happens when they're is a genetic way to do that? and more specifically, one of the things that has caused problems in economic policy is

the focus on short-term objectives at the expense of the long term. if we take that approach to these check choices and we focus on short-term gains with genetic modifications not taking into account what the long-term evolutionary effects could be, that would not be a good thing. so we have got to accelerate the accumulation of sufficient wisdom to make the incredibly challenging choices that now lie ahead of us. i will take the shortest amount of time on this one. you would be surprised. a book by me did not have is one of the 60 hours a change the climate crisis, and it does and it is the biggest challenge that we face. kate earth, inc. depends on fossil fuels. when you burn fossil fuels you put global warming pollution into the atmosphere.

it traps heat. it evades the loss -- obeys the laws of physics and you cannot amend laws of physics. we now put every single day 90 million tons between global warming pollution up there as if the atmosphere is an open sewer. back in the late 19th century a man named john snow discovered how cholera was caused. in london him out of the cases of cholera which used to be such a big killer and overlaid it on the map of the city's sewer system and traced them all to a single pump on broad street. not long after that louis pasteur discovered that bacteria was causing the problem. well, they connected the dots. we have been putting all of this pollution into the atmosphere as

if it was a sewer, and the aggregate amount of man-made global warming pollution that is up there now traps enough extra heat every day to equal the energy in 400 tons and hiroshima atomic bombs going off every day . it's a big plan, but that's a lot of energy. we cannot connect the dots. look at 2012. last year. it was the hottest year ever measured in the united states. we had those giant fires out west and some in the southeast. we had the worst outbreak of west nile virus ever, 48 of the 50 states in one community in texas the police department put out a public appeal for people to stop dialing 911 when they got a mosquito bite. it's true. we had 61 percent of the country

in -- still in trapped. run out of texas. never going to return. howff -- half of the of polar ice caps melted. the jetstream hitting all haywire. $110 billion of climate related damage in this country last year and super storm sandy lower manhattan and leaders him. that when tomorrow with the single most common criticism i heard was from people who said, oh, look, you showed an animation of the sea water going into the world trade center memorial site. how irresponsible this gatt. well, it added he had the end of last october. we had all these, a related

disasters in a year when we had more presidential campaign debates than ever in any campaign in history. not one single report to house hunts of 55 -- not one single report about the climate crisis. as a commentary off these quality of the democratic discourse. we have the logo with the cruise ship is coming back into port, and we have a special logo and, wall-to-wall coverage when a rogue cop. of course that is news. we understand that, but we need ted -- we need to address this climate crisis. and all of these drivers of global change are happening simultaneously. and we, as human beings

particularly as citizens of the united states of america have a lot of work to do. if the future is a priority, if we care about the world that we are handing off to our children and grandchildren, we have decisions to make. we have choices that we need to confront. we have opportunities to develop a. i am an optimist. i am more optimistic after researching and writing this book, but my optimism is based in the assumption that we, as human beings, have the capacity to rise to big challenges. now is such a time. lincoln said, as our case is new, we must think anew. the occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. we must disenthrall ourselves

and then we will save our country. thrall is a norris were describing a form of voluntary slavery. we need to free ourselves from an outdated ideas that are holding us back. aristotle wrote the end of the thing to find its nature. should we, god forbid, fail to rise to this challenge and cds sweeping changes just bring about the end of civilization, what would that say about our nature? or we? as human beings? are we just destined to be proof that the combination of an opposable thumb and the neocortex was a big mistake? are we destined to destroy our own future? and refuse to believe it. refuse to accept it. a believer in humanity. i believe it. i believe in our creator. i believe in our capacity to

make the future what it should be and to make it worthy of our children. thank you very much for coming here today. i appreciated. [applause] thank you. [applause] thank you very much. thank you. i will sign your books now. [applause] >> summer treasury secretary hank paulson will be in washington for a discussion hosted by george osbourne university and fortune magazine. you can watch the remarks and the significant economic political and environmental changes in china and for 30:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> secretary of state john kerry meets with the south korean foreign minister tuesday following their meeting it was big with reporters at the state department's. live coverage at 4:20 p.m. eastern here on c-span2.

>> we have to take back media. independent media is what will save us. the media and the most powerful institutions of art, more powerful than any own, more powerful than any missile. it is an idea that these gloves on to the scene. it does not happen when it is contained by that box, that tv screen that we all sit in front of for so many hours per week. we need to be able to and hear people speaking for themselves outside the box. we cannot afford the status quo in more. from global warming to it -- >> author, most, and executive producer of democracy now taking your calls, e-mails, facebook comments, and tweets. three hours of live sunday at noon eastern on book tv on teeth -- 21.

>> next a look at the european financial crisis and the implications for the united states. samuel gregg is the author of "becoming europe: economic decline, culture, and how america can avoid a european future". this event from the heritage foundation in washington is one hour. [applause] >> thank you for your very kind introduction. it is a privilege for me to be here. analysts and a great admirer. the of many people here at heritage for very long time. i admire 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 at the heritage foundation to the power of culture by which i mean people's

beliefs, ideas, habits, expectations, and the way that these achieve some form of institutional expressions. and this issue of culture and how it relates to that economy is at the heart of my book, becoming europe. it was -- on one level becoming europe's uncertain about what happened to europe and why it is now regarded as the sick man of the global economy. the book is also about how some of these cultural and economic trends, how will change particularly of the last five years. america is seemingly a drifting in this direction of economic your position because whether it's colossal levels of debt, the increasingly unaffordable welfare state, low economic

growth, double, even triple recessions, except for comex the trip. the present economic crisis reflects some deeper truths. and not primarily because of the external pressures, but rather because of some of the inherent contradictions in this functionality that is encouraged by what i call european economic culture over a long amount of time. now, all of that is saying that america's economic culture as i call it continues to drift in the same direction. i think we can assume safely that over time some trends that we see in europe will start to manifest themselves in the

united states. that, i think, is what americans mean when they use phrases like european position or like we are becoming like europe. such today i want to do three things. the first one to do 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 asserting themselves in the united states, and since i am with the heritage foundation in a spirit of optimism want to tell america you mobile to avoid going down the same path. now, a good place, i think, to start in explaining what i mean by european economic culture is david camerons recent speech about britain's future in the european union. no, this beach is about many things, but i think the speech also matters in as much as it represented yet another mist of

virginity 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 terms of that e use superstate tendencies. and this is a problem of values, attitudes, and how we forgive and institutional expression in the economy because as i illustrated in becoming europe, the prevailing conviction across most of europe is that the state is the primary way in which we address common problems and meet our responsibilities and obligations to our fellow citizens. such obligations might be realized outside the realm of politics does not apparently appear to large numbers of european political leaders, including, i have to say come a considerable number of

center-right european politicians. so in this regard have often wondered what a concerned person would think if you read a particularly important part 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. i would like to talk to the end and then -- the intended audience was europe. i suspect he would be astonished to learn how the american observed dealt with problems that were beyond the individual's capacity to address but also or not resolvable by things like trade and commerce. americans address these types of problems through the habit of free association instead of simply expecting government officials to lead into the

breach. and the contrast was simply astounding. he said this. whether at their head of some new undertaking you see the government in france and the united states, you will be sure to find and free association. now, as no less, there are certain things that can only be done by government. the constant equivalent of the value of what many europeans call solidarity, the cost to the equivalent of solidarity with state initiatives, government programs and public sector agencies is surely one of europe's biggest long-term headaches, it on because sex -- such expectations justify the welfare state constant and even in list expansion to of the

fight the untenable burden of which which should never be obvious to the most committed a brussels to resist -- to reserves. it's not just the political upper class is to think this way. millions of ordinary europeans share to share this mind set. take for example, mr. cameron's on backyard. but thailand is currently dominated by two political parties who buy at being more socially democratic . the labor and the scottish nationalists don't control scottish politics simply because governments conservatives are in at. they are, after all, elected to parliament by people who apparently want social democratic policy regardless of the long-term economic and moral cost. five years ago of former white

house chief of staff remind us, we never want a serious crisis to go to waste. but this is the uprise i think that europe's leaders have declined to take. very few of them seem interested in using the country's severe economic challenges as a type of circuit breaker to articulate a grand vision of why the economy and society needs to be liberated from all the mighty governments. instead, what you find most european politicians presenting things like austerity measures, the junior -- 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. now, one reason for this, i think, is that many of europe's politicians know, they know that appeals to a greater economic.

[indiscernible] and smaller government simply don't resonate with enough western europeans. and recent decades, nobel prize economists have illustrated the economics of the appointment that while laws and policies matter they tend to reflect what the majority of people of value for better or worse. that like many other people looking through a long time ago that contemporary european economies are generally less productive than americans because of institutional factors, things like large welfare states, have the labor market regulation, large public-sector bureaucracies. but this cannot explain everything. european countries were not a

bunch of banana republic's. they lagged behind the united states when it came to a classic predictors of growth such as resistance of rule of law. so the intuition was that the differences had to come down to america's economy being influenced by culture which values things like freedom and risk-taking. they decided to drill down some of the data of that survey of american and european attitudes towards these things. and what they found was that when it came to things like change, competition, emotions of freedom more generally, they found that americans are much more favorably leaning toward these things than most europeans. the impression that differences across countries with respect to a certain growth spurring institutions were not as

important as prevailing differences in economic culture. even speculated that economic cultures can become so entrenched that those people who are actually living within them don't know they become close to any other type of possibility. the second part of my remarks, which is how european attitudes are starting to gain ground in america. study after study after study as a show in my book shows a marked shift among americans away from unfavorable views of free enterprise and markets toward what you might call more social democratic positions. in 2011 won international poll for one very respected firm released the results of surveys into different countries' attitudes towards democracy.

so in response to a statement the free-market is the best economic system in the world only 19 percent of those in britain agreed with that. the numbers were higher in spain, 24%. italy 21%. lower in france, which was 6%. although the european surveyed, germans expressed the highest percent approval. and of the real shock i think came in american reactions to the same statements. in 2002 and even percent of americans surveyed expressed a favorable view of free enterprise and free markets. 2002. eight years later it had fallen to 59%. among lower-income americans the trend was even worse. in 2000 to 79 percent of those surveyed expressed favorable views of business commerce and

free-market. by 2010 that figure had fallen to 44%. and among young americans that trend is even more marked. now, there is no doubt i think that these apparent shifts in american and european opinion of a great deal to the 2008 financial crisis, but as i remind readers of "becoming europe" there has always been since the progress of this era a strong strain of skepticism about free enterprise and markets and among america's political and intellectual elites, not to mention a considerable body of opinion among those that primarily associating concerning people with collecting state action. now, judging from the second inaugural address this mindset of perpetual security through the state seems to be shared by the white house's occupant, not

to mention millions of the americans who voted for him in 2012. and this points to a deeper, maybe even existential problems that many western european nations have long failed to master which i think america also seems to be struggling with. and the crisis flows from a buried -- very unhealthy nexus between democracy on the one hand and the fact that we now live in the 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 the pay for it. now, this combination to my think, is presently proving toxic for much of europe, but i think it increasingly constitutes a danger to america's economic future. no, obviously there is an

economic dimension to this, of pure economic dimension. listed the issue of debt. the government's constant spend more when they raised through taxation, borrowing money is our governments have made up the difference. now in many european countries a subsequent debt burden has now gone to the plan whereby it is affecting government's ability to meet their financial obligation. in spain, for example, things are so bad that many of the regional governments are actually trying to defer payments that they know for certain services to private businesses. but before americans ask part scoffing we should consider that as of the fourth of february in 2013 america's official public debt was an obscene 16 and a half trillion dollars. now, the real figure is probably much higher once we include

things like unfunded future liabilities such as social security and the existing obligations of all that bankrupt states like california and illinois. but i think beyond the economic there are also more supple, cultural, and political forces at work. here western europe's serves as exhibit day. i think many of us know that the contemporary modern welfare state origin goes back to 19th century germany. some of the biggest expansion of the welfare state in europe occurred after 1945. given your pete to cut europe's yearning for the economic security after to devastating world wars, not to mention the great depression, this yearning for security should not surprise us. but what i think was surprising, and that talk about this at length in the book, how quickly european politicians recognize

that the state's ability to provide social programs and subsidies was a way to build reliable constituencies. governments have all said, not just the left but also the right and realized they could attract support by making promises regarding things like pensions, retirement, subsidy, an employment benefits, regulations, a government jobs. sound familiar? this was paid for, of course, by as we know in europe, increased taxation, and when that did not cover the cost, debt became the means by mix the -- by which the shortfall was covered. now, one justification for our democracy is that it provides us with ways of holding government accountable when decisions don't accord with our wishes. but we have to ask ourselves, what happens when some citizens became viewing the means to use

the state to provide the citizens with whatever 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 court, more cynically, starred regarding welfare programs, for example, as 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 a spiral of expanding debt , welfare car regulation, but the politicians kamal the expanding numbers of welfare beneficiaries had any real desire to stop until things got so bad that there is no alternative. but their is a political problem. because unfortunately in democracies in which many people see this state as the primary

provider of economic security, meaningful restraint of government intervention and spending is very politically difficult. by? because anyone who promises to try and reduce the scope of intervention in real terms is in many respects that a severe electoral disadvantage. at luxembourg to have as the luxembourg prime minister famously 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 my democracy what security through the state regardless of the cost than the capacity of politicians to oppose the desires of 51 percent of the population is very limited because to resist is to course electoral rejection or, as we have seen, riders running amok

in the streets of athens. now, it is very tempting, i think, to see all this as a picture of the western european problem. this is after a continent in which many nominally center-right government's have defiant economic positions and are essentially socially democrat and other words extension government intervention is essentially seen as normal across the political spectrum and most of western europe. but can anyone seriously deny that many american politicians, including conservatives also play this game? all the millions of americans have developed rather inflated expectations of what government owes them in economic terms. and and not just talking about those who apparently regard any streamlining of social security as an apparent human rights

violation. i am also referring to those american businesses who pursue -- who prefer to pursue corporate welfare instead of competing in the marketplace. having thoroughly depressed you, let me move on to the third and final part of my remarks. how can america break to this nexus? clearly it is essential to have and make long overdue politically difficult decisions about the government's that america's fiscal non partners recently once again managed to avoid making. but at a more elemental level, what we need is 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 do not want to head down the path of economic european is asian in general. secondly, enough americans are willing to embrace what that actually moves at the level of specifics. many self-described limited government americans the when it comes to reducing subsidies and regulations and that specifically benefit their town of their state. in that sense the be a challenge was press ordinary americans. to put it bluntly we need to accept our participation of democracy cannot degenerate into voting for the ever promises to give us the most

stuff. in short, if we are unwilling to use our democratic freedoms responsibly, america seriously risks becoming what one german academic described in 2009 as the situation prevailing throughout much of western europe. he called it fiscal kleptocracy. what he meant by that is that citizens vote for those politicians to use state power to give there supporters would they want at other people's expense. fiscally that translates into tax increases, more substantial spending cuts to a growing welfare states, blows of 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, in the long term if you look at

history is that america's founders understood these challenges went beyond the pure economics. thomas jefferson, for example, was, let's say, no model of personal financial rectitude. he just wasn't. but he understood the threat posed by things like, for example, excessive public debt. ..

>> or whether we are happy to continue drifting towards this project, otherwise known as the european social model or european social democracy. in the president, i am afraid, i think the jury seems to be out on that one. so here i would like to conclude how does america avoid going down this path any further? well, on one level, it is surely a question of decisions. i am not a philosophical materialist. i do believe that there is such a thing as free well. but it is also true that incentives are aligned in a particular direction, it is harder to persuade people not to follow. the more that we move in a covertly's social democratic convention, the harder it's going to be to persuade

americans that this is not economically curable. that points to the importance of enacting policies that embody economic incentives for people to be creative. to be competitive and to not demand subsidies because such things are no longer be available. with that being said, policy is very important. but it is not enough. those who want america to become more like what is in europe, are in my view much better. those who want those are much better, i think at doing what some people call a vision thing. they are better at inspiring people to opt for certain policies.

i think many conservatives in the free market are very good at policy. some of us find it very difficult to move beyond efficiency arguments and articulate a vision that can rival if not i'll play the less constant appeal to the corruption of social justice. an appeal that is important in western europe, but has made considerable inroads of american public opinion. because there are such things as economic incentives. we think of them primarily in terms of financial one. but incentives can also be nonfinancial. the desire to do good and to be seen as a good person can incentivize some people to act one way rather than another,

even if objectively speaking that it is the wrong moral choice. so what does this mean? well, it is seen as being associated with, for example, large welfare state. some people do this with large welfare programs, despite how it may not be in their best interest. likewise, in the past with social ostracism, it lies in saying that people should be helped to take care of themselves. it is to be a prominent advocate of limiting government power, which is much lower. if what i say is true, it should shape the way in which we seek to maybe reverse european organizations in america. suddenly changing policies, changing the rules of the game is important if we are going to

alter this. most institutions and belief systems must change for successful reform. it is the mental model of the actions that will shape your attitudes. attitudes and values and expectations, if they are favorable enough to growth and economic creation, they are even in some respects overcome institutional strengths. so if it does indeed come back to values and beliefs and attitudes and expectations, then we need to do more than just economic incentives. the moral case for a free economy is far beyond the logic of supply and demand. in my books following chapter,

in his court economic culture is what i think they are. americans need to be very clear about the choices that they must make if they want to avoid economic europeanization. they have to prioritize wealth creation over distribution. they must prioritize transparency and accountability. they have to prioritize the rule of law over the rule of man. things like property rights, direction of the economy, hope, and give priority to openness rather than defensiveness. wealth creation, accountability, rule of law. also hope. i tried to explain what these

mean and how they affect institutions and policies. these are prominent features of the america that was visited in the 1830s. perhaps the most discerning biographer notes that one of the first surprises was that one would rub shoulders with those who have spent the day in an office or a bank. lawyers, businessmen, bakers. he came at the end of the day in which they had waged a battle for profit. now, such a state of affairs shocks. why is that? because it was traditionally dominated by men who held government.

many are aspiring entrepreneurs who are absent from these gatherings. now, that tells us something about the disdain in much which of 1830s europe regarded commerce but it also reveals something about america. it was not as materialistic as many americans suppose -- excuse me, in which many europeans today continue to issue. it was not all-consuming despite the fact that the commercial republic was very much back, a commercial republic. achieving economic success and the material resources have less material goods. things like knowledge and

education philanthropy and cultivation of the arts and the appreciation of beauty in contemplation of the ultimate reality. this is a vision that is somewhat at odds with the imagery that we often associate with 19th century america. nonetheless, it is very consistent with the aspirations of many of america's founders. i think the richest and most economically successful founder of them all exemplifies this. many of you probably know that charles inherited great work. but in his own right come he multiplied thing several times over. he was forever identified and taking most things like what

might be suitable for particular areas. he invested heavily in private economic projects designed to promote public works. yes, none of these interests in the energy they consume cultivate another scholarly interest. nor did they have it any long-term involvement in public affairs. whether representative or a political commentator or a bastion of america's constitutional framework and in regards to liberty. but charles carroll put far more at risk economically speaking than any others. he was the richest man in america at the time. but his willingness to reach all this stuff for freedom,

demonstrated that a lot is at stake. some things are more important. i think i'll point to something. it is the need for conservatives and free markets to embrace the argument that the endgame of the free enterprise system is not the end of acquisition. the goal is human flourishing. this is an ideal that is as old as our country. it is integral to the american founding including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. part of the happiness is to be found in pursuit of some of the very wide ranging and often

uneconomic interests for someone like thomas jefferson jefferson and charles kelly. but it could enable us to engage in those interests. they are so crucial for success in business and trade. in much of western europe, a contrary attitude has long been characteristic of economic culture. it is consistent with maintaining encouragement with wealth creation and the attitude is that people need to be provided and protected. institutionally, that translates into the european social world.

what's interesting is that there is very little evidence that such policies help make people happy. many people who are on long-term welfare are generally less happy than those who are in the same income but who do not do it through a welfare payment and instead do it through work and a job. we have to be careful not to read too much into these studies. correlation is not causality. it is suggested that economic cultures that prioritize institutions and are focused upon endless redistribution directed from the top down to realize ever greater quality and stability are much less successful at helping people to

flourish as they ought to flourish. benjamin franklin wrote that he never made a man happy and never would. but had one achieved that, how one gains in income, it certainly does seem to matter when we think about something as profoundly as un- materialistic as human flourishing. economic cultures that are more or less enthralled with progressive equalization do have rather materialistic views of the human purpose. the american founders associated the word liberty with the phrase pursuit of happiness. it is in the exercise of freedom, including economic freedom where much of the

happiness making occurs. the downside and might be less economic security. some is important, but it is not all important and certainly not enough for human happiness and portion. this underscores the truth that if americans want to resist europeanization, they have to do more than just engage in policy battle. i think taking back america's economy from those who have a social democratic nightmare, i would argue over the past 100 years, has to be more than an argument about the efficiency and mixed economies. we do not move by a efficiency alone. it is more than maximizing this.

no one is going to go to the barricades with efficiency. so america has to consciously choose not to cut off the economic culture from the roots of this. as i demonstrated above, the roots are certainly european. these roots have been deepened over 230 years. so much so that not even politicians as savvy as franklin roosevelt or lyndon johnson were able to pull them out completely. there is no guarantee that these will persist in america. once you tear them up up from their the roots, they tend to die very quickly. many economic cultures, let along the institutions that

protect them is extremely difficult and history has a great deal with doing so. americans can cultivate what they have been given as a sacred trust. the heritage of which is grounded deeply in what we should call european civilization. if americans choose to do so, and i think choose a month, americans can have confidence that whatever happens to europe, if we make the right decisions at the level of attitudes and beliefs and expectations, whatever happens to europe, something will just not have been saved, it will also have been transformed. i thank you very much. [applause] >> we are glad to take a few questions. we will be signing copies of the

book up here if you'd like to talk further. we have a microphone. i will recognize people in the audience. your quote from jefferson when you discussed the perpetual debt to three sentences prior to that, he says i am not one who fears the people. ironically, are you telling us that we could be in a time of fearing the people? >> it might be the time to fear some people. jefferson had tremendous faith in the americans of his time, that they would do the right thing. winston churchill said that america will always do the right thing after they tried everything else. but i do think that giving some of the ships that i talk about at length in the book, about how americans view free markets, some are not as favorable as they used to be. it is disturbing when it comes

to young people just how much they prepare social democratic ideas and models of institutions compared to what america's heritage is. that is actually very disturbing. it tells me that those that are in favor of free markets and free enterprise are not doing a good job of explaining to young people who are generally optimistic, who want to be inspired and have an idea to follow, that there are economic earpiece untrained ear panisse and models and i will be a problem for the united states in the sense that democracy will change what people want. if most people want social on social democracy, that is what we will get. social democracy. >> over here? >> thank you. thank you for your perceptive

views. you mentioned the german influence in the 19th century, as well as human flourishing. do you think there is an educational program out there? and would you point to other positive economics and educational enforcement? >> sure. let me say something about the negative side of that. the negative side is -- i think it was max stein who said that three weeks before an election, there is no substitute for eight to 10 years of indoctrination and most educational systems about why business is dead, why free markets are dehumanizing and etc.

you're not going to dissuade a lot of people after hearing this type of stuff year after year. when they pick up the newspaper, they see the same message. even among their peers, these messages are being reinforced over again. so winning that cultural divide is a long-term prospect and a much better one. with that being said, there are many programs for those who are persuaded of the merits of free enterprise. there are lots of programs out there. i think is it is important to talk about where these things come from.

this is our heritage and this is why it is important. and these people were making economic arguments and they are flourishing. there are people and places at princeton, for instance, that do these things. the james madison program, i think it does a very good job of making these ideas real and applying them to different segments of social life and economic policies and etc. as you probably know, there are places in washington dc that have spent a lot of time doing this. there are places to go, there are lots of programs for students who are interested in such things. of course, there are plenty of opportunities for these things and thanks to places like heritage, many of the things are

more available to people. helping people when they go out, either to do business or to work in politics and policy, how they apply these things to these institutional problems that i talked about. >> anyone else? >> okay. >> i am curious about one thing. germany was the origin of social welfare. if they but they have managed to have a strong economy. you have any idea as to how they manage to do that? others have fallen behind in europe. >> i talk about that in the book. germany is the outlier. yes, the welfare state as we know it originated with a great lover of freedom. he served the welfare state because he noticed that urban

industrial workers who are voting for this social democratic party, he thought well, how do we deal with this? well, we can take care of it. it was not exactly a noble idea. it was about this growing support of large numbers of people who were at that time marxist political party. but it has been a very long string of more market oriented thinking. perhaps the biggest changes that were made occurred in 1948 when people were in charge of the economy and the allied occupational zone. many people were passionate. it was simply imposed and he got rid of currency control and price control and he let the

market system work. and i had to do with considerable economic prosperity. but then it was clear that germany had moved in a social democratic convention. by the 1990s, this was making headlines. in the early 2000, the german government was a social democrat government and decided that things couldn't keep going this way. so it became an eight-year program on this. and it has paid off. we went to prove the point that if you want to embark upon serious economic reform in most countries, you should expect that you will be thrown out of office. the part about this is they have

a certain tradition of oriented thinking that they can fall back to that many other european countries struggle to do so. it is within living memory of some germans. the reason why germans in general don't like inflation and why they are very nervous about inflation compared to some other countries, is because they saw what happened and the political consequences of that. so i think it helps to explain why germany has managed to resist some of these other things. it is a culture and history that enable germans to say, this is part of our tradition.

this is part of who we are as germans. it is part of our economic culture and how really is. >> tomorrow here, please. >> it is nice to be here. talking about communicating, very nice wake-up call for everybody. as far as unemployment goes, isn't it critical? those are unemployed right now can create things that will be left for better generations. like how high is the risk and the crisis from 2008, it leaves us with something that persists for a long time in the landscape

that is longer than we might want. >> yes, 7.9% as the official unemployment rate at the moment. many americans have stopped looking for work. this security that follows from widespread unemployment shows me that politicians react in certain ways to provide security to the state. once you set up a program, there tends to be difficulty to dismantle it because as public tells us, they develop their own interests and agendas, which often have nothing to do with the people. what we know is that some of these institutions and programs, once in place, it becomes harder

not to just dismantle them, but even question them. a good example is the national health service in britain. i can tell you that the national health system is terrible. any objective standard of quality of health care, speed of delivery, it is terrible. yes, the service is bad, etc. but there are lots of surveys on this. if you ask british people about freeing of health care, moving towards the liberalization and having market forces work, we simply cannot do that. i remember one nice lady,

idealistic young girl who said the national health services is part of the jewel of one of these businesses. but it's bankrupt. but we care enough that we are willing to help people. but you are not always helping people. so that is how a program or institution becomes so embedded in economic culture that weeding it out is almost impossible. we just need to tinker with it and try to taper it. it is actually damaging people and we need to get rid of it. and that is a very quick way of electoral rejection.

my point is that once this is in place, it can stay for a long time. no matter how dysfunctional they are. >> okay, there will be one more after that. >> okay, the fertility rates are all weaker in europe now than they were before. they seem to be stronger than they are still weaker than they were. what impacts of those things have? that there could be some correlations. >> yes, i talk about those issues i do get into the marriage issue. in every single european country except for ireland, the mediterranean countries are a

disaster. the replacement rate is 2.1. the only country is ireland at 2.1. france is close, britain is not too far away. why is that? well, it obviously has to do with things like mortality rates, people are living longer. it has to do when babies are born and those people are choosing not to have more children. obviously contraception is something and we have all contributed to what is going on. the welfare state is that once upon a time, and i don't want to sound like a materialist here. once this comes in, it takes away intergenerational bonds

they get replaced by the states that people would often have an economic motive for having more children, because it means that there could be some children around would be able to take care of them in their old age. it is called the old-age motor. he breaks those links. what they do is create a huge thing. the reasoning would be well, i don't want to have children because i will be taken care of by the welfare state. so this creates incentives. that is a very materialistic explanation and the issue is much more complicated. but it's a real factor.

does it have an effect? yes. i think california is a classic example. they are europe in every measurable way. in terms of attitudes and beliefs and expectations, they have made their choice, and it is not a coincidence. it is also people just having fewer and fewer children. so a good example is institutions that used to take care of some of these long-term social and economic challenges that actually produce a far worse result of those who are trying to help. >> a final question? >> thank you.

i was wondering if you could elaborate on what the facts would be? >> i talk about this at length in the book. we can say there are economic cost to social democracy. less productivity, increased regulation, and etc. what are some of the moral costs? one is a decrease in people's sense of responsibility for themselves and their families. that is one manifestation. and then there is a cost of expectations that i'm entitled to certain things without any real explanation of where these rights come from even the language of moral discourse becomes corroded and breaks down to the point where things become

a discussion. it is a type of personality that works its way through discourse. we expect other people that we do not know and we have no idea what their obligations and responsibilities our common to basically pay for you and whatever it is. so the thought that i should be responsible for myself and family starts to break down in these types of conditions. i also think that it leads to people's human flourishing in the sense that i am seen as something that i just have to do. to give you an example, in 2004, studies were done of french

university students who had gone to places like the sorbonne or other places that were very important in training bureaucratic leaders of the future. now people who are graduating, they are asked what they wanted to do with their lives. 70% says they want to be a civil servant. and why is that? well, they got paid pretty well. they didn't have to work too hard. we got general pensions. and the cost is like a willingness to take risks. and life is many times about taking risks. you are going to flourish as a person. you'll basically be stagnant.

that presumes a certain understanding of the human person, the nature of this, but i don't think there is much doubt that social democracy has the capacity to become what we wanted to be. thank you. [applause] >> it has been three months since the school shootings in newtown, connecticut. tuesday there will be a discussion about legislation. live coverage at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. at 11:00 o'clock, the nra report on school security. >> you're watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs weekdays featuring live coverage

of the u.s. senate. and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can get our schedules at our website and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >> next, david bernstein on his book fast future. how this millennial generation is shaping our world. and those between 18 and 30 years old are the largest generation in u.s. history that are digitally in tune with others in ethnically diverse. this is one hour. >> advising others about the issues of your generation. first, how old are you?

>> guest: i'm 24 years old. i grew up in western connecticut and i started a film festival for high school students which were young people who are facing issues about bullying way before these things had been brought into the conversation and there was a power in the way it was impacting my generation. from that, decided to go make a film about the election in 2008 and went around the country interviewing members of congress about why they thought some people were voting and we register new voters in 2008 and then we did a similar film in 2012. while doing all that, i went to nyu where he graduated. >> i understand that you were

part of the same program their? >> yes, i highly recommend it. >> it allowed you to craft your own curriculum and you can have cross discipline. >> guest: my concentration was film and youth and social change. >> host: that sounds great. so my mother and father, the greatest dreamers i know, let's talk about that generation for a minute. there were definitely some some mistakes are made. what is your overall opinion on baby boomers? >> guest: i think it was an incredibly and is an incredibly important generation. much as what is going on today in america could be impossible without the civil rights movement, they played a leading role in moving forward, and changing the way that we view

citizen involvement and government and the way that we think about our elected officials and the ability to create upstart movements. the beginning of the women's movement. all of that rate activism that they produce. we are seeing that directly at play today. whether it is the election of barack obama or the continuation of this in congress. but there is a lot of things left undone. we now spend three force of our entitlement money on people who are or over the age of 30. it used to be people under the age of 30 in terms of the amount of money and investment. i think that we need to have a conversation about how we are dividing our priorities.

this is not a generation that expects those entitlements. >> host: okay so what we talked about what the baby boomer generation. it trickled down to millennialist. do you see those as more politically apathetic? >> i think the activism is very much instilled in the children of the baby boomers as they were growing up. this is a generation of people who brought us the news and talk this idea of values in and the way that you could be involved and with engagement and responsibility and bought a lot of that into this generation. but i think the way that we look at this is totally different. the boomer generation believed in activism in the streets, you know, marching, protesting. our generation believed that you can be an activist by creating a

business that changes the way the world is thinking about energy. a lot of young people who are talking about green energy and alternative energy companies. we believe you can do it through technology and in all of these ways that are very powerful. they are not seen by everyone else. i believe that is part of the challenge that we face. people think that activism is not in your face and it is very. >> i'm sure that is true. but there is activism can be so easy. you can go online, sign a position. or you can tweet something and it will count as activism. >> i think the idea has been pre-overplayed. but somehow people feel that they press a button and they change the world. i don't know anybody who has really felt that way. what is happening as there is greater awareness and accessibility towards political

involvement and involvement in social activity. that is a good thing. there are more people that are having some level of access to that process, and the hope is for some of those people in the long-term, that will develop into a greater engagement. everything you know about how people develop civic if you introduce a habit or idea to someone when they are young and impressionable, later on, that will become part of their life. so people are having this, young people are being donors now more than ever before. and many people believe it will be a good thing. so it is not that we are losing a hard work type of thing, but gaining a surface level that can grow over time. >> first, described a

millennial. what are the goals? were the identities? challenges? their assets? can you paint a picture? >> this is a generation that came during a time that i call the fast future. that is the title of the book. which means during the past 10 years, our world has gone through an accelerated pace of change. the amount of change taking place today has to do with the revolution and revolution that shifts the fundamental of our economy. all of these things and changes in our society are powered by ex-potential technology, which changes the pace of everything from how we communicate to political systems and the pace

of how quickly things happen and being on a constant feedback loop. lineal's are at the forefront of that and we understand that as reality. others are saying, how do we adapt? how do we go forward in this fast paced world. it is the reality of how we grew up. it is also ease and adaptability that have allowed us to be resilient. it has led to incredible unemployment and death for young people. many are optimistic about their future because they see that in one year, it could be totally different. we saw how quickly it started and we can see how quickly it might go away.

there is a sense of optimism, social mindedness, they came from 9/11, which was a very formative experience in this generation. especially in that particular moment and feeling the civic spirit, which i think was very much ingrained. we have seen a surge in america. we are seeing all of these things going on. if you think about an international conversation, much of it has been about our world being in trouble. we have terrible things going on all over the place. a lot of times we want to do something about it. and we have the ability to do something about it. we have the ability to have action in the way that previous generations have been. >> so growing up, how has this shaped the millennial viewpoint?

>> it has made this generation realize that we are part of an interdependent and global world. this is the first global generation that is cognizant of the rest of the world being deeply related to ice. you may be able to live under a rock in previous generations and be disconnected from the rest of the world, things about america only, your country only, i think fighting two wars has made this generation concerned. it is overwhelmingly interesting to experience as we fight these wars. it has made us very weary of the importance of going into battle and how much we really need to do that. not necessarily a generation of peace, but less enthusiastic about military action. i think that has been echoed in the country as a whole.

there is a sense of fatigue around military involvement. what is interesting is you live in this time without having to make any sacrifice on the fact that we have been at war. you can walk down the street, but there are no signs that we are at war and have been at war for the past 10 years. i think that is also something that is different as opposed to a generation from world war ii, was it something that we are all aware of. >> host: okay, the global awareness. let's talk about the civilization for a moment. you know, there is a nihilistic view of globalization. and there are optimists. what is the millennial view on

globalization. is it an inevitable thing? what is the outlook? >> i think it is reality. we have debated for a long time about entering a world of globalization. we are here. this is the world we are living in. it is a pro-reality. it seems that older generations are still having a debate at times. this is the reality of our world. it may be good, it may be back, but this is the framework that we have to work with. and we are not going to make the world non-globalized. there is just not a way to do that in this particular moment. >> there was an idea that globalization would help export democracy. do you think the generation

chairs that optimism in the kind of project that globalization can accomplish in third world and developing countries? >> i think that technology has been a force that held to do that. platforms, in a lot of cases, they are country agnostics. websites and pieces of content and the issue of censorship and things like that. but in general there is an ability for me to be on a the website to be in touch with people all over the world. when you think about what happened in the arab spring and what happened, part of that, this whole idea about smart power. hillary clinton did a lot of work on that as well. culture and ideas and the ability for people to know what is going on. other parts of the world as well, to be inspired by that. there's a lot of that going on

in terms of global spirits in the ability for the protest in wisconsin, there were young people were holding up signs that said, walk like an egyptian. which i thought was a great way of showing a global connection. people were inspired by what was going on in the arab spring around the same time. there was some kind of young people having that kind of experience. i think that is a good way of thinking about the ability that young people are being inspired by. >> there has been criticism that young people have not been engaged in politics in meaningful ways. maybe their engagement feels the serb official. is that true? >> guest: i do not think that is fair. if you look at the last two election cycles.

the turnout was incredibly high, some of the highest on record. the enthusiasm, i would characterize 2012 versus 2000 and eight in terms of the number of young people who are going out and the people attending rallies decreased, but at the end of the day, the voter participation is about the same. so i think on the electoral side, that is very important. what you're not seeing his young people really willing to run for office in the kind of numbers like that. right now there is only one member in line with us. that is pretty shocking. especially since we just celebrated all the diversity in the numbers of women and minorities and all the incredible history. we are also looking at one of the oldest things in history that we have ever seen.

if you have all the members of congress who are under 40 years old together in a room and locked the door, they would solve all the problems and they could get everything done. i think there is definitely something to be said for the perspective of young people in government. getting those who are going into entrepreneurship, those who are saying why would i run for congress when i go to school in africa and see my impact in one ear. want to get involved in a? well, if you think about this, you think about someone like ted kennedy. leaders who help people. if those people were young today, i don't think they would do that.

so we need to call young people back to service. we have to have all these great talents who are doing great work back in the political process. >> how do we do that? how does that attract young people? >> it is very difficult. the young people, a lot of them are coming through the same career approach and rising up to the ranks and running for city council in the morning to run, you know, a young career politician is no better than an older politician. we need people who have this sense of commitment back in politics. i think there needs to be a generational commitment to do this.

if you have a group of people together, then you could make an impact. from one person that leaves it, i am not going to think that there is no role for one person if we don't have the willingness to come together and solve problems. so we need to come together and realize that. and we need to have a come to jesus moment, if you will. >> host: the think the current existing system has to do with that? >> guest: yes, i think so. everything we are talking about is demographics. long-term commitments and where we invest and where our priorities are, every

conversation we are having, millennial is are absent from that conversation. for lack of politicians listening. there is a lot of desire by politicians to see a direct connection. we want to see how our education system will be better. we want to also see what older americans care about. politicians have incorrectly assessed this and carry the deficit and debt issues. it was an important issue a long time ago.

>> host: but it is it really true that young people are thinking and caring about this principle? dash i think that -- i don't know anyone in this country that has a detailed plan for how to it address these things. but i think that we understand the principle behind not wanting to be stuck with having to pay this bill down the road. that is something we have been aware of. many people have been talking about it. >> host: leaving the millennial view is on the economy? these are not good. they might be optimistic guess

i'm not sure that they are wrong in the long-term. it is an optimism geared towards the future will be better. we believe that we might be able to be job creators. young people starting companies, the rise of entrepreneurialism. 15% of students right out of college are actually starting businesses. which is up 300% pointless 20 years ago. ..