he does it intentionally. sometimes he doesn't even know he is doing it, but it happens. it is influencing every aspect of american life. culture, economics, politics, and in ways you detected, the way journalists interact with this ongoing story. >> sunday night at 8 pm eastern on c-span. next, cato institute senior fellow tom palmer explores how the ideas of law, liberty and freedom have changed throughout history from 2100 bc through the american revolution. he is the author of realizing freighting, libertarian freedom -- realizing freedom. it is one hour 15 minutes. i have the task of setting

up the stage for what we will be dealing with later, which is mainly american history, but not exclusively. now i get to take us through about 4500 years of history in about 45 minutes. let me start with a little bit of the philosophies of history, which i mentioned. i do consider them to be mostly bunk. including the idea that everything leads to the present and that is all we should be interested in. i do think, nonetheless, there are some things we can say about history and liberty. first, looking at those conditions for the emergence of liberty is the importance of some background of a higher

law. it isn't merely an expression of human wealth. the philosopher and thinker leo strauss, with whom i am not generally in much sympathy, he captures very neatly. you can understand this with two cities. jerusalem and athens. jerusalem, we associate with revealed religion. there is a story in the book of exodus about the golden calf. a very powerful story. and moses led the people out of their slavery in egypt. he goes up to the mountain to have some sort of interaction with god. it transcends normal human understanding. in contemporary terms, he goes to the burning bush website and downloads the law.

he has an interaction with god and when he does, the people say where is moses, what has become of him? and they go to erin and says make a god before us, like the other nations. and he says, bring me your gold, your jewelry. they melted it and make a golden calf. they dance before it and they worship it and they sacrifice for it. they say, these are your gods who brought you up out of the land of egypt. meanwhile, on the mountain, god says to moses, behold, this is a stiffnecked people. these are the ones considered the chosen people. they are stiffnecked. he says, let my wrath burn not

against them, that i may totally destroy them. but if you, i will make a great nation and you will have many, many children. but moses does something that is unique and makes it a uniquely jewish story. he does something unexpected. he argues with god. not what you would think people would immediately do. there is an argument with god and it says the lord repented of his decision. there is an important message. god is not a thing in the world, a golden calf. he is somehow transcendent. it is interesting theologically, but also has a significance politically. because what of great rulers always claim? they are god's. the pharaohs of egypt were gods. only one denied his own divinity and he did not come to a good end. various rulers claimed to be divine. but there is something wrong

about that in the tradition that derives from the idea that there is a higher law. it is a religious expression. then when we think about athens, we can think about this expression in philosophy. trying to figure things out and understand the world. we can think about aristotle, for example. he was interested in everything. where bugs come from. how human beings walked. locomotion, generally. the motion of the heavenly bodies. he wanted to understand how it works. what he was interested in is to rationalize the appearances. to reduce them to something that can be understood. that is what philosophy is all about.

aristotle gives us some hints when he talks about nature. he sets the foundation of what later becomes known as the natural law tradition. there are many variants. he talks about human nature and what it means to be a human being. the animal that talks. often translated as the rational animal. that is a bad translation. it is the animal who can talk. he discusses what is essential and what is accidental. to be pale or dark is accidental. he even makes a comment that is quite striking for a greek, because we know the greeks divided the world into categories. there are greeks and barbarians.

barbarians are the people when you talk to them, you try to talk to them and they can't talk. it is very common in human language groups. there is us and the other ones who can't speak. the slavic word for german translates as mute. they can't talk. the greeks thought this was important, this distinction between greeks and barbarians. but he commented that fire does not burn one way in greece and another way in persia. there is fire. there is a suggestion that there is a human nature as well. we can understand it, systematically. the second point is an appreciation the law can be

discovered and not really made. that is significant and important. those that believe law is made, typically believe that the sovereign is above the law. one important figure in this tradition is king james, who becomes the first king of the stewart line after the tutor line. he was king james vi of scotland and became can -- became king james i. he wrote a book in 1598 called the true law of monarchies and said as kings create the law, so he is above the law. if he were to create a law that were inconvenient for him, he can make a new one. so the king is always above the law. this philosophy persists to this day. whether it is the president,

the state, the congress, somebody, is above the law. they make the law. you can see the logic of that. the law wouldn't apply to me if i had the power to unmake it and make a new one. but there is a tradition. that tradition is the idea of a higher law, that applies to everyone. that no one is exempt from. we can think about it in the sense of the laws of physics. we think, for example, sir isaac newton discovered the force law between the bodies, that two bodies affect each other with a force that is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. that will generate elliptical orbits, carefully sketched out. but it would not follow from that that he was exempt from them. that if he had been shot into space, he would have some

really interesting orbits around the earth, different from other things. you can discover the law and still be subject to it. and there is the tradition of law as discovery. not only philosophically, but also in the common law tradition, the old roman law tradition. they discovered the law, they didn't just impose it. if law can be discovered, the person who discovers it may be subject to it, and that is an important part of the tradition, that no one is above the law. the question of liberty is how to limit power. i want to go through some of the important episodes of discovering limits on power. i will skim very lightly over the surface. you want to bring power under law or a government by law, for mere power and by law.

i will start the story in agent samaria and go on to judeo and europe and beyond. we start with one of the oldest written texts available to us. the epic of gilgamesh. it is a wonderful story, i recommend it. there are various transitions -- various translations out there. this is king gilgamesh and you can see what he is holding. these are not house cats. this is a propaganda poster, if you will, to show how powerful he is. as it says, gilgamesh would not leave the young girls alone. the daughters of warriors, the brides of young men. this is the earliest statement of the me too movement.

the gods often heard their complaints. there was a principal, you have heard about it in popular culture, that the king had the right on the wedding night to sleep with the young bride. since everyone here is an adult, we can be frank. he did not sleep with them. he raped to these women. this is an exertion of power over them. also, humiliation of the whole society below him. the people don't like this, as you can imagine. they pray to the gods and one of the gods create an equal match for gilgamesh. he gathered some clay and tufts of grass in the field and creates this man who goes to the city and challenges gilgamesh. at the father-in-law's door.

he would not allow him to enter. they fight. lots of other things happen. it is a very interesting story. what is important for me, is this is the first story of the idea of checks and balances. that if you are subject to some power, you need another power to counter that. to take a kind of libertarian interpretation at the end, after many adventures, gilgamesh comes back to the city and the walls have grown taller and the city richer, in the absence of the king. i suspect there is something interesting going on there, but i don't want to overly interpret this text.

you do have the first story of checks and balances. being subject to arbitrary power is unbearable and you need some power to counter it. now, we can move forward a bit in the same region and look at the first written expression of the idea of liberty, in any language, from a cuneiform inscription discovered by archaeologists. it is an interesting word, used in this description of reforms. it established property rights, eliminated monopoly and made the markets free. this word is very interesting. i went and had a tattoo made of this. i didn't want to accidentally

tattoo ancient sumerian for kick me or something like that, so i went to the department in budapest and asked them, i want to make sure this means liberty. they said yes, absolutely. and in a very modern sense that we would understand. it is a compound meaning return to the mother. they said our best speculation, but we don't know, is because it were a matrilineal society, if you are enslaved you left your family. if you are free, you could return to your family. because it was matrilineal, it meant to return to the mother. but they said this is speculation. in the context, it clearly means individual liberty. they are the first libertarian reformer.

we can move forward in the same general region. the people of israel in the first book of samuel. the sun comes to him, excuse me, the people come to samuel and they say, your sons do not walk in your way. they were corrupt. they say, give us a king, like all the other nations. samuel prays to god and says what should i do? god says, tell them the ways of the king who will rule over them. and on. he shall take a 10th of your produce and you shall be his slave. 10%. and you will cry out in that day, but the lord god will not hear you, because of the king you have chosen.

a very powerful warning about monarchy and about power. this is quoted over and over for thousands of years. it was an important part of thomas paine's book, common sense. this is a very powerful passage. a warning about power. and the descriptions of daughters, also. a very clear warning about power. we can skip forward a bit more. think about the discussion of liberty in greek civilization. the city of athens in particular reaches a very high level of personal freedom and wealth, through trade. look at the greek coastline. you can see why people go to the c increase, because there are so many and let's and the

soil, most of it, not that grace for growing things. there is a high degree of personal freedom, including a high degree of liberty and independence for women, compared to other societies. i don't want to overly romanticize it. the bulk of the population were slaves, there is no question about that, but among those who are free they had a higher degree of personal freedom and independence than another cities and civilizations of the time. they were invaded twice by the persians. the stories are quite powerful. we have a great deal of written evidence from the period. twice they defeat them. the greek cities of ionia had submitted to the persians. and the persons offered

reasonable terms in the context of the time. if you submit, there will be some minor taxes. easy to understand. we will put a military garrison in your city and you are cool. everything is okay and you get to be part of the persian empire. and if you don't, we will utterly destroy you. we will tear down your godsend destroy your city and your civic identity. we will rape every person we want to. we will kill the adult males or send them to die as slaves in the minds. your sons and daughters will be enslaved as sex slaves, as unix, for the elite. and yet, the greeks of the mainland fought. the question that comes out, is why? what were they fighting for?

there is a discussion of what is freedom, what is law? what is law about? what does it mean? sophocles and others. one of the important themes is, what is freedom? what would we have done all of this for. there is also great conflict between two of the important cities, sparta and athens. most philosophers have favored the spartans, including athenian philosophers like socrates and plato. it is always irritating when i run into very conservative intellectuals who say the greeks believe x and y. i always say, really, which ones? how many? they always mean plato believes that. plato was one guy. one especially brilliant person.

a great philosopher, but one person. but he is always, what the greeks believe. and he was alienated from his society. it is a bit like, in 3000 years, someone says we found these movies of michael moore. this is what the americans believed. someone who is quite alienated from his society. but i don't want to make any other comparisons between plato and michael moore. these two cities go to war. it is a complex, interesting story. in the history of the war, there is a powerful statement of the political leader in athens. he contrasts the spartans with the athenians. it is a true statement of

freedom. we do not deport people, this is quite relevant to the united states in my opinion. our city is open to the world. we do not tell people to shut up. we believe in free and honest debate. we are not afraid to discuss things before we make decisions and every one of our citizens is able to show himself the rightful lord and owner of his own life. it is a very powerful statement of freedom. the statement of freedom that we can understand today. i want to caution, we don't want to overly romanticize. this is not a free society, but by the standards of the day, very much so. in contrast to sparta, which was basically a slave society. the spartans ruled over the most degraded slaves of the time. the worst kind of slavery. the priest rulers of the

spartans ritually declared war on them every year. they were at war with them. they were enemies. they were enslaved and exploited in every possible way. andrew colson, a late colleague wrote a wonderful book on education. he said we should think about the contributions to civilization and weigh them. from the athenians, we get drama, tragedy, comedy, poetry, astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, architecture, metaphysics, i could add some more. and from the spartans, we get the names of a lot of american high school football teams. they were warriors. that was what they did. their contribution was war. they were very orderly.

not disorderly, like the commercial athenians, who more or less did what they wanted and didn't have a state education system. it was all private, unlike the spartans. move forward to rome. i will say a couple of quick things about rome, because one could talk for many years about it. the roman republic, the republic of, is important for lots of things, but one of them is the roman constitution. it is a complex body of offices and principles and laws, that in effect make it difficult for any person to establish absolute and arbitrary power. the tribunes of the people. they may not be physically touched or impeded by anyone. from the consular class. all of these different offices in different ways of electing

them. they have a profound influence on the idea of limiting power. that republic is destroyed. the last free and independent man of rome is the best way to date the end of the republic in 46 bc. cato was a hero of republican liberty. the play cato in london was a huge hit. it was george washington's favorite play. and to independent journalists in london signed their essays in the newspaper, cato, after the cato of the play. then the american founders all red cato's letters. when you see them saying, as

cato has shown, they are referring to his letters and the cato institute is named for that. so he committed suicide to avoid being hardened by caesar, because he knew caesar would do that and co-opt him into the regime. he would not allow that to happen. he died the last independent man in rome. now, the roman empire in the west continues on for quite some time. achieves even new heights of glory. but, it also collapses. roman root -- roman legions are withdrawn. it is still a complex story. was there a fall of rome and what led to it? there is a wonderful new book called the fall of rome that came out a year ago. it argues that rome did, in fact, fall. contrary to those who argue that it did not, that it just sort of dissolved. the last roman emperor is

booted out of rome by one of his german generals. the roman empire in the west effectively comes to an end. but there was a roman empire in the east. it is called now the byzantine empire, but no one who lived there called it that. they lived in the roman empire. if you had asked of them where do you live? the roman empire. in the west it disappears. you get new forms of order to deal with incursions of tribes from the east, the north and the south. the norsemen, the north man from the north and the turks and arabic raiders from the south. feudalism is established as a decentralized form of military dissent and created new kinds of property relations along the way. it was contractual and

voluntary, initially. a great warlord would say, i will give you this land to farm . arm condition. when i call on you, you will bring three armed men with horses and weapons. because there are no more roman legions and when they are rated, they have to have a defense system. the process creates new forms of property. it becomes hereditary over time , in process of negotiation with those lords who granted it. initially it was not. once you died, it came back. this was an efficient. people would use it up before they died. over time it becomes hereditary and over more time, it becomes oppressive again. it is the foundation of the

property relationship. at the same time, a new form of governance emerges. it is what we now call the catholic church. it was just the christian church at the time. this brings together people who are not related. unrelated people take vows of obedience, poverty and chastity and so on, to engage in complex economic endeavors. they create new kinds of social relations based on agreements. the modern corporation and association is rooted in this institution. people are not members of the same family, so they don't have those kinds of loyalty. they get together and say, we would like to organize things. they have bylaws and rules to govern themselves. similarly for the convent. this is extremely important and spreads all through europe.

one of the things that happens is the church becomes very wealthy, these hard-working moms making beer and wine, which is really important. not only for the reason that comes to your mind. it does that, but also because it is the only liquid you can drink, without getting sick. the alcohol kills all the bugs. dumping water, because you were for wine or beer into your water, and the alcohol kills all the bugs. everyone is a little bit tipsy all the time. but they don't die, and this is very important. they don't die. beer and wine are very important for civilization in lots of ways. when you don't have clean drinking water, it sterilizes it for you. they're creating lots and lots of wealth. this wealth attracts people who want to take it. it also can be endangered by

violence. this is a contemporary abby that's been rebuilt. the peace of god and the truth of god movement emerged, and the church organizes people who swear not to fight, they send out priests and bishops and they take both publicly. these are really robust social agreements. we get everyone together and say, god says we shouldn't fight and we should love each other, so let's all agree that, on sundays, we won't fight. okay? are we cool with that? anyone who wants to fight on sunday, go stand over there. we would like to know who you are, which means they are ostracized. this creates a social contract in the most robust sense of the term. we all agreed, because we see everybody else's agreeing to it. this leads to a general diminution of violence among many other features, violence declines, random violence.

this has been documented very well in steven pinker's book the better angels of our nature, which i highly recommend. you got a generalized reduction in violence, based on social agreement. not just fear. social agreement. i wanted you, if you agree not to hit me, it seemed like a good deal to most people. so they agreed to it. the church is undergoing the great reformation. these are many things happening about the same. -- time. it's hard to say which one is primary. some like to talk about the real cause, and there are many causes. complex facts have complex causes. these things are interacting with each other in various ways, and this is one of the most important. that establishes western europe from all the other political systems of the eurasian landmass. in 1073, a german monk he comes pope. gregory the 7th.

he initiates what is now called the gregorian reformation, which is commonly called the reformation, there are many reformations of the church. in 1075, the dictates of the pope, a very complex document, it's not clear what it is. is it a letter, a shopping list? it's a list of claims, and they are very powerful. that the roman bishop alone is to be called universal. that he is the one whose feet are to be kissed by all princes. he has the power to absolve subjects of their loyalty to unjust rulers. very powerful claims. for political and legal authority. based on the spiritual authority. we should remember, that the reformation of the roman empire had taken part in a very

partial way in the year 800. the bishop of rome had been kicked out of rome by the local people, in a complex dispute, and he called on a very dear friend who was quite loyal to him, a man named carola's magness. a very noble sounding name. it's latin for big charles. like big tony, he was a warlord. we know him as charlemagne. which, if you say careless magness many times, it will sound like charlemagne. he comes to the rescue with an army, a frankish army, and in exchange, the pope offers him a small token of his gratitude, he makes him emperor of the world. he returns to his hunting lodge, in the capital of the empire at that time, which had a population smaller than the rancho bernardo inn.

that begins the foundation of what later is transformed, in various stages, into the holy roman empire of the german nation. his successors claim to have the power to appoint the bishops in germany. this pope says, no, that's my responsibility. they are of the church. this sets a great conflict between the two, called the invest a conflict, who has the right to appoint bishops and give them their land, and their keys of authority? the german emperor, henry iv, says that's my job work i represent god on earth. this pope says you are wrong. they have a great debate, and you might think, who's going to win that? the german emperor, who has castles and knights and infantry? or the pope? with monks and nuns?

on his side? it turns out, the emperor goes to beg forgiveness of the pope and readmission into the church. is a complex story, because there happens to be a norman army camped nearby. they were hiking in europe at the time. the pope had called in the chip , because his predecessor supported the norman claim to the english throne in 1066. they kept lists of who owed what. so norman supported the emirate -- militarily. but what was important was the establishment that power was not a space filled by the power of one agency, but has a crack in it. there's the power of the church, and the power of what later will be called the state. the royal, or kingly power. you can be subject to both, and that means if one is oppressive

to you, you go to the other. if that one is oppressive to you, you go to the former. the consequence of this is competition. competition to provide governance. from this crack in the plenum of power, other cracks emerged. this is so important for european history. your becomes one of the most decentralized and legally complex area -- complex areas of the entire eurasian landmass. many different jurisdictions, and multiple systems of law that overlap each other. this is very powerful and important. competition, rather -- rather than just a unitary power giver. one of those that emerges is the rediscovery of the mobile -- roman law, which had been drawn up in the law 530, on the request of the emperor justinian, he said, you know, why don't you write with --

down what's happened in the last thousand years of roman law. and he codifies it, it's an astonishing accomplishment. he creates what is called the codex, the law was written on scrolls before legal decisions and juristic opinions, they are very hard to look up things on scrolls, if you ever tried that. it's a hassle. the codex has leaves made out of vellum, animal skin, or wood with wax. not recommended in hot climates. that would be written on. that means you can leave through it. we get that word from that. that allows you to see what you do in this case or that case. there are two principles in it that are established. that become the slogans of two great parties in europe york. the idea of the roman law was this great law of the roman empire, and is rediscovered, and they begin to teach it as

the law. what touches all must be approved of by all. which is actually taken out of context from a chapter on testamentary dispensations, which is to say, if you have an orphan, and there are two guardians of a property, if they -- if both guardians agree what will happen to the property. but this principle was taken out of context, and becomes a political principle. this reverberates throughout the ages. people inscribed it on their battle shields. it has many formulations. redress before supply, and no taxation without representation. which is effectively drawn from this. the other one, you can guess who likes this one. what pleases the prince has the force of law. that was actually taken from the introduction -- introductory text in the teaching of law. it's not from part of the classical roman law.

the princes and kings likes that one. the people who believe in decentralization and consent and liberty liked the 1st one. and the lines are drawn from this principle. other institutional arrangements are talked about very significant, the growth of the independent communes, from which we get civil society. this is a map of medieval cologne, originally a roman city, but the romans abandoned it. there was an archbishop and some cows, and merchants came to this area along the river, called the portis, and begin to set up tables to sell things. more merchants, more customers, more customers, more merchants. they built the palisades, is very interesting to go to the x darshan and archaeological excavations in cologne, a very good museum there, is one of the best museums of roman germanic relations. out of this, they build a wall,

and they found a new city of cologne, and build a wall around it. this principle, which this is happening all across europe, city air makes you three -- three. -- three. this powerful model after a year today, you run away from your feudal lord, you get into a city, you are there for a year and a day, you go from one starbucks to another, and at the end of the year and a day, you are a free person. absolved of any obligations you had before to your feudal master. that is a very powerful message. by the way, those of you who know recent european history, what did the national socialists put on the death camp at auschwitz? work will set you free. it's important to understand that the national socialists

were masters of symbolic humiliation. exhortation and humiliation of others. when the jews were forced to march over the broken headstones of the vandalized cemeteries, the jewish cemetery does make cemeteries, they destroyed all except one in prague, which they kept as a museum to the jews, they destroyed all the jewish cemeteries and use them as paving stones, and force people to walk in under this slogan, which mocked them. it was mocking them. work will set you free. not city air. this has powerful reverberations in european culture. he became a member of the commune by taking a public health. they would gather together, all the citizens and hold hands, and publicly affirm to each other that they would come to the defense of the city, they would defend each other, and they would not engage in acts of violence. cities were places of peace.

government was provided by agreement among voluntary groups. the weavers, the carpenters, the baker's and so on, associations of guilds, and they were fundamentally men of peace. this is very important to them. you want to be violent, go live outside the city. the most important punishment in most cases was not corporeal or violence, if you did a bad thing, and you were violent, they would say go live outside. go be with the violent people. here, we are peaceful. they didn't burn you alive, or do terrible things to you. they said get out. we are peaceful here. of course, the great seal of the cato university in this tradition. the communes were typically governed by associations of merchants and craftsmen. you can go to the city of london nc guildhall, they have

a 12 grade livery companies, the worshipful company is, there are 110 of them, still. the city of london is a medieval corporation, it predates london, it predates parliament. it is still governed in this association fashion. at the same time, all throughout the germans signatories, but also london and the low countries, the hans the audit league begins to form. associations of cities, and the cities are associations of companies and citizens. the citizens associate to get rid of piracy on the high seas. and they do. they eliminate the threat of piracy, and they are very important in the formation of what is, today, the international commercial law. it is the law, all over the world. if a korean and a canyon and a career -- canadian do business,

they are governed by this law that emerges out of these associations. is not created by governments, it's created by business people. by merchants,. this generates a high degree of voluntary governance, and you get the process called the movement from status to contract. instead of being born into a position that determines your life, you can create the life you want by making agreements with other people. this is extraordinarily important distinction. it's happening in the world today, as we speak india is going under this movement so rapidly, instead of being born to a cast that determines your whole life, people are using the market to make the lives they want to have. this movement happened earlier in europe, but it is happening, unfolding in front of our eyes.

there was a documentary i was involved in making on pbs called india wakes, which you can get, and it's a very powerful story of the impact of the market economy on the david people, formerly called untouchable. one doesn't use it, they are the lowest of the low in the cast system. if i am a brahmin, and one of their shadow such as mine, unpolluted, and he will bear the consequences. it's quite an awful system. and they are escaping that through the market economy. we are partners with a lot of their leaders in india, so this is an ongoing, not merely historical,, this agreement to make the life you want to make, to create your self and not have it dictated by the circumstances of birth. this also led to a dramatic situational change, norbert elliott, the great sociologist, wrote extensively

of self-control. we think about, we can control because government gave dictates to us. that can't be right. he began his research by looking at books of etiquette, good behavior, how they changed over time. look at the ones going back not that long ago, and they said things like, it is not me to spit across the table when dining with friends. okay. i don't do that, i feel good about myself. i don't spit across the table. do not blow your nose on your hand and then shake hands with people. okay, i think everyone understands that. but there was a time when adults had to read books that said, okay, maybe i shouldn't do that anymore. and the list is really gross. things that have small children to this today, we would be horrified and shocked. but we internalize these norms, that's part of the civilizing process.

to achieve greater self- control, not control externally, by the king or the rulers or are masters, but to internalize control into ourselves. that's a very important part of the civilizing process, and it creates a legal and social equality among persons, that even highborn people could be shamed in front of low born people. that's a very important development. that creates an authentically civil society. getting to civil society, we can think about this emergence in europe, we have two words in english, has an advantage over other languages, we have freedom and liberty to discuss what is the difference between them. most different -- linkages don't have that difference. they have just the one word. in english, because it's two languages squashed together after 10 to 6, norman french

and anglo-saxon, the very large vocabulary and a very simple grammar, which is an interesting mix, english is fairly easy to learn at a basic level, but has lots of complexities and nuance because of the huge vocabulary. we have two terms that come to us from latin, civil, cb dos, and that returners -- return refers to the city, not the place. the city of new york does not mean the place, or the city government and their laws. i have to distinguish them. in latin, that is clear. similarly, in greek, the place and the legal relations, political legal relations among persons. civil has a powerful sense of civility, to be a civil person, to show respect to other people. it doesn't mean you love them, or you are in the same family,

which are other modes come it means respect. it's how business people treat you when you come into the store. they show respect. because cities are places of commerce. and business people train you, your 1st job, very important things, don't kill the customers. the respect -- respectful to them. contrary to what we see in hollywood movies. businesses asking all day, how can i kill my customer base? they have the board of directors and the ceos saying how come we are not poisoning more of our customers? i want more industrial effluents in our product. that's not her real business works. you respect people, you want to provide value for them. then, from the german, which means a strong, fortified place, going back to this idea of walls, and we get homburg, pittsburgh, the boroughs of new york, and the word bourgeois

because of the french, french people have difficulty pronouncing german words for some reason, and that comes into english, which unfortunately has somewhat negative connotations because of the influence of karl marx. but bourgeois, and remember the 1st colonial assembly, the house of burgesses, this has very deep roots, this idea of a civil society. at about the same time, written charters of privileges, these are very important. we think about magna carta, from which much of the american constitution was derived. particularly article 39. from which we get the principles , due process of law, and trial by jury. they are not just directly translated, but these were the inspirations for it. contrary to what was nationalists might tell you, these are not uniquely english. they are happening all over

europe, the golden bowl of hungry, only a few among hundreds of these charters that limit power. their contracts with the king, or the barren, to say, you won't do all of these things. very importantly, if you want money from us, you have to come and ask for our permission, and requested. and we will discuss and debate it. you can just come and take it from us. little digression, russia is the outlier in this way. richard pipes passed away, a great historian of russian civilization, and he says russia is unusual in this way, there's no evidence of law. and i think this is actually because, as i mentioned last night, the mongol conquest extended into russia. when the mongols were treated, -- retreated, they left a very important group called the golden horde. the golden horde used the local

princes as tax collectors. one consequence of this is they did not develop the reciprocity between rulers and ruled that developed in europe. because, if you didn't pay your taxes, the prince might say okay, i am calling in the golden horde. and they will kill everyone in the village. and not in a nice way. and they say, okay, we will pay the taxes. so russia doesn't develop the civilization of law, with one major exception, established in the 9th century, they had their own magna carta before magna carta, they fired their prince, they had an elected executive, like a president, if you will, who was not allowed on property or land in the city. their system, persisted in some parts of russia, it is like,

these are a symbol's of people coming together to discuss things. i was speaking with a colleague and friend, asking how important it is, for the swiss, who were real pioneers of liberty. underappreciated for this. local solutions to local problems that are substantially voluntarily. we have a problem, we form a community to solve the problem. we don't have to go to the king or someone with power. unfortunately, something very bad happens to them. they were overrun by that sars of muscovy, because the bad military strategy and, in particular, a bad winter that froze the marches, and the armies were able to march right up to the walls of the city. it was utterly destroyed, the bells were melted, bells were very important symbols of -- symbols of liberty, like the liberty bell, which i recommend

visiting. bells meant freedom, because bells were how the city was governed. with ink of a bell like ding ding ding, but they had complex forms of communication, the city is under attack, there's a fire, come to the defense, there will be an election. there's a long meeting, and everyone knew what those bells meant. they didn't have social media, or text messaging, this is how they governed themselves. to melt the bells was to make them totally subservient to a powerful ruler, and then ultimately ivan the 4th killed everyone who lived there. the attempt to put the king above the law -- i should mention, the dutch, the other important heroes that are often underappreciated, who revolt against their king philip of spain. charles v had given his son, philip, a gift when he reached the age of maturity.

today, you graduate high school, you might get a motorcycle, or if you're wealthy a trip to europe or something. at that time, you got the netherlands. he gave him the netherlands, and he wanted to modernize them, because the dutch were very backward and medieval. he said we are going to bring you up-to-date. modernize you. and that meant new taxes, and we will have a resident inquisitor, and the dutch said, is that the spanish inquisition? because we've heard about that. and they didn't like it. some of you have seen the monty python skit on the spanish inquisition. well worth looking up on youtube. nobody expects the spanish inquisition, well, the dutch did. and they didn't like it. there is a famous petition of the merchants of antwerp to the king, that says, your most worshipful king, we love you, your grade, please do not do this to us. so many heretics come here to trade, it will utterly ruin us.

this is the 1st thing you learn in business school, don't burn your customers alive? you missed the 2nd sale. don't do that. you can do business with people are being burned and played alive and executed right next to where you are trying to negotiate with them. they revote, and they defend the 1st middle-class bourgeois free society. they are pioneers of so much limited government, tax reform, freedom of trade, and religious toleration. for which the dutch are very very important pioneers. they have a big impact across the water in england. there pretty close, and the english are going back and forth, and when english intellectuals are escaping, they would often go to the netherlands.

john locke was a figure in this. the english put law above the king. they do this several times. very important figure through edward cook, who defended the common law above the power of the king. i mentioned earlier, king james vi, but also king charles i, who was, as the english say, shortened. because he had rebelled against the law. the people do not rebel against him. this tradition was very powerful, and reverberates to the modern age. the levelers, who were thought during this period, the 1st really self-aware, self identified, clear libertarians, in history, didn't have just bits and pieces of the ideas, but they put it all together. freedom of religion, freedom of trade, freedom of conscience, the rule of law, the right to

trial by jury, and so on. these people were remarkably bold and brave people. john wilburn, we owe so much to him, he refused to submit to the trial by star chamber, a private judicial procedure. he said this is unjust. he was tortured, he suffered terribly. he later, after victory, was offered compensation by carp -- parliament. he said it's just money stolen by other people, that's not a quote, but that's the message he sent. he would not accept the money. from him, we get the persistence of the jury trial. from john lobar and. as he said to his wife, elizabeth also, this is one thing that enraged the other side, that women would dare to speak out publicly on political matters. the -- there were women levelers, they believed in equality of rights between men and women.

he said, i shall leave this testimony behind me, that i died for the laws and liberties of this nation. law and liberty were very important to them. they were so radical in their libertarianism, really extreme, that they believed in something that even to this day may be controversial. they believed that even irish people have rights. this is a big cutting-edge for some. the army refused to invade ireland. when you go to the city of beaufort. you can see where they were executed lined up against the church wall and shot and in the the -- baptismal font. they said these people cannot force us to do what is unjust. it is unjust to do that to direst. we are free men and responsible

for our actions. you cannot make us do it. so they went to their deaths. that had a big influence on john locke. he never cites the levelers and indeed, he never cites himself. he did not acknowledge authorship of the two treatises of government, although there is a letter to a nephew recommending them as excellent books for the study of political science. he did have leveler tract in his library. he doesn't quote them but you can see the parallel language from various leveler tracts and it is absolutely clear that he was deeply influenced by the. this notion that every man has a property in his own person. that important concept, you are property in yourself, seems to have a great influence on many throughout europe and in the american colonies. that process continues in the

revolt of the american colonies. here you can see the declaration of independence again, does not quote anyone but the parallels between locks two treatises and the declaration are so striking it is not accidental. that led to a war for independence and as many acres pointed out, that is not the same as the revolution there was a revolution and then there was a war for independence. they are also in often confused. one followed the other. they created a country that was predicated on basic equal rights. we owe these truths to be self evident. these powerful words that were so inspiring and had such importance through the ages, in different contexts it was applied by frederick douglass to demand freedom for the

enslaved africans. it is promised there. it does not say all people like you. it is for all human beings. they are all entitled to these rights. limited government to secure individual rights became the widespread role. -- goal. a supporter of the american revolution and corresponded with them, he encouraged them to reduce the smallest number of kinds of affairs that the government of each state should take charge. very clear statement of limited government and indeed, it is implicit in the language of the declaration and later the constitution. all legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in the congress of the united states which tells you very clearly, some powers are not granted herein. it is a very clear and concise document of limited government. and so, i will end with that because our next speaker will

pick up the story. my goal was to give you some of the background to the important and exciting stories that he will narrate. we have a little bit of time for some discussion. we have some microphones that you can go to if you would like to raise an issue or pose a question. please do that. if anyone does not feel sufficiently mobile, don't worry you can raise your hand and one of my colleagues will be able to bring the microphone to you. thank you very much for your attention. [applause] by my watch, we have 11 minutes. would anybody like to raise any questions? , i just want to say that was a great talk. i really enjoyed that. just as a theme, i came in so late and i am a wikipedia fan

and i have seen this general subject discussed on wikipedia under the terms of a social contract. is that in general the theme of your talk here? >> yes >> that mechanism would be covered under the subject of social contract? >> it is a very deep and real question. that is a deal that is used in very different ways by different bakers. if you think about the idea of the social contract, different people sometimes get mixed together in superficial discussions. but they are radically different. absolutely different ideas. forelock, the one that is the more classical liberal or freedom oriented of those three, and a hated libertarian or

liberal ideas another is a bit more complicated but not a frame of limited government by any means but locke was the it is not a social contract to establish morality between the case for others, but a social contract established the authority of a particular governing structure. this was criticized very effectively by david hume whose essay of the original pact, i don't remember the article. as not achieving what locke wanted. he argued it could be used very well as an argument for tyranny. you agree to it, so you agree what comes out of it. it is a very powerful introduction -- interaction

between the. i think the social contract idea is worth retaining as a part of a classical liberal understanding. because history is full of voluntary agreements to establish social orders. but that is not the same as establishing the state as such did not start that way. it started by warlord conquering people. such as you mentioned early on, in the study of philosophy, it's kind of what happens if what you're discussing here. >> i would distinguish my approach from somebody like john rawls who has a contract theory and approach to him it is a hypothetical thing that college professors do. what we would all agree to if we were all as smart at job -- asked john rawls. and we all sat down with him in the faculty lounge. what would we agree to? he said i would not include people like me who have my views

, are the ones that would come to a reasonably -- a reasonable agreement pics like that idea that it is just a hypothetical is wrong. there are robust social contracts when you look at the constructs of -- they played an important role in establishing liberty. they came to a public agreement to be governed by certain rules. we have those all around us today. condo associations, they are governed and robustly voluntary. doesn't mean we give away all of our rights. my condo association could not execute me. they can say, you agree to join the condo. it has a limited set of powers that i do think social contracts are still a robust tool for analysis and has significant -- >> i will move on. i will look up social contract

on wikipedia. >> my question regards the american revolution and the french militia. what -- what would be a contrast between the american revolution and the french revolution? >> i have six minutes. [laughter] that is a very difficult problem. the first point is, we can talk about the mirkin revolution and the american war for independence. we can talk about them as one thing without great violence to the historical record. this is not true in france the there is a multitude of political events that gets clumped together in that revolution that is a mistake. there were some very important changes made at the beginning and i recommend the careful reading of the debate between evan burke and tom paine on

this question. i think burke makes some very important criticisms. he understood things very clearly at the beginning in his reflections. the first was, a leading figures who established the assembly when they created that national assembly, exempted themselves from eligibility. this is a big mistake. because it meant that the leading liberal minded people said we cannot run again. that was a strategic area and burke points to that. he says, that will not turn out well. the other thing was, they did not focus on their heritage of french liberty. berks viewpoint is correct in this regard. there were people at the time that did want to point to the french communes and french legal -- which results law courts in the various cities. and there were others that want to get rid of all of that.

they wanted to break from the past. burke was right, that was a terrible mistake. the other thing, it's very hard for people to grasp today -- burke was a great economist. he had something different in mind. people quote that out of context. he understood what happens when you abolish the monetary system and substitute a new crazy monetary system. the mistake that was made that was very powerful was, when the french king called the state together, it was to deal with the indebtedness of the french monarchy. it had massive debts. they had engaged in a very unsound physical practice of selling off something -- if you already so that you got the capital value today and the tax collectors could not collect in the future. somebody else has the right to collect those taxes and paid you cash now for it. if you are ever aching, don't

do this. so there were all of these debts and they called them together and it sets off a chain of events, one mistake was not to repudiate the debt which i think they should have done the should've said, we are not paying that. that's the debt of the french king. but the dead. as a consequence, burke suggested that because of shadowy financial interest that is not well substantiated, the consequence was that the consequent -- confiscated the land of the church to be auctioned. in anticipation of the revenue, they made notes which were to be a new monetary system exchangeable with the gold libre and the paper -- anybody who knows about economics knows this will not end well. first, there is no restraint in printing the paper money. they would be paid at some future auction. plan with the auctions be paid

in? not even in gold. so the consequence is, no limit. they just printed money like mad. and, burke uses language that hicks conservative friends don't understand. he says species basically disappeared into the ground when they came. that means gold and silver. when you're forced to accept the money at the same rates with the gold coin, you are spending some and keep the gold which is buried in your yard. the consequences of the structure of the monetary system, this led to a disaster. then, what happens when prices are rising rapidly? people say price controls. what happens when you put price controls in a inflationary economy? shortages. what you do, and there are shortages of bread? execute the baker's.

so they have a very good book on the french revolution and he points out that bakers are substantially overrepresented among the persons who were sent to the guillotine. it was an economic terror this is part of why the french revolution turns out so badly from a much more promising foundation. i don't agree with those who say it was just doomed because of some bad philosophy or altair or something like that i think that is mistaken. we can look into it and see key decisions that were made that were really catastrophic or so burke has an important part in the picture including economic dimension that is often missed. it is a topic that i encourage you to look into if you could. it is now 10:15 and i promise i would stop so i will. thank you very much. [applause]

chan once washington journal -- coming up was a morning, the nafta renegotiation and canada, mexico negotiations. be sure to watch c-span3's journal. joined the discussion. check on wednesday, right hook who was recently named special envoy to iran. it was recently created by mike pompeo and we will talk about brands missile proliferation and the u.s. effort to stop it. that is hosted by the hudson institute. it starts at 9 am on c-span3. also wednesday, the heritage foundation altered an event on exit with your comment -- a

conservative who supported the campaign, that is live at 11 am on c-span3 . right after that we go to the hudson institute for the current state of iraq. examine new coalitions being formed for the outside influence of moran and the u.s. and recent protest in basra. live coverage gets underway at 12: 30 p.m. on c-span. american history tv is in prime time this week on c- span3. wednesday , on oral histories, our women in congress series continues with lynn woolsey. on thursday, historians look at the role of espionage in u.s. complex of the last century and have. on friday, on real america, the world war ii film series why we fight about the outbreak of world war ii, pearl harbor and the rise of authoritarianism in

italy, germany, and japan. watch american history tv in prime time on c-span3 . this weekend on american history tv on c-span3 , saturday at 10 pm eastern on real america. >> we are privileged to witness tonight a significant achievement in the cause of peace. the achievement none thought possible one year ago. or even one month ago. and achievement that took flights of courage and wisdom of these two leases. >> the 1970 film framework for peace on the camp david accords . sunday, at 6 pm on american artifacts, look back on the 1998 bombings of the u.s. embassy in nairobi, kenya and tanzania.

>> we are meeting with the minister of commerce we heard an explosion, most of us went to the window. 10 seconds later, a freight train sound impacted of high energy hit all of us, 213 people were instantly killed. 48 of whom were employees of the united dates government. >> watch on american history tv, this weekend on c-span3 . sunday night on q&a, cbs news chief white house correspondent talks about his book, mr. trump wild ride. like is not just about partisanship i think it transcends parties. i described donald trump in the book as proto-partisan. he is bigger than partisanship. there is this emotional dynamo

that he spends within people. he does it intentionally, sometimes he doesn't even know he is doing it. but it happens. he is influencing every aspect of american life, culture, and ways you have detected, the weight journalists interact with his ongoing stories. >> sunday night on c-span's q&a struck u.s. military academy history professor robert mcdonald talked about major events and figures of the american enlightenment which was a period leading up to the american revolution. his talk was part of a symposium -- on history and philosophy hosted by the cato institute and cato university. thank you.