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Governments Make Everything Worse - With Wanjiru Njoya · UK Column Radio

0:07
Speaker 1: Hello.
0:07
Speaker 2: I'm Charles Mannett with a UK Column interview, notes for
0:11
Speaker 2: which will be published at UK column dot Org. Today
0:15
Speaker 2: I have with me Wanduru Enjoya who describes herself as
0:19
Speaker 2: a property rights absolutist and shares scholar in residence at
0:24
Speaker 2: the Misas Institute in Alabama. Wanjuru, thank you very much
0:29
Speaker 2: for joining UK Column.
0:30
Speaker 1: Caaribusana, thanks thanks so much for inviting me. Very happy
0:35
Speaker 1: to speak with you today.
0:37
Speaker 2: Good Now, as I say, you have a particular post
0:41
Speaker 2: in an academic capacity, but I think what I'd like
0:44
Speaker 2: to do is lead the audience sort of up to
0:46
Speaker 2: that point. So can you just give us a background
0:49
Speaker 2: into your life, but particularly what it is that set
0:53
Speaker 2: you off in motion as an academic and how your
0:55
Speaker 2: upbringing has sort of informed the choices that you've gone
0:58
Speaker 2: on to make.
0:59
Speaker 1: I suppose I come from a fairly academic family, so
1:03
Speaker 1: there's lots of academics in my family where I think
1:07
Speaker 1: all of us PhDs. So I think just grown up
1:12
Speaker 1: in a very academic context, and it's been academic in
1:17
Speaker 1: the old sense, which is about being interested in reading
1:23
Speaker 1: and finding out about different fields and seeing how they
1:26
Speaker 1: all linked together across the arts the humanities, the sciences.
1:31
Speaker 1: So that's how I got into academic life. And my
1:34
Speaker 1: academic background is in law, so I have a bunch
1:37
Speaker 1: of law degrees and I'm interested. So law in an
1:41
Speaker 1: academic sense is less about litigation and going to court,
1:47
Speaker 1: and it's more about how we think about law, how
1:51
Speaker 1: it influences our life, how it reflects our culture and
1:54
Speaker 1: our society. So you said earlier that I described myself
1:58
Speaker 1: as a property rights of solid That's what it is.
2:01
Speaker 1: A lot of my writing is about what do we
2:04
Speaker 1: mean by property rights, Why are they important, how are
2:07
Speaker 1: they linked to who we are as human beings, the
2:10
Speaker 1: idea of self ownership. So it's very academic in that sense.
2:14
Speaker 1: It's not about, I suppose what most people would think
2:18
Speaker 1: about laws, how you know, fighting cases or something like that.
2:22
Speaker 1: So I've taught for many years in British universities and
2:29
Speaker 1: as time has gone by, so most of my academic
2:33
Speaker 1: teaching and writing has been in property law, corporate law,
2:37
Speaker 1: these kinds of fields that are probably nothing to do
2:40
Speaker 1: with what most people hear me talk about these days,
2:44
Speaker 1: which is about equality and freedom of contract, freedom of association.
2:50
Speaker 1: So how I got into that field of writing about
2:55
Speaker 1: law was because I felt that some of our fundamental
2:58
Speaker 1: principles being forgotten.
3:01
Speaker 3: So you know, it's very easy.
3:03
Speaker 1: To talk about markets, which I talk about a lot nowadays,
3:07
Speaker 1: markets buying and selling, free trade, these kinds of ideas.
3:11
Speaker 1: It's very easy to talk about that and to forget
3:13
Speaker 1: the fundamental underlying principles like freedom of contract and freedom
3:18
Speaker 1: of association. And I felt that these were being forgotten.
3:22
Speaker 1: If all you're talking about is people trading and the
3:26
Speaker 1: terms of trade, then it's very easy for governments to say, well,
3:30
Speaker 1: we could think of better in terms of trade, so
3:33
Speaker 1: let's impose them.
3:34
Speaker 3: You've completely at that.
3:35
Speaker 1: Point and moured yourself from the fundamental principles of liberty.
3:41
Speaker 1: So that's what my recent books have been about economic
3:45
Speaker 1: freedom and social justice talks a lot about freedom of contract,
3:49
Speaker 1: redressing historical injustice, talks about the ideas I was describing
3:53
Speaker 1: earlier as self ownership and private property. So I suppose
3:58
Speaker 1: that's been the trajector of my academic career, and now
4:03
Speaker 1: I talk a lot about free markets at the Mesa's Institute,
4:07
Speaker 1: where about Austrian economics, which is which promotes free markets,
4:14
Speaker 1: and my input in that context is to explain why
4:19
Speaker 1: free markets are important, why capitalism is important. I think
4:23
Speaker 1: the article you saw was how capitalism defeats racism. So
4:30
Speaker 1: it's basically about saying what is why is capitalism or
4:34
Speaker 1: value to us as human beings. It's not just about
4:38
Speaker 1: trading in markets so you can make a lot of money,
4:40
Speaker 1: which is what many people think of. It's not just
4:42
Speaker 1: about profit making, but it's also about the human spirit.
4:48
Speaker 1: I suppose you could say what we want to be
4:51
Speaker 1: and how we want to achieve our goals and things
4:54
Speaker 1: that we value, and that's important for everyone, regardless of
4:58
Speaker 1: their race. So that's been a stronger theme in my
5:02
Speaker 1: writing in more recent years.
5:04
Speaker 2: Excellent introduction. Now, before we get into exactly what you're
5:07
Speaker 2: talking about, the sort of relationship between capitalism and racism,
5:11
Speaker 2: and a few other things I'd like to go through,
5:13
Speaker 2: but particularly in relation to the mesas institute and the
5:17
Speaker 2: sort of the genesis of it, but particularly given the
5:22
Speaker 2: circumstances around academia in the wider context at the moment,
5:26
Speaker 2: and how challenging it is to express the sorts of
5:28
Speaker 2: views you have, reasonable as they may sound to the
5:31
Speaker 2: audience the UK column audience, certainly, but just could you
5:35
Speaker 2: just give us a bit. You know, where does the
5:37
Speaker 2: sort of the institute sit and how is it regarded
5:40
Speaker 2: by sort of comparable bodies or indeed treated you know
5:44
Speaker 2: by say even the media or governments and that sort
5:48
Speaker 2: of thing.
5:50
Speaker 1: So the Mesa's Institute is essentially a school of economics.
5:55
Speaker 3: It does.
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Speaker 1: If you go on to the Mesa's Institute website at
5:59
Speaker 1: mesas dot org, it says free, it says Austrian Economics,
6:05
Speaker 1: freedom and peace. So and many economists associated with the
6:10
Speaker 1: Austrian school of economics are writing about libertarian ideas of
6:17
Speaker 1: liberty and foreign policy that's related to how we can
6:23
Speaker 1: achieve peace. So there's a lot of ideas that I mean,
6:27
Speaker 1: anybody can go on the Mesa's website and see.
6:29
Speaker 3: But the primary goal of.
6:31
Speaker 1: The institute is Austrian economics. It's a school of economics
6:35
Speaker 1: and teachers economics to students. So primarily in terms of
6:42
Speaker 1: the perception of it, it's as a school of economics
6:45
Speaker 1: that's outside what you might call the mainstream economics, which
6:52
Speaker 1: is very interventionist. So Austrian economics is a school of
6:56
Speaker 1: economics that says that the government should stay out of
7:00
Speaker 1: regulating markets and that exchange between human beings is based
7:05
Speaker 1: on volunte exchange. You know, I want I have something
7:09
Speaker 1: to sell, and you want to buy what I'm selling,
7:11
Speaker 1: and that's all it's about, and government should not be intervening.
7:16
Speaker 1: So I suppose in that sense you're asking how it's regarded.
7:19
Speaker 1: I suppose in that sense you could say it's regarded
7:21
Speaker 1: as more, sorry as stronger in its defense of the
7:28
Speaker 1: free market than the mainstream. So if you think of
7:31
Speaker 1: the mainstream, let's say the Chicago School of Economics, they
7:35
Speaker 1: would be also saying that the government should stay out
7:39
Speaker 1: of market exchange, but they would be conceding, I think
7:45
Speaker 1: conceding is a good word. They would be conceding that
7:48
Speaker 1: sometimes government interventions may be useful. So somebody like Hayek
7:55
Speaker 1: would be I think a good example of that. Even
7:58
Speaker 1: though he's regarded as an Austrian, he would be regarded
8:02
Speaker 1: as closer to the Chicago way of thinking in that
8:05
Speaker 1: sense where you say, sometimes you may need government interventions
8:09
Speaker 1: for example for education, you know, unemployment support or things
8:15
Speaker 1: like that. How the Austrian school would be regarded would
8:18
Speaker 1: be saying, no, you don't need government interventions because government
8:23
Speaker 1: interventions make things worse. So that's the way it to
8:27
Speaker 1: be regarded, and as we live in a very strongly
8:30
Speaker 1: pro interventionist society today, that's regarded by many people as
8:38
Speaker 1: complete anathema, like well, what do you mean we don't
8:40
Speaker 1: need the government to intervene. If governments don't intervene, who's
8:45
Speaker 1: going to protect us?
8:47
Speaker 3: And that again has.
8:48
Speaker 1: Been a very strong theme in my work, where I'm
8:50
Speaker 1: saying this idea that you need the government to protect
8:53
Speaker 1: you is driven by fear of markets, which is an
8:57
Speaker 1: unwarranted fear. If you're going to say, well, you know,
9:02
Speaker 1: in markets, things could go wrong and I could end
9:04
Speaker 1: up in a very bad place, and that's why I
9:05
Speaker 1: need some protection, you could say the same about governments.
9:09
Speaker 1: Governments intervene, they try to make things better, they make
9:13
Speaker 1: things a whole lot worse. And so that's what we're
9:16
Speaker 1: trying to show, I think, is that interventionism tends to
9:21
Speaker 1: be judged. And this is a point that's been made
9:23
Speaker 1: by many economists, not just Austrians. So if you think
9:26
Speaker 1: of somebody like Walter Williams, who wasn't an Austrian, he
9:29
Speaker 1: also often made that point that we shouldn't judge government
9:33
Speaker 1: interventions by their intentions or the government wants to help everybody,
9:37
Speaker 1: but by their effects and their outcomes, and that's what
9:41
Speaker 1: I think the Austrian School emphasizers. So that's how it
9:45
Speaker 1: would be regarded. I would say that in that sphere
9:49
Speaker 1: of the economic world, it's.
9:51
Speaker 2: Completely fascinating and it will resonate absolutely with our audience.
9:55
Speaker 2: I mean we have an international audience, but certainly the
9:57
Speaker 2: British contingent among that will recognize absolutely your point that
10:01
Speaker 2: government intervention simply makes things worse, and that's becoming more
10:06
Speaker 2: readily observable by each passing day. That being the case,
10:11
Speaker 2: how do you and those that share your views and
10:15
Speaker 2: the sort of praxeological approach to Austrian economics, how do
10:20
Speaker 2: you exert influence?
10:23
Speaker 1: So it's always been very important as part of the
10:28
Speaker 1: Mesa's Institute to say that we're you know, we're not
10:32
Speaker 1: a think tank. That's why I said earlier that we're
10:35
Speaker 1: a school of economics, and I would say teaching economics,
10:38
Speaker 1: especially to students, is the primary activity, but not just
10:41
Speaker 1: to students but to anybody. It's a lifelong learning process.
10:47
Speaker 1: So we're not a think tank. We're not there to
10:49
Speaker 1: write I don't know, policy papers that influence I don't
10:53
Speaker 1: know the movers and shakers of the world. Truth and
10:58
Speaker 1: reality is very important to watch we're doing and what
11:01
Speaker 1: we write about, even though it may be that that's
11:04
Speaker 1: going to be rejected by whoever's making decisions about I
11:08
Speaker 1: often refer to them in my informal writing as our
11:12
Speaker 1: lords and masters. Okay, maybe they don't care about truth
11:15
Speaker 1: or reality, but we are insisting that truth matters, reality matters.
11:20
Speaker 1: So I've had a few recent articles on that. I'm
11:24
Speaker 1: critical of this idea that, oh, there's no such thing
11:27
Speaker 1: as truth.
11:27
Speaker 3: You have your truth.
11:28
Speaker 1: I have my truth, and you know there's no such
11:30
Speaker 1: thing as reality. Reality is a social construct. You make
11:33
Speaker 1: your reality, I make my. So we are talking about
11:37
Speaker 1: truth and reality without regard to whether the government is
11:42
Speaker 1: listening or whether it's influencing them or not. They probably
11:45
Speaker 1: don't care what we're saying, but we want to reach
11:49
Speaker 1: people out there who are looking around and thinking something
11:53
Speaker 1: doesn't seem right. So, just to give an example, I'm
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Speaker 1: describing in my last book, which I co authored with
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Speaker 1: my miss colleague David Gordon, it's called Redressing Historical Injustice.
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Speaker 1: And in the forward to that book preface to that book,
12:14
Speaker 1: I should say, David Gordon writes that we know that
12:19
Speaker 1: our view may not be popular, we know that our
12:23
Speaker 1: view may not be influential.
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Speaker 3: We're saying we shouldn't be paying.
12:27
Speaker 1: Reparations to people for historical injustices that happened before any
12:32
Speaker 1: of us were born. And we know that may not
12:35
Speaker 1: be a popular view because what's popularized for people to say, oh,
12:39
Speaker 1: I want my I want my reparations, I want my
12:42
Speaker 1: money from the government. So we know it's not a
12:45
Speaker 1: popular view, but we still think it's important to express
12:48
Speaker 1: the truth. And we also believe that many people out
12:52
Speaker 1: there want to know what's true. So that's that's whom
12:57
Speaker 1: we're trying to reach.
12:59
Speaker 2: Yes, I think really, when I was talking about influence,
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Speaker 2: I yeah, you're quite right to clarify though, of course,
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Speaker 2: that you're not in any way I think tank and
13:05
Speaker 2: you're not. You're not seeking to have that sort of engagement.
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Speaker 2: I think really I meant through the sort of alumni body.
13:11
Speaker 2: You know, those that have been educated by you and
13:14
Speaker 2: your colleagues. You know where do they go off to
13:16
Speaker 2: and what do they what sorts of things are they
13:18
Speaker 2: getting involved in that you can you can sort of
13:21
Speaker 2: track that. You know that path through.
13:26
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good question. I'm not sure that i'd
13:29
Speaker 1: be best qualified to talk about that because I haven't
13:33
Speaker 1: tracked it myself, but just based on what I can
13:37
Speaker 1: see and from the students that I've met and people
13:41
Speaker 1: that i've met at MISSUS conferences, there are people in
13:43
Speaker 1: all walks of life doing all kinds of you know,
13:47
Speaker 1: their their their lawyers, their doctors, their economists, their academics.
13:53
Speaker 3: They are.
13:56
Speaker 1: Businessmen, homemakers, you know, young young students, young teenagers, as
14:07
Speaker 1: older students at universities. So there's a whole spectrum of
14:11
Speaker 1: people who are in all walks of life. And that
14:14
Speaker 1: is actually the goal because we think of economics as life,
14:19
Speaker 1: as what we do, as our daily interactions. We don't
14:22
Speaker 1: think of it as some you know, some specialist activity
14:27
Speaker 1: that a few, you know, the chosen few, are going
14:30
Speaker 1: to be participating in. So that you know, we have
14:33
Speaker 1: Austrians everywhere. I read somewhere I forget who it was
14:37
Speaker 1: who said this, who said that, if you're thinking, if
14:41
Speaker 1: you're thinking rationally, and if common sense is important to you,
14:45
Speaker 1: and if you're interested in how society is ordered, and
14:48
Speaker 1: you're interested in what works, and you're interested in productivity
14:52
Speaker 1: and prosperity, then you're probably in Austrian These are the
14:56
Speaker 1: principles of Austrian economics. So I wouldn't say there's a
14:59
Speaker 1: speci civic field of influence that that Austrians are in.
15:04
Speaker 1: I would say that they're everywhere, and in more recent
15:09
Speaker 1: In more recent years, I think we've seen a lot
15:11
Speaker 1: of influence in people interested in the idea of peace
15:18
Speaker 1: and of not being constantly people constantly at each other's throats,
15:25
Speaker 1: fighting and trying to amass, you know, armies behind them,
15:29
Speaker 1: to sort out their differences, and to say, no, that's
15:32
Speaker 1: not how we're that's not how civilized societies sought out
15:36
Speaker 1: their differences. So the influence of Austrian economics is spreading
15:40
Speaker 1: I think in all these different fields.
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Speaker 2: That's terrifically heartening, especially as I say, in the current
15:45
Speaker 2: academic climates, at least the way that it seems to
15:47
Speaker 2: be going in the Western world. Tell me, though, because
15:52
Speaker 2: I wonder how this translates. I think people listening and
15:56
Speaker 2: watching will absolutely follow exactly what you're saying and completely
16:00
Speaker 2: understand the sense in it. How though, on a practical
16:07
Speaker 2: and personal level, do you either individually or sort of
16:12
Speaker 2: in the way that you would suggest to other people.
16:14
Speaker 2: How do you practice that? How do you sort of
16:17
Speaker 2: disassociate yourself from government influence at the individual level?
16:23
Speaker 1: Right?
16:23
Speaker 3: Thanks, that's a good question.
16:25
Speaker 1: So my input into this, as I say, my background
16:29
Speaker 1: is in academic law, and I think I was mentioning
16:33
Speaker 1: earlier how much people have forgotten what I consider to
16:37
Speaker 1: be our fundamental principles of Western civilization, if I can
16:42
Speaker 1: put it that way. So, just to give you an example,
16:44
Speaker 1: this is something that I've noticed. As I say, I've
16:47
Speaker 1: been teaching in law schools for about thirty years now
16:52
Speaker 1: in many different countries. I spent some years in Oxford,
16:55
Speaker 1: I spent some years in Cambridge, LSE. Exeteris to me
17:00
Speaker 1: as in Canada as well. So I think I've experienced
17:03
Speaker 1: quite a wide range of students, and what I've started
17:07
Speaker 1: to notice over the years is that they're forgetting what
17:12
Speaker 1: we used to think of as common sense principles, that
17:15
Speaker 1: they don't hear it at school anymore. All they hear
17:18
Speaker 1: at school these days is you know, anti racism, diversity equity.
17:25
Speaker 1: That's all they hear. And nobody talks to them about
17:28
Speaker 1: things we used to think of as common sense, like
17:32
Speaker 1: the importance of the individual, and of free will and
17:35
Speaker 1: of choice, these kinds of ideas. I remember when I
17:38
Speaker 1: was at school, we were constantly being told that it
17:41
Speaker 1: was up to us to make the right choices and
17:43
Speaker 1: that the future is in our hands. Almost daily in
17:46
Speaker 1: assembly we got this message. Now the only message they
17:49
Speaker 1: get daily in assembly is people are oppressed. If you're black,
17:54
Speaker 1: you're so oppressed. If you're white, you're oppressing everyone. That's
17:57
Speaker 1: all about here. So what happens at the end when
17:59
Speaker 1: you see them university, they have no concept of I'll
18:03
Speaker 1: just give you an example, so the discussion doesn't get
18:05
Speaker 1: very theoretical. To give you an example. Teaching equality law.
18:11
Speaker 1: Looking at the Equality Act, which is a statute, and
18:15
Speaker 1: normally when you're reading statutes in law school, the words
18:18
Speaker 1: of the statute matter. That's the whole point of statutes.
18:21
Speaker 1: It's not like reading cases where you're trying to understand
18:25
Speaker 1: the facts, you're trying to understand the context, the history.
18:29
Speaker 1: When you're reading statutes, the words matter, So you get
18:32
Speaker 1: students to read the words. And it states very clearly
18:35
Speaker 1: in the Equality Act that this is a duty on
18:38
Speaker 1: public bodies, it's a duty on employers. That's very clearly stated,
18:43
Speaker 1: And so you ask a follow up question to students about,
18:47
Speaker 1: you know, twenty twenty one years old, do you have
18:52
Speaker 1: a duty to observe the Equality Act when you're choosing
18:56
Speaker 1: your friends? Can you discriminate against people when you're choosing
18:59
Speaker 1: your friends? They say, oh, no, no, no, you can't.
19:01
Speaker 1: That's illegal. The Equality Act says it's illegal. Nowhere in
19:05
Speaker 1: the Equality Act does it say it is illegal to
19:09
Speaker 1: choose friends. You know. It doesn't say that. So where
19:12
Speaker 1: are they getting that from. It's somewhere, I would say,
19:16
Speaker 1: almost in the air around them that they're thinking, surely
19:19
Speaker 1: it must be illegal, even though the words don't say that.
19:22
Speaker 1: They start thinking, maybe I'm reading it wrong, because from
19:26
Speaker 1: what I've been told my whole life, this is illegal.
19:29
Speaker 3: You're not supposed to do this. It doesn't even matter.
19:31
Speaker 1: Sometimes I push them just to be the devil's advocate.
19:34
Speaker 1: I say, so, when you're going on holiday with your friends,
19:38
Speaker 1: should you make sure that all your friends represent different races.
19:41
Speaker 1: Then they start thinking, yeah, you know, this is what
19:46
Speaker 1: equality law says we should do, which it isn't. So
19:49
Speaker 1: that's just to give you an example of what I
19:51
Speaker 1: think is important in terms of my own influences to
19:54
Speaker 1: say to people, look at the laws that you're making,
19:58
Speaker 1: look at how they're being an forced think about the lies.
20:01
Speaker 1: I think lies is a good word to use. Think
20:04
Speaker 1: about the lies that you hear around you, and be
20:08
Speaker 1: prepared to stand up and say no, that's not true.
20:11
Speaker 1: And then here you come up to the other problem
20:14
Speaker 1: where people say, well, what.
20:15
Speaker 3: Do you mean that's not true. That's true for the person.
20:18
Speaker 1: Who's talking, So that again we're back to that issue
20:21
Speaker 1: where they've forgotten what truth is. So I make very
20:24
Speaker 1: simple points. I say, read what the government is telling you.
20:29
Speaker 1: Push back if you think it's not true, push back
20:31
Speaker 1: if you think it's wrong. Remember what's right and what's wrong,
20:34
Speaker 1: Remember your own liberties, and don't be beguiled by people
20:39
Speaker 1: saying it's the progressive way where you have to follow,
20:43
Speaker 1: you know, all kinds of rubbish that they tell people,
20:46
Speaker 1: here's what you have to follow because it's progressive. And
20:49
Speaker 1: normally you'd expect any common sense observer to say, well, no,
20:54
Speaker 1: that's rubbish, but they don't. They just think, oh, well,
20:58
Speaker 1: maybe if this is what all my professors are telling me,
21:01
Speaker 1: maybe this is what's right. And I strongly argue against
21:07
Speaker 1: that even to the point where I think, as you've
21:10
Speaker 1: probably heard these days, in the academic context, if you
21:14
Speaker 1: stand for common sense, people you get students complaining. They say, oh,
21:19
Speaker 1: I'm offended. I don't feel safe. So it's very hazardous
21:24
Speaker 1: to even speak about very basic truths such as I'm describing,
21:28
Speaker 1: which are not even controversial.
21:31
Speaker 2: It absolutely is, and as you say, it beggars belief
21:33
Speaker 2: that any of that could be regarded as controversial. But
21:36
Speaker 2: let's make a better effort to get into something that
21:38
Speaker 2: is more controversial. So we'll deal with racism and specifically
21:44
Speaker 2: the definitions of it, because, as you say, common sense
21:47
Speaker 2: is one thing. People should read stuff, but even when
21:49
Speaker 2: they do. So what I've done is I've got the
21:51
Speaker 2: dictionary definition from Merriam Webster and then how they added
21:55
Speaker 2: to it in twenty twenty, which you, I'm sure could
21:58
Speaker 2: probably get verbatim off the top of your head, but
22:01
Speaker 2: for the audience, the original definition was that racism is
22:05
Speaker 2: a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human
22:08
Speaker 2: traits and capacities, and that racial differences produce an inherent
22:12
Speaker 2: superiority of a particular race. Now, in twenty twenty, in
22:16
Speaker 2: the wake of the well, the sort of enormous surge
22:20
Speaker 2: of suppose support for the Black Lives Matter movement. They
22:26
Speaker 2: added as a secondary definition, the systemic oppression of a
22:30
Speaker 2: racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another.
22:35
Speaker 2: And then just to help everybody understand what they meant,
22:37
Speaker 2: they said specifically white supremacy. Sorry, white supremacy. So which
22:47
Speaker 2: if either of those definitions of racism would you go
22:50
Speaker 2: along to with rather? And how would you sort of
22:52
Speaker 2: critique that?
22:55
Speaker 1: I would critique all of it. The second definition you
22:59
Speaker 1: read is just critical race theory. That's what critical race
23:04
Speaker 1: theory teaches, and that's why people have been so against it,
23:10
Speaker 1: because it teaches, well, the whole thing that you read out,
23:13
Speaker 1: one race is good, one race is bad. The bad
23:16
Speaker 1: race is oppressing the good race. White people are always guilty.
23:19
Speaker 1: In fact, I think they call bad things by a
23:22
Speaker 1: new name, which is whiteness. So you know, anything they
23:27
Speaker 1: see or look at this is going on in society,
23:30
Speaker 1: they say, oh, well, that's called whiteness. That's why they
23:34
Speaker 1: say abolish whiteness, destroy whiteness.
23:37
Speaker 3: There was this.
23:40
Speaker 1: Uh a doctor Schola who wrote eradicate whiteness from the
23:47
Speaker 1: face of the planet. They can say this because they're
23:50
Speaker 1: saying whiteness just means oppression. So they can say anything
23:55
Speaker 1: that they can say. What was the other thing they said,
23:58
Speaker 1: slash the throat of white. They can say kill whiteness
24:02
Speaker 1: because to them, whiteness is just they say, it's not people,
24:06
Speaker 1: it's just systems of oppression. So it's fine to talk
24:10
Speaker 1: like that. It's a metaphor. It's terrible, terrible language. And
24:15
Speaker 1: many people, and this goes back to what I was
24:17
Speaker 1: saying about common sense. Many people they just find that
24:21
Speaker 1: appalling that you can speak in this way. And that's
24:26
Speaker 1: why in some states in the United States, like Alabama,
24:30
Speaker 1: critical race theories banned. You can't teach it in public
24:35
Speaker 1: schools because it's this imhorrent ideology. So I'm obviously against it,
24:41
Speaker 1: and I think that most people are the only people
24:44
Speaker 1: who support it are a tiny minority of committed ideologues,
24:49
Speaker 1: who is, who have some kind of twisted Marxist way
24:53
Speaker 1: of understanding the world, and that's why they have all
24:55
Speaker 1: these new ways of understanding racism.
24:57
Speaker 3: So I think most.
24:58
Speaker 1: People are against that. But I'm also against the previous,
25:04
Speaker 1: what you could call the normal idea of racism that
25:07
Speaker 1: we used to have in I guess you could say
25:10
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties. So that's what people call the old
25:14
Speaker 1: idea of racism, where you say it's about discriminating against people.
25:19
Speaker 1: So to take the classic case in employment law where
25:23
Speaker 1: you get two applicants black and white, and then you say, oh,
25:25
Speaker 1: I don't like black people, so I'm going to hire
25:27
Speaker 1: the white person. So that's the old style of racism.
25:30
Speaker 1: And people say, well, that kind of racism was wrong.
25:33
Speaker 1: Well I no longer accept that that kind of racism
25:36
Speaker 1: was wrong because well two things. First, because of I
25:42
Speaker 1: support freedom of contract, as I was saying earlier, and
25:45
Speaker 1: we can talk about freedom of contract later if you
25:49
Speaker 1: want to. But there's a second problem with it, which
25:53
Speaker 1: is that the minute you start to yield, maybe the
25:56
Speaker 1: best phrase is give an inch and they take a mile.
26:00
Speaker 1: The minute you start saying, oh, yes, racism is terrible
26:04
Speaker 1: and people are suffering, even though you have in mind
26:08
Speaker 1: that old correct idea of what is racism, So you're
26:13
Speaker 1: saying it's terrible, people are suffering from it. We need
26:17
Speaker 1: to what's the word that they use stamp out racism.
26:24
Speaker 1: The minute you concede that, you've just opened your gates
26:27
Speaker 1: to the insane people you really have, because there is
26:31
Speaker 1: no way to distinguish between them. And this is another
26:34
Speaker 1: important point that I frequently make. So people say, well,
26:39
Speaker 1: there's good anti racism and then there's insane anti racism.
26:43
Speaker 1: So they say, we can keep good anti racism, we
26:46
Speaker 1: just won't do the insane anti racism. And I always
26:49
Speaker 1: ask them, how are you going to do that? How
26:52
Speaker 1: are you going to promote anti racism and enforce anti
26:56
Speaker 1: racism and ensure that the only people doing that are
26:58
Speaker 1: the good people earth?
27:00
Speaker 3: Would you do that? It's impossible.
27:02
Speaker 1: So I'll give you a practical example, again from the
27:06
Speaker 1: university's context. So people come up with, let's say, so far,
27:11
Speaker 1: it looks like a sane idea. They say, let's diversify
27:15
Speaker 1: the curriculum. So so far, it sounds pretty sane. It
27:20
Speaker 1: doesn't sound crazy anyway. It sounds like somebody just saying, oh, well,
27:24
Speaker 1: let's read widely. So you think, yeah, cool, let's read widely.
27:29
Speaker 1: They say, so, well, we don't want a predominance of
27:34
Speaker 1: Eurocentric views in the curriculum. We want worldviews, other views.
27:39
Speaker 1: So you think, well, you know, that still sounds reasonable,
27:42
Speaker 1: because it sounds like all you're saying is expose the
27:45
Speaker 1: students to different literatures. I think everybody would say, yeah, great,
27:50
Speaker 1: expose the students to different literatures. They then say, we
27:54
Speaker 1: need to make space in the library for different literatures.
27:57
Speaker 1: So again it's all sounding very sensible. People go along
28:01
Speaker 1: with a whole lot of it. This thing called decolonize
28:04
Speaker 1: the curriculum. Next thing you know in the newspapers they've
28:10
Speaker 1: abolished saying Anglo Saxon. They've asked Jane Austen from the
28:14
Speaker 1: curriculum because she's complicit in slavery. They they're telling academics
28:21
Speaker 1: that if you want a promotion, you have to show
28:25
Speaker 1: what anti racism you're teaching in your classes. Mathematics is racist,
28:30
Speaker 1: we need ethnic mathematics, computer sciences, racist physics is racist
28:35
Speaker 1: because Isaac Newton, I forget what he did. He was
28:38
Speaker 1: complicit in slavery. So before you know it, that's where
28:43
Speaker 1: you are. And what I say to people is, if
28:46
Speaker 1: you're saying you want to do the good anti racism
28:49
Speaker 1: and you don't want to do the insane anti racism,
28:51
Speaker 1: where are you going to draw the line and how
28:54
Speaker 1: so they say, well, you know you can put the
28:56
Speaker 1: right people in there. We're not the activists because it's
28:59
Speaker 1: the activists who do all this insane stuff. So if
29:02
Speaker 1: you just put the sensible people to do the anti racism,
29:07
Speaker 1: then we're going to do good anti racism. So here's
29:10
Speaker 1: my question, what sensible physicist. Let's say you're a nuclear physicist.
29:15
Speaker 1: You've been reading physics your whole academic career. What sensible
29:19
Speaker 1: nuclear physicist is going to devote his career hence for
29:24
Speaker 1: to telling you who is white, who was a racist
29:28
Speaker 1: who invested in I don't know what slave ships?
29:32
Speaker 3: He wants to do nuclear physics.
29:33
Speaker 1: Right, So you always end up with the activists doing
29:37
Speaker 1: these jobs. People who have no education except for a
29:41
Speaker 1: degree in grieth and studies. Those are the only people
29:45
Speaker 1: who want to do this anti racism. Decolonized So I
29:49
Speaker 1: think one decolonized book we had recently was called the
29:52
Speaker 1: Psychosis of Whiteness. So the person who wrote that Psychosis
29:56
Speaker 1: of Whiteness is a professor of black studies. These are
30:01
Speaker 1: the people in a department of black studies. These are
30:05
Speaker 1: the people who want to do this work. And it
30:08
Speaker 1: will always be that way. You are never going to
30:10
Speaker 1: persuade a brain surgeon in the medical school who you
30:15
Speaker 1: think he's the sensible person. You are never going to
30:18
Speaker 1: persuade him to stop doing brain surgery because you want
30:22
Speaker 1: a sensible person to reorganize the library and take out
30:27
Speaker 1: all the.
30:29
Speaker 3: Colonize the books.
30:31
Speaker 1: So the problem is inherent in this idea that we
30:34
Speaker 1: need to stamp out racism. And that's why I say
30:36
Speaker 1: to people, forget stamping out racism. First of all, we
30:40
Speaker 1: live in the least racist age of all time. Tony
30:47
Speaker 1: Seoul did a whole study of that and wrote a report.
30:52
Speaker 1: He was commissioned to write a report in this in
30:54
Speaker 1: the UK some years ago where he says, the UK
30:57
Speaker 1: is not a racist society. You aren't going to not
31:00
Speaker 1: get a job because you're racist. So forget about stamping
31:04
Speaker 1: out racism, and let's focus on the things we should
31:07
Speaker 1: be focusing on, like how to get students a good education,
31:13
Speaker 1: how to support them in an increasingly challenging world. You know,
31:18
Speaker 1: all these challenges, how to fix our healthcare systems, all
31:23
Speaker 1: these challenges we should be focusing are not so called racism.
31:28
Speaker 2: Well said, Now, what I want to go back to
31:31
Speaker 2: is your reference to twisted Marxism, which I think can
31:35
Speaker 2: be used as the sort of touch paper for an
31:38
Speaker 2: awful lot of things that we might regard as having
31:40
Speaker 2: gone very very wrong. Indeed, and to cite an example,
31:44
Speaker 2: I just refer to a comment you made on Twitter
31:48
Speaker 2: or x as we are now supposed to call it,
31:50
Speaker 2: recently about a horrific work of public art that's about
31:55
Speaker 2: to be put up in London and possibly has by
31:57
Speaker 2: the mayor, Sadik Khan. And you began your message with
32:02
Speaker 2: blacks are so gullible, and then you went on to
32:06
Speaker 2: effectively sort of paraphrase what Caln was saying, which was
32:08
Speaker 2: that you're so important and we can show how much
32:12
Speaker 2: your lives matter by celebrating your criminals, a reference to
32:15
Speaker 2: George Floyd having previously been they're sort of represented in sculpture.
32:20
Speaker 2: Now for those that can't see this broadcast, when Juru
32:26
Speaker 2: is black and I am white. My question, therefore, is
32:31
Speaker 2: how much pushback do you get when you make remarks
32:34
Speaker 2: like that? And what do you think would happen if
32:37
Speaker 2: I'd sent that message.
32:39
Speaker 1: I don't think I get push back. What I get
32:42
Speaker 1: is people trying to silence me, you know, with very
32:49
Speaker 1: crude methods. You know, I don't tend to get anybody
32:55
Speaker 1: pushing back on my arguments. I don't tend to get
32:58
Speaker 1: people saying, no, you're wrong. Black people are not gullible.
33:03
Speaker 1: Black people are not celebrating criminals. In fact, the criminal
33:07
Speaker 1: I had in mind there was, yes, George Floyd.
33:10
Speaker 3: His murals are everywhere.
33:11
Speaker 1: School children being told to kneel down and worship him.
33:15
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just George Floyd. It was also that
33:18
Speaker 1: criminal that the Mayor of London erected in Trafalgar Square
33:23
Speaker 1: on the fourth plinth. He murdered British settlers in Malawi.
33:28
Speaker 3: It was a gruesome attack.
33:31
Speaker 1: He beheaded one settler whose descendants. You know, this is
33:38
Speaker 1: to them it's recent history. You know, to them, this
33:41
Speaker 1: isn't ancient history. This was their grandfather, I think because
33:46
Speaker 1: his daughter was only four years old, about four years
33:50
Speaker 1: old at the time and she was there. So this
33:53
Speaker 1: to the family, it's not ancient history. And they see
33:57
Speaker 1: a man who murdered their grandfather, great grandfather on a
34:02
Speaker 1: plinth in Trafalgar Square and they're upset. Of course, they're
34:06
Speaker 1: upset and distressed. So that's what I that's what I'm against.
34:11
Speaker 1: Nobody ever pushes back and tells me, no, we think
34:15
Speaker 1: it's okay to you know, we think it's okay to
34:19
Speaker 1: celebrate murderers. We think it's good to celebrate job. Nobody
34:22
Speaker 1: ever pushes back on the arguments. Instead, they just try
34:26
Speaker 1: to silence me. Typically, first of all, they'll say, oh,
34:31
Speaker 1: you're not you're not really black, You're you're a white
34:34
Speaker 1: man on Twitter pretending you're a white man on Twitter,
34:38
Speaker 1: pretending you're a black woman. Who's whose picture did you steal?
34:44
Speaker 1: So you get those nutters, But then you also get
34:47
Speaker 1: the ones who know me saying, oh, you're just saying
34:50
Speaker 1: what someone paid you to say. Well, all these are
34:54
Speaker 1: ways of trying to to tell me to stop saying this,
35:00
Speaker 1: because they're saying, oh, stop whatever your paymasters have told
35:03
Speaker 1: you to say. They never address arguments, which shows that
35:09
Speaker 1: they have no arguments to make in sport of what
35:11
Speaker 1: they're doing. What would happen to you if you were
35:14
Speaker 1: to say this, well, goes back to what we were
35:17
Speaker 1: saying about racism. They'll say you're a racist. That's why
35:20
Speaker 1: you were saying that. And that's why I think this
35:24
Speaker 1: links very well to the point I was making earlier,
35:26
Speaker 1: which is I was trying to say there's no good
35:28
Speaker 1: form of stamping out racism because it will be used
35:32
Speaker 1: in exactly a case like that where they'll say, oh,
35:35
Speaker 1: you're only saying that because you're a racist and we're
35:38
Speaker 1: trying to stamp out racism, therefore we're going to stamp
35:40
Speaker 1: you out.
35:42
Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah, No, I mean think you put that so
35:44
Speaker 2: well and it will absolutely well. It highlights the absurdity
35:48
Speaker 2: of the situation. But I'll take it very well. Now
35:51
Speaker 2: let's get into property rights, freedom of contract and just
35:57
Speaker 2: I mean one of the big areas of this, as
35:59
Speaker 2: you say, is of reparations and claiming land from time
36:04
Speaker 2: gone by. I mean, how is that manifesting now? And
36:10
Speaker 2: really what's your view of these claims that we see
36:14
Speaker 2: in various parts of the world where people appear to
36:17
Speaker 2: be sort of being put up to making claims for
36:20
Speaker 2: land that they say, you know, belong to their ancestors,
36:24
Speaker 2: right this.
36:26
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about freedom of contracts specifically
36:30
Speaker 1: later because that's linked also to what we were talking
36:33
Speaker 1: about racism. But on this question of reparations and people
36:37
Speaker 1: asking for land. One reason why my colleague David Gordon
36:42
Speaker 1: and I wrote this book Readdressing Historical Injustice, was because
36:45
Speaker 1: we wanted to address all the arguments that are presented
36:51
Speaker 1: to support reparations. Because what tends to happen in the
36:55
Speaker 1: public debate, people will raise one argument, and if you
36:59
Speaker 1: can to that argument, they don't engage with your counter argument.
37:04
Speaker 1: They just moved to a different argument. When you can't
37:07
Speaker 1: to that one, they moved to a different argument, and
37:10
Speaker 1: then they soon they'll be right back to square one.
37:13
Speaker 1: But the point is that the debate tends to go
37:15
Speaker 1: around in circles and so you can never pin them down.
37:18
Speaker 1: So they'll start by saying, that's the argument that you
37:22
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, you stole my land. I actually wrote an
37:28
Speaker 1: article with this exact title that's just published in the
37:31
Speaker 1: Journal of Libertarian Studies, where the title is you stole
37:35
Speaker 1: our land. So that's what they start by saying, because.
37:40
Speaker 3: Theft of land is.
37:43
Speaker 1: Something that everybody would say is wrong. So if you
37:46
Speaker 1: stole somebody's land, you should give it back. So they
37:49
Speaker 1: start by saying you stole our land, and you then
37:55
Speaker 1: ask them to prove it, and they can't. And this
37:59
Speaker 1: is one point that I have often made, is that
38:02
Speaker 1: if people could prove that the land was stolen, they
38:07
Speaker 1: wouldn't be in the news saying you stolen land. They've
38:10
Speaker 1: been caught. That's where you go when you have evidence
38:13
Speaker 1: of your being that was stolen, or you go to
38:15
Speaker 1: the police, you say, my car was stolen, and here's
38:19
Speaker 1: my proof that it's my car. So the mere fact
38:22
Speaker 1: they're saying this is the proof that they have no evidence,
38:26
Speaker 1: And when you ask them for evidence, they then shift
38:28
Speaker 1: to another argument, saying, well, you shouldn't ask me for
38:32
Speaker 1: evidence because you know it's a historical crime. I don't
38:35
Speaker 1: have evidence. It's a legacy of oppression. The legacy the
38:38
Speaker 1: evidence of the legacies. You can see how oppressed I am,
38:42
Speaker 1: or what's the evidence of that. Oh, it's the discrimination
38:45
Speaker 1: I'm so discriminated against that. This shows So this is
38:48
Speaker 1: the way that the argument starts slipping from one point
38:52
Speaker 1: to another. And so we thought, if we put all
38:54
Speaker 1: the arguments together in a book, we can show how
38:58
Speaker 1: all the arguments are wrong. None of the arguments stand up.
39:01
Speaker 1: And the only way they're able to create the perception
39:05
Speaker 1: that they have a good argument is because in the
39:08
Speaker 1: public debate, typically they will be making one simple point.
39:11
Speaker 1: They will be saying something like one thing they like
39:15
Speaker 1: to do is to show grievances, So they'll say, look
39:19
Speaker 1: look at what happened in this event, when my people
39:22
Speaker 1: were attacked by the brutal police.
39:26
Speaker 3: What's that got to do with you want this land?
39:29
Speaker 1: Nothing at all. But it's a kind of emotional way
39:33
Speaker 1: of making people feel like, oh, no, these poor people
39:37
Speaker 1: whose ancestors suffered so much, we better give them what
39:40
Speaker 1: they're asking for. There's nothing to it. And moreover, and
39:45
Speaker 1: I think this is one point I want to make.
39:47
Speaker 1: None of the arguments that we have advanced in our
39:51
Speaker 1: book are new that we've come up with.
39:55
Speaker 3: These are arguments that have been made over the years.
39:58
Speaker 1: In fact, going back into the I don't know, into
40:03
Speaker 1: the depths of time, you can see from the Enlightenment,
40:08
Speaker 1: people were saying, we can't just civilized people can't be
40:12
Speaker 1: constantly fighting blood feuds. You know, England stole from Scotland,
40:20
Speaker 1: but if you go back, Scotland stole from England. But
40:23
Speaker 1: if you go back, it was the Romance. Oh but
40:25
Speaker 1: if you go back, it was the vikings. And you know,
40:27
Speaker 1: this went on for sanctuaries until people realize this is ridiculous.
40:32
Speaker 1: There has to be an end to this fielding about history.
40:36
Speaker 3: We should just.
40:39
Speaker 1: Focus on property rights, freedom of contract, freedom of association.
40:43
Speaker 3: That's the only.
40:43
Speaker 1: Way a civilized society can continue. So that's really the
40:46
Speaker 1: point that we're making in our book.
40:49
Speaker 2: And just to go on on that theme, particularly on
40:52
Speaker 2: the freedom that you know, the idea of freedom of contract,
40:55
Speaker 2: but also if you can I mean, if it doesn't work,
40:58
Speaker 2: then we can do it as a follow question, But
41:01
Speaker 2: coming back to the idea of capitalism as a mechanism
41:04
Speaker 2: by which racism is effectively sort of neutralized, are you
41:08
Speaker 2: able to tie that into sort of an answer or
41:12
Speaker 2: if we can deal with those sorts of things.
41:15
Speaker 3: Yeah.
41:16
Speaker 1: So, And I think this is a theme that came
41:18
Speaker 1: up earlier when we talked about racism and people saying
41:22
Speaker 1: I've suffered racism. I've suffered you know, whatever I go
41:25
Speaker 1: into the library, there are no books of my culture.
41:28
Speaker 1: You know, all these kinds of arguments, and I have
41:31
Speaker 1: persistently said, none of that matters. This is to do
41:36
Speaker 1: with and this is something perhaps we can talk about later.
41:39
Speaker 1: This is a kind of socialist way of thinking that
41:43
Speaker 1: if I have problems, I need to get the government
41:45
Speaker 1: to come fix that for me. Because if you take
41:47
Speaker 1: a very simple example, like you know, I'm struggling to
41:51
Speaker 1: find work. I'm applying for jobs and people aren't hiring me,
41:55
Speaker 1: and I suspect that that's because of my race. They
41:58
Speaker 1: don't like black people. The government needs to come and
42:00
Speaker 1: fix that. No, the government doesn't need to come and
42:03
Speaker 1: fix that. Actually, oddly enough, many people struggle to find work.
42:09
Speaker 1: White people struggle to find work, White.
42:12
Speaker 3: Men struggle to find work.
42:13
Speaker 1: I mean, ask anybody have you ever struggled to find work?
42:18
Speaker 1: And you would see it's a very common. There are
42:21
Speaker 1: deprived communities in England that are majority white. They're struggling
42:27
Speaker 1: to find work. So that's the first thing. Freedom of
42:30
Speaker 1: contract is a way of saying, we think about exchange
42:34
Speaker 1: with other human beings without regard to race. We think
42:37
Speaker 1: about how's the market, how's the labor market, who's hiring?
42:41
Speaker 1: We think about these things without regard to race. People
42:46
Speaker 1: who say, oh, well, the libraries are not very decolonized
42:50
Speaker 1: because when I went to my university library, there wasn't
42:52
Speaker 1: a book about my race. And I always say to people,
42:55
Speaker 1: what's the matter with you go in a bookshop and
42:59
Speaker 1: by the book about your race. That's how freedom of
43:02
Speaker 1: contract fixes that. And then they said, well, I haven't
43:05
Speaker 1: got any money. I want a free book in the library.
43:07
Speaker 1: If you go on Amazon and you type in a
43:11
Speaker 1: book about your race that you really really want to read,
43:14
Speaker 1: someone's selling it.
43:15
Speaker 3: To you for pennies.
43:16
Speaker 1: And this is what I mean when I say freedom
43:18
Speaker 1: of contract in the market liberates That's how you buy
43:21
Speaker 1: books about whatever you want to read. So my parents
43:26
Speaker 1: are a good example of this. So my parents were
43:28
Speaker 1: in the States in the nineteen sixties when I can
43:33
Speaker 1: assure you the libraries were not decolonized, or I don't know,
43:35
Speaker 1: the curriculum wasn't decolonized, and they bought a whole load
43:39
Speaker 1: of books by African writers because they could. You know,
43:44
Speaker 1: you went into a bookstore and there was the African section,
43:47
Speaker 1: and that was brilliant because you could buy books from
43:51
Speaker 1: all these African writers and you could read them. That's
43:53
Speaker 1: how freedom of contract and free markets liberates people. You
43:58
Speaker 1: can find anything you want. And what we should do
44:01
Speaker 1: is encourage people to find market solutions to their problems
44:05
Speaker 1: and not say, oh, no, you vote for somebody that's
44:08
Speaker 1: going to give you free stuff that's going to promote
44:11
Speaker 1: your race and your values. So that's why I think
44:14
Speaker 1: it always comes down to freedom of contract, because without
44:18
Speaker 1: freedom of contract, then yes, you're stuck. If you don't
44:22
Speaker 1: have contracts, if you don't have exchange, if you don't
44:25
Speaker 1: have markets, and yes, you could say you're stuck and
44:28
Speaker 1: your only option at that point is to try and
44:33
Speaker 1: get the government to help you, because you have no
44:35
Speaker 1: other options. But that's why I think freedom of contract
44:38
Speaker 1: is so important. And I always assure people there's always
44:43
Speaker 1: somebody out there who wants to hire you. It's not
44:46
Speaker 1: necessary that everybody must want to hire you and set
44:50
Speaker 1: out the red carpet when they see you coming. You
44:53
Speaker 1: just need one job because you're one individual. There's always
44:56
Speaker 1: somebody there who wants to pay you because you can
44:59
Speaker 1: do the job they need to be done. That's your
45:04
Speaker 1: dollar and my dollar had the same color. So that's
45:07
Speaker 1: how markets liberate.
45:09
Speaker 2: It's a very strong message, I think, especially for younger
45:12
Speaker 2: people and parents and educators. There is a growing sense,
45:18
Speaker 2: certainly in the United Kingdom and I think a lot
45:21
Speaker 2: of as I say, the Western world for want of
45:23
Speaker 2: a better descriptor, that education, certainly in the first few
45:29
Speaker 2: stages of life, is becoming more or less indoctrination, and
45:34
Speaker 2: that people are going to face increasingly sort of limited
45:39
Speaker 2: opportunities for reaching the point of view that you're discussing. Now,
45:42
Speaker 2: I mean, if it's possible to sort of give advice
45:45
Speaker 2: or describe ways in which people could take action against
45:50
Speaker 2: this as they have children in the education system or
45:53
Speaker 2: from outside of it. Where would you point people?
45:58
Speaker 1: Wow, that is such a big, unimportant question about what
46:03
Speaker 1: people can do because this ideology for our children is poisonous.
46:08
Speaker 1: It's okay for us, we're a little bit robust because
46:12
Speaker 1: you know, we're not at school, but if you think
46:15
Speaker 1: about young children who are hearing this every day being told,
46:19
Speaker 1: you know, it's hopeless. You're so doomed. There's nothing that
46:23
Speaker 1: you can do to fix your situation. One example that
46:26
Speaker 1: I like to give that was covered in the Daily Mail.
46:31
Speaker 1: I think it was in the Daily Mail. I saw it,
46:32
Speaker 1: Yes it was. It was a nine year old boy
46:36
Speaker 1: at school. He was he was in year No, he
46:41
Speaker 1: wasn't nine, because he was in year six or seven. Anyway,
46:45
Speaker 1: young boy at school, black boy in a Scottish school
46:50
Speaker 1: with very few black children, and the head of the
46:53
Speaker 1: school decided to do anti racism in the school assembly
46:58
Speaker 1: and thought, oh, there's a black child in my school.
47:02
Speaker 1: I'll get him to come in front of the entire
47:06
Speaker 1: school assembly and tell us how oppressed he is, and
47:10
Speaker 1: this poor boy had no warning, so he was at assembly.
47:14
Speaker 1: He was only I remember him being very young, no
47:17
Speaker 1: more than he was maybe ten or eleven. At his
47:20
Speaker 1: school assembly called out in front of the entire school
47:24
Speaker 1: for being black and told, oh, you poor oppressed thing,
47:27
Speaker 1: tell the school how oppressed you are.
47:30
Speaker 3: You had no idea.
47:31
Speaker 1: This is terrible.
47:33
Speaker 3: What can we do.
47:35
Speaker 1: It's so difficult because I do accept that some of
47:38
Speaker 1: these heads are well meaning. They probably think, oh, I
47:41
Speaker 1: don't want to be a racist, I want to help
47:43
Speaker 1: anti racism whatre. So it's very difficult to come up
47:47
Speaker 1: with a solution that will work for everything. So some
47:50
Speaker 1: people say, oh, no, those teachers are not well meaning,
47:53
Speaker 1: they're activists. You should fire them. You can't just fire
47:56
Speaker 1: all the teachers. You literally can't go into school and say, oh,
48:00
Speaker 1: all of you are a load of Marxist activists. You're
48:03
Speaker 1: all fired because they get this at teacher training. That's
48:07
Speaker 1: the other thing. It's coming from the teacher training. So
48:11
Speaker 1: you get a whole graduating co out of teachers who
48:15
Speaker 1: are peddling these Marxist theories, and you just can't fire
48:18
Speaker 1: them all. You'd have to close the schools. So it's
48:21
Speaker 1: difficult to find a solution. What I tried to do
48:24
Speaker 1: is to encourage parents. There's a lot you can do
48:27
Speaker 1: at home to talk to your children to inoculate them
48:31
Speaker 1: against this. I know it isn't easy because when we
48:34
Speaker 1: went to school, parents told us listen to your teacher
48:39
Speaker 1: and do what your teacher tells you. And actually if
48:42
Speaker 1: you defied the teacher, you'd be in trouble at home
48:45
Speaker 1: as well for having done that. So it's very hard
48:48
Speaker 1: I think for those of us with children in school
48:52
Speaker 1: to tell them if your teacher tells you you're oppressed,
48:57
Speaker 1: that is not true. Or if your teacher tells you
49:00
Speaker 1: and oppressive, that is not true. So in Canadian schools,
49:03
Speaker 1: to give an example, as I know you have an
49:04
Speaker 1: international audience, they have schools where they get every single
49:10
Speaker 1: morning to tell the children to declare that they live
49:13
Speaker 1: on stolen land. They're basically squorters. You know, your parents
49:18
Speaker 1: stole this land and now look here, we all are
49:20
Speaker 1: sporting on other people's land. Aren't be terrible? They tell
49:23
Speaker 1: this to little children. There was an Australian mother with
49:27
Speaker 1: a young child in kindergarten, so three or four years old,
49:32
Speaker 1: very very young, who came home and said are we
49:34
Speaker 1: bad people? Because that's what they were learning in kindergarten.
49:38
Speaker 1: So I try to encourage parents to talk to their
49:43
Speaker 1: children and to try and counter the narrative that children
49:47
Speaker 1: are getting from school. And I know it's difficult. If
49:50
Speaker 1: the teachers are telling your children, oh, your parents are racists,
49:54
Speaker 1: it puts the children in a very, very difficult position.
49:57
Speaker 1: So this is why some states, I think I said
49:59
Speaker 1: this earlier, like Alabama, they banned this. They just said
50:04
Speaker 1: you are not allowed to teach children this at school.
50:06
Speaker 1: It's simply prohibited. And then they start saying, well, what
50:11
Speaker 1: about our free speech. We should be able to teach
50:13
Speaker 1: anything you want. And Alabama said, no, that's simply banned.
50:19
Speaker 1: And so I don't know if that's a good solution
50:22
Speaker 1: because and I just wrote an article about this. Actually,
50:29
Speaker 1: it seems to fly in the face of what we promote,
50:32
Speaker 1: which is free speech and freedom of inquiry. You can't
50:36
Speaker 1: say let's promote freedom of inquiry and then say you
50:38
Speaker 1: are not allowed to tell the pupils this, and you're
50:40
Speaker 1: not allowed to tell them that.
50:42
Speaker 3: It's not a good way to resolve it.
50:44
Speaker 1: So because there's so many different there's so many spinning
50:48
Speaker 1: plates what I try to say, and this is what
50:50
Speaker 1: I said in my book Economic Freedom and Social Justice.
50:55
Speaker 1: It's like playing wakamole. You can't try and put out
50:58
Speaker 1: all the different fires. And what I think is the
51:00
Speaker 1: best way to resolve all these issues is to stop
51:05
Speaker 1: with the whole. Racism is terrible, and we need schemes
51:10
Speaker 1: to promote racism, because that's where the rock begins. You
51:14
Speaker 1: can't go into every classroom and see what each teacher
51:19
Speaker 1: is saying. You can't look at everybody's cellabus to see
51:23
Speaker 1: what's on there. But what you can do is to
51:27
Speaker 1: stop promoting anti racism. It's the fact that it's being
51:31
Speaker 1: institutionally supported that's the problem.
51:34
Speaker 3: Because we've always.
51:35
Speaker 1: Had Marxist teachers, right, I had a Marxist professor at school.
51:40
Speaker 1: They've always been there. That's fine, no one. They didn't
51:45
Speaker 1: cause any harm because people listen and they're convinced, so
51:48
Speaker 1: they're not. That's not a problem. The problem we have
51:51
Speaker 1: is when the entire curriculum is promoting this and people
51:54
Speaker 1: are getting fired if they don't do it, or being
51:58
Speaker 1: told you won't get promoted if you don't do so.
52:00
Speaker 3: If that's where the problem comes.
52:02
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean as you said, it's very very tricky
52:05
Speaker 2: area to sort of even consider offering advice upon. Of course,
52:10
Speaker 2: now related to this is the i say concept the
52:17
Speaker 2: definition of equity, and you've compared it or likened it
52:22
Speaker 2: with apartheid, saying that it's the same thing in different clothes,
52:26
Speaker 2: which I think is very well put. Would you just
52:29
Speaker 2: explain what it is you mean by that.
52:33
Speaker 1: So apartheid was a system of separate development. So the
52:40
Speaker 1: theory behind apartheid was people have different races, have different cultures,
52:48
Speaker 1: races have different priorities, different hobbies, different habits, so they
52:54
Speaker 1: should develop separately because that allows them to decide their
52:57
Speaker 1: own priorities whatever they want to do. That's what apartheid
53:01
Speaker 1: was in South Africa. So the Africanas would, you know,
53:07
Speaker 1: do whatever it is Africanas like doing, and the different
53:12
Speaker 1: African tribes, the Zulus would do whatever Zulus want to do,
53:16
Speaker 1: and you know, the Swazis or whoever, they've got their
53:20
Speaker 1: own republic, and every African people would just do whatever
53:25
Speaker 1: it is they want to do. So that was the
53:27
Speaker 1: idea of separate development. You wouldn't have schemes where you're
53:31
Speaker 1: trying to get everybody to be in the same development program.
53:37
Speaker 1: So they had a system of education in Africana schools
53:43
Speaker 1: and they had a system of what they called Bantu
53:45
Speaker 1: education in the Bantu schools and it ran separately like this,
53:50
Speaker 1: and everybody said that's abhorrent. People went on marches all
53:54
Speaker 1: across the West saying this is wrong. You can't separate
53:58
Speaker 1: the races, and they put economic sanctions and collapse the country. Now,
54:05
Speaker 1: what is equity? Saying equity is saying, well, some races
54:09
Speaker 1: are oppressed and other races are the oppressors, so they
54:12
Speaker 1: have different needs. Because if you don't help the oppressed races,
54:17
Speaker 1: there's no point having equality because they're not in a
54:20
Speaker 1: position to benefit from it due to their legacies of oppression.
54:26
Speaker 1: So we need separate systems so that the oppressed people
54:31
Speaker 1: can have their own safe space and the oppressors can
54:36
Speaker 1: I don't know, they can go into a room one
54:38
Speaker 1: O one or wherever we send the oppressors. So again
54:43
Speaker 1: we're separating the races. They have things like Blackout Theater,
54:47
Speaker 1: which is a theater show only for black people. They
54:50
Speaker 1: have events in schools called I think they're now calling
54:54
Speaker 1: it affinity groups. The names change, but I think now
54:58
Speaker 1: they're calling it affinity where they say it's only for
55:00
Speaker 1: black people. By the way, they never hold them only
55:03
Speaker 1: for white people. Say it's only for black people because
55:06
Speaker 1: they're the you know, they're the oppressed people. Banks and
55:14
Speaker 1: large corporations saying we have a graduate career track for
55:19
Speaker 1: the race of people to help them. The Bank of
55:23
Speaker 1: England recently had one. It was all over the newspapers
55:26
Speaker 1: where they said, we'll get school children to come to
55:29
Speaker 1: the Bank of England and learn about what we do.
55:33
Speaker 1: But it's only for the black children because you know
55:35
Speaker 1: they're so oppressed. That's exactly the same thing as separate development.
55:41
Speaker 1: You're saying we need different paths of development for people
55:45
Speaker 1: according to their race. That's so that's the It's exactly
55:49
Speaker 1: the same thing, just with a different name. I often
55:52
Speaker 1: say if the Africana Nationalists had called their their scheme equity,
56:00
Speaker 1: still be in power to this day. It's because they
56:02
Speaker 1: called it apartheide and people said, oh, that's wrong, you
56:04
Speaker 1: can't do that. But we're doing exactly the same thing.
56:07
Speaker 1: We call it equity, and everybody says, oh that's very good, Yes,
56:11
Speaker 1: we should definitely do that. And the other thing they
56:14
Speaker 1: complain about apartheid is they say, well, it was dishonest
56:19
Speaker 1: because even though it was called separate development, they say
56:24
Speaker 1: that actually the separate development was used to favor white people.
56:28
Speaker 1: They called it separate, but they say, well, what they
56:31
Speaker 1: really did was to favor their own. Well, isn't that
56:35
Speaker 1: what equity is. Equity says we want special schemes for
56:39
Speaker 1: black people, but then they're given favors, they're given jobs, opportunities, promotions,
56:47
Speaker 1: pay rises. That's exactly the same complaint we had against apartheid.
56:54
Speaker 1: So it's hypocritical. And I think it's unsustainable for a
56:58
Speaker 1: society to be founded on hypocrisy. I think it matters.
57:04
Speaker 1: So socialists say, and I know that they've said this
57:07
Speaker 1: because they talk about this a lot.
57:08
Speaker 3: In the context of the environment.
57:11
Speaker 1: You know, when all these celebrities fly in their jets
57:13
Speaker 1: and then they say, oh, you must all stay at home,
57:16
Speaker 1: and so the idea of hypocrisy has arisen in the
57:19
Speaker 1: environmental context. And what they say is that it doesn't
57:23
Speaker 1: matter if they're hypocrites, because they say, it's true that
57:27
Speaker 1: the planet is dying, and it's true that if you
57:30
Speaker 1: stay at home that will help. So never mind whether
57:33
Speaker 1: I'm flying in my private jet because what I'm saying
57:36
Speaker 1: is true. So that's the way they reason. So they
57:40
Speaker 1: reason the same way in relation to equity. They say, well,
57:43
Speaker 1: it's true that equity is just like a part time,
57:46
Speaker 1: but we are now doing it from good motives, so
57:49
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if we're being hypocritical, and I'm saying, yes,
57:52
Speaker 1: it does matter. It's your society that's founded on hypocrisy.
57:59
Speaker 3: Is volatile.
58:00
Speaker 1: Well, because first of all, people don't like hypocrisy. They
58:04
Speaker 1: become resentful, they become angry, they'll be out on the
58:09
Speaker 1: streets rioting, and you can't fix that by just throwing
58:12
Speaker 1: them all in jail. People don't like to be taken
58:16
Speaker 1: for fools. That's why it matters if we're running a
58:20
Speaker 1: hypocritical system, and that's why it's wrong. I'm against it,
58:24
Speaker 1: so you can probably tell the way it got fired up.
58:28
Speaker 1: I think it's very wrong.
58:30
Speaker 2: I have got that impression. I think the audience will too.
58:33
Speaker 2: But you're absolutely right, hypocrisy is the defining theme of
58:37
Speaker 2: this era, really, but not to want to sort of
58:41
Speaker 2: put a donor on it. With that in mind, and
58:43
Speaker 2: the fact that exactly like what you're saying with apartheid
58:45
Speaker 2: in equity, and that history is not necessarily repeating but
58:48
Speaker 2: certainly rhyming. How do you see this going? I know
58:52
Speaker 2: that's a terribly general question, but I mean, do you
58:56
Speaker 2: see that there will be increasing sense of revulsion at
59:00
Speaker 2: all of this, and that people will start to take
59:03
Speaker 2: greater control of the public sphere and sort of beat
59:06
Speaker 2: the governments back.
59:08
Speaker 1: I think, and I think a lot of people have
59:11
Speaker 1: said this that as long as the sensible middle, or
59:16
Speaker 1: what likes to think of itself as the sensible middle,
59:19
Speaker 1: as long as they're doing nothing, because they don't suffer
59:23
Speaker 1: from all this that much. I know, because many of
59:26
Speaker 1: them are my friends. They say, oh, it's appalling, this
59:29
Speaker 1: shouldn't be but they're not truly that bothered. Frankly, it's
59:33
Speaker 1: not affecting their life that much. Sure they may think
59:38
Speaker 1: that's terrible if the children are being told that they're oppressors,
59:44
Speaker 1: it's not. But it's not affecting them that much. They'll
59:46
Speaker 1: just tell their children, oh, pay no attention, and they'll
59:49
Speaker 1: move on. And they don't realize there's actually a group
59:52
Speaker 1: of people out there who aren't don't have the luxury
59:55
Speaker 1: of saying it doesn't matter that much.
59:59
Speaker 3: There are people.
1:00:00
Speaker 1: Let's give the example of these training schemes, career tracks
1:00:04
Speaker 1: telling people I think Apple was the one in the
1:00:07
Speaker 1: news the other day. Goldman Sachs was also in the
1:00:10
Speaker 1: news for doing this.
1:00:11
Speaker 3: So let's take those.
1:00:12
Speaker 1: Kinds of schemes where you tell people this is a
1:00:15
Speaker 1: track for getting a job and it's only for black people.
1:00:20
Speaker 1: There are actually people who have no other options. They're
1:00:24
Speaker 1: in school. That was their hope that they hoped I
1:00:28
Speaker 1: could you know, I could have an opportunity that's closed
1:00:31
Speaker 1: off to them because of their race. They aren't in
1:00:34
Speaker 1: the sensible middle where they can say, oh, well it
1:00:36
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, that's unfortunate, I'll go find something else. They
1:00:40
Speaker 1: actually feel that their one hope has been cut off.
1:00:45
Speaker 1: Of course, they get resentful. That's what people are now
1:00:48
Speaker 1: calling the far right, saying, oh, well, they don't like diversity.
1:00:53
Speaker 1: That's because they're the far right. No, they're not the
1:00:56
Speaker 1: far right. They're people saying where do I go now?
1:01:00
Speaker 1: And another point that they've been trying to make is
1:01:03
Speaker 1: a lot of diversity people have, I don't know, other
1:01:06
Speaker 1: countries they can go to. Look, if you're a global
1:01:09
Speaker 1: citizen that lives anywhere, then if the country you're living
1:01:13
Speaker 1: in collapses, you just hop along to another country. But
1:01:17
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who are saying, I
1:01:19
Speaker 1: don't have that option.
1:01:21
Speaker 3: This is my.
1:01:21
Speaker 1: Country and this is my only option, and if I'm
1:01:26
Speaker 1: locked out of all opportunities, well that's the end of that.
1:01:29
Speaker 1: They start to feel desperate, they start to feel like
1:01:31
Speaker 1: their backs against the wall, and if they feel they
1:01:35
Speaker 1: have nothing to lose because their back is against the wall,
1:01:38
Speaker 1: it becomes very dangerous. And I always say, you can't
1:01:42
Speaker 1: just tell people not to be what do they call it, radicalized?
1:01:49
Speaker 1: You can just tell people, well, don't be radicalized, because
1:01:53
Speaker 1: they will be radicalized. You're oppressing them oddly enough. So
1:01:58
Speaker 1: this is why I think it's very dangerous. And who
1:02:00
Speaker 1: can we appeal to? I think, and what I try
1:02:05
Speaker 1: to do if I can, is to appeal to what
1:02:09
Speaker 1: you might call the sensible middle who are saying, well,
1:02:11
Speaker 1: it's terrible, but it's not that bad.
1:02:13
Speaker 3: It is that bad, and I think that we.
1:02:17
Speaker 1: Should end what we call we'll just do good equality
1:02:24
Speaker 1: or one thing that they like to say is we
1:02:28
Speaker 1: will not do equity, but we will do equality. And
1:02:31
Speaker 1: I like to say no, because when you say you're
1:02:33
Speaker 1: doing equality. That's what we end up with and that's
1:02:36
Speaker 1: why it's wrong for us to do it. So these
1:02:38
Speaker 1: are the people I try and reach, the people who think, oh,
1:02:40
Speaker 1: everything's going a little bit wrong, but it's not very wrong.
1:02:43
Speaker 3: It is very.
1:02:44
Speaker 2: Wrong, absolutely is. And I think that's a poignant note
1:02:48
Speaker 2: upon which to begin to draw to a close. And
1:02:52
Speaker 2: uri people will have been fascinated in everything that you've
1:02:55
Speaker 2: gone through to this point, and I know that we
1:02:58
Speaker 2: would have had hours more of you know, sort of
1:03:02
Speaker 2: various topics to talk through. But please tell us where
1:03:06
Speaker 2: can we go to look further into your work? And indeed,
1:03:10
Speaker 2: any I know obviously you're on X where can people
1:03:13
Speaker 2: find more about about what you're doing?
1:03:16
Speaker 3: Right?
1:03:16
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for the great questions. These issues I
1:03:19
Speaker 1: think are so important. And if you go on the
1:03:21
Speaker 1: Mesa's website, that's m I. S. E. S dot org
1:03:27
Speaker 1: slash Enjoyer my surname n j o Ya. I've written
1:03:32
Speaker 1: about all the things that we've talked about because I
1:03:35
Speaker 1: tried to situate it in, as I said earlier, the
1:03:38
Speaker 1: wider literature. And so if you go on there, I
1:03:41
Speaker 1: mean it's not just me. Also, my other Mesa's colleagues
1:03:43
Speaker 1: writing about these themes. That's the best place to go
1:03:46
Speaker 1: to read more about this and maybe think more about
1:03:49
Speaker 1: what can be done.
1:03:51
Speaker 2: And you are on Twitter as well, but I can't
1:03:54
Speaker 2: remember what your Twitter name is.
1:03:56
Speaker 1: My Twitter handle is at one jar and Joya, which
1:03:59
Speaker 1: is just my name, so if.
1:04:03
Speaker 2: You can find me on there, absolutely and as I
1:04:05
Speaker 2: said at the beginning, we'll make sure that all that
1:04:07
Speaker 2: goes into the notes accompanying this interview. So thank you
1:04:13
Speaker 2: very much. Indeed, now just a quick one to the
1:04:15
Speaker 2: audience who will have had an awful lot to think about.
1:04:19
Speaker 2: But i'd just like to say please do consider supporting
1:04:23
Speaker 2: UK column financially if you're not already doing so but
1:04:26
Speaker 2: are in a position too. It's for five pounds a
1:04:28
Speaker 2: month and it will help us to continue to bring
1:04:31
Speaker 2: interviews of this quality to you. But it's been a
1:04:34
Speaker 2: real pleasure to listen to Anjuie. Thank you so much
1:04:37
Speaker 2: for joining us, and I hope you'll keep in touch.
1:04:40
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me on your show,
1:04:42
Speaker 1: and thanks so much for the great questions and discussion.
1:05:00
Speaker 1: As a