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Thomas Sowell on the Origins of Economic Disparities — Transcript

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0:00[Music]
0:07welcome to uncommon knowledge I'm Peter
0:09Robinson Thomas soul has taught and
0:12studied economics intellectual history
0:15and social policy at institutions that
0:17include Cornell UCLA and Amherst now a
0:20senior fellow at the Hoover Institution
0:21dr. Sol has published more than a dozen
0:23books including his most recent volume a
0:27revised and enlarged edition of
0:29discrimination and disparities Tom so
0:33welcome thank you let me quote
0:35discrimination and disparities this
0:37edition this new edition takes on the
0:40non sequitur underlying the prevailing
0:42social vision of our time namely that if
0:46individual economic benefits are not due
0:49solely to individual merit there is
0:52justification for having politicians
0:55redistribute those benefits close quote
0:58now Tom we want to be a country based on
1:02individual merit so if some people are
1:05rich through no merit of theirs and
1:08other people are poor through no fault
1:10of theirs isn't it clear that the
1:14government oughta play Robin Hood and
1:15take from the rich and give to the poor
1:17why is that a nice instead of an obvious
1:21good oh my gosh I don't know where to
1:25begin take your time I you can imagine
1:33now I'll take the extreme case where
1:35someone is literally no merit he know he
1:38knows he inherits some Empire
1:42I don't know big grocery stores or
1:45whatever he knows nothing about it cares
1:47nothing about it hasn't a clue how to
1:49run it and so on he said well clearly
1:52turn it over to the politicians well
1:56what's he gonna do with that Empire it
1:59will be worth far more to almost anybody
2:01else and it would be to him now when
2:04things have radically different values
2:07to different people
2:08well what usually happens in the
2:10marketplace is it transfers to somebody
2:13if it's worth two billion dollars to him
2:16somebody who knows what are you doing
2:18it may be worth five billion to him and
2:20he will pay the five billion to get it
2:22and he will run it better than a
2:24politician he's gonna run it all right
2:27see this is the trouble taping a shows
2:30with you you just talk sense and you
2:32talk it so concisely then we may as well
2:34go have lunch right now
2:36all right the argument the basic
2:39argument let's lay out the argument here
2:40in discrimination and disparities during
2:42the early 20th century the key factor
2:45behind socio-economic disparities as
2:47seen by leading progressive
2:49intellectuals of that era was genetics
2:51in other words some people got ahead and
2:53some people stayed behind for reasons of
2:55a race yes the racist argument by the
2:58late 20th century to continue the
3:00quotation discrimination insidious
3:03unfair discrimination had become the
3:05prevailing explanation all right so
3:07let's take each of those in turn the
3:09genetic or racist explanation you write
3:13that by the middle of the twentieth
3:14century even even a leading proponent of
3:17the influence of genetic factors such as
3:20the famous infamous I suppose too many
3:22people Arthur Jensen of the University
3:25of California Berkeley up the road here
3:27rejected the idea of an IQ ceiling for
3:30some groups would you explain what that
3:32means
3:32well Jensen said why are you surprised
3:36that there are black children with IQs
3:38of 115 and above that and in the earlier
3:42time in the early 20th century it was
3:46thought that there was a ceiling so low
3:48that you had to make sure that certain
3:50people simply did not reproduce that's
3:52the whole eugenics movement right which
3:54was very big and they were eugenics
3:56courses by the hundreds in colleges and
3:58universities across the country and so
4:01Jensen reject me rejects that kind of
4:03rendition of it well once you've
4:06rejected that really it the rest of it
4:08becomes a matter of much smaller
4:11consequence all right so the the racist
4:14argument is rejected on scientific
4:18grounds yes rather than by rhetoric all
4:21right all right
4:22so this brings us of course to the other
4:26explanation for
4:27disparate outcomes once again at the
4:31heart of the prevailing social vision of
4:33our times is the seemingly invincible
4:35fallacy that group outcomes and human
4:38endeavors would tend to be equal or at
4:42least comparable or random if there were
4:44no biased interventions and explained
4:48that for us
4:49well empirically is the easiest way to
4:52explain it almost nowhere anywhere in
4:55the world or in any period of history do
4:57you find any society and which groups
5:00that compete openly end up with the same
5:04results as on the genetic side by the
5:08way this is a study of families where
5:13someone one of the kids becomes a
5:15National Merit Merit Scholarship final
5:17finalist in five child families the
5:21firstborn becomes the finalist more
5:24times than the other four siblings
5:26combined now that's not genetic there
5:31are other their actual sin that
5:33discrimination it's just luck birth
5:35order the luck of the draw well but it
5:38was more than that it tells us something
5:39about the importance of parental
5:41attention in the development of a child
5:45and that's also reinforced by the fact
5:48the twins tend to average several points
5:51lower IQ and people born singly because
5:55obviously no neither twin ever gets the
5:58full attention of the parent of their
5:59parents and also backing that up is that
6:03where one of the twin is either
6:04stillborn or died shortly after birth
6:07the other twin the twin has a an average
6:11IQ much closer to the norm I see okay so
6:15this which the point here is we
6:16eliminate the argument from racism which
6:20leaves us with the argument from
6:22discrimination and what you're saying is
6:24no no no no look at example after
6:26example after example where we know in
6:28more or less controlled experiments
6:30families with five kids twins and so
6:33forth that there are factors that have
6:35nothing to do with justice or injustice
6:38but that are simply happens
6:41yes yes yes also it's true it's also
6:43true and for child families to reach out
6:45300 mm Li's oh it is true in Britain in
6:48Norway in any other a number of other
6:51countries where they've been huge tests
6:52done alright so again I'm going to take
6:57discrimination to disparities to bring
6:58it to American society it might seem
7:00strange right that during the 19th
7:01century of mass immigration from Europe
7:03to the United States it was not uncommon
7:06to find Jewish and Italian neighborhoods
7:09in New York represented by Irish
7:11politicians a situation that did not
7:14change until well into the 20th century
7:17how could this have been because if you
7:20look at the history of the three groups
7:21is clear if the Irish had a lot more
7:24political experience in Europe before
7:27before any of them ever set foot on
7:29American soil I mean it's really an when
7:32you think of how many factors there are
7:34at work it's incredible to think that
7:36they're gonna work out the same for
7:38almost any group yeah
7:41defined it anyway the other thing it's
7:44so frustrating
7:45I can I can come up with umpteen
7:48different examples of this the
7:51disparities in various situations
7:52including situations where there's not
7:55possible for it to be either
7:56discrimination or or genetics people on
8:00the other side cannot give you one
8:02example you can read reams of paper by
8:06advocates of social justice and not find
8:08one example anywhere in the world there
8:11are people who have done International
8:12Studies broad day like woat you know the
8:15French his stories in no society has all
8:19poor all parts of the population had the
8:23same outcomes all right
8:26you note also by the way that even
8:27within this I've found striking even
8:30within socio-economic bands or strata
8:32that is people who or ethnic groups that
8:33are actually doing pretty well there are
8:36differences that can be striking and to
8:39quote you again Jews have been
8:40especially well represented in retailing
8:42finance and garment production but by no
8:45means equally well well represented in
8:47heavy industries such as the production
8:49of steel or automobiles yes and it has
8:53nothing to do
8:54not we're not talking about relative
8:56disadvantage here they rose to success
8:58in different fields yeah
9:00from I don't know Andrew Carnegie I
9:04guess as a Scot who's doing steel and
9:06Ford is if the Ford and the Dodge
9:09Brothers are what northern European
9:11stock automobiles and it just worked out
9:13that way yeah for no invidious reason
9:16yeah alright you see if you just say yes
9:19well of course if I if I just quote the
9:21book to you you're going to say yes
9:23which is what you should do all the time
9:26alright to continue here to lay out your
9:29argument again I'm going to quote you
9:31but I'm going to get more than a yes out
9:32of your time on this this one
9:34statistical under-representation or over
9:36a representation of various groups is
9:38not peculiar to the United States or to
9:41our times for centuries there have been
9:44countries where most members of various
9:47professions and most business owners in
9:49whole industries have been members of
9:51some subordinate minority all right you
9:55present a couple of examples let's take
9:57a couple of examples the overseas
9:59Chinese in Southeast Asia oh yeah tell
10:01us about them oh my gosh the that some
10:05people call them the the Jews of
10:07Southeast Asia considering the numbers
10:09involved you might call the Jews the
10:11Chinese of Eastern Europe but there are
10:14there are country after country where
10:16over half of the retail outlets
10:18about by people who are Chinese I mean
10:20Malaysia Indonesia Thailand whatnot
10:23there are countries after countries
10:25where most of the billionaires are
10:27Chinese outside China
10:30outside China and this is one of the
10:31other things too is mister this ties in
10:33not to some extent with a genetic thing
10:35as of 1994 there were 57 million
10:39overseas Chinese and 1 billion people in
10:42China the over 57 million produces much
10:46wealth is the billion people in China
10:47all right Jews in Eastern Europe as
10:52another example yes AB ordinate group
10:54yes tell us about them it's very
10:57uncommon from retailing and many parts
11:01of Eastern Europe to be largely in the
11:04hands of Jews greatly over-represented
11:07and
11:08universities by the late 19th century
11:121/3 the people at the University of
11:15Vienna would use and they were usually a
11:17more successful students Indians in East
11:21Africa oh my gosh
11:23and you see something that ties in with
11:25a desire to confiscate the wealth of the
11:27wealthy they did that new ganda the
11:30people from India and Pakistan dominated
11:34a modern industry in that in that
11:37country eventually of course the
11:39politicians out decided the thing they
11:41should be expropriated they were
11:43expropriated they were sentence out not
11:47allowed to take any wealth with them but
11:48we need significance and all the stuff
11:50that was left there their businesses and
11:52so forth
11:53went went to the continent the Ugandan
11:55economy collapsed these people arrived
11:59destitute mostly in England and within a
12:04decade they were on their way to
12:06prosperity again the same thing with the
12:08Cubans here that went Castro took over
12:11Castro takes over 1959 a million Cubans
12:14leave with almost nothing yes and he
12:17left behind all the wealth they had in
12:18Cuba you fast forward a half a century
12:20and the Cuban American businesses in the
12:24United States had a revenue that was
12:27larger than the revenue of the entire
12:28nation of Cuba even though and and they
12:31weren't in the United States they
12:33weren't driving 1950s cars in the 21st
12:36century alright so the underlying
12:41assumption just to close up the argument
12:43here the underlying assumption of the
12:46social vision the vision of social
12:47justice that absent discrimination
12:49roughly equal outcomes will prevail is
12:54refuted by every page of recorded
12:56history yeah all right Jews in Eastern
12:59Europe overseas Chinese in Southeast
13:01Asia they rise in spite of
13:03discrimination yes all right
13:05ok and they rise better than the people
13:08who are discriminating against them all
13:11right we tend to think I believe of this
13:16new social vision social justice is
13:18something completely contemporary but
13:20you right
13:21has been prevalent for half a century
13:24you also argue not merely that it is
13:27mistaken but that it has done positive
13:31harm yes
13:33discrimination and disparities with the
13:35prevailing social vision came a more
13:38non-judgmental approach to behavior as
13:40well as multiculturalism a D emphasis on
13:43policing and punishments and an emphasis
13:46on demographically based fair shares for
13:49all so what you're talking about here is
13:52not explicitly governmental action or
13:55government programs but the way people
13:56begin thinking about society in the
14:00United States you continue murder rates
14:02rates of infection with venereal
14:04diseases and rates of teenage
14:06pregnancies were among the social
14:08pathologies who steep declines in the
14:101950s reverse and begin to get worse in
14:13the 1960s ok ideas alone it's what
14:19people that people carry in their heads
14:21but the idea is were carried out in
14:24policies in the classic place were in
14:26public housing projects people today
14:29think of a public housing projects is
14:31really just a bedlam and violence and so
14:34forth drug dens and Sophia I remember in
14:36the 1940s when one of our relatives was
14:39admitted to a public housing project in
14:41New York and we were so proud because
14:44back in those days you got admitted
14:46because even though you were just a
14:47working person you had a good record you
14:50got a steady job women with with with
14:55nut with fatherless children would not
14:57admit it and so on and so it was not
15:01just that the place was good it was that
15:03it was one honor that he'd passed these
15:06tests to get to get into these places
15:09you tell a tale of two blackouts that
15:14illustrate what's taking place here the
15:16first blackout takes place in November
15:181965 I can actually remember that we
15:22lived in upstate New York I lived in
15:24upstate New York and and there was a
15:26month that I can remember when we were
15:27having dinner and the lights in the
15:29house went dark mm-hmm and then came
15:31back up for a moment we all looked at
15:33each other and thought what was what
15:34what
15:35just happened well of course when you
15:36turn on the television we found out what
15:38happened huge power outage and New York
15:40City where his upstate the lights just
15:43went down and came back on in New York
15:44City the the city went black the whole
15:47night yeah and you write that that night
15:50the crime rate was lower yeah than usual
15:541965 second blackout very similar event
15:57takes place in July 1977 and you write
16:00again New York City was again
16:02dark throughout the night but now there
16:06was widespread looting and arson yes
16:10sixty-five people behaved themselves in
16:13New York City in the door yes and in
16:15seventy so what what happens in those 12
16:17years this was this was one of the many
16:19things that turned a turn to the worst
16:22in the 1960s there's a whole slew of
16:25them Steven Pinker has a book about
16:28international murder rates and he said
16:32the general trend over the centuries is
16:34for the murder rate to go down and but
16:36in but in the 1960s the rate did a
16:40u-turn as he put it it way when it went
16:42right right up and this was common
16:44across Western societies and it is
16:47because of the same vision out there and
16:49the vision so I'm trying to I guess one
16:53thing I'm trying to get at here is the
16:54extent to which how does it work itself
16:58out are the cops because of this new
17:00social vision between 1965 people know
17:03that if they miss be if they try looting
17:05or arson the cops will come right at
17:07them no no no there's only so much the
17:10house can do the first line of defense
17:14is morality and the law as a statement
17:18of what the principles are you deal adju
17:21demise that and all you've got other
17:23police there aren't that many police
17:25that you know you could double the
17:28number of policemen
17:29and if you destroy it appear the put the
17:31morality you're not getting anywhere so
17:34in 1965 people who had grown up let's
17:37see 65 that's going to be dominated by
17:39people who'd been through the adults in
17:4165 remember the depression yes they
17:44remember the Second World War
17:45yes they've had the experience of
17:47rebuilding the country
17:48in the 1950s and they take for granted
17:52what we would now term traditional
17:55moralities that right yes you just don't
17:57steal things yes you don't destroy
17:59property yeah
18:00so what another another example it was
18:04exchange buffet restaurant that I
18:06mentioned yes yes yes and I remember
18:08going to those very explain what's going
18:11to say you you go in and you pick up you
18:14go through the line and pick up your own
18:15food and then you break your bring your
18:17dishes a little bit there and then you
18:18come to the cashier and you tell the
18:20cashier how much you owe and they're at
18:2570 some of the the 70 some of these
18:27restaurants there were a lot of them in
18:30New York dozens dozens all right all
18:32right and and and that they lasted for
18:3478 years in the 1960s they collapsed
18:39because people no longer or honest
18:43all right in England it was even more
18:48dramatic because they really sort of set
18:50the standard for self-controlled
18:52societies and of course if you have a
18:54lot of self-control you don't need a lot
18:56of government control right but which
18:59you don't have it the government is not
19:01gonna you're not by itself and the
19:04government itself is often tainted as it
19:07were about by these same ideas that you
19:10example in London in 1954 there were a
19:14grand total of 12 armed robberies in the
19:17City of London
19:18that year at a time when anybody could
19:21buy a shotgun with no questions asked
19:23fast forward a couple of decades and
19:26there at 1400 armed robberies in London
19:30despite some of the most strict gun
19:32control laws in the world
19:34god I'm so I'm still struck what do we
19:39make about the speed with which society
19:42changes again you've got what I love
19:44about the to blackouts ours because
19:46they're two snaps there they're almost
19:48literally what do people get up to when
19:50they think nobody's looking yeah lights
19:51go out and it's just a dozen years
19:54between good behavior people helping
19:57each other out in this in this difficult
19:59and terrible behavior where their loot
20:02setting fire to property and how is it
20:05that ideas the wrong ideas can percolate
20:09through Siskin so change behavior in
20:11such a brief period of time well it it
20:14was going I mean it was these ideas
20:16weren't invented in the 1960s right but
20:19but but the number of people who
20:21progressively move towards those ideas
20:24greatly increased and the whole
20:26political and intellectual scene was
20:28very different all right
20:31you spend a good deal of time in
20:33discrimination and disparities on the
20:36african-american experience in this
20:39country mm-hmm and in particular you
20:42spend time presenting what might almost
20:46be termed a century of hidden history
20:48hidden outside but displayed in this
20:52book I'm going to quote you the plain
20:56fact is that the black poverty rate
20:59declined excuse me I should say the
21:02hidden century from the end of the Civil
21:05War to the enactment of the Great
21:07Society yes it's pretty much an even
21:08hundred years yes and on one measure
21:11after another you argue
21:14african-americans make progress yes
21:17their incomes rise educational
21:21attainment begins to take off family
21:24structure remains intact more intact by
21:28some measures than that of white
21:29Americans and now to quote you the plain
21:32fact is that the black poverty rate
21:34declined from 87 percent in 1942 47
21:38percent in 1960 prior to the great
21:42expansion of the welfare state that
21:43began in the 1960s under the Johnson
21:46administration and as late as 1969
21:50two-thirds of all black children were
21:53living with black parents and then we
21:56get the Great Society enacted again it
21:58quotes you there was a far more modest
22:00decline in poverty rate among blacks
22:02after the Johnson administration's
22:05massive war on poverty and by 1995 only
22:09one-third of black children were living
22:11with both parents and among black
22:13families in poverty 85
22:16son of the children had no father
22:18president a century of intact
22:21african-american families and economic
22:24and educational progress and then it all
22:28goes begins to slide away things start
22:30to get worse what happened
22:32well the welfare state itself happened
22:35but more than that it's the welfare
22:37state vision their idea that the world
22:42owes you something takes all and it
22:45happens it happened in Britain where the
22:47underclass is white is amazing the
22:49detective depicted parallels and and
22:52similarly the the nation note with
22:54schools and in Britain kids and then in
22:59low-income neighborhoods who want to
23:02learn get beaten up by the by by that by
23:04that by their classmates because that's
23:07where you go out of this class treachery
23:09over there its class that's the big deal
23:11here it's race but the real net result
23:13is the same
23:14Tom you had to have been a good student
23:16when you were a little kid growing up in
23:18Harlem what what reaction do you
23:21remember anybody saying no no no don't
23:23don't don't be too don't be too don't be
23:25too good a student you'll make everybody
23:28else look bad in the family or what what
23:30was it like in your generation when
23:32people were beginning to discover that
23:34little Tommy Sol was a pretty smart kid
23:35well actually when I first got to Harlem
23:38I was not regarded as a pretty SWOT yeah
23:41because I come out of the south and back
23:43in those days the southern education was
23:46so inferior than all other education
23:48that you were behind when you all my
23:51gosh I was in North Carolina I was among
23:54the top students in the class and and my
23:57first year in New York I was trailing
23:59whoever was the second worst student in
24:00the class how old were you when you
24:03moved from North Carolina up to Harlem
24:05nine-nine okay so but somewhere in there
24:08you get a library card and you start
24:11reading and oh you become a good student
24:13and what is the reaction of your your
24:15family and your neighbors and so forth
24:17as you begin to become a good student
24:19well I neighborhoods didn't didn't
24:21really know that oh the family was there
24:22they were so pleased and I still
24:25remember what to do they may when I was
24:26promoted to the seventh grade I wondered
24:28why and someone said to me you've now
24:31gone further than any of us Wow Wow
24:39you've just explained we get a century
24:42of progress that a retrogression as you
24:44call us and then the economics that was
24:48not was not the reason I mean there's no
24:50question that blacks in the 1960s at a
24:52higher standard of living than blacks in
24:541940 right right right right right so
24:57what how why is it I have to say I have
25:04to I get to the passages about
25:05african-american progress that century
25:07of progress and I have to reread them
25:09because they run so counter to what I
25:12believe I understand which is that the
25:15legacy of slavery is so deeply impressed
25:18on African Americans and it's the Great
25:20Society that begins to make some
25:23progress how is it that a whole century
25:26of American history is simply gone it
25:31doesn't get talked about that's not the
25:35only thing I you know from one of the
25:38other chapters there people who talk
25:40look talk about the 1920s the history of
25:44the 1920s is taught including in a
25:46history book written by a Stanford
25:48professor it sells for a hundred and
25:50sixteen dollars that I bought recently
25:52you know he tell he tells you what
25:54happened what Andrew Mellon said and how
25:56this was tax cuts for the rich and all
25:59you have to do is pick up melons book
26:01and you'll find out what a dream L has
26:02said and all you have to do is going in
26:05and that and yet the IRS data tonight e
26:08twenties you find that it bears no
26:10resemblance to what is said in this
26:12history book because one hundred and
26:14sixty dollars
26:15so ideologies Trump's historical
26:17understand I mean I I have I have the
26:20IRS data for every year of the 1920s in
26:23my file and it's just farcical and these
26:28are not stupid people and I don't
26:29believe it all of them were lying
26:30I believe that they've they've heard
26:32what other people have said and they
26:34repeated it and they haven't bothered to
26:36check the facts back to the African
26:40American experience the biggest internal
26:43creation in American history takes place
26:45as african-americans move from the south
26:48up to northern cities and there are it's
26:53almost again a kind of two snapshots
26:56again I'm quoting discrimination and
26:58disparities as blacks in northern cities
27:00this is the first arrivals to northern
27:03cities become more acculturated to the
27:05norms of the larger society racial
27:08barriers begin to erode this is in the
27:1019th century right
27:11in Illinois restrictions on access to
27:13public accommodations for blacks are
27:15removed in Detroit blacks had been
27:19denied the right to vote in 1850 but
27:22they were voting by the 1880s and then
27:24the 1890s blacks were being elected to
27:27state wide offices in Michigan the 1880
27:31census showed that in Detroit it was not
27:33uncommon for blacks and whites to live
27:35next door to each other okay
27:39african-americans move north and all
27:42kinds of racial progress takes place but
27:45then and again I quote you however a
27:49major major retrogression set in later
27:52in northern cities with the arrival of
27:54large masses of black migrants from the
27:56south in the early 20th century so
27:59describe that retrogression what begins
28:01to go wrong well in Washington DC for
28:04example blacks had been able to go to
28:07restaurants theaters and so on prior to
28:12the mass migrations that began in the
28:15early 20th century when I first arrived
28:17in Washington blacks could not go to
28:19those things and then under 19 1950 so
28:22things had gotten worse
28:23oh yes yes I mean it's not so much the
28:25the movement of blacks to the north and
28:27then in the 19th centuries it was blacks
28:30away in the north which are very small
28:32populations and they're surrounded by a
28:35vastly larger white population and with
28:38other groups and similar situations you
28:41get you get a a culturation by the
28:45smaller group to the norms and a larger
28:47group over a period of time and so it
28:49wasn't a big big big migrations but the
28:53blacks for example at the end of the
28:5519th century
28:56New York most blacks in New York had
28:58been born in New York by the at the end
29:00of the 1970s and so you had a very
29:03different population than you had when
29:05you have massive numbers of people all
29:07right you and you right neither the era
29:09of progress in race relations nor the
29:12era of retrogression were simply
29:15inexplicable mood swings among whites
29:17the behavior of blacks themselves had
29:20changed yeah explain that well the South
29:23is a different culture and then again to
29:26some extent it was an example of that
29:28that I did mine education was just not
29:30the same as the education of kids who've
29:32been in Harlem all along so it took me
29:35you know a year or two to catch up I see
29:38I see okay so all right I'm trying to
29:43think this through that if the I mean
29:45for example III and story that I've told
29:47so many times that the and that that my
29:51family found the kid a black kid in
29:53Harlem who was very well-educated and so
29:56forth and they made it a point that he
29:58should he should meet me and show me the
30:01rogues and he took me to a public
30:03library at the age of nine I had no idea
30:06what a public library was and it was
30:09only with great reluctance that was I
30:11persuaded to take out a library card and
30:14borrow a couple of books but of course
30:16that was a turning point
30:20social justice today so social justice
30:24the idea of correcting for unequal
30:26outcomes in particular redistributing
30:29wealth from the rich to the poor so
30:32you've already argued we've already
30:34discussed this that the very notion is a
30:37historical hmm and misguided but you
30:40argue something more there is a crucial
30:43question as to whether the
30:45redistribution of income of wealth can
30:47actually be done in any comprehensive
30:50and sustainable sense
30:51close quote what do you mean well I've
30:55used the example of world they say that
30:57we need to send a telegram to Alexandria
30:59okay is your Cortes zero I think it
31:01would be a vast waste of money but I've
31:05used the example so far of the of the
31:08Cubans you know right
31:10the East Asians but they're all over the
31:12places and then in the 15th century in
31:14the end of the 15th century Spain
31:17decided to expel all Jews and it often
31:19happens in each age they're not allowed
31:20to take any wealth with them and so they
31:22they go to various places including the
31:24Netherlands and in over time they again
31:30rise to prosperity in the Netherlands
31:33helping to increase the Netherlands
31:34economy the Huguenots in France were
31:38being persecuted they flee to England
31:41and Switzerland and they take their
31:43skills with him now prior to that time
31:46France was big there they were there was
31:48no watch industry in England prior to
31:51the arrival of Huguenots so now the
31:54British could buy their watches from
31:57London instead of from France and
31:58moreover the London watch makers could
32:01compete in the international market with
32:03the French watchmakers and in
32:05Switzerland this is what helped
32:07Switzerland to become and remain to this
32:09day with a dominant watch breaking
32:11country in the world and you you can't
32:14confiscate the source of the of their
32:17wealth
32:17you can converse safety and you and I
32:20did although I didn't go into it in this
32:21book this is true of people who wanted
32:25want to do this on a local community
32:26level I mean you know Detroit was once a
32:29prosperous place they followed policies
32:32they drove the prosperous people out and
32:34the price and then of course we had they
32:36had to leave all their businesses and so
32:38forth in Detroit that was there no use
32:40without the people who knew how to
32:42operate it those people I'm sure I've
32:44done much better
32:45Detroit has never fully recovered from
32:47that mm-hmm
32:48so the idea here is you can you can
32:50confiscate wealth it's already existing
32:53you can confidently wears out goods yes
32:56yes but what point is it all right so
32:58again I'm quoting going to quote the
33:00book once again physical wealth is a
33:02product of human capital the knowledge
33:06skills talents and other qualities that
33:09exist inside the heads of people where
33:14it cannot be confiscated in a closed
33:17quote so the central question you're
33:22getting me
33:23correct me if I get this wrong because I
33:24have a feeling you're going to slap me
33:26around what I'm about to say
33:27the central question not just of
33:29economic growth but of social justice is
33:32not the distribution of wealth it's
33:35access to human cat it's access to
33:39education is really what it comes down
33:41to you and goes yeah encompasses
33:43education becomes it's not but it's not
33:45limited to that
33:46so because it's also the store so so
33:49where you have where you have social
33:51pathologies if it's very hard I'm just
33:54making this up to see how you respond to
33:56it it's very hard for example figure
34:00that I quoted earlier where African
34:04American kids living in poverty 85% of
34:06them grow up with only one parent
34:08present that makes it harder for those
34:11no there's no two ways about to acquire
34:13human capital so so access to education
34:17I'm fumbling here access to education
34:19some how is it is it the role of
34:22government to foster certain kinds of
34:25social stability or social skills well
34:28you you you all you can do you can't
34:30give anybody an education you can offer
34:33them an education you can show them
34:35where the public library is that's right
34:37but that but that but that that's that's
34:40it okay all right
34:44and now something else so social justice
34:49is an actual impediment to acquiring
34:52human capital because if you're what it
34:56tells you is that the reason you have
34:58less is because people have malevolently
35:01kept you from from having the access to
35:04the tool to all the good things in life
35:06and that and if that's the case why in
35:09the world should you knock yourself out
35:12learn a whole new culture to develop
35:14wholes sets of skills and so forth
35:17sacrificed in the present for the future
35:19when it's gonna mean nothing one of two
35:22of the stories I've heard that it really
35:24pains me greatly a couple of young black
35:26guys is it two different guys in two
35:28different sets of stories express the
35:30desire to become a pilot and they say I
35:34thought about joining the Air Force
35:36but I realize that the white people are
35:39not gonna let me become a pilot and
35:40they're saying this after there was a
35:43whole squadron of black fighter pilots
35:45in world war ii and after they have been
35:48black generals in the Air Force but this
35:52vision that they're that they're that
35:54they're bombarded with tells them that
35:56that's not possible that something
35:58that's already happened is not possible
36:00so so so the social fit the notion that
36:04you've been wrong yes has the effect of
36:08of what of of encouraging encouraging
36:13passivity no resentment resentment yes
36:16but not but not but not the because
36:19social mobility is not some easy thing I
36:21don't know if you read the book about
36:23the hillbilly elegy oh yes yes always
36:26advanced yes that's right and he go well
36:29what a what a trauma it is for him to
36:31come out of his background and and
36:34achieve something in the world why in
36:36the world would you put yourself through
36:38that if you thought that at the end of
36:40it all they're gonna say no we're not
36:42gonna let you fly any of our planes damn
36:43it right right and also if so if you
36:46think you've been done if you think
36:48you've been wronged your recourse might
36:50also be more likely to politics to try
36:53to try to redirect this whole review
36:56attribution oh yeah rather than hit the
36:58books acquire the skills get the well
37:02and with the other thing to I one of
37:03them affected my favorite statistic in
37:07there
37:07is that being poverty rate among blacks
37:12as a whole was 22% mmm-hmm among whites
37:15as a whole is 11% and among black
37:18married couples is 7.5% so it's been an
37:27and black married couples have never had
37:30I'm a poverty rate as high as 10% in any
37:33year since 1994 all right so to the to
37:39the to the crime what is to be done tom
37:42so all answers it's been done get on
37:45education stay merit get married have
37:48kids after you get married
37:49that's that's sort of the answer right
37:51well yes and the things that worked for
37:54other people were 10 10 that worked
37:55pretty generally all right all right
37:59reparations oh I knew you'd like this
38:02one New York Times columnist David
38:04Brooks in a column last month and titled
38:07the case for reparations quote we are at
38:12a moment of make-or-break racial
38:14reckoning we're a nation coming apart at
38:17the seams
38:18a nation in which each tribe has its own
38:20narrative and the narratives are
38:22generally resentment narratives the need
38:26now is to consolidate all the different
38:28narratives and make them reconciliation
38:30and possibility narratives reparations
38:34are a drastic policy and hard to execute
38:37but the very act of talking about and
38:40designing them reparations policies
38:43heals a wound oh it's one of many
38:47reasons I don't read David Brooks heals
38:50the wound and and opens a new story
38:53close quote you can imagine somebody
38:55whose parents great-grandparents came
38:58here in the eighteen 1880s
39:00after the Civil War being asked to give
39:03reparations to people yeah yeah even in
39:08the even in the antebellum south most
39:10White's did not have slaves the cost of
39:13one male adult slave was more than the
39:17average white person earn all year so
39:21they weren't all living in terror with
39:22it were there plantations and all the
39:24rest of it it's insane the other thing I
39:28have a slight sidebar and they on the
39:31history of slavery mmm-hmm the history
39:33of slavery slavery existed all over the
39:36world for thousands of years among all
39:39sorts of people as far back as the
39:42history of the human species goes it's
39:46one of many evils that the left tries to
39:49localize when it when in fact it is it
39:52is a universal evil so it is this too
39:56stronger statement that it is what is
39:59distinctive about the United States
40:02is not that at countenanced slavery in
40:05the 18th and 19th centuries but that it
40:09has taken such efforts to overcome the
40:11legacy of slavery since no that's there
40:14that's part of it but more than that as
40:19much as slavery is repudiated around the
40:21world today prior to the 18th century
40:25I know of no serious effort to abolish
40:27the institution anywhere anywhere
40:29anywhere not in Africa not in no Arabia
40:32not in Africa in the 21st century
40:34hmm what Adam Smith wrote in 1776 that
40:38the only place in the world where
40:40slavery had been abolished completely
40:41was Western Europe and so this was as
40:47late as as late as the as late as the
40:49year this country was founded yes and so
40:51the idea that this is something that the
40:53United States had nobody else had or in
40:56all the other other countries that
40:58didn't have it's been estimated that
41:00there are more slaves in India than in
41:02the entire Western Hemisphere and that's
41:05quite and that's before and after
41:07Columbus got here right last questions
41:10Tom a statistic in 2015 this is most
41:14recent year I could find in 2015 black
41:17households at the 20th and 40th
41:20percentile of household income earned an
41:23average of 55 percent as much as white
41:26households at those same percentiles
41:2820th and 40th and that figure from 19 a
41:31bigger part and that figure from 2015 is
41:34exactly the same as the figure in 1967
41:38so you can imagine people of goodwill
41:42looking at that and saying only 55
41:46percent as much as white households and
41:49it hasn't changed since 1967 dr. Sol I
41:53grant all of these arguments but even at
41:56that something must be done and Tom so
42:00all replies hell one way would be to get
42:05rid of the welfare state but also those
42:08kind of numbers of resolutely what they
42:09have in mind I don't think perhaps not
42:14one other problems are those kind of
42:16numbers which I going to in a different
42:17chapter on numbers is that household and
42:22family income statistics have a lot of
42:24problems with them and they don't they
42:26don't reflect for example in kind
42:28transfers right and and the in-kind
42:32transfer is not only up from government
42:34welfare payments yeah that sort of thing
42:35but more than that the in-kind transfers
42:38are among the reason that people don't
42:39have to earn more money right okay once
42:45again discrimination and disparities the
42:47most spectacularly successful political
42:50doctrine that the 20th century was
42:51Marxism yet if the wealth of rich
42:54capitalists came from the exploitation
42:56of poor workers then we might expect to
42:58find that where there are larger
43:00concentrations of rich capitalists we
43:02would find correspondingly larger
43:04concentrations of poverty the facts
43:07point in the opposite direction explain
43:12what you mean by this well the United
43:14States has five times as many
43:17billionaires as there are and all of the
43:20Middle East and Africa put together and
43:22so according to the logic of Marxism
43:25Americans should have a ordinary
43:26Americans should have a lower standard
43:28of living than the standard of living of
43:30people in the middle in the Middle East
43:32and Africa it is just that's the
43:34opposite I mean Americans on welfare
43:35have a higher standard of living than
43:37the average person in Africa in the
43:39Middle East so Marxism is simply wrong
43:43wrong demonstrable wrong yes obviously
43:45wrong well obvious to some people all
43:48right obvious to you now I Lord you into
43:53a trap
43:54a recent YouGov poll found that 19
43:58percent of Millennials one in five young
44:02Americans holds a favorable view of
44:05communism now let me quote one of these
44:08young Millennials a new member of
44:10Congress alexandria okz of cortez who
44:14represents the bronx not all that far
44:15from where you grew up
44:16quote to me capitalism is irredeemable
44:22close quote tom soul replies
44:27- maybe they're in the movie but to the
44:32okay so let's Lilith set alexandria kzo
44:35cortez to one side - the one in five
44:37young Americans you it holds a favorable
44:39view of communism how can this be what's
44:41going on I think the education system
44:44has a lot to do with that back when I
44:47was quite young 20 years old I read a
44:51book called China shakes the world about
44:53how the Communists took over in China
44:54and the last chapter he tries to explain
44:56it and he says it's the education system
44:59had a lot to do with now at the time I
45:02struck me as a very hard explanation now
45:05that I've had a half a century or so in
45:07the American education system it doesn't
45:09strike me as odd at all all right Tom
45:12would you closed by reading a passage
45:14from your book from this new edition of
45:18discrimination and disparities the last
45:22Western nation to end slavery Brazil did
45:26so in 1888 and the first totalitarian
45:29dictatorship arose in Russia in 1917
45:33there was barely a generation between
45:36the suppression of one form of
45:39monumentally brutal subjugation of human
45:41beings and the creation of another yet
45:45these dehumanizing dictatorships were
45:48often founded on stirring rhetoric and
45:50loft divisions that resonated with many
45:53leading intellectuals in countries
45:55around the world there could hardly be a
45:58clearer example of the need for the
46:01historic warning eternal vigilance is
46:04the price of Liberty Tom's sole author
46:07of this new edition of discrimination
46:09and disparities thank you thank you for
46:13uncommon knowledge the Hoover
46:14Institution and Fox Nation I'm Peter
46:17Robinson
46:20[Music]
46:27you

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