and tanzania. >> we were meeting with the minister for commerce. we heard an explosion. most of us went to the window. 10 seconds later, and impact of high energy hit all of us. 213 people were instantly killed, 48 of whom were employees of the united states government. >> watch on american history tv, this weekend on c-span3. cato institute senior fellow tom palmer explores key ideas of libertarianism in the modern era. this was part of a symposium on philosophy hosted by the cato institute. it is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> what i want to talk about now is the libertarian

synthesis. i want to focus on the historical evolution of key ideas that we characterize as libertarian. i mention that the first movement you could characterize as a foley libertarian movement was in the 17th century in england. you can find libertarian ideas or things that feed into this elsewhere or before that time, but that was the first to really put it all together into a coherent series. there is a statement that i find admirable from adam smith about what it takes to create a prosperous society. little else is requisite to carry estate to the highest degree of opulence and lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice.

one thing i like about this formulation as it looks that peace, the idea that war, constant disruption of life and treasure, easy taxes. they should not be oppressive and burdensome. and a tolerable administration of justice. a very common sense approach. not perfect or define justice, but a tolerable administration of justice. you would think there was a very high likelihood that the outcome would be an acceptable adjudication of a dispute and not some class rule or special interest where the judge says, what religion are you or what family are you from? rather, the justice is acceptable. all being brought about by the

natural course of things. this is an interesting phrase. there was a movement in france that fed into this. it means the rule of nature. that order is not created by the hand of a ruler directing people, but there was a natural order in the world. we had to allow nature to rule. all governments would support this natural course which force things into a channel or endeavor to arrest the progress of society are unnatural and to support themselves are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical. i think it is a nice, concise statement of a thoughtful libertarian perspective on the world. but i want to go a little deeper into the history and start with the idea of libertarian thought. it wasn't someone's living room where this was cooked up. you sometimes hear contemporary figures say it was in this

living room or this particular so on, that is a mistake. it is a modern idea but you can find elements of it in medieval thought, ancient thought, europe and asia, as well. it is not even a uniquely european idea. we talked about this a little bit with some people here at lunch. libertarian ideas emerged as a defense of evolved systems of privileges and amenities that were under attack in the 17th and 18th century by absolutist states. there is a very important sense in which they wanted to defend some systems of order and rights and privileges and liberties that were under attack from a new philosophy of absolutism. it is very common for people who are not thoughtful about the manner to say this idea of absolute rule is a medieval idea. it is not. it is a modern idea.

the idea that a ruler is above the law. the more common idea is everyone is subject to the law. not that there was someone who is above the law. as that system of liberties comes under attack from absolute leaders who were inspired by this modern idea of absolute power and of power creating order. people defend their liberties. in the process, they defend a theory of liberty. it is part of the historical progression. to go from liberties, which might be different between you and me, to collective liberty. all of us have an equal right before the law. in the process of this struggle, those ideas were clarified. they were made more abstract.

that is a very important part. it is not just your liberty or your privilege because of your status, but a right that every human being can aspire to. that is part of making it more abstract. it does not refer to you in this particular circumstance, living in this town are a member of that family, but to the right of a human being. and then, extend it to everyone. i mentioned the text of the declaration of independence. in different context, that text takes on more significance. frederick douglass is a very important figure in american history who says, in 1854, on july 4, this was the progress that was made. what about me and people like me? does it not extend to us? that was taking the text and putting it in another context

and demanding that those rights be available to him and others like him. as this emergence of libertarian thought proceeds, we can see three reinforcing elements that create free, prosperous and successful societies. we will talk about them in order. the first is the idea of individual rights. these rights are not something you receive as a gift from people with power. they are not dispensed like a doctor gives a prescription. hillary clinton or donald trump says here, i will give you a prescription for some rights. those rights can be taken away, if they are prescribed. some features of being a human being, such that we demand that others respect us and treat us in a certain way. and second, the idea of spontaneous order. order is not something that is planned and created, although there is such order.

this conference was consciously planned and created. that is a created order, but much of the order in life is not like that. it emerges spontaneously. and third, limited government and the rule of law. these three ideas support each other, rather like a chair. each leg gives support to the others. when rights are well-defined and legally secure, society is more and not less orderly. this is counterintuitive for people. they think if everyone has these rights, it will be chaotic. it turns out when rights are well-defined and legally secure, order is much more pervasive in society. a higher degree of planned coordination among persons. the law is there to help us define our rights and to

protect them, which enables us to interact. when i know what is yours and what is mine, we have a better foundation for peaceful cooperation. if i want the things that you have and we both agree they are yours, i can negotiate with you to give you something you would find preferable to what is currently in your possession. when rights are not well defined, people will fight over them. this is an important reason for why property rights create harmonious societies. just because, what is the baseline toward negotiation for improvement? what is important is the purpose of law is to facilitate an order of action and not to aim at some particular outcome. this is the preferred arrangement. the arrangement is what will emerge. it is not known in advance. groups will, in the process,

create little cds of central planning, if you want to think of it that way. within a wider, spontaneous order. but that order is what makes popular those islands of planning. you can think of organizations and the way the seminar is structured. my colleagues put together an agenda. they make everything seem so seamless, but i assure you, they work hard to make sure all these people from around the world came together in this one place to have a seminar. the food is delivered on time and the coffee comes at the right time. all that took a lot of planning. it is made possible by the spontaneous order of the market economy that allow that to happen. so, let's turn to individual rights. legally secured and voluntarily transferable rights provide a foundation for peaceful, social cooperation. legally quality allows everyone to utilize their knowledge.

there is no passive person who is entitled to do something and others are forbidden to do that. unlike caste based societies, where you are limited to this one thing you are born into. you have knowledge other people don't have and you have the freedom to put it to use, for your benefit and the benefit of others. in the struggle against feudal privilege, this was called careers open to talent. that was the slogan of the day, to eliminate feudal privilege and allow anyone to compete. to put their own knowledge to use, for mutual benefit. but also, knowing what you may do, what i may do, what is allowed and what is not, allows us to cooperate to achieve mutually beneficial ends. i like this particular image. it is not merely human beings that are able to cooperate, but

also some animals, even if their understanding of property rights may be limited, compared to ours. this idea of rights, has rather ancient roots. one of the figures i greatly admire as a person, marcus cicero, one of the greatest roman statesman, unlike almost all other major figures known to us, he was not a military man. he was a lawyer. he believed in persuading. so many others had military backgrounds. cicero did not. indeed, when he had been present with the armies that were opposing caesar, they made it very clear that he was a fifth wheel and was encouraged to go back to rome and be a kind of spy in rome and work in

the senate. he was murdered, under mark antony. his head and hands were cut off and displayed in the forum and the wife of mark anthony came up and stuck a pin through his tongue, so he would be shut up forever. a deeply malevolent person. because of his speeches he gave which were modeled on the speeches in greek, denouncing the tyranny. in his book on duties, one of the most important single tactics in european history after the bible and the gluten bragg -- and the gutenberg press is introduced, it is the second most published book after the bible. by cicero. it has a huge impact. a great deal of the knowledge

we have of the ancient world comes from cicero. we have more books by him than anyone else and, i think, some 900 letters which he had written to his friend. he redirected them, by the way. there are several sections missing that suggest cicero may have been a participant in the killing of caesar. but in that book, which is a very powerful work, he has a statement which is quoted repeatedly by philosophers and theologians. this had a great impact. we are all constrained by one and the same law of nature. going back to aristotle's concept of nature. if it is true, that we are certainly forbidden by the law of nature from acting violently against another person.

this is pregnant with implications from the libertarian perspective. it is not to say that cicero was a libertarian. that would be too much. indeed, not that he acted in every way that would have been consistent with a libertarian. that is too much, also. in the context of the time, i think he acquitted himself very nobly from a libertarian perspective. he also sent a message to the future that was very powerful about the equality of rights under human nature and the preference of volunteer cooperation over violence. among the people who quote him are very important figures in the church. and here, the idea of dominion, which means mastery. from the latin, the house. the master of the house. but you have dominion over your

own self. it is an important concept. in, a sort of legal opinion about the crusades, which we know were brutal and violent wars for the cross, with terrible crimes committed on both sides. no real clean hands in this conflict. but the question was raised, whether christians can kill, enslave or dispossess muslims and jews, because they were not christians. he said, the answer is, no. you may not. i maintain that jurisdiction can belong to infidels, properly, and without sin. these things are made not only for the faithful, but for every rational person, as has been said. this principle that every

rational creature is entitled to some respect -- as we know this was honored more in theory than in practice and there are similar statements among muslim thinkers, as well. this deserves to be mentioned as well, but those did not have the impact on european thought, which is what i will primarily focus on. this is repeatedly quoted throughout the ages, that it is not your religion that entitles you to respect, it is your rational nature. you are the animal who can talk. this idea of self-control of property and your own person, as john locke would later phrase it, goes through a number of different modifications and reformulations.

in his defense, a very powerful book, an argument by the way, for a centralized power, he talks about ownership. it refers to the human will or freedom in itself. it is through these that we are capable of certain acts and their opposites. that is to say, we can do this or something else. we have that power. that capacity to make choice. it is for this reason that man alone among the animals is said to have ownership or control of his actions. that is interesting language. you own your acts. john locke also uses this language.

this control belongs by nature. it is not acquired through an act of wealth or choice. we have moral agency. we can be held accountable for our acts. the recognition of that distinguishes us from inanimate objects. we can argue about it. certainly most other living beings, maybe not all. maybe others have moral agency. but, we find human beings have the ability to make choices and we can hold them accountable. we don't do that for other animals and certainly not for inanimate things. this principle is then tested in a particularly stark way when the europeans come in contact with people in what they call the new world. especially in the spanish empire.

the spaniards come in contact with people, indians they come to be called, it is disputed what that means. whether they thought they got to india, or it means people of god. i don't think there is any resolution of the origin of the term indians. they are enslaved and treated with extraordinary brutality and acts of extermination. in spain, a number of figures associated with a proto- libertarian school of social thought, rises to defend them. there is a short book on the american indians. it is a powerful book and you can get it in english or spanish translation. he addressed very clearly, in as much as he is a person, every indian has free well and is a master of his actions.

by natural law, every man has a right to his own life. he argues against the coercive baptism of indigenous people. as you can see from the image, he was a priest. of course he wants everyone to be forced to go to church. not at all. he and his followers argued that within the context of catholic doctrine, this was a sin. a very important and powerful and clever argument. they argued it is an act of violence to hold the sword to someone and say come to church. you have committed a crime, right there. secondly, if that person comes to church and professes a belief they do not hold, you are forced to that person to commit the sin of hypocrisy and that crime will fall on your head, not on that person, because that person is acting under duress. very powerful, within the

context of his own religion, why we should not force people into conversion. another great figure in this movement had come to the new world. he was deeply influenced by what he saw. he wanted a young adventure. very exciting. there were stories he had seen and he wanted to be an adventurer. what he saw shocked him. it was an utter horror. he was converted by a priest -- i don't think the name was recorded -- who told him, look what is happening. how can you allow this to happen? he wrote several books, one of which was a huge bestseller and he described seeing human beings hunted on horseback with spears for sport. chased down and speared.

then, human flesh sold in butcher shops as food for dogs. he said, this cannot be right. he said this is a great crime. he devoted his life to the advance of the indigenous people. in 1550, he debated in front of the fathers of the church, defending the rights of indigenous people to their own lives. it is an extraordinarily powerful book. you can read it in english or spanish translation. he hammered at them and he made the point. he said, if you want them to come to church, treat them as humans. you don't bring your pets to church. you don't bring in your cows to take communion. if you want them to be in

church, they are entitled to the respect of a human being. and he convinced, at officially at least, the leaders of the church. great cities, kings judges and laws, persons who engage in commerce, buying, selling, lending, and other aspects. once up over the argued that indians were natural slaves. aristotle discussed slavery and would talk about slaves by nature. i find his discussion puzzling, because a slave by nature has no internal motion of his own. no desire. he just waits. somehow the master completes him by giving him something to do. he is part of the body of the master. it is such an odd description. it did not apply to the slaves

he observed around him. some of whom tried to run away, for example, thereby showing they did have some desires of their own. be that as it may, it was interpreted by many as a defense of slavery. you could also interpret it as a sly undermining of the principal. a difficult text to interpret. but cipolla said aristotle showed us slavery is natural and god so loved the spaniards, he made a whole continent full of them for us. and they need us. we complete their lives. he hammers this and says this is nonsense. craziness. these people have their own affairs and run their own lives. as he concluded the debate, he said of the indians, he said, christ has given his life for them. why then do we persecute them with such inhuman savagery?

the past, because it cannot be undone, must be attributed to our own weakness, provided that what is taken unjustly is restored. this is a great wickedness. we have an obligation to restore what can be restored. you cannot undo the past, but you can give back what was unjustly taken. this was important in the idea of individuals. now, going back to europe and thinking about conflicts in europe over religion. if i know the true religion, naturally i should force you to follow it. i am helping you. the doctrine of righteous persecution was, when i burn you at the stake for following the wrong religion, i am doing the kindest act possible.

because in those last moments of agony, you might repent and accept the true gospel, as i understand it. so, various groups are murdering and killing each other. there is a common theory, popular among 20th and 21st century figures that religious tolerance came about when religion declined. that it was scientifically minded, atheistic people who advanced religious freedom. this is comfortable for people who don't embrace religion. it happens to be wrong. the people who defended religious freedom were deeply, profoundly religious people. one of the most important debated with john calvin. he was a person of great religious faith. as has been pointed out by some intellectual historians, the atheists were usually not going out promoting their views.

they were afraid, so they kept their heads down and talked with each other. people who were willing to fight for religious freedom were the ones motivated by their own religious faith. he was one of the most important. when john calvin organized the murder of -- he said, to kill a man is not to protect the doctrine, but it is to kill a man. they did not fit -- they did not defend the doctrine, they just killed a man point they did not advance the true faith, they just murdered someone. i mentioned in england, the levelers, all of them were protestants. but they defended the rights of the catholics. indeed, william wallman wrote a

paper called in defense of the papists. he wrote that in good faith to defend the rights of the catholics, although he was not a catholic. because they believed in the freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. as he put it, we can live together peaceably only when we control our intolerance. although there will be differences of opinion, we can come to a general understanding and love one another and enter the bonds of peace. in the meantime, go to your church. i go to mine. my neighbor goes to synagogue. another goes to temple. another goes to mosque. and we can live together, peacefully. now, a little digression about the nature of rights. this is important, partly

because of the way the english language is structured, but also to do with conceptual relationships. we talk about right. in english language, we can say that is the right thing to do or that is not right. we also say, i have a right. they are connected, but it is complex. we can talk about objective and subjective right. aristotle talks about objective right. he says, right or justice, he says it is that disposition or habit which renders men apt to do just things and causes them to act justly and to wish what is just. the focus is on the objective ordering of the world. it is the right thing to do. but then there is the lawyers approach. here, a very important figure in the development of legal theories of rights. quoted in the digest, justice

is the steady and enduring will to render unto every one his right, the basic principle of rights are to live honorably and not harm another person. to render to each his own. a somewhat different approach on what rights are all about. objective and subjective. i have run into some professors of philosophy, who did not impress me, who say it is a contradiction to say you have a right to do what is wrong. if it is wrong, it can't be right. you can't have a right to do it. this is not deep. it was thomas aquinas who helped us understand the relationship between them. he wants to reconcile the roman law with aristotle and with christianity.

many people who think of saint thomas think of him attempting to reconcile science with his christian faith, but there is at least a third element that is very important for st. thomas and that is the roman law. here, he says we have aristotle who says one thing and roman law says another, what to do? naturally, he needs to show they are compatible. he says the definition of justice is fitting if understood correctly. the proper matter of justice consists of those things that belong to our intercourse with other human beings. hence the act of justice is indicated in the words -- and he quotes -- rendering to each one his right, a man is said to be just because he respects the rights of others. in other words, the way that we get a just society is by

respecting rights. this is a great innovation. in my opinion, insufficiently appreciated. someone who comes across the same idea, but as far as i know did not read thomas, is robert no zach. justice preserving transformation. if you start with a system of rights that is just and every step within it is just in accordance with rights, the outcome will be just. nozick did not believe in history of philosophy, he thought it was a waste of time, but he came up with so many ideas that were developed by others. it is parallel to the arguments about socialism. no one can know the objectively correct allocation of all the resources in society. where this table should go in that iron ore should go and that truck should be. it is impossible.

what i can know is what you own and what i own and prices that emerge in the market economy. prices will help us coordinate our behavior so we will generate, if not optimal, beneficial systems of coordinated plans and prosperity. but no one could have known what the optimal allocation was in advance. i can know what a price is. when coffee goes up, i will shift my drinking habits. technically, i won't, but some people would. similarly, for thomas and for those in the tradition of right, i can't know the best outcome for society. but i can understand what is yours and what is mine. in almost all cases, we have a clear understanding of our rights and those of others. that generates a just society. it is a justice that could not

have been predicted in advance. the pattern or allocation that emerges, emerges by a just process. the focus was on the rights of individuals, rather than rights for groups or casts. the first self-conscious libertarians i mentioned, the levellers, made that clear. there is sometimes confusion in historic text about, who were the levellers? some will argue they were communists. in my view this is a confusion about what the levellers meant. first, the term leveller was an insult. it's not what they called themselves. it is common in political nomenclature that the term you have is one your enemies supplied to you and you end up accepting it as a badge of pride. there were a second group

called the diggers who were communist. they said no, we are the true levellers. what the levellers wanted was for everyone to be equal before the law. but they didn't want redistribution. so, there is sometimes confusion. there is a rock band called the levellers, which is a communist rock band. or was. when i first read christopher hill's books, i bought them in east germany, which tells you about his communist predilection. but they believed in limited government, freedom of trade. basically libertarian ideas. you can see down there, that is the title of the essay. to every individual in nature is given a property of nature. for everyone, as he is himself,

so he has a self propriety, lc would not be himself. just your identity is a foundation of your right, your property, in your own person. this becomes a very powerful foundation for libertarian ideas. freedom of religion is something people feel passionate about. the eternal. their relationship with god. this idea that we can live together, equally and freely, is a great innovation and a great achievement. i particularly like george washington's formulation. if you go online, you can find his letters, several of them, to the hebrew congregation. he received letters

congratulating him on becoming the president and he wrote back exceptionally elegant responses to them. i will read it. it is quite powerful and the subtext is significant. washington was a serious and deep thinker. the citizens of the united states -- a policy worthy of imitation. all possess life, liberty, -- now, the letter had been written to him as a kind of thank you for tolerating us. his response was so powerful. as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent rights, for happily the government of the united states requires only that they live under its protection and demean themselves as good citizens and giving on all

occasions their effectual support. notice what he is saying. get off your knees. you do not have to thank me for tolerating you. these are your rights to live as equal citizens. it would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that i am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and wishes. what a powerful and beautiful conclusion. may the children of the stock of abraham who dwell in this land continue to enjoy the goodwill of the other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit in safety under his own fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid. that is beautiful and was the statement of what is being offered. not that we are willing to tolerate you. we could crush you and persecute you, but for now we will not. instead, we want to live together as equal citizens in a free society, where there shall

be none to make him afraid. now, this receives powerful support from individuals who embrace this idea. i have shown a few here. the sisters who dedicate their lives to eliminating the horror of slavery. having to witness people brutalized and beaten and oppressed. they said it was intolerable. they could not stand it and dedicated their whole lives. josiah wedgwood, down in the lower corner. that famous image, am i not a man and a brother? which he produced on medallions to sell to support the antislavery cause. this was supported by business people and merchants. every proper middle-class family would buy one and put it outside to demonstrate they believed in freedom and opposed the horror of slavery. there is a wonderful movie,

amazing grace. i highly recommend it. 50 years of struggle for this cause. so much suffering and so many times he was tempted to give up. it was impossible, but he persevered and lived to see the appellation of slavery throughout the empire. -- see the appellation of slavery throughout the empire. she was a powerful champion of liberty. she lived her life by her own rights. she and isabel patterson were very important writers in north america. patterson was from canada and she was from the united states. both of them were married but they seem to have misplaced their husbands. we don't know anything about them at all. the only thing we know about

isabel patterson's husband, she once commented that he was so cheap -- these are two people who made their living as independent journalists and writers. they survived writing books and magazine articles. she wrote a very powerful book in 1943, the discovery of freedom. she was a little ashamed of it. she wrote it in a few weeks. she did make a few errors in it. you don't have a library and her internet wasn't working very well, so there were some factual mistakes. later editors have gone through and corrected them. it is a beautiful statement of the struggle for freedom and multiple civilizations and cultures. i should add that my, mostly libertarian friends, have republished the essay,

correcting all of the mistakes. they were minor. they consider very beautiful. she saw the liberty that we see possible in our own civilization and culture. she was very popular in those circles. i highly recommend her book on albania. the king propose to her. she turned him down and he married another american lady instead, but she had quite a colorful life. she was a powerful advocate for libertarian ideas in america and globally. out of this came a sense, something very important. let me mention one more thing on frederick douglass. douglas is one of the most inspiring figures in the entire libertarian tradition.

he liberated himself from slavery. his story is told in two autobiographies and is extraordinarily inspiring. what a human being he was and what he accomplished. really uninspiring figure. if you want a good read, read tim's book and after that, pick up one of his autobiographies. but this notion, the libertarian creed which is so frequently misstated by our critics, they say it is about selfishness. all you care about is you. if i only cared about me, i wouldn't be doing this. a lot of other things i can do for me, instead of trying to bring freedom to all of you, as well. to be a libertarian doesn't mean i want freedom for me. most people want that. it is when i want freedom for you, that is what matters. that was expressed so

beautifully. i saw this on a trip to brazil on a statue, engraved. he dedicated his life to eliminating slavery in brazil. the last country in the americas to eliminate slavery. educate your children, educate yourselves in the love for the freedom of others. you will be aware of its works and have the courage to defend it. for example, our colleague at the cato institute does not use any intoxicating substances except coca-cola. that's it. do not offer him a pepsi. it is coca-cola. he doesn't smoke anything, doesn't drink any alcohol, no bad habits like that. but he has dedicated many years of his life to the cause of marijuana legalization and ending the drug war. not because he wants to light up. not because that is important

to him personally, but because he says it is wrong to put people in cages and visit violence on them, smashed down doors, create black markets. all the horrors of the war on drugs. it is wrong. but he doesn't do it because he wants to smoke. he definitely does not. being a libertarian is not being a selfish person. it means you don't want to use force on other people and you believe in respecting their rights. now, property and rights, here is a side point. we sometimes hear people say, all you care about our property rights, what about human rights? this is a mistaken idea of what property means. john locke is very clear. to go back to his texts. i don't consider them like the bible, but they are important. property doesn't mean just your

estate, your stuff. it is your life, your freedom and your estate that is your property. life, liberties and estates, which i call property. so, property means a right. when we say property rights, it is a bit redundant. it means right rights, trying to recapture this older language. but he said, i have a property in my person. i have a property in my opinions. property means rights and is at the foundation of the libertarian view. now, spontaneous order. to run through some more. i mentioned the importance in developing this idea. in his poem, the more prohibitions there are, the poor the people will be. the more edicts, the more thieves and bandits. then this notion, i cannot say it correctly in chinese, but my colleague says the best

translation is not an activity, as it is often translated. a better translation would be active inactivity. it is paradoxical. it means, get the rules right and stand back and let the order emerge. another phrase would be laissez- faire. therefore, the stage is set, as long as i do nothing, the people themselves will be transformed. so long as i act only by inactivity, the people will themselves become prosperous. in other words, the ruler, the king, the magistrate has a responsibility to set a system of law and justice and rights and then let the order emerge.

he also said something a bit cryptic. he said, governing a great country, a great kingdom, is like frying a small fish. then he stops. okay, how are those like each other? one way, i asked people who do fry small fish, what is it like to fry a small fish? they said, you don't poke at it all the time. you put it in the pan and let it cook. if you constantly poke at it, it is ruined. that was his idea. don't constantly intervene in people's business. let them create the order. now, the libertarian understanding of order is much more radical than other understandings. when people talk about order, it usually has an authoritarian tone to it. order. we have to make everything orderly. there are different understandings of order. there is the order of the

military parade, marching in formation. there is the order of a graveyard, with all the headstones lined up. various kinds of order. the order of a human society is not like that. it is an order that emerges, not that is him -- that is imposed. it is unpredictable and changes. goodness, i have thomas aquinas and i meant james buchanan. i apologize for that. that is not thomas aquinas. that is james buchanan. he said something so profound. i recommend reading his short essay on this. the order of the market emerges only from the process of voluntary exchange. the order is, itself, defined as the process that delivers it. the result cannot exist

independently of the training process. absent this process, there is and can be no order. it is not the case that there is an optimal allocation of resources and we can get there by market. he says absent the market, it is not even possible to talk about order. the order is so dedicated to the process that generates it, but is inherently on noble. we cannot predict all the things that will happen as a consequence. so how would this issue come out a free society? part of the answer is, i don't know. i don't know because i don't have a blueprint for how people will order themselves. it is fun to go back and read about what the future of society will be like. there are many of them and they are utterly hilarious to read them. there is some understanding. when the telephone came about,

they organized great symphonies with a telephone. then i will be at the other end listening to the symphony. that will be great. not understanding that technology would come up with all kinds of ways. no one would've predicted amazon.com and this endless list of things. it is the market order that produces those outcomes that are unpredictable. now some produce harmony and mutual benefit and others, conflict and disorder. adam smith says as long as people are selfish, you will get an efficient outcome. that is terrible. he didn't say anything remotely like that. he was focused on the rules. if the rules are right, people will pursue their interests. under any set of rules. you need the right rules. then you can become wealthy by helping other people. but under the wrong rules, you become rich by stealing from

them. thieves are selfish, but they don't make society better. it is not selfishness that makes the world go round. he doesn't say anything like that. he just says, let's face it, people will pursue their own interests. live with it. those interests are channeled in ways that will be beneficial to others, as well. there is the famous zero-sum game, in which the sum of the payoffs is equal to zero. this is the one that most people think characterizes most human interactions. if i get 10, someone else lost 10. it is a dangerous mentality and these exist almost only on blackboards. some gambling circumstances. normally, you get a different set of arrangements. negative some gains are common. the sum of the benefits is less than zero. you walk down the street,

someone comes up behind and smacks him on the head. takes your wallet. you might have $40 in your wallet. the thief gets $40, you have $200 in medical bills. you have a negative some outcome. theft and corruption and looting and violence is always negative some. government corruption is always negative some. after dictators are overthrown, people say, we will redistribute what the dictator took and we will be rich. in your dreams. the harm they did was much greater than the benefit they receive. it is hard to realize about the harm it does to societies in that kind of predatory statism. these are common. there is another kind as well, the positive sum game. the sum of the payoffs are greater than zero. john stossel opened my eyes to think about this in a new way. he called it the double thank

you. you go to the store and you buy something. it is a dollar $.70. you say thank you. they give it to you and then the store owner or clerk says thank you. they both say thank you. that is weird when you think about it. normally if i fall and someone helps me get up, i say thank you. that person says, you're welcome. it would be a disturbing world if i fell down and the other person says, no no, thank you. there is something morally wrong about that world. but in an exchange, we both say thank you. why? we both benefited from it. the transaction is positive sum. what we want to do is transform negative some gains into positive sum games. that is one way of understanding the process of libertarian reform. turning negative some gains into positive sum games with cooperative outcomes.

now, respectful rights have a huge transformative impact on the world. quite often, people ask what causes poverty? it is not unique or alone or deep in this regard, but in a piece i published with cambridge university press, i was the only person in the book that said that is the wrong question. the others said, what do you mean? there was a muslim who is a socialist, a christian who is a socialist, an atheist who is a socialist, all the socialist and me. i said it is the wrong question. the question is, what causes wealth? poverty is a natural state of mankind. it is what you get when you failed to create wealth. in contrast, wealth is not something you get when you fail to produce poverty. we tried really hard to create poverty, we failed and everyone

is rich. it is not how the world works. so we need to explain what causes wealth. joseph -- put it very neatly. one of the most wise things written. the problem with existing structures, the relevant problem is how it creates and destroys wealth. we should be less concerned about facebook's monopoly, because facebook is very worried about the next thing that is going to come along and knock them off their perch. and rightly so. at cato, someone published a piece and quoted senior government officials complaining about the locked in, perpetual monopoly of myspace and how there had to be antitrust action to break up myspace. this creative destruction overturns old patterns, but creates new ones. it is destructive.

the typewriter industry doesn't exist anymore. when i was a boy it was a big industry and my goal in life was to become a typewriter repair man. you would always have a job. there were many tv shows about typewriter repair man and it seemed like a cool job to have. what happened to typewriter repair men? they are all victims of cold and brutal capitalism. they went to the great typewriter repairman graveyards and died in the millions. no, they got other jobs. they found other things to do. now we have computers. frankly, they are better. i could never play a movie on my typewriter. if i talked to it, people would report me. i talked to my computer all the time. what we need is what i call a spontaneous and abstract order of action. this idea of libertarian order, different from the socialist mentality.

it results in an overall order, that they not only do not unnecessarily interfere with each other, but in respect that the success of an action of individuals depends on matching action of others, there is a chance this will occur. it is about people able to coordinate their plans. or to put it bluntly, when i go into the grocery store, there is food there. and not toxic products or automobile tires. it is a food store, there are foods there. our plans are coordinated. food shows up. how does it get there? even though a socialist planner would want to know exactly which rutabagas go to which markets, markets solve that problem. let me round out to the next

section by talking about the conception of law that is appropriate to that order. it is common among legal theorists to define law as a set of order and commands issued by superiors with the right to compel obedience. it is a common view of what law is about. but it is not compatible with our understanding. i think more neatly, it is the enterprise of subjecting human conduct to the governance of rules. law is much wider than the state and need not be violent. there is law governing ebay and interactions on the internet. there are all kinds of laws. it is when we subject our conduct to rules and are able to coordinate our behavior and know what to expect from one another. a much less state centric view of legal order. coming then to the final point, limited government and the rule of law. we have this series, how we can restrain those who manage the

state. the main question seems to be, how a commonwealth is an empire of laws and not men. we want the rule of law, not the rule of god kings or one man who says i am your voice and my command is law. we hear from so many politicians in the united states. if we think about it, it also means the law is not just command, it is a society of people who can restrain themselves. i did talk about such principles as magna carta and so on. these are important for putting limits on the power of the state. explicit, open and clear limits. power is not unlimited in this tradition. in the process, laws spread

throughout europe. competition spurred the spread. very important in european history was the city of -- and the laws spread throughout europe. cities would send people to copy down the laws as a template for them. it became a sort of supreme court of adjudication throughout europe. when there was some dispute, people would send the case there. so this spread the common legal culture throughout europe. through competitive processes. you could copy whatever laws you wanted. these were especially good ones. i am skipping ahead again. my great hero, norbert elliott, such an interesting person. i wish i had met him. even from his photo, he looks like someone you would've been able to learn from. in his books he studies how it is that people came to achieve

greater self-mastery and self- control. it had to do with the growing specialization of societies. people become more self- reliant. self determining. this is a process that takes place along with the market economy. control of impulses, especially impulses toward violence. the good news is, this seems to be a long-term trend in society continued to become less violent. again, i highly recommend the book on this. this is part of the libertarian transformation of the world. now, john locke addressed the question about law and property. there are too many laws, i am against the law. we don't need law. they are confusing laws and commands. i agree, we don't need more commands from state regulatory agencies, the president, whoever they have in mind.

but john locke has a different understanding. i think this is a powerful sentence. where there is no law, there is no freedom. this is something i have come to understand much more, working in the post-soviet space and in transitional countries emerging out of dictatorships. the importance of the rule of law. this is the key ingredient. something we understand better, i think, than previous generations, because we have seen on the ground how important the rule of law is. contrary to the rule of law is arbitrary power. so, the libertarian synthesis. you have the pillars of individual rights, spontaneous order and the rule of law. and then the way they are related. when rights are legally secure and what in contract, free people generate orders of action. much more complex than any planner could have imagined and

they voluntarily coordinate behavior for mutual advantage. that is really the key to the process. so our challenge as libertarians is to secure liberty through law. eliminating the state, but also by putting in systems of law that allow people to voluntarily coordinate their behavior. with that, i thank you and we have a little bit of time for conversation if you want to come up to the microphone. so, thank you very much. yes sir. >> quick question. in a pure market economy, does the government have any proactive role in protecting its citizens or is it only retroactive for punishing violators? >> that is a broad question. certainly, you would say limited government has a responsibility to protect us

from invasion, from incursion. national defense. to protect us from criminals. you don't have to wait after the fact, you would have police enforcers. it is difficult to prevent all crimes in advance, so police are there to follow-up afterwards. most of the crime prevention that takes place in society is not connected to the state. not to say you don't need a state at all, but we put locks on our doors. we invest a great deal of money in protecting what is ours. think about keys, for example. you could have a car with no key for the ignition. you just push a button and it will go. instead we spent a lot of money on keys. they are an important feature. i was once in switzerland and they had motorbikes with no keys. i had never seen anything like that in my life. people got on it, pushed an ignition button and drove off. that told me, this is a high

trust, low crime society. it could also be that those people in the past who did steal motorbikes disappeared. we invent a lot of crime prevention, independently of the government. but maybe we do need the state to protect us after the fact. i would point out that even the process of apprehending criminals is not state monopolized. we do have bounty hunters in the united states and they catch more fugitives than the police do, with much, much, much less violence. they have a bad reputation because of some flashy tv shows, but the fact is they are not immunized like police officers are. if they hurt you, they bear liability for it, so they avoid violence. even within that context, a lot of law enforcement takes place through private, nonstate actors.

yes sir. >> i want to say so far, i have agreed with everything you said, especially when it comes to inalienable rights, rationality, free will. i just want to ask, what do you believe the metaphysical foundations of those claims are, of objective morality? many of the opponents of libertarianism, they are saying , it is a bag of bones and chemicals. there is no free will. no god. that is the basis of their free market beliefs. i think it is instrumental to libertarians to not only claim national rights and free will, but to be able to defend it. i want to see what your basis would be for that. >> here is one of the bits of good news. we don't have to agree on those

questions to agree on certain outcomes. so one can be a very devout catholic or muslim or nonbeliever or whatever and still be libertarian. because we are more concerned about the conclusions, which is virtual rate -- which is mutual respect. there is no requirement that there be one true or best foundation. i don't think that is necessary at all and thank goodness for that. the second point is that you might find a common view about human choice and an understanding of rights that need not be as metaphysically grounded as people think. this was addressed by a number of thinkers. there is a deep connection between rights and consequences. contemporary college professors might, some of them -- i have met a few who say you believe in rights or you believe in

consequences. then they look at people in the past and say, oh my god, these people were all confused. john locke was confused. really? are they confused or do you just have a really dumb and simplistic taxonomy and it is their fault they don't fit in your boxes? one the way we would know what rights are are the consequences that flow from not respecting or respecting them. so, consequences are very important to the theory of rights and almost all formulations, that there is some connection. that is history and examining how societies prosper. which ones prosper and which ones fail. it is an important element of that. but you don't always have to go down to those deep, metaphysical points. there are those who deny these things because they argue that collective identity is the right one. so, a very malevolent socialist

thinker, it is becoming more clear he was a real nazi, through and through. he argues that his ideas are not about individual existence. it is about the german people. that that was the only true and real thing and that you and i are just foam on the surface. we are insignificant. we are nothing. people of that mentality are willing to kill millions of other beings, because nothing was lost. all you are is in the way of a force greater than yourself and you your self do not exist. at that metaphysical level, i do reject that. so, we have a few more minutes. probably the last one now.

>> we are going through this trade war with china and china is guilty of the theft of intellectual property, improper trade practices, everything. we are losing economic power. how does the libertarian position offer a favorable outcome to that situation? >> i think you painted too gloomy a picture. i don't think we are losing -- >> did you catch today's paper? >> no, but i will look at it later. i have heard these claims, especially from our president, and i don't think he has a deep understanding of trade. when he says we lost $800 billion, that is an overstatement of the magnitude of the trade deficit, but let's assume he had gotten the number correct. it is the same as saying we gained that much in investment.

there is an accounting identity that neither he nor wilbur ross understands. savings minus investments equals exports minus imports. if imports are greater than experts, it means investment is greater than savings. so the same thing we call a trade deficit can be translated into a capital account surplus. two headlines, u.s. trade deficit goes up. people say that is bad. the same facts and another headline, more foreigners invest more in our economy. that doesn't sound negative. they are actually the same. simply the same. so, the question about chinese behavior on intellectual property is an important matter that is covered by wto law and i think it should of been hashed out at that level. publishing -- punishing soybean farmers to protect people who do business in china and have been wrong i don't think is the

correct answer. we can talk about that further and i will be happy to see the news article you pointed out. i think to the extent that there are legitimate complaints about chinese behavior, they are best handled in a form of law, the wto, and not through what we have been seeing. we will see how it plays out, but i am not optimistic about the current path. i am very scared about the harm that will be visited on us through a trade war. with that, we have 27 seconds left. i will take the time dimension we will start again on time with the next presentation. remember, this evening dinner will not be here. we will be meeting at 5:45 pm for transportation to the winery. we will have wonderful food and a presentation. thank you very much. clinic

c-span's washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up wednesday morning, the wilton center discusses the nafta renegotiation and u.s.- canada-mexico relations. then read wilson talks about state ballot measures for 2018. be sure to watch washington journal, live at 7:00 eastern, wednesday morning. join the discussion. on wednesday, remarks from the special envoy to iran. he will also lead the iran action group, recently created by secretary of state mike pompeo, and talk about her aunt's missile proliferation and u.s. efforts to stop it. that event is hosted by the houston institute.

also, we will hear comments from owen patterson live at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. after that, we go back to the hudson institute for a look at the current state of arrack. panelists examine new coalitions being formed, outside influences, and recent protest in basra. live coverage gets underway at 12:30 pm eastern on c-span. american history tv is in prime time this week on c-span three. -- on c-span3. wednesday, our women in congress series continues. thursday, historians look at the role of espionage in u.s. conflicts. and on friday, on reel america, the world war ii film series why we fight about the outbreak of world war ii from pearl

harbor and the rise of authoritarianism. watch american history tv this week in prime time on c-span3. this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, saturday on reel america. >> we are privileged to witness tonight a significant achievement in the cause of peace. an achievement none thought possible a year ago. or even a month ago. an achievement that reflects the courage and wisdom of these two leaders. >> the 1978 film, framework for peace, on the camp david peace accords. and sunday at 6 pm on american artifact, a look back at the 1998 bombing of the u.s. embassies in kenya and tanzania.

>> we were meeting with the minister of commerce. we heard an explosion. most of us went to the window. 10 seconds later, and impact of high energy hit all of us. 213 people were instantly killed, 48 of whom were employees of the united states government. >> watch on american history tv this weekend on c-span3. what does it mean to be american? that is this year's competition question. we are asking middle and high school students to answer it by producing a short documentary about a constitutional right, national characteristic or historic event and define how

it defines the american experience. this year's deadline is january 20, 2019. for more information, go to our website. mcgill university professor jacob leavy talked about the concept of liberty and western civilization changed in the 18th and 19th century. this was part of a symposium on history and philosophy chaired by the cato institute. it is an hour and 15 minutes. so, our next preventer is someone i have known for a few years. since he was a student at brown university. he is going to speak to us on the evolution of liberty. he is a well read person. one of the sm