that matter: three decades of passions, pastimes and politics," comes in sixth on politico's list. in seventh, former secretary of state henry kissinger shares his take on international affairs if "world order," and in eighth, james risen's book. next is a collection of mark steyn's columns from the national review, and wrapping up the list, peter zion argues that the global system is going to experience an extreme reorganization in "disebl superpower." that's this week's list of nonfiction bestsellers according to politico. >> russ roberts talks about adam smith's take on human nature and his writings on the pursuit of the happiness. this is about 50 minutes. ..

adam smith is probably the second best thing to come out of scotland. the first isn't golf. but you man know about his famous book, the wealth of nations. you may know he was a free trader and he may have heard of the invisible hand. what i want to talk about tonight is smith's other boat, "the theory of moral sentiments"

i want to give you an insight into his economics and apply them to modern life. what i want to do tonight is give you an idea of what adam smith can teach us about ourselves and the world around us. i want to start with the story, i was in london last week, i think it was last week. it was this year for sure. it was a whirl wind trip. had a great time. never been in london before. i gave a talk at a place called the will society of arts. the royal society of arts is very old. the use to be called the royal society for encouraging manufacturing, the arts and commerce. now is called the royal society of arts and it is to create creativity and ideas and it is a wonderful place. i was giving a talk there and before i gave my talk, i went to

the side and they put up the bring, and there were cookies in drinks and often the corner is the only interesting thing in the room and the corner is an enormous green leather chair. it is is this wide with beautiful wooden arms, this gorgeous carving around the top end it says boat presidential chair was designed by william chambers. i looked him up. he is a famous architect of his day. he designed somerset house, ridiculously enormous building a few blocks from where i was talking and he designed this chair. the president's share, 1759. i got excited for two reasons. 1759 was the first years that the theory of will sentiments -- "the theory of moral sentiments" was published and adam smith was

a member of the royal society of arts. it was possible that adam smith had sat in this very share in 1759 when his book came out, the book i was writing about and i was excited. what could be fun to sit in this chair, the same chair, my bottom could sit in the same place adam smith's bottom has also been. but there was a sign that said do not sit in the chair. but there was no one in the room. so what did i do? i want to suggest two things. first, that adam smith has a deep understanding of why i wanted to sit in that chair which is fundamentally a little peculiar and whether i sat in the chair or not.

and think about whether you would have set in the chair or i am an economist, perhaps i sat in the chair or maybe i didn't. understand, the psychology of this on want to tell a story from my book and c smith's insights into celebrity. you think in 1750 there couldn't be that much celebrity, a cable-tv, no talk shows, no magazines but this -- smith was aware how compulsively and obsessively interested we are in famous people, and from modern times, what helps at smith's in sight, ted williams, perhaps the greatest baseball player of all time have very distinctive car. he had a cadillac coupe they ville, cream-colored cadillac coupe they ville and he had a buddy an everyday guy, great for

him to have somebody who wasn't always fawning on demand interested in him and just was his buddy. his name was jimmy carroll and he used to drive ted williams around in the car and when ted was out of town sometimes jimmy would borrow the car so one night jimmy had 8 and he asked to williams i have got a date, can i take your car? so he takes the car, picks up the date, goes to the restaurant, tools and the parking lot and a police car pulls up behind him and says are you a baseball player? and he says no, why? because you are driving to williams's caught. the police knew ted williams's car, probably speeding all the time, probably never got a ticket but his car was very well known by the boston police. finally she carol convinces him he didn't steal the car the cop says no problem and he says what you are in a restaurant would it

be ok if i sat in the car? he says that is no problem. so he comes out of the restaurant and hour later, not the cop is in the car with five of his friends. a la just sitting in the car like me, wanting to sit -- it doesn't really -- it is embarrassing. what is left will? what is the excitement of sitting in to williams's car? if he could be in the car, but he is not in the car. adam smith was not in the chair. what is the appeal? what smith says, celebrity draws us, we are so attractive -- demand of rain and distinction is observed by all the world. everyone is eager to look at him and can see by sympathies that

joy and exultation which circumstances naturally in spite him, his actions are the object of the public care so we live vicariously through famous people. we imagine what their lives must be like and want to be a part of it and he says it helps us understand how sad we get when famous people died. he talks about the emotional investment in make in people who don't know us, can't csn yet we have this connection to them. calls them the great. by the agreements famous people. when we consider the condition of the great in those elusive colors meaning delusionary in which the imagination is apt to paint it, it seems to be almost the abstract idea of perfect and happy state. we have this imagining they have this perfect life. the very state which in all of our waking dreams and vital referees we have sketched out to

ourselves as the final object of all our desires so we see this perfect life, that could have been me, that is what i was hoping for. we feel peculiar sympathy with the satisfaction of those who are in it, we favor all their inclinations and for all their wishes, what pity, we think that anything should spoil and corrupt so agreeable a situation and that, smith says, is why it is so hard for us to see them die, we could even wish them immortal and it seems hard to us that death should last an end to such perfect enjoyment, it is cool, we think, in nature to compels them from their exalted stations to that humble but hospitable home which he has provided for all her children, meaning death. everything that hurts them -- emotional connection we have to

their misfortunes, there tragedies is 10 times greater than we have for other people we have this ridiculous, irrational obsession with greatness and we have it with people who are rich, people who are famous, people like powerful. when kings die or kings are assassinated the part-time, when politicians are killed we had an emotional reaction far out of line with what you would think would be relative to people we know in our lives. so smith understood that in 1759, people listen to famous people even if they didn't have much to say and even now kim kardashian is breaking the internet as i speak. so what i would say is an action right now while i am giving this talk if angelina jolie and brad pitt wanted in the back of the hall because they also always

wanted to know about smith and their in back or to the side taking notes with hal long would it be before the lecture was totally disrupted. they would be much more interesting than anything. i would be more interested in them than anything i would have to say. we would be obsessed with wanting to see what they were doing, what with a wearing so of course i wanted to sit in the chair. one might suggest based on the caricature people have about adams smith, the caricature of smith is he was about greed, naked self-interest, he believe greed is good. and yet there's nothing about that in the the wealth of nations and the opposite is true in "the theory of moral sentiments". he counsels constantly against of being overly attracted to the pursuit of money, fame and power and the evils, the corruption of ambition. many economists would say sit in the chair because the costs are

zero, no one will see you, the benefits of the thrill you get from sitting in the chair. smith, i don't think would have agreed. he did nazi selfishness as a virtue. he cites human beings as self interested, yes and gold wealth of nations is about our interactions across these, dealing commercially with strangers. he was interested in how trade led to specialization which lead to prosperity and allowed some nations to the wealthy and some nations not to be "the theory of moral sentiments" he is interested in family and friends and people around us. smith's perspective in this single sentence captors in many ways the essence of his ideas of what makes us take. smith says man naturally desire is not only to be loved but to

be lovely. and not the everyday meaning of those words the we have. and smith's time loved etna and honor, respected, admired, worthy of attention. people. attention to you. lovely meaning worthy of being honored, respected and admired, the increase were the. deep down what we really care about, what creates true happiness is that we are respected and honored baez those around us and we honor that truly and honestly. it is a very deep fought when you apply it to yourself and other people as well. you start to see how a lot of times the way we interact with people, influenced by that very natural human desire to be honored, respected, loved and praised. we also want to be lovely.

if everyone said in a the chair the chair would not be there. is selfish and wrong to sit in the chair. no one will see me, i will get away with that. it is the wrong thing to do. if i want to be lovely, it is not just what other people see me do. if i want to be loved, be truly a good person, i have a desire even when no one was watching, i am watching and i know whether i was honorable or not so i didn't sit in that chair and if i did i wouldn't tell you because i want to be loved, right? i wish i had the video tape but i didn't sit in the chair. what smith is saying about being loved and lovely, he is trying

to give us the origins of our conscience. he said something very radical for 1759. he is saying your conscience doesn't come from religion. your conscience doesn't come from your parents, your upbringing. your conscience comes from the desire to be pleasing and honorable to the people around you and you learn about what is honorable and good and decent by watching what other people do when other people do things good and bad and when you see somebody do something good that gets honored admired you make a mental nose and when you see something people disapprove of you take and mental note, not literally, you are not keeping it though in our world we often do take notes but we attacking about the subtle signals we send to each other through our myriad daily interactions, we learn about what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. then he says something very profound. says there are two ways to be loved. we all have this insiders, he

says. men naturally desires not only to be loved but to be loved the. we want deep down, hard wired, people to approve of us and our two ways to get their approval. the first is to be rich, famous and powerful. we know that works, right? we know that kim kardashian is breaking the internet, she is powerful i guess. she is rich. politicians, wealthy people, actresses, actors, athletes, cinders, we are drawn to them and they lead a very peculiar life. smith talks about this a lot. i talk about it in my book. the education that it you become accustomed to when you are famous. i told the story of marilyn monroe coming back from korea. she told her husband joe dimaggio it was unbelievable,

you couldn't the days you can't imagine the crowd's reactions, yes i can. i can. you have that everyday and then it goes away. you don't have it anymore and what is that like? what is it like for the politician who is dumped or whose term ends? smith has extraordinary examples of a king captured by the romans and led through the streets it is miserable, wire they miserable? he has been captured by humane people. they are not going to torture or kill him. he is not going to be shot. it is the equivalent of house arrest. his kids will grow up fine, people have money, you get to eat well and have a nice recovery is head. the answer is no one is going to fun of him anymore. no one will be setting up to him and trying to get favors out of him. his life is awful.

i recently heard a story of a rabbi who was sent to the gulag during the post-world war ii era, the worst times of the blood and if you haven't read the book, read it as a thank-you note for the courage it took to write that book, it is three volumes, kind of long. if you don't want to read that, read the gulag. it is fantastic. this is a horrible thing where they take people, make them work hard and don't make them eat much and they don't have good clothes, it is of land he ten year sentence was usually a ten -- said death sentence. often a 10 year sentence was a death sentence so he is talking to this guy and this guy says you are so happy. why are you happy? this is awful? we have no food, we addressed in rags and we were called a, he said before, my job was to get people close to god. in the gulag my job is to get

people close to god. i have the same job i had before. you were a banker. you were important. you had money and now you are a prisoner and you have nothing and you are miserable because you lost the things that gave you your sense of identity and your sense of pride which was money, which was people paying attention to you and now no one pays attention to him. his life is radically changed. smith is saying we want, we are drawn to money, is a great thing, the world's greatest economist complaining about money because we are drawn to many, fish and and power but ultimately it won't make as much happier than anything else and the pursuit of it will destroy s. it is extremely destructive. there is a better way to become loved, to be wise and virtuous and to be virtuous, to be lovely, a better way to be loved is to be lovely which is to be wise and virtuous and to be

lovely smith says it is a two step process. the first is to be proper, act with propriety, do what people expect of you and the huge part of it is about propriety, something we don't talk about much. we kind of make fun of it. what he means is being stiff for an interesting or conformist, he means that in the good sense of the word meaning doing what people expect so that if you have a tragedy or success you know how to interact with people differently depending how close they are to you or not. an amazing thing he says. if you have a great success you are better off keeping it mostly to yourself. the man who by some sudden revolution of fortune is lifted up all at once into a condition of light greatly above what he formerly lived in, may be assured that the congratulations of his best friends are not all

of them perfectly sincere. gore vidal said it more bluntly. every time a friend succeeds i die a little. if you have a big success and you share it with people they are going to pull back. if you have a small success joy is a nice emotion. a small success people will be happy for you. you can share it and they will be happy with you, they can empathize with your success. agree tragedy, even a stranger can empathize with you. lose a loved one which happens all the time in 1759, if you lose a loved one it is -- a stranger can empathize with you, not as well as a person who is close to you but the person who suffered the tragedy softens his emotions because he knows the stranger can fully empathize. the stranger is trying to get in closer and they get close but they can't create a perfect match. this is almost a dance or

harmony or musical metaphor, we are constantly interacting with people around us trying to understand what they're going through and we ourselves know is that the people around us can't understand what we're going to and how we match and do that is what smith is talking about and is very beautiful but the real goal is virtue and smith has three big virtues and none of them agreed. is virtues are prudence, justice and beneficence, take care of yourself, take care of your body, take care of your financial situation, don't be reckless, justice, don't hurt other people, don't steal, don't rob, help other people when you can, do the best you can. that is smith's world view in a nutshell, we want to be loved and lovely, we have a full to be loved through these unhealthy ways, many, the and power and we're better off going is quieter path, we will get less acclaimed but it will be better

for us and more honorable to be lovely, to be virtuous, to the proper. that is smith's advice. smith is not a full. he understands that we have a terrible time with self deception so he knows that not only do we want to be lovely, if we are not lovely we at least once to think we are and that is a terrible problem. misunderstand and writes about it very eloquently so is very easy for us to notice falls in others, not so easy to notice our own fault. smith says an amazing line, he is a bold surgeon, as they say, whose hand does not tremble when he performs an operation upon his own person. think about that. we can diagnose and operate on people around us, on ourselves not so good. we are not so good at seeing ourselves as we truly are. smith says we are very uneasy

about what he calls mysterious veil of self delusion. we cover our acts with but it is salt solution. we cover our deformities, moral deformities from the people around us because we don't want to be seen as bad people but we cover them from ourselves. this deception, this self deception of our own flaws is responsible for half the disorders of the life and i suggest maybe that is an underestimate. if we could only see ourselves as others see us we would have no choice but to reform our behavior and be different people. a rather remarkable claim. smith gives us a way to see ourselves if we choose. he invokes what he calls the impartial spectator. a person we imagine watching us who is impartial, doesn't have a stake, isn't on our side, isn't against us but is judging us and

when we are in some moments of a crucial moral decision or even just daily interaction when someone says help me out, do me a favor, step out of ourselves and ask ourselves what would an impartial spectator say when observing our classes and that impartial spectator, we populate, we give life to is that idea by watching the act will spectators who'd judge us, approve or disapprove of our behavior. this marvelous vision of this network of connections that we share with each other is that we learn from that affect our behavior and we have a name for that, it is called culture. our culture is where we get our judgments about what is right and proper and what is inappropriate and improper. smith says in the heat of the moment self-interest, which is often in conflict with the right

thing, we will be seduced by our own self-interest can do the wrong thing but nature has a way of reminding us, maybe i was a little bit selfish there when i skipped that funeral or didn't visit that friend in the hospital, when i worked on the project at work instead of going to help my kids with their homework. i want to close this by reading what smith says about our self-interest. recess though it may be true that every individual in his own breast naturally prefers himself to all mankind, true, right? we are the center of the universe, each of us, each of us preserves ourselves to all mankind, yet he dared not look mankind in the face and of out that the act according to this principle. he feels in this preference they can never go along with them.

however natural it is to him it must always appear excessive and extravagant to them so we want to do what is best for ourselves and we know that if we always act that way the world will not judge as kindly and of course growing up its is what growing up is about, maturing. when you are a child is mine, mine, mine, me, me, me. when you're an adolescent you are the center of the universe and as you get older you start to realize there are other people out there who think they're the center of the universe and interacting with them is a good idea and don't put yourself first all-time. said that is smith's vision of our psychology in a nutshell. his vision of what the good life is about and how we behave in this great adventure we call life. he also has a lot to say about what creates a good society. a good place for people to

pursue a good life. i want to talk about two of those and then open it up for questions. he argues that our desire to be honored and praised and respected by those around us and our desire turned to react to those around us, their actions, their behavior is, that creates through no one's intention civilization. remarkable claim. he says the author of nature which is odd, the author of nature has put inside as this judging and desire to be judged favorably. he says he has made us the judge of all mankind so we judge each other, we are essentially god's deputies, to keep an eye on the people around us. it doesn't always work so well. people do horrible things all the time. what is remarkable is anything decent happens given how self-centered we are.

to tell you a story that happened to me along these lines i had a chance to go to big sur in california to spend one day with my wife with our kids which happens once a year. we were pretty excited to have a vacation day. the only problem is we can't find a place that is for one night. it is a strange place. you can stay for $800 a night in some places. if someone had a less which we did it is hard to find -- there are no real hotels so you have to find a cab and. all the cabins we could find that were available at a two night minimum and we were coming for one night. we will pay for tweet tonight's. we have one night, let's enjoy it. the owner of the cab, with the like to come but we can only stay for one night. we have ten a minimum, we will

play two night. that is fine. happy to take tweet tonight for the price of one but there's a problem. you can't -- it was only a couple days, you won't get me a check in time so here's what you do. i will leave the place and locked. we won't be there. i will leave it unlocked, you come in end when you leave the next a leave cash on the kitchen table and my cleaning lady will pick it up and give it to me. as an economist i found this very alarming. my first thought was -- wasn't my first thought. i am thinking of different scenarios. one scenario would be what if i when i got there at a really good time and either said paint two knights for one night doesn't seem fair. i will leave one night's worth of cash but better yet i might

say let's leave zero and when the cleaning lady doesn't find it and goes to tell the landlady that i didn't pay i will just say the cleaning lady stole it. who is going to know? that is an area number 1. scenario 2 i'll leave the cash, the cleaning lady puts it in her pocket and says it wasn't there. the lately calls me, since you and they i say yes i did, the cleaning lady said wasn't there, their problem. third possibility i pay, a cleaning lady gives it to the limit, she calls and says that never got the money. by the way the fourth possibility is i believe the money, whether the cleaning lady gets the horse in the front yard comes in with the doors unlocked antique the money or some stranger wanders off the street, takes the money because the doors unlocked. the morning we left i handout. i still have its on my photo. i fanned out way too many $20

bills with the right number, it felt like a lot, put the on the table and then stupidly took a photograph shows that in case she said i didn't get from many i could show her the picture which of course is not and very good because i could take the picture and put the money back in my pocket. i took the picture, walked out the door, went down the hill, went up the coast, everything went great. cleaning lady took the money, and gated to the lately, the landlady got it, no problem at all. that doesn't happen in every country in the world. doesn't happen in every culture in the world. in many places opportunism is normal. a chance to take advantage of somebody is a good thing and if you don't you are a sucker but fortunately in a lot of parts of america we are blessed to be in a country where you can often

trust people. another time i and in new york city, a fabulous camera store, selling used equipment. the guy opens the box, a camera and a bunch of lenses, close as the box, put everything away and people put me a check. i said no -- arne duncan open the boxes? if the stuff wasn't in there you couldn't sleep at night. new york city. he was right. deegan know i had read adam smith. i would have slept very badly. it would have been very unlovely to have empty boxes hoping he wouldn't open the mid east that there's nothing in there i forgot, i and so sorry but that is not what i did and not what he assumed and worked out great and when we can trust each other which we do constantly even in our litigious world, even in the world of incredible detailed contracts there are numerous things always left unspecified and as a result we trust, we have certain expectations and we usually meet them about the

condition of the equipment and house we sell and how we behave in those situations. that is a glorious thing. it lets us spend a nice time in california, let's me change my camera equipment and lets us interact with people commercially and socially in a wonderful way. where does that come from? why do we have that? we have got into a world where people honored people and i disapproving of dishonorable people and that creates and expectations that most of us want to meet and what smith says is just as -- he doesn't say it this way but as an economist i say this way, just as each of us is irrelevant to the crisis of apples, we are irrelevant, if i doubled my apple consumption the price of apples doesn't change, if i triple, quadruple or 10fold increase, if every person in

this room gave a passionate speech about the importance of apples and decided to be two or three apples the day there would be no impact on the price of apples so each of us is irrelevant to the price of apples but if every person who eats apples doubled their consumption would revolutionize the apple industry. there would be more trees planted and more apples picked, the price would change, go up for a while and then come back down but all those things would be set in motion by actions, so we as a group determines the apple market. no one decided individually. there is no apple czar. is a market for apples and is an extraordinary thing we don't appreciate and smith is implicitly writing about that in the wealth of nations but in "the theory of moral sentiments" he writes about social things we produce together. my good deed or my unfortunately sometimes not so good deed has no impact on the culture. if i had taken those $20 bills

that can stuffed them in my pockets of righteously, wrongly but self righteously, it wouldn't have destroyed culture in america. there would have been an increase landlord would have done something to embarrass me if she could or may be taken me to court but the impact would be virtually zero. but if we all do that we live in a horrible society so all of us together have a stake in the culture of trust and honor to the extent we live in such a culture and we all sustain it every day when we do good things and when we honored people who do good things and we destroy its step-by-step when we do bad things and when we fail to disapprove of people who do bad things. and that is incredible vision of the two pieces of our life, the commercial part and the cultural heart and smith understood as

well as anybody. i want to close with a last in sight into society. smith warns us of the hubris of kings and politicians. recalls such a person a person with hubris a person with a vision that he or she wants to impose on society. recalls that person a man of system. talking about the man of system he seems to imagine he can hour range the different members of the great society with as much ease as the hand arranges different pieces upon a chessboard. he does not consider that the pieces upon the chessboard have no other principal of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them but the great chessboard of human society, every single piece has a principal of motion all its own altogether different from

the legislature might choose to impress upon it. on a grand lovell smith is warning us about dictators and also warning about the unintended consequences of bad public policy and the challenges of national policies that enhances our lives or not. you can go further and argue that politics is not where life happens. here is what i say. legislation and government affect our lives in all kinds of ways, good and bad but we have much to do outside our world. want to make the world the better place? talk to your kids, go on a date with your spouse without checking your e-mail, read adam smith and jay in austin and the dredge report, smile at someone you don't know or even like, be nice to your parents because you can never repay them what they did for you, none of this shows up in gross domestic product, they don't help pay the bills, they are not on our to do list and we don't get the satisfaction of checking them

off but we can go by and nothing will happen if we don't do them but i think they are the stuff of life. you might be tempted to say if this has nothing to do with economics but i like to think economics is how to get the most out of life. to get the most out of like you have to use your time wisely. we as a group do things without anyone's intention that are good and bad. the example i gave, we determined how many apples get produced, we determine whether we live in a culture of trust. economics is crucially about how we spend our time. the ultimate non renewable resources. we only have sell much of it. we would be wise to spend that time wisely and some of that time i would suggest is best spent with adam smith.

thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. thank you, russ roberts. we have time for some questions. i have a microphone here. anyone have questions? i just want to remind you we got a late start tonight. russ roberts is going to be upstairs after we finish and he will be signing copies of his book which i am sure you will all want to purchase. more than one, of course. >> quality is giving of course. >> for every 40 people isil one book. i don't want to put any pressure on me. that could be easily met so don't worry about it. >> i apologize in advance for putting a crimp in your sales but i do want to acknowledge to the audience that you are a deep religious fan of the boston red

sox. >> that is true. and was being polite when i said he might be the greatest baseball player of all time. >> you are in the cathedral of st. louis cardinals. >> a fine franchise in any other leads, yes. 1967 world series game 6 fenway park in the bleachers, we won that one. we lost the next one. go-ahead. >> justice was done. as it was in 1946, i was there. >> nothing went wrong in the last few years. i don't know what is. >> you said something about politics at the end end in his most recent book charles krauthammer in his book on things that matter talk in his introduction about politics and the importance of doing it and i tell people, still justify my existence that it was truly an

approach that it is important to do politics well, why is it important to engage in the system politically? given your talk about smith, do you have any thoughts about that? >> as you might guess from the last part, when my daughter was little, a friend said when she grows up she could be an activist. i thought oh no, not an activist. to me and activist can if not careful be a part of the system. and activist and a vision to impose on the rest of the world. my first thought is politics, i would like to live in a world where politics is less important. i understand the appeal of politics as a sports fan. it is fun to root for your home team but here is the truth, folks. i actually realize that the

boston red sox are really not any better, emotionally and psychologically and morally, then the other teams in baseball. [applause] >> but i don't always act that way. i was in making the wind. england in the premier league as they pronounced it, any team is the new york yankees. i went to a game while i was there. i told and author who i was visiting, a very dignified, respected and successful writer the guy was going to go see tottenham and are you interested? i would rather have my eyes scratched out. i thought okay, not a sports fan. didn't think he was. no, i like newcastle. they are evil. the concierge at my hotel, i think he wanted to give me bad directions to get to the game

because he hates tottenham. every team hates every other team like the yankees, the cardinals are all decent people. is true. "all my children" were born in st. louis. 5 two sons who are incredible cardinals fans and i can't enjoy red sox victories because it makes them sad over the cardinals. can't argue with that. think about that. we have this ridiculous be emotional connection with our team and we look at the other team has really bad, awful. we do that in politics. in politics we say there it is true. my side is all good people, the other side, i saw this fabulous internet thing. it said how we see our

politicians and a picture of i obiwan kikenobi and their politicians a picture of darth vader and what they're both light, jar jar bin , jar jar ,j. create a partisan love for the good guys and dislike for the bad guys. sometimes it is true. that can corrode your soul if you are not careful. i know politics matters and i know it is important. of big part of me wants to keep it at arm's linength. i am a pretty never disappointed. republicans and democrats are always disappointed. they all put their pants on one

leg at time. another question. >> this book struck you personally. i wonder how you apply this, did affect the way you thinking your life, affected the way you conduct your life and if so how? >> i right in my book how hard it was to read smith's book. dan klein, doing a pod cast and a 6 part series on the theory -- "the theory of moral sentiments," i started reading and after one page i put it down and had no idea what he is talking about.

not easily read book but once i got into a i got very excited and it really did help me see the way other people see me and how i see them seeing me seeing them. when you write a book about loveliness, there's pressure to the lovely. an interesting experience. people have written me about things they have done now. is not lovely. very gratifying. one is fabulous. if one person changed their behavior it could be a wonderful thing. if i knew you together maybe i could tell you but my close personal friends here, i want to be loved and want to tell you things that are not so honest and i am not going to do that. i will say that i think smith

tapped into wisdom that is millennial. i am a jewish. there are a lot of parallels between smith and the talmud and tolstoy and smith and a lot of great ethical thinkers of history. there is nothing new under the sun. as i say in my book money doesn't make you happy. it is not really a new idea. the hard part is to internalize it, to turn down the consulting opportunity that is lucrative because you realize it is not a great argument to be putting forward. that is the challenge. the challenge is when your friend says i fell down, i am in fossil, can you make me dinner, give up watching the game he wanted to watch with the red sox. that is lovely. that is hard to do. if you do it once it is great. if you do it all the time you are a st.. we could all be a little more -- that is the idea. >> we want to have time for --

we do want some time for russ roberts to sign books upstairs and we have a final presentation and i want to let you know we have an extra camera here tonight. we are being taped by c-span bad for some future showing. i will let you know on showtheinstitute.org which is our web site. and you can watch yourself and russ roberts all over again. [applause] >> thank you. a small token of our appreciation on behalf of the university. >> thank you so much, thanks for coming, folks. >> thank you all for joining