Selling Liberty: National Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

0:00Yes, I have quite a bizarre background. I worked for the Soviet government. What worked was a serious overstatement of my activities there. And I was one of economic advisors nobody listened to. And we had meetings, for example, with Gorbachev and Prime Minister Ryzhkov, and we will do all the writing and they will do all the talking, so advice would go all the way around. So I wouldn't take the blame for what happened in the Soviet Union when Definitely too big a place to fail, failed miserably. Failed miserably, was completely destroyed by its own government. Government essentially is what a socialist government or government say in a so-called market economy is a socialist institution.

0:47It's just not the matter of quality, it's a matter of quantity. If you have the big government, then you have more social, you have small government, You have less socialism, you have no government, you have no socialism. So that's kind of, I think, as simple as that. In economics, we do not have zero-sum game in exchanges because exchanges are voluntary and benefit both parties. In politics, we have zero-sum game. Either you have all your rights, or the government has all rights to repress you, to maim you, to kill you, to put you in, I was reading recently Michael Moore's book, downsize this, yes, and on page 27 he's writing that people like William Sapphire, who was kind of a neocon, whatever, not big deal kind of person, but even he, according to Michael Moore, deserved to spread manure in a collective farm on North Dakota.

1:43So that's exactly what I think our future would be if we would not defend liberty, we would not defend in the short run and in the long run as well. So I am kind of very thankful for Jacob and I already didn't have any dessert. I want to increase my life expectancy and be more attractive to my audiences. But from another hand, I think that if we would not take care of today's business as well, then they will come after you. They can knock on the door. So I am for both short run and long run kind of thing. Speaking about working with political parties, well, Samuel Francis, he had this pretty, I would say, open kind of statement when he met me.

2:34He said, Yuri, we have two party systems. One is evil, another is stupid. And the worst thing is bipartisanship, which is both evil and stupid. I would say bipartisanship is already, it's just one party system. System, yes, we have, that's the last thing I want from them to be, to work together. Then you will have one party system, and sure enough bipartisanism won. I would like to congratulate you ladies and gentlemen that our government is still working. They reached a compromise, they reached a surprise, surprise, a compromise, and the compromise they reached, they cut $38 billion, which is exactly 1% of our budget, of our in 1938, so Republicans gave in, they gave in on their social issues and they gave in on the size of the cuts, on the size of the cuts, however both parties definitely as following their famous Napoleonic dictum, now they're turning their defeats into great victories, into great victories, so now you still can go to Yellowstone Park, watch PBS and all

3:45other non-essential functions of the government. I would say if I would like to see government shut down, I would like to see the most essential parts to be shut down first. That would be, I think, the most important thing.

4:05Then also, I remember that, and still today, from many Republican delegates we hear that the government can be fixed, that we can make government more efficient. Donald Trump was talking quite recently, I think, with Hannity about making government more efficient. It reminds me of Ross Perot, if you remember Ross Perot, I had his big ears, with not much in between, and he was telling us that we should open the hood of government and fix it. And no such thing as fixing the hood of the government, no, the government should be kept small, as miniscule as possible, and if no government, then we would be even better off, better off.

4:55Now we have, now we're kind of, I'm wondering what is, what is below that nice haircut of Mr. Trump? So what does he think about that? Yes, so that's,

5:07from another hand, I believe that we are kind of in a very pivotal crossroads of our history, crossroads of our history. I am speaking a lot with tea parties in the Midwest and Texas right now almost every week because I am trying to talk to anybody who is open to listen, who is listening, who is listening. And I would say that most people are really concerned with our liberty, with the fate of our liberty. And speaking about this polls, public opinion polls, what comes to mind, Lenin once said, public opinion polls is not about what people think, they're about what you should think. And I think to some extent this is true, this is true. Pew and CBS were lying us for ages and ages, for ages and ages. Today in Economist they have this that less and less people believe in market economy throughout the world, that socialism is coming. I think that people still People believe in market economy, it's almost twice less people today in the United States

6:12believe in market economy than two years ago for some reason, two years ago they elected Obama who definitely doesn't believe in anything. So this is the mass delusions I would say, what are the problems that we have, I think the government is deliberately destroying civil society and market relations and I think and that is the systemic damage which would be very difficult to undo. Today, half of Americans, half of all American families do not pay any taxes. Sounds like a very libertarian kind of thing. From another hand, from another hand, these people are tax eaters, tax eaters.

6:58When tax eaters would outnumber taxpayers, I think that would be the end of what we have. and they would elect and elect and elect people who would promise them more and more and more. When quite close from here, Rod Blagojevich was tried, the crook we had here in Illinois as a governor, and there was a huge demonstration in support of Rod Blagojevich, and so they asked one gentleman, why is he supporting Rod Blagojevich? He said he gave me a free bus ticket, he gave free bus ticket to seniors, so you can buy by a person who went with a bus ticket. And these people don't realize that buses would not come at certain point. That would be a worthless ticket, a worthless ticket. So if you're creating a nation of clients, a nation of people who are not independent, who do not self-own themselves, but the government own them, you're creating a new system of public slavery.

7:54The public slavery was the most, I think, The most awful, when it was promoted under the aegis of this person, who right now I think is winning, as bad as it sounds, is winning the minds of Americans, minds of people in the Western world. I said that recently in one college in Ohio, and I was told, you came here to scare us. came here to scare us, said yes I did, I would like to scare you royally, I wish somebody would come to Russia in 1917 and scare them, I wish somebody would come to Cuba in 1959 and scare that people, or China in 1948.

8:40Yes, I think we should be scared, we should be scared that we are losing war for the minds of people and that's why I am so proud to be associated with the Von Mises Institute which is on the forefront of this fight. So this is on the forefront of the fight for liberty. For me, attendance of these events is great, it's kind of a fresh air. I am resuscitated again because after the stale atmosphere of American academia, it's really sometimes you think maybe something wrong with me. Looks like it's wrong with them. Well, today I think a lot of people don't really understand what is socialism. Is it socialism that we're moving in? And why socialism is bad? Some people would say socialism is actually good. Socialism is very good. It's communism which is bad.

9:38Communists killed all these people. Not socialists. No, communism is utopia. Utopia. It's socialism. It was socialism in Soviet Union, in Communist Chinese, North Vietnam, in Cuba, in North Korea. It is socialism, pure and simple. Communism, I can show you what communism is. That's what Marx description of communist society and communist manifesto. Just read it. The communist society, nobody has an exclusive sphere of activity, but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes. To hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman, or critic.

10:25So what is this? This is religion, faith, blind faith. This is secular religion. That's the hook, they hooked the masses. They brainwashed people into believing into this crap and that's why they had this huge following at first. and people were extremely eager to sell their liberty for a bus ticket or something else. And that's, I think, what we should be aware of. And then, they realized that this kind of society cannot work. Can you imagine of this wonderful person to hunt and they realized that this person would not become hunter, fisherman, curbsman or critic because he should be shot to make others to work for them as slaves.

11:14Because socialism at certain point, the big government, which is socialism, I think it's just absolute equality between that, the big government is making everybody slave, public slave. And under socialism in countries, 35 countries, they experimented this deadly system on themselves. 35 countries. The human toll of social is 172 million people. Rudy Rommel, a famous demographer from University of Hawaii, he wrote 11 books about that. They are not very well known, but...

11:55What do I think I have? I'll show you everything. I don't have the, well, just trust me. If not, I can email you. I can email you. Just said that, he said that it's 172 million, 172 million, including 61 million in Russia. KGB admitted 43 million dead, so 43 or 61, it's irrelevant for me. It's just such a staggering numbers that whether it's 43 or 61, this is a lot. Stalin, however, used to say death of one person, death of one person is a tragedy. Death of millions is just statistic, nothing else, nothing else. So that's the, he killed that one also.

12:40They were like, at a certain point, the good thing about socialists is that at a certain point they began to shoot each other, they began to be killed like spiders in a jar. He killed, Stalin at first killed all these other ones. He looked like Boehm, he looked pretty funny, but he was deadly, he was deadly, he killed more people, and people practice it, practice it. This is a picture I took in a Cuban store, in a Cuban store, wherever they go, everything disappears. There was a joke that what would happen if in Sahara they would establish socialism.

13:25Well, the first 10 years, nothing. Then sand would expire. And that's exactly what Cuba was the second most prosperous country in Latin America. Now, nothing there. I was intrigued when I came, what is there that you can buy without line? And this is baking soda. Baking soda can keep you alive. You can brush teeth, you can wash with baking soda, you can use I would use it if you have a heartburn, but not many Cubans have heartburn because nothing to eat. That's really the case. This is how the kind of housing looks like in Cuba. And the most, I think, propelled myth in the United States.

14:15Again, Mike Moore, who is a great kind of socialist propaganda person, he made this movie, Seco. Yeah, I almost got sick watching it, and they should put a disclaimer. Yes, he was writing about the wonderful, and he was making a movie about the wonderful health care in Cuba, health care in Cuba. I've been to Cuba many times, and I can attest the only health care is to swim to Miami right away. This is ambulance, this is ambulance. Yes, yes, not making it up, yeah, it's ambulance. Then, I think there's a, it's a hospital, yeah. Those little dots are not kind of chocolate chips, but these are flies, flies.

15:06So are we getting there? Yes, we do. Government is inflating right now. That's undermining freedom, undermining our freedom to choose, and mining of freedom to choose, freedom to choose. Back in the Soviet Union, for example, one of the most, I would say, greatest delusions of Gorbachev and other so-called reformers was that you can design, I'm a labor economist myself, and so they were asking me to design systems of pay which would provide people with incentives to work. It means that you are paid more if you work well or something like that. And they didn't realize that because the money were so inflated and worthless, nobody would care to get more of them.

15:52You see what I mean? At a certain point, you destroy everything. The whole societal mechanism is very much related to the monetary system that you have. And if you don't have free money, they have money based on the concepts of freedom, market money, then you end up like in Germany. It's cheaper to burn money rather than to chirp Firewood, this is a kind of a funny story. Lenin hated gold, Lenin also just hate gold with great passion and there's one of his followers who became a billionaire in present day China and Lenin was writing that gold is good only to make toilet commodes because it's kind of, the germs do not live on gold and easy to clean and it doesn't corrode or whatever and he built that.

16:45He built that just kind of like for fun of it but recently I read an article about him. He built it for four million dollars and now it's worth 28. So that was one of the best investments he made, one of the. So it looks like some leadingists are still smart.

17:07Yes, even he admitted, look, even John Maynard Keynes, He had, I think, some moments of truth, very short, but yes, by a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate secretly and observe an important part of the wealth of their citizens. That is what's happening right now. That is why you are paying so much when you're filling your gas tank. That's why we're paying so much when you go overseas. That's one of the reasons that we have this inflation, which people do ignore, ignore. not the people the government does ignore. So I would say that the government, some people would say government is confused. I would say this is great on the World Wide Web.

17:54It's public domain, right? Some people would say he is confused. I would think he is not. I think he is just ignores everything, ignores everything. And this is the only Marx I like. He said politics is the art of looking for trouble, of Finding it Everywhere, Diagnosing it Incorrectly and Applying the Wrong Remedies. That's the kind of, I wish that, that's the previous Marx would think this way. Because previous Marx, he made a very, very important point that socialism is nothing but replacement of economics with politics. His point is that all decisions are political under socialism. And that's where we're getting to ourselves. if you will look at the government motors, if you will look at the financial sector, almost nationalized and over-regulated by government, if you look about everything else, pharmaceuticals, whomever else, now they're exiting United States, we are losing our comparative advantage in freedom, we are losing our comparative advantage in being entrepreneurial, inventive and creative people, because we are kind of, in many cases, we are,

19:02this is a Russian kind of thing. Well, another strategy I would like to suggest, I would like definitely, I speak with sometimes some confused Democrats, so confused that they would invite me to speak to them, and I would do, sometimes I believe that they are stupid party, not Republicans, which is sometimes evil, but this I think is pretty good. However, I came from, I mean, I am presented everywhere as a kind of like a Russian person, a Russian person. However, I am a US citizen and I live in Wisconsin. And People's Republic of Wisconsin, as you know, right now is a center of the civil war between public unions and Republicans, some of them pretty meek people, but they kind have decided that because they thought they got a mandate and the state is becoming broke.

20:07And Walter, in the morning, he said that making death threats is illegal in the United States, not in Wisconsin, however. This kind of threats was very, very common when we had this trade union mob in Madison. in Medicine. That's what kind of emails they were sending. Please put your things in order because you will be killed and your families will also be killed due to your actions in the last eight weeks. I hope you have a good time in hell. Read below for more information possible scenarios in which you will die. There's plenty of these scenarios and that was sent to 18 Republican senators in, can't imagine if any kind of right-wing nut that would send something like this.

20:55They would lock him up forever. Now the prosecutor of the Dane County of Wisconsin does not want to prosecute that. Yeah, that's kind of why. Maybe it's a good idea, he would think. He would think. So this is definitely not democracy is the way for us to win. I would say that H.L. Mencken was absolutely right, I say, democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. But even individual ignorance would be replaced by the deadly government, who can rule only at certain point, can rule only with force, with crude force.

21:40And we should keep in mind that this millions of innocent people, 172 millions of them according to Rudi Rammel, who were killed just to prove that socialism can work, and you can see that the proof was not there, was not there. In Soviet Union alone, every fifth person was murdered, every fifth person, 20%. In most other communist countries, anywhere between 10 and 15% would be killed right away. For what reason? Just to show that they're serious, just to show they're serious. and Social Engineering. So the same thing, if you kill rich people, I think rich people were the group which suffered more than any other group during the 20th century and is suffering even today, in 21st century.

22:28So we have a class war and I believe that our leaders right now in Washington, D.C., they share these ideas. They share these ideas. They just cannot do what they want to do. We still have a lot of checks and balances of them, The Founding Fathers left a mechanism kind of of control, a mechanism of safety valves for us that we cannot be killed the way Russians were killed. And sure enough, I would say we should remember our liberties. And I would say the Second Amendment is one of the most important ones. because at first they disarm you, then they destroy the church because they have their own religion, they cannot share kind of any mental deviations with anybody, then they destroy families, and then you are naked before the supreme state, you are naked before big government, and then after that they send people in millions to Gulag or to any other mid grinders in perfect killer states that were working, remember it was a super power number two, just because they killed a lot of people, killed a lot of people and just to remind you why for example Gorbachev is considered to be a savior from communism, why many people respect very much John Paul II or Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan,

23:59Because Gorbachev erroneously thought that socialism is a very humanistic society, so he was talking about socialism with human face, like a parrot, everywhere. I was surprised, I was really thinking what's behind that birthmark, maybe he just, he should have his head examined, because it looks like he didn't understand genuinely what he was doing, but he removed fear out of the system which was glued together only by fear and the whole system fell like a courthouse. And I will end up with a joke about the CIA, CIA is already funny, I think. But, that's right, that's kind of a dog that doesn't bark. You know, doesn't have teeth, doesn't have anything.

24:46It's like, right, it's unbelievable. They've read about the collapse of socialism in Soviet Union from in Washington Post. Yeah, that's what our intelligence is, It doesn't have much of intelligence, definitely. But they send the CIA agent, the joke is the CIA agent, to Moscow to find out what is going on under Perestroika, what is happening there. And this agent is going to butcher shop and he has a little notebook and he writes there, no meat. He goes to the bakery and the bakery writes there, no bread. Goes to a shoe store and is writing there, no shoes. and there is a KGB guy looking over his shoulder and he said, 10 years ago you would be shot for doing that.

25:32He writes there, no bullets. And then, and that's exactly what happened, that when people realized they ran out of bullets, then that was the end of that regime, that was the end of that regime. When people realized that, that they would not kill anybody then anymore. But 172 million people is more than enough. and I hate to repeat a very cynical Russian saying that the only lesson of history is that it does not teach us anything. And we go on and on and on in our kind of, I would say, aspiring to get a free bus ticket or to get some other government program and definitely everybody except us is greedy and this support for big government, I think that some of it, some of it is people are disappointed, many people are kind of joining the movement of Austrian economics, is more and more popular, but from another hand I think we should double our efforts to spread the word of liberty, to warn people, to scare people about what is coming our way.

26:43in last week in Financial Times. It was a little article, a little article. I think everybody should read that article. That federal government officials from Federal Reserve and Department of the Treasury, they and sure enough, Goldman Sachs and other representatives of the big financial institutions, they met to discuss the perspectives of issuing bonds, Government bonds, government bonds with 100 year maturity. 100 year, I'm not making it up, it's, I mean, if I would read that in Pravda, I wouldn't believe that. But it's Financial Times, Financial Times of London, 100 years. That means they want to mortgage not only your children's future, but their children's future.

27:31Their grand, grand, grandchildren's future, because all the generations to come do not vote for them. They don't care about them. and they want to mortgage our future and give everybody more free bus tickets for them to vote for them, it's unbelievable. So foreigners and children, they do not vote for the government, so that's why we can disregard them. We can sell them worthless government paper and see what will happen. It definitely will backfire, backfire. So in the long run, as Lord Cain said, we're all dead. But in the short run, I think we should fight for the cause of liberty. In the long run, socialism would fail everywhere because it's not a working system. But I think I would be happy not to see it within my life expectancy, which I would definitely improve by maybe going on the Atkins diet.

28:27I think I kind of scared you enough, that was my intention to do, and please stay in in touch.