September 14, 2023 • 36 mins
In today’s economic environment, everyone could benefit from reading Axel Kaiser’s new book, “The Street Economist: 15 Economic Lessons Everyone Should Know.” Axel offers basic lessons that should be a part of everyone’s education. Crucial concepts such as prices, capital, supply and demand, labor, inflation, value and innovation are explained in a way that is understandable. “The Street Economist” is already an international best-seller. Newt’s guest is Axel Kaiser, a Chilean-German lawyer, with a Masters in Investments, Commerce and Arbitration.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
On this episode of Newtsworld. In his new book The
Street Economist Fifteen Economic Lessons Everyone Should Know, Axel Kaiser
offers basic lessons that should be a part of everyone's education.
Crucial concepts such as prices, capital, supply and demand, labor inflation,
value and innovation, among others, are explained in a way
(00:29):
that is understandable to those of us without economic backgrounds. Amazingly,
The Street Economist is already a best seller in many countries,
including Chile, where it sold fifty thousand copies in a year.
It is now being translated into five different languages. Here
to talk about his new book, I'm really pleased to
(00:50):
welcome my guest, Axual Kaiser. He is a Chilean German
lawyer with a master in Investments, commerce and arbitration. Let
me say first, thank you for doing this. I think
it's very exciting.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Axhel has a remarkable background and it's really so extraordinary.
Would you share with us how you got to be
where you are now.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I started reading a lot when I was a child
growing up in southern Chile in Patagonia.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I went to German school.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I then went to university and studied law in Santiago,
and I was always a voracious reader, and I then
went for a master's degrees in PhDs in Germany, and
I started writing and winning essay contests everywhere in the
United States, in Latin America and Europe, and then I
published on books that became very popular and best selling books.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Basically, I'm a.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Columnist to very important newspapers, and then people started to
inviting me from everywhere.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
In the world.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I would say, I've spoken in the United States many times,
all over Latin America, Europe, Eastern Europe.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
That's how I ended up here.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
I guess I have some talent for what I do,
and I think a good example of this the success
that The Street Economist has had so far. It has
been a best selling book in not only Chile, but
also Spain, Argentina, is doing great in Brazil, in Germany.
Now it's going to be published in Poland and Mongolia,
and then other countries, maybe Russia and Holland will follow.
(02:30):
So I'm very happy that it was published here in
the United States. Also because especially for young people, it
has made a huge difference everywhere where it has been published.
So that's to make a very long story short.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's great, but I do think in particular everyone should
be aware of the Street economist fifteen economic lessons everyone
should know and your approach to which is what we're
now going to talk about. So your family originally came
from Germany to Chile because an official policy of the
Chilean government in the twenty century to bring Germans to
help develop the country. Do they still do something like that.
(03:05):
I mean, that's kind of a very interesting model.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Not anymore.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
You know, in the nineteenth century, the Chilean government had
this official policy of bringing a qualified labor force coming
from Germany.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
They were all qualified people. Most of them. They had knowledge,
technical knowledge, and they were professionals and people like that.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
And so my great grandparents they came from Germany before
the First World War and they became extremely prosperous and
wealthy in Chile by developing the agriculture of the country
and industry and different things. And then my grandfather, the
last emigrant from Stuttgart, he emigrated because he escaped the
Nazis didn't like the way things were going in German
(03:44):
in the nineteen thirties. So he saw it coming and said,
I'm not staying here with these crazy people, and he
emigrated to Chile, and then he married my grandmother, who
belonged to this very wealthy farm German family, and so he.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Was from middle class, but he was very good looking.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
My grandmother in law for immediately with him, and then
they married and we are there as a result of that.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Take a minutature to talk about the extraordinary shifts in
Chilean policy Allende to Pinochet, then going through a preader
of Socialist Marxist revolution, et cetera. I mean, it's really
been very dramatic, the various permutations of Chilean policy in
the last forty years or so.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yeah, And this is the right time to speak about
this because we are commemorating fifty years since we had
the military coup against the communist regime of Allende.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
And this was on September eleventh, nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
And what really happened was that Salva Allende, who had
been funded by the Soviet Union in order to win
the presidential election of nineteen seventy tried to impose a
communist dictatorship, and so he destroyed the rule of law.
He introduced central planned economy and the entry sold after
three years, was hyperinflation.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Of six hundred percent per year.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
There was a basic scarcity of basic goods and services,
complete disaster, and we had Garillia groups supporting the regim
that were trained in Cuba and other places. Fidel Castro
spent one month in Chile after Allende was selected in.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Order to support the revolution.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
And yes, in the end, the parliament in Chile declared
that the ill Enda government was unconstitutional and was attempting
to impose a toteditarian regime and was violating systematically fundamental
rights that were guaranteed in the constitution. And then they
asked the military to intervene in order to put an
(05:39):
end to Allende's government. And what happened was that then
we had the military rule with Pinochet and the Chicago
Boys came in, people who had studied economics at the
University of Chicago and Milton Friedman, Gary Baker and Harberry
and others, and they made these amazing economic reforms that
transformed from one of the poorest countries in Latin America
(06:03):
into the most prosperous country that Latin America has ever seen.
These reforms were maintained and under the Democratic regimes center
left wing democratic regimes that came in the nineteen nineties,
and we continue to develop and to grow economically, and
then the left started speaking about inequality and that the
system was unfaired, that only.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
A few were benefiting, which was a complete lie. This
wasn't the case.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
And then Michelle Bachelet came to a second term in
twenty fourteen with the idea of destroying what they called neoliberalism,
which is basically free market institutions. And since then our
economic growth per capita has been zero zero point six
to be exact. And as a result of that, in
twenty nineteen, we had a huge social crisis that the
(06:49):
left used to their advantage and they proposed to create
a new constitution. Our weeks center right wing government from
Sebastian Pinera into these demands, and then we had a
constitutional experiment where they attempted to introduce a Marxist constitution
of Olivarian constitution right model, you know, like the Chavez
(07:11):
Constitution and so on. Fortunately for Chilean's we had the
chance to decide whether we wanted that constitution or not,
and over sixty percent of Chilean said we don't want
the Communist constitution, and we defeated communism for a second
time in September. Now, so now we are celebrating September
fourth and not celebrating September eleven. But at least we
(07:33):
are aware that it put an end to a communist
regime that was developing in the Cold War.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
We cannot forget that it was the midst of the
Cold War.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
And Henry Kissinger said that the election of Allende, which
was the first Marxist president ever to be democratically elected
in the world, that this post a threat was one
of the most dangerous things that had ever happened in
the Western hemisphere. Of course, the American government played a
(08:02):
role in the overthrow of Allende, but I don't think
it was nearly as influential as many people pretend. It
was mostly a reaction from the population and the political
class against a tyrant. And then we had the problem
with the human rights and the Pinochete. Of course, that's
something that we cannot forget. But it was the result
of this communist quasi gers civil war that we had
(08:23):
with them.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
And so that's the short story.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Why do you think when you saw what didn't work,
then they saw what did work, Why would the elites
go back to what didn't work? Well.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
There are different reasons, but the main explanation and that's
why I wrote the book The Swet Economist that's become
a major force of political change in Latin America, especially
in Chile and Argentina, is because we lost the battle
of ideas. So basically cultural and gemony. That's a term
that was popularized by Antonio Gramsci, the founder of the
Communist Party in Italy in the nineteen twenties, and he
(08:59):
said that that in order to destroy capitalism, you had
to take over institutions, universities, schools, media and so on,
and to really change how people thought about things. And
so we lost the battle of ideas. And this narrative
that the country had been more unequal andjust than ever
before created the conditions for a shift in the political
(09:23):
economy of the country towards more redistribution, more government intervention,
and it created a lot of anger among the population
because despite the fact that inequality was decreasing and poverty
felt from sixty to eight percent and things like that,
people started to believe that the country was unfair, that
(09:43):
a few people were benefiting, and that the rich were
exploiting everyone else, and they voted for Bachelorette, and then
Bachelot destroyed the foundations of Chilean prosperity. And now we
have a Marxist president which is Gabriel Vorrich, who has
been supported by AOC was recently visiting him in Chile.
And all the radical left internationally, like you know, all
(10:04):
these Hollywood celebrities like Vigo Morton's and Petro Bascal and
singers like Rory Waters, Peter Gaber and others have supported
Borg and the communist revolution in Chile. Of course, they
don't have to live with the consequences, so it's easy
to do from your mansion in Hollywood or whatever you are.
And this president has created a huge division among Chileans,
and fortunately he has a very low popularities, is around
(10:27):
twenty five percent support and lost polls. But he has
tried to move forward with the product of what they
called destroying neoliberalism. Again, neoliberalism is like the term they
use all the time in order to put a label
on what are sensitive and reasonable economic policies. I think
(10:48):
that the promise is similar to what happens to us,
what has happened in the United States, universities have been
taken over in Chile by hardcore leftist activists and the
media as well, and that has an impact on how
people think, and that's why we lost the battle of ideas.
And now we are experiencing a process of reaction because
(11:08):
people are seeing the results. And I've been myself probably
the main phase, or for sure the main phase of
the free market movement in Chile. I have more support
than ever before because people are feeling the pain. Salaries
are not growing, we have high inflation, there is zero
growth practically, and some qualified young people are leaving the country.
(11:29):
That had never happened before in Chilean history, at least
not in the last thirty years or forty years. And
that's why I think the street economists became so popular
and people on the streets are reading it. The Pirate
edition is being sold on the streets, so it's the
uber driver is the delivery guy. All of these people
want to understand what is going on, and it's the
same in Argentina. Argentina is a huge disaster. It had
(11:52):
the highest per capita income in the world in eighteen
ninety six with a classical liberal system, and now one
hundred and fifty percent inflation and over forty percent poverty rate.
Six million people are starving, and they produce food for
over four hundred million people. And that's what socialism is
capable of creating this sort of mess.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
And that's why I think that Meile will win.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Do you say in Argentina, is the political process moving
back towards a more free market solution.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Absolutely, So I have a lot of faith in Argentina
because what Ermile has achieved, who.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Is now running, as you well know, for president, and
I think he will win.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
He's a libertarian in the Freedman high k tradition, right,
is to create a movement with millions of people that
are completely frustrated with the current status of school and
the current situation, and they want freedom.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
They don't have freedom.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
You have, as I said, one hundred and fifty percent
inflation in Argentina and they are on the verge of
hyperinflation and the country is a huge man Only people
who have incoming dollars have a decent living.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
The rest are really having to struggle.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
And so I see that the message that people like
myself and Heavier Milay, who presented the strict Economists last
year in Buenos Aires is having a lot of support,
especially among young people. So now being pro market and
classical liberal and against the woke agenda and all of
that is like being the rebel and cool and also
(13:27):
offering an alternative that has not been tried before. And
I'm very hopeful in that sense that Argentina could, of
course it's very hard to achieve, but make a shift
and experience a renaissance that would had a huge symbolic
importance for the whole Western world because it would put
an end to the myth that the government is a
(13:48):
solution to our problems.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
If Argentina can do that, any country can do it.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
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dot com slash book. So one of the points you
(15:13):
make is that the tax increases in Chile have dramatically
increased taxes and corporations. What's the effect of that on
the real economy.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Basically, after the tax reforms of Michelle Bachelette, who is
people who don't know as socialist who later became the
Secretary General of the UN Humans Rights Council, Will Baheleett
introduced a reform that dramatically increased taxes on corporations from
it was twenty percent to twenty seven percent. But at
(15:44):
the same time, you couldn't use the taxes that you
paid as an owner of the company as a credit
against your personal taxes, which was the previous system. So
in practical terms, it increased much more than from twenty
to twenty seven percent. It was like we have fifty
percent increase in taxation for corporations. What happened was that
(16:04):
the investment in Chile collapsed completely. I mean we experienced
the lowest investment rates that we had seen in decades.
Economic Growth planmmeted from five point three percent per year
in the previous government of Pineta as an average for
the four years to one point eight percent to one
(16:25):
point eight percent, which is almost nothing if you adjust
by the growth of the population, and salaries doagnated. People
were used to seeing salaries rising every year. That stopped dramatically,
and as a result of that, we had the social
crisis of twenty nineteen, with a lot of violence on
the street and people wanting to get rid of the city,
(16:49):
the entire system, and the entire political class. This idea
of high taxes on corporations, high taxes on the reach
does not work and in Chili create the disastrous consequences
and even center left when people admit that now and
are saying we need to reduce taxes on corporations, we
(17:09):
have higher taxes and the average OICD country now in
Chile and zero economic growth. Now we are in a recession. Actually,
so there you go. I mean, if you punish.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
People who create wealth, what do you expect less wealth
will be created?
Speaker 3 (17:25):
And so you have also rising unemployment right now in
our country and raising physcal deficits and so on and
so forth. Because in Chile, each point of economic growth
means eight one hundred million dollars as a revenue for
the government, and we collapse four points of economic growth.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
So do the math.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
For our small country, Actile is a lot of money
that the state does not have, and we have calculated
that in absence of Ashlet's reforms, if we had done nothing,
now physcal revenues would be twenty six percent higher than
they are after the tax reform.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
In order to increase physical revenue.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
So it's completely absurd if you want people to learn
from a country that has done very awful things.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
To destroy its prosperities and them to Chile.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
It's absolute proof of the concept of the laugh or
a curve that if you raise taxes above a certain point,
you actually reduce revenue because people just avoid the behavior
and don't pay the.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Taxes exactly, and we have capital flights.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
According to our Central Bank that are thirty billion dollar
since they in the last three years, even in the
last four years, and other economists have calculated it's about
eighty billion dollar.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
More or less.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
We are a three hundred billion dollar GDP economy, so
it's huge when you really take that out into account
for us. That's what happens when you punish people who invest,
what do you expect to take their money away.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
It's sort of a policy of socialists to assume the
rest of us are stupid and therefore even and they
make policies that purpose that were somehow going to keep.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Doing it exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
And that's why I wrote also the book The Street Economists,
because it's amazing how ignorant people on the left and
also average people who know nothing about basic economic principles are.
They believe that you can extract wealth from the rich endlessly,
and that they have enough money so they could pay
(19:26):
all the bills for everyone else, like healthcare and social
security and things like that. And if you take into
account how much money they have. I did these calculations
in Chile. If we take all the billionaires we do
have and take all their wealth away, you can fund
only six months of government spending and it's not much
more in the United States either. So this idea that
(19:47):
there is endless wealth that you can take away from
wealthy people and that they will continue to create the
same wealth and they will not take it away to
someplace else is completely absurd. It's not knowing anything about incentives.
But understand that the average person on the street maybe
doesn't know about this because they have not been exposed
to economic ideas.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
They are trying to solve their everyday problems.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
And okay, I understand that, But that the elites, that
even economists would say no, that's the way to go
to me is I don't know how to explain that,
because they are not stupid. They know that this will
have reverse effects on the economy. And so what is it?
Is it that they are just evil people trying to
(20:30):
hurt the system they don't like it. It's probably it's
for ideological reasons. In Chile, for instance, and I've seen
this also in the United States. They've claim that they
don't care if we are all poorer, provided that we
are all more equal, and because then we would be
happier even if everyone has less, if we are more
(20:50):
equal and we will.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Be happier joy and mutual poverty.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Exactly, or maybe they're trying to tame envy or something
like that. I don't know what they want, but of
course they are not thinking about themselves when they say
these things. They are not thinking, Okay, I'm going to
live with thirty percent less than I live now in
order to be more equal with the rest of them.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
They are thinking about other people having less. Yeah, And
usually they are the ones in charge. They are the
ones who are redistributing the wealth and are in power,
and they spend the money as they see fit, and
they have all the privileges that comes with being in office.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
You mentioned one other area where there's a disturbing parallelism,
and that is the greed to which the left wing
woke activists have taken over the courts, and the greed
to which is now I war being waged against the
police in Chile. Can you sort of describe how that's working.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Well, we are experiencing the worst security crisis in the
country's history. Chile used to be a safe country in
the context of Latin America. Now as Salvator is safer
than Chile, we have the highest murder rate in the
history of the country. We have organized crime like we
(22:07):
had never seen before. Every day you have bodies like
in Juarez in Mexico that appear on the streets, like
dismembered or beheaded, things like that. And this is the
result of decades of preaching against the police and law
enforcement and also activists who have taken over the courts,
(22:29):
who are very willing to pardon.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
All the criminals.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
But at the same time, when the police do something
about it, they put them in prison. So in the end,
the incentives you have for the police to do something,
it's very low because in the end the police also
responds to incentives, and if they see that, they will
lose their careers, their income and everything because they are
(22:55):
fighting criminals.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
What do you expect?
Speaker 3 (22:57):
And that's why the criminals in Chile do everything, want
more or less, and nothing happens to them. Too many
of them, some of them get caught and they end
up in prison. But we also have a terrorist movement
in southern Chile that is linked to the Farks in
Colombia and who are linked to drag trafficking, and no
government has done anything about it. It's the area where
(23:18):
I grew up in southern Chile, and this is a
Marxist organization that claimed to represent indigenous people, but it's
a lie. Indigenous people in southern Chile are all right wing.
They vot also the right. They don't believe in Marxist ideas,
and so the rule of law in Chile has collapsed
as a result of these ideologies. Is progressive ideologists that
by the way, we're important from the United States and
(23:40):
from European countries by our PhDs who went there came
back and started to make laws that transformed the usual
system and started to teach the new judges in these doctrines.
And as a result of this influence, we now have
a broken system. Basically in Chile, people at mar bu
(24:01):
kele more than any other Latin American president now because
they are tired of this criminality. They can't go to
their houses. And it's not like in the United States,
where you can move from let's say California to Florida,
and Florida the system is working.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
In Chile, you cannot do that. It's not working for
no one, not even rich people are safe enough. Kidnappings
are happening. We didn't have that before.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
And also migration played a role in this because we've
got many criminals coming from Venezuela and Colombia into the
country with no background checks, so they could come in
and they have important and they have brought forms of
crime that we didn't know. And this has been even
admitted by our current left wing government. I mean, this
(24:48):
is a non partisan issue right now, So defund the
police doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
You really chake head on the whole idea of free education,
free student loans, et. Can you explain why you object
to the word free.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
As I explained the book The Street Economist, and you
know Milton Friedman used to repeat this all the time.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone
has to pay for it. When you claim that you
have a right to education and to a free education,
what you are really saying that you have a right
to other people's labor, that someone else would work in
(25:39):
order to pay the university for you. And so you're
profiting from other people's efforts without giving anything in exchange
in return. It's a coarse way of providing a service
that you value in order to increase your human capital,
and without giving anything in return. As I say, because
you use through taxation in order to get that. And
(26:03):
that's why I think it's immoral and it's only about
public policy. And I think all economists who are reasonable
economists agree that free higher education is but economic policy.
It's regressive, it benefits an elite, it doesn't really benefit
people who need the most, who need it the most,
and so on. To me, the main objection is one
(26:23):
based on values and principles. You don't have a right
to other people's labor, to the fruit of the labor
of someone else. You can need the money for something,
but that doesn't give you the right to go to
your neighbor and take away his salary in order to
buy your education or to pay for your education.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
So that's why I think social justice is a huge fallacy.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
So how do we end up losing this intellectual fight
to such a degree that, you know, it turns out
somebody is having to pay for others, but we describe
it as free, and nobody successfully breaks in to say,
wait a second, it's not free. It's just that you're
getting an unfair advantage because that's being taken from somebody else.
(27:07):
Why did we lose that fight intellectually?
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Well, I think for a long time in the United
States also in the West, we have lacked public intellectuals
that are engaging in these battle of ideas in the
way like Midwam freemen used to do. And most public
intellectuals you see are leftists, are progressives, or our social Democrats,
(27:35):
or even center right wing people who buy into the
stuff of giving things for free because it's popular and
they want to get maybe some positions in the government
or want to be elected in case when they're politicians.
So we haven't really fought this fight because there's only
a few of us doing this job, and there are
thousands of them, and they have money, and they have
(27:55):
the government behind them, and they have their political class
sometimes supporting them.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
And that's the.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Reason that you know, we have losses, not because our
ideas are worse or it's impossible to win the fight.
We have experiences in Latin America when we started fighting it,
and I was, like I said, one of the main
fases and still am one of the main phases of
this movement in Latin America. We started winning and winning
even politically. So I think we have plenty of very
(28:21):
smart people who understand this, but they are in the
Ivory Tower writing.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Papers and books that no one reads. And that's a problem.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
And then the universities have been taken over by left
wig scholars, even from Harvard. And the problem is that
when a Harvard professor says something, it carries a weight,
that is, because of the brand Harvard. It's not the
same as if someone from another university or from another
place says something. To the average person, right, you and I,
(28:50):
we can make the distinction. We don't buy into this
nonsense that because we are a Harvard professor we are right.
Necessarily we don't believe that. But to the average person,
this brands they gave a lot of credibility. And let's
take the case of Joseph Stieglitz for instance, with his
Nobel price. He has been going to Latin America for
decades supporting our worst socialist dictators, the Castros in Cuba,
(29:15):
shovels in Venezuela, Coorea in Ecuador, Eva Morales in Bolivia,
and now recently he went to Chile to support President Borich.
And so because he has an Obel price, then the media,
who are mostly leftists also say, oh Nobel LRD and
economics says that evo Morales, you know, plan to nationalize
(29:38):
the gas companies is a great idea.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
We don't have a Nobel Price, waning economists from our
side arguing against it. They don't take the time to
travel to Chile and do you know public interviews and
support the president that is doing the opposite to what
the left is to.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
They don't do that. We don't have that. It's just
actual kiser against Joseph Stinklitz. So people believe the guy.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
With an Owel price, and of course it's a fallacy
because he has said so much nonsense, and really it's
unforgivable because he has endorsed Fidel Castro. Literally. I wrote
a column fully Washington Examiner about this.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
It's a disgrace what Stieglitz has done in terms of
supporting the Kirsheners in Argentina, the Clecto characraatic dynasty of
the Cureeners. We have they have stolen some people calculate
like ten billion dollars from the Argentina population.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Because they run the country for over a decade. Christina A.
Currenar is still the vice president in Argentina.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
So the most corrupt, most destructive political class in Latin
America has been supported by Stieglitz, even Terians like like
the Castros. There you have an example. Then, for instance,
when we had the constitutional referendum in Borich being elected
president our Marxist current Marxist president, you had Peter Gabriel
Rowier Waters, the former Prink Floyd guy. You had Diego Mortensen,
(30:59):
you Sting, you have Susan Sarandon. You had all these
celebrities supporting Porridge and the Communist revolution. No one supported
jos Antonio cast the guy who ran against forage or
the option to reject the new constitution. None of these
(31:20):
celebrities worldwide did that. That's even so, despite that we
want right, but of course it helps when you have
all these big names behind you. It makes a difference.
So that's why we lose. We don't have the people
engaging in the battle of ideas.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
You have a pretty tough critique of Marxism and socialism.
Are they always inherently flawed because of their misunderstanding of
the nature of being human and of the way in
which the world really works.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
You don't have a different thesis. I think Marxism and
socialism are inherently evil. They understand human nature and marx
for instance, he knew precisely the effects that his doctrine
would have on society. He knew that it would be
(32:16):
large scale violence, that we would have a dictatorship where
you would have to get rid of the burgers, you
would have to kill them all if necessary. But at
the same time, Marxism promised and utopia where everyone was
going to be equal and wealthy and all of these things,
because he knew that in order to sell his destructive
(32:39):
program he had to disguise it as a sort of humanitarianism,
and so he took lots of Christian motives in order
to sell his nonsensical religion. Because Marxism is our religion
in the end. And if you read the testimonies of
people who knew Marx when he was alive, they tell
(33:00):
you that this was a horrible human being, full of
hatred and envy, and that he wanted to destroy. Even
socialists who met him, they have written about this about Marx.
He wanted to destroy the Christian world above anything else.
He actually said that. Marx he has writings where he
(33:22):
claims that the big promise Christianity and we have to
get rid of it, and that we have to banle
religion and things like that, and Engel said that love
for humanity was nonsense, that what we needed was hatred.
He actually wrote that Engel's his friend and his patron,
because Marx lived out of Engel's money for a long time.
(33:44):
And so I think it's evil. It's truly evil. But
it's easier to sell than let's say, fascism or Nazism,
because Nazism tells you in your face what they want
to achieve, and they tell you, well, you know, this
is the superior race. All of you are going to
be slaves of our empire. And so you are on
guard and you say, okay, these people are truly evil.
But with Marxism is somehow even worse, because they tell
(34:07):
you that they want to achieve something completely different than
what they really want to achieve, which is power to
Talitanism and control over people's lives, total control over people's lives.
And so you buy into this narrative because it sounds good.
It sounds very good, and that's why you can have
Stalin bar and cities and nothing happens. But you cannot, have,
(34:29):
of course, a Hitler bar because that people would riot.
But Stalin was as much as a criminalist as Hitler was,
and the ideology of communism and Nazism are exactly the
same in terms of their intrinsic criminality and the genocidal impetus.
So Marxism sounds better. That's it.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
It deceives us.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
And so I want to thank you for joining me.
This has been a fascinating conversation. You're a remarkable person.
I hope you continue to be as active, aggressive and
idealistic as you are now. Your new book, The Street
Economist is a great read. I encourage all of our
listeners to get a copy and to make sure that
their elected representatives have a copy. So thank you for
(35:11):
joining us.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Thank you to my guest, Axel Kaiser. You can get
a link to buy his new book, The Street Economist
on our show page at newtsworld dot com. Newtsworld is
produced by Ginglish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer
is Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork
for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks
(35:41):
to the team at Ginglish three sixty. If you've been
enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and
both rate us with five stars and give us a
review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now,
listeners of Newtsworld can sign up for my three free
weekly columns at gingishtree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm
(36:03):
Nut Gingrich. This is Nut's World.
On this episode of Newtsworld. In his new book The
Street Economist Fifteen Economic Lessons Everyone Should Know, Axel Kaiser
offers basic lessons that should be a part of everyone's education.
Crucial concepts such as prices, capital, supply and demand, labor inflation,
value and innovation, among others, are explained in a way
(00:29):
that is understandable to those of us without economic backgrounds. Amazingly,
The Street Economist is already a best seller in many countries,
including Chile, where it sold fifty thousand copies in a year.
It is now being translated into five different languages. Here
to talk about his new book, I'm really pleased to
(00:50):
welcome my guest, Axual Kaiser. He is a Chilean German
lawyer with a master in Investments, commerce and arbitration. Let
me say first, thank you for doing this. I think
it's very exciting.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Axhel has a remarkable background and it's really so extraordinary.
Would you share with us how you got to be
where you are now.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I started reading a lot when I was a child
growing up in southern Chile in Patagonia.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I went to German school.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I then went to university and studied law in Santiago,
and I was always a voracious reader, and I then
went for a master's degrees in PhDs in Germany, and
I started writing and winning essay contests everywhere in the
United States, in Latin America and Europe, and then I
published on books that became very popular and best selling books.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Basically, I'm a.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Columnist to very important newspapers, and then people started to
inviting me from everywhere.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
In the world.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I would say, I've spoken in the United States many times,
all over Latin America, Europe, Eastern Europe.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
That's how I ended up here.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
I guess I have some talent for what I do,
and I think a good example of this the success
that The Street Economist has had so far. It has
been a best selling book in not only Chile, but
also Spain, Argentina, is doing great in Brazil, in Germany.
Now it's going to be published in Poland and Mongolia,
and then other countries, maybe Russia and Holland will follow.
(02:30):
So I'm very happy that it was published here in
the United States. Also because especially for young people, it
has made a huge difference everywhere where it has been published.
So that's to make a very long story short.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's great, but I do think in particular everyone should
be aware of the Street economist fifteen economic lessons everyone
should know and your approach to which is what we're
now going to talk about. So your family originally came
from Germany to Chile because an official policy of the
Chilean government in the twenty century to bring Germans to
help develop the country. Do they still do something like that.
(03:05):
I mean, that's kind of a very interesting model.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Not anymore.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
You know, in the nineteenth century, the Chilean government had
this official policy of bringing a qualified labor force coming
from Germany.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
They were all qualified people. Most of them. They had knowledge,
technical knowledge, and they were professionals and people like that.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
And so my great grandparents they came from Germany before
the First World War and they became extremely prosperous and
wealthy in Chile by developing the agriculture of the country
and industry and different things. And then my grandfather, the
last emigrant from Stuttgart, he emigrated because he escaped the
Nazis didn't like the way things were going in German
(03:44):
in the nineteen thirties. So he saw it coming and said,
I'm not staying here with these crazy people, and he
emigrated to Chile, and then he married my grandmother, who
belonged to this very wealthy farm German family, and so he.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Was from middle class, but he was very good looking.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
My grandmother in law for immediately with him, and then
they married and we are there as a result of that.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Take a minutature to talk about the extraordinary shifts in
Chilean policy Allende to Pinochet, then going through a preader
of Socialist Marxist revolution, et cetera. I mean, it's really
been very dramatic, the various permutations of Chilean policy in
the last forty years or so.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yeah, And this is the right time to speak about
this because we are commemorating fifty years since we had
the military coup against the communist regime of Allende.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
And this was on September eleventh, nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
And what really happened was that Salva Allende, who had
been funded by the Soviet Union in order to win
the presidential election of nineteen seventy tried to impose a
communist dictatorship, and so he destroyed the rule of law.
He introduced central planned economy and the entry sold after
three years, was hyperinflation.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Of six hundred percent per year.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
There was a basic scarcity of basic goods and services,
complete disaster, and we had Garillia groups supporting the regim
that were trained in Cuba and other places. Fidel Castro
spent one month in Chile after Allende was selected in.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Order to support the revolution.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
And yes, in the end, the parliament in Chile declared
that the ill Enda government was unconstitutional and was attempting
to impose a toteditarian regime and was violating systematically fundamental
rights that were guaranteed in the constitution. And then they
asked the military to intervene in order to put an
(05:39):
end to Allende's government. And what happened was that then
we had the military rule with Pinochet and the Chicago
Boys came in, people who had studied economics at the
University of Chicago and Milton Friedman, Gary Baker and Harberry
and others, and they made these amazing economic reforms that
transformed from one of the poorest countries in Latin America
(06:03):
into the most prosperous country that Latin America has ever seen.
These reforms were maintained and under the Democratic regimes center
left wing democratic regimes that came in the nineteen nineties,
and we continue to develop and to grow economically, and
then the left started speaking about inequality and that the
system was unfaired, that only.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
A few were benefiting, which was a complete lie. This
wasn't the case.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
And then Michelle Bachelet came to a second term in
twenty fourteen with the idea of destroying what they called neoliberalism,
which is basically free market institutions. And since then our
economic growth per capita has been zero zero point six
to be exact. And as a result of that, in
twenty nineteen, we had a huge social crisis that the
(06:49):
left used to their advantage and they proposed to create
a new constitution. Our weeks center right wing government from
Sebastian Pinera into these demands, and then we had a
constitutional experiment where they attempted to introduce a Marxist constitution
of Olivarian constitution right model, you know, like the Chavez
(07:11):
Constitution and so on. Fortunately for Chilean's we had the
chance to decide whether we wanted that constitution or not,
and over sixty percent of Chilean said we don't want
the Communist constitution, and we defeated communism for a second
time in September. Now, so now we are celebrating September
fourth and not celebrating September eleven. But at least we
(07:33):
are aware that it put an end to a communist
regime that was developing in the Cold War.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
We cannot forget that it was the midst of the
Cold War.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
And Henry Kissinger said that the election of Allende, which
was the first Marxist president ever to be democratically elected
in the world, that this post a threat was one
of the most dangerous things that had ever happened in
the Western hemisphere. Of course, the American government played a
(08:02):
role in the overthrow of Allende, but I don't think
it was nearly as influential as many people pretend. It
was mostly a reaction from the population and the political
class against a tyrant. And then we had the problem
with the human rights and the Pinochete. Of course, that's
something that we cannot forget. But it was the result
of this communist quasi gers civil war that we had
(08:23):
with them.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
And so that's the short story.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Why do you think when you saw what didn't work,
then they saw what did work, Why would the elites
go back to what didn't work? Well.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
There are different reasons, but the main explanation and that's
why I wrote the book The Swet Economist that's become
a major force of political change in Latin America, especially
in Chile and Argentina, is because we lost the battle
of ideas. So basically cultural and gemony. That's a term
that was popularized by Antonio Gramsci, the founder of the
Communist Party in Italy in the nineteen twenties, and he
(08:59):
said that that in order to destroy capitalism, you had
to take over institutions, universities, schools, media and so on,
and to really change how people thought about things. And
so we lost the battle of ideas. And this narrative
that the country had been more unequal andjust than ever
before created the conditions for a shift in the political
(09:23):
economy of the country towards more redistribution, more government intervention,
and it created a lot of anger among the population
because despite the fact that inequality was decreasing and poverty
felt from sixty to eight percent and things like that,
people started to believe that the country was unfair, that
(09:43):
a few people were benefiting, and that the rich were
exploiting everyone else, and they voted for Bachelorette, and then
Bachelot destroyed the foundations of Chilean prosperity. And now we
have a Marxist president which is Gabriel Vorrich, who has
been supported by AOC was recently visiting him in Chile.
And all the radical left internationally, like you know, all
(10:04):
these Hollywood celebrities like Vigo Morton's and Petro Bascal and
singers like Rory Waters, Peter Gaber and others have supported
Borg and the communist revolution in Chile. Of course, they
don't have to live with the consequences, so it's easy
to do from your mansion in Hollywood or whatever you are.
And this president has created a huge division among Chileans,
and fortunately he has a very low popularities, is around
(10:27):
twenty five percent support and lost polls. But he has
tried to move forward with the product of what they
called destroying neoliberalism. Again, neoliberalism is like the term they
use all the time in order to put a label
on what are sensitive and reasonable economic policies. I think
(10:48):
that the promise is similar to what happens to us,
what has happened in the United States, universities have been
taken over in Chile by hardcore leftist activists and the
media as well, and that has an impact on how
people think, and that's why we lost the battle of ideas.
And now we are experiencing a process of reaction because
(11:08):
people are seeing the results. And I've been myself probably
the main phase, or for sure the main phase of
the free market movement in Chile. I have more support
than ever before because people are feeling the pain. Salaries
are not growing, we have high inflation, there is zero
growth practically, and some qualified young people are leaving the country.
(11:29):
That had never happened before in Chilean history, at least
not in the last thirty years or forty years. And
that's why I think the street economists became so popular
and people on the streets are reading it. The Pirate
edition is being sold on the streets, so it's the
uber driver is the delivery guy. All of these people
want to understand what is going on, and it's the
same in Argentina. Argentina is a huge disaster. It had
(11:52):
the highest per capita income in the world in eighteen
ninety six with a classical liberal system, and now one
hundred and fifty percent inflation and over forty percent poverty rate.
Six million people are starving, and they produce food for
over four hundred million people. And that's what socialism is
capable of creating this sort of mess.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
And that's why I think that Meile will win.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Do you say in Argentina, is the political process moving
back towards a more free market solution.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Absolutely, So I have a lot of faith in Argentina
because what Ermile has achieved, who.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Is now running, as you well know, for president, and
I think he will win.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
He's a libertarian in the Freedman high k tradition, right,
is to create a movement with millions of people that
are completely frustrated with the current status of school and
the current situation, and they want freedom.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
They don't have freedom.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
You have, as I said, one hundred and fifty percent
inflation in Argentina and they are on the verge of
hyperinflation and the country is a huge man Only people
who have incoming dollars have a decent living.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
The rest are really having to struggle.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
And so I see that the message that people like
myself and Heavier Milay, who presented the strict Economists last
year in Buenos Aires is having a lot of support,
especially among young people. So now being pro market and
classical liberal and against the woke agenda and all of
that is like being the rebel and cool and also
(13:27):
offering an alternative that has not been tried before. And
I'm very hopeful in that sense that Argentina could, of
course it's very hard to achieve, but make a shift
and experience a renaissance that would had a huge symbolic
importance for the whole Western world because it would put
an end to the myth that the government is a
(13:48):
solution to our problems.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
If Argentina can do that, any country can do it.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
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dot com slash book. So one of the points you
(15:13):
make is that the tax increases in Chile have dramatically
increased taxes and corporations. What's the effect of that on
the real economy.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Basically, after the tax reforms of Michelle Bachelette, who is
people who don't know as socialist who later became the
Secretary General of the UN Humans Rights Council, Will Baheleett
introduced a reform that dramatically increased taxes on corporations from
it was twenty percent to twenty seven percent. But at
(15:44):
the same time, you couldn't use the taxes that you
paid as an owner of the company as a credit
against your personal taxes, which was the previous system. So
in practical terms, it increased much more than from twenty
to twenty seven percent. It was like we have fifty
percent increase in taxation for corporations. What happened was that
(16:04):
the investment in Chile collapsed completely. I mean we experienced
the lowest investment rates that we had seen in decades.
Economic Growth planmmeted from five point three percent per year
in the previous government of Pineta as an average for
the four years to one point eight percent to one
(16:25):
point eight percent, which is almost nothing if you adjust
by the growth of the population, and salaries doagnated. People
were used to seeing salaries rising every year. That stopped dramatically,
and as a result of that, we had the social
crisis of twenty nineteen, with a lot of violence on
the street and people wanting to get rid of the city,
(16:49):
the entire system, and the entire political class. This idea
of high taxes on corporations, high taxes on the reach
does not work and in Chili create the disastrous consequences
and even center left when people admit that now and
are saying we need to reduce taxes on corporations, we
(17:09):
have higher taxes and the average OICD country now in
Chile and zero economic growth. Now we are in a recession. Actually,
so there you go. I mean, if you punish.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
People who create wealth, what do you expect less wealth
will be created?
Speaker 3 (17:25):
And so you have also rising unemployment right now in
our country and raising physcal deficits and so on and
so forth. Because in Chile, each point of economic growth
means eight one hundred million dollars as a revenue for
the government, and we collapse four points of economic growth.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
So do the math.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
For our small country, Actile is a lot of money
that the state does not have, and we have calculated
that in absence of Ashlet's reforms, if we had done nothing,
now physcal revenues would be twenty six percent higher than
they are after the tax reform.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
In order to increase physical revenue.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
So it's completely absurd if you want people to learn
from a country that has done very awful things.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
To destroy its prosperities and them to Chile.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
It's absolute proof of the concept of the laugh or
a curve that if you raise taxes above a certain point,
you actually reduce revenue because people just avoid the behavior
and don't pay the.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Taxes exactly, and we have capital flights.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
According to our Central Bank that are thirty billion dollar
since they in the last three years, even in the
last four years, and other economists have calculated it's about
eighty billion dollar.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
More or less.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
We are a three hundred billion dollar GDP economy, so
it's huge when you really take that out into account
for us. That's what happens when you punish people who invest,
what do you expect to take their money away.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
It's sort of a policy of socialists to assume the
rest of us are stupid and therefore even and they
make policies that purpose that were somehow going to keep.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Doing it exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
And that's why I wrote also the book The Street Economists,
because it's amazing how ignorant people on the left and
also average people who know nothing about basic economic principles are.
They believe that you can extract wealth from the rich endlessly,
and that they have enough money so they could pay
(19:26):
all the bills for everyone else, like healthcare and social
security and things like that. And if you take into
account how much money they have. I did these calculations
in Chile. If we take all the billionaires we do
have and take all their wealth away, you can fund
only six months of government spending and it's not much
more in the United States either. So this idea that
(19:47):
there is endless wealth that you can take away from
wealthy people and that they will continue to create the
same wealth and they will not take it away to
someplace else is completely absurd. It's not knowing anything about incentives.
But understand that the average person on the street maybe
doesn't know about this because they have not been exposed
to economic ideas.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
They are trying to solve their everyday problems.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
And okay, I understand that, But that the elites, that
even economists would say no, that's the way to go
to me is I don't know how to explain that,
because they are not stupid. They know that this will
have reverse effects on the economy. And so what is it?
Is it that they are just evil people trying to
(20:30):
hurt the system they don't like it. It's probably it's
for ideological reasons. In Chile, for instance, and I've seen
this also in the United States. They've claim that they
don't care if we are all poorer, provided that we
are all more equal, and because then we would be
happier even if everyone has less, if we are more
(20:50):
equal and we will.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Be happier joy and mutual poverty.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Exactly, or maybe they're trying to tame envy or something
like that. I don't know what they want, but of
course they are not thinking about themselves when they say
these things. They are not thinking, Okay, I'm going to
live with thirty percent less than I live now in
order to be more equal with the rest of them.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
They are thinking about other people having less. Yeah, And
usually they are the ones in charge. They are the
ones who are redistributing the wealth and are in power,
and they spend the money as they see fit, and
they have all the privileges that comes with being in office.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
You mentioned one other area where there's a disturbing parallelism,
and that is the greed to which the left wing
woke activists have taken over the courts, and the greed
to which is now I war being waged against the
police in Chile. Can you sort of describe how that's working.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Well, we are experiencing the worst security crisis in the
country's history. Chile used to be a safe country in
the context of Latin America. Now as Salvator is safer
than Chile, we have the highest murder rate in the
history of the country. We have organized crime like we
(22:07):
had never seen before. Every day you have bodies like
in Juarez in Mexico that appear on the streets, like
dismembered or beheaded, things like that. And this is the
result of decades of preaching against the police and law
enforcement and also activists who have taken over the courts,
(22:29):
who are very willing to pardon.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
All the criminals.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
But at the same time, when the police do something
about it, they put them in prison. So in the end,
the incentives you have for the police to do something,
it's very low because in the end the police also
responds to incentives, and if they see that, they will
lose their careers, their income and everything because they are
(22:55):
fighting criminals.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
What do you expect?
Speaker 3 (22:57):
And that's why the criminals in Chile do everything, want
more or less, and nothing happens to them. Too many
of them, some of them get caught and they end
up in prison. But we also have a terrorist movement
in southern Chile that is linked to the Farks in
Colombia and who are linked to drag trafficking, and no
government has done anything about it. It's the area where
(23:18):
I grew up in southern Chile, and this is a
Marxist organization that claimed to represent indigenous people, but it's
a lie. Indigenous people in southern Chile are all right wing.
They vot also the right. They don't believe in Marxist ideas,
and so the rule of law in Chile has collapsed
as a result of these ideologies. Is progressive ideologists that
by the way, we're important from the United States and
(23:40):
from European countries by our PhDs who went there came
back and started to make laws that transformed the usual
system and started to teach the new judges in these doctrines.
And as a result of this influence, we now have
a broken system. Basically in Chile, people at mar bu
(24:01):
kele more than any other Latin American president now because
they are tired of this criminality. They can't go to
their houses. And it's not like in the United States,
where you can move from let's say California to Florida,
and Florida the system is working.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
In Chile, you cannot do that. It's not working for
no one, not even rich people are safe enough. Kidnappings
are happening. We didn't have that before.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
And also migration played a role in this because we've
got many criminals coming from Venezuela and Colombia into the
country with no background checks, so they could come in
and they have important and they have brought forms of
crime that we didn't know. And this has been even
admitted by our current left wing government. I mean, this
(24:48):
is a non partisan issue right now, So defund the
police doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
You really chake head on the whole idea of free education,
free student loans, et. Can you explain why you object
to the word free.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
As I explained the book The Street Economist, and you
know Milton Friedman used to repeat this all the time.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone
has to pay for it. When you claim that you
have a right to education and to a free education,
what you are really saying that you have a right
to other people's labor, that someone else would work in
(25:39):
order to pay the university for you. And so you're
profiting from other people's efforts without giving anything in exchange
in return. It's a coarse way of providing a service
that you value in order to increase your human capital,
and without giving anything in return. As I say, because
you use through taxation in order to get that. And
(26:03):
that's why I think it's immoral and it's only about
public policy. And I think all economists who are reasonable
economists agree that free higher education is but economic policy.
It's regressive, it benefits an elite, it doesn't really benefit
people who need the most, who need it the most,
and so on. To me, the main objection is one
(26:23):
based on values and principles. You don't have a right
to other people's labor, to the fruit of the labor
of someone else. You can need the money for something,
but that doesn't give you the right to go to
your neighbor and take away his salary in order to
buy your education or to pay for your education.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
So that's why I think social justice is a huge fallacy.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
So how do we end up losing this intellectual fight
to such a degree that, you know, it turns out
somebody is having to pay for others, but we describe
it as free, and nobody successfully breaks in to say,
wait a second, it's not free. It's just that you're
getting an unfair advantage because that's being taken from somebody else.
(27:07):
Why did we lose that fight intellectually?
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Well, I think for a long time in the United
States also in the West, we have lacked public intellectuals
that are engaging in these battle of ideas in the
way like Midwam freemen used to do. And most public
intellectuals you see are leftists, are progressives, or our social Democrats,
(27:35):
or even center right wing people who buy into the
stuff of giving things for free because it's popular and
they want to get maybe some positions in the government
or want to be elected in case when they're politicians.
So we haven't really fought this fight because there's only
a few of us doing this job, and there are
thousands of them, and they have money, and they have
(27:55):
the government behind them, and they have their political class
sometimes supporting them.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
And that's the.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Reason that you know, we have losses, not because our
ideas are worse or it's impossible to win the fight.
We have experiences in Latin America when we started fighting it,
and I was, like I said, one of the main
fases and still am one of the main phases of
this movement in Latin America. We started winning and winning
even politically. So I think we have plenty of very
(28:21):
smart people who understand this, but they are in the
Ivory Tower writing.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Papers and books that no one reads. And that's a problem.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
And then the universities have been taken over by left
wig scholars, even from Harvard. And the problem is that
when a Harvard professor says something, it carries a weight,
that is, because of the brand Harvard. It's not the
same as if someone from another university or from another
place says something. To the average person, right, you and I,
(28:50):
we can make the distinction. We don't buy into this
nonsense that because we are a Harvard professor we are right.
Necessarily we don't believe that. But to the average person,
this brands they gave a lot of credibility. And let's
take the case of Joseph Stieglitz for instance, with his
Nobel price. He has been going to Latin America for
decades supporting our worst socialist dictators, the Castros in Cuba,
(29:15):
shovels in Venezuela, Coorea in Ecuador, Eva Morales in Bolivia,
and now recently he went to Chile to support President Borich.
And so because he has an Obel price, then the media,
who are mostly leftists also say, oh Nobel LRD and
economics says that evo Morales, you know, plan to nationalize
(29:38):
the gas companies is a great idea.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
We don't have a Nobel Price, waning economists from our
side arguing against it. They don't take the time to
travel to Chile and do you know public interviews and
support the president that is doing the opposite to what
the left is to.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
They don't do that. We don't have that. It's just
actual kiser against Joseph Stinklitz. So people believe the guy.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
With an Owel price, and of course it's a fallacy
because he has said so much nonsense, and really it's
unforgivable because he has endorsed Fidel Castro. Literally. I wrote
a column fully Washington Examiner about this.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
It's a disgrace what Stieglitz has done in terms of
supporting the Kirsheners in Argentina, the Clecto characraatic dynasty of
the Cureeners. We have they have stolen some people calculate
like ten billion dollars from the Argentina population.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Because they run the country for over a decade. Christina A.
Currenar is still the vice president in Argentina.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
So the most corrupt, most destructive political class in Latin
America has been supported by Stieglitz, even Terians like like
the Castros. There you have an example. Then, for instance,
when we had the constitutional referendum in Borich being elected
president our Marxist current Marxist president, you had Peter Gabriel
Rowier Waters, the former Prink Floyd guy. You had Diego Mortensen,
(30:59):
you Sting, you have Susan Sarandon. You had all these
celebrities supporting Porridge and the Communist revolution. No one supported
jos Antonio cast the guy who ran against forage or
the option to reject the new constitution. None of these
(31:20):
celebrities worldwide did that. That's even so, despite that we
want right, but of course it helps when you have
all these big names behind you. It makes a difference.
So that's why we lose. We don't have the people
engaging in the battle of ideas.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
You have a pretty tough critique of Marxism and socialism.
Are they always inherently flawed because of their misunderstanding of
the nature of being human and of the way in
which the world really works.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
You don't have a different thesis. I think Marxism and
socialism are inherently evil. They understand human nature and marx
for instance, he knew precisely the effects that his doctrine
would have on society. He knew that it would be
(32:16):
large scale violence, that we would have a dictatorship where
you would have to get rid of the burgers, you
would have to kill them all if necessary. But at
the same time, Marxism promised and utopia where everyone was
going to be equal and wealthy and all of these things,
because he knew that in order to sell his destructive
(32:39):
program he had to disguise it as a sort of humanitarianism,
and so he took lots of Christian motives in order
to sell his nonsensical religion. Because Marxism is our religion
in the end. And if you read the testimonies of
people who knew Marx when he was alive, they tell
(33:00):
you that this was a horrible human being, full of
hatred and envy, and that he wanted to destroy. Even
socialists who met him, they have written about this about Marx.
He wanted to destroy the Christian world above anything else.
He actually said that. Marx he has writings where he
(33:22):
claims that the big promise Christianity and we have to
get rid of it, and that we have to banle
religion and things like that, and Engel said that love
for humanity was nonsense, that what we needed was hatred.
He actually wrote that Engel's his friend and his patron,
because Marx lived out of Engel's money for a long time.
(33:44):
And so I think it's evil. It's truly evil. But
it's easier to sell than let's say, fascism or Nazism,
because Nazism tells you in your face what they want
to achieve, and they tell you, well, you know, this
is the superior race. All of you are going to
be slaves of our empire. And so you are on
guard and you say, okay, these people are truly evil.
But with Marxism is somehow even worse, because they tell
(34:07):
you that they want to achieve something completely different than
what they really want to achieve, which is power to
Talitanism and control over people's lives, total control over people's lives.
And so you buy into this narrative because it sounds good.
It sounds very good, and that's why you can have
Stalin bar and cities and nothing happens. But you cannot, have,
(34:29):
of course, a Hitler bar because that people would riot.
But Stalin was as much as a criminalist as Hitler was,
and the ideology of communism and Nazism are exactly the
same in terms of their intrinsic criminality and the genocidal impetus.
So Marxism sounds better. That's it.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
It deceives us.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
And so I want to thank you for joining me.
This has been a fascinating conversation. You're a remarkable person.
I hope you continue to be as active, aggressive and
idealistic as you are now. Your new book, The Street
Economist is a great read. I encourage all of our
listeners to get a copy and to make sure that
their elected representatives have a copy. So thank you for
(35:11):
joining us.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Thank you to my guest, Axel Kaiser. You can get
a link to buy his new book, The Street Economist
on our show page at newtsworld dot com. Newtsworld is
produced by Ginglish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer
is Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork
for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks
(35:41):
to the team at Ginglish three sixty. If you've been
enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and
both rate us with five stars and give us a
review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now,
listeners of Newtsworld can sign up for my three free
weekly columns at gingishtree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm
(36:03):
Nut Gingrich. This is Nut's World.
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