>> do you know what one of -- >> well, so many of them, we've tried to keep up with the times for some of the latest political headlines. named after now-former house majority leader eric cantor who lost his republican primary in virginia back in june 2014, and is we have several others that relate to the 2014 election cycle and going into the 2016 presidential race. >> dog whistle book.com. gentlemen, thank you. >> here's a look at "the chicago tribune"'s list of their best of 2014 books.

>> and what we're doing when we burn fossil fuels, is that we are taking carbon that was buried under the earth over the course of hundreds of millions of years, and we are transferring it back up into the atmosphere. so we're basically running geological history backwards and at a very high speed. we're taking a process that took hundreds of millions of years to run in one direction, and we're running it in the other direction in a matter of centuries. and if you were an alien and you came to visit the earth, you could easily conclude that what we're doing, that the fundamental purpose of modern

industrialized society, is to affect this transfer as quickly as possible. to see how much carbon we can get out of the ground and put up into the air and how fast we can do it. >> and that's a look at some of "the chicago tribune"'s top books for 2014. to link to the full list and to see other publications' selections, visit booktv.org. >> okay, now it's time for hillary. you wrote that she captured your attention like no other human being. why was that? >> well, here was a woman who could speak in paragraphs without notes, who was, you know, indomitable in the face of the horrifying kind of criticism and sexist behavior, and in particular really hated by women like her, other highly-elected and, you know -- highly-educated and, you know, prominent women.

there was just a tremendous wall of anger at hillary for having, for staying with bill clinton. i knew from early on when i interviewed her and followed them that she would never leave bill clinton, although people would constantly say, well, she'll leave him when that are out of the white house, or she'll leave him when she goes to the senate, or she'll definitely leave him -- they were symbiotic. you know, can you imagine anybody being able to be like hillary for bill clinton? i mean, you know, it took a hillary to make a president. and it took a bill clinton to put hillary in the position where she can actually run for president. so they were symbiotic and still are. and i, i'm still fascinated by them because they have dominated democratic politics for 25 years, longer even than the

roosevelts. >> that's right. >> right? i mean, they were 17 or 18 years, both teddy and fdr. and these people are still doing it. quite amazing. despite certain flaws. [laughter] that are very well known. so i find i'm fascinated by this -- up until the end of the summer, i was hearing from hillary's, some of hillary's friends and colleagues who had been with them in the white house saying they really didn't want her to run, they told her not to, they'd tell her not to and that she was really having very great, conflicted thoughts about whether she was going to run. because she has a very nice life now. she has plenty of money, she has a portable bully pulpit. anywhere she goes she can make an issue. she's one of the most famous women, if not the most famous woman in the world. she now has a grandchild she's

longed for for so long. rehashing of everything that they will have to endure. well, this one really overriding reason i finally figured out, from the very beginning hillary has been about improving the lives of women and girls, and she made that part of the foreign policy portfolio of the secretary of state when she bargained with obama about whether or not she would take that role. she said that was it. if he didn't agree to that, she wasn't interested, and he did. so anywhere she went in the world, she did put that into practice. and she would be able to do much more as president. but more than that, when she finally acknowledged obama's victory, it took her three days to digest that reality, and when she finally made her speech at a big hall in washington -- i'm sure you were will too -- there

were many, many women supporters there, and they were crying bitter tears. it was a very bitter, angry crowd. the feeling that hillary listen denied because, you know, somebody else had jumped the line. and her last words were, "don't spend a minute thinking about what might have been." "life is too short, time has to be spent well." "we need to work together for what still can be." and that was the promise. and if she didn't fulfill that promise in 2016, there would be a lot of women who would feel failed by her, and i don't think she could live with that. >> uh-huh. >> you can watch this and other programs online are at booktv.org. >> the next three hours are your chance to speak with author and think tank president arthur brooks. the former french hornist turned social scientist will talk about

his research on charity, happiness and free enterprise. the head of the american enterprise institute is the author of four nonfiction books including new york times best sellers "gross national happiness" and "the road to freedom. ". >> host: arthur brooks, where did the phrase "gross national happiness" come from? [laughter] >> guest: the phrase comes from the government of bhutan, i should say the king of bhutan about 30 years ago realized that a process of development, of economic development, was great. it would pull millions of people out of poverty. people wouldn't starve to death, but it wasn't enough for human flourishing. so instead of counting narrowly the amount of money people had per capita, he had the idea of trying to measure the amount of happiness. he started an index called gross national happiness. that's where the expression comes from. >> host: and what did he find? >> guest: he found that a lot of the traditional measures of economic growth were, as i said, great and kind of a

predeterminant for living a good life, but they weren't sufficient, and so some of the things of cultural integrity, of family values, of being able to maintain one's faith, one's faith in god, that these are the things people needed for a truly flourishing life. and in so doing in a developing country, had a lot of lessons for the rest of us. >> host: can you measure happiness via economic success? >> guest: no. you can find some predeterminants for having a relatively good life by looking at economic indicators, but that doesn't get you far enough. there are really four things that can lead us to happiness, and they don't involve money per se. let me back up for a second, peter. money, one of the things that we find is enwhen people are poor and -- that when people are poor and they have deprivation and deciding whether or not to pay for medicine or food, they're less likely to be happy. and some of the most miserable places in the world are places where people die of starvation and preventable diseases.

once you get beyond basic subsistence, the four things that bring happiness are faith, family, friends and work. those are the things we have to keep in mind, those are part of human flourishing. >> host: from your book, "gross national happiness," this is a book about america's happiness. doing sums across our population, can we say that the united states is a happy country? what's your answer to that question? >> guest: the answer is generally, yes. now, there's so many indices of which country is happier than another, and they're generally not reliable. and part of the reason is because different cultures answer the question differently. so just getting a survey how happy are you, you're going to find that countries that have germanic languages answer the question different than those with romance languages, for example. it's that, it's really that ridiculous. but that said, you find that the united states is a country of largely of immigrants and strivers, and these are some of the people that are most

optimist inabout their lives. and so i -- optimistic about their lives. i think it's pretty fair to say on balance we're a happy country. that said, happiness has suffered in recent years in part because of the recession, in part because of the great kind of malaise that a lot of people are feeling about, you know, optimism about the direction the country's going. and i think this is a real opportunity for policymakers and leaders around this country to try to change the direction that we're going. >> host: so should our politicians make us happy? >> guest: well, our politicians, no. our politicians don't have a responsibility to make us happy. and in point of fact, throughout history the politicians that have called themselves the purveyors of happiness are usually the worst dictators. the american secret is not that leaders make us happy, it's that they help us to be able to pursue our own happiness. that's the key. that's the reason that faith, family, friends and work are so important to it, because they're part of the pursuit of this elusive goal of happiness that politicians per se can't give

us. >> host: from green "gross natil happiness," conservatives are happier than liberals. my own reaction to this, you write, is primarily one of surprise because virtually everything about the politics of happiness turns out to be at variance we heat intellectual -- elite intellectual opinion and what i always thought. but the evidence is the evidence. >> guest: indeed, it is. when you find that the intellectual elite around the world, not just the united states, is relatively hostile to organized religion. tells us that traditional family organization is wad deal and that it's -- is a bad deal and it's kind of keeping people down, that community as we traditionally understood it is a force for repression which we often hear and that work, work is something that we should actually do less of. what we need is more leisure time as opposed to more work. it turns out all of those pieces of advice, all of those elements of philosophy are wrong when it comes to having the happiest

life. >> host: if you asked me how you could be happier and i told you to vote republican or go to church, you might justifiably tell me to go jump in a lake. but if i told you to give to charity, i would for -- i would be giving you excellent advice. everyone can give and give more today. each and every one of of us can afford to dig a little deeper. giving to charity makes one happy. >> guest: it's true. it's true. there's a lot of evidence on this. but, you know, we don't have to dig very far in each of our own lives to think about cases in which we felt happier by serving others. the most miserable people are the most self-conscious, the most inwardly directed, those who are serving their own purposes and not thinking about others. the fast way to break the cycle of melancholy in your own life is to stop focusing on yourself. i mean, this is a common -- this is not my philosophy, this is what the research indicates to

us. so there are a lot of really interesting studies on this, peter, and some of this i lo. there are -- i love. you study the happiness of high school seniors where you have a natural experiment, kind of like a drug experiment. treatment and control. half the kids just play board games and the other half are randomly assigned to help little kids with their homework. the kids who were helping the other kids are happier after the experiment. one of my favorite experiments recently is kind of related to this. there's one at the university of liverpool that was just published where the researchers asked men to come into the laboratory with their significant other, with their wives or girlfriends, and they said, okay, here's the experiment. you need to walk from one building to another, it's that simple. when they're halfway through, there's an alleyway and a panhandler came out and asked the man for money. when they got to the other building, they did the interview, and they asked the man how much did you give the panhandler. they asked his wife or

girlfriend, how attractive do you find him? the more money you give panhandler, the more your wife likes you. so it turns out people are healthier, happier and even more handsome when they give to charity. >> host: so we should give to panhandlers. >> guest: absolutely. on the way home, and your wife will like you more. >> host: political extremists. you write that they are happier on average, but you also write that there is evidence that people with extreme views affect everybody adversely. because they are less compassionate than average, less honest and less concerned for others. >> guest: yeah. the thing about political extremism, i wrote about this in "the new york times" a couple of years ago, as a matter of fact. people with extreme political views are not troubled by the idea that somebody else might be right. i mean, it's -- it's actually, it's hard to be secure in your point of view when there's a possibility that your philosophy is wrong. political extremists never

entertain that possibility, and so the result is they're more secure and they tend to be happier. the problem is if you're not willing to entertain the possibility that you might be wrong, you're not going to humanize other people who don't share your point of view. now, we all deserve to be able to have a world view, we deserve to be able to say this is right and this is wrong, i think, but it's the right thing to do to be tolerant of other people's point of view. if you're not, you're probably going to have an easier time of it in life and maybe a little bit happier, but you're going to be spreading more misery around you. >> host: arthur brooks, when you talk about the concept of flow in "gross national happiness," what do you mean by that? >> guest: flow is a state. it was first described by a great psychologist who was a philosopher, actually, a social psychologist. he teaches at claremont graduate university in california. he was at the university of chicago for many years, and he wrote a famous book, and his research looked at the state in which people are in the zone.

when they're doing work that's not too easy, but not too hard. they're challenged, but they're not overwhelmed by a task that completely engages them emotionally, cognitively, psychologically and even spiritually, and the hours turn into minutes. i bet you've had these experiences in your life where you say, whoa, three hours, are you kidding? i can't believe it, it felt like ten minutes. that's the state of flow, when you're doing just what you're supposed to be doing, and the hours fly by. >> host: so translate this talk of "gross national happiness" and u.s. as a happy country into politics. >> guest: well, you know, politics, it's a funny business. as i mentioned a minute ago, the job of politics is not to make us happy people. that's a very dangerous thing. stalin was called the purveyor of happiness. there's virtually nobody in the 20th century, save hitler and maybe a couple of others, who created more misery and, you know, deep -- sort of the deep

moral malaise that was such a transgression across the 20th century. so when politicians claim this, there's a problem. but when they talk about giving people the pursuit of happiness, creating the conditions for the pursuit of happiness, then it's a uniquely empowering situation. this is the secret to the american dream, it's the secret to the great american life is giving us the ability to pursue our happiness, and that's what politicians should be talking about. that's the reason opportunity is the most important thing that politicians can be fighting for today. >> host: so translate that whole concept into a policy. >> guest: the policies that we should be working for are getting people to the starting line. what should we be talking about with respect to education? making sure that people at the bottom have the opportunity to get ahead. we should be thinking about policies not that redistribute money such that everybody can have the same amount of money or closer to it, but rather, that people can work so they can be rewarded on the basis of their hard work and merit.

these are the opportunity society policies that actually lead to the pursuit of happiness. >> host: arthur brooks, in your most recent book, "the road to freedom," you write that increasing income equality as a social goal means either you don't understand the evidence, or you think it is desirable per se to punish people at the top because they are rich. there's no way around this fact. >> guest: indeed. now, my view is that the problem with income inequality that we have today is that some people are living in poverty, and it's an avoidable error. it's something that as a rich society we can avoid. the way not to worry about it, however, is on the basis of equalizing incomes so people have the same amount of stuff. that's material itch. materialism is tyranny, and it's wrong on the right and the left. but when the president of the united states or a politician or a business leader gets up and says the greaters scourge of our society, the greatest problem we have is income inequality, what

he's saying that you, peter, because you have something less than someone else you are a victim of society, and that's to reduce you to pure economic men, and that is a disservice to you and to our society. >> host: reading a little bit more from "the road to freedom," added up the evidence is clear: america has already effectively slipped into a big government social democracy. about 40 cents of every dollar americans earn goes to the state. >> guest: it's true. the size of the government has continued to grow. virtually without pause. and the result is that we like to tell ourselves that we're not a offpeen-style -- european-style social democracy, but the truth is that we are. we have redistributive tax code that's more progressive than most of our european allies if you measure that in terms of the people who don't pay anything. you see regulation that's on par with the regulatory regimes of

the big states of europe. the difference is that americans still don't consider them to be european social democrats, and that's a really earn couraging thing. -- encouraging thing. we may have the economic characteristics of our european cousins, but we still don't have their mentality, and this gives us a possibility for a way of escape. >> host: well, how do you square that, that we like government programs, and we don't like big government? >> guest: well, it's, the american -- the basic american zeitgeist, the philosophy is that we are pretty rugged individualists. the problem is that we've, government has worked like a ratchet. so when big government programs and social welfare benefits come, they almost never go away. they're very, very hard to get rid of. i mean, the main area of government spending that's redistributive in this country is on entitlements as everybody watching us knows today. doesn't matter if they're liberals or conservatives, they

know entitlements are almost 70% of every dollar that goes to government goes to the social spending programs that are entitlements; social security, medicare and medicaid. the problem is that we haven't been responsible as a society about a way to iran in these -- to rein in these programs that won't beggar our children, that won't make it harder for my kids and grandkids and yours and everybody else's out there to have the same opportunities that you and i had because we'll be spending so much money. with the spillover benefits as well of the united states not being able to take its rightful place as a leader among nations, because that will become too expensive. effectively, all of the oxygen in the government will increasingly be devoted toward the social spending that's suboptimal socially and suboptimal internationally, and that's the big problem that we face. >> host: again, translate that into a policy. how do you reform these programs? >> guest: the first thing that we need to do is we need to have leaders that lead as to

oppose -- as opposed to leaders that follow. if you're putting your finger in the air and say tell me what the polls say, you're being a follower. you're not being a leader. what leaders do is they can actually induce sacrifice. they can help people in a country. they can help citizens to see something bigger than themself. great leaders can take a country to war, which is the ultimate sacrifice. if we can go to war when we need to, we should be able to reform entitlement programs and make the sacrifices as a society to protect america for future generations. okay, so how do we do it, that's your question. practically speaking, we need politicians who have policies that will reform social security and especially medicare and medicaid which we know how to do in a way that will cause some temporary discomfort among certain interest groups, but where those groups will be empowered to be heroically in charge of saving our country. now, there's specifics on how to do it. we can go into those specifics. we can talk about how to count

inflation differently and change the formulas so that people are not retiring at 65 and 67, so that they're retiring in line with the demographic profiles of the american public where we allow states more latitude in how they use their funding, where medicare is actually not a system that's completely open-ended and where people are responsible for seeing the prices of medical care and making the decisions on the basis of that. those are, that's the basis of good policies where we can rein in the spending in a responsible way and americans can take care of their own issue before it gobbles up a big part of the american dream. >> host: george w. bush tried social security reform ten years ago. >> guest: yes. look, it's a tough thing. if it were easy, it would already be dope. but there are ways to do this. ronald reagan was able to do this in a bipartisan way, to help reform and save social security for a long, long time. how would we do it? just a couple of basics. we don't count inflation in the right way. we have an inflated social security benefits stream.

we need to take care of that. two, people are retiring at relatively close the same age as when the social security system was implemented decades ago, yet they're living for decades longer. that's an obvious actuarial problem, you know? if you and i are going to live to whatever we're going to live to be, i mean, let's hope, 85, 87 or 88 years old yet we're retiring at 65, that's something the public can't maintain, and we have to reform that as well. >> host: from "road to freedom," the job of a social safety net starts with an answer to this question: what is an unacceptable standard of living in america? in my view, you write, it is unacceptable for someone in america's wealth society to go without access to basic medical care, sufficient food and basic shelter. pretty uncontroversial, i think. >> guest: yeah, you'd think, wouldn't you? yet we have lots of people who are not going -- who don't have

basic access to those things. these are effectively unforced errors. we're spending more and more and more money, yet we have lots and lots of people who are living in poverty. so we have to deal with this in a way that transcends politics. the first thing to keep in mind for my friends on the right is we need to declare peace in the safety net, per se. the conservatives should be the ones that are fighting for a reliable safety net for those truly indigent. for my friends on the leavitt, we need to talk about -- on the left, we need to remember that a dignified life always has to attach work to welfare. if we can decide on these things, the safety net is the greatest achievement that we've ever encountered, and it's, of course, responsible for it. the answer is the free enterprise system which has created so much wealth for our society. the safety net is a wonderful, a good and moral thing and we should fight for it. but it should be for the indigent, attached to work and reformed in a way that doesn't waste money like we're currently wasting money. we could be well on the way to

solving these problems. >> host: arthur brooks, this e-mail came in from a viewer. as a society, we appear to be mad for big programs. why do you suppose we don't do trials of these programs first? >> guest: well, we don't know how to do that very well. we have a tendency with, i mean, let's back up for a second. the philosophy of public administration, the philosophy of government is that if we just can get experts running things, if we can get the people who really understand, and we spend enough money that we can solve the problem all at once, that's wrong if you go into business, that's wrong if you look at finance, that's wrong if you look at any other area of society. people don't have the conceit of thinking that the smartest people will be able to solve something. they do trial and error. they look at markets. they do pilot tests of programs and business ideas. that's what venture capitalists and entrepreneurs do. yet government works in a different way. it's almost as if i can just get

the equations right and just have enough trillions of dollars, i can solve these problems. that's the wrong philosophy. the reason to our viewer, our e-mailer, that's such a smart question. the reason is because government is designed in the wrong way. we need the same philosophy that entrepreneurs use to figure out how to dominate a market. we need humility as opposed to bombastic, big government, once and for all final solutions which simply don't work and waste money. >> host: all right. let's follow this up with another e-mail. this is from bill. when i look at republican leadership, i am reminded of the saying "be bold but not too bold." do you think the new congress can take some bold action to help us all, and what is the most important action they need to take? >> guest: bill, smart question. will they be bold enough? that's, that's -- i want the answer to that question myself. i think they have a real opportunity to show a new direction in leadership, to show kind of a new right movement.

now, they didn't everyone -- let's think about november 4th. what was the signal from november 4, 2014? it wasn't we love republicans. the favorability of republicans is about 9%. i think north korea's like 11%. so nobody was saying we love republicans. no i heart republicans on the back of bumpers as i'm driving to work. what they earned was the right to try some new things and to show some leadership, and that requires some real boldness. i understand the conservative tendency is to say, you know, don't throw a long ball down the field, you know? just keep with the running game, let's see what we can do. but now's not the time for that. now is the time for aspirational leadership that does different things. what's the most important thing that conservatives can do? the single most important thing is a new approach to poverty in america. now, there are other things that are critically important. also critically important we need a foreign policy that brings back aggressive international optimistic spirit

to american foreign policy which we've largely lost because we've been kind of in a foreign policy tailspin trying not to have foreign policy. that's a mistake. we need to continue with that or reestablish that as well. we need education reform, we need criminal justice reform. there's a long list of things. but number one where republicans can have the opportunity in the next two years to distinguish themselves is to become warriors for the poor. to say i don't even care how poor people vote. this is our opportunity to do the right thing for this country where the bottom half has effectively been left behind by the economic policies of the past six months and, sorry, six years. the economic policies that have effectively marooned 150 million americans who are at the bottom with less opportunity, less optimism, less aspiration. that's what we need to be able to turn around by having a bias for working people and poor people in this country. how? we need to have policies that reward work, an expansion of the earned income tax credit that

makes work pay. actually, this is a wonderful thing to do to show common cause with the american public who's trying to get back to work. .. the if you can't get through on the phone line and the like to talk to aei president arthur brooks, you can send an e-mail,

booktv at c-span.org. you can send us a tweet at the booktv as our handle and final you can make a comment on our facebook page, facebook.com/booktv. take one of those forms and send a question or a comment. arthur brooks is the author of four policy books that we want to show you. "who really cares" was his first in 2006. "gross national happiness" which we've been talking about quite a bit. 2008. "the battle: how the fight between big government and free enterprise will shape america's future" came out in 2010. and his most recent book, "the road to freedom" mac came out in 2012. what was your career path to becoming president of the emerging enterprise institute?

>> guest: nontraditional, peter. when i was 19 i dropped out of college. dropped out, kicked out, living here. i went on the road as a musician. i spent 12 years as a professional horn player. i was a classical musician. this was my dream. had no aspiration to become a think tank president. what little kid says mommy come when i grow up want to be the president of the conservative think tank. i wanted to be a french one clear. i was able to do the. i play chamber music and a bond of in the barcelo symphony were spent several years. that's where got married was when i was living in worse alone. at the end of that time i went back to college and finish my college education by correspondent when i was about 30. it'it's a nontraditional path to being a think tank president. truly un-american path and virtually everybody watching today has some peculiarities in the on background. this is not so special.

i left a music after that and would graduate school and got my masters in economics of my ph.d in public policy. graduated when i was 34, became a college professor at georgia state university for three years and at syracuse university for seven years. the syracuse university has a wonderful school of public affairs, top rated school. it was a privilege to be there. i loved that. it was a great joy. and i came to aei at the end of 2008. i became president at the end of 2008 where i've been ever since. >> host: why did you leave music? >> guest: i left music because i was, i felt an almost physical need to use my brain in a different way. music is great. i love the music. i still listen to great deal of music. most of how i see the world is formed from experience as a classical musician, sort of the spiritual side of aesthetics. the sense of how i appreciate beauty. this comes from a time as a

musician but i realized there was so much more in the world of ideas. my father was a college professor, a mathematician editable arts school in seattle. my mother was a painter, an artist. i have satisfied the aesthetic side and i was interested in develop the intellectual side. i also had been influenced by a lot of thinkers. here's the weird part, peter. when i'm still a musician of reading the work of james q. wilson of urban crystal, milton friedman, charles murray and thinking this is changing how i see the world. it made me into a free enterprise advocate as a matter of fact, which is completely contrary to my background. my parents were very nervous about this. but what i found, i noticed there was this one institution that all of these thinkers were involved with which is a place i'd never heard of before called the american enterprise institute which tie together this moral sense of what a free society looks like and how we

can executed through the free enterprise system and american leadership. it was so positive, optimistic that the this boundless understanding of what human dignity can be and how can be our gift to the world. i was attracted to it naturally. there's no greater joy every day and he actually out the helm of this isn't stationed by pure serendipity. >> host: you used the word moral throughout your writing. moral arguments for free enterprise. >> guest: we are moral people. people are moral animals. it's very interesting to note when people are expressing the deepest sentiments, they talk about morality. at the lowest talk about materialism. they don't talk about money. they don't quote the data and statistics. they talk about what is right, right for them and write for others. if we fail to make moral case of the things we most deeply believe we are not making the best case. this is what's been wrong with the conservative movement for a long time. conservatives have dominated the

material case to their point of view. conservatives have talked about the fact that capitalism, free enterprise, american greatness is the best way to bring the most material abundance to the most people. that's true and that's good. the question is why does that matter? why does it matter? the answer is because it is deeply good and moral for people to be able to feed their families, to work with dignity come to support themselves and to live in safety and freedom. these are good moral things to do. not good material things to do. remembering the why of our work always brings us back to morale the. when we lose moral language were using the language that is written in our hearts. this is what we deserve to be able to do. this is what americans should expect from leaders is to to the moral stuff they are made of. >> host: in "the road to freedom" -- where did that come from try to what of the greatest economies is friedrich hayek. friedrich hayek who was at the university of chicago who is

involved in and tanks on washington, d.c. knew the end of his life wrote a great book called "the road to serfdom." "the road to serfdom" basically says the way we're going or with central planning, government control, scientism which is his word for this conceit that people in government can solve human problems once and for all, that this is going to lose to the kind of servitude, both moral and material servitude. that's the philosophy that led to the central planning regime that ruled lives of hundreds of megs of people in the 20th century. look out in the west. look out and supposedly free countries so these things can come to you little by little by little to "the road to serfdom," the positive outburst of that is "the road to freedom." what do we need to do to get to freedom? hayek book is more important better than mine but still it's my little attempt. >> host: in the book come in your book "the road to freedom" the right big governments

codependent wife is the corporate cronyism. >> guest: yeah. this is a real blind spot for republicans and conservatives, the idea that if it's good for business it's good for america. it's simply not true. particularly in modern life. what you see, i live in washington, d.c. i like to tell audiences other than washington so they don't have to basically. it's not a really healthy environment necessary. one of the things that's most disheartening about washington is this will to power that people have in the way they exploit it by wiring the system to the benefit. some of the worst offenders are corporate interests that are able to change policy and legislation and government leadership to their benefit. the way you solve that is not having so much power for bureaucrats and politicians to be able to do that. that's the reason the codependent big government is corporate cronyism to give some people benefit at the expense of a lot of the people around the country. >> host: is that a call for

massive tax reform? >> guest: it is a call for massive tax reform. it's a call for massive moral reform, for people to be really outraged and to seclude what's going on in this country. you remember two or three years ago when we were seeing the occupied demonstrations. occupy wall street, occupied k street, occupy main street for that matter. there were demonstrations all over the country. conservatives like me were tended to say well, you know, so ridiculous. they're angry about the free press system, how ridiculous. they were right. they were wrong in their policy prescription, less for enterprise. that's wrong. we need real free enterprise. they were right in the diagnosis of what's wrong. or something was enough for you. the system was gains against ordinary people by increasingly a government interest. because increasingly we see the government% as the special big interest that is warping american life and giving special

privileges to people in power. occupy wall street was quite correct as was the tea party. there is something deeply wrong and unfair. watch the prescription? less government, more free enterprise pushed all the way down to the bottom recognizing that the safety net is the basis of equalizing some of the systems so people can get a leg up in a opportunity in the first place. >> host: as president of aei are you a scholar? are you an administrator? are you a fundraiser? >> guest: i like to thank all three. i was a scholar before i came to aei. i got my ph.d working in a nonprofit organization and that's where did most of my research when i was at syracuse partners. when i came to aei my job is to promote the brilliant work of my colleagues. again, my heroes, my intellectual heroes were at aei. michael novak, charles murray. this is people that were working at the american institute to the

american enterprise institute. it's trading in my research agenda to give to promote that of others. the biggest part of that is raising the funds we need to support an entirely donut driven organization. we get $0 from the government. since 1938 we have taken not a dime from the u.s. government. we take all of our funding from our investors beware private individuals wants it a better america. the real privilege i have is i can go out to donors around the country, not all of whom are wealthy and say, i can do magic. i can take your little bit of money and i can transform it like alchemy except real into an expression of your values. you want a better country. you want more freedom and more appearance but you would lift up the poor. you want to protect our nation but you have to start with ideas. we are the source of ideas so it's my privilege to be able to take somebody's money and help

transform that into an expression of values. truly a wonderful thing. i was a donor before it came to aei by the way host the arthur brooks is our guest. let's take some calls. eugene in maryland. you are first up. >> caller: i am enjoying this conversation. i did want to piggyback what arthur brooks it earlier with regard to time t work to welfare for federal programs. i also believe and i discussed this with friends this should be a term or time limitations on these programs similar to what unemployment has come let's say six months. if you have not been able to improve your financial situation in six months, you have to should due diligence on your part, resume, job application from education, something on your in to show you're trying to improve your situation. if you have shown due diligence, then maybe you can get a continuance. but i do believe that putting a time limitation on some of these programs will provide the necessary 500 people to get them to get up and be more active, proactive in their own

improvement. i just wonder what mr. brooks thinks about that tragic thank you. that's a great observation. point of fact, there were two elements in the welfare reform legislation in the 1990s that these are ideas that came out of aei scholars by the way. the welfare reform ideas that were signed into legislation by -- a congress and president who were not paralyzed by fear, willing to do bold things which was wonderful of bill clinton and republican congress were able to do together. the two things that they did was, number one of the required work as part of welfare, number two, they have time limits. within reason. there are certain people that simply aren't going to be able to work in the safety net will take that into account, and also you have to guarantee that there are certain things they can do with respect to learn how to work, being and substance abuse programs or actually having worked programs the government can backstop so that people can do that. once you put those guarantees in

place you are right. work requirements and time limits are a smart policy. >> host: palmdale, california. you were on booktv. >> caller: hello there. mr. brooks, i have a question regarding your mentioning of a western democracy. in europe social democracy but it seems to me you mentioned negative context as it they are infected by some kind of the disease were as in fact these countries, they do have quite a few of these countries in fact have a high growth domestic product per capita and i growth domestic happiness per capita. than the 20. what is wrong with social democracy in your opinion? >> guest: there are a lot of studies that compare happiness between countries. so your point is there are some studies that show, for example, the nordic social democracies have higher happiness per

capita. they have higher happiness. there are also studies that show the happiest country in the world are mexico and brazil, and there are some that should happiest countries are the united states and candidate. is not uniformity on these studies. the fairest interpretation of that is not if you want to be happy move to denmark. you can try it but i don't recommend calling the moving company today. i think the way to measure that given the fact people answered differently in different places is to look at happens over time and uniformity between communities. when you find certainly communities really happy compared to others then you will see that difference is something you should deal with. when it comes to per capita income, as a general matter the united states is more prosperous than virtually all of the societies in europe. so, for example, sweden which is held up as a model of reform, they'vthey have done good thingf late, sweden is in per capita

income and services is poorer than all the three american states. again, i don't care and i don't think any of us should care because money is not the deal. once you're above the level of basic substance and. and even more than that, when you're above lower middle-class levels what people can take care of themselves and their families. i'm just saying the united states has done quite well for prosperity per capita what we need to be think about is our values such that we don't slip into the malaise a lot of the southern european and periphery countries in europe, and increasingly the mainstream of european economies are falling into. those european countries are going the wrong where happiest of the runway on prosperity. i think in america we should decide to get we don't want that. >> host: (202)748-8200 if you live in east and central time zones. 748-8201 if you live out west to if you can't get through on the phone lines we have very social media ways of contacting us it

will put those up on the screen as well. lillian, boca raton. good afternoon call back good afternoon. i'd like to take exception to what mr. brooks referred to as the old-fashioned, i say old-fashioned method of giving charity. he claimed that this little woman, you know, looks up to the man who gives a more. first of all, i think that if she wants to, she can get just as much because we are equal, not unequal. and then i found some inconsistency when later on he said that when he's asking for money he goes to the widow. now, i know that women live longer than men, but i think that he's got to look at the marriage or the partnership as equal rather than the woman looking up to the man.

i'd like his comments. >> guest: i'm not exact to sure what you are referring to. the truth of the matter is i agree with what you said. i'm not sure what i said that led you to think that. i believe that there are equal moral worth between all forms of giving, the charity is critically important all of us. those who are rich and poor have an equal moral obligation privilege to be able to get to the truth is and that britain about this extensively in my research that the working poor are more generous as a percentage of their income than any other class in society. and they have a lesson for the rest of us. this is critically important. he also find that women tend to be a little bit more generous than men. they tend to be happier than men. they tend to live longer than men. maybe this is all correlated to my guess is, you've got a lot of things right in your life and you're going to be rewarded for it, and thank you for weighing in posted i think he might've been referring to the phrase you use when you said widows might.

>> guest: the widows might which is of course a biblical phrase but the idea, it makes lillian's point. the widow who gives a tiny fraction because she is poor in the bible, who has as great or greater moral worth than the contribution that came from the prince's crown. the prince puts his crown towards the temple. the widow gives her might, just a couple of little coins and get the weather is giving something as equally important, more important. i think that was making lillian's point post that in your first book, "who really cares: the surprising truth about compassionate conservatism," you write the people who think the government should redistribute income -- let me start again. people who think the government should we do should income more are less likely to donate to charity and people who don't think so. this is nothing more than substituting political opinions for private donations. >> guest: i was shocked by this but when i first started

writing "who really cares," expected people who expressed greater compassion for those who have less but you don't find that to be the case. you find the more likely you are to say that the government should reduce she bit more income to be bloodless, the less likely you are to give away more of your own income. in other words, you have a systematic substitution of political opinions for private should be. this shouldn't be the case in my view. and again i don't begrudge anybody their political opinion about redistribution from government. i may not agree with it but understand and think people should hold it sincerely. what is the real problem is if you say look, i voted for politicians who want to register but my money away. see a compassionate i am and walk away? we still have the responsibility will be get need. they are not substitutes. they should be complements to each other. >> host: you criticize fdr and his presidency in "who really

cares" saying that charitable giving went way down once government programs started going out. but that also be the fact we're in economic crisis in march of that decade transferred no doubt that is the case be defined a couple of different things. you find when income goes down, terrible donations go down. that's been the case since 2008 in the united states as well. but you also find what we call proud that when the government does more individuals do less. this is not to argue for the government not doing something. i will anybody is watching to misunderstand and think we need to get rid of government programs wholesale. what i'm saying is its call to more action from individuals cannot be crowded out. our purpose is be able to take matters into her own hands notwithstanding what our government does every metric that is a key to our own quality of life and to prevent the cold light of others traveled just in cyprus texas. you were on with arthur brooks. >> caller: yes, mr. brooks.

dan to the for granted happiness that you mention, i am reminded of a great quote by russell kirk who said that if you want to order in the commonwealth you first have to have order in the individual soul. i'm wondering whether increasing "gross national happiness" depends on the restoration of traditional conservatism which russell kirk was arguably the founder of, and whether you see anybody on the horizon right now that's capable of facilitating rather than on these laid -- obviously making this pursuit of happiness a reality? thank you tragic thank you, jeff. why i love c-span is you can if actually go and quote russell kirk. it's great. it's right. the whole idea that markets can do good things for us in free enterprise is outstanding. i believe these things deeply but a predetermined is properly ordered human rights.

markets have become after morality where we have -- again, people will disagree about what that morality comes down to it, i just had, but if we rely only on markets as opposed to the moral sentiments we'll be going in the wrong direction. the same we can't say a car make you a better person. a car is a means to do so just as markets are a means to do so. how do we need to do without? we need politicians and policymakers and family members and community leaders who say we need to feed properly upstanding moral ethical lifestyles such that capitalism can be a good thing for us as a society. adam smith said this in 1759, he rode the ferry of moral sentiments. this for 17 years before "the wealth of nations" which was his great book about how we understand us at economics today. "the theory of moral sentiments" said we have to be able to earn freedom as society on the basis

of our efforts. he came back to the booklet is often sai said it was disgracef, and he was right. this is the book everybody should read. you need properly ordered morals. you need a well ordered life stuff. at that point if we do this together, free enterprise can be an unbounded lesson for our society and setting is free and giving us more prosperity husband lonnie, north carolina. >> caller: good afternoon, mr. brooks. as a small businessman i have become really concerned about this momentum towards a higher minimum wage, sometimes, some places a living wage which is almost ruine ruinous to some sml businesses. i was wondering what your take on it is, and is there any movement or anyway we can get rid of the minimum wage completely? >> host: what kind of business do you have? >> caller: i have a doggy day care but my wife and i have a remodeling business, paint

crews, floor covering. we kind of have a lot of different businesses. i've never myself paid a minimum wage. i've always started people above minimum wage but some of these numbers are we're talking about now would put a couple of by businesses out of, i just couldn't handle it. i just found a lot of people do really well at first if you give them a chance and make raises real quickly. some people just wash out right away. if you have to start at one at 12 to $15 an hour it would be difficult. >> host: thank you. >> guest: great point. let's talk about it from the perspective of the real problem with the minimum wage. i don't think any of us should dispute the fact that if you work hard and play by the rules you should be up to support yourself through audits were able to support your family. let's just all agree to that right do. the question is how best to do

the. the problem with minimum wage isn't even just what you say which is that hurts small businesses, although it does. the biggest profit if it hurts disproportionally certain parts of the population. we find today for example, in minority communities among young men unemployment is about 36%. just terrible, the scourge inside these commuters. who are the people least likely be higher and most likely to be laid off when you increase the minimum wage? the answer is young men minority men. that's a factor the problem isn't even it lays off everybody in the minimum wage pool. it disproportionately hits the people we need to help the most. how can you take that on? wider studies as it increased minimum wage by 15% it would only have a destructive impact of two or 3% on jobs. that's all concentrated in particular communities and you can't have that with welfare. welfare is not a substitute for work. welfare checks can't substitute for paychecks in terms of human

dignity and opportunity in building one's life. that's just the fact that the question is what are we going to do to meet the criterion that people should be able to support themselves through honest work, that the minimum wage increase doesn't do it and heard certain populations? and the answer is you need the kind of policies that make work pay. for those of you are really policy wonks, you know a great policy is an expansion of the earned income tax credit. for those of you are not policy wonks i want to congratulate you and let's talk of what the policy does. it's a government subsidy through your tax bill, you get a tax credit we could basically a check from the government that augments the wage that you earn. you have a job you work. if you're below a certain level the government will top your weight as a tax subsidy. that something comes can get a hold of and a thrill successful policy. the problem is that single men who are the people who need it the most don't have said that

access to those in need to expand. to increase the minimum wage. force the people most mobile out of the workforce and soak it up with welfare. no. let's have a wage subsidy or in earned income tax credit expansion that will make work pay for more people. i know it costs money. conservatives might be going to eyes and said look, this guy who runs aei is talk that spending more government money. that's what i want the government to do. not the boondoggles who waste the money we do right now. we can really help people to get head and to increase opportunity we know how to do it. let's just do it host larry tweets into you, arthur brooks, with regard to churchill contributions, and they write their charitable monies off their taxes. poor pay the tax instead. >> guest: well, the way that the charitable deduction worked in america is that in 1917 in a tax code, the congress said

look, we have these public goods we need to pay for. if we are going to have people pay taxes, and people are going to be giving money to charity to provide some public goods, let's have a public-private partnership. let's allow people to effectively designate some other tax bill towards these private charities they are paying for. not 1 dollar for one. it's by the amount of their tax rate that we're going to let them write it off a tax bill. in other words, it was kind of a moral contract between the governments and citizens it wasn't just a loophole or a workaround. and ever since then there's been this sense that private citizens should be able to designate some of their taxes through tax deductible to the. it's not the case that is being paid for by poor americans. poor americans pay virtually no income taxes, at least at the federal level but they pay other taxes, social security. they pay property taxes and pay consumption taxes, et cetera but

those aren't the taxes you can write off when it comes to your tax-deductible charitable contributions. it's the taxes that are so paid by people on the top half and that's what th attacks are comig from. >> host: paul tweets in as well. are you the arthur brooks who writes a column for "the new york times"? >> guest: yeah. and i'm so grateful to be able to do it. friends of the new times and it's been such a wonderful expense to write for a different dignity and a different paper that the free enterprise, the movement has been associated with. it's a privilege to do so. short answer, yeah, i'm the same guy. ..

whether they have the metastasizing iraq or see we have covered that can get privileges to the companies and unions and well organized individuals who all of us should be reason for that because that hurts ordinary americans. if people can benefit from them we live in washington, d.c.. we have a lot of powerful friends but we shouldn't even be able to come and that is something we should agree on. >> milford connecticut good afternoon. you are on with arthur brooks.

>> i'm wondering if you can comment on the incarceration relative to other nations in the rise of the prisons and how these impact in america. thank you. >> thank you. criminal justice reform should be a major component of the new conservative agenda over the next two years. criminal justice reform is an area we can make big strides in improving fairness and having a better opportunity in the society. right now it's not that we lock up too many people, we lock them up for the wrong reasons. the movement towards alternative sentencing and justice methods and everything from drug courts to getting rid of the three strikes laws. this is the way to go and i think that conservatives should be the vanguard of making it so. it's very encouraging to me the other day when a conservative leaders were writing open letters at a profoundly mentally ill but the idea of what the conservative movement should be

able to recognize as the wrong way to go in this country no matter your views on the death penalty that is something we can recognize we are going in the wrong direction so i think that this is a big opportunity for a better criminal justice movement. >> host: stephen westhaven connecticut go-ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: i think that you're just great, but i have a comment i made great believer in term limits. you don't hear much about that because you don't want to make people argue that. it should be called every two years and they would just disappear to get rid of some of the same to the campaigns are

just ridiculous. thank you very much. >> the term limits have been coming up for a long time and the technical aspects into the constitutional aspects are something we don't want to address. there are constitutional difficulties and at the state level they've been relatively successful. look at florida where the members of the florida house are term limited out. even the speaker of the houses of great political entrepreneur named will weatherford. he's a leader for the future. they are serious about this stuff so at the state level it can be a lot of good. the other thing that is a force for good i think is a commitment coming in from the politicians that say i'm not going to stay very long to be held to it from the get-go. i think that the moral station that comes from private commitment can be every bit as powerful as simply the law so if we can understand what these intentions are with respect to citizen politicians one quick

thing i don't think their jobs are that cushy quite frankly. they have to keep two apartments at the same. a friend of mine who's a congressman from idaho, can you imagine going home to idaho every weekend? it is really tough stuff and he did it because he's a patriot. he wants to help save his country. watching today i bet he's not but i hope he is he's saying cushy job, are you kidding me? but i think that your point is a good one. >> host: i would like to hear the opinions on the appetite of americans for libertarianism today and whether or not we have a chance of moving that we as a society in the near future perhaps over the next 30 years.

>> guest: libertarianism has been a political favor by about 3% of the population. that isn't to say there are not elements of it that people like a lot there are elements on the political left that are pretty appealing. but it hasn't really expand all that much for a few different reasons. one of them is the traditional libertarianism has been relatively unsympathetic to the way that we from the national security policies. they tend to be relatively popular. so i don't know what the future of libertarianism is going to be. i think it's incredibly important that they played an outside influence on the direction of the country. whether or not they can grow into a kind of movement that has political force i'm not quite sure. my friends at the cato institute are terrific at turning a 3% movement into something that looks like about a much higher

percentage of the political influence. >> host: from your book a the battle of the fight between how the free enterprise will shape america's future with its the 70-30 nation that you're talking about? >> guest: was a question whether we changed in the country. president obama was predicated on the idea that the united states was comfortable being less of a traditional free enterprise country and i don't mean that in a critical way. some people agree with that and some people don't. i'm talking as an analyst at this point looking at the data you find that sympathy for the free enterprise system is always about a 73 go 30 prepositions are you can find the people are willing to question a lot of the practices in the country or willing to let the government step in and provide more of a safety net and solve some of our

problems from the method of stimulus good and bad in times of real economic crisis but where are their hearts come in the 70-40 proportions it in in a society that's towards the free enterprise. this actually makes the point that you made a little bit earlier that there is a conflict here. we are becoming a democracy but emotionally we are in a 70-30 nation. that could look like a sort of detachment from reality and what that is is an opportunity. if our hearts are one place, that our country is one place else, we need to follow our heart. what what does it mean to reflect our deepest values in the enterprise system it is the reason that our ancestors came here. yours and mine, our great-grandparents we are not steaming into the harbor saying things are dying in america to get a system of the forced income redistribution. they were here for the freedom to be rewarded for their hard work and that is that he does we can get back when it's still

written on our heart so the great majority of americans that we want for ourselves and our kids and especially the poor to give them the freedom and opportunity to lift themselves up. >> host: are we unique as a nation >> guest: we are pretty unique. not entirely and i have great hope for all parts of the world. when i see -- i went to india and i love it i tell you it's totally inspirational. it's my favorite place to go when the whole world. i spent as research on the book i'm writing right now i spend half of the day in a huge slum just like in the middle of mumbai. when you go to the slum you're going to see begging, depression, illness, poverty. at the thing that strikes you the most is busyness. you see people that are just working. and i'm not a guy who's job is

sorting used toothbrushes to recycle. you can say she shouldn't have to do that but the point is he is doing that. that's the kind of post that you would think about as your ancestors in the united states doing and i want to sort out the poverty. don't get me wrong it's important to upgrade that lets recognize the prosperity for the whole world is started with the american model and now we are seeing these american values of faith, community and work and that's something that we want to inculcate. that said this is the country that showed the way and that should still show the way to the rest of the world. >> host: falls river massachusetts. >> caller: i'm a longtime fan. reading 700 page book the reef formation -- d. formation of american capitalism and he

really skewers the new deal about johnson and especially nixon and reagan and even bush and obama and bernanke. so i was wondering if you could get a book review of this because he really takes off on them. >> host: david stockman is a brilliant guy. he is as smart as anybody that i've ever met quite frankly. he has a strong point of view. and it is a 700 page volume. this isn't a beach read my friends but it is worth reading because he had a strong point of view about how we fix the country. it's a strong view that we were selling out the future and that step-by-step we have worked in this ratchet toward the social democracy and it is a point that is undisputably true. this is not an opinion. it's something the right and left should agree on. the question is whether it is

bad or the downfall of america and this is where the arguments are going to come in. they will say it's a good thing that the government is doing more and that we are sucking up more gdp in the government services because this is how we can have a more civilized society. they can say it has happened but it isn't the case that all of this is going to have to happen and the safety net is a good thing that's written along with the lbj reforms and policies. i recommend david's book because i'm going to learn about one of the polar views in this debate. >> host: robey posts you briefly mentioned in one of your answers that the u.s. should reform the foreign policy. could you please expand on that and explain how and why does foreign policy should be modified and what effect it may have on the influence the u.s. may directly or indirectly have in the world?

>> guest: it's co it's easy to talk about free enterprise to be sure, but when we talk about how america is going to be a gift to the world lets talk about how they are kind of the same and this will give the sense of how we can reform foreign-policy. if you understand how foreign-policy has changed the world of the leave it or not look at china. they played 650 million people out of poverty. how? the answer isn't central planning or the authoritarian regime. it's not the nightmare civil rights problem in the country. it's a movement towards capitalism and particularly toward trade in the left and the united states. what has made that possible? it is made possible by doping the ceilings in the global comments. it is a pacific that hasn't been run by militarism for the first time in recent history were even

over the past several centuries. that is because of american military power. that's an idea americans will patrol the global comments. and in so doing it can help set people free all around the world. we need a foreign policy that understands if we that we are the hyperpower we have to act like one and a hyperpower has to be able to be militarily sound, capable, have a strong foreign-policy that understands the art a unique nation and the willing and able to share our values with people around the world that are ready to absorb these ideas and that means intervention and a sense of internationalism but most importantly i know people are going to disagree but here's what we should agree on we need a foreign policy. it's not okay that we have a chaotic sense of leading from behind and that is basically a foreign-policy of looking busy.

that isn't going to get us where we need to go. we need a foreign-policy end of the ideas i laid out at the beginning or the basis. >> host: arthur brooks is the guest president of the american enterprise institute and author of several books on public policy. catskill new york. >> caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. the leave me. two questions if i may or would like to have you defended the social security tax cap if you can't and i would also like you to comment on the sad fact that if you're in modern times both parents need to work in almost every situation. the friends i have every couple has had to have both parents working. >> i recommend the work of my colleagues who writes in "the wall street journal" a lot and he has the best voice on this. one of the things he helps us understand is that it isn't just

make the tax regressive and get a pass to rich people. it was set up by fdr originally as a forced savings program, not as a pay-as-you-go program. it's that senior citizens at the time were disproportionately indigent after they were retired because they were working, they were not able to work and so their incomes into their incomes were way down. incorrectly the economists correctly identified at an insufficient savings was the corporate culprit and associated okay let's take the first part and impose a tax on it. we are actually taking it is what the government is more likely doing. but the idea is right and forced savings along the lines. so it is a tax that is supposed to make sure that everybody saves a certain amount, that everybody has a base amount. then you have a formula you get

more than a few are richer. on the second question about the earners and every household at the structure in the economy changed a lot since i was a kid. you have more rewards that come from higher education and the result is if you don't have an educational attainment level that is following the new economy you will be making less per hour and this is a structural change in our economy and we should have this earned income tax credit for the working poor can make ends meet without taking second and third jobs and having to go on public assistance. we need to find better ways to create for human dignity and then we need a long-term solution that improves human capital in the country. we have a public education system that's suitable for the 1950s. it hasn't changed very much since my parents were children.

you need an education system that has twice and has innovations and understands we need to improve people in poor communities disproportionately and we need education reform. this is a huge struggle for this country so let's have policies that make work pay writenow and let the policies that improve human capital. >> host: is there a politician out there that is speaking some of the ideas that you are espousing? >> i see a lot of politicians at the state and local level that are aspirational. they are visionaries along these lines and the key thing politicians have to have is if they want to get these things right it why he of the work and the faith of the person that they were trying to help the most. what we need in america is a left and right that are more entrepreneur. if we do that than we are going

to see a lot of these ideas and to say i have a better idea on how to do criminal justice reform, education reform, deregulation and how to create more jobs and have an energy boom. i want want a right and left to be fighting over these ideas as opposed to not effectively colluding to ignore poor people that happens in the conversations that we have today. so, a lot of state and local people are very promising and we are going to see on the national scene in five to ten years. >> host: any names you want to name? >> guest: i just named one in florida. he's really fantastic and i see a lot of people in some of the state committed to texas, florida, arizona. you are going to find some of these places where they have nonconventional views along the lines. some of the presidential candidates are interesting. some of the governors running for president on the republican side are willing to wind up. i like a lot of what we are seeing. some people might get in the

race. really interesting stuff is going on in indiana. bob, bobby jindal, people are people so you can say 100% of what somebody's doing is great but these are people that had some pretty interesting ideas. >> host: david e-mails research has shown that some traditional democratic voting groups tend to be more risk adverse than others may be. this makes sense in that democratic economic possibilities often feature protection. >> sure. if you offer people more security come you're going to find that you're going to attract people that like security. there's nothing weird about that. but there's a deeper consideration which is that when people are poor, the stakes are higher on losing what they've got and so they are going to be a lot more worried. if you are living from paycheck to paycheck it isn't going to take that much time before you

are homeless and you're going to care more about the policies that make you more secure. this is a natural and a normal thing. so they can avail themselves of the system of opportunity enhancement. again they are politicians one of the best people ever heard on this issue. he talks about the right to rise and is comfortable with the safety net that can take care of a lot of the security concerns, economic security concerns come in and takes things very seriously about the bias and opportunity for poor people. >> host: the national review in a couple of different essays put part of the blame on the deck in new york on the fact that new york regulates the sale of cigarettes, so heavily. >> guest: we talk to the criminal justice reform. i think a lot of the conservatives and liberals are coming together beyond that.

i mean it is too simplistic to say that death was the death was due to the cigarette tax. you can find all of these we are secondary causes. what we do know is that right and left a lot of people are coming together to talk about the way that the police are trained and kill the particular issues and everybody regrets that. one more point to make on that and any of the cases i don't have answers but i will tell you if we have a society that had more opportunity for everybody including the 36%, taking care of the 36% unemployment problem for young minority men, that we would have a lot fewer of these types of problems. opportunity is the key to solving a lot of these problems. >> host: the next call comes from cheryl in claremont. >> thank you for taking my call. i just had one question. have one question. what specific structural policy changes can be implemented so

all people will be treated as they want to be treated? >> the structural policy reasons i wish i could say that here is the one policy that would make everybody understand that every single person as a child of is a child of god and is equal to moral worth. the reason i can't do that is that isn't policy. there are policies we need like equal treatment in the law. that's language from the declaration of independence to be sure and it wasn't even brought to the full provision and we got rid of the slavery and women have the right to vote and other things so we need to make that a reality every single day that fundamentally that is anti-policy question it's a cultural question. fundamentally, we need cultural and moral renewal in this country when we remember why this is an exceptional nation and why we were founded, so each of us is a warrior until each of us understands every single person truly is a child of god and equal in the eyes of god we

are not going to get the job done is what it comes down to. so i would suggest that our viewers in each of us consider ourselves moral revolutionaries revolutionaries as much of policy revolutionaries. >> host: tom, montgomery alabama. good afternoon. i was wondering how religion fits into your happiness index. you mentioned that we were animals and the last time i checked they didn't have a soul so i would like to know your idea on that. >> guest: sure. again, the four basic elements of a happy life life for faith and family can faith and family can community and work and you can interpret it however you like because the truth is when i look at it and hear a clean i it clear i have the views as a roman catholic, but you can interpret it according to the data which is to say that traditional and nontraditional

views bring happiness to people. the key is not ignoring the transcendental forces in life, not becoming a pure materialist. that is the key thing that matters the most. i spent a lot of time in india and people are deeply satisfied with their lives. there were a lot of very religious people of a different religion than i have but i would suggest that simply as a social scientist it's very difficult to ignore the elements of life because in doing so you focus way too much on materialism. one of the things i write about is the formula that comes from the materialistic modern life that tells us how to live a good life is exactly wrong. the formula is used people and love things.

>> host: from your book the book to battle the fight between how big government and free enterprise will shape america's future and a poor man at the bp successfully created something of value would be much better off than the rich man who is not earned his success. the big problem isn't that people have less money than others, that it is that they have less earned success. >> guest: it is one of the key concepts of how it works. one of the reasons honest work is incredibly important to human dignity, again if you fall below subsistence all of the bets are off. safety net matters and a society that can lift people up to the point plate is critically important as anybody that says it's okay to be poor i have this friend who teaches at marquette university and just to be the superintendent he grew up poor and he was saying the other night money doesn't matter. he says they are always rich.

i tell you what to give me your money and i will let you know. once we get above the level of being able to support ourselves money doesn't bring very much happiness at all. it's the feeling that you are creating value with your life in a value in the lives of other people, that's it. so if you want to bring people into force, think what can they do today to make it more possible for people to earn their success. what am i doing today to give people a sense of worth so they can create more human capital in the education committee job where they can separate themselves and their families and where the skills and passion can actually meet. don't dismiss the jobs as a dead-end jobs and put them on public assistance. that is the wrong thing to do because that was a way of success and away from happiness. >> host: preston in denver colorado. >> guest: i just felt the need to share on your facebook page

some thoughts in the defense of government. i hear a lot of kind of the demeaning of our government. and people like ralph nader think that actually is big business that is the major problem right now. and also, regarding his assertion that we don't have a foreign-policy, i think we have one. we had a worse one under bush and a lot of the aei scholars were supporters of the invasion of iraq and i think they owe the people of iraq and apology for devastating the country and i was wondering if you had a response to that. >> guest: i appreciate your view. there's a lot for me to disagree with. i'm glad you your point of view deeply however. on the question of iraq, apology is due to the citizens trying to bring their lives that have been since devastated by the lack of

foreign-policy and the invasion of isis. that was an unforced error on the part of a non- foreign-policy from the united states. so i think all of the data support, but what i'm saying here, you can -- anybody can legitimately go back and forth. it had to be finished and it wasn't in a rush to get out and what i think was the lack of the foreign-policy. the the people or something trying to get on with their lives and their families as they an apology to the iraqi people it's because of that. >> host: if you're interested on seeing what he has come facebook.com/booktv. he posted an article from

government is good and one from slate as well and the article is headlined why are they investing in happiness. have you read this article plaques >> guest: everybody should invest in happiness. everybody investing in happiness and the forces of happiness in their life and i think it's great to great that philanthropists are thinking about not just happiness but the deeper things. i think it's great. i think george soros as well as david coke should invest in happiness because i think it is a worthy thing to have a good discussion as a country. >> host: every month we asked one author to come on this program can take your calls, take your e-mail comments etc. but we also ask the author his or her favorite books in the biggest and biggest influences and what he or she is reading now. here are some of the arthur

brooks answers. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ >> here's a look at upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country.

match recounts a car crash that claimed the lives of rocket scientists as a result of texting while driving in a deadly wondering.

>> i was talking to my mom a few years back and she told me she was being hounded by a debt collector. she said i don't over the money that he's saying i but i think i'm going to pay them just so he will stop grousing me. i thought this was kind of bizarre. i started to google it and saw that there was a lot of this kind of going on and that at the epicenter of the debt collection in general in the united states was buffalo. so i had it in my head that i was going to do a story actually from the collector's perspective what is it like to collect debt and what is your life like. so i pitched the story to the new yorker, just kind of bare bones saying what you think about this command i could probably get somebody to talk to me and that is 5,000 words when can you get me a copy.

>> that is a look at the top books of 2014. for a link to the fullest and to see other publication selections from it is that the booktv website, booktv.org.

>> host: arthur brooks, one of her favorite people in the biggest influences, charles murray. >> guest: a scholar at the american enterprise institute who has written voluminously on so many different topics. he wrote the first book about welfare reform. charles murray's work ended up going back to, you know, i think that we talked about this quite a lot. the book is called losing ground. it is written in 1984, and it basically made this one profound point. charles murray said the problem in the welfare system is not that it wastes so much money, which invaded rules the life of the people that we are trying to help by making them permanently dependent on the state. this is such an important point that people agree left and right and it is beyond contention at this point. he has a visionary ability to

get some major ideas across and it is a privilege to be working with him. >> host: it was pretty controversy over when you go to the bell curve. >> guest: the essential point of the bell curve, the controversy is that these were some of the work that he did where he talked about the differences with respect to race, but that wasn't his central point. the central point that he was making is the class is disproportionately starting to revolver out of the difference is people have in their ability to perform cognitively and that the class society is immoral and un-american and it's hurting the way that we are setting up our country. so that was the central point that he was trying to make in the book. the book that he's coming apart in 2012 which didn't look at race at all if looked at only the differences only on one side which was white america. the reason he did that was to not look at race and to say we are organizing in a way that is leaving the bottom behind. we need to bring the fullness of

american society and opportunity. we need to do that more aggressively. >> host: numbers are on the screen if you want to talk to our guest. president of the american enterprise institute and the author of these policy books. who really cares, the surprising truth about the compassionate conservatism, it came out in 2006. gross national happiness. why happiness matters for america and how we can get more out of that came out in 2008. the battle how the fight between big government and free enterprise will shape america's future into the road to freedom is the most recent account to win the fight for free enterprise that came out in 2012. you also list is in friedman and saint john paul to as some of your favorite people are biggest influences. >> guest: these are economical fingers if you think of john paul the great, john paul to the

great pope. he's helped us understand a better rule today because he's been of the central figures about bringing down. as the head of the roman catholic church was responsible for reminding people around the world of human dignity was not consistent with communism. what a baby catholics are not christians or religious people were not come human dignity as human dignity. >> host: since napoleon, the west has caused more issues than salt.

>> guest: i think that people would have said that about many places in the world are currently. they don't have the potential to develop policies whether the minorities are not systematically repressed where you can have a religious pluralism that's a mistake it's not just -- it is a mistake historically. we have to have good policy but

i also believe that we need to be optimistic. >> host: what is your initial reaction? >> guest: my initial reaction is that he says a lot of different things. and as a presidential candidate he has to be sort of every place i think that -- i would like to welcome him to aei. >> host: has he ever spoke their? >> guest: he is a smart guy and it's a good stage for him. >> host: i'm going to combine his because they are semi-related to the philosophically related. number one is free enterprise would allow the churches or organizations to operate

tax-free followed by the minimum wage versus the tax loophole for the rich. >> guest: that is exactly right. it doesn't mean that you should before the minimum wage because again it's not >> 's it's the biggest rays drops for the most vulnerable and we have a better policy. that is inconsistent with what the framers of the current policies believe. the belief that religious communities are part of a good society they are a public good and so therefore it is a nonprofit activity. they are not everybody else has to agree with that but that is the philosophy that motivated in the first place. >> we don't need a term limits for politicians. we need term limits for the abuse of the abusive to the abuse of think that enjoyed lifetime appointments. >> guest: again, one of the

things -- i understand the sentiment. i get it. washington, d.c. i'm sometimes outraged as well. i know a lot of people work for the government who have done so for a very long time and they are faithful public servant working really hard. one of the great things the right has made his prescribing bureaucrats as necessarily lazy or incompetent. if you do that, do no good servants will go into public service and if you do that you will get a left-wing bureaucratic apparatus forever. i think that we have to recognize the public service is a good and dignified thing to do. of course there are great recent bureaucracies and their cuts. there is waste, fraud and abuse ridden through the government. there's a lot we need to do to reform it, but i need more, smart, principled and conservative people to consider careers in government so that we can have a better point of view

that isn't just simply another progressive constituency. and that is one of the biggest problems america faces. >> host: your book wrote it to freedom is wonderful and i really appreciate your having produced an audio book area i commute three hours a day and listen to it twice. freedom comes first, even before justice. >> guest: a three-hour commute i hope that isn't too many miles so you're not sitting in traffic and you get a little bit of freedom your self. there are a lot of people that honestly be the. but honestly be the. when you look at the american policy, the values they are basically three. exigency, justice or fairness and freedom or liberty.

and the truth of the matter is that you can't load on one or more of these things. we want all three but certain people pay for some over the others. we need public policies that respect the different values that people have and we all want fairness and belief efficiency is a good thing but it's critically important. their voices tend to be on the libertarian side. so understanding those differences help us to be a little bit more tolerant and people that disagree than people that disagree with us thanks for helping us read the book. >> host: you mention you are working on a fifth book. >> guest: it will be called the conservative park the whole idea is the vision of human foraging. a human movement that puts people first especially vulnerable people first. it will talk about the sanctification of ordinary work. it will talk about a new policy that a a policies for improving

the lives of people that are poor in the cultural bias on the political right are people that are poor and it will talk about a better life for everybody for their families and happiness. this is what the conservative heart is all about and the conservative movement has fallen down by talking about economic efficiency and materialism too much. and thinking about how to share it with more people than how to be more pluralistic pluralistic in our view is and how more explicitly moral in our language about id. and opportunity is the way to go. so i'm hoping to have some sort of an impact on the policymakers and on the citizens and bring us all together around these humanistic values that can lift other people up. >> host: so you are leaving after four books. >> guest: basic has been very wonderful to me, but i that i went to or collins mainly because my editor is adam bellow can use the son of the great author. he is one of the most storied editors in the movement.

and i always wanted to work with him. >> host: john in new york city you are wrong with arthur brooks. >> caller: thank you very much to c-span and mr. brooks i appreciate your views especially on the poor. two quick questions. do you ever still play around with both mozart come and number two, you hear politicians talking abut the need for tax breaks for the job creators and then the ball straight journal reports on how many large corporations like wal-mart can have their employees don't make enough to live on and they have to go on public assistance and food stamps and i know you were on this earned income tax credit

but what about the people that are going to pay their employees on how much to? thank you. >> guest: on mozart, first i don't play anymore and the reason i don't play the horn anymore if i'm out of shape and i don't have the chops for it. so i listen a lot, particularly with my kids i enjoy great music and i enjoy other people's suffering while they play music more than i enjoy my own self suffering through a lot of these great pieces. when it comes to paying a fair wage, i understand the sentiment. what can i see corporations that make a lot of money. while the executives coming at me have employees that are really on the edge. the problem that we see is what a lot of the corporations, they are hiring people that have a hard time earning in value more than that. that is the reason that as a society we need to be able to say that we want to improve the capacity of people to create value. we don't want to pretend people

are creating more value than they are. we want them to create more value. the way to do that is through capital enhancement, better education and the near-term eking working more as a contract with us as americans. now, that is good to come from everybody. it's disproportionately going to come from the corporations because they pay the most taxes and that is okay. but if we actually go to the corporations and say from now on you have to pay coming yes but some of these guys they don't create much value. it's not going to hire them and nothing that we do in a free society is going to make them want these people more. and so that is the practical problem that we need to solve and that's what i'm going to get into. other corporations that only hire people that do create more value from the get-go they pay a lot more than the minimum wage. the pioneer organizations in the area is hobby lobby pushes and super famous because of that. but hobby lobby is paying 12 to $15 hour to start on us or you can do that you will be hiring

different workers. and we want to make sure that everybody is capable of creating more value. and that should be the kind of moral goal that we have in society. >> host: you have to be in good shape to play the french foreign? >> guest: your lips have to be in good shape. spend a couple of months not playing it pretty soon you're not going to sound so good. >> guest: i was happy in barcelona because i was in love. i chased the woman that i meant when met tonight is when i was playing a concert on the tour in france, she didn't speak any english but i figured she wasn't french, she was from barcelona. and i went to barcelona and a half% because i didn't show enough commitment she would agree to marry me. the good news. there was a great source of happiness and a singular source of joy in my life.

playing at the orchestra was not really my cup of tea. it sounds like the best job ever but the trouble is when you play in the symphony orchestra you lack a lot of control. it is pure social control. and i have a tendency to have a trouble with authority so it wasn't the best job for me. >> host: at about the atmosphere of barcelona. are the people have the? >> guest: spain is one of the unhappiest and it's been going the wrong direction for 25 years. spain is less happy than they were 25 years ago. some of the stereotypes that we have the lighthearted hippie standards are actually wrong and there are a bunch of different reasons for that. a member to the family, community and work in the foregoing are wrong direction on all four, particularly work. 26% unemployment and 56% from 56% for young adults. that is just young people trying

to be in the workforce to look for jobs. this is the recipe for misery. you have a secularized society that has been hugely socialistic taking away a lot of opportunities. the result has been bad macroeconomic policies, and the environment that isn't very noble for citizens, for the talent and passion they don't meet very well in the workforce and the result is if they think the standards are happier than they actually are. it's a lot of reform that needs to happen in the country to get them on the right track. >> host: the phone lines are currently jammed but if you would like to ask a question on social media booktv is the better handle. you can make a comment on the facebook page facebook.com/mac book tv. and finally you can send him e-mail at c-span.org. thanks for holding. you are on with arthur brooks. >> caller: i was going to comment about wal-mart also and

i don't know why the united states is ground for the company like wal-mart to pay their workers so low while the owners are billionaires and the taxpayer subsidizes their workers when they can very much afford to pay their workers decently. and when the last gentleman talked about that, i don't believe arthur brooks addressed why the working man taxpayer and working woman in taxpayer has to subsidize the other businesses like that. and please come address this specific thing. by the united states is a ground for that. and also, why after the colony collapsed, all since then have gone to 1% of the population. why is it ground for the feudal

system? >> guest: i wish i lived in a place called limerick or sonic or something like that. i lived in bethesda. the wal-mart question isn't whether or not the owners of the large stockholders and the executives make a lot of money. they do. and if they choose to give to charity i think it's great and important and i hope they do. the key is remembering if you start out a lot of those come in the income that they had it will make hardly a dent in the workforce that ends up to the millions. what we need is the workforce where they are creating more value for wal-mart comes from the get-go they can be earning a higher wage. so, instead of trying to put all of our energy towards forcing our corporations to spread around more money, which would inevitably lead to cutting off more jobs for people that are marginal in the value that they are creating to find a way for people to create more value and in the meantime, let's end from the tax revenues find ways to

make more and pay more to the people that are going to pay a vast majority of the taxes are rich people and corporations can and that's okay. i think is as a public contract we should be able to do that. >> host: which of your books have sold the best? >> guest: the road to freedom was on the bestseller list for a while and i'm grateful to that. i'm grateful for that. and some others were sort of surprising. the first commercial book that i wrote, which is actually the fifth book that i wrote i guess it is a good one who cares about the charity a professor at syracuse university. i wrote a stick book and found myself in the radio on television and people bought it and in relatively large numbers changed very abruptly. if someone were to pick up one of her books which one would you recommend? >> guest: i favorite book, and

they were not written by me. the favorite book that i've written that meant us to be as gross happiness. it didn't sell the most, but it's one that i -- i learned a lot about with my own personal values are. the book i'm writing right now is sort of closest to how i see the world and what i think we can do to make a better world together as a social contact. >> host: wayne is in, not iowa. hello. are you with us? i think he's gone. let's try telling an albuquerque >> caller: yes, hello. thank you for taking my call. and i was going to ask something else that he keeps using this phrase "creating more value."

as the clerks in wal-mart aren't really creating value of the way that it's structured and they get paid it certainly seems to deny the value that they are giving and doing and doing their jobs. and the phrase, creating more value, it sounds like a think tank phrase for me. we've used it many times. i haven't counted it, but i do not think that it's really articulate. so if you could talk to that and also reparations for people who are definitely enslaved in the country that created value. >> guest: creating value may sound like a think tank, that it may have some correlations between the two. when i talk about value, we can talk about economic value and

non- economic value. when i took that earned success, i don't mean making money. that isn't what i mean at all. creating value with your life and the lives of other people which is a deeply moral thing to do. i don't think that there is any difference whatsoever between the guy that runs the hedge fund and somebody that trims hedges. on the contrary, anybody that believes that there is any value difference in the deep oral value between anybody that is an honest days work in any java versus any other is on the wrong track. and that is the reason by the way. i heard the vice president on national tv talk about the dead-end jobs. it offended me so much coming initiative and everybody that is watching us today. we should reject that. there are no dead-end jobs. there are dead-end politicians. there is a dead-end culture committed and policies but there are no dead end jobs because there are no dead-end people. if you are giving an honest days work it is critically important. that's why i want policies.

again, take away the idea that somehow we are going to browbeat organizations. let's be practical. we know that people on the work and honest day of work they should be able to support themselves and their families. we all agree on that. the question is how do we make it so. we have policies that can get it done. but we are not doing it because we are trying to score political points. so let's fight for working people. let's fight for the poor. let's implement the policies that will actually get that done, which incidentally will also be disproportionately paid for by rich people and corporations. what do today and we will see tremendous progress in the social justice in america. >> host: crazy e-mails to you has a solution for the high cost of a college education? do you need a college education to get a job, please do not tell me manufacturing jobs are coming back. >> guest: manufacturing jobs are not coming back. manufacturing is a good percentage of the value of the

american economy than it was 30 years ago but it is one eighth of the jobs. you are right. it's just less job intensive as a part of the economy. education is critically important coming, and we need a couple of different reforms. ..

thomas edison state college in new jersey. i did my whole college degree by correspondence and finish what i was 30, which i mentioned earlier. if it hadn't been for that competition i would've gone to college. i simply would've been foreclosed on the opportunity. i had a deep personal reason for a different path that will exert downward pressure on the tuition rate for traditional college students as well. >> host: potty mouth into questions. i was surprised to see mr. burks challenge the orthodoxy of the influence of politics. what should be done to address the oversized influence of money? >> guest: i am not as worried as a lot of people are about what money is doing in politics. i want a lot of transparency. i want people to know what is going on and i want less of the

weird regulations that help certain people but don't help others. i think there is a lot to be said for free speech have manifested the way repay for politics, but we should actually understand who is paying for what. in the political process we can get with more transparency that would be good for the process. >> host: paul second question. economists say for everyone in the world to live like americans, it would require three or four more planets. is the american system, the american standard of living scalable? >> guest: it is. the american system is scalable. there's a lot of facts that were really surprising to people. if you make within $34,000 a year, you are the global 1%. people don't actually recognize that. virtually everyone watching us today from the global 1%. you may not get to that standard for more people around the world? of course not. that's ridiculous.

they would be written off for data and are now making $9000.10000 a year. places like baby yet that are tremendous success stories have been able to get ahead without the idea will consume all the resources. until relatively recently, historically, several hundred years ago, the truth is it either had more money, arthur would have less. free enterprise made a positive somewhat where peter can a positive somewhat where peter can have more anarchic enough war. should reduce sustainably? of course. we can do well to think simultaneously. we have a strong ethical economy and we all can be more prosperous together. that is the lesson of the free enterprise system. a couple of quick facts. when i was a kid in 1970 compared to today, the percentage of the worlds world's population living on a dollar or day less, 70% of americans think

there's more hunker the world then there was the 70s. it's completely wrong. 80% decline in the poverty. the reason for that was not the united nations for the world bank for the imf. good institutions are bad. people disagree on that. was five things. it was globalization, free trade, property rights, the rule of law and american-style entrepreneurship is spread around the world after 1970. these are facts. now what are we going to do as good stewards and global brotherhood to bring that to more people. instead of saying we all have tickets and less, we all have to live under more austerity as if there was a solemn, a set amount of sources that we can never go beyond. that is wrong. prosperity can grow when more people can come out of poverty and we have a moral obligation to do it to serve fellow man. this is the optimistic vision that the american system should

bring in liberals and conservatives should band together on sr compact of global brotherhood of people around the world. >> host: chris, huntsville, alabama. please go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: hello, gentlemen. how are you doing? thank you for c-span. mr. burks, i just want to tell you that i am a fan of milton friedman as well. i read several of his books have watched a lot of black-and-white from back in the day when he was talking about the economy. in the middle eastern country as well as india. he weighs showing how an economy can be with people working together. how could we bring that blueprint from that kind of world to the ghetto in the ghetto in low-income parts of this country and put it in that we can do with a argument over

there was little or nothing. >> host: chris, what do you do in huntsville? >> guest: construction mainly, but due to the weather it is kind of slow right now. >> host: what attracted you to milton friedman? >> caller: basically the way that if the system can help people that don't have a voice economically, that it benefits all and it is something that is good. you don't have to worry about dependent on welfare and food stamps because we can do for ourselves. >> guest: thank you, chris. how was it that we have world development policies that are so good and potentially rwanda or transition economies, but where so much trouble and around cities. for that matter in rural areas that i left behind as well.

the key things to remember or we know how to create prosperity. we know how to do that. you need work and unique human capital and culture. that is what you really need. you need a work culture that embraces the values that we are all created equally and created a sql and that we could all create value again. i use it again so our viewers keeping a word count. i said it again. we need a culture where we have a political system where politicians are warriors for job creation. this is one of the things i like about governors because governors are crazy -- i just create a 7000 jobs. they will run down the street if they can get 7000 jobs to come to their state. what will they do more of? before my feet hit the floor every morning, i say what am i going to do for the government system is in the way of that.

when a debate bias job creation and unique human capital. i think it is holding people back that they are being discriminated against when it comes to having good schools and equal access to education. it is not right in this country that we have too many places where school systems around for nearly for the benefit of grown-ups enough for kids. it is absurd we are doing that. california were 52% is spent on education yet you have one of the highest and fastest growing poverty rates in the nation. we actually can if we have a bias for work on a healthy culture and for training cave for training kate doesn't matter their basic civil rights. post go arthur brooks, sometimes the 7000 jobs that a politician creates, tax incentives, tax breaks come in maybe free something or others. is that an effective way to

create jobs? >> guest: i am always in favor of finding the way for government to take less money. i know the government needs the revenue. but when there's competition with respect to taxes between states, that's a good team because i'm that there's more economic value being created privately, which is better for the economy, which if things work right better for everybody. when there is cronyism however that's a problem. special deals come in the special industries where they're able to get a leg up on their competition here that is struggling a problematic and that's what a lot of states with you. bring your source to my area. your competition will have to pay taxes, but you are. that is cronyism and unfair and bad for workers, bad for economies and bad for government as well. post of those types of incentives, which classified those as you do in "the road to freedom" with government activity? >> guest: yeah, i want tax

regimes more favorable to everybody that create a magnetism for economic activity is supposed to targeted tax breaks for individuals. >> host: fargo, north dakota. as an atheist as mr. brooks suggests that makes it to be happy. atheists and people of faith may or may not be happy for various reasons. freedom from religion would improve my chances of happiness. post go i would recommend religion. he's an atheist but he understands the beneficial impact of spirituality in everybody's life. as an atheist you are not for close to the same benefits that i is a practicing christian look at. good luck. thanks for your question. >> host: larry, centralia, washington. good afternoon to you. >> caller: thank god for c-span and booktv. my favorite weekend programming. my question for dr. brooks. the heritage foundation versus

aei, can you compare the two against each other and the second question would be as it the opinion of the citizens united decision in the mail a request for donations from my party. i quit sending anything because it's just like adding a cup of water to the pacific ocean compared to citizens united. >> host: larry, we will get that. if you could share your opinion or what you know about aei and the heritage foundation, what you think. >> caller: when i watch c-span and anytime there's someone on heritage foundation selling a book or some thing, it is so far right-wing that i i can hardly sit through the whole program and aei i noticed that during his tenure as secretary of state, his wife was ordered a

job at aei. i am not sure about that. >> host: thank you, sir. we will get arthur brooks' views. >> guest: thank you for that. i grew up in seattle and then through their all the way through my childhood. i know it well. the heritage foundation has been around since the 1970s. aei was formed in the late 30s. aei is more academic. the heritage foundation has been more professional for the conservative movement. so they've had a different action to route the year. i've been a donor for both for a long time. they do different things as a matter of fact. aei, my institution does not corporate policy. if you think it's today or not the official views because aei doesn't have official views. 70 full-time scholars and 145 on top of that and so our views are more like a university than it

is like policy advocacy organizations. the heritage foundation has views that are central to the corporation and that is how they will be affect it. they are quite different along these lines. >> host: colin powell, i think he meant dick cheney. >> guest: when cheney has a wonderful book that came out last year, a biography of madison. i recommend it to everybody because it tells us something about what a great and independent thinker to help us remember the original conception of what it meant to be an american dreamer from the get-go. >> host: has almost powell been involved with aei? >> guest: no, she hasn't. but when cheney and other public figures are privileged to be involved throughout the years. >> host: larry also asked. there's a lot of legitimate disagreement on it. it doesn't necessarily bother me

that we have more of a competition of money between them. somebody who is sending them five or $75 check is going to be a smaller percentage of the sun that goes into it. that means they have an opportunity to affect the debate in different ways. i might note that a good thing to do is to support think tanks, for example i'm a witch as if a $75 check instantly. >> host: dear fisher, facebook page. mr. brooks, both born babe has so much as stated by performers of our tax system should look to taxing us when we spend wealth, not when it's served. those on to talk about the fair tax act. >> host: the idea of consumption taxes. for those who are want just enough to look at the website of think things, i recommend going to aei.org and look at our tax specialists. he's written a book on consumption taxation called the ex-tax. all that means is you don't have

to pay taxes on the money you save. but when you take money out, when you spend it, do you thought you consume you have to pay taxes on. there have appropriate ways of protecting poor people from taxation. it's a much worse is the way to design our tax system. if we did that, we would see the stronger economic growth and greater tax fairness. >> host: greta post that you should run for president in 2016 if for no other reason than to get your message before the public. >> guest: thank you so much. the question is is america ready for the president. i think not. >> caller: yeah, thank you. i was wondering if you had the insider overview or thoughts on the permanent dividends at the oil revenues and disperse dividends every year. all of the residents they are. it's pretty intriguing they been able to keep this going for so

many years. >> host: what do you think of that? >> guest: i think it's pretty good. it's the government handling the people's resources and returning it to them. it's amazing they can invest in i wish everybody could do that. just go the key to that is you need to be free big natural resource, have very few citizens per square mile and have the tap never turn off. it's a little hard to scale with the whole united states. saudi arabia has done that, norway, extractive industries have done that. and nonfree countries, it's the kiss of death quite frankly. and extractive industries and nonfree countries, you've been supporting populations on the basis of modern success but on the basis of natural resources can be really dangerous. fortunately in america we can do better in alaska has shown it doesn't have to be terrible. >> host: ronald is calling from west lafayette, indiana. are you associated with purdue?

>> guest: >> caller: yes, i am. >> host: and the student ecological science and engineering. >> host: go ahead with your question or comment. >> guest: i have a two-part question. but i'm thinking about distribution and supply and demand. i would like to know, i do think you would improve everyone had access to nutritious food? akamai, how do you think the american food system of government would be effective if government supports the programs like snape and corn and soybeans if they were replaced by an income tax credit performers are absolutely free enterprise and see what happens. but he or on that? >> host: what are your thoughts first, ronald? >> guest: well, i don't know. i think there is a large debate about replacing some of the pro-program especially since now takes up 80%.

the usda program bills. technically the supply and demand side of it. if you remove, it makes it difficult. some of the same people with corn and soybean would end up in the same with fruits and vegetables because it's difficult to grow fruits and vegetables, especially to make it cheap. >> host: ronald, what do you hope to do with your degree in ecological science? >> guest: eventually, continue research into a little more because it's difficult to work on the wife and how when you don't get the wife. so disciplinary research in the future. to think about how to format because each active research is fundamentally political in a resource constrained world which we live in. >> host: >> guest: thank you. you are the expert and i just

learned from hearing you talk and appreciated very much. one thing i want other viewers to know is the what and how important but the wise critical. that is true in every area of policy. it's true for each one of us to think about why we are doing what we are doing. this is such a big deal in policy work that i believe essential to the work we do at aei. on food security, it is absolutely true mission of social entrepreneurs working more and more to have basic food and water security for people all over the world and do it now would be an unambiguously good thing because this debate to more global prosperity and human accomplishment. people who are starving who have nutritional needs are people who simply cannot run their success. so that's a good thing to do. in the united states, the security to the snap program is critically. i see no data to dissuade me of the idea we should be cutting for fundamentally altering food

stamps. the cost would outweigh the benefits of doing so. that said, we need to detach them from the system of arms subsidies that is distorting markets and making foodstuffs more expensive than it should be, most especially for the poor get farm subsidies or something politically difficult thing to change. if we look at human welfare and basic fairness, this is something we absolutely need to do. in the farming community, let it tell you, they want to get rid of these things. you can't do it for the competition and not themselves. they want a fair system that levels the playing field for everybody. when i talked to producers, energy producers of ethanol, they tell me privately, let's get rid of the small subsidies. that will normalize the corn market. it will make it cheaper as a source of food and at the same time if you get rid of the energy subsidies, we should be getting rid of oil subsidies and when subsidies and energy subsidies as well. the best forms of energy will

obtain. in equilibrium, we do need more free enterprise, particularly for the case of jobs and opportunity of growth for poorest americans. >> host: springfield, georgia. dr. brooks mentioned pope john paul ii. what are his views on the current pope is the current pope is used to. very antithetical to dr. brooks? >> guest: the current pope is a marvel. more people are attending all over the world than ever before and after so-called catholic or somebody sympathetic come you think that's a great name. the current holy father is argentine. he's not been exposed to american capitalism. when he thinks of capitalism, he thinks that what is going on in argentine today. 100 years ago argentina was the richest and the entire hemisphere. they've been in the process is under development because of cronyism, big government statist on. all on.

all the things i've been regretting over the past two hours on this program has been in huge abundance of large enough. it's no wonder the current pope who comes from the system sees capitalism through that lens. all of the united states progressives and conservatives benefited so very much from the rule of law and property rights to believe that free enterprise can lift people up. we all think these things that we have an opportunity to help them understand how the american dream can be much more for human dignity and lifting people up. it's the best opportunity. >> host: marianna skeleton from pittsburgh. hello, mary. >> host: mag is going to remind you to turn down the volume otherwise there's a little bit of a delay. david in phoenix. we are listening david in phoenix. david, are you with us? david is not with us.

and let's try another pittsburgh call. this is joseph in pittsburgh. joseph, we are listening. >> caller: thank you. i wanted to ask dr. brooks now with the contract with harpercollins, i'm pretty sure that's owned by rupert murdoch holdings. what is your opinion of rupert murdoch? >> guest: thank you for your question. the chairman rupert murdoch. i know him personally. he loves his country. he's so happy to be in the united states. he's so happy for the freedom papering said he's been a transformational person and media all over the world. so to see somebody and and a word i admire him. >> host: , california. >> caller: hello? >> host: hi, bob.

>> caller: hi, good morning. it is still morning out here. i want to ask dr. brooks, recruit by taking jobs from europe and now china is growing by taking jobs from the united states. how do you continue with the system of taking jobs from one set of people to another set of people and still maintain some sort of middle class. >> guest: thank you for that. the import thing to keep in mind, the important point that you are making that want to underscore is any change doesn't just have winners. when you have fundamental economic change, people lose out as well and a good economic system in a good social system recognizes people will lose than win and you have to deal with those losing. the thing that i want to correct is we didn't just take jobs from

europe. we created new jobs to the free enterprise system, which is to create a system of greater abundance. when china becomes freer, free enterprise as opposed to capitalism can create economic opportunity without destroying the opportunity in this case. in the united states however, jobs to move. they move to parts of the world in the process of developing where we were before. if we do with that in way that doesn't leave people behind come you can't just ignore people. you can't soak them up as public assistance. you have to get serious about education, human capital development and we have not done that. i go to a little town in kentucky the company factory in the town has been checked out a new you want to moloch, honduras or someplace in asia. a lot of people are unemployed. generally speaking, a doctor will start writing and giving

diagnoses of back pain and other things so that people can subsist on $900 a month in disability. that's a reason over 11 million americans are on permanent this ability because of economic dislocation. the highest in our history and the last six years since we've been living for americans behind. at the same time, i go across to north dakota. we've been talking about wal-mart and the show. the average salary for stocking shelves at $17 an hour. that is three markets that were. why is that we don't have relocation subsidies? by don't be a greater remission so people with less opportunity to be paired up with places where there's more opportunity? why don't we retrain people and move them? it's consistent with america's culture. all of us sitting here and watching, our families didn't start out here. someday. but the vast majority didn't do that.

they came from someplace else. we need to eat those of opportunity and a government culture that can facilitate and help it more. >> host: from the road to freedom, prime minister margaret thatcher is reported to have said that the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other peoples money. that is the road america is headed down now. aida, pennsylvania appeared you were on the air. >> caller: thank you very much for your program and for your present speaker. i just adore everything he said. many tell you about myself. i'm a registered libertarian. every pictures on my windowsill. each says work is the only thing that dignifies the man and i thank you for the things you've mentioned to help me in my argument and people say the good old days are gone. you've given so many examples of how we've improved and i hope my friends were listening.

secondly, please tell me how i can be more of an activist. how can i inspire that although my two children are grown not been very successful. but they are not activists and neither am i. i want to be more active. i want you to try and inspire that. it's a message you get with us. we have to inspire everybody. get the people i bought this not doing their job. >> host: ada, give us a quick snapshot of your life before today. >> caller: anglo-saxon. i'm of italian heritage and i grew up in brooklyn and philadelphia and i went to europe for four years to 19 orting nine to 1953. i met my husband there and we had a great buys. he's dead now so that's okay because he was a great has-been. please tell us how to be more act is. how can we get our children to be more active?

>> guest: aid, if i can be like you when i'm 90, 90, that is really all i ask. the key to activism is remembering that each one of us belongs to communities and each one of us is blessed in these communities. look, if more 90-year-old people in the united states were talking like you, the people at your windowsill, work brings people to dignity. this is unambiguously true. remember the experiences you had in your life, the wisdom you bring in the comments he even if you can find ways in your particular community to share these ideas, that is how ideas spread in the united states. in the current vernacular, that is how things go viral. each one of the season ourselves as a leader. we have a pivotal role in taking. who do i touch with him i can share these views? that's what leadership stars. thank you. god bless you. >> host: david, phoenix, you

are on the air. >> caller: i watch tim geithner on your network a few months ago and had to turn them off before i had a stroke. so i would like to hear from a very intelligent defender and reformer of the system holidays. i mean, i accept too big to fail. why couldn't the individuals responsible for running those institutions in the ground have received savage punishment? maximum-security, confiscation of absent and how can the system ever regain credibility as they keep getting away with it? >> guest: thank you for your question. the reason i was too big to fail and the reason we had t.a.r.p. in the bailout are things people are alarmed about morally is because there was so much fear. economists didn't know whether or not the atm machines were going to stop working. i don't mean atm machines for rich people. i mean for you and me.

that is something that stimulated both among republicans and democrats the will to do something like t.a.r.p. when there was -- when there were activities that were improper, when there was this legal and moral impropriety, we need rectification. we need a responsibility. to the extent we haven't done it in a sense be as much as anybody else. who needs to fight for that? conservatives, not just progresses. stand up for fairness and say it's not right when somebody campbells is somebody else's money and they are rewarded from the air. i agree with you, but what we need is more public moral outrage that cronies will be able to wire around. >> host: run arthur brooks' book "the battle," the narrative about the financial book consists of five key claims.

one, government was not the primary cause of the 2008 economic crisis. two, the government understands the crisis that is how to fix it. three companies treat americans were nothing more than victims of the crisis. for crisis. four, the only way to save the economy is through massive government growth and deficit spending. inside, the middle class will not pay for the stimulus package. the rich will. >> guest: these are raw views we heard starting in 2008 in 2009. these things turned out to be false. the biggest one that we needed to keep in mind and i direct everybody's attention to my colleague anna peter wallace and his work housing in the financial crisis. the biggest thing we need to remember is that government housing policy that basically saying for decades now, democrats and republicans say full american citizenship requires buying a house through ball that people should not been

getting drove up the price of real estate, led to the bubble and melted the financial system. this is bad public policy. the worst part is we are doing it again. through the process of filling up these great big bubbles in financial markets again. we can look at malfeasance in our last caller pointed out that he was a real problem, but the private sector file in the public sector's lead down this path at the least let's not have government wrecks our economy for pete's sake. it is just common sense. >> host: peter wallace and has a new book coming out. >> guest: she does indeed he is basically a book in january that shows how the financial crisis proceeded. it takes you step-by-step. i know it's complicated. people throw up their hands and say i don't understand it. read the book right after the first of the year and you will be a lot smarter. >> host: in january, you will see peter wallace and on the

program for next year's "after words." >> caller: hello? >> host: we are listening. >> caller: hello, wow, i am really excited to be on here. thank you for being on c-span. i am a recent graduate from arizona state university and i am studying sociology. but my question is, what do you think future generations can do to help you have a more positive opportunistic lifestyle? >> guest: thank you very much. congratulations and good luck on your career. in many ways, this is the most exciting time because there is such a blank slate, desire for people to do good at a time after there's been a lot of suffering and i can tell already you will be real leader.

the key thing i recommend is this. think for yourselves. look, you know come easy for me to say here on the great c-span and tell you this is how you should be. think for yourself. this is what america needs. more young people not saying i'm a republican or democrat. or when i was in college my professors all top ministers a way to thing, but we are autonomous individuals. we have access to lots of information. remember as a generation of leaders that will save this country and commit morally and each person hominids on to sam going to form my ideology on the basis of what i think is right. if we have a generation of new leaders are freethinkers, will be on suit the powers that be? really dangerous for these vested interests because you could be the revolutionaries to

turn our country around. >> host: let's go back to the battle for a second. the political left understands the 30% coalition's appeal among young adults. it aggressively and successfully wooed them in the 2008 election campaign and plans to grow its coalition over time. there were three long-term strategies to keep the young and the 30% coalition you pay off the debt, give them government jobs and make sure they never have to pay for the services the government provides. >> host: there is always a strategy for people in power to bring people along and permanently into their coalition. the greatest source -- the greatest weakness that the entrenched powers have if people taken for granted granted is not being taken for granted. it's astonishing to me. there's this depression among conservatives. they say look, the world belongs to the left. how come? there are more and more

nonwhites. more and more single women that 18 to 29 more in favor of president obama and company. that is completely incorrect thinking. demography is not destiny. 75 years ago you couldn't find catholics to read together for the republican party yet today they are overwhelmingly republican. demography doesn't vested in any party or ideology to failure or success. what this tells us today and we can and hasten these patterns of destroying demographic destiny by asking people to think for themselves. so this could be the greatest time of the greatest nightmare for their side on the basis of what we do to improve the moral climate, creating more opportunities, all the things that those demographic groups have traditionally been left wing that would actually bring them to the philosophy that engenders the greatest human dignity. >> host: creech is in grand falls. good afternoon.

>> caller: good afternoon. it's a pleasure to speak with you both. big al from and know who for an earlier was asking about activism. i discovered a monument in plymouth, massachusetts that i never even existed and is even existed and is called a national monument to the forefathers. it turned 125 years old this year. it stands for faith, morality, law, education and literacy. it stands for civil and religious liberty. you know, make repairs for survivors of the armenian genocide. i grew up in a family where we had the family business. i am just so worried for our country and scared. for some reason this monument has been put on my heart and i've been trying to rally the troops around. i don't know if you have any

suggestions or can put me in touch with ada. >> host: this you found in plymouth, massachusetts? >> guest: yeah, if not down by the waterfront. it's up on the hill. the largest granite monument in the united states of america and it was built during the civil war and they had to kind of scale it down a little bit because it was hard to raise money at the time. the thing i find unbelievable and most americans have never heard of the monument before. i did neither. i'm 50 years old now and i was there in 2010. but over the past few years, and the work that i have and trying to do were spread about the monument, it is amazing how it has connected to americans from all over the country. this gives them hope. i don't know what to do. >> host: albright. >> guest: that's great.

i didn't know about the monument either, but is there anything more wholesome than what we just listened? these human values for that matter. so what can you do? part of it is the torture of your life. if you believe in these things, these bring most people to the happiest life. what greater joy for the people who need them the most. be a happy warrior. one of the big mistakes we make, that is pretty much everybody watching here today. you are watching c-span about public affairs, how do we exhort leadership? not hiding our views are more people. not hiding behind materialistic and economic language, but saying this is what brings the best life to the most people. whether the people i fight for what likes me or not, that is the beginning of a happy

warrior. that is what we can do. when we do that, are we ever going to be a strong name. >> host: faith and family. republicans have been passed or conservative profamily values. >> guest: they have. when you have sources of happiness, like faith and family, don't use them as a cudgel or a weapon someone else. it is absurd if you take the happiness and use it as a weapon. the difference between a force between a minority area oppositional force and a majoritarian joyful force is the first bytes against things from using weapons at its disposal. the second half before some other force that is winning is for people. how do you fight for people? by sharing the sources of business in your life. if you got something beautiful and good, do so in a positive humanistic way.

don't do it in a negative. tentacle that bashes people with your particular views. this is important. i want to share with you out of a sense of love. >> host: arthur burks, to current issues we have an address. the emigration in particular i strongly suspect will be much less of an issue or hot potatoes in 2016 that it is today. why? >> guest: part of it as president obama gave the republicans a great gift too through the executive order will slowly but surely taken out of the political discourse the republicans are masters possible for legislation. my guess is democrats will be very, very disappointed that president obama did this because they couldn't keep the immigration issue alive nearly as long since obama took this step. the second is the way of real immigration reform is going to take place is little by little.

over five years, there's about 30 things that need to get done and through legislation and policy action, the most important and least political objectionable can be taken piece by piece. the high skilled immigration reform, putting more engineers in the silicon valley. a guestworker program perhaps. in either of isis and so you know who's illegal and not illegal. little by little there will be positive progress and it will be much less controversial and 2016 that it is today. on same marriage, this is something there's a lot of controversy on the right. same-sex marriage is an issue where the right is just monument to a 100% against it. that is actually not true. there's a huge amount of dialogue on the right on this particular issue. rather than adjudicated not, but they tell you what we learn from this. 15 years ago, it was a 7030 issue. today to 6040.

the advocates for marriage equality stopped fighting against and started fighting for equal rights. doesn't matter what your views on this are. the lesson to take away when you stop fighting against things and start fighting for people, you prepare to start renaming your policy battle. >> host: linda in rutland, vermont. you are in booktv on c-span2 ways arthur brooks. >> dr. brooks, my question is more that you seem to be expires and the answers to many of our social else and our government isn't doing anything. is this because they are more interested in sustaining themselves than they are taking care of the country?

not understanding that sooner or later the country simply going to explode. >> guest: yeah, thank you. i appreciate the question. it is hard for me to be in the heart of policymakers and look at their motives. i can look at the fact we are not dealing with a lot of issues we need to. to begin with this much easier when you're not in government ticket solutions than when you are because the puka process is complicated to be sure. there's a bigger problem we need to deal with them that's leadership. leaders again to look at political coalitions and try to simply accumulate political power while bashing enemies. leadership is actually using power for a positive purpose. it is basically saying i will ask people to sacrifice and do hard danes. that is not what we have in washington d.c. we don't have leadership and a lack of executive leadership is what grind systems down.

i'm the president of a nonprofit organization. it's not the united states i understand. only a couple hundred people working full-time. but they tell you if i didn't think what are we trying to do? how do? how were we trying to move ahead? are we trying to help other people? if i did with my own capital, the organization would grind down. donors have stopped giving to us. we wouldn't have impact and how positive for some politicians in the hill and write good books and materials and have good offense. this is what is required in leadership all over the place. the number one thing we should regret is we have forgotten what leadership means that the executive level and that's the problem in the united states today. >> host: 15 minutes left with our guest in this month's "in depth." john, you are on the air. call co-are you doing, dr.? i wanted to talk about the situation of government

employees. the last number checked a few years ago was coming up on 30 million state, local and federal. they don't contribute anything. they don't produce anything whatsoever. it just can't be sustained. so instead of taking care of business, they are wondering what this for lunch. do you have any answers as far as that is concerned? it can't be sustained. >> host: thank you, sir. >> guest: there are a lot of government employees. that is unambiguously true. do they create a? i actually wouldn't quite agree her character as government employees is not creating good. we have cases where markets fail in private markets can't redress every wrong in our society. we have public goods. i wouldn't say that somehow police officers and firefighters and people and teachers are not

creating a whole lot of positive good. are there too many? yeah. if the government to good? absolutely. but we do about that? one tangible issue that's true than the expansion of government and government payroll and other public-sector unions. the whole idea that unions are bad is not right. the labor unions per se or really compatible with the free enterprise system, but they have to be able to exist in allen said the management of operations and they have to have an interest in not driving corporations out of business. when you collect is bargaining agreements between management and employees, they have to have an interest in making sure the company is prosperous. that's not the case because they don't have a budget constraint. when jon corzine was the governor of new jersey and when they got out the public-sector union instead of fighting for you, that would be the ceo of general motors saying it would have the wages.

i would not create a balance between the two. public sector units have a flexible budget constraint and it's your money as a taxpayer. furthermore they can use the funds to support political candidates who support the expansion of public-sector unions who effectively are paid for those political contributions with tax revenues. i understand how conservatives get bent out of shape. i would recommend that viewers get bent out of shape about that as well. >> host: e-mail, what does mr. brooks think about the recent column encouraging corporate boards to include labor representatives and community representatives. mr. myerson said this would help towards think or in terms of stakeholders and not peerless stockholders. what aei ever deliver such a topic for discussion or research? >> guest: he's a smart guy and i like him. i've been on panels with them in

the past. that is sort of the point. we have a corporate governance problem and the system is bringing more of labor representation and community representation on the board. i don't agree with that, but i do agree that a corporate governance, and alex pollock had aei has done a lot of good work on corporate governance. he talks about the fact they're simply not enough responsibility on corporate boards for the life of organizations and we need a different kind of responsibility. he had positive steps on how to do it. having an affirmative action for labor unions and community wraps, i think that would create a misalignment of incentives in dangerous ways to corporations that would ultimately hurt working people. i do agree that we have a problem with corporate governance in america today. >> host: sharon wants to know via e-mail how was your catholic faith inform your thinking? >> guest: as an formed by

thinking in the following way. when i do work on free enterprise, i remember free enterprise comes after morality. that is ethical thinking, secular ethical thinking as it happens to work. the values through my christian faith. remember, i try to remember that normality comes before markets. without a proper sense of brotherhood, of helping others, of honesty, of love that markets will be like any other system for good or for a period there will be some sort of an amoral machine. if we don't have a good view of how we try to help our fellow man, we don't help their fellow man and not with the disposal which in the united states should be the free enterprise system. >> host: educated, work 30 years. save at least 10% off through those years. invested most of my husbands life insurance.

all went down in 2008. had to retire in 2002 due to medical problem, not dependent on social security. there needs to be more controlled fund and keen and insurance companies need to be out of investment. >> guest: there's a lot of positive ideas on how to separate streams the investment. i'm so sympathetic and i hear the story again and again and it is not right what happens to working people in the country like our e-mail her here. but they probably had as the government system of housing that melted down our market and away we way we try to redress this and the longest term for a monetary policy that has blown up these equity markets yet again after e-mail order has gotten out of equity markets. or are you people work really hard. they get their life savings white south. we build up the stock market again through free money and guess where the money goes? the top 10%. somebody made a guess that 95% of the game is the top 1%.

81% of the wealthy since 2009 have gone to the top 10% of the income distribution. this is during an economic regime from a president who promised that wouldn't have been. what we have is the rich getting richer and the poor stack never getting poorer all the way back to 2009. we nine. would become two americas are one america is in full blue of recovery. 5% economic growth in the other side is zero or negative economic growth and wealth gains have come from policies making the rich richer. that should outrage us. that is not right that we have policies that do that. we need to fight back. as conservatives and progressives that say what am i going to do, the policies how people at the bottom so they an equal shot at the american dream. the inequality we talked about, the many discussions at elite

government levels. inequality is the enemy. opportunity and equality is the real problem. not income inequality and opportunity inequality is being driven i policies at the last six years. >> host: brenda and her window, you are on with arthur brooks. >> caller: hi, mr. tran for. you know you talked about too big to fail and we all comment on this. i wanted to ask you about iceland. they did not put money into their base implies their corrupt government was also dismantled and replaced. but why did we do something like that instead of giving the money today? they did it to get my second porridge. my neighborhood is gone. when they lost their homes, the

bank got paid. >> host: we've got the point, brenda. >> guest: thank you, brenda. iceland is a small country with 250,000 people. it was clear that in the seychelle economy based on a totally unstable speculative banking system. bottom line don't run your company like iceland did hear it if we had a country, we can crash like crazy in the united states and maintain some integrity. the problem is people like you in your neighborhood are the ones who got hurt a lot. when there is now part is, when people are running off money they didn't earn, people should be held accountable. i don't think there's any reason wished a special privileges because they are rich. either way, i think because you are not rich doesn't mean you should be held accountable. between 25% 50% of people who lost their homes foreclosed on their homes voluntarily. to combat this.

this is work that comes from the university of chicago that talked about voluntary foreclosure. a lot of people, millions of millions of people turned their keys into the bank, and continue to pay their mortgage because they were upside down and it was not in their interest to do so. all of the should regret which people, middle class people. >> host: glitzier from charlene via e-mail. i am amazed that ucs is comparable with the european social democracies. those countries have universal health care at lower cost. reasonable accommodations for working families with small children. they test higher than us at all educational levels. they've levels. there the better% of full-time jobs with decent benefits. they have a good business environment for smaller discrepancy between the house and have-nots. how can you possibly draw the conclusion which he did? >> guest: i would recommend our e-mail or move to europe.

it sounds great. go do that. that's a good idea. good luck finding a job in fitting into society and learning the language. the truth of the matter is in the united states, we are the ones soaking up the entrepreneurs from europe. there's still entrepreneurial migration from young people looking for opportunities because of the dynamic society to rework people more. are we good enough? absolutely, not. i lived in europe for a long time and let me tell you, the food is good, the weather is great. that i prefer with respect to opportunity to live in the united states and people are voting with their feet and agree with me. my wife is an immigrant from spain. she's grateful every day. when she came to the united states, we had no money. she spoke very little english. we were buried she would have opportunities. she had four job offers in her first month or this is the

greatest of the world for people who want to work. it was a profound moment for me. she worked for three years at three years at a minimum wage job and we needed our work and we needed our work and neither one of us thought that was a dead-end job and we are grateful for it. again, can we do better? for sure. don't give me your because i don't want to. >> host: arthur brooks is an author, social scientists, happiness expert and president of the american enterprise institute. @arthurbrooks is his twitter handle if you would like to follow him. ..

now on booktv, the before columbus foundation presents the winners of the 35th annual american book awards in san francisco, california. >> thank you very much. my name is justin, i'm the chairman of the board of directors before columbus. and i want to thank our friends here at sf jazz for their sponsorship of this afternoon's awards, and my colleagues on the bo