Is Capitalism Better than Socialism for Human Flourishing? Yaron Brook vs Bhaskar Sunkara

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
My name is Stephen Pitts.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm the director of the Center for the Study of
Government and the Individual here at UCCS, and I'd like
to welcome you a on a campus on a very
strangely balmy November day, But thank you for joining us
today for this important discussion. We are happy to be
partnering with the Steamboat Institute to bring you a very
timely debate. I think we can all agree on capitalism

(00:27):
versus socialism.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
I will soon introduce the.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
CEO of Steamboat and she will be introducing the speakers
and the program. But I would like to just take
this opportunity to say a couple of things about CSGI,
or the Center for the Study of Government and the Individual.
CSGI has been around since the year two thousand, so
we're our twenty five year anniversary now, and CSGI works

(00:52):
to educate and prepare UCCS students and the broader community
for citizenship through three different programs. First is our program
I'm Preserving a Free and Prosperous Society, which is actually
the initial program when CSGI launched in the year two
thousand and In this program, we focus on civil society,
limited government, and the role of markets in maintaining a

(01:16):
free society. Second is the program on the American Constitution,
where we study the foundational principles, ideas, and texts of
the American political system. And then our third program is
the program on Civic Discourse, where we teach civility and
the deliberative virtues that are needed for a democratic society.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
And we include in that basic civics education.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
And it's really this third program that I think tonight's
event fits most squarely under because debates like this are
the single best way to model civil discourse, the idea
that we can argue and disagree without being enemy or
becoming enemies. And in my view, the university is the

(02:04):
best place to practice civil discourse and the liberal the
deliberative virtues precisely because the stakes are relatively low. Honest
disagreement and debate is precisely what a classroom is for.
Right we all know that disagreement can be uncomfortable, and
that it's possible to lose your job or become as
strange from a family member over a bad or heated

(02:26):
political discussion.

Speaker 4 (02:27):
That doesn't happen in the university.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Worst case scenario, your teacher professor isn't very charitable and
gives you a worse grade.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
They never should do that.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
If there's honest debate in the classroom, it should not
affect your grade.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
But that would be the worst case scenario.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
So I think that in the university the stakes are
relatively low, and in a university setting guided by academic freedom,
that is where we should get accustomed to having disagreements
and learning from them. Of course, I should say that
by saying low stakes, I don't mean that it doesn't
require current right, debating does require courage, and I think

(03:03):
would say it requires exceptional courage to debate in front of,
you know, approximately two hundred people in front of you.
So I think, even before we begin, our speakers deserve
a little credit for that right.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
But I also suspect that by the end of.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
This debate they won't leave as enemies, but rather as
as those who've learned from each other and have a
little more respect for each other.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
My prediction could be wrong, but that's just what I predict.
That's what I predict.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Again, we are thankful to the Steamboat Institute for inviting
these speakers and for moderating this event.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
So I will now introduce Jennifer Schubert Aiken. So, Jennifer
Schubert Aiken is the chairman and CEO of the Steamboat Institute,
an organizations she co founded in the year two thousand
and eight. The Steamboat Into promotes America's first principles and

(04:02):
encourages civil discourse by hosting debates on college campuses across America.
So they actually do many of these on different topics,
different campuses across the nation. Jennifer is a member of
the advisory boards for the Benson Center for the Study
of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado Boulder and
the Ed Snyder Center for Enterprise and Markets at the.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
University of Maryland.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
She also serves on the board of directors of Rebecca's Angels,
a nonprofit organization helping children with post traumatic stress disorder
founded by Boston Marathon bombing survivor Rebecca Gregory. So please
welcome me and join me and welcoming Jennifer.

Speaker 5 (04:52):
Good evening everyone, Thank you Steve for that warm welcome.
We love coming to Colorado Springs. I have to start
off by saying, when we founded the Campus Liberty Tour
debate series in twenty eighteen, the very first tour was
on nationalism versus Globalism. We came here to Colorado Springs
to UCCS and had five hundred people at the n

(05:13):
Center to see Nigel Faraj and Vicente Fox debate. So
that was one of our very very first debates right
here at UCCS. I want to thank all of you
for coming out tonight, thanks also to our livestream audience
watching from all over the country. A few of the
watch parties I would like to mention we have Josh
Rosales and Latinos for Tennessee, Veronica Cargill and friends at

(05:38):
the Washington and Leee Spectator in Lexington, Virginia. And Joseph
Presler and friends with the new Turning Point USA chapter
at Vail Christian High School. So glad you guys were
watching tonight with your groups of friends. Steamboat Institute was
founded in two thousand and eight in Steamboat Springs, Colorado,
where we wish there was snow right now, but there's

(05:58):
not a lot. For the purpose of educating people about
America's first principles and fostering and appreciation of the freedom
we enjoy as Americans. We've hosted dozens of debates on
college campuses over the past seven and a half years
wide debates. Well, it's because civil debate and discourse, not violence,

(06:19):
are the key to solving our nation's problems. When we
stopped talking to each other, bad things happen. With each
of our debates. The emphasis is on critical thinking and
the critical thinking skills and learning how to think, not
what to think. Tonight is the last of six stops
in our Fall Campus Liberty Tour. In September, we kicked

(06:42):
off the fall semester at Virginia Military Institute with a
debate on whether the US is experiencing a constitutional crisis.
It was a fascinating conversation between George Washington law professor
Jonathan Turley and Boston College law professor Daniel Farbman. In October,
we visited Cornell Universe with a debate on whether American

(07:02):
global dominance is the best defense against tyranny and evil.
After Cornell, we went to the University of Texas in
Austin with a debate on the impact of tariffs on
the economy. Next stop was the University of Maryland with
a debate on whether the government should ban all diversity,
equity and inclusion programs. And last week we visited Grand

(07:23):
Canyon University in Phoenix with a debate on the impact
of artificial intelligence. Looking ahead to the spring twenty twenty
sixth semester, we're planning a full schedule of debates, so
we hope you'll check out Steamboat Institute dot org to
view our full debate schedule. I believe we had some
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(07:45):
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(08:06):
Steamboat Institute's YouTube channel, so check that out if you
get a chance. As a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, Steamboat Institute
relies on the support of many generous individuals and foundations
to bring programs such as tonight's debate to campuses across
the country. I would like to extend a special thank
you to our major sponsors, The Adolph Koors Foundation, the

(08:27):
Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, the Lynd and Harry Bradley Foundation,
Jack Roth Charitable Foundation, Arthur N. Roop Foundation, Bruce and
Marcy Benson, and John W. Childs for their support which
has allowed us to expand the Campus Liberty Tour to
more than thirty campuses across the country. Now for tonight's debate.

(08:51):
The debate over socialism versus capitalism centers on how societies
should organize their economies to balance freedom, equality, and prosperity.
Supporters of capitalism argue that capitalism drives innovation, rewards hard work,
and creates wealth through competition and voluntary exchange. Critics contend

(09:12):
that capitalism can lead to inequality, worker exploitation, and excessive
corporate power. By contrast, supporters of socialism say that it
promotes social justice and economic security for all. Opponents argue
the socialism discourages innovation, limits personal freedom, and leads to
inefficiency or government overreach. Tonight's program will offer a fair

(09:35):
and balanced debate on the following resolution. Be it resolved
capitalism is better than socialism for human flourishing. We invite
all of our audience members, including those watching the live
stream to respond with your view on the resolution, agree, disagree,
or undecided before the debate begins. So right now, if

(09:57):
you haven't used the QR code or or a text
you may have received if we had your cell phone number,
go ahead and vote on the poll in the poll,
and then when the debate is over, we're going to
ask you to vote again, so be sure to vote again.
At the end, we want to see if your opinions
have changed. So you will see the poll up here
and you will see that as people actually vote, the

(10:19):
voting or the poll results will change as you vote.
And now it's my great pleasure to introduce our speakers
and moderator for this evening, so let's welcome them to
the stage, and then I will read each of their
brief bios to introduce them to you. Come on up, welcome,

(10:45):
So each of our speakers will remain seated while I
introduce all of them, and then I will turn it
over to our moderator. Arguing the affirmative on tonight's resolution
is Uran Brooke, chairman of the board of the Iinrand Institute.
In addition to podcasting and podcast and speaking globally, doctor
Brooke has written several books, including his most recent in

(11:05):
Pursuit of Wealth, The Moral Case for Finance. Doctor Brook
also co authored Free Market Revolution, How Emrand's ideas can
end big Government, and another book, Equal Is Unfair, America's
misguided fight against income inequality. Doctor Brooke was born and
raised in Israel. He served as a first sergeant in

(11:27):
Israeli military intelligence and earned a bachelor's degree in civil
engineering in nineteen eighty seven. He moved to the US,
where he received his MBA and PhD in finance from
the University of Texas at Austin, and he became an
American citizen in two thousand and three. Doctor Brook serves
on the boards of the Imrand Institute and on the
board of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism.

(11:50):
Let's give a warm welcome to doctor Yurmbrook. Arguing the
negative on Tonight's resolution is Boscar Sankara, founding editor of Jacobin,
president of The Nation magazine, and author of the socialist manifesto,
The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality.

(12:14):
He is former vice chair of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Mister Sunkara has been published in The New York Times
Washington Post, Vox, Foreign Policy, and other outlets. In twenty twenty,
he was named to Fortune magazine's forty Under forty list
in the Government and Politics category. He earned his bachelor's
degree at George Washington University, studying history. Please give a

(12:37):
warm welcome to Boscar Sankara. Our moderator for this evening's
debate is Hadley Manning. Hadley is director of Steamboat Institute's
Fellowship for Public Policy and American Exceptionalism, which supports the
careers of principled young journalists. Hadley was a recipient of

(12:59):
this fellowship in two twenty sixteen. Had We rites and
provides commentary on a variety of issues, including economics and
health care policy, for Fox Business, The New York Times, Forbes,
Real Clear Policy, and other outlets. She graduated from the
University of North Carolina with a double major in economics
and journalism, where she was a Moreheadcane scholar. And now

(13:22):
I'll turn it over to Hadley to begin tonight's debate.

Speaker 6 (13:25):
Thank you again for good evening and hanging all of
you for joining it. Thank you the young, the live stream.
Thank you to everyone who's voted in the.

Speaker 7 (13:31):
Pre debate, Powl. I'm going to review our results.

Speaker 6 (13:34):
At this moment, fifty nine percent of our audience agrees
with the resolution that capitalism is better, twenty six percent disagree,
and fifteen percent are undecided. We will take a post
debate poll at the end of tonight's discussion to see
if anyone's changed their mind. But I just want to say,
as it's been my privilege to moderate many Steamboa Institute

(13:55):
debates over the years, that I think there's so much
value to coming and hearing a debate. Even if you're mind,
it's not changed, because my hope is that everyone will
leave with a better understanding of both views, both perspectives.
So ticket things started. We're talking about, as Jennifer mentioned,
a huge topic, how we arrange our economy and our society,
and a relevant one because New York has just elected

(14:16):
a socialist mayor. It is certainly something that we're talking
about at all levels of government and something that we'll
get into very deeply tonight. We will start with five
minutes of opening statements, first from Uran and then from Boscar,
and during the course of tonight's debate, I want to
encourage all of you in the audience to submit questions.

Speaker 7 (14:34):
You should have a QR code.

Speaker 6 (14:35):
And a way to do that through your phones. You
can do this if you're watching the live stream. Those
questions will come to me on this iPad, and during
our discussion, I will.

Speaker 7 (14:43):
Insert some audience questions.

Speaker 6 (14:45):
So you're on opening statement number one sounds good.

Speaker 4 (14:50):
It strikes me that this is not a typical college campus.
A fifty nine percent agree with the prop positions, So
I wish that was a state of Amerking colleges. I
don't think it is. So I'm going to argue tonight
that capitalism, both from inistic from a minstoical perspective, from
an economic perspective, from theoretical perspective, and from a moral perspective,

(15:14):
is the system that leads to human flourishing. And indeed,
the socialism destroys human flourishing, destroys human life, and in history,
at least those who've advocated for socialism, those socialism that
we try. But in my view, theoretically has to this
outcome has to be. The manifestation of socialism leads to death, destruction,

(15:37):
in poverty, so it leads to the exact opposite of
human flourishing. But before we get into the details, and
I'm sure during the debate we'll get into a lot
of the details and will break this down. It's important,
I think, to set our terms, to define our terms,
what we mean by capitalism, what we mean by socialism,
And I'm not sure we're always going to agree on

(15:58):
even up here on stage, never mind in the audience,
about what those terms mean. So I'm going to tell
you what I think capitalism and socialism mean. And so capitalism,
in my view, is a system a private property and
volunteery exchange. It is a system in which individuals are
left free to interact with others as they see fit

(16:20):
with a role of government is the protection of individual rights,
rights being the freedoms to pursue your own life, the
freedom to pursue your own value using your own reason.
It is the freedom the lack of cousion, the absence
of cousion, the absence of force, the absence of a

(16:42):
gun in human interaction. Government is there only to protect
us from people who would violate our rights, and the
only way to violate our rights is through violence, through cosion,
through some form of force. So that to means capitalism,
capitalism is the system that it shrines individual liberty, individual

(17:04):
freedom that takes out of society completely. Violence. Violence is
monopolized by the government and can only be used in
self defense to protect. Socialism is a system in which
the means of production owned either by the state or

(17:26):
by the workers. That is that it is a course system,
a system that negates private property. It's a system that
negates the idea of individual ownership. Everything is collectivized, and
different socials would collectivise it in different ways through different mechanisms.
But it is a system based in my view, oncursion

(17:49):
on force. It is a system in which if you
wanted to start a company, if you wanted to employ people,
that would be not allowed. Whereas, for example, in capitalism,
if you wanted to start a little commune and share
everything or start a co op, you'll find just compete,
you can do that. So socialism is a system of exclusion.

(18:14):
It's a system that excludes volunteery interaction, it excludes the
idea of private property. And look, we've never had, based
on my definition, we've never had a purely capitalist system.
We've never achieved it. But the closer we get to it,
the closer we align with it, the more successful society

(18:38):
is the rich it is, the wealthier it is, the
more freedom individuals benefit from. If you align economic freedom
with GDP per capita, which is not the best measure
of human will being, but it's one of the measures
we have, there's a clear correlation. The free er you are,
the more wealth there is, and the more I think

(19:01):
flourishing there is, the more entrepreneurial activity there is, the
more innovation there is, the more progress there is, the
more people are free to pursue their own values in
their own ways. The less economic freedom, the less of
all of that there is. So as we as we
get closer to an ideal of capitalism, we get more

(19:24):
and more of those benefits. I think the opposite is
true when we talk about socialism. You know, as we
get closer to the ideals that are being put into
action in the past, what we get is less economic
less economic success, less prosperity, less economic well being. But

(19:44):
we also get real inifestation of human harm in poverty
and often in death and destruction. So capitalism is the
system of human flourishing. It's really the only system in
human history that has led us to woods human flourishing,
and when we deviate from it, we deviate from the

(20:07):
potential to flourish. Thank you.

Speaker 8 (20:16):
I want to begin tonight in a place that might
surprise people, and in to day like this with.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Praise for capitalism.

Speaker 8 (20:23):
So Karl Marx, the original socialist critic, wrote with real
admiration about its achievements. He described capitalism as the most
revolutionary force in human history, a system that shattered feudal stagnation,
dissolved inherited hierarchies, and helped realize many Enlightenment ideals. And capitalism,

(20:45):
even in the twenty first century, continues to be dynamic,
not just in North America but across the world. South
Korea I was in the nineteen fifties poor the many
Sub Saharan African nations at the time. Today it's a
high income democracy and technological.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Powerhousing Around the world, we've seen what happens when.

Speaker 8 (21:08):
Marketanisms and global trade is unleashed at scale. Hundreds of
millions of people have been lifted out of poverty in
just the last twenty years alone. These are genuine achievements.
Any serious person should acknowledge them. But here's the key point.
Being better than feudalism or better than under development is
not the bar for human furishing. In the twenty first century,

(21:33):
a system can be indispensable for development and still fail
to deliver deflourishing its own productivity makes possible. Capitalism opens
enormous opportunities, but we could still live in a society
that paradoxically yield is paradoxically more dynamic, more equal, and

(21:56):
more democratic. Capitalism's shortfall isn't us. It's extreme income and equality.
It's capitalism extreme inequality of power. Market exchange helps generate wealth,
but it doesn't guarantee that people creating that wealth have
real agency in their lives, and that democratic deficit is
where my disagreement with Tonight's resolution begins. I'm a socialist

(22:20):
because I believe that in a wealthy society, the basics
of a decent life shouldn't be conditional on your marketing
power in the labor market, or what zip code you
were born into. And I'm a socialist because I believe
that the people who actually make our economy function, workers,
have far too little say over the conditions under which

(22:41):
they labor. In political life, we understand that freedom means
more than just freedom to leave. It means voice, the
ability to participate in shaping the institutions a governor. We
don't say that, as Americans we're free because we can
leave our country. We say we're free because we have
democratic rights within it. Yet in the workplace, where people

(23:04):
spend large parts of their waking lives, democracy largely stops
at the door. Now, I'm not here to advocate for
a centrally planned economy. I'm a market socialist precisely because
I think markets are indispensable. They convey information efficiently, they
discipline in efficiency, they allow consumer choice. But the market

(23:29):
is a fantastic tool that can be used in different ways.
In contemporary visions of socialism, markets remain, prices remain, competition remains,
but firms themselves will be democratically run, governed by workers,
financed by their market sales, and embedded within a social
democratic state that guarantees healthcare, education, childcare, and a strong

(23:52):
floor underneath everyone's feet. Central planning disastrously failed. Democratic socialist
were among its first critics. It failed because no group
of planners could gather information or create the incentives necessary
to coordinate an entire economy. But capitalism too has failures
that are also important to address. First, distribution and markets.

(24:16):
One dollar equals one vote over what society produces, and
in a society where most essential workers earn very few dollars,
their needs and preferences are systematically outweighed by the extremely wealthy.
The rich don't just have more power and markets for
consumer goods. They use their market power and production to
block the kinds of redistribution that would broaden human flourishing.

(24:40):
The very success of capitalism at generating wealth creates actors
with the political and economic clout to prevent that wealth
from being better distributed. Second, democracy workplaces under capitalism are
largely authoritarian institutions. You could quit, but quitting is a
very thin form of freedom. Chrotic socialism wants to give

(25:01):
people both a voice and exit, extend democratic norms into
economic life. It lets, in other words, people generate who
are generating a firm's profit, get both its dividends in
addition to a fixed salary, and have a say in
its governance. And because democratic firms still compete in markets,
they cannot avoid innovation efficiency or labor saving technology. More broadly,

(25:24):
they simply share in its gains. So let me be clear,
capitalists perform real entrepreneurial and managerial functions. The socialist claim
is simply that those functions can be replicated in a
labor managed firm governed by workers themselves. Capitalism transform the world.
Socialism's promise is to push further and build upon the

(25:47):
world the capitalism has made possible. In the twenty first century,
I see no reason why we can't experiment with new
modes of creating or society that will be both more
equal and more democratic.

Speaker 5 (26:00):
Thank you, Thank you.

Speaker 6 (26:08):
To share a note that I encountered earlier today in
the Miriam Webster online dictionary. The note on one entry
said communism, socialism, capitalism, and democracy are all among our
top all time lookups, and user comments suggest that this
is because they are complex, abstract terms often used in

(26:31):
opaque ways. This is the case in many political terms,
and so to get us started, I want to be
sure that we are on the same page, that we're
talking about these terms with clarity, and I appreciate that
both of you addressed this in your opening remarks. We
don't have to belabor the point, but Oscar, can you
offer a definition of socialism?

Speaker 8 (26:52):
Well, I think I'll start with saying that it's the
inverse of capitalism, in the sense that capitalism is production
for the market through the accumulation of surplus, so capitalists
convene together workers and other means to produce goods for
market production. Workers are in a state of market dependence
in which they have to work for the capitalists or starve. Generally,

(27:17):
in my vision of socialism, workers would be both guaranteed
a floor, so they wouldn't be under the same condition
of market dependence. But for those who enter into the
market economy because they want to earn more and consume
more and achieve more, they would be entering into worker
cooperatives essentially, in which even if there's inequalities within the

(27:41):
workplace in terms of pay, power, responsibility, it still would
be subjected to democratic norms, not the.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Structure of existing capitalist.

Speaker 6 (27:50):
Firmsan do you agree with this definition of socialism and
can you offer a definition of capitalism?

Speaker 4 (27:56):
I mean no, I mean I agree that this is
one form of socialism. Again, I think the essence of
socialism is the subjugation of the means of production to
some form of collective, whether it's the state or whether
it's it's it's the workers. So I mean in that sense,
I think I think you know, this is one of

(28:19):
the many forms that socialism has taken in the past,
UH and and and could take in the future, this
is probably the most sophisticated one you will find out
there in terms of in terms of UH, the way
it's worked out, and the one that acknowledges markets the most,
because typically socialists don't write, at least historically capitalism is

(28:41):
the system I see. I don't. I don't agree that
the focus here is on capital or the focuses on
means of production. I think the essential characteristics of capitalism
is as a social, political, and economic system in which
individuals are protected, in which the individual's freedom is protected,

(29:03):
in which cosion is manned is banned, and in which
private property is protected by government.

Speaker 7 (29:12):
Have some comments on that.

Speaker 8 (29:13):
I would just say that in many ways, capitalism isn't
a zero sum game, in the sense that any form
of production that produces wealth is not zero sum. But
one thing that is zero sum is power and autonomy. So,
for example, if you own a workplace and you have
a bunch of people who have freely decided to work
for you, and you're operating hours from nine to seven,

(29:33):
you're not the worst person in the world.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
They're running a fair workplace.

Speaker 8 (29:36):
No one's getting hurt, there's no child labor, but you're
working from nine to seven. This is your arrangement. Even
a law comes in that establishes a forty hour week.
Your autonomy is a capitalist to do what you want
with your place of work, your machinery.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
Whatever else is limited.

Speaker 8 (29:52):
But if those workers are guaranteed the same pay, but
now they're working eight hours instead of ten hours, I
would are you that in many ways their autonomy and
scope of freedom has expanded. So there's all sorts of
ways in which is a trade off. This might be
a bad policy for developing country going to create all
sorts of objunctions to it. But I do think this
is where there is this zero sum relationship. So where

(30:14):
I would disagree is this idea that socialism at the
role of the state is just taking away freedoms, because
I think it's a little bit more complicated. In some cases,
you're giving freedoms and you're taking away freedoms and autonomy
as well.

Speaker 4 (30:26):
So I think every time you take away freedom like that,
the freedom of the of the workers and the owners
to negotiate how many hours they're going to work and
at what pay. Whenever you enforce a regime like that,
you're engaged in a negative of some game. That is
I think that it is a net It is a
destroyer of economic value, and I think ultimately it is

(30:49):
a net destroyer of a freedom. That is, what about
that worko who actually wants to work the ten hours
or what about you know, you're taking away the flexibility
of being able to negotiate terms. You're taking away freedom
from both a woka and the owner. So it's limiting,
it's restricting, and any socialist or gumment intervention like that

(31:12):
is restricting and limiting. It's taking freedom away, and it's
destructive in it's not just zerosome, it's negative.

Speaker 7 (31:19):
So do you have anything more?

Speaker 4 (31:22):
We would keep going?

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I think we keep going
on and on.

Speaker 8 (31:25):
I mean, obviously, in existing societies where we already have
those roles, workers are entitled to time and a half. Generally,
reductions and hours have been tied with increases in pay.
Often when the state intervenes, the state intervenes to create floors,
which which changes the conditions of which workers negotiate and bargain.
Your average worker, I hate this term, but your average

(31:45):
unskilled worker has very limited avenues to bargain as a
as an individual. That's why by nature they're forced to
bargain collectively. And I think there is a role for
both the state and for organs of collective bargaining that
inherently are going to be limited the freedoms of capitalists
to act how they want to act with their private property.

(32:05):
I think it also just creates other avenues of freedom
for the majority.

Speaker 4 (32:09):
But particularly in the twenty first century, in the kind
of economy we have today, that is just untrue. I mean,
in Silicon Valley, who has the power it is the
worker or the employer in terms of in terms of
flexibility and moving around and determining rates. I mean the
number of job hoppers in Silicon Valley among workers, right
the worker And of course more and more people are

(32:31):
exactly that. Fewer and fewer people are doing the kind
of work that maybe the worker, the average worker did
in the past. So you know, and yes, workers should
be able to legally join together and negotiate jointly as
long as it's voluntary, as long as there's no cosion
of force being involved there. So I don't see it

(32:52):
as any kind of imposition and Look, what we don't
have is what we know is when we get freedom,
we get increased productivity. The increased productivity we know raises wages.
And my view is on the capitalism, if you took
away all these restrictions and laws and so on, you
would get a massive boost in productivity, which would ultimately

(33:12):
benefit everybody, both the employer and the employee because of
increased productivity.

Speaker 6 (33:18):
Okay, here, I do want to jump in. And I
suspected that simply trying to define terms in this debate
would yield great debate, and I was right.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
Silly me.

Speaker 6 (33:27):
I thought the difference between socialism and capitalism was who
owns the means of production? But it sounds like it's
much more than that. I want to ask to try
to get to it.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
But it is that, Yeah, and we agree with that,
and that's what Barry.

Speaker 6 (33:38):
Webster said to ultimately, if you read through the definitions online.
I want to get to one other term that's in
our resolution because I think this will help audience members
decide whose side they're on, and that's the term human flourishing.
I want to ask both of our debaters to talk
about how they define or measure human flourishing if there
are particular metrics that you can point to, for example,

(34:00):
a decrease in poverty, or an increase in GDP, an
increase in happiness as measured by a survey, or an
increase in well being however defined, give me some put
some flesh on that, and tell me about your definition
or your metric for human flourishing.

Speaker 4 (34:18):
Sure, I mean, I think that you'd have to aggregate
a number of different things. Certainly GDP, per capital or
some measure of wealth is one. I think the levels
of poverty, no question, the number of people living in poverty,
and defining proper poverty properly would be important. I think
measures of you know, people's, people's ability to pursue their

(34:41):
own values. And it's not clear how you how you
measure those, but but you know, one measure, for example,
is is both social mobility but also mobility right America.
For example, America used to be a country in which
people moved all the time. They always sought out better opportunities.
They moved city, they move talents, they moved states. And

(35:02):
that's that's gone. Americans become a much more passive people.
We don't we don't move as much for a variety
of reasons, mainly related to the welfare state. But we
can we can talk about why. I think that that mobility,
that dynamism is part of what human flowishing suggests people
pursuing values, going out and reaching and trying to achieve things.

(35:23):
I'm very skeptical about measures of happiness, particularly the one
that everybody cites, which is which is one question with
a ladder where you are? And it's it's just a
it's a very very bad measure. There are the most
sophisticated measures where they try to estimate happiness and the
result is not the standard result that you get. But

(35:43):
you know, I'm not a I'm not a scientist in
that field. I'm just skeptical. I'm skeptical of self reported
happiness and people measuring. I mean, it would be great
if we could measure people's happiness, and that would be
the ultimate measure of human flourishing. But I think it's
ultimately the opportunities people have. What what tune as do
you have to live the kind of life you live?
And you know, I'm going to argue that capitalism provides, maximizes,

(36:07):
indeed human opportunities to manifest the kind of life that
you want to live without other people dictating it. And
I'll just say one of the disagreements between us that
we should probably get into it is a view of democracy, right.
I think that's maybe a key difference between us is
that I think best places a huge emphasis of democracy,

(36:29):
both for human flourishing and for economic activity. I do not.
I do not view democracy as some kind of holy grail,
as something that important for human success, and but that
needs to be defined and discussed.

Speaker 8 (36:41):
I think on the actual definitional questions, we largely agree
a particular on the happiness question. On the question of mobility, though,
I would actually maybe not social mobility, but but physical mobility,
I would actually say that I think what we've seen
as a root of people's self reported happiness and other
real obvious crises of addiction and helplessness and loneliness is

(37:06):
the hollowing out of a lot of our communities.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
And civic constitutions.

Speaker 8 (37:10):
So I think that's probably where I would say would
add another measure of how many friends do you have,
how many people do you interact with on a daily basis,
how many deep and meaningful relationships.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
Do you have.

Speaker 8 (37:23):
I believe in a much more robust social safety net
provided by the state. But I also believe that we
as individual should be able to call upon our friends
and family in times of need, and that should be
one of our first first calls. And when we look
at I think a lot of American history last twenty years,
it's been the loss of jobs, the industrialization. It's been

(37:45):
increasing addiction, it's been other social indicators. I'm not particularly religious,
but declines and church attendance and other things that go
on hand in hand with declines and people showing up
at the local veterans hall or union halls. And I
think all these a lot of the things that make
our lives richer. And I think there is something to
the economic insecurity that Americans feel in a society with

(38:08):
a weaker safety net up pairs in Europe that is
tied to these things, and in my view, inhibits.

Speaker 4 (38:17):
I see it exactly the opposite, right, So I think
that it's a social safety net that actually is preventing
people from pursuing their values. That is, so, if you're
a steel worker in Cleveland, Ohio, and you've lost your
job and politicians are telling you the job is coming back,
don't worry we're going to reindustrialize. It's coming back, sit
around and wait. In the meantime, he will pay your

(38:38):
welfare and will fund your sitting on your sofa watching
TV and not doing anything. Then yeah, that's going to
create real social anngst, and that's going to create real alienation,
and that's going to create the real challenges that we're seeing.
And I think that is prevalent. There's no shortage of jobs.
For example, in America today, in spite of all economic problems,
there's plenty of jobs, but they required people getting off

(38:58):
off the sofa and actually going to where the jobs are.
You know, if you go to West Arkansas, there are
plenty of jobs in Western Arkansas. And you know, people
moving and engaging. Going to a new place is not alienating.
As somebody who's done it many many times in his life.
It's actually very rewarding, you know, creating new social social

(39:21):
contacts and new friendships and new environments. It's actually quite
rewarding to be able to do that. And I think
what's happened is people are staying in the same place.
They're not ambitious, They've lost that ambition, and I think
the welfare state encourages that supports, that promotes that, and
it's very, very damaging to the psyche of the people

(39:42):
who actually receive the welfare. I think that's one of
the big damages that it causes.

Speaker 6 (39:46):
It sounds like on my question of what human flourishing is,
though we're in agreement that it's not just an economic metric.
It's not just about economic prosperity. But it's about moral
well being, social well being, the way we relate to
one another in society, and so about the welfare state.
I do want to move on to some of our
audience questions. There are some that actually look like the
questions that I brought tonight, so we're of one mind.

Speaker 7 (40:08):
But in the United States and in.

Speaker 6 (40:10):
Many countries around the world, there's this question of the
role of government and things that the government should do
and things that the market should do. And it seems
that you alluded to this in your opening statement, Bosker,
but I want to ask you both about a story
that goes something like this.

Speaker 7 (40:25):
Capitalism's good for some things.

Speaker 6 (40:27):
It's good to have innovation and profit and competition in
some areas of the economy, but for basic needs, health care, education, childcare,
those were a few you mentioned socialisms the way to
go so Juran, How would you respond to that.

Speaker 4 (40:44):
I'd say, look at the quality of a healthcare, look
at a quality of our education, and judge where the
socialism does a good job with either one of those.
It does a pretty lousy job delivering those products. I
don't get it. I don't get the difference between healthcare, care, education,
and I don't know my iPhone. I really don't. Nobody

(41:06):
I think in this audience thinks the government should produce
my iPhone. I mean, just the thought of a government
committee designing an iPhone should send shivers down your spine.
Then why is it okay? Why do you think you'll
get a good result with the government designing your healthcare
system or the government designing your educational system. Imagine and
I know this is hard because we've never really experienced it,

(41:29):
but imagine an educational system that was driven by the
same kind of incentives and the same kind of entrepreneurial motivation,
the same kind of innovation that applies in tech, or
that applies in food production. Food is very important. We
all rely on food. We would die without food, and
yet we leave it completely to private sector, to the

(41:50):
little food. Not completely right, We subsidized huge amounts. I
wish we lift it completely, but mostly right. As compared
to healthcare and education, why can't do that? Imagine competition
between schools. Imagine the innovation that would happen, Imagine the
variety that would be offered to parents. Imagine what would
be possible if we actually brought that same spirit of

(42:14):
competition and collaboration and innovation to education. And of course
the healthcare and those of you think that's what our
healthcare system is, it's private. Our healthcare system is the
worst of all worlds. It's a mishmash of the you know,
bad incentives with a huge amount of socialization. Like I'm

(42:34):
going to turn sixty five soon, and I will get
socialized medicine. Right, I'll be just like in Europe. The
government will fund all of my needs when it comes
to healthcare. And you know, but the private part of
it is badly incentivized because of this huge Medicaan and Medicaid.
So it's a mismaster. That is a disaster. And we

(42:56):
regulate insurance companies that we don't get market driven insurance. Again,
imagine a world in which this was actually driven by
market incentives, what a beautiful thing that could be, how
cheap health care would be, and how innovative it would be,
and how we would all be living to much much
longer than we are living today. Now. I can't prove
that because I can't point to any way where they

(43:17):
have that. But why can't we extrapolate from the areas
where the markets work to areas where we don't let
the markets work, and you know, see what happens. Just
there's a there's a famous graph that the American Enterprise
Institute puts out and about the cost of things, how
things have changed in terms of cost, and almost everything

(43:39):
that is market driven has gone down in cost in
terms of inflation adjusted, wage adjusted. However you want to
look at it, it's you know, it's ninety nine percent
cheaper to buy a television today than it was twenty
thirty forty five years ago. The only things that have
increased in price are the things that the government heavily regulates,

(44:00):
education and health, Kait, right. And you know housing is flat,
but of course that's that's super regulated as well. So
things that where we allow a market to function, where
we allow capitalism to function, I mean somewhat they're all
heavily regulated, heavily controlled. Imagine what they would be if
there wasn't all that declining prices. Everything else is upward.

(44:22):
I'd like to see declining prices on everything and increased
quality and everything, And I think that is what's possible
if you bring markets into it.

Speaker 8 (44:29):
So I think if you actually look at all the
components in your iPhone, every component can be tied in
some way to state research and development. And you know,
I'm not saying the state necessarily has to have that role,
but it's just a matter of fact that in your
particular iPhone example, it did have that role. I would
actually agree I'm being excessively generous today. I will come

(44:51):
in a very good mood today, but I would actually
agree that our healthcing system events is kind of the
worst about worlds in the sense that we have subsidized
consumption of healthcare, but the state doesn't have the mechanisms
like other countries have to control costs. So I would
say in a more socialist healthcare system, the state would
have more mechanisms, for better or worse, more mechanisms to

(45:14):
control costs rather than just subsidizing. Conception, I think the
education system in the US as a whole. K through
twelve education is actually a radical success story that has
been undermined by broader social problems. You know, broader problems
of poor kids going to school, hungary and things like that.

(45:36):
But America has actually produced innovative education methods. I was
better educated than my parents, who are educated in the
British style, which Commonwealth system of repetition and education. We
were at the cutting edge of all these techniques and
they happened in K through twelve. There needs to be
strict measures on the performance of schools. There needs to

(45:57):
be schools of different types of varieties. But I personally
think that education should be guaranteed as social rights. I
actually think this is one case in which the state
should continue to run areas of public education. In other areas,
you might say that the state should guarantee the right
to free I say, H two to six childcare, but

(46:22):
that these providers should still be private providers. There should
be some method of cost control, and essentially the state
should just be subsidizing kind of access and enabling everyone
to have access. There's many different policy ways in which
we could decide what should be a state owned enterprise
and what should be a guaranteed right. But in general,

(46:43):
I would say that the core of what it takes
to live a good life, at the very least, the
core necessities of education, childcare, healthcare I should be guaranteed
as rights just by virtue of being born. Though I
do agree that the way in which we've constructed the

(47:04):
US welfare state is often the worst of both worlds,
in which we again subsidize demand without controlling cost or
being able to produce more goods.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
I think jorder countries do this much better than US.

Speaker 6 (47:16):
I want to jump in because you mentioned the term
social right, and I want to ask you, Busker, what
your definition of a social right is and how you
differentiate because maybe it's a stretch to say that the
government's going to nationalize the creation of iPhones, But there
are other areas that are not healthcare, childcare and education,
things like transportation or housing, things that you might consider

(47:37):
to be basic needs in our economy. And I think
this is one of the challenges politically for socialism, is
that it seems to be a slippery slope between what
are the things that we really need that the government
should provide for everyone, and where do we draw the
line on that. So I'm going to ask you, where
do you draw the line between things that you consider
to be social rights that should be socialized and other things.

Speaker 8 (47:58):
We could draw the line at a policy level of
what's sufficient, what works, what doesn't. So at the very minimum,
we should say there should be no street homelessness in
the United States. That might mean that we're giving people
shelter beds that are safe but are not somewhere We're
given other choices people would want to spend long term.

(48:18):
That's ensuring a basic right to housing an extremely minimal level,
a level comparable to other advanced capitalist countries. It's a
policy we have in New York and other places. But
you can't tell me that this would disincentivize people from
wanting to live in nice, stable homes or whatever else.
It's often of last resort. I think those other areas

(48:43):
where one can argue, what are the policy ramifications of
free childcare, of shifting that burden from just private families
onto the public large, I would argue that there would
be plenty of additional offsets of making easy easier for
women to decide to re enter the workforce if they

(49:05):
want to re enter the workforce. If they've given these options,
there might be other knockdown positive effects. We just have
to figure out how to design these these programs. But
if you actually look at the countries with the most
expansive welfare state, often this has been tied to not
stagnation and people just relaxing and sitting back and leaching

(49:25):
off this welfare state, but it's actually been connected to
having a more dynamic economy. So in order countries, for instance,
often you'll have greater rates of firm failure than you
do in the in the in the US in terms
of uh these firms they emerge, they have to deal
with both high wage demands because the workers are are

(49:47):
are generally covered by collective bargaining agreement, and they also
have to deal with with with with the host of
other competitive pressures.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
These firms, feral workers go unemployed.

Speaker 8 (49:58):
So so a lot of the dynamics that you want
to have, but there's a social compact that says, hey,
this is the worst thing in the world because we
have active liver in market policies to get us into
other jobs and other sectors, and we also have this
welfare state to rely on, so we know we're not
going to destitute. In America, I think people are really
afraid sometimes of the consequences of failure, in part because

(50:18):
we don't have these welfare state institutions.

Speaker 4 (50:23):
So noted states, I mean, the United States, you know,
is the most probably the most entrepreneurial country in the world.
Sweden is relatively you know, entrepreneurial compared to Europe, but
it's less entrepreneurs in the US. List En, entrepreneur of
the Israel. Denmark is less entrepreneurs in Sweden. So fear
of failure exists all over Europe. You know, a failure

(50:46):
is much bigger deal in Europe than it is in
the United States. Entrepreneurship rates in the US, particularly if
you take Europe as a whole, a much much higher
in the United States than they are in Europe. And
repeat entrepreneurs that is one of the measures if you
fail you start up again. Those measures in the United
States blows you're about of the water. So indeed, in
spite of the welfare state, or maybe because of it,

(51:08):
fear of failure is greater in Europe than there's in
the US. And and and social stigma associated with failure
is much larger in Europe than it is in the
US and Silicon Valley, failure is almost the badge that
you wear in in Europe, it's something that if you fail,
banks won't deal with you. You know, in even family,
there's a stigma around it. I want a few things

(51:31):
that the best I said in terms of you know,
you have to admit that if you start offering homeless
people free housing, at least the the margin, there's some
people who are paying rent right now that would rather
drop out of rent in order to get the free housing.
So the margin is always going to be a group
that is incentivized, yes, to abandon whatever housing they have
in order to accept the free housing of the state.

(51:53):
And and you see this in Los Angeles. The more
free housing they offer, the more homeless people they are.
I mean literally, the homeless problem is increasing as they
increase the number of housing they provide homeless people, which
is completely predictable. Any economists would predict that when you
offer something free, demand for it increases. So this is

(52:14):
the problem. The problem is the government is equipped to
only do really one thing. The essence of government is force.
I mean, George Washington has said this, and I think
his second in our goal to address. Government is a gun.
That's the essentral characterist to govern. When government says something,
it is imposed on us. When there is a law,

(52:36):
somebody shows up and enforces that law, and the consequence
are violence. The consequences are forced. Force is good for
only one thing. There's only one good use for physical force,
and that is self defense. Using force in economic policy
is destructive. It always is. So government policies are always

(52:58):
going to be destructive, whether we can see it immediately
right because it looks like it had positive effects, whether
we can see the distortions and perversions or not. Force
is always going to be destructive when it is applied
to you know, to the economy, to our lives as individuals,
anything in which we can have a voluntary exchange. And

(53:20):
it's it surprises me the bust I thinks the educational
system in the United States is so good. I've experienced
three educational system I went to school in England, in Israel,
and in the United States, and the United States by
far had the poorest education. I went to like a
top Brookline, Massachusetts where all the kids of faculty from
man my Tea and Harvard went and it was a disaster, right,

(53:40):
I fell behind by a year in my two years
in that school relative to what they were studying in Israel.
It was a complete disaster. But more than that, more
important than that is the quality of education that poor
kids in this country get by government schools. I mean,
I think we both care about poverty. Poverties is a
real feature of of you know, Minimizing poverty is a

(54:03):
feature of a flourishing and successful society. And one of
the elements of that is education. And it's it's horrific
what happens now. You can blame it all on parents,
you can blame it on the environment, you can blame
but then it's hard to explain experiments in private education
in the same neighborhoods where the result is so much
better that it is so superior to what And it's

(54:24):
it's not just that one parent is more motivated the
other pair, because the differences are so extreme that something
is fundamentally wrong with the with the government education that
we are providing in these poor neighborhoods. And I believe
that the solution to that is is competition. It's it's
it's private markets. And the private school is also very

(54:45):
inefficient in public schools are very inefficient in terms of cost,
So take away that burden of costs the opportunities for
real innovation and real progress in poor neighborhoods, and education
is a stunding. It's one of the reasons, you know,
parents often support a kind of school choice because they
realize that what the option they have the government is

(55:06):
providing is a really, really, really cool option.

Speaker 6 (55:09):
Do you think that school choice or private schools is
an indictment of the socialized education system in US states?

Speaker 8 (55:16):
I think that there should be measures to hold public
schools accountable. I think we already have a lot of
those those measures. See what schools are performing well, what
outcomes are going well. I think a lot of these schools,
some of them need more funding, some of them need
people to get fired and then to get reorganized. But
in state owned enterprises, even in let's say how they
handle healthcare in the United Kingdom or other countries and

(55:39):
socialized healthcare systems, there's core benchmarks and metrics of infant
mortality rates, patient outcomes, infection control outcomes. There are benchmarks,
and there are ways to make to make these state
sectors dynamic and efficient without potentially creating these private actors

(55:59):
that will be limiting access in the long run to
be sustainable by ability to pay, and that will also
be like magnets taking the most. I think a lot
of these studies do say often the people that go
through the trouble and are able to get their kids
into some of these magnet schools or some of these
charter schools are those who are most capable as parents.

(56:22):
Often maybe their income is very low, but they're d
classed immigrants who have a certain background and have the
ability to help navigate their kids. I think we should
be seeking in this area to have an equital welcome.

Speaker 4 (56:34):
Then.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
I do think it's in a tremendous achievement.

Speaker 8 (56:37):
Despite all the problems with education in the US and everywhere,
the fact that we know for a fact that if
a kid is born in America right at this moment,
that we know for a fact that they're going to
be if they don't have a developmental issue, they're going
to be literate, They're going to have these basic standards.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Of this ability to engage in the world that we
can't take for granted.

Speaker 8 (56:56):
My grandmother, who was born in Trinidebago, was a very smart,
witty person, never had the ability to engage with the
wealth of knowledge and culture and life.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
And that would not have been the case if she
was born in the United States.

Speaker 6 (57:12):
I want to ask you Ron the converse of a
question that I asked bosscre I ask him about social rights,
and I know you're on You believe in individual rights
and you believe in a much more limited role for government.
We do have a question from the audience. Would you
agree that the way we provide for our military is
a strand of socialism. I also want to ask you
about certain areas that we have had the government do

(57:33):
for a long time, firefighting, lease, public roads. Is there
concern that if capitalism has its way, that we'll go.

Speaker 7 (57:41):
Into a sort of.

Speaker 6 (57:44):
Anarchy, that we won't have government order providing for some
of these basic services that we as Americans are accustomed
to having the government provide.

Speaker 4 (57:53):
So I certainly don't believe in anarchy. I'm very much
opposed to the idea of anarchy. I believe the state
has an important role to play in protecting those individual rights,
and those individual rights basically of freedoms to live our
lives based on our own values in pursuit of you know,
based on our own thinking in pursuit of own happiness,

(58:15):
and you know, freedom from what does freedom mean? Freedom
means the absence of coasion, the absence of force. So
the job of the government is to catch the croaks,
to catch the criminals, to the fraudsters, the people who
are clearly you know, you know, abusing other people, and
to define those to help define what that means, and

(58:37):
of course to help define what property rights means, and
to make sure that property rights are not violated. That
is the role of government.

Speaker 5 (58:43):
That is it.

Speaker 4 (58:44):
Does that mean that a lot of the stuff that
you have learned to accept that the government provides to you,
you wouldn't have. Yeah, absolutely, so a lot of stuff
that government provides today I think in a truly capitalist
society it wouldn't be right. You know, again, all that
you do three things basically defense, policing, and judiciary. That

(59:07):
is it?

Speaker 6 (59:08):
So that is that a form of socialism for the
government to provide policing services or the mill.

Speaker 4 (59:14):
No, No, I don't think so, because again it's exactly capitalism, right.
Capitalism is the system to protect individual rights. In order
to protect individual rights, one has to have a monopoly
over the use of force, which means that government has
the monopoly over the use of ittality to a force.
It has to run a police force in a military.
It's not you know how you actually run a police

(59:36):
force in a military. That is not socialism. That is
a legitimate function of a government under capitalism. So you
don't run a military democratically. We don't vote to who
should be the sergeants and who should be the colonel.
It is top down. It is hieroarchical. It's different. It's

(59:58):
not a corporation. It's a different type of entity. It's
a military entity, it's a police entity. I don't think
it helps to call that socialism and to call everything
else capitalism. I don't think that's a helpful distinction.

Speaker 6 (01:00:12):
I have several Oh, I'm sorry, I have several questions
that relate to workers and workers' rights and how workers
exist inside of either of these systems. One of our
audience members asked, as an unskilled worker, I have never
felt like I had the power to decide my hours
worked and pay for those hours. I've always felt my
employer has the overall power to decide. As a worker,

(01:00:34):
how does capitalism give me the power to decide my
own wage?

Speaker 7 (01:00:37):
Or hours when used in practice.

Speaker 4 (01:00:42):
I mean, if you're a non skilled worker in an
area where there's lots of competition, that is that you're
easily replaceable. Is somebody else that can do your job easily?
Then yeah, you know you're going to be have a
difficult time pricing your own labor. And your decision then
has to be you know, which employer do I want
to work for? How many hours do I want to live?

(01:01:04):
What's my standup living going to be given the wages
that I'm going to get. Because the wages are kind
of set by the market, you're not going to be
determining the wage. And but the option, I mean Bascal positions,
the option has work or starve. And then there's a
sense in which that's true. But there's also other options.
You could become an entrepreneur. There are plenty of unskilled

(01:01:27):
labors who started their own business of gardening, businesses, other
businesses and actually started an entrepreneur. And I think even
in our heavily controlled banking system as it is today,
the opportunities to get loans and to start businesses like that.
You know, you could go and become a subsistent farmist

(01:01:47):
like your ancestors were it's not a great life, but
their choices, their choices not die or work for an employer.
And it's not just one employer. There are thousands employers
out there who are employing people. You can also move
a different state where they might be different sets of
opportunities available to you. Or and here's another alternative, you

(01:02:08):
could learn a skill and become a skilled labor which
would automatically raise your wages. I mean, so capitalism provides
you with lots of opportunities. They will quiet effort. None
of it's going to just be provided to you. None
of it's just going to be handed to you. You're
going to have to go out there and pursue these opportunities.
But it does provide you a plethora of opportunities. But yeah,

(01:02:29):
being unskilled is you know you're going to face the market.
You're not in a great position visa vita market.

Speaker 6 (01:02:38):
Question also related to workers' rights and how workers interact
with the owners of businesses. An audience member asked Foscar's
vision could be implemented now within capitalism. In other words,
you could form a commune, as Jeron suggested, where inside
the commune people follow certain laws they respect limits on
the number of hours works, they provide a certain wage.
Why is it not capitalism cannot be fully realized if

(01:03:01):
we force this type of market socialism. What means of
coercion would Boscar implements to move towards his vision?

Speaker 8 (01:03:07):
So, first of all, there are successful worker cooperatives. The
fifth or sixth largest corporate group in Spain undergrown is
run as at worker cooperative. There are certain structural reasons
why it's difficult to form worker cooperatives under capitalism. One
of course, is access to credit and other resources. But

(01:03:28):
one of them is just simply is a matter of
the choices of workers as rational actors within the current
set of roles that we have. So for example, if
I am really good at my job, and I know
me and my co workers can do a better job
than our boss, and we could run our workplaces cooperative,

(01:03:49):
we might stop and say, actually, I don't want all
my eggs in that basket. I'd rather get my labor
share of income at fifty percent of my value than
to having all my limited resources.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
Pulled into this new enterprise that that's being set up.

Speaker 8 (01:04:07):
So that's why often these visions of cooperatives involves also
having a role for public banks and other forms of
financing and legal and financial support to serve as our
creditors and early investors and enterprises. So simply, I think

(01:04:27):
it is very difficult to imagine little islands of worker
management within a sea of capitalism. It exists, It exists
with Montregron, it exists with a host of different labor
managed firms in the United States and elsewhere. But ultimately,
I think in order to create and incentivize the creation

(01:04:49):
of new forms, the rules of the game need.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
To be need to be changed, all right.

Speaker 6 (01:04:56):
I have several questions that relate to the way that
these systems interact with human nature and different moral structures,
and so I want to turn to these very big
picture questions. But I did think before this debate, one
way we might measure which system is better for human
flourishing is which one comports better with human nature. And

(01:05:16):
I heard you Ran and his opening statements talk about
humans as rational people. I think one of the arguments
about capitalism is that it harnesses and takes advantage of
human's self interest. And so I want to ask each
of you, and maybe I'll start with you Bosker, how
does socialism comport with human nature or take advantage of
what is good or useful about human nature? Does it,

(01:05:40):
does it go against human nature? And yet it is
still the better system in your view? How would you
respond to that?

Speaker 8 (01:05:44):
I have a very just soft view of human nature,
which is that people don't like conditions that subject them
to extreme forms of deprivation, exploitation, and domination. Beyond those extremes,
I think lots of systems are compatible with.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
Human nature. When I think about the rational choice.

Speaker 8 (01:06:07):
For workers, in the case that someone mentioned earlier, being
an unskilled worker, it actually would be rational to advocate
for state intervention to create a certain floor, a minimum
wage that will have other knockdown effects on the economy.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
Some of that might, I would actually argue, be positive.

Speaker 8 (01:06:24):
For example, the firms that are now pursuing the low
road in development through sweating out labor by paying people
eight dollars an hour a're now forced to pay twelve
thirteen dollars an hour. They might actually decide a certain
point they're going to invest in labor saving technology, and
that might end up in the long run making the
economy more more productive. But there's following that basic logic

(01:06:46):
of people pursuing their own their own interests. There are
often times when collective action would be a rational choice
for people. But I think at the bare minimum we
could say that all people around the world don't like
being enslaved, don't like being oppressed, don't like being dominated.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
The conditions that prevail in most.

Speaker 8 (01:07:08):
Capitalist economists today don't rise to that level where I
think there's an immediate rebellion against human nature. And I
would actually argue the same as a case for my
vision of a democratic socialism.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
It's all compatible with different aspects of human nature.

Speaker 6 (01:07:22):
Can I ask you a follow up a question about
charity and about the moral value of caring for the
least of these? Let's say in a capitalistic society, and
I will say in the United States, where we're relatively capitalistic,
we are also the most generous country in the world,
and we do have a pretty great industry of philanthropy

(01:07:43):
dedicated not just to organizations that engage in politics and education,
but also organizations that meet the humanitarian needs of people.
Do you think that there's something superior to a system
that relies on a choice to give charitably to one
that really eyes on st redistribution.

Speaker 8 (01:08:02):
I think charity is great, it has moral value. I
think we should all give to teritable organizations. We should
give to our friends, we should give to our neighbors.
I would say that I actually have to look at
that figure about whether the US is the most generous.
I would say it might be skewed by the US
tax system and just the power of our NGOs and nonprofits.

(01:08:22):
I'm very grateful to stem both, so if this doesn't
apply to them, But in general, a lot of these
are our institutions that are not always, not always I
think the most efficiently run. Have you large overheads, YadA YadA,
And especially because we have smaller families, smaller kingship networks
than a lot of other countries. Maybe we're giving through

(01:08:45):
those avenues, but we're not giving through our church type.
We're not giving as much through our broader kinship and
family and friend networks.

Speaker 6 (01:08:55):
Eron, about human nature, would you make the argument that
capitalism is is a better system to harness the realities
of human nature, whether they're good or bad, whether it's
the self interest piece or other attributes of human nature.

Speaker 4 (01:09:09):
Yeah, I mean, I believe that fundamentally to human nature
is that we are a rational being. We're reasoning being,
and I think that reason is a faculty that cannot
be exercised under the threat of force. Couosion is destructive
to human reasoning. You know, freedom is necessary for people
to be able to think, not just in terms of

(01:09:30):
innovation and progress and big thoughts and science, but also
just in terms of figuring out how to live the
best damn life you can live for yourself, how to
how to achieve happiness. So freedom is a requirement for
human nature to flourish, for human nature to actually come forward,
which is which is you know, the as a rational being.

(01:09:53):
So in that sense, now, I also think that what
often people view as a negative of human in nature,
which is self interest, I actually view as a positive.
I think that, you know, morality should actually teach us
how to harness our self interest, our desire to pursue
our own well being, to survive, to thrive, to flourish

(01:10:15):
as a human being. I think there's some recognition of
that in our founding documents, with the idea of pursuit
of happiness, pursuit of happiness as individuals, and of course
self interest I think is aligned with the idea of
I get to make the choices. Nobody else makes the
choices for me. And here again want to go back
to the idea of democracy. Democracy is an imposition of

(01:10:36):
the majority's choice on me as an individual, and that
can be incredibly limiting and constraining and restricting, and it
can reject it can deny freedom. I mean, democracy has
a long history of subjecting minorities to horrific treatment. So

(01:10:56):
and of course the smallest minority in the world is
then individual. The one thing democracy doesn't recognize really fundamentally
is individual rights. So capitalism is to one system that
recognizes that it is the individual that matters, and they
do acquiet freedom in order to floish.

Speaker 6 (01:11:14):
Can you respond to this idea that there is a
tyranny of the majority that would overcome a socialist system,
that workers would take control of the firm, that citizens
would take control of the country to the detriment of
the individual, to the detriment of a minority group.

Speaker 8 (01:11:31):
Of course, terrannies of the majority exist. That's why we
need strong negative freedoms. That's why we need the ability
to pursue our own lifestyles, to freedom, to worship, freedom
to express, freedom in civil society. Now, in my vision,
of a good society are we might spend twenty eight

(01:11:52):
thirty two hours a week on average in the workplace,
and within that that's fair the workplace. What I would
question is if the right of a of a boss
to govern their workplace without any sort of democratic accountability.
Right now, that boss is accountable to a board or

(01:12:13):
its accountable to a group of shareholders, so there's still
a level of accountability. They're still going to be representative
and not direct democracy. In more workplaces, I would imagine
workers would elect periodically their top management. Those top management
would would then or the top manager would then elect
their slate of managers. I think there would be inefficiencies

(01:12:35):
of people who are elected their line managers and whatnot.
But these workers would be incentivized to produce because they'd
be receiving a dividend of production, so they're still incentivized
to actually produce more. And in existing studies of labor
managed firms, we also see some positive results in the
areas of like information sharing. So I used to work

(01:12:57):
at a actually i won't name the company, at a
private company, and there was a task that was very
menial and took me five to ten minutes and I
discovered that my boss actually thought this was an all
day task, and I just hit that information from from
my employer.

Speaker 1 (01:13:15):
On my way out, I kind of wrote, uh, you know,
I was like earning thirteen hours an hour.

Speaker 8 (01:13:19):
But I still wrote like an exit document, like I
was a CEO setting off with a golden parachute or something.
But workers hide information from their employers all the time.
They are lessons centivised to do so at a labor
managed firm. I do think there's there's other countervailing forces
that will encourage people to be efficient, that that will

(01:13:40):
overcome any potential democratic deficits or or problems. But right
now that boss is still is still in most cases
accountable to someone. If there aren't accountable periodically to their
to their employees, are now accountable to shareholders or to
other other investors.

Speaker 4 (01:13:59):
In one of the ideas, and I'm curious what you
think of this. One of there is in which we've
seen the socializing socialization of the workforce in large numbers
across the world is in the area of farming. Collective
farms in Ukraine under under communism, collective farms in in
mouse China, collective farms in Venezuela, or even the Kiboots

(01:14:21):
in Israel. Uh. And in every single case they are
they have failed dramatically. I mean in obviously in Venezuela,
China and Russia they failed on on scales of starvation
of people starving. Uh. And and in Israel they failed
on the scale of It turns out that the government
has always been subsidizing the key boots, and as soon

(01:14:43):
as they stopped subsidizing them, uh, they all fell apart
and they adopted private uh you know, private property systems.
You know. One of the most striking examples of this
is in China. You know, there's this famous village his
names slipped on mind right now, this famous village where
people were starving. All property was jointly owned. They in

(01:15:06):
a sense voted and who were you know, what work
to do and how to how much to grow and
where to grow it and everything like that. Literally they
were starving. I mean, they would send their kids out
to beg in neighboring villages to try to feed themselves.
And they got together. This is in nineteen seventy eight,
and this is Mao's already dead, and you know, nobody

(01:15:26):
show what's coming for China. They got together in this
village and they decided secretly, they put it together a
secret document where they divided all the land and into
private plots of land. They divided it into each family
got a pot of land, and each one was and
they and whatever. Soaplus they produced above what you know,
they required as a as a village to prod uce

(01:15:50):
they got to keep as individuals and productions something like tripled.
I mean, they went forward to what they became one
of those productive villages in all of China. And indeed
the China Communist part us send people to investigate, and
of course they discovered this pseudo private property kind of
scheme getting away from socialization. And you know, to Dan

(01:16:11):
Chapang was not a good guy generally, but in some
areas was good. To Dan Chapang's credit, in spite of
the fact that the communists locally wanted to just wipe
out the village so that the example would go away
and other village wouldn't catch up, then said, no, this
actually works, let's spread this. And the deprivatization of farming
in China led to massive increases in food production and

(01:16:35):
the disappearance of starvation in China. So you know, at
least in this area, we've tried, and I think we've
tried in many places and almost always it fails. And
even even the collect the co Op in Spain does
a lot of capitalist stuff. I mean, it has subsidiaries
that are run as capitalist enterprises. It's a little cheating. Granted,
it lives within a system that maybe requires that. So

(01:16:59):
you know, every time, every time I've seen the experiments,
they seem to fail, uh, and sometimes in ways that
are really horrific to human to human floishing. Why would
why do you think the next iteration would somehow be successful.

Speaker 8 (01:17:12):
So I think this is the only part of the
debate where you gave in apples to oranges comparison, because
what you were describing is the failure of these horrific
large state owned enterprises that were essentially forcing people into
and to serf them. It was it wasn't democratic socialism,
it wasn't capitalism, it was it was served them. People

(01:17:35):
were bound to these collective farms. These farms were owned.

Speaker 1 (01:17:41):
By the state.

Speaker 8 (01:17:42):
They had lots of failed views about what made agriculture
more efficient. They thought it was just scale and they
thought you piece together enough plots of land, you have
enough scale, and you bring in some tractors, and you'll
produce a lot of a lot of things. And that
was the failure of a certain model of central planning
and agricultual collectivization. Certain other state socialist countries had different

(01:18:03):
models of agriculture, like Poland.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
And were more more, more more efficient.

Speaker 8 (01:18:08):
But but this was den Japang's first kind of push
towards market market socialism. He was again an authoritarian, certainly
would have would have thrown.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
Someone with my.

Speaker 8 (01:18:21):
Soft playeralist beliefs into into prison. But he did have
this line u uh looking at these failures of these
state owned enterprises, which is, you know, I don't care
if the cat is black or the cat is white,
as long as it catches mice. And I think that's
in general my view of both the form that state

(01:18:42):
owned enterprises should take in the areas where they make
sense in my mind, and and and and also the
areas in which we need a robust private sector. But
I think this is a repudiation of a type of
the worst version of kind of the command economy that
that market socialists disagreement black.

Speaker 6 (01:19:02):
Cats, white cats and apples and oranges. I'm going to
have to move us here to our closing statements. I
want to thank the audience members. I hope you'll forgive
me for scrolling so much on this iPad, but I
had to do that because of the enormous number of
questions that you all submitted. So thank you if you
submitted a question, I'm sorry if I didn't get to yours.

Speaker 7 (01:19:19):
But we covered a lot of ground.

Speaker 6 (01:19:20):
And now it is time for Ran first to give
his closing statement five minutes, and then it will be
Busker's last word five minutes of his closing statement, and
then we will review the post debate poll. So during
these closing statements, you'll have an opportunity to vote in
the post debate poll.

Speaker 7 (01:19:38):
Please do that, Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:19:42):
I think over the last two two hundred and fifty years,
we have experimented with a new economic political system called capitalism,
and the results are pretty astounding. The close that we
get to actual respect for private property, the clothes that
we get to real freedom and textan of individual rights,
the more we flourish, the smaller number of poor people

(01:20:06):
they are in a society, the more opportunities people have
in their lives, to experience whatever they choose to experience,
whatever they choose to do. You know, we have most
of the world today is not capitalist. It is a
mixed economy. There's a mixture of capitalism, a lot of socialism,
a lot, you know, some capitalism. Different countries have different

(01:20:27):
variations in place, different weights on this. But it's clear
that what capitalism produces is an amazing, beautiful thing. And
it's sad to me that we're constantly moving away from
the thing that has made us as prosperous, as successful,

(01:20:48):
as flourishing as we are. We are constantly moving away
from it. Instead of embracing the beauty of capitalism, embracing
the nobility free them, embracing the factor of opportunities for
each one of us to live their life based on

(01:21:08):
their own ideals, their own choices, their own values. We're
moving away from that. We're rejecting that socialism wants to
collectivize our choices, to collectivize our opportunities. We can create
all kinds of sophisticated methods in order to try to
minimize the damage that that does, but at the end

(01:21:30):
of the day, the damage that it does is that
the damage to individual autonomy the individual's right to live
his life the way he sees fit. That is not
possible under any kind of socialist system. So again, if
you want to if you want to live in a commune,
I don't suggest it. It's a horrible life and commune's

(01:21:54):
have failed, you know everywhere they're being experimented with. You
can do it. Under capitalism. You're free to pursue your life.
You're free to voluntarily engage with other people as long
as you're not using cosion of force in any way
you want. You want to start a commune, you want
to start a farm, you want to start a collective, anything,
you can do it. And if socialism people like me

(01:22:19):
are not welcome entrepreneurs who want to start a company
and employ people, that is not acceptable. There's only one form,
which is a collectivized, socialized form of governance, which repudiates
individual autonomy, individual freedom, and therefore limits opportunity and limits choices.

(01:22:39):
It's I think one of the great tragedies of the
twentieth century. In the twenty first century is that we've
lost an idealism of capitalism. We've mired in the little
detailed of a mixed economy and what we should subsidize,
and you know who who should bailoued and how bigs
the welfare state. That's all boring stuff, and it's all compromised.

(01:23:03):
The idealism of capitalism, the idea of individual freedom, individual liberty,
that is something worth fighting for. It's something worth advocating for,
it's something worth moving towards. And one of the great
tragedies of the world right now is that it seems,
at least politically, the space for capitalism is shrinking. There's
almost nobody advocating for it. Socialists on the left, socialist

(01:23:25):
on the right, or at least status on the left
and status on the right. Is what we're experiencing today
in America, and we're losing and have lost I think
the passion and the interest around something that has really
created the modern world. Freedom created the world in which
we live, and freedom, the freedom of the individual, is

(01:23:48):
what we should strive to bring back, and that means
we should strive to bring back capitalism, to enhance the
scope of this wonderful system. Enhance capitalism, not shrink school.
Thank you.

Speaker 8 (01:24:05):
I think I didn't give you a fun debate. I'm
not an extremist. I kind of wish I was sometimes
to match the energy and fervor of my colleague. I
don't want to abolish markets. I don't want to erase entrepreneurship.

(01:24:28):
I don't want to enforce total equality or pretend that
complex societies can be run entirely through central commands from
government bureaucrats. What I believe is both more modest and
more ambitious, that we could regulate markets wisely, and that
we could use the power of a democratic state to

(01:24:51):
guarantee every person a real floor beneath their feet, and
then in doing so we can build a more dynamic
and more democratic society, one rooted in our shared interests,
as both the people who produce goods and services and
the people who consume them. The structure I outlined tonight
isn't some speculative utopia. It's not a blueprint for tearing

(01:25:16):
down everything that exists. In fact, I think it looks
a lot like what we already have in a lot
of advanced countries, including the United States and other advanced economies,
a mixed system with a large public sector, some key
services decommodified in a vibrant market sphere. The difference is
I'm simply arguing that we should complete that trajectory. We

(01:25:39):
should secure a few more basic rights that we should
extend democracy more fully into economic life, just as previous
generations fought hard to extend democracy into political life. The
society that I'm describing is, in many ways an ultimate
ownership society. Real control by people who actually produce value,

(01:26:01):
control over the firms in which they work, control over
the direction of large parts of the economic lives, and
control over the shared institutions that keep us all secure.
In a moment of widespread helplessness and a breakdown of
faith over the future of America and its economy. This
kind of shared ownership is not just morally appealing, it's stabilizing.

(01:26:24):
It gives people a stake in the world around them.
It gives them voice. It gives them the confidence to
innovate and reap the rewards of that innovation. This is
a rejection of capitalism's achievements. It's a natural successor to them.
Capitalism created extraordinary wealth and technological progress, but it also
created barriers, economic, political, and democratic, to prevent those benefits

(01:26:49):
from being fully realized. A more egalitarian, democratic, market based
socialism would allow us to keep what makes capitalism dynamic
while spread the agency and security that make a good
life possible to more people. I don't want to be
clear about one thing. There's no end of history that
I believe in. No system, including the one that I'm

(01:27:11):
navocating for, will ever be free of conflict, disagreement, or
the need for ongoing change. Any society worth living in
will need free speech, independent media, opposition parties, the right
to dissent. What I'm arguing for is not a final system,
but I definitionly don't believe in final systems, but a

(01:27:33):
better framework for human beings to contest power and shape
their lives together. It's true that in any change there
are losers. Many bosses will lose some autonomy under a
democratic economy, but the autonomy gained by the vast majority
of people, the unherralded real philanthropists to keep our society running,

(01:27:55):
working class people would be far greater, more secure, more voice,
more control over their work, more freedom to plan their lives,
more ability to pursue their talents. That's what human flourishing
means in my book, good market outcomes and wealth creation,
but also the spread of autonomy, dignity, and real democratic

(01:28:16):
power to the many rather than the few.

Speaker 1 (01:28:18):
Thank you, Thank you will.

Speaker 6 (01:28:26):
It's been my privilege to probe the philosophies of these
two distinct speakers who've joined us tonight. So thank you
for sharing your thoughts with us and allowing me to
ask some questions. I'm eagerly looking forward to the post
debate whole results.

Speaker 7 (01:28:40):
Here they are.

Speaker 6 (01:28:42):
It seems that there's been relatively little change. Sixty three
percent at the end of tonight's debate answered that they
agree with the resolution that capitalism is better twenty nine percent,
thirty percent disagree.

Speaker 7 (01:28:55):
The numbers are still coming. I feel like Anderson Cooper
on election night.

Speaker 6 (01:28:58):
Numbers are still coming in uh and eight percent are undecided,
so a few less undecided people out there, and as
the numbers continue to we will wobble around. It seems
that we've gotten a great result. So thank you guys
for responding, Thank you for responding, and thank you for
listening to tonight's debate. And I'll repeat what I said earlier.
Even if you didn't change your mind, I hope your

(01:29:20):
mind was enriched and you're thinking about this topic was enriched.

Speaker 5 (01:29:24):
Let's kind of note round with walls for invaders are boberating, drab,
well got In case you're wondering about the poll changing,
we will when when the voting is finally over and
it completely stops. It will be posted on our website
so you can always see it afterwards. Because right now
it looks like the affirmative has gained two points, the

(01:29:48):
negative has gained five points. In my reading that correctly,
the moderator people made up their minds. So that's that's
where it stands. Down I don't see it changing. So
once again, thank you to the Center for the Study
of Government and the Individual. Thank you, Steven, you do
such a great job here at UCCS with promoting free
speech and civil discourse. Also, once again, i'd like to

(01:30:10):
thank the Adolf Coors Foundation, also the Woodford Foundation for
Limited Government here in Colorado Springs, which supports the Campus
Liberty Tour. If you enjoyed tonight's debate, we would ask
that you consider supporting the Steamboat Institute. We are a
nonprofit organization. Go to Steamboat Institute dot org make a donation,
check out information about our upcoming events. Remember, if you

(01:30:33):
can't join us in person, you can always watch these
and this will be posted on our YouTube channel, So
if you want to watch it again or see some clips,
share it with friends.

Speaker 4 (01:30:42):
We hope you will do that.

Speaker 5 (01:30:44):
It should be on our YouTube channel within the next
forty eight hours. We try to get those up really
quickly in their entirety. We hope you enjoyed tonight's debate.
For those of you here in person, we have some refreshments,
stick around and visit with our speakers. For those of
you watching online, thanks again for joining us. Have a
good evening. Oh I'm sorry step it seven say my apologies.

Speaker 3 (01:31:06):
I'm sorry. I should I don't deserve the last word.

Speaker 2 (01:31:08):
And I know everyone would like to leave, but they
want to take the opportunity to just plug a couple
of things. So one, if you'd like to come to
more CSGI events, please go to CSGI dot COO. That's
CEO for Colorado. All of our events are up there.
But also we have this is through the Dean's office.
Actually the CSI is co sponsoring it. Ken Burns American

(01:31:29):
Revolution Documentary. It comes out and actually debuts on Sunday.
We are running it at UCCS six straight days of
like three hours with with the with the program and
the and the movie.

Speaker 4 (01:31:42):
So like, if you I think you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:44):
Get some kind of badge if you do all of it,
but we have like six days of that. Just flyers
out there. Please check them out and I will say
thank you for coming. I was shocked that no one
meant mentioned Zero and Mandami today and I didn't do
it in my I didn't do my open remarks. I
figured I'd leave it for someone else and it was
never It was never mentioned anyway. Thank you all very
very much. Thank you again to our speakers

Speaker 4 (01:33:09):
At

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