he said well you know we will read it and look at it. they loved it. so we will be working on that. i will be working on that and i'm very excited! ... look at the world around you. as affected people are motivated. they act because of different motivations in their life. i deem that as profit and in the book i redefine it most right away and say profit isn't just money. profit is maybe feeling good. profit is maybe giving back to your community. maybe profit is more time with your family. the fact is, when people make

the decision. when they make an action they are driven by profit. in general we all know that businesses are driven by profit. that's a general fact we all understand. in the book i take it the step down further and show managers are driven by profit and that's often different than what the company's motivations are. the employees under them are also driven by profit. and then i move it from there. most of us understand business. as we take down the profit motive and look into other sectors. i look at government. a 28-year-old bureaucrat sitting at a desk might not always have the best intentions of the country on his mind when he is sitting at the desk. sometimes he wants to get off work and go with his friends. maybe he wants to go on a date. maybe he wants to move up in

the bureaucracy himself. the guy sitting at the desk in government has motivations, those don't often go exactly what the program is working for. it also works in media and it also applies to family life. even nonprofits. it's a really interesting theory when you start expounding on it >> when you talk about noneconomic profit motives, how do you derive benefit? >> profit is kind of a weird term anyway. if you look at the webster's dictionary version, i feel like it's kind of weird thing to go back to it, it's not good in writing necessarily to go back to the webster's dictionary but i think it helps here because it helps show that profit isn't just money. profit is something of a benefit to somebody. i read a lot of in rand, but one of her thing is selfishness or greed. it's good and i think a lot of her ideas are right but i don't think they caught on because people don't like to consider themselves as greedy. if you look at other people and show they are asking their self

interest you can look at what other people want is a benefit. i don't know the question is how you derive it, i think benefits or profit are just kind of intrinsic in our life. i don't think you really get to deriving a benefit but it's whatever the person defines themselves as good whatever the person or the business or organization defined as a benefit. there's a lot of the companies i look at what their goal is and i don't agree with that as being a prophet. i don't think it makes any sense. but that's not for me to define what their profit is. they think that's a prophet and they're either going to live by that or die by that. if i understand that that's what they are going after and i can help them get there, then that's going to help me out in the future. >> so you have 330 million or so americans each driven by their own profit motive. you've got millions of businesses doing the same thing. how does that work?>> it's amazing, right? it's the invisible hand. the fact is, my profit motive,

personally, i'm driven by family. i have the opportunity that i spend i get to walk with my daughter to school in the morning. i'm driven a little bit my money so that i can afford the lifestyle in which to do that. and it works because if i'm bad to people, if i'm not doing the right things to people then i'm not going to be able to pursue that lifestyle. i'm not gonna be able to profit. that's on the individual scale. if you increase that and go into move it up a notch into businesses, if businesses are making their customers mad, if they're making employees mad, then they are going to pay around long either. it works because everybody's working for a prophet and the only way to do that is to kind of work together. i have to try to make you profit more and if i help you profit more, then maybe you will keep me on here longer.

>> charles, you open your book, "profit motive: what drives the things we do" with a thought experiment, what is that? >> i think it's nice to open people up and get them thinking from the beginning. the way i started the book was if an employee is working at a company and they are designing a building, that company also makes fasteners, metric fasteners, what kind of building are they going to design? are they going to design a building that uses a standard fasteners or design a building that uses metric fasteners? the fact is, if they don't want to get fired they are going to design a building that uses the electric fasteners that the company also makes. we see this kind of all throughout life we see hospitals that if you're a doctor and don't refer into your own hospital system, then you are likely going to get less patients or get moved out

or you're going to get a bad referral. the fact is, profit motives to drive what we do but i like opening with the thought experiment.i think it gets people thinking from the beginning and hopefully they understand almost right away with the basic idea of profit motive is. >> your closing thought experiment could go one of two ways. >> i think the closing thought experiment can actually go almost 3 ways. the closing thought experiment is, who profits more, the person who writes the book or the person who reads the book? not mentioned in there is a question of whether you understand profit motive enough. there's also the person who publishes the book.there is also the book stores that sell the book. so maybe there is four ways, maybe i missed one when i was talking about it but the fact is, i do profit from writing the book and i profit from the

book in several ways. the people that read the book are also profiting from the book and hopefully they are profiting at least as much as the price. i think they're gonna profit a lot more. it also involved is the publisher and i decided to write the book based on leveraging the profit motive of my publisher. writing a book is it time thing. you gonna spend a lot of hours, i have three daughters that i love. i like spending time with them. i like playing with them and doing things with them. i have a wife that i get along with. she's my teammate. to write a book i had to take time away from them and take time away from my life and take time away from my business. in order to do that i made sure that a publisher picked up my book before i devoted my time to writing it. so a publisher said, this book

is valuable, we are going to invest in it. that's why i decided that it was good to invest the rest of my time writing the book and finishing it up. >> your currently president of the market institute, what is that? >> the market institute is a 501(c) ãb501(c) four nonprofit. i represent think tanks and do free market advocacy on capitol hill. i focus on healthcare and intellectual property. intellectual property, both issues go with this book perfectly. it intellectual property or patent is what gives the inventors, the government right or government monopoly that gives the inventor the incentives, the profit motive take idea and take it into the marketplace. to actually get can summarized their invention. i think it's kind of fun that what i do is what i wrote about.>> when you worked on the senate finance committee staff, what was the profit motive there? >> there's a lot i think when

you're early in your career, there is interesting profit motives involved. i looked at i had a friend that i grew up with, he was my best friend. he was an accountant for one of the large firms and while i was sitting at my desk in the senate i killed wondering, why is he working for this accountant firm, he needs to go out and start his own business. back to him and i are. while i was sitting at the desk i wasn't realizing that i was doing the same thing. what we were both doing was building up our resumes. we were building up our networks. we were building up our knowledge base. the fact is, most of the people that i work with today are still the people i met then. not on that desk but when i was working for governor jeb bush i work with the person who is now chief of staff for the majority leader cornyn ãbmajority whip cornyn over in the senate.

it's interesting to see where your networks go and what that profit motive is. at the time it was a paycheck and trying to move up and learn that network to get me where i wanted, which was to start my own business the market institute. >> in your view does the government take into consideration our personal profit motives when they make policy? >> i think sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. john goodman is the father of health savings accounts and health savings account is one of the only times i've seen government policy that leverages the benefit of the people. it puts the patient back in the driver seat and making them the client when they go to a doctor. an hsa is a healthcare device it's a savings account you put

your own money in. it's tax-deferred. then you can use that money and use it in conjunction with a high deductible health plan. what you are given now is the incentive to shop. the doctors are given the incentive to treat you like the client. when you go into a doctor's office normally yes you are a patient. yes you might be sick but the fact is you're not really paying the doctor. you might be paying 10% of what the doctor gets paid. but the real payers are the insurance companies or the hospitals or the government. so the hsa put that back into place but i think 99 percent of the time government doesn't understand the profit motive of the people and then politically we don't understand the profit motive of the bureaucrats that are implementing it. i think that's one of the maybe bigger issues. >> from your book, if you could expand on this, elon musk is one of the capitalists who knows that he's in a war and built the company prepared to fight each and every crony battle to get his businesses every advantage possible.

>> elon is an interesting character. i work with inventors. elon is that weird ãbthere's two inventors that are well-known. you have ãbhave edison and tesla. people like to think of elon musk as tesla. this wild haired inventor going out and doing crazy things. the fact is. i think most people hold him higher. i'm personally a tesla fan. edison built a business. he bought other people's patents. he was invented himself. he was ruthless and growing that business. in fact, he he attacked tesla for many years. elon musk does much the same. he's innovative about running a business.when you look at when he goes into a state like if he's going to decide a launch pad in arizona.

or build tesla's in nevada where we are right now. the fact is he's going to shop. he's going to push them and he pushes them for tax rebates. is that innovative? does that sound like the creative type he is? i don't think that it does but i think it's interesting to look at somebody that i hold in high regard and look at the profit motive of how the running their business and how that translates. that's not just inventing for america's greatness. he's inventing for his business that's how he's running. >> are lots of profit motives being inaugurated in the amazon hq to search? >> amazon hq two is interesting to watch the state scramble for it and watch some states opt out. to get on the hq2 search, companies are giving out tax

breaks. the giving out areas of land. they are promising to build out their infrastructure. we are seeing the profit motive they are. what's interesting if you dig deeper, as an economist all the tax breaks are bad. all of the promises are bad. i would say a lot of those are bad profit motives. they're not looking at what they're doing there just going after it as hard as they can. if you look at the world with the profit motive lands you can you can see it and pointed out and you can look at it and see if there profit motive is correct. the trade war would be one of those. i think president trump comes from the right place in his heart.

he sees we aren't being treated fairly in trade and he's trying to do something about it.it's a profit motive. he's trying to make me america great again. but if we look at the economics behind what a trade war causes if we look at what that does to us then i would say the policies that he's pursuing well profit driven, are not going to bring us the end result he's looking for. we should promote small innovators instead. >> is there a difference in special ãbspeaking of amazon and trade policies.is there a difference between long-term goals and short-term profit motive? >> there's an interesting ãbi don't see a difference between ãband i don't think an economist would see a difference necessarily between short-term profit motive and long-term profit motive. if your short-term profit motive doesn't serve the long one then it's not doing what

it's supposed to do even in the short term. there is a fight on this about ceos trying to get quarterly returns for their investors. i think it's open for debate. if the company is working in self interest of the company ã ãwhich is one of the reasons i support capitalism in its fullest. >> charles sauer, in your book you ask this question, should we all be scared that the media is going to brainwash us into supporting a certain group just to make more money?>> we should not be worried about that. we should all just by profit motive. no, the media is not going to brainwash us into supporting something and that's because ã >> can you give us a an example, supporting what? >> i'm a libertarian. that means that i'm

right-leaning. i'm often in republican circles, sitting in conservative rooms. there is always the left media is coming to get us. the left media is going to sell telling a story that isn't true. and against us. the fact is the country is maybe 50-50. it's not too far off on liberal conservative. so if you look at the profit motive of the media companies they want to deliver media in the right way. they want to deliver news in the way that it's happening because if they continue not to deliver news in a way that it's happening, if an organization continues to deliver fake news then they are going to lose market share. they're going to lose advertiser revenue. they can lose washers and listeners and i think it's one

of the reasons that fox has taken off is because they lean in the direction but they always lean in that direction. so it's fairly easy to know each story what you are hearing so you can kind of edit it back to the middle.without doing it. without needing much work. no, the media is not going to brainwash us. i wanted to pose it in there. i do a lot of media. i do a lot of media with the far left. they have me on because there listeners find it interesting to see both sides. >> on the back of the book 1 of the endorsements, profit motive is a must read for someone on both the political right and left. on the left we need to understand how a radical like charles sauer views the world and on the right, well, you all can do what you want. tom hartman. >> tom sent me that endorsement and i've done a lot of things with tom, including one saturday i was sitting at home

and, if you don't know tom hartman, he has the number nine radio show, he's the top ranked liberal radio show. he's an amazing guy but he slightly left of bernie sanders. he is pretty far down the over on the left but he called me up on a saturday, he emailed me and said, i have an idea for next week's show. you want to switch sides? so we got on radio and we switch sides. we argued each other's points of view. so he showed the respect they are. when you read that it's actually it makes me happy because he says you need to read it if ãbif you're on the left you need to know how a radical like charles sauer thinks and when somebody is far left as tom calls you a radical, it's actually a term of endearment. it's interesting to me because

of the difference between how it reads and really what he meant by it. >> greed is good, true or false? >> i think that greed is true. greed is everywhere. i answered your question in a way that might not have expected on that. i think greed is everywhere. greed is just omnipresence. i don't know if greed is good necessarily. we talked about several instances where greed could be, amazon hq2, the greed of trying to get that might be at the detriment of the state's economy. so is greed good? i don't know. but greed is true. greed is omnipresent. it's not necessarily greed. as a profit-seeking. i think somebody that serving their church is being greedy but for their church. they might not be looking for growth themselves but they're looking for growth of their church.

i think profit is a word that most people think of money right away. i think greed is a word that people think selfishness but if we look at the words a little bit differently, and just see greed for your church or profit as a benefit then you define it differently. >> is there anything in our lives or world that should not be driven by the profit motive? >> i don't know. in the book i talk about my relationship with my wife. i think that if i was to go someplace, if you were to ask me that question and i wasn't thinking, i might say yes your family life or your friendships. but honestly, when you look at your friendships and you look at your good friendships or you look at your good marriages, there's give and take in those relationships. so you kind of go back and forth. if i'm always taking from my

wife. if she's never getting any profit from our relationship. then that's not a good relationship for her. i have to find ways to give her profit. i have to find ways to give her what she wants out of the relationship. i come with quirks. i'm a writer that works with inventors. i'm kind of a weird person. my wife deals with that. so i have to give her things that she wants to deal with that. that doesn't mean money. that means sitting and listening. that means making sure that i make sure that i'm present because she needs that. i have a great wife, she's at home with my three daughters every day. so she also needs that adult interaction. if you don't realize that, if you don't see that, then it's not there. i think it's around our

everyday lives.i don't think there is an area of our lives where it doesn't truly exist. you might be able to look at your relationship with your kids but really you get a hug from them and that's kind of all it takes. i will take that as a benefit. >> here's the book, "profit motive: what drives the things we do". charles sauer is the author. >> thank you. >> here is a look at some authors recently featured on booktv's afterwards. our weekly author interview program that includes best-selling nonfiction books and guest interviewers. former secretary of state john kerry reflected on his life in career. emory university african-american studies chair carol anderson provided a history of voter suppression. and new york magazines rebecca traced her looked at how women's anger has been used to create transformative political movements throughout history. in the coming weeks on afterwards, journalist beth macey will report on the opioid crisis in america. pulitzer prize-winning reporter josc antonio vargas will discuss his life as an

undocumented immigrant. and this weekend trumped 2020 campaign media advisor and fox news guest analyst, gina lowden, officer thoughts on the current political climate. >> i believe that narcissism is a spectrum. i believe that most of us, i'm not meaning you, you might be the great exception, most of us who put ourselves out of the public eye have any unusual sense of confidence. if you want to call that narcissism, i don't have a problem with that. is that a dangerous sort of narcissism?i don't think so. are there dangerous sort of narcissism? absolutely. we've seen it in our politics but i don't think our president fits in that category at all. >> "after words" errors at saturday's and sunday's. on booktv on c-span2. all are available to watch online at book tv.org. >> remember what happened to

the presidential election? do we do not beat truman. so did the newspaper, so did the tv station. 1948 was the first televised election night and two things went wrong, they made the wrong call and it was incredibly boring. if you watch the election coverage from 1948, it will make you weak because it's the cutest thing. it's like cameras on empty podiums and voiceovers saying, who's turn is it now fred? [laughter] nobody has any idea what to do. cvs had this great idea, we will get people to watch election because will have a computer. then they also don't know what to do with it. it was charming then. think about the degree to which that the technological urgency of sputnik in 1958 begins to drive how much investment the federal government makes into the kinds of technology that's now in your back pocket. and that we expect should be unregulated by the federal government as if your iphone

wasn't built by the federal government.your iphone is built by the federal government is a lot of ingenuity from apple. but this turned to the celebrate the stem life begins really in 1957. with this new panic that the particular atlas like obligation and burden of the united states is less a political one that is technological one. in our efforts should be directed at. these are mit engineers that rest assured will save the world. that's a very unsettling notion of order. that we are all just bits and a giant machine. by the 1960s aesthetically you see new generation of challenges. this melting groovy incredibly unsettling and also beautiful jasper johns map of the united states. very different from the political maps we've seen before. maps become a whole source of

political protest as the nation divides over the vietnam war. during the civil rights movement. there is a whole different generation of the use of the maps. the flag takes on a different role in the 1960s and 70s. one that alters the situation we're in today. the great change in the 1970s of course is the first photographs of the world of the planet from space, which are really integral part of the environmental movement but the challenge of this photography of course is not met by the political order. which failed to address. the problems that are identified by environmentalists. beginning in the 1950s. >> you can watch this and all other booktv programs from the past 20 years at booktv.org. type the author's name and the word "book" at the search bar at the top of the page.

here is a look at the current best-selling nonfiction books, according to the new york times and the wall street journal. topping both lists is "fear" a look inside the truck white house. in the second spot on the wall street journal's list is rachel ã"girl wash your face". in third according to the times is the dichotomy of leadership and accountant navy seals jaco will look and lace veterans time in combat. in third for the journal is reese witherspoon's "whisking in a teacup". up next for the new york times's pulitzer prize winning's good wins look at presidential leadership. for the wall street journal it's "cravings", a cookbook by chrissy keegan. in fifth according to the new york times as harvard professor joe lepore is a one volume history of the u.s., these

truths.on the wall street journal's listed sally fields memoir "in pieces". the wall street journals bestsellers list continues with navy seals jaco willett and lace paladins, the dichotomy of leadership postpone the times it's educated. tara westover's memoir of her childhood in the idaho mountains. an introduction to formal education at the age of 17. the new york times puts historian you've all know a hurrah response on the rise of technology, 21 lessons for the 21st century in seventh. the hub community kitchens cookbook "together" holds the same spot on the wall street journal's list. next on the times list is astrophysicist list ãb astrophysics were people in a hurry. the journal has chris works account of his battle with colon cancer. chris be cancer. in ninth on the wall street journals bestsellers list is former nfl quarterback tim tebow's self-help advice. this is the day. on the times list sy montgomery examines the personalities of 13 animals and how to be a good creature. wrapping up our comparison of the wall street journal, new york times bestsellers list is doris kearns goodwin's will you

leadership for the journal. a biography of the new england patriots head coach bill belichick. some of these authors have or will be appearing on booktv. you can watch the programs online on our website booktv.org.>> welcome to madison and wisconsin book festival. we've got a full day of coverage from the madison public library. it includes author programs and your chance to talk with authors during call in programs. we are going to kick off now with an author discussion on hate in america this is booktv's live coverage of the "2018 wisconsin book festival". >> i want to thank the public library foundation. they raise all the privat