of facts. your book is full of them so thank you so much for writing that in for our conversation. b2 thank you it's really, really great to talk to you in this way.

one highly segregated history of chicago expanded to the west side there were lots o of factories and lots of jobs, and now because of the regulations of various kinds, it's not. it is a free zone. there are some streets were people by sheer act of will kept the street in good condition and they are not going to allow anyone to, but then for the most

part it's very sad. >> for most place places it is t than brazil or egypt and takes mom is. it's going to be a business license in the famous case of terror in your living braiding hair you need a state to license why should people have to jump through these hoops there were lots of successful businesses and then increasing regulation,

very meaning, some people wanted to help and ended up hurting the poor people. thank god in chicago they don't have rent control because that is one thing that hurt poor people but they have enough and it could be so easily fixed if you had made it an enterprise zone where you didn't have to be regularly taxed. disconnected and the trump added incubate coadministration regulate? >> i don'too think so. because i don't approve of mr. trump at all and although on

the one hand he's got some people in his administration deregulating, which as it is done intelligently as a good idea, the federal government house one belly and separate regulations that's kind of cra crazy. i'm so ashamed i'm going to organize a group of us to turn him in protest.

>> host: in 2016 in your book, b you vote even trump the businessman does a good by doing well. >> guest: when he does well, but he hasn't done well. if he had taken the $400 million he got one way or another from his father and hav and had inveo the randomly chosen stock portfolio, his network would be higher than it is because trump casino and the university, and they all failed. this is something bloomberg pointed out during the campaign.

he was a poor boy when he started and he became rich by doing well by doing good. that is the way it is. if you are in business of choosing well, you make profits that the only way is if people like yourself, they don't like trump steaks or they find the trump university degree is fraudulent, that reduces everyone. >> host: isn't capitalism and the economic system about taking risk? >> guest: yes, it is. so you make a mistake then you get hit with it. trump makes mistakes all the time and business and loses

overtime by the miracle of the electoral college that as a business man is terrible. >> host: how do you define your economic philosophy? >> guest: i am a liberal in my root sense of the work. iword. it comes from latin,ns which mes a three-person -- and this is in the mind is when they use the word as contrasted one very simple way of describing true liberalism is to say that everyone has the right to say no. that's all. the right to say no. and that means that you don't have to -- if you are a one and woman

you don't have to agree and if you are an employee and don't't like it, you can leave. i'm reading a wonderful book by i forget his name but the novel about a soviet union and people couldn't say no. they were being bossed around by someone not voluntarily. i was an employee. we did what our bosse with our d we do and that is really fundamental so the other way of

talking about true liberalism is the series of an adult society and economy whereas many of the other options, left or right even social democracy, and i think it's good. it doesn't mean we shouldn't help people. i call myself a christian liberal. >> host: back to why liberalism works. i understan understand that the progressive point of view and i can't remember it attraction as one peruses the pages of the nation or the latest, it feels

like one is doing good. >> host: it wasn't that great screen.ebateded last summer in a i think people who feel they want to do something for t the poor should do something for the poor instead of just feeling good about reading "the new yorm times" and thinking yes, i'm a good person. i care about the poor. for example, they should help the homeless as i have.

i have some with me for four and a half years. the doesn't meet me a saint it just makes me a person that wants to put my money where my mouth is. but the key point is to let the poor people be free so that they can work and travel and live. that is probably because in your town you can't build a house without a large lot. that is to keep poor people, that's what it's for.

going back to what liberalism works and here is a close you will tell us when he was in a minute but the public policy should be designed to advance the moral instincts we all reject every day of our lives. >> guest: not havin >> guest: not having to put money where your mouth is and not pushing people around, there are people that are much better in the administration then im.

of course the people can leave if they don't like your management techniques or style, but in any case, people shouldn't like being nasty. the bus driver is wonderful and will givwelcomes people onto thd goes through the snow and slush off chicago the university of

illinois chicago. >> i finished my trilogy on the economic and social history last few centuries and finished this book that came out in the fall of why liberalism works and i have a new book coming out from chicago from the university of chicago press in the fall which is kind of a version of the leave me alone and i will make you rich. [laughter] you talked about your trilogy

and the virtues of the dignity and the most recent, the a quality. what is theio definition of british law. >> guest: it is the french word for [inaudible] and usually to mean the leaders of the town and the merchants and manufacturers and so forth. it was the common term for the class in english before the phrase middle class became common and they started calling them middle-class before the basic idea of the ability and everyone else.

like my grandfather, he was contentious and an electrical contractor and it's an honorable thing to do. >> and wiring of airports. it makes a mythology that makes the tale that is the especially

in the history of the soviet union. you make money by doing things people like. >> host: to go to the virtues, however, quote, the christian gospels attack while suppressing the partially by the standards of the rest of the worldt of religious and it's not surprising therefore that in the 19th century, the christian europe invented the idea of socialists. >> guest: it is a secularized version of christianity and many, many ways the apocalypse of the revolution and marxism is

very similar to the up and coming of christ. the first ideology among soviet communists in china that when they were sent to the prison camp, they thought it was okay because it must be the party the party knows, and there is a very similar attitude in some versions of christianity and there is a certain protestant element to it as well, and it is quite strange that the most successful economically is

spread throughout the world in this ideology of anti-wealth. i just reread the translation of the whole thing and it's not that long. it's a short book. and it's a very social to supplement a christianity was abandoned into this kind of quality and consumption is very sensible and it doesn't make sense. it never has. when it's about friends or family, it works, socialism i'm talking about. >> host: you identify as a

long-time agnostic and found they were a christian liberal, liberal small l..ng would have had? >> guest: i changed gender 1995 and in the years after that, i told there was something more that i needed to look into, so i went to the catholics and the unitarians and i didn't like the end then i found episcopalian is on because we couldn't go on calling it anglo after the american revolution an and it suited me very well. in fact right from the beginning

it was a middle road between roman catholicism and puritan. >> host: what is it about you that suits you, the customs, beliefs? >> guest: it's the whole spirit of the anglican church that i like. in the united states we are called the frozen chosen because in virginia especially in the upper class and new york for that matter, i, in the upper-cls episcopalian, but the frozen chosen its claim that you don't need to really believe in anything, that you do the

ceremonies. you come to church, you do the maths -- >> host: the smells and bells. >> guest: that of a small church. i had a congregation in iowa once and a while we would do that which is kind of funny. but it's a very flexible framework because it's the journey. you don't have to believe in virgithevirgin birth to be a prg non-christian. it's ars practicing that matter. that which is true of economic performance. you don't need to be a theorist of the economy to be an electrical contractor.

you just do your job, and you might learn on it after a while thaothers mutual advantage. i keep trying to unify my thinking to see what cross-fertilization there is. i have a paper i'm working on right now about the theological free will, as i think they are connected. they are not opposed as so many modern american or european theologians think. you don't have to be a socialist to be a christian. >> host: let's go back to the

trilogy, and this is the virtues. i agree with my favorite marxist economist, named the fulbright, that education should be financed from the center. care and child care should be extended and state financed that in a heretic taxes should be steeped in welfare eliminated in and that military expenditures should be cut to a franey. the tiny fraction of the modest minimum income should be given to every american as the tax law should encourage both men and women combined, paid work with family community work. we followers of adam smith are egalitarians. is there anything in there somewhere? >> guest: nancy is a professor at the university of massachusetts and should get the

nobel prize but she is of the left and i'm not. i dreamt i saw joe but as i said, i am a christian liberal which means that i acknowledge a responsibility that they have towards the poor that they can't just take a kind of country club view. all of the losers i don't care about them, i've got my cabala all is well in the world, so i'm

all of the policy proposals nancy makes on the left, i agree with. i may not agree on the scale she wants to do them on butwe i agre we should help poor people and n pregnant women and so forth that there should be not exist in people's face, but an openhanded health and that is consistent with capital was some. when you think about this, the capitalist transaction we buy a cup of coffee and it's mutually advantageous in both people are active but furthermore if you

make a habit of going to the coffee shop you actually become friends. commerce creates in the same way church creates friendship. they are not forcing each other to things, they are allowed to say no and out of that comes with the 18th century and speed commerce. you've got to pay your taxes and if you don't, we are going to put you in jail.

i don't like coercion and i never have. >> host: you say you don't like the word of thest capitali. the word capitalist was used and eawas modified to mean not just rich and investors which is what the word say around 1800 to mean the sole group of people who are the bosses, and then after marx, capitalists and capitalism became the characterization of

our commercial society is a terrible word academically and intellectually and scientifically. if convinced economists whether conservative or whatever and marxists and everyone else is the spring of the gears are necessary in the investment and so on but the motive comes from the spring and the spring in modern life for a life two is enormously expanded innovation and this is the view of economics but i'm coming to take

the kind of economics i've done for many years is misleading because it looks a bit capital. i thought that it was motivational if i were speaking in brazil a couple of days ago and said to them maybe if they don't like what youtube is very good and you choose among the creator, but you are not the creator and that's why under

liberalism first and then slowly women, catholics, what better right down to the remarkable feat of transgendered people. all that work to encourage, bring encourage and it had this amazing effect. income in real terms, the ability to buy stuff you to go to the university 3000%, not 100%, 200%, 3000% and that is from the release of human creativity and free society.

>> host: in a general sense we are having a debate about capitalism and socialism and this isn't the first time. >> guest: it has been going on since the middle of the 19th century. they say let's try socialism, and bernie, i don't hate bernie, who could, he is a very charming person. he had died, he was a freshman at the university of chicago in 1960, i was a freshman and we didn't know each other at the time, but at the time, we had more or less the same opinion about the capitalism.e, i prefer to call it speed to which is an accurate word sent, but we both wanted to overthrow capitalism and he was i think probably more systematic than i was. i read half of the comments i

manifestoes and thought that was enough, not quite sure. and when it was a hero of mine when i was 16. we had the same opinion and people say that it's consistently wrong. we've tried socialism. as i said, socialism appropriately works in a family. it works among small groups of friends and should. pizza is share with five of my friends, i paid for this, i'm going to eat a bowl, that is and

what friends do, but in a big society, 330 million people it doesn't work. the capitalism, no, that is the top capitalism is what i established in my book, and it's not what made the economy which which is what i guess i blushed in the second volume and it's not tested the society which i argued inwh the third book. >> host: when somebody like to invite an author and talk to him or her about the body of work

and at thi this month is economs scholar and retired professor of. and here's just a sampling of the 23, 24 books beginning with rhetoric of economics, crossing the transgendered memoir came out in 1999, the bourgeois virtues came out in 26, 2010 and 2016. economical writing the third edition came out last year, as did the most recent why liberalism works, and we quoted a littlquote alittle bit from t. if we are acquainted with the phone lines on the screen if you would like to participate this afternoon, (202)748-2200 for those in the east and central

time zones. (202)748-8201 for those in the mountain and pacific time zones and you can also send a text message if you can't get through, just include your first name and city, 20274882. the 003. we will also look for the social media sites because you can make a comment on pace for corporate or o or by e-mail as well. and we will get to those very quickly. first, what is this piece of paper that i'm holding up your? >> guest: i'm an engineer at heart. it's the scientific attitude when we issued quantitative and you ask how many words i've

written so we need an estimate as it turned out to mature but i said this 3 million. >> host: you are doing the tenth to the ninth power. >> guest: because i can't not multiply very well. >> was co- and i also want to -- this is a quote from you in the chronicle of higher education. quote, i am a starter and i've noticenoticed that they are oftd writers, george hill, updike, lewis carroll, etc., starters avoid words that they think or know they will walk out and therefore are good at finding another discussion. >> guest: a terribly important discussion of this in the current policy is joe biden. i learned about a month ago which revealed he is a lot like me a lifetime stutterer.

people want to know this because his strange way of talking in many of his early political campaigns he would miss state te state of things in a funny way and it's because he's stutteri stuttering. he is avoiding it. the advantage that i am claiming is that people who stutter you get a very good thinking of parallel words. speaking to a friend in brazil the difference in english between say and tell, i said go

to sleep and i'm telling you go to sleep and we discovered the words tell house and authority to it. i'm telling you go toca bed nowo that kind of goes on all the time and as i get older, i get p -- as a professional and supposed to talk all the time as a teacher. at the months after i decided to change gender for about two months, my stutter vanished. i didn't even notice it. people said they didn't know i was going to do this, i told my

family and very few others, and iar said i hadn't heard you fora few months, what's going on. and i said i guess it's because i realized who i am. >> host: november 2, 1995 on a bridge in cedar rapids, what happened? >> guest: it wasn't quite in cedar rapids, it was a couple of months earlier i had what i called ill advise advised to den epiphany driving home from chicago to iowa city where i lived, and it hits me i could change it should and what is als all about it and kind of stran strange. you might have tenure at the famous person of economics at the university chicago.

i have doubts about that. i think on the whole they worked out for me, but i have doubts about that, who you marry, what profession you choose. i haven't had a moment of doubt in the most vulnerable times of day when you wake up at four in the morning. i am here, get used to it. >> host: page 188 of crossing, quote, donald has never left his the way some people do. didn't care when it lasts in australia, she said goodbye to it and didn't care any time afterwards. >> guest: i have a dear friend

who said i would do anything, hide anywhere in the world to avoid something in the world that you are welcoming.

>> host: let's hear from the viewers. chris in connecticut, you are on. >> caller: hello, chris. >> caller: how are you today? >> guest: kind of exhausted i just came from brazil. >> caller: welcome. >> i was wondering there seems to be a lot of confusion between a welfare state and socialist state. can you elaborate more on what you see a welfare state and socialist state is and i will take my answer off the air. >> host: what is your definition? >> guest: i'm not sure anymore. i've had conversations with

friends and neighbors and we can't seem to come to a conclusion except to say a lot of european countries would be considered more of a welfare state and you look a duplicate t to venezuela or the old soviet union ispt more of a socialist state. >> guest: i think that is a sensible distinction. there is a kind of extreme version of not allowing people toay say no which is the socialt state and just reading a wonderful novel of a soviet novelist called forever flowing which is a chilling account of the gulags and the numerous ways

in which they were being tossed around by other soviet, but you can view liberalism in that nobody should be a slave to, not a wife to husband were slave to a master or an assent to this date. you are a slave and i don't just mean metaphorical but you were going to get beaten on mondays, every monday. you've are still a slave. so, you know i think that is a role for the government, and i

think that many of the welfare programs that we have are bad for the people as i explained earlier sometimes a, and in any case, there are welfare programs towards the middle class people who run the welfare programs that arrived to the poor. my idea of a good welfare program would be to give people income if not by coercing the private enterprise to pay for it, but by taxing units need to give money to the poor, period. that would be satisfactory. and the problem in the welfare state is that is keeps merging the words coercing people.

in holland and england and they are much more welfare states and so much more we should get terribly excited about it. most are determined by supplye and demand yet so forth, so yes, there is a scale, but -- >> host: in 2018, you wrote, quote, slavery was of course appalling, explained that the leader the war to end up as righteous altogether, the dispirited and on slavery the u.s. and uk and rest would have become just as rich without the 250 years. i was quoting the glorious words of lincoln second inaugural

choice among the couple of wars before that ended the civil war, and i know that there is a passionate relief in the 19 movement to carry out the words or to affirm the words of the second inaugural where lincoln said that the wealth of the united states depended on slaves, and that is economic nonsense. it's just not true. in all kinds of ways for example if that were such a grand thing,

why do they have a slightly lower income i thought it was a good idea according to the so.theid, not so, i know it's going to make people's hea heads explode, but that's not true that slavery was the basis of american wealth. >> host: yorba linda california. >> caller: hi, i have several of the boat. [inaudible] i was wondering if she has any thoughts on eddie modern trend in rhetoric i think it's

essential, and you know, in their rhetoric doesn't mean just baloney. it means the arts and the study and o the art of argument of persuasion and at many academic fields don't realize they are engaged in persuading each other. the nuclear physicist for the readers to believe the new theory. and, i'm quite surprised in law school they don't quite understand they are participating inth the ancient rhetorical condition of the west. now, they are conditions in east

asia and west asia or indeed at all in the societies that are speaking this, and the processions and argument of what we do. one can center very about it and to some degree, i wrote three books on the rhetoric inhe the 1980s and early 1990s, and the theme was there is no such thing as a settled method of science it's always a matter of persuading people, not cheating people honestly. >> host: john from new york city.. >> host: >> caller: thank you for taking my call.

this usually can be divided between thed socialist standars and the capitalist trial. what do you think is happening in china, can you have a liberal economy with an authoritative government? >> guest: essentially, not. the china model that you are mentioning doesn't make any sense. the parts of the chinese economy that have made the chinese better off instead of being one or $2 a day they are about $30 a day which is a tremendous improvement but it's way below $130 a day that americans earn and make, but the parts that

work for the liberal parts where the chinese government finally 1978 started acting moderately in the economy and stopped the central planning stopped the five-yearr plan, stopped the interfering in the economy over time. the parts that still don't work in china or the state owned enterprises, and one of the mistakes tha they are making ane leaders is that he's having a state owned enterprises buy at private company if he wants to move back to sondlan and this wt the model.

that is a ridiculous idea. think of the model india, 1991 and on started to liberalize away from it from accident that socialism and started growing sixx or 7% per year per capita y essentially leaving people alone and on the prospect of bernie sanders against a donald trump, i would vote for. because in the united states the

sociopaths debate sociopath -- times a weeks and twice on sunday and that is true. do you accept social security, medicare and medicaid are viewed as socialist programs and do you support them, if yes, do you support medicare for all and why? iwhenever i speak to the young

audience was a. oa. the example people often forget is that's really socialism where we are going because it isn't only about the state is taxing to pay for the veterans to go but it's providing the hospitals in the same way education is socialized. i think extending those is a poor idea.

one is medical care in the united states. we pay and you've heard this over and over again twice as much asov the share of national income of any country in the world in healthcare. one is because we have trials of monopolies on to each other. one example, we are not allowed as americans to buy our drugs in canada. because the drug companies have purchased the state, purchased the government and they want to be able to charge three to ten times more than us in the united dates as our friends in canada.

this is crazy, this is logo with the stroke of a pen they could s t the cost of drugs to the united states and as it i is tre with many of theer monopolies in the community when you get together and have the money for it, you have to get permission of the hospitals. my liberal view is that instead of piling subsidies to old people like me o or them extendg

them to everyone so we are able to pay fancy monopoly prices and cut the monopolies come and there is no part of the medical system that isn't a monopoly -- and my eyes are failing. i need the strong glasses to read. to say give me classes on the scale they use for glasses is a five. .. liberal -- libertarian

-ism. you've distinct your self differently from bernie sanders. how would you compare yourself to iran style off libertarianism? i voted for ron paul every chance i got, now i vote the straight libertarian ticket. but if the dems would put up joe biden, even in chicago

where it i is kind of pointless, i would vote for him symbolically. there is no between us, ron paul had so much strange opinions aboutwh race. which i wish he had not had. he wants anything, he is and was somewhat us obsessed with the central bank. but we agreed that there should be not 1 million regulations such as the federal government now has. 1million separate regulations but a lot fewer. and a free press in court law can protect us from the danger of being poisoned in a restaurant much better than regulation can. but i want to turn my many

libertarian friends towards what i should actually call my abraham make liberalism, because it's true of jews and muslims to that we are instructed to help the poor. it is one of the five duties of a muslim is to give charity. one of the very few things you should do as a muslim. it is certainly true in judaism. as a matter fact it's also true of hinduism and buddhism and any sensible way of looking at the world, whether or not it's got o anything to do with god. so i want to change the image of libertarianism. i would like to drop the word

and have us claim back that word because we have what we call liberals in the united states are social democrats. i have many, many friends and fi was once one of these people, so i understand them. but they have seized the word and for about 100 years in the united states meant being a liberal was a social democrat. oddly enough, i mentioned i just came back from brazil. in brazil and much of the latin american being a liberal means being a conservative. conservative about gay rights, conservative about how the church and state should be related and all kinds of traditional conservative things and mexico and brazil are called liberal. so there is something wrong with the westernrn hemisphere. there's something in the water that is making people take this perfectly good word and turn it one its head.

>> host: scott is in uncasville scott is gone he has disappeared. i have no idea if is there not something happened with the phone and i apologize scott if you are there. bran in toledo ohio. >> caller: i read your wonderful book crossing and incr my childhood i always wanted to be a woman. i sound like a woman, i am a man. i do not believe that i was born this way. i believe i can see a clear connection between how i was raised in the fact that i always wanted to be a girl. do you believe that is biological? psychological? both? and what is cause this? >> host: fran have you transitioned it all? >> caller: now i've not a kick practicing catholic and i'm terrified of any surgery but i

can see a clear connection. i knew was when i was a child i hated being a male. i just hated it. i wanted to be a girl and i have a strong desire to imitate the girls. >> guest: i understand, but when i was a boy i was a boy. i transitioned when i was 53 so i urge you to try it, tried out. because there has been an amazing change in the attitude of people in the last 15 years or so. oprah did programs every year end a half or so on trends gendered issues. i was on her show once. and transamerica that wonderful film, was it about this. and people have gotten much more relaxed about it and said it's okay. but you ask if it's biological, uni, both fran,

are in the middle of an experiment and i don't know. i am not sure. i was kind of a gentle boy, but i didn't consciously want to be a girl. and indeed since i am much older than you, this was 1953 what i first had these ideas and there was nothing to be done. so i became a guy. i was married for 30 years to the absolute love of my life. i still love my wife my former wife, when i was a guy i was a guy. i thought like a guy and then i had this epiphany in august of 1995. i realized that i could and should do it. who knows, biological? environmental?

the stars? astrology, i don't know, you tell me. but whatever it is, it is a matter of freedom. if we are going to have a free society, it can't just be freedom to the bosses. it's got tose be freedom to the people to do what they harmlessly want to do. if they want to have a dog, and there is no problem with having a dog, they should have a dog. if they want to open a grocery store, they should open a grocery store. people should be allowed to do without interference and without the need for deep regulation. the psychiatrist are completely ignorant about trends gendered matters for the most part. and yet they are assigned, often by the state to be the gatekeepers, and that's just silly. >> host: deidre when did you tell your ex-wife and did you

have children? >> caller: immediately after that in august of 95 i was driving homem from chicago and i know the place on the road, where i came to the conclusion. i was saying to myself well, should i do this and a month before, i'm not making this up, i am an economist. i had done a cost-benefit study of changing genders. well this is silly beyond belief, that's not how you decide when you love, or what job you're going to do, at least not all of that. but this time i just got it as the english say i'd twigged it to it. yes, i told herye immediately and she was -- she had known before i did. it was eight months up to this august that she sells a more profound than what i saw. i said no i'm just a heterosexual cross dresser and

a lumberjack. i'm okay don't worry about it dear. and she knew, she had much more insight into it. at first she was sympathetic and tried to help me. but as the fault went on, she became less and less empathetic and in the end she and the two other people i love very much, my son is now 50, my daughter's 44, they turned against me and have not spoken to me for 24 years. i have three grandchildren i have never met. which is a little bit like being stabbed and having the knife turned in the wound. but the thing most about that is their loss.lo it's not that i'm such a grand person, but so far as my three grandchildren are concerned, it's always good to have more people too love you and strange as it sounds, i love these three people i haveou never

met. so m what to make of that? in any case, that is theea sadness, really it's their loss not so much mind. i have a very full life, i am happy and have lots of friends, i have church in academic life. i get to talk to wonderful people on tv's be one it was inf november of 95 you got arrested. >> guest: i did, this is a rather sensitive issue in our family because it was my beloved younger sister with whom i'm on very good terms now. she was having her own problems with it with this change of mine, and she got

courts to agree, and this was, i think she feels now and certainly i did at the time, was a mistake. i was seized twice and put in locked awards to check out to see if i was crazy. now, the good news is that i was certified to saint four times. now as far as i know, you are completely new. i don't know maybe you are secretly crazy. i am not. i have the paper to show that i'm completely sane. >> host: the producer enjoyed that comment about me. in crossing, you right people sometimes say i don't understand d cross-dressers who dress as women and i don't want to be with them. >> what don't understand there? >> guest: it's the game.

it was a month before this epiphany, this cross-dressing club in chicago i was involved in, and what was supposed to be an ice cream social because that sounded sufficiently feminine. i noticed the actual girls, a couple of wives, psychologists and hairdresser, they were preparing the food and these men in drag, some of them very persuasive dump they know the job is? i was the only cross-dresser who went up and helped them. and then came time to clean up. remember we were in chicago so i was going around with the bag taking empty cans of coke out off the hands of people -- men in full drag discussing

auto repair and the chicago bears together. these guys just occasionally cross-dress. it didn't really mean very much. that's kind of a slave would attack. it was just something they did and it was no big deal. they often had wives who were very sympathetic and like mine, we had it worked out. that donald, was my name would occasionally cross-dress in private, not too often and it was no big deal. we had a perfectly normal relationshipip, my wife and i. so it was not as i was secretly dreaming of being a woman all the time. that's not the case. i think the actual truth is people or more complicated than that. that people can hold acontradictory thoughts in their minds quite easily and can have deep commitments to

things that sound like they don't go together. so for these decades, first it was great shame and then not so much i thought of myself as a heterosexual cross-dresser. i was always attracted to women i was not gay. and yet the stupid psychiatrists quiz me once when i had been seized in the fall of 1995, and said are you gay? i said no. they said you want to be bank gay and i do know quite what that meant i said no i don't. then why are you doing this? which showed that he thought i wanted to become a woman to have with men. come on if all m i had discovered age 53 was that i was gay, that would have been

much easier. but of course i did it the hard way. [laughter] >> host: michael is in portland oregon. >> caller: hello professor i am just really, really sad, i'm in my 70s now that i had nott in countered you sooner. i just really, really respect your mental style. i love your desire i think they're very defined principles and things that are seemingly opposites. i have that kind of style two. and i agree the contradictory propositions constantly and sees kind of. [inaudible]

mike, you aren't coming through to clearly. it's kind of fuzzy. oh. >> i am sorry. >> guest: just asked a question mike that'll be good. >> caller: question first it would be very interesting to have you at my dinner table talking, i love your mental style. my question, one is who would you have if you are the host who would you have a yard dinner table to talk? >> guest: that's a very interesting question. i might have you michael. i just love intellectual conversation. i am in iowa where i taught for 19 years we had an express in you own a lot of the hogs. i'm happy as a pig in mud when

i'm having ag discussion like this with you. so i would have people who like to talk seriously, i can think of a lot of nays, michael for example is a canadian philosopher and was the head of the liberal party. he is in canada briefly. i can think of others -- if i could bring dead people c back, i've got a real long list. [laughter] adam smith above all, jon stuart especially. those are the two patron saints of liberalism along

with a few others. >> host: scott in connecticut you are on. please go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: thank you very much i would add jeremy benson to your list as well. but professor, i have two quick questions, i hope they are quick. the first is what are your feelings about state owned bank similar to what they have in south dakota? where the capital for lack of better term, stays in the state in the gets redistributed to different projects, infrastructure projects and the other one in terms of socialism, my understanding and i am a biologist not an economist. socialism is government control of production and i just can't see how supply and demand can work in our medical system. so socializing the insurance, which pays for -- medicare for all, as an example seems to me

a decent idea because there is a needo of a drug they're going to pay anything for it to save their life. >> host: before we can answer scott, scott hung up. as can ask them who is jeremy bentham. >> caller: he is the founder of utilitarianism. the ideasm that became a very big and important idea in economics that is maximizing utility, as he called it, that drives people. i think it was wrong and his young friend also thought it was wrong. jeremy died around 1830. as to ata state owned bank, i think it is a terrible idea. because it's to bring politics

into the functioning of the economy. the problem with that is everybody has an opinion on how you should run your business, or your occupation. and why should they have a say in that? as to it keeping money in north dakota, that's horatius economics. as is the notion that medical care should be run by these monopolies and then the government should keep paying more and more for it. as a biologist, you know how evolution works. i think that is t how the economy works.

in fact, charles darwin was inspired by economics. as he claims in his autobiography. we have to try things out from the bottom. imposing rules from the top is not the way to go. the old joke is a camel is a horse designed by a committee. and in fact, camels evolved. camels evolved from other horse like animals. so i think the free evolutionary wayna is the way to go in the economy, as it is in biology. that means we will make mistakes but they will be small mistakes. where we go from the top we make big mistakes like soviet communism. or george bush's invasion of iraq and things like that.

>> host: a text message to you he read your book virtues and loved it. is it possible for monopoly to survive long-term without government support? is seems most monopolies are created and maintained by government. >> guest: that is exactly right. there is a great fear of so-called natural monopolies. eethis has been a concept in economics for about a hundred years. we now see it in the great worry about amazon.com or google or facebook. they have a big share, their monopoly. no they are not. they are a large share, let's take amazon. at what they do and what amazon does because it does it very well. it is under constant pressure from people imitating it's rather simple model. which is the reinvention of

the mail order stores. like montgomery warren and sears roebuck. and siegel's. it's about a hundred years on. it's not a monopoly, of course amazon would like to be a monopoly, in which case it would go to the government and try to get those other people stopped. and that is one of the common sources of monopoly, you're perfectly right. long-term, and it isn't that long of a term. amazon has been around only a very small amount of time. historically speaking. doesn't take long before competitors spring up. that is why as the nobel prize

economists pointed out. inventors get only 2% of the social gain of their invention. 98% goes to us, the consumers. >> host: joe and pennsylvania, good afternoon to you. >> caller: hi professor, i am looking at the downside of deregulation as regards too predatory banking or enabling toxic carnage caused by corporate polluters in an age where we live now where a war on truth, war on science, war on the environment. i know you said earlier it's good for small business, innocuous businesses where they are being killed by regulation.

but i'm thinking what are your thoughts on the downside as involved as is her run this problem that we have now where the thoughts for our children's future is the last thing. the main thing on people's minds is huge profits for already wealthy huge corporations. >> host: alright joey got the point. >> caller: i understand your concern and i actually do worry about global warming. i certainly do not argue widely observed go for this fact lists or these alternative facts third that there is no such thing as global warming, it's all a big hoax. donald trump's favorite word, which he is extremely skilled at. but i think there are ways of dealing with things like

global warming or pacific gas and electric pollution. the tendency to start forest fires. mainly publicity, you've got to have a free press, is crucial. and torch laws as i said before and indeed, understand as i argued in the first book of my trilogy, it's kind of unreasonable to argue that people in business want to hurt their customers or anyone else. they are not saints, but they are not devils either. and the danger of giving the power to institute 1 million separate regulations or to introduce the interstate

commerce commission, which was instantly taken over by the industry it was supposed to beas regulating namely the railways. to do it in the government, is dangerous. it's a slippery slope to a society in which we are all children, and in which the wise people in washington are running our lives in 100 different ways. will rogers, the great cowboy comedian of the 1920s and he30s, by the way when you see people in the house of representatives being interviewed in front of the statue it's of will rogers. he used to say just be glad

you don't get the government you pay for. and he also said i don't make jokes, i just watch the government and report the facts. and i think -- he was a liberal in every way. and that attitude is american. it's our heritage as americans. and the kind of status top down, i'm from the government and i'm going to help you attitude a of our beloved friends in europe, is the alternative. i am foror a free society and i think so are you, joe. >> host: lloyd is in los angele angeles. >> caller: hello professor thank you for your story.

i'm going to immediately going to run out and get your book crossing, i think i could learn a lot from you. i certainly would have questions about courage to ask you. but i want to really return to your earlier points that you made that i think you're going to have to persuade me a little better that the triangular slave trade was not responsible for the wealth this country has generated. and i don't think you can compare south africa to what was going on with that whole system and the designing of institutions that i perpetuated the privilege and oppression. >> host: lloyd before we let you go, what was it about her book, crossing, that attracted you? >> caller: honestly i am

really impressed with the courage that the professor has exhibited throughout her life. i am really impressed with that, and i think i can gain a lot in my own life. >> caller: bear in mind, lloyd, when you always say i'm right is that we all need courage in our lives. think of the mother rising every morning to take care of her severely handicapped son. that is courage. and, i think you will agree, lloyd, that the person who doesn't think that courage is the center of human life, hasn't lived very long. as for the slave trade and so forth, it's very hard to persuade people of this because we have been taught in high school and in the movies and so forth, about slavery.

slavery was terrible. by the way, we only started thinking it was terrible when they started to come to power northwestern europe. nobody thought that slavery system was bad as the system. though unfortunate for the it.vidual caught in but if the slave trade or slavery itself were so productive of enrichment, then the middle east would have been very rich. because the slave trade from eastern africa up into the

slave markets of cairo, are indeed the slave trade from russia, south into the slave markets of constantinople or istanbul. natalie called them slaves. that's where the word comes from if those were enriching, you have an empire, constantinople, the arab caliphate and so forth. they would have had the explosion of wealth that northwestern europe had in the h and especially the 19th century. there is something very strange about putting one's finger on slavery as the cause of our enrichment. i think the cause of our enrichment was the opposite of slavery.

it was a gradual emancipation of slaves included that gave people the spirit to try out innovation. the spirits and the permission, maybe that's the best word, permission. >> host: deirdre, every month we have an author on, we ask him or her what -- what they are reading and what some of their favorite books are. your response was a little unique and i'm justt going to read itue out loud, the e-mail that you sent to the producer. what's your favorite books? well i use hundreds of books of year even though i'm giving away my library of 8000 of them to a chinese university next month. i like amber to echo's response when somebody asked him if he had read all of his 30,000 books in his library. no, but it might be the next book i pick up that has the greatest impact. >> caller: that's right, and

indeed the one i just started to read last week when i got my new kindle reader, my eyes are failing so it's great that you can make the print larger. is forever flowing, that i mentioned by i think i can't remember his first name. anyways grossman. he was at' soviet communist who fought against the germans and then became a liberal for which he was sent siberia. but it's a good book. >> host: forever flowing we're gonna show show it on the screen here. oostay. >> it is a really goods book he big thick book that i'm going to read next. a novel that big, and into the half book. after the invention of word

processing i can't write short books anymore.to >> host: do you write every day? >> caller: putting much, i'm not ernest hemingway sharpening 50 pencils and writing for two hours. that's how a novelist works and good for them. but in my case, i am going to come away from this conversation with some ideas because conversation is productive of ideas. and with you and our guests, and on the plane i'm going to be typing away. for her incompetently. usually two fingers i'm trying to learn touch typing. >> host: i want to go on over your life, you write to us, 1959 steinbeck's the grapes of wrath were very important to you, it made you a socialist before studying economics. >> caller: yes it did, it is a

wonderful book which every american should read. but by the way, the okies who went to california a few years later were fully employed and air craft factories during the war and did pretty well. >> host: 1961 a book that was important to was robert the worldly philosophers which got me setting economics which in the end cured me of the socialism that steinbeck had created. >> caller: that's right and bob himself advocated. he was a prince of a a man. he had his career at the new school for social research in new york and he was a convinced socialist. but towards the end of his career, he admitted that capitalism, as he insisted on calling it which i wish he hadn't. had one. though he was not only a prince of a

guy, but he was honest. >> host: 1995, jan j morris' book conundrum, which showed me that a professional person coul change gender without catastrophe. >> caller: she was the person in the base camp when sir edwin hillery first climbed mount everest. so she was a correspondence. it was a hilarious story when she wasde a young second lieutenant in the british army, just after the second world war. she was stationed w in venice and upon sounding for a few months. she came back as jan having change gender, and said to the owner now very old. after the war i spent some months hereupon sion he and this italian owner was a

wonderful kind of phony charm that the italian said ohsi yes signor i remember you well. [laughter] >> host: will is calling in from florida, high will. b3 hi and thanks him is just c-span and especially in depth that allows us to get into the weeds with great minds such as professor mccloskey. i did mynd undergraduates in economics and political science in 1961. more recently in 2008 i did a doctor ofec ministry at the divinity school. so welcome to the fold of the chosen frozen as we call it. it's be too i love it. >> caller: i have two points of economics i would love to discuss further with you. i grew up in chicago so shouldn't be hard for me to it catch you at your office where one day. but to continue it and be brief in respect to the other listeners, first of all, the

idea of capital and capitalism, i agree is an unfortunate misnomer in many cases because economics really is made up of capital and labor. and that's all it is. the only discussion is who controls the capital and the labor. >> host: will bear going to leave it there because you've already got professor shaking her head. capital and labor. >> caller: i agreed for decades with what you're saying and indeed it's the basis of the socialist movement since eight teen 48 to say labor is naked, so why don't they get the income. there are very good reasons why that should not be so. that land, labor, capital should have their pay according to what we call in economics as you know from

your undergraduate studies, marginal product. but the more fundamental points, which i have come to recently in the last couple of years is that the real source of enrichment is new ideas, not capital, not to labor, not climate, not this or that. it's a nice or desirable or necessary as they may be. what is really going on, is since 1800 freedom, freeing people to have a go into trout this stuff that's kind of crazy way that we have in many countries since 1800. it is the new idea, spectacular example is containerization. malcolm maclean and 1956 in north carolina had a bright h idea. let's make standardized boxes,

send them to china and bring stuff back and so forth. containerization has revolutionized the transportation supply chain. having the idea, of course he needed capital. and he needed labor to. of course you need both. but those already existed and they weren't this spring and the mechanical watch. i think this is an important idea that i have had and i've been working on it for a couple of years and stumbling all over trying to figure out why i disagree with my earlier self. that thought like you, we got capital, and labor, land, those are causal. osno they're not, it's ideas that are causal. french cuisine is not caused by its ingredients. it's caused by brilliance

thinking about bullet bays or something like that. >> host: we haven't talked about your book on economic canonical writing, the third edition came out this year, we will show it on the screen. you should as a writer work on keeping the reader awake. economists not known for keeping readers away? >> caller: you're telling me that should be a statement. there is the jargon problem,, of course that's true of any specialized field. there is the toes see white mills the great american sociologists call the academic pose. we aren't getting rid of academic prose until we get rid of the academic pose.

namely the pose of i'm so smart and i want to impress you with how smart i am, and that's my only purpose in life. and that is not such a good way to go. indeed, as a woman, i have learned to be more openhanded in myo style. it changed my writing style, i think it's true of women academics scholars. are more -- that they make their scholarship, their science more personally connected. b1 why is that? >> caller: because they are woman deer and they are not playing hockey. they are playing their passion. there is a wonderful book, i forget the author, about barbara mcclintock, i believe that was her name who was a nobel prize-winning biologist

and the book is called a sense for the organism. she worked on corn and in this kind of womanly way, she would watch the little corn plantsy growing. and made great biology out of o that. and i could give you example of female historians who see into human lives and what we can say, and a less mechanical earth theoretical way than men do. there is a very good play about rosen franklin, the co- discover of dna who died of cancer before she could get the nobel prize. and there is a a debate between her and james watson, on the

role of theory versus observation. and it's notorious in many fields that women want to look atom things and men want to talk aboutta them. >> host: before we go any further, we want to make sure to show the cover of the book you reference a little while ago. forever flowing. and that's the one you are currently reading. >> caller: it's a very good novel, read it. and then come back and tell me that you think socialism is a good idea. >> host: virginia, chicago. hello. >> caller: hello i'm your neighbor. i was mistaken for your mother at a party. i have a question. >> caller: hi how are you? be too hot i'm fine, i have taken so many notes from this that i'm dying to come and have a conversation with you

when you have some time. >> guest: anytime virginia. >> caller: thank you, what i want to know is will you go with the greatest of goods for the greatest number and can you categorize it? >> guest: i miss the verb in that sentence. >> host: the greatest good for the greatest number, will you go with? >> guest: i will go with it, but you have to know who you are, she is an amazing person. i could go on about virginia for a while. mathematically speaking it's absurd. unfortunately. because it says you can have the greatest goods for the greatest number but you can't have two great things together. that is, you can to maximize two things at once. but that's just the

mathematical point. no, i deeply agree that the purpose of government or the economy should be the welfare, the deep welfare, not just goods and services although that's very important, of ordinary people of the masses. i could care less if i don't know, bill gates makes more money. vote where you and i probably disagree is on the role of the state in all of this. jeremy benson, who we mentioned before, this is his formula. the greatest for the greatest number. and he wanted to engineer everyone's life. his famous proposal he made for prisons called the panoptic con, which then actually became the design of modern prisons in the 19th century where there is a

central guard place where they watch all of the prisoners, all the time. and that is kind of his vision for society. and i am very disturbed by it. as many people like jon stewart new at the time. i think it is much better, here i think you actually agree that it's bottom up. virginia is a francophone and has lived in france a lot. explained to my host here, and i think you agree the french cuisine comes from the bottom up. it comes from thousands of housewives and a lot of men. thinking up, not some plan to make french cuisine good. if that worked, the german would have the best cuisine in the world.

>> host: christopher post on her facebook page, it shouldn't be a dichotomy between capitalism and socialism. some things are better left to the free markets, something should not be. health insurance for instance should be a public good, we arty have socialized medicine for the 65 and older. it should be extended to everyone. >> guest: no, i don't think so. that sounds nice but as i said here's my analysis in one sentence. we've got monopolies that make american medicine veryol expensive. before you throw money at it, after the monopoly has been formed, stop the monopolies. and the monopolies. a simple example i gave was drugs and the recording of drugs. here's a more general point. among friends and family,

according to his need and his ability is exactly what we should have and what we want in a loving family, that's how it should work. but that formula doesn't work for a big society. as i don't know, the state of new jersey, it doesn't work. we have to have two kinds, the socialism we have should be in the small in families and indeed that is why young people especially these days, if they have not worked if they've not grown up on a farm or small business in which they participate with their parents. they think that socialism is good because they want in a very generous, openhearted way, want to help poor people

by bringing them into the family. but that is not how markets are going to work. markets at the big level, markets work. donald trump is crazy to do these trade wars, that's insane. in the big markets, and the small socialism when you try to do it the other way around, you wreckck everything as you can see in the case of them going socialism. >> host: how to be human is another book. i am often depressed by how few books economist have in their houses.he an economist to think that economics, likes physics, requires one to merely read the latest articles is not going to be much of an economist. >> caller: i wrote that a long time ago, but i agree with my

earlier self instead ofns quarreling with him or her as the case may be. i am now advocating for what we are calling human not nymex economics with the humans left in. i had a conversation a fewef monthshs ago with a very prominent economist, i won't tell who heer is. and he said i read novels, but i read novels for pleasure and i don't see what they have to do with economics. while that's a guy not having a full intellectual life. because a if you are not influenced by novels and movies, personal relationships, what you see as you walk around the town, and your economics and social science may be in chemistry it wouldn't matter. butst in economics then you're not seeing the whole economy.

and human on knicks tries to do that. i have a friend at chapman university in california, bart wilson coined the word about ten years ago and he gives the course with the colleague in the english department to freshman at chapman university called human onyx. andit they study the economy by reading, a long poem by the german poet. what? how can you do that. because if economics is a social science about real human beings, then grates literature, and not so great literature ought to have something to do with it. one of my favorite movies is

groundhog day which shows there are some economics in it and not too much. the main thingoo it shows is a life of virtue is the good life for a human being. that's what he discovers. that's the kind of thing you can learn from the bible, or from a novel, or from here's a very good example that i just came up with the other day. why did the soviet union try to stop 1930s jazz from coming into the soviet union? and later, why did they try to stop or rock music from coming into the soviet union? and i got an answer, they realized, correctly, that these two musical forms were expressions of liberty.

louis armstrong improvising is an expression in music of freedom. the same holds with rock music. if you arere an authoritarian country, you don't want any of that. so we can learn about politics and economics in all kinds of ways. we need to learn to be free. >> host: wills in lincoln delaware. please go ahead. >> caller: thank you peter and professor i've been e fascinated by every thing you talked aboutry everything you say leaps to another subject. i'm interested that you came back from brazil, i think you mentioned south africa et cetera. i lived in japan for six years during the mid- 1970s and

milton freedman had just came out with free to choose and it was turned into a tv series, reader's digest pop their eyes did. porton fax. >> guest: my morning what books are finding when you travel internationally that have impacted you you just mentioned that sounds like human action. >> host: thank you were almost out of time job have you discovered a thing? >> caller: yes for example there's a great economist de soto, talks about empowering very poor people by giving them property in their huts in the land under their illegal settlements.

i learned more abroad by talking to people, then from reading. because, after all, the intellectual life of the world isin over dominated by 19th century european thought. there is a certain monotony to socialism, nationalism, and if you like those national socialism, because they keep coming up the same arguments, the same stories. i find it much more interesting to talk to bankers in brazil what say, and just see what they say about both sonora for example. then to read theoretical works. so i must say, i tried to become an educated person and

it is pretty much hopeless. [laughter] you have to keep added, and shows like this are an important part of helping americans be more broadly educated. >> host: deirdre in our one minute remaining, super bowl sunday, doesn't make economic sense for a city or state to build a sports stadium? >> caller: absolutely not. and it is a con game. they can build the stadium like a super bowl stadium i'll even know where it is. >> host: it's in miami an item not that the state-supported one even though there has been some. >> caller: they're allre going to create jobs. we never hear people talk about creating jobs, you can assume they don't know economics very well. you don't create jobs when you

build the stadium. you move people from other parts of the economy to the stadiumth work. and you give the owners of the sports franchises enormous free lunches. and it's just a silly, silly thing to do. i'm sort of a simpleminded sports fan in a chicago teen that does well, i am in favor of. but, i think you have to watch out for crony capitalism. you have to watch out for corporate welfare. that is state socialism or state capitalism, neither of which is a goodis idea. >> host: theater is most recent book, why liberalism works, how true liberal values create a freer, more equal prosperous world for all.

>> very happy to be joined here by andrea bernstein the cohost of the trump inca podcast common important podcasts. we offer the new book american ogle her i love this book. one of the things that struck me about reading this book is you are the perfect person for this because you have immersed yourself in new york and new jersey politics and real estate and business for a career. and now we have not only the