it is great to be here with you all to celebrate and discuss an excellent new book by one of the country' countries most orid insightful economicou thinkers, amity shlaes. over the course of her career, she's got her wide-ranging intelligence and fuel for

storytelling to some of the countries leading intellectual cultural institutions. she served as a member of "the wall street journal" editorial board, columnist for the financial times and bloomberg news and has taught history at the school of business now in addition to her prolific book writing she serves as a presidential scholar for king's college in the chairs the board of the calvin coolidge presidential foundation and a big coup for us chaired the selection committee for the manhattan institute prize and an award she herself has one. the latest work great society, a new history is a stunning achievement. few decades have been printed on the popular imagination quite as much as the 1960s and so many of us remember the decade for the dramatic and turbulent moments. the assassinations of the kennedys and martin luther king junior, the marchmo on washingtn in antiwar protests.

neil armstrong on the moon and fighting in vietnam. the focus is in the drama that played out on television screens across the country so much as theb failure to patrol these events and directly show. indeed a generation of politicians came to realize theb centralized hierarchical and highly regulated model of political economy that dominated postwar america stopped working. yet more than just the technical failures, she captures the stifling feeling of a country run from the top down. america put up with the machinery and culture of mobilization during the world wars and over the years the nuclear cold war but at some point that old american yearning swashbuckling independent-minded distrustful of authority was bound to reemerge. this is a vitally important story for our time and we can be grateful she is told with such

insight. i'm happy to report books will be sold in the back of the room ladies andme gentlemen, amity shlaes. [applause] think you. if you cannot hear me, please let me know. it took about the great society deserves great thanks. my thanks to the manhattanth institute president, the former president who is also here, the vavice president and for hosting this event i'd like to thank my publisher, my agent and his colleague that is with us. i'd like to think the coolidge foundation for supporting me, certain brands including thomas smith, jim pearson who are both

here, tim denison and especially josiah peterson who worked on the research. i'd like to thank my family, my husband and my daughter who are both here tonight. the first sentence is a question, why not socialism. this is a question we askedw ourselves. how to be answered? is a question you all people want to be able to deliver an answer to. we don't really feel an obligationll to undertake a long-term investment in projects that would open the american mind to see the challenge and the tragedy of socialism. we want to share the record of

the past so that when they come to vote and leave, younger americans recognize that it isn't useful policy. it's november and 2019, educating is a long-term investment. we feel frustrated that the prospect and outright failure in the intellectual entrepreneurship. politics are much more fun and instant gratification. all of us have some vanity. people remember politicians. they do not always remember educators. so we want to be remembered and sometimes pick short-term projects for that reason. ted like to tell you a story of

a long-term project. it starts in the 1950s and features a company and the american public is humiliation of business, shame and intellectual failure, no way around it but the story that ends in the 1980s also reveals him unexpected feedback some of you might know the characters that appreciate hearing about them one more time. the name of the company was general electric. in the 1950s, general electric rode high in factories in new york, massachusetts and connecticut and employedd many thousands. it was the industrial center in some ways. every year americans bought more tvs, radios or freezers. it wasn't just the company, it

was an icon that served the state program to the tennessee,e valley authority, americans trusted the general electric just like they trusted the game of baseball a good company that follows rules and the essence. the soviets invaded the u.s. to create a display of progress at moscow and the lemon yellow one must general electric. most ge executives at the time, and again we are talking about the late 50s, like the executives of most companies at a time had a view of how capitalism works. the private sector was invincible. it was like a workhorse. what it was supposed to do is serve and they herded the sector

like an animal. threeos or ge or most of ge that sounded just fine. the discontent with the government. the tennessee valley authority is the essence of the project and they liked it very much and found that it was one of the customers. they didn't mind surfing the space program. unions existed by virtue of the ball and they demanded they pay packages, social experiments by the federal government, while american business that pays out. maybe expansion of healthcare or the u.s. could pay that or have a longer leave, that is just a joke, something like a longer leave while we could see that,

.too mac. the unions we could pay any load. stalin was said to have joked the only country rich enough to avoid communism was the united states. [laughter] why should it not be true in the 1960s the average was approaching a record level of 1,000 i-india seem to matter of months before they would pass the landmark but there was underappreciated executives that saw things differently. he was an older guy, he was the vice president and labor relations and his name was boulware. he believed it didn't come when the board paid taxes to the federal government are met

altogether and wrote out a big ooans he believed it took place on a lonely scientist in his lab had an idea and wanted the world, ideas like the light bulb. ge idea. boulware believed the burden of government spending and union demand backed by government would gradually strangle american competitiveness. even a little bit of socialism he said could do damage. the reason the kitchens were better than the russian tensions as the old term investments at the beginning of ge. the reason the companies strive is they were unaffordable but the wages and prices would render them and competitive and the russians would think that her kitchens. nobody could imagine japan at this point that was the scope of

the imagination into view of boulware for a pristine company like general electric to inspire america to return to old capitalism and the problem with urgent. or we are through with everything we cherish. the younger executives at the general electric found him records. his superlative irritated them and in public many agreed with this evaluation you figure that combined a kentucky farm background with the fervor of a washington machine salesman. [laughter] the other executives said ge didn't worry, they were the future. boulware was approaching

retirement by 1960 or maybe 1965 he would be out. still he was determined to use his final hours to make his own long-term investment. he wanted to teach the gift, the nature, the precious gift of capitalism. he explained the value of gmarkets. they would leave one such town and he warned them grass will grow if they didn't wake up to the importance of the competitive prices and costs. he used to new media in his case

to the television to reach the people creating a tv show some of you have seen called ge theater showcase traditional american values. he hired staff including the aging actor to pge spokesman. remember, the actor was the union men, a democrat that a buyeadmired franklin roosevelt d the new deal. still, i won't say his name yet, but the actor that was hired have potential. [laughter] we have our c-span on the. so what's with their story. for the actor to live in and boulware the actor who was ronald reagan and adam smith, john locke and tocqueville with essays by henry he gave little books like the manhattan institute does andou hoped that

they would be read. this actor wasn't exactly popular across ge either.r the executives didn't like the propaganda but for the few tremaining years, they couldn't stop and they were sent around to hundreds of plants to explain the future of the industry and so on and the dangers of nesocialism. maybe hydropower wasn't the only power in the future of the united states and soon enough, the actor began to take the arguments seriously. he even brought his son some

stock. they cast a dark cloud over ge. the justice department was investigating the company. the new attorney general whose name was robert kennedy pulled together a strong case to fix high prices on the turbines have sold their it's about the free market even as ge cheated the american taxpayer. it's like the sox scandal when

it happened to ge and national strategy fired and canceled and then retired to delray beach. ge is solved as did many other in the federal government the news with other efforts. they thought social democracy sounded nice. johnson promised toon cure povey to make america a better place.

this year they did strengthen unions one of the provisions of great society in this book is the revision of richard nixon. they expanded the government as johnson had before him in some areas. they were six times the cost in constant dollars.

by 1980 it was 13 times the 1950 cost. social insurance costs were 27 times the level and housing costs 129 times the 1950 cost.ug they wanted to spend more in housing so the great society field. the programs shackled americans and generally speaking there was a terrible morning-after effects that followed the great society, the economy began to flail as it never had before. we know that unemployment went towards 10% and interest rates

went past 15%. the high cost of labor under the policies backed by the government did drive american companies to leave town and the grass to grow in pittsfield, just as boulware predicted. the center of detroit did become the rust belt and i write a lot about that and the great society. they stayed below a thousand for a generation. today they be needed in the ever rising stock market as their birthright. they expect nothing else. ehe imagine if today we had to wait until 2035 to get to the next barrier.

you don't have to be a socialist all the way to do damage. indeed, he was right on even a little socialism does incredible damage. you do eventually get there and in fact sooner than you think you. the whole layout you can imagine boulware beating himself up about the failure of his effort and enlightenment, but as you know, one figure was now enlightened, and he did care, that was the actor reagan and he decided to try politics in the 1964 he took his standard ge speech out of the can or desk drawer and gave it on tv basically word for word. america had to choose socialism or not. this is what became known as the time for choosing and then the actor ran for governor of california where he challenged the great society is numerous times including the legal

department that came out of our poverty program and he put the policies and practice. they were saving money, fighting expansion of welfare, personalpa dignity, support, respect for markets and when he did run for president and he won, it was 1980 and was no longer the morning after the fact of the reeat society. it could be morning in america. the entire resolution reagan brought this morning in america came around to give those pamphlets. the long-term investment if no one remembered had paid off in the magnitude that was near unimaginable. markets thrived and we did get a strongly rising market. there were several lessons and

that is one of 12 chapters in the book. first of all, the overarching lesson of the book is that the government is rotten and planning no matter how much it spends you get a perverse lesson. the private project that looks like a complete goof of failure may not turn out to be a complete failure in the end. sometimes it is just early and sometimes that is good. think of it from the point of view of the voters who learned about markets from when reagan gave talks in the cafeteria of factories. some attempted tens of thousands of meetings and understood what reagan was saying when he spoke as a publication that there was another way for the american

worker they emerged as the famous blue-collar vote. another plaintiff more obvious that that is worth mentioning is the society offers a lesson on trusting your own judgment. if you suspect a program is not that it probably isn't. if you suspect a program might be good, invest in it. because the institutions that inspired you as a child and leave a the plan for your own institutions. much of the work i do is trying to plant the seed. a theoretical seed can be the most fruitful. the third and final point, individuals matter without the individual scholars, there would have been no broken windows policy, without boulware, no ronald reagan.

now i would like to raise a theoretical glass of wine. i'm standing right here in manhattan with you three decades after the death of that obscure ge executives and everyone in this room is raising a glass to the public policy work but also most of all we are raising our class to the name of boulware. thank you very much. [applause] >> she's kindly agreed to take a few questions. >> yes sir.

>> [inaudible] when i think of the great society two things come to mind, lbj and the race revolution in america, civil rights the solution to the riots in the streets. helping blacks get out of poverty, helping them overcome discrimination based on race. what i remember was that obj was abandoned by people and the only people that stuck with him as the naacp. my question to you is what about the civil rights revolution in america and how can it not be in your book and how can we explore the great society. >> it is in my book very

inexpensively. the book looks at the civil rights law so we have this act that came before the voting rights act and basically the early right are great and important and revolutionary and without them, we wouldn't be where we are. particularly following the howard university speech of president johnson was one of benefits, but people get. those benefits didn't help poor people, white or black. thethe kind of kept them poor. for example today we have the hillbilliology book that's so important. what can we do kind of struggling through the pathologies.

in the 1960s we had an appellation law but it didn't help that just made life harder. i mark the divide as they speech i think that he got ahead in bible say there is a treatment in the convention at which the mississippi delegation was not defeated into the decision of the betrayal of organized labor with johnson to turn away those people because they needed to go to the regular mississippi par party.

there seems to base two schools of thought first is that it was counterproductive in the seconds that there was more moderate and accommodation. you will see a lot of the programs helped reduce poverty. we need to embrace more of their system. where do you come down on the point of view without the boost basically transfers here -- panic that's a very important question and you can count up with benefits or without.

when you go without, there are a lot of poor people. i would argue that we are enough of advising people. they are becoming so accustomed they don't see their way outward in opportunity to work or believe they can work so i think it's destructive even if it keeps people quiet. some of the benefits, particularly the money that flowed in chapter for was meant to calm people so they wouldn't write. the money got trapped in but i don't think you can buy out people. we would be stronger if we had a menu of opportunity rather than

the entitlement >> i'm partway through your book which i am enjoying and i'm so glad to learn how to pronounce lemule. [laughter] can you talk a bit about the relevance of your book to the contemporary debates about redistribution because we are going through a spasm that his new. to make it more complicated, what is the role of being in the cold war versus 30 years out and how communism as both an alternative model and a threat, how does that play into

arguments about getting -- panic i answer the second question first. i think also attitudes towards socialism comes out younger people today have nothing to compare to the heavens serve in the military by and large. my book has a chapter on the statements of that would be. because the older brother was in the korean conflict, so now we have these massive naïveté to deal with and that is involved in another sector and parallel between that and enough, i would say if the progressives can call

for socialism, then we can talk about it without being labeled. this doesn't have to do with moscow. there's a number of progressives that make. it's about their ideas domestically, so we can talk about socialism, now was there something else? i tried to do a good job. just wanted to say one other thing. when people go on a trip. there's a sort of intellectual

tourism it's called looking for socialism. the character. it was made from the fuselage of a downed american jet. it was the north vietnamese way of dragging the planes down that someone gave back home. tom hayden gave it to peter collier. so it's a romantic trip, he meets a girl and so on. after the intellectually.

they were bombing but that is the romance of socialism which is as present today, and at his own confusion, basically at the end of the chapter he decides. >> i believe we have time for one more question. if there is a society that has awoken or a model that we might fall into the back to the socialist tendencies.

i do believe americans love business and the more we can expose to traditional sense ideas. we have this scholarship and academic merit, so it' merit coh certified specialist high schools in new york where the road scholarship. it's really aboutad academic met and it's quite a serious competition. we only have four scholarships each year across the expensive, it is a full ride to college and we already have 15,000 kids have

registered to apply for four scholarships this year. what do they want? they want the money, right. they won't and then from their parents, they want to not have to fill out the forms. a lot of them also like the idea their own.ings on i think it's important for all of us to send signals to young people that you could be enterprise are could be trying, for doing things on your own and is currently the system doesn't do that. it's more the reward system is about how you can figure out what you can get from the point of view so i think it is easy to change if you focus on 16 to 20-year-olds and to show them what's in it for them and play to their natural wisdom you might understand this and think this and you might not be wrong. [applause]

would encourage you to buy a copy for your friend. they will be enriched by reading this wonderful experience. [applause] >> [inaudible conversations]

up next on booktv, mary gray looks at the work force that drives large tech companies but amazon, google per book ghost work. and later, university of texas professor michael lind. welcome, everybody. thank you very, very much for coming. i am a faculty member in the technology department and one of the cochairs of the task force commissioned by a year ago in the spring and the purpose of the task force is to engage and