say. thank you. >> think you. with walter block. block. this is space capitalism. i think it is a 25th book. but who's counting. and you've written a new series.

i had 22 other books but the series here is a privatization. if it doesn't move privatize it. privatize everything. the only alternatives are government ownership are not ownership. that's why we are running out of wiles because nobody owns them. we almost ran out of buffalo because nobody --dash my cousin are not allowed to own them. and government ownership i'm not sure which is which. government as far as i'm concerned it is a highly problematic institution which is based on coercion. i'm sort of against private ownership.

i think for just about everything. this is the third in the series. the first one was a road streets and highways. do you realize how many people die on the government roads almost 40,000 per year for the last umpteen years. as a lot of people being killed. so just put that in perspective. how people died in september 11 this is 35 or 38,000 every year. and you might say it's kind of like death and taxes it's inevitable. if you on a highway and we were competing and one of ways we competed was who could see who could reduce deaths the most the rules of the how

highway are made for everyone. any of those highways the minimum speed is 40 the maximum speed is 70. and that's it. would it be better if the right lane how to do 50 in the left lane had to do 65 i don't know. the problem is we will never know. if you tried that and it didn't work. he would lose customers and i would try something else. as many laboratories. there is probably nobody listening to this either doesn't know somebody who was killed in a motor vehicle accident and i'm not even talking about very serious injuries.

my second one for this book was congestion. i used to live in new york city. the fastest way to get around their is by bicycle, not car. the reason for that is we don't have that pricing. during the busy season the price goes up. we don't have that on highways or roads for streets if we did and we would with private enterprise that would solve that problem. so that's a first one the first one privatizing roads and streets and highways. it sounds even weirder. you can't privatize a river. that's crazy. i say no no, it's not lunacy. one reason is we are running

out of fish and whales. in the tragedy. no one owns it. the second reason is we have katrina. the hit 40 miles east. who is responsible for the levees the army corps of engineers. 1900 people died because of that. the horror is that they are still in business. if mcdonald's or burger king killed 1900 people. they wouldn't be in business anymore. if they did that parents and he who mixes has labored with

the land or the water or whatever gets to be the owner of it. the people who put those ships up and down the mississippi river. they only and on the side of the mississippi river. now you had 100,000 people with again, it sounds weird. i think if it was stabilized. and they would run out of resources like that. at last, we get to the book now let me weigh this in front of the camera. unfortunately i don't have the book. i just came it just came out like yesterday or the day before. it's called how humans well colonize planets. so now they have the same old private property rights only now not the roads, rivers or lakes.

and there were two aspects. the land on the moon. who should on that. again, i resort to that. and their views on homesteading. you own maybe a couple of square miles of it. i love human beings. i'm afraid organum blow ourselves up. it would be nice to have some people on mars. and this is like an insurance policy. i would like to see some colonies on mars and on the men. and now the question is how do we connect conduct business. with the most and private property possible. that is one aspect. how do we get there.

so far in 1969 when the first man arrived on the moon. it was government. a government employee. my hope is that we do this private enterprise. it's more efficient. the government demands taxes from us. if someday has a private rocketship. he does not own his own account with his own money. those would be my two ways of dealing with it. the trip in what to do with the land there. and that is to plant some things elsewhere. i like human beings. sue me. with the budget for nasa it's about $19 billion over the years about $600 billion or so has been spent on nasa programs. in your view how much -- how has that money been spent.

it should've gone back to the taxpayers themselves. and then they would have more money. and someone would go to wall street and set up the stock exchange and set up a company and get some more money than what would otherwise be available. a lot of times people give the government credit. but with the money had been better spent instead of going to the moon and 69 on research and rocketry in the protection of people on these planets. just because the government did it and it was a success. they should not have afforded this. i did not applaud that. i was against that. because it was premature.

the market not only has spatial allocation. from the cost of a more rational time element towards the goal. but haven't we learned. and been able to adapt from the spending at nasa. it would be amazing if you spent 19 billion and not one shred of that occurred. even the government. we do have roads. and museums.

if they have a 19th billion and they lost 14 billion. you get more value typically give a nice green tie. you valued it at 50 otherwise you would not had brought it. there this extra benefit created. my mentor used to say what we ought to do have that consumption plus investment minus the government. it would be closer and not that that would be there. it's just a rough approximate approximation. in the market there is a benefit every market

transaction is mutually beneficial. otherwise it would not occur. with the government you do not get that. >> when it comes to space capitalism. we are moving in that direction. >> we have a whole chapter devoted not just a elon musk maybe ten pages and six or seven other space entrepreneurs like him are building rackets. with the government what they do is a shoot up a rocket and then it is gone. every time you took a car trip you have to jump a car. that would not be a good way to go. we have to give him credit for that. on the other hand he takes a lot of money from government. in most of his money is from government. which is problematic. it's more like crony capitalism than real capitalism.

the money came from you and me on a voluntary basis. but if it comes from you and me. and it gets to him. in this chapter what we do is we do say there is nothing wrong with taking money from the government because we regard the government because they do it coercively. if you take money from a thief you are good guy. again, we have a little bit of a paradox here. the government acts on the course of basis and if you take money from the gang you're on the side of the angel. the question is, ron paul i wrote an essay saint ron, take the money. i don't think he did that. but nobody ever listens to me. if it was ron paul who was

running that. and then he took money from the government and he use it for this purpose. i would say right on ron. now the question comes as elon musk a good guy or is he a bad guy. he would be justified in taking money from the government. what we do is we go over a whole bunch of elon musk's he doesn't pass the smell test. it is not a good idea. we do have a chapter devoted to all of these people and if after taking money from government are they on the good side of the bad side. we deal with this sort of a question in this chapter. should there be any regulation of space travel at all. my view is that they should not only is it is a bad

institution based on coercion. should we had antitrust. and this kind of regulation and that kind of regulation. the market is the best regulator. the recent we have good qualities from mcdonald's is not due to the government. if we didn't have good qualities they would be out of business and a wink. yes i i yes i say to regulation. and i certainly had those laws. but the government regulation is an entirely different kettle of fish. what is donald trump calling for a fourth branch of the military in addition to the army navy and marines. never can have a space could out there.

especially with the government. we should have good control. the suit would be the fourth branch of the military giving the views on economics. what are the success stories over the years? there are some private roads. there are any private roads. when they are contracted out. very rarely is there sanitation where they directly indirectly deal with that.

they hire a sanitation company. we do have some of that. the government is in control. the government builds it. they exercise eminent domain. it means that if you have a hold we are now in las vegas we want to build a road. how do people own land between here. there is gonna be a hold out somewhere. it's gonna say it you can go through my land and then we have a special chapter on that one. where we say we so we can go under him or over him. there are no real cases of

that. they are contracting out which is sort of an economic fascism. i would certainly oppose that. it might be 1 million of 1%. a little girl gets lost in the while. we said nothing about anything else they die every year on those government roads. and nobody says squat.

and how much does it cost to mail a letter private or public. with anywhere else where they have those compete in operation. and it's usually three or four or five to one. my estimate is that if we privatize all roads we sell something like 10,000. 10,000 is better than 40,000. unfortunately i can't say look, this is a private road and there are virtually zero death. unfortunately i can't do that. unfortunately they are often

private roads. i don't have the evidence to say that it's better some way. so professor block, why did you open space capitalism talking about knowing bernie sanders in pro testing. what happened was the publishers said you have to put some personalized stuff in there and have nothing to do with the book. it's what belongs on the back cover of the book. this is profession jones. and he does this. and he does this. and his wife and kids. i gave my personal story. when the publisher asked tell them the story of the economic views and how they have changed over the years. tell them the story of the economic views and how they have changed over the years. i went with the bernie sanders.

my views were roughly his views. .. .. and got me out of philosophy and into economics. these personal stories are sort of, i just humanize the authors that have nothing to do with the book. it was added on right after the book was written. >> host: the third in a series on privatization is called space capitalism, document will colonize planets, moons and asteroids. thank you for joining us on

booktv. >> guest: thanks for having me. it was a pleasure. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979 c-span was grid as a public service public service by america's cable-television companies and today we continue to bring unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. >> host: nicky palmer, senior vice president and chief network officer for verizon and she is our guest this week on "the communicators." nicky palmer, who is clinton harris in houston, texas, and what's his place in history? >> guest: clayton harris is the first 5g customer in the world. clayton har