grievances of the south and say to his audiences know matter where he was he would say, you know, they meaning that integrates have looked out on us, as being anyone from the south and we will not let them do it anymore. really, making a regional identification and that's one of the reasons johnson and the democrats were unhappy because they thought we will let wallace do his work in the south and tie up richard nixon who will have to worry about competing for votes with wallace of that's great it will pin down, but with got been nervous and ultimately got comfrey numbered-- nervous was in the north the suburbanites who were worried about the rights in the cities in the growth of the american population started to hone in on our listen to the message. they weren't in for the full segregation, maybe. it got to them through those same similar channels and when democrats saw union voters in the midwest starting to appealed to by wallace they started to

get really nervous and that's much the same way donald trump, as you say a new yorker to the bone is a suddenly plain that you may not have guessed we first heard him talk. >> you can watch this and other programs on my netbook tv.org. >> good morning and welcome to the cato institute. i'm an analyst here and also editor of human progress, which is an educational website that

tries to put together as many statistics about human world being as possible in order to present to our users and the general public a more real action of the world than the headlines would suggest. speaking about headlines, it is perhaps an understatement to say that we live in an era of great pessimism. this pessimism is not distributed easily-- evenly across the world. but, it is felt very acutely in many western democracies including ours, here in the us. some three quarters of americans believe that the us is going in the wrong direction. the choices that the electric will be presented with comes november, exaggerates rather than soothes the national feeling of impending doom.

americans feel poor, even though our gdp per capita has never been higher. we feel less safe, even though international conflict has almost disappeared and threats from terrorism are extremely rare. overall, life expectancy is at an all-time high and progress is being made in curing cancer, alzheimer's and hiv-aids. globally, the speed of improvements in human well-being is staggering. fueled by embrace of capitalism and globalization, chinese per capita income has grown by an incredible 900% in my lifetime. during that time, indian life expectancy rose by a third, from 52 years to 68 years. yet, for all the good news, gloom is pervasive and pessimism

about the future is widespread. the gap between the perception and the reality of data life's most new. in 1830, british historian thomas piccoli and observed quote we cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. the, so said all before us and with just as much a current reason, on what principle is it that we see nothing but improvement behind us, gets we expect nothing but deterioration ahead of us". buckley, a small but very group of optimists have been trying to cheer us up. they include the late julian assignment-- julian simon and

others. johan norberg is a senior fellow at the cato institute and focuses on globalization and individual liberty. norberg is the author and editor of several books, books exploring ideas including financial fiasco, how america's infatuation with homeownership and easy money created that it on the crisis. his book, in defense of global capitalism which was originally published in 2001 was since then publish in 20 different countries. prior to joining cato norberg was head of political ideas that

kimbrough, a swedish think tank between 2003 in 2005. he then served as a senior fellow at the brussels-based center in europe and that was in 2006 he received his masters degree from stockholm university and the history of ideas and today he is here to present his new book and talk about it, the new book is called progress, 10 reasons to look forward to the future and with a hearty accommodation this book please help me welcome johan norberg. [applause]. >> thank you so much for keeping human progress.org, my daily dose of sanity and when i otherwise just rude and get the impression that the world is falling apart. i used that a lot when i wrote this book. i'm also honored to have ron

bailey joining me here on the stage. one of my intellectual heroes who admit-- written many books outlining the progress that mankind has done. he explained to me once, and i think he writes about this in his latest book, when he wrote a book on human progress his agent said, look, this book will make us some money, but if you had written a book outlining why the world was ending shortly then we would both be rich men. so, why do you write a book of progress? with all of the trouble in the world why do i write a book about reasons to look for to the future? well, for three reasons. one, because it happens and it's one of the most important things that ever happened to mankind. never too, because no one believes me when i tell them

that is the case. number three, it is dangerous. pessimism is a powerful political force. lets me start with what's happened and how it happened. this is the gdp per capita around the world over the last 2000 years. we can see not much happened until the early 19th century when suddenly we saw an explosion of wealth, starting in the western world and spreading around the world in the era of globalization. in 1820, you notice that there wasn't much wealth around the world. even in the richest company-- countries they suffered from desperate poverty. if we had shared all the wealth that existed in 1820 the average person around the world would have a gdp per capita lower than gdp per capita of most book today, so everything happened

afterwards and that is everything that made her life here today possible. it's made this possible, but eradication of poverty around the world over the last 200 years. 200 years ago 90% of the worlds population lived in extreme poverty, around less than $2 per day of consumption, adjusted for inflation purchasing power. today, it is less than 10%. since 1990, this has accelerated. in 1990, 37% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty and today it's 9%, which means for the first time in world history the absolute number of poor people has been reduced as well. for the first time since the 1800s, we have seen fewer people living-- we have fewer people

living in extreme poverty than in 1800. that might not sound like much progress, but if you consider the growth in the world population it is tremendous progress. in 1800, there were only 60 million people around the world who did not live in extreme poverty. today, 6.5 billion people do. this, as i pointed out accelerated since 1990. over that period world population grew by around 2 billion people and yet the absolute number of extremely poor was reduced by 1.25 billion people. that means every minute that we talk about this subject another 100 people rise out of extreme poverty. mankind has never ever seen a kind of progress. here is another graph that summarizes the changes that has taken place over the last few hundred years. life expectancy continues to climb and that means we have done something right when it

comes to wealth, health, nutrition life. in 1900, the average life expectancy around the world was 31 years and today amazingly it is 71 years. in the year 1800, no country nowhere had a life expectancy higher than 40 years. today, there is not a single country anywhere with a life expectancy shorter than 40%. as this continues, every day around the world, not for every group, there rising life expectancy continues. the country with best practices has increased life expectancy by three months every year over the last 104 years. continues. we can celebrate every birthday, defy approaching death by nine months rather than when you're.

this, because of the reduction in child mortality in many sub-saharan african countries, this has resulted in the fastest progress in life expectancy we have ever seen. some countries like rwanda increased life expectancy by 10 years over the last 10 years. that means collectively you can say that every person got 10 years older, but none of them approached death by a single day. those new year's are also good years as the review of the literature pointed out recently. present evidence suggest people are not only living longer than they did previously, but also living longer with less disability and fewer functional limitations. so, all of those data is quite impressive. it's even more impressive in the last few years, last 25 years.

this is a summary graph over hunger, poverty, illiteracy, child mortality in the six leading pollutants in britz-- i use pits because it was originally published there, but if we had the us there it would have even been more impressive. all those things, indexed, so that 100% as the red level in 1990. that has been more than half over the few years. when it comes to wealth, we have created as much increase in gdp per capita in the last 30 years as we did in the 30,000 years before. yet, this does not come across as good news to everybody. in the western world, western europe and the us is a lot of people look at this data and think that's they are the

losers, that they have lost out. they are the losers of globalization because progress has not been as fast here as in many other countries are in the world. something strange happened in the years since i wrote the cato book in 2003 and this recent book because that time i kind of wrote the same book about human progress, i have to confess and how free market free trade could benefit us all. at that time the opponents with the leftists and anti- globalization movement. the thought that free trade, multinational companies, investments, free market capitalism might benefit us, the rich and the richest countries, but there would be losers, poor people in poor countries who would be exploited and see their life living standards deteriorate.

i think it's her to say that these 13 years that have passed have proved it them were wrong. of the development in countries like vietnam, india, china and many many other countries that have integrated into the global economy has proved that it was a tremendous boom to their living standards, to their wealth and a lot of people accept that. but, then they say oh, we were wrong in thinking that they lose out from capital-- international capitalism. they won big-time, which must mean we are the losers in rich countries because they still believe that the idea that the economy and world economy in which people can only gain if someone else loses out. a kind of pre-adam smith in view of the economy where trade does not benefit both parties to the agreement and that's a very

dangerous assumption that leads to a search for a scapegoat. this is a graph that you might have seen. this is the so-called elephant graph of the increase in average per capita in household income of each percentile group around the world. all over the world between 1988 and 2008. former world bank economy who assembled the data and created this graph and it looks a bit like an elephant because you can see that the poor in the world, notice the poor have increase their income dramatically over those 20 years by some 40 to 80%. you also see that the elephant trunk's race because the superrich in the world, the 1% for the 2% have also benefited tremendously, but look at what

became known as the western middle-class and the lower middle class in europe and the united states. around the 80s and 19 percentile. people who did not see any kind of income growth over those 20 years. this was a graph presented around the world, the graph that explains globalization and the losers of globalization. those who turn to leftists and rightists populists and those who vote for donald trump or bernie sanders. it is a powerful graph, but it's wrong. has been presented recently in a very heroic work by the resolution foundation. this is accommodation of various sources, people move through these percentiles, countries should, population growth in some places, but not others

means the 18 to 19% is not the same people. is true that it used to be the case in 1988, but that was the western middle-class, but not anymore. for three reasons. first of all, the countries in this data shifted dramatically. there wasn't data for a lot of countries and 9888, but there were in 2008. these poor countries like vietnam, congo, russia were added since then and that lowers the income growth in every percentile, basically because you add for countries. you can see the old elephant graph is the blue one and the yellow line is the one if we keep the countries constant. then, you can see that the western middle-class increase

their income growth from 0% to my 10%. there is also the red line and the red line compensates for something else, that population growth was bigger and poor countries than in rich countries which means a lot of the people that took a larger part of every percentile and it means that they, especially income population growth in asia push the western middle-class from the lower percentile into the higher one, so what used to be the 80s and 90th percentile of western middle-class people were replaced by the richest people in china and they are still poor, some 60% is rich as the western middle-class, which means it looks like income growth is coming down in those areas as well, but that's more of an illusion that comes from

population growth. if you keep population growth and pretend that the population is stable over the years the elephant graph shifts to the red line instead. then, it's not the 0% income growth, it's not a 10% income growth, it's a 25% income growth for the 80th to 90th percentile, but then something else interesting happens when you look at the raw data. there are a few countries that really stagnated or even sought a reduction in income over those 20 years. japan and ex- communists countries like bulgaria. they made more progress after 2008, but that is not relevant for this graph because it only goes to 2008. so, that is true that it happened, but that is not where the western middle-class live they don't live in eastern europe or japan.

we adjust for that as well look at a new version of the elephant graph. you can see that a constant population wisconsin countries and you accept japan and ask communist countries we have the red line instead where the percentile that we talk about in the western middle-class increase by some 40% over these 20 years. we don't need to bother about the yellow one. so, there has been an increase in incomes in western countries or message-- western middle-class as well, but i also point out that that is not the most important thing. the most import thing is not what you have in your wallet, but what you can buy, purchasing power, the technology at your disposal. it's much more than income and we has seen progress in many others, cleaner air since the 1970s when i was born. we have seen more than half the

leading pollutants that affect your lungs, for us, rivers and seas. you have passed primary, homicide rate has been cut in half since 1980 including better technology from better drugs to the internet and another 10 years of life expectancy. if that is the losers of globalization, then we need to reconsider what we mean by a loser. what is progress? what is it mean? to me, it means we can do more today than we could before. we know more things and we are able create more things and is a great thinker robert highline put it, progress is not made by early risers, it's made by lazy man looking for easier way to do things. basically, we do more things that with the at our disposal

and solve more problems and deal with more of our problems and to satisfy more about ambition and more of our demand. we do that by exploring and thereby finding new better knowledge about how the world works and not just exploring, but also experimenting with those ideas, producing new innovation and technology, artificial fertilizer, better crops, new machines that make us more productive, container shipment that makes it possible to exchange, but it's not just that we explore and experiment. it's also that we exchange the results of this. trade, can indication, movements over borders, which means we can use knowledge that we do not have ourselves. expiration, experimentation and exchange, which means we need freedom. freedom to think, freedom to be innovative and implement your ideas and experiments and freedom to trade across borders.

we need liberty. therefore, that coincidence that this began to happen in northern europe, western europe and north america and it began to happen in china, india, vietnam after they began to open up their economy. more people than ever can out contribute to this progress because they have access to more knowledge than ever and they are freer than ever to experiment with those ideas and exchange this with other people. as julian simon put it, the human being, the human brain is the ultimate resource. that is also something that reproduces, human brain is actually reproducible at least the beautiful thing when it happens between consenting adults. but, the problem is that almost no one believes that. lets go back to this graph about

human progress since 1990 and all those areas and all those dimensions. i posted this on twitter a few weeks ago to tell the world about, look, this is the world in one graph. why are we complaining? this is what happened to the world and one of the first responses i got was this from a british woman who retreated this and said: this is startling graphics confirming my helena hancock belief. in other words, shoot read the graph upside down and she believed childhood mortality doubled, that pollution and the literacy had doubled around the world and i asked her, how did you get that impression and she responded, i do play,'s attention to the news, to the media. i follow what happens in the world in a read about the war,

famine that goes on in the world and that is true. that is something that happens, but it also means that she misses out the great trends around the world and so has miriam put it, all of the gallup shows that people are almost by nature pessimists. 6% of americans think the world on a whole is becoming a better place. more people believe in ghosts and ufos than progress. asked if global poverty had half , doubled or remain the same in the last 20 years and only 5% of americans said that it had half and actually it was more than half. most believed it was stable or had doubled. by guessing randomly, they could pick the right answer out of three choices far more often, which means this is not ignorance. you can call it ignorance if you can't beat a random choice. we must have assumptions about

the world based on some misleading or outdated information about the world. as this british woman, most people get it from the media from the headlines, from the breaking news. i picked this illustration from sweden's biggest newspaper or carl of the headline because it says: total chaos everywhere. there was some bad weather and traffic stopped and thousands of people were stuck at the airports because of this. total chaos everywhere. because an airplane accident is news. 40 million flights taking off and landing safely every year is not news. the fact that we have seen since the 1970s, an increase in the number of passengers tenfold and yet the number of accidents and fatalities has passed. that's not news. that's statistics is something

we don't care about and anyway that's a good thing. if there was news about flights landing safely it would mean that it was a strange occurrence. the problem is that when we only hear about those accidents and disasters than we think this is the only thing that goes on in the world. news recently that tens of thousands of people in northern nigeria are now threatened by chronic undernourishment and famine. that is correct. that happens and we need to know about that, but i've never read a story about the fact that 8 million nigerians were liberated from chronic undernourishment over the last 25 years because that's not the kind of shocking instantaneous horrific thing that makes the news. it's not really about the media. it's not the journalists faults that bad news sells because when the media is not there we actually invent stories, rumors

that are even worse. that's what the journalists tell me as well when i ask them about this. good news does not sell and we need something dramatic and shocking to give-- to sell the news. i think this is because we are genetically predisposed to pay more attention to bad things. about is stronger than good because bad things could be a threat to our survival. our hunters and gatherers forefathers were a bit more worried and did not relax and looked anxiously towards the horizon with her there might be predators or storms. they probably survive more often than others, so they passed on their genes to us, but also their attention to bad things that could go wrong in the world. now, add to this another factor, the fact that we are by nature nostalgic.

we tend to think that the good old days were in another era, previous era, in our childhood or even before. these are some scenes from a brilliant french movie in 1959. it's about a man who goes back in time to a better era, the good old days where everything was wonderful, but then he is there and he thinks it's pretty good, but then he meets an old man that tells him you should've been there when i was young. life was much better, so he travels back in time to a better era and it's okay, but an old man tells him you should have been in that era when i grew up. that was the good old days and he travels back into that time as well and it goes to prove that nostalgia is always a--

nearly every culture believed men and women are not up to the standards of their parents and forbearers. if you have not seen this you might recognize this from woody allen's film where he used the same story to show us that we always believe the good old days were best. interestingly, when i asked people about those good old days, when where they? if this is not the golden era when west society at its most harmonious and most often they mention the era when they grew up. people of my generation saith the 1980s and the baby boom generation saith the 1950s. ..

in the united states. where we had the threat of immediate nuclear annihilation. but we know that we solved those problems. we know we got through those bad old days. so, now we can think back to them as the nice era when we grew up, when things were exciting because we were young and the future was full of promise, and at the same time we felt fairly secure because our parents were burdened with all the difficulties. they paid the bill and they were worried about all the things that could happen to their kids. now as we grow up, as we become parents, we begin to think that this is much more difficult nowdays. it used to be much simpler and this is what otto hermon thought

as well, we confused a change in ourselves, taking on new responsibilities, perhaps which physical decree okay, and we confuse that with a world and think this goes on everywhere. it's not u.s. it's the world. so, if we have that genetic progress where we pay more attention to what bad could happen and we're always nostalgic so we think the good old days were behind and you had a new factor, global media, global 24 hours a day media. that looks at everything around the world. then we have more bad things to take into consideration, because even though homicide rates declined there's always a searal murderer on the use something. we have fewer international wars

but they're always a war going on and these bad things always top in the news cycle, even though the risk of being killed in a natural disaster reduced by 99%. and then there's always people being killed in a disaster, and that tops the news cycle and we get the impression that is the everyday occurrence for most people around the world. and ad to that social media, twitter, facebook, instagram and all those places, where anyone could -- can add their particular perspective on the world, and what do you share with people? yourself on those platforms. well, it happens that we share some good news but most often it's something horrific, something dramatic, something shocking. hum suffering is not new but cell phones are new so we can

see anywhere that going wrong in the world, we can see it whether we know if people with survive. and that triggers or fight or flight and makes us scared about the world. what do i share on social media? often some weird dei have herd over in a city whose name i cannot pronounce, who did something stupid and thin think i have to tell miami about the stupid thing. so we heard about all the bizarre people doing bad things and we think morse people are like that, but they're not, that's why ware shearing it because it is a strange occurrence, a bizarre occurrence. so, unfortunately, few -- i think this is accelerating with the rise of social media as well. and accelerating pace we pay attention to all the bad things

and get the impression the world is falling apart. even though all the objective data proves otherwise. and that is dangerous. it's dangerous politically. donald trump put it when he first made serious ambition to run for president of the united states, this country is a hell hole and we're going down fast. end of quote. more thanking in america it ain't anymore. and that changes perspectives on the world. if you look at trump's voters, compared to 50 years ago, life in the u.s. is worse, yes, 75 asker his voters say, but so do bernie sanders voters say, the liftist populist think the country is a hell hole, partly for different reasons, inequality, rising sea levels,

global warming, disasters and so on. and hillary clinton says the same thing only in full sentences. she tells us that, yes, you are angry. you should be angry because everything is awful and only i can make things right. and this is the problem. fear is the health of the state. political forces can always stifle progress and stop creativity, block technology, block trade if they like. you know the old joke, if the opposite of pro is con, that's when the opposite of progress? it's not new. that has always happened. and in every election season we see the same thing. you threaten people if the other guy wins the water taps will run dry, the sun will not set tomorrow. , will not rise tomorrow. but this is new. the sense that everything is

already awful in the u.s. and in europe and other places. the world is dangerous. it is dangerous, and if it is dangerous, if the world is falling apart you need a strong man or a strong woman or a muscular government that sets things right. if a martian tried from the planet mars tried to understand what goes on, on planet earth, by listening to a speech by donald trump or bernie sanders or jeremy corbin, he would think that everything is on fire on planet earth because they only talk like violence is spiraling out of control. inequality, poverty is rising everywhere, everything is dangerous. and if everything is dangerous, we have to protect what little we have and we need that strong person, that big government, that helps us. if people left to their own devices create a lot of

progress, in that case we can have more freedom. open societies and open economies because we'll see more progress in the future. if we think that people left to their own devices and free to do things and trade and move, if we think that they create chaos, chaos everywhere, then we need those strong men who will take care of all of us. in social psychology there's a discussion about an authoritarian reflex. people like jonathan height, has point it another that awe thorne tareanism -- awe awer to tarean, which is a state -- some sort of interest in blocking civilizations and controlling people, that kind of author tareanism is not a stable

personality trait. more like predisposition that a lot of people have and it can be triggered and it triggers when people get the sense their way of life is threatened, when they have the sense that society, that people like them, or their country is being threatened by external forces or by chaos. that authoritarian sets in. when people read stories about things going wrong in osite they become more authoritarian in other spheres in responding to other questions that are not related at all, to the very thing that went wrong in that fake story. which means that we all sort of end up in this protective mode when we think that things are going wrong. if you only see horror and horrible people, if you wake up and listen to the breaking news, what your twitter feed and find out there are only weirdows out

there, you become more state 'tis, authoritarian, and begin to vote for the strong man or big government. so i wrote this book to sum up. not out of complacencies, not a way of telling people that everything is in order, we don't have to bother about these things anymore, let's go home and have a quiet note. write this book because i'm worried about the progress. we cannot take it for granted. it didn't happen automatically by itself. it happened base people were given more freedom to explore, experiment, and change the results of that. if we have political forces in power that block those freedoms, those individual liberties, economic freedoms, then we'll see less freedom, less progress in the future. so we have something to fear. and that is fear itself. and the risk that fear will become a self-fulfilling

prophecy and will be self-generating because we think there are only problems out there. stagnation, then we block reforms them new technologies, the free trade reforms that should take place to create more progress, and then we'll see more stagnation, and be even more fearful in the future, and there will be even more difficult to push through the reforms we need to make progress. it could happen. we can block progress like that. it has happened before. it can definitely happen again. it's bad for mankind, but more than that, it's a boring way to spend your life, to stand in the way of other people's progress. so, to conclude, in the words -- another one of my intellectual heros, that great thinker, captain james k. kirk of the starship enterprise. only a fool stands in the way of human progress. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you very much, johan. >> also a wonderful book. >> i was hoping to have on sale and for reasons i have to apologize for the rest of money life,, -- rest of my life, it's not out there. ron bailey is an award-winning science correspondent for "reason pogue" and reason.com where the writes a weekly science and technology column. he was one of the original optimists out there, and has a tremendous pedigree in terms of

promoting ideas that johan is talking about or was talking about today. bailey is the author of "the end of doom," environmental renewal for 21st century, and also liberation biology, a moral and classic case for the biotech revenues. from 1987 to 1990, bailey was a staff writer for "forbes magazine" covering economic, science and business topics. prior to joining reason in 1997 he priced several weekly national public television series, including think tank and tech know politics as -- technopoll ricks and other cbs and abc document surprise also a author of several books, earth report, 2000, the true state of

the planet, and ecoscanning, the false prophet aapocalypse. reince member of the society of environmental journalists and humanities. with that, help me welcome ron bailey. [applause] >> i'm going to be taking a very unaccustomed role here. i have been called a optimist, a technoutopian. and i just want to stress that whatever nostalgia is i suffer from the exact opposite of that. i don't have future shock. have future glee. this is what i'm looking forward to, and fortunately johan's excellent book, which you should

buy, as soon as you bought mine, completely makes that case in very strong way and powerfully does so. so, what i'm going to do is go through some of the challenges which johan discussed and go into greater detail of the enemies we might have to face as the 21st century unfolds. and -- what am i doing wrong? all right. >> technical difficulties. progress is being made. >> one second. give us a moment.

>> there we go. it's back. should be working. >> i find it discriminatory, johan's worked. >> there we are. again, was delighted to hear that johan was quoting robert heinlein, a great intellect but making a very good point that throughout history, poverties and normal conditions of humanity, in fact johan showed that as a chart. advances -- now and then are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, almost always

opposed by all right-thinking people. when minority is keep from creating or driven out of society, the people slip into abject poverty. known also bad luck. venezuela is suffering from bad luck at the moment. but to highlight this, how this progress might be stymied, i'd like to refer to a wonderful become by a northern economist called "the gives of athena:hartal knowledge." and he pointed out that hoyt shows progress in a society is temporary and vulnerable process with many powerful enemies with a vest interest in the status quo. the net result is that changes in technology, the main spring of economic progress, and most proking, period issue would argue, have been relative to

that -- what we now know, human creativity is capable. people in the roman empire and before were as smart as we are but were stymied, we'll get into the reasons why they were not ayoud to use their creative. and spaces or change at slow rate has been the rule, rather than the exception. the wonderful data that johan showed it. it's our own age and especially the -- rapid technological change in the western world that has been the historical aberration. so what happened? well, what occur ises that took nothingal process involves losers and losers type easy to organize. sooner or later in any society, the progress of technology will grind to a halt because the forced that used to support innovation become vested interests in a purely --ing at the knowledgal process creates

forces that destroy it. hope that not true but something we should be concerned about, is that in fact what you fine is that vested interests over time -- we'll discuss that -- >> get control of the government and stymy the competition. another trend, though, that you hand actually describes brilliantly in his book is the trend in education around the world and how that is liberating boys and girls, men and women across the world. unfortunately there are some societies where the trend is being blocked, and some case rye versed and that is a terrible, terrible problem. two problems with that. one is that it has an effect on the choices that women make with regard to the number of children they desire to have, and the second is almost dramatically reduces the amount of growth and economic well-being that people can earn. study after study shows if women are educated to at least the secondary level of education,

their fertility is reduced by a third to 50%. going down from basically five or six children in countries where women north educated. to two or three children and part of the trend we see -- a very beneficial trend, and i talk bit it in my book -- is the world population is very likely to top out around 9 billion miami or so and begin falling during this century. largely because women will have learned -- i hope, will be able to become educated and make choices that it want about their fertility. in addition, educated women participate more in the wage economy, and this has huge benefits as well. mckenzie economics consultant did a study where they calculated that if women were -- could achieve just the average level of education around the world, you see, in the world today, that the world economy

would be an additional $12 billion richer in 2025 than now. an increase of over 11%. if men and women had the same level of education over that period of time there would be $28 billion more of gdp by 2025, increase of 28%. in other words, we of foregoing by keeping women uneye indicated in countries that do so, a human benefit for themselves and -- a huge benefit for themselves thed for us all. another problem that was discussed, that johan is discussing, is the problem of -- the notion that every country should be self-sufficient, that a new mercantilism, that unfortunately our two leading presidential counties dish will not be voting for either of them just for the record -- are in favor of restricting free trade in and exchange of idea and immigration and so forth. this is a terrible problem.

if we can only produce what we have here, in this country, we we will denying ourselves the benefit of what other countries can produce more cheechly and the benefit of innovation and change. this is an example of smoot haley, and when the great depression was coming on, senator smoot and representative hawley managed to get the tariffs in the united states raised substantially and the result was that in over a two-year period between 1930 and 1932 u.s. trade with europe, both exports and imports, fell by two-thirds. of course this led to huge job losses. within four years after that, 24 other countries also raided their tariff barriers and world trade has fallen by two-thirds at that point.

basically was a -- and this is the policy that some of our leading politicians, whose name standards with t and c, are recommending to us. this is again a terrible problem and already we see that foreign direct investment in united states is down by 40% from the peak just before the financial crisis, and international trade is going at its slowest rate ever. have we achieved or fallen to the nader of globalization? let's hope not. then there's a problem of cronyism. it's a problem with international trade largely but this is an internal problem basically, and just -- a quote from lloyd blankfein, a ceo of goldman sakes sass technology requirements have based entry higher than any other time in

modern history. sadly he wasn't complaining about that. he was explaining this was great for his company and others companies like his because it made it possible that competitors would not be able to challenge him and his company and that extra profits could be earned from that. he was pointing that out as an advantage for himself. the problem is that we see this all the time with accumulating burden of regulations and so forth. an institute just issued a study back in june where they are calculating what the regulatory drag on the united states would be, and i highly recommend looking at the study. basically our economy is $4 trillion poor than it would be because of the trade barriers. even more startling study was done in 2013 by john dawson at

appalachian state university, and north carolina state where they calculated the following. i if you could emergency keeping the regulatory bushed at 1949 whoa size would the u.s. economy be? it would be three times larger than it is now. i don't know. seems that is a particular problem we need to be worried about. again, something that johan was highlighting. this is -- well, this is president putin and president xi jinping of china, and i'm calling this the chart of the national state. one of the best books i read in the last ten years, by nobel prize winning economist douglas north and some colleagues of his called "violence in social orders" and they were trying to get at the notion how to handle violence in society, and humanity as the agricultural

revolution took off, hit upon one solution, which is basically what they call natural state. natural states are essentially organized as patron chat networks. you have top men, if you will, or elites who are militarily potent and they arrange to have clients to whom they distribute economic resources, basically hand out monopolies over time. the point here is that this was the basic organization of human societies up until two centuries ago when open access borders ban that rise that we saw in the chart from -- that johan showed us earlier in economic growth. the problem is -- johan documents this as well in his book -- is that we have been moving in the direction of greater democracy, greater freedom, greater openness, using the data from freedom house, but that has stalled lately. the question here is will we

have a reversal of that? the thing about natural states is that as patron client networks -- if you think about this. and i highly recommend you do read this book -- every state up until the beginning of in the 19th century was organized as the roman empire, the incans empire, up to putin's russia, these were patron client networks and those societies ultimaly stopped innovation and can we stop this? another problem is the growth of the surveillance society. this is a map provided by privacy international and published on the wonderful web

site, cato unbound. which basically suggests to you that, for example, the united states is one of the worst societies with regard to surveillance. edward snowden's revelations this is in fact a tremendous problem we have in this country. the problem is that if you don't have privacy, you don't have the space to talk amongst ourselves, then progress and innovation, in a social level, can be stymyes and ailes with innovation. that basically what you'll find is that space where innovators can talk among themselves out of the limelight will be reduced over time and will slow down progress again. it will be very hard to operate in that kind of environment and not just my opinion. the privacy and civil liberties oversight board which reported to president obama the following: permitting the government to routinely collect the calling records of the entire nation, undermentally

shifts the balance of power between the united states and its citizens. while the danger of abuse may seem reboat, given historical abuse by the government, the risk is more than merely theoretical. and it is more than merely theoretical weapon still see people in congress trying to expand, expand the surveillance state in the united states. earlier this year, senator diane feinstein and senator richard burr introduced a bill they called the compliance with court orders act of 2016. why shouldn't be comply with court orders? the problem is basically says that web service providers, technology, period, and telecommunication people must provide back doors to their technology so that the government snoops can get in whenever day want. to the problem is among many other things, we can't be sure what the government will do once they snoop with that

information, and secondly, bad guys can also find those same back doors and disrupt the economy and innovation as well. i do suspect that if they even thought about it's little bit that the folks at the democratic national committee which they usedded end-to-end encryption, but in any case. now to what i think is possibly the worst public policy idea in all of history -- this includes communism -- is the -- which basically the proponents say better safe than sorry, we shouldn't let any technology out until we have proven they're completely safe. this us win way to do it. i summarize it as, never do anything for the first time. one perfect example of this -- there are lots of examples unfortunately -- is the case of golden rice. golden royce is a biotech rice, developed more than 15 years ago.

that is enhanced by adding precursor's vitamin a a. helps vitamin a. deficiencies in countries that is their basic food. and researchers have been trying to get this to poor people in asia for a very long time, and it has been stymied by opposition but none more than green peace. they have actually sent thugs to international rice presearch institute to dig up the crops and kill them off and that kind of thing. the good news is that in. >> 100 nobel prize winners wrote an open letter to green pears, excoriating from this campaign, urging them to stop them and point ought that the w.h.o. estimates a quarter million to 500,000 kids go blind because of vitamin a. deficiency and half of the kids die written a year

or two after that because vitamin a deficiency means your immune system is not as strong. the great news is in the letter the nobellist bordered on a crime against humanity. this must type. one example of how the principle is deployed across the globe, and lots of of people are in favor of this. one of my favorites is that bioethicists wrote a book called a dangerous master: how to keep technology from slipping beyond our control. the author of the book said -- is worried, quote, that our incessant outpouring of bankruptbreaking discoveries and tools are raising a tech storm that will soon be dangerously beyond our control. the question at the heart of the

book where, quote, we as a humanity as a whole has the intelligence to navigate the perils of technological navigation how does he want to do this? his solution is to create -- this is hi title -- governance coordinating committees. that will guide policymakers and the public. the committees would be for comprehensively coordinate the development of different scientific fields and oversee the industry that each field creates. so is biology technology. row bootics, nano technology. they would function -- these governance coordinating committees would work as gate teach es are and give permission, o most likely not. give permission to explore technologies and he wrote, moderating the adoption of technology should not be done

for ideological reasons. as though the idea of moderating progress is not itself not ideological in any case, those are just some cautions i do have, and worry about it. actually think that the future -- the ten reasons offered in johan's book are more likely to come true than not and i would like to once again restore your faith in the faith of the rest of the public and n progress, and johan's book will go a great deal in that direction and i heartily, heartily recommend it. you can't buy too many copies. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much, ron. we now have some time for q & a. i would like to ask you to please raise your hand if you have a question. then wait for the mic to get to you, and if you could please

tell us who you are, make the question short, in the form of a question, and address it to a speaker. yes? >> hello. >> hi. i'm a cato intern. a quick question because i really like your book on financial fiasco and protection of capitalism, and one of the things -- this is a question i'm asking every person i see that is for free market and free trade, is that since the market is something invisible, that people can't see, it's difficult to trust it. it's an issue of trust but easy

to trust a government because it is visible and they can hear what the policies and what their -- so what is -- could have to make people trust that something that is invisible. >> thank you. that's a very good question. of course that's the eternal problem. in an election campaign, it seems like fewer people are interested in the slogan, i don't know how america is going to be great again but if i give all of your more freedom to experiment with various ideas i'm sure some of you kill come up -- will come up with some amazing technologies and business models that will be wonderful and i have no idea which ones they are. they seem more interested in the kinds of slogans that i'll make this happen. i will do this. trust me. i'm the big tough guy here. 'll make people do that. so it's a problem of in a way

how we communicate this trust in markets and in individuals rather than specific political forces. on the other hand, i don't see that problem of trust in people's everyday activities. on the contrary, people do not have a problem going into a store and buying things from people they have never seen and eating it, even though it might be poison. can go here when i have to travel to another city and just get a car from a rem firm just by showing my piece of plastic from sweden, and it's all perfect and works out in 99.9% of all the cases, and people trust the market in that regard and trust the rule of law. it's only when they make the shift into the kind of political system, the kind of economic system, they like, that they for some reason forget their personal experiences, and the fact they dislike and do not trust the politicians that they

are voting for again and again, and end up in this kind of constant search for an authority figure. so, that an eternal communications problem and one most thinks toyings make people understand their own personal trust inside the markets and that's something they should generalize when they're voting as well. >> actually don't have a solution that problem. i wish i did. why don't you work on that and figure it out. one major concern is -- this is a problem -- with the seen and unseen example where the policies or the thing wes see and all the other stuff that is working for us is exactly what you say, it is invisible, unseen, and i would have everybody read this book every

day at their wakeup prayer. >> right here in front. >> i'll try to get -- >> herb rose. my question is -- >> please speak up. >> my question is directed to mr. norberg. i subscribe to the glass half full, glass half empty. you displayed some very cogent arguments how people have improved but i turn the question back on you in there is country we still have poverty and hunger and i ask you whether scandanavia has the same degree of poverty and hunger and why shouldn't our glass be full center. >> thank you. well, i'm pro full glass. they can get -- and the question is really about -- well, my open

country, sweden and our neighboring countries, and we have a generally higher degree of equality, material equality than the united states. even though on a lower material level than most other places. and i think all other things -- if it's the same thing, we prefer people not to be in poverty and not to end up in difficult circumstances. but there is a difficult tradeoff as well, and that one is -- we've done that by increasing wages. de facto minimum wages because the trade unions are very much in control of the labor market, and fairly generous welfare system. and that means that i would -- it would be difficult to find an example of anymore desperate poverty in sweden, people who cannot make ends meet so they cannot eat. on the other hand, it also means

that many, many of them are shut off from the labor market entirely. it means they are socially excluded from the rest of society because they don't go up too a job in morning and that's something we realize right now because we have a very large refugee population in sweden and created a society that is very good if you have the right level of education, if you are very productive, you know the language and average that's it's easy to get a job and get wage that is higher than the welfare requirements but if you don't, you're priced out of the marketability you have a product level around 80% of average, well, then you're priced out of the market. so with your rise none employment. is dot not mean desperate poverty. it does not mean hunger. it means a terrible blow to self-esteem, to static society,

in relation to your neighbors, and even your children. and that results in a kind of -- not a material desperation but a social desperation that is really quite problematic in sweden right now. so, i'll just leave those facts on the table and then we can also decide back and forth of the costs and benefits of the various systems. >> one thing. was very puzzled because as we know lots of people on the left side, scandanavia and den mark, good examples of social mobility and equality two other facts on the table. one you look at the amount of -- the degree of inequality from the low toast the highest -- lowest to the highest and look at, for example in germany and france, before taxes, they're actually much higher than the united states, before taxes.

they're quite comparable in denmark and scandanavia, just a little lower in those cases. so the equality is achieved by taxing the rich essentially. the other side is that everybody is going, well, social mobility it greater but you look -- the fact of the matter is from getting to the lowest to the highest in den mark you move from $20,000 a year to about $65,000 a year. and in the united states, journey of $20,000 a year to $160,000 a year. it's a lot harder to get to $160,000 a year. but more americans do that. so the top is -- if you want social mobility to go -- go to denmark but not going to get a lot of money out of that. >> can i add something to complicate the picture even further about sweden and other scandinavian company countries

itch meet bernie sander supporters who say the united states should be more like sweden. and then i tell them, well, in that case you have to have more pretrade than the united states -- free trade than the united states. more derig latest market more generally and more open product markets. you need 0 introduce school vouchers so people can go to private school and keep the money and do that. you have to partially privatize the social security system. you have to abolish property taxes and you have to abolish death taxes and a couple of other things etch when it comes to almost any area, except this thing with taxation and specific labor market regulations, sweden and den mark are more economically free than the united states. it is a very open economy. then it trees to redistribute more of the results of that. and again -- i just leave that at the table for everybody, including sanders supporters, a

brief anecdote about that. he campaign was the worst protectionist since donald trump i tell bernie sanders supporters an anecdote when president obama visited sweden because thence he was proofed by the three big labor unions in sweden and they're socialists, social democrats and fund them. their message to president obama was, we want to talk to you about an important subject and that's free trade. and why we need more free trade especially between europe and the united states. because that is the only way in which we can constantly upgrade and restructure our economy and give people better jobs and higher wages in the future. we think you're too much of a protectionissist, president obama. >> i want to also commend to your research johnson wy from

duke university. he found that inherited wealth in the it's highser than the united states. 12 parts of the individuals in the united states have inherited their welt wealth. and in den mark it's double the united states. so i recommend that research to you. let's take a question on this side. >> i am listening to the presentation and the follow can on from his ending quote from the -- from "star trek," do you see the current system of the nation state as some sort of impediment to the future progress or -- you sound like

you're sort of one world globalist. do you see the nation -- the concept of the nation state, i.e. the united states, as a detrimental thing? >> yeah, in relation to the united federation of planets, right. we're not a there yet. i don't think that we should have a world government. think that's a bad idea. i don't really care where the lines aredrop but it's incredibly important with institutional competition so we have many different political areas that have different rules and institutions so that we can see what works and what doesn't. hopefully people will imitate the oned that create more progress and human freedom. so i'm not favor of abolishing nation states in that sense, but i am opposed to to the kind of tariffs, the kind of walls being built between countries so that

people, citizens, are banned or havery regulated when they want to engage in peaceful capital wrist acts between consenting adults. basically trade, exchange, movement, all those things, which is something that you can do even though you have nation states if they're open to individual freedom and economic freedom. >> here in front. >> edward hugeins. there's a book in the spirit of your excellent book called abundance. we have an audience of acheerers and check folks, transhumannist, biohackers, who love their work

and are leading at the n blowing want enough political and economic freedom to do what they love doing, yet they tend to be soft leftist because the look at the g.o.p. and see donald trump. would this answer the question how to get around the pessimism and you could mobilize? because one thing young people are excited about is technology, even you have the pessimist that ron pointed out quite well. >> very gary point and one thing you see when it comes to optimists verse's pessimists people who do think are generally optimists but if people do not a engage with innovation ask technology and new market this only tend to see the problems, the problems are often concentrated, whereas the benefits go to whole of society.

if you feel like you're a driver behind the events and think, then you're more of a natural opt optist and should be more in flavor of the freedom to do things like that and that's a group that should be mobilized know and i dough know why that handed happened yet. ron probably knows more of these peoplen i do. perhaps he has a better response. >> actually i'm not sure die have a better response. it's been a puzzle to me as well. for example, i have been covering biotechnology for over 30 years, and a lot of biotechnologists are weirdly issue apparently precautionary, and part of it stems from the fact they did not want to commit the same, quote, crime that the physicists did with the development of the atomic bomb so set up a system of precaution at the conference in the 1970s and and has followed from there the truth is when you talk to people who are the real invery

taters as opposed to academic biotechnologists they're quite frustrated by the system, but it is set up that way. see is unraveling now. one great think is the national academy of sciences recently had a meeting to discuss the amazing new crisper gene editing technology is go to change the world in ten years. going to be amaze, if we can get the precautionary people out of it. the great news is the national academy of sciences was asked to ban using their technology for use in human beings and they said, well, actually no; we need to go slow but we're not going to be in favor of a ban. so, i see some cracks in that regard as well. but it is a race between the technologists and the precautionary activism and i don't know who is going to win that. i am hoping there will be ten

more good reasons to look forward to the forward. >> that's a great sequel. >> from belgium, and i have a question for mr. norberg with regard to the refugee situation, some would call it the refugee crisis in europe. angela merkel from germany said that we can make it, but let's suppose she would consult yaw and said i forget to develop the argue. and now i have to address a crowd of world people -- worried people, critical people and angry. >> she needs you to delve during develop the argument to calm them down and put things in perspective. how would you respond to that?

>> hmm. it would have to be a very well paid position for me to accept that, i think. that would take some really hard work from other things. i think that the refugee crisis -- i think we should call it that because a lot of countries were really overwhelmedded by the influencing from syria and afghanistan and other countries to an incredibly big extent and we have almost a planned economy in europe when it comes to reception in accepting new refugees. they're not allowed to work, not allowed to start working. a long asylum process in sweden could take two years before you know you can stay or not. until then you're in a government directed place where you sit there all day, and everything is heavily regulated, people people who take care of

everything from cleaning to preparing food, which is a strange thing, which gives people the impression that apparently if you're a refugee you should stop preparing your own food. you can't even clean your own house. so basically they're pacified in so many ways and do not get the kind of connection with sew tights they need in ordinary to be integrated. what die tell angela merkel? well, first of all, i have to say that the only thing that could make this work is that people are -- they get a basic solidarity with the new sew tights they have come to and they only -- societies they come to and only have that if they're integrated by the labor market and start working and learn the language on the job good get new friends and neighbors whom they enter act constantly and go to school so their kid start learning the language and get taste nor kind of culture they enter. and if that happens, think there's a chance that they could

be not just, well, integrated butles very useful, productive members of society, and we've got a demographic situation in europe that is disastrous. we have now way of knowing how dish will get any kind of retirement or social security in the future because there are too few workers. we have huge problems in the healthcare sector, many of the low-skilled jobs where we don't have enough people. they should be able to fill this in but the problem is we've got very my minimum wages, very high taxes. it's incredibly expensive to hire anyone to do anything, and because it's all done for very homogenous societies where people have the same education, the same language, have the lot of experience, and so on. then you can enter the labor market. but that means that it's very easy to get your second job, but you never get your first job. this is something that is

difficult for domestically born young people as well. we have very lie youth unemployment as well -- very high youth unemployment as well north just immigrants and refugees. so i would tell merkel we have to liberalize the labor markets and radically change the system of taxation so that i -- i don't understand why we tax individual income at all. we should reduce taxes and find other tax bases to deal with this. so, basically she opened the external border for a while, but she forgot there's another border around the labor market and society. so, people end up in between, and that's a disaster. that's a nightmare. that's the thing that creates social exclusion and what creates separation from society and also some hatred against the society that puts you in this situation and attracts some

people, a few people, not even close to a majority, to radical islamist ideas and that's dangerous. so if we open that and open the internal border as well. >> i think -- unfortunately we have run out of time. i know there are many more questions but both of our speakers are going to stick around to sign books, and to answer questions and also pries don't forget that lunch is served upstairs. thank you very much for your attendance, and help me thank our speakers today. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> here's a look at authors featuredded on book tv's after after "after words." edward conner argues how income inequality has contributed to economic growth. columbia university author tim woo explains theft way society has been affected by advertising. and former goldman sack volunteer i vice president describinged her experience as an undocumented immigrant. ...

it is very easy for them to find large ethnic company's are welcome and provide a really nice entrée into the economy, the local economy. but the problem is it essential also holds back their acquiring the language skills, their acquiring the incentive to move to a broader economy and to sell their labor to everyone else as opposed to just a captive labor market. >> you can watch all previous afterwards programs at booktv.org. >> good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the rare book room.