WEBVTT - They Built Wealth for Generations… Then Lost It All! | Will Tanner 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:02.920 I think bitcoin is if someone comes for you, they 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:04.640 can't mess with you in the same way they can 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:06.360 with cash. So I think it's very useful and I 0:00:06.360 --> 0:00:08.840 think it's hopeful for liborty moving forward. I think these 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:11.719 city states are going to be powered by bitcoin, powered 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:14.160 by just similar type of things that take, as you said, 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:15.319 money out of the state's hands. 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:17.880 Multiple generations that have owned a castle or some part 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:19.840 of land, but there's no income from that, so now 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:22.000 they own this land. They own this castle where they 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:23.120 can't even afford to keep it up. 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:25.479 What happened there huge blocks of land going on an 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:28.319 ill liquid market for asset that no one wants, and 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:30.760 it wiped out the estates, but there's no land to 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:32.839 fund it because it's all been taxed away. And the 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.040 problem with those taxes was it was the nominal value 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:36.960 of the land, not the income it produced. So when 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:38.519 they're not producing income and you have to sell the 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:40.320 whole thing that the states just decayed. 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:42.800 It takes the assets out of the old owners. 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:44.360 Who kind of cared about it for the future and 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:46.040 puts it in the hands of people who don't really care. 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:47.680 They're going to put a solar farm on top of it. 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:50.720 It's going to poison the agricultural land, and that's what 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:51.280 we're saying now. 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:53.520 I think about sometimes, like, certainly we've sent the middle 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.160 class over to China. We could bring those jobs back, 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:58.160 but wouldn't that be a kin to putting people in 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.520 the field to pick cotton and strawberries? Low paying jobs today? 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.440 How much would you say it's just times change, technology 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:05.039 has shifted that. 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:06.920 I think what you want, though, is you want more 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:09.600 of those domestic jobs being produced, because not everyone can 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:12.440 succeed in the knowledge economy. And I think to have 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:15.520 a thriving internal market, you need jobs for people different 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:16.360 ways up the ladder. 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:17.720 But you also don't want. 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.440 To stifle domestic innovation by letting people who have other 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.000 interests take advantage of your market. You'd probably want to 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.959 look at something about a new amendment for voting where 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:29.480 only net taxpayers can vote. I mean, preferably we're not 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:33.559 going to have the income tax, but if we are, all. 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:35.600 Right, Will Tanner, thanks so much for joining me today. 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:38.000 Super happy to have you here. And it's been a 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:39.800 little bit of trouble, but I'm glad we're here. We're 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:43.000 going to do this show. You have been writing about 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:47.880 history in a way that's super fascinating and most fascinating 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:52.440 for me are the parallels that history has with sort 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.520 of what the world seems to be going through right now. 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:58.920 So I want to talk about that. The way that 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:02.400 you're able to connect these dots is amazing. Start with 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.600 a big frame. I guess, what kind of big parallels 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:08.320 do you see with some of the stuff you write 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:09.440 about history in today? 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:12.480 Yeah, you know, there are a couple of things that 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:16.280 it's all kind of interesting seeing the pattern repeat one 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:19.200 big thing, and this kind of ties in with one 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:21.320 of the points I use a lot is for whom 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.280 does society exist? Is it for the productive? Is it 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:26.280 for the best? Is it for the people who need 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.440 the most help? I think recently we've seen it beat 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:31.600 for the people who need the most help, which has 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:36.119 its advantages and disadvantages, but is a big change from 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:39.840 twentieth century, eighteenth century, nineteenth century Western history. 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:42.919 And it's existed before, but it's rare. 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:45.040 And if you get into why, I think the pattern 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:47.919 you really see in this thing that's relevant and happens 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:51.919 a lot is egalitarianism, or this belief that there's no 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:55.440 difference in human capability between people or between people groups, 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:58.680 and that if any difference does present itself, it's the 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.160 job of the government to come in and crush it 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:04.920 with whatever amount of force or regulation is necessary. So 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:07.519 you see that in the French Revolution, you see that 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:10.839 in England in the late nineteenth century, and you see 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.600 that really in America starting in perhaps the sixties or seventies, 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:16.839 but then really ramping up in the two thousands. 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:19.080 So I think we're in one of those patterns. 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:23.560 Where it's the battle of egalitarianism or hyper egalitarianism versus 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:27.560 you know, human capability and technology gives us such ways 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:31.040 to express ourselves and show differences in human capability. We're 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:32.799 really seeing that struggle now, and I think it's a 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:33.960 struggle we've seen before. 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.960 You referenced mostly sort of newer history, French Revolution and forward. 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:42.960 So does that seem to be more a symptom of 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:45.800 like a fluence, Like maybe when you've sort of gotten 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.280 rid of the base needs that then those types of 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:50.320 things become an issue. You know. 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.360 I think I just happened to reference more modern history 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.680 because there's so many more sources that are far easier 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:58.080 to read. Okay, if you want a more ancient example, 0:03:58.120 --> 0:03:59.840 and I think you're right that affluence makes this a 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:01.960 bit deal where it presents itself more frequently. But if 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:04.600 you want an older example, you can look at the 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:10.240 egalitarianism under despotism of the pre Indo European European societies 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:12.760 Katul Hayuk. I think as I pronounced it as one 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:15.240 of the more famous ones, but everyone just lived in 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:19.440 these horrid, Favella like worlds. These cramped cities were disease. 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:23.520 Disease was rife and spread it quickly, and the invaders 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:25.599 that stamped a lot of that out were very hierarchical, 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:28.040 and it was this long centuries long battle between the 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.800 two groups. Would this pastoralist society from the step which 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:34.080 we've seen in history, repeat itself a lot when and 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:36.080 the hierarchy that it carried with it when and the 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:38.480 sky got it carried with it whin Or would these 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.240 despotisms and other than the king at the top, the 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.600 galitarian society completely beneath him, Is that what would win? 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:47.000 So we've seen the fight before. 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.359 But I think you're right that affluence both makes the 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:52.400 cycles quicker and makes it a little bit easier to see. 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.560 Yeah, it seems like maybe once you're not so concerned 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.400 about having enough food to live, for example, then you 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.120 can start to worry about other people, right, and if 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.080 they're equal as equal as you are, right, I want, 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:07.359 I want to pull on some of these threads, but 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:09.120 I want to go back maybe a little bit in time. 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:13.440 So obviously you're super knowledgeable about this. You write about this, 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:17.760 and I'm curious. Why is it because you're just interested 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.640 in curious or is it because you see like maybe 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.120 there's lessons that we can learn and we could benefit from. 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.600 I'm curious sort of how you guys started diving down 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:28.080 these deep history rabbit holes and specifically why. 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:29.839 Yeah, it is very random. 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:31.840 When I was a teenager, I don't know if you've 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.880 ever heard of Soldier Fortune magazine, but it was. 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:35.679 A folder fortune. 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:38.600 Yes, yes, yeah, it was kind of like a military magazine. 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:41.200 But the guy who founded it, I think his name's 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:43.440 Robert Brown, wrote a memoir that I found in Bornes 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:44.960 and Noble when I was just kind of plotting around 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:46.880 looking for something to do, and read it and he 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:48.960 mentioned Rhodesia in it, which is a country I'd never 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:50.920 heard of before. So I went and started reading about 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:52.960 it and kept reading about it, and I noticed that 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:55.760 there's this country that was, you know, relatively free and prosperous, 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:58.839 and really the only difference between it and the countries 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:02.240 that weren't destroyed during the decolonization push was that it 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:06.600 was relatively hierarchical and non egalitarian. The rights were respected 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:08.680 for all, but it was a different society formation than 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:11.080 we really see elsewhere in the West now, And so 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:12.919 that got me interested, and I kind of kept reading 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.520 out about it out of personal interest. But then I 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:17.200 had started to notice that if you look at the 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.160 problems America faces now, the things that really made life 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:21.640 just awful in twenty. 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:22.839 Twenty and twenty twenty one for a lot of. 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:26.680 People, it was this refusal to recognize nature and you know, 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:30.160 recognize that different people have different capabilities that should be 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:33.359 cherished and strengthened to the best vability, but certainly have 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:34.320 to be recognized. 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:34.800 I think. 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.080 So I started reading more about decolonization in Africa because 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:40.200 of that, because it's one of these really stark examples 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:43.560 of seeing this just collapse happen, and we know why, 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:44.920 and we have all the day a lot because it's 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:48.560 very modern and very recent result catalogued and them, and 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:50.479 that's how I also got into the Old World because 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:54.000 I noticed that why did the English Empire decline? Why 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.800 did it collapse? It was this magnificent empire that lifted 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:00.440 people out of poverty and squalor for century and at 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.160 one point covered I think a quarter of the world surface, 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:05.839 and then at the point where its decline began, it 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.440 was gone within a couple decades. So what happened there? 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.239 And I noticed many of the same trends that happened 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:14.840 in Southern Africa, particularly Rhodesia, happened in England as well. 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:16.360 And then at the same. 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.720 Time you saw these mass riots, just things on fire 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:21.920 and politicians having this very odd way. I thought of 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:25.040 talking about it and so kind of sense the commonalities 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:27.840 and thought it might be helpful to get deeper into 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:30.800 why these collapses happened in what ways they relate to 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:31.840 the American experience. 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:35.480 Do you when you go back even further, I mean, 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:37.720 it is the same things that you see repeating even 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:39.640 back to the Roman Empire. And is it sort of 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.520 like this two hundred and fifty year lifespan of an 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:44.360 empire or democracy something like that? 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.920 Maybe I think in some ways it is the looting 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.520 of the treasury phase of democracy or a decayed republic 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.360 is certainly something that plays out very frequently, and we 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:57.120 see that in America, we see it in Greece, we 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.720 see it in Rome, and same with to Piffody call 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:04.160 it democracy's tendency to choose Barabbas, which is from the 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:06.840 story of Christ where Brabas was chosen by the crowd 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:09.440 over Christ when pilot asked who the crowd wanted to free. 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:12.680 And you see that in Athens, for example, where they 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:16.880 chose Alcibiades, just terrible expedition to Sicily that really ended 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:19.880 Athens as this important city state because Sparta defeated it 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:22.360 because of that. So you see democracy making patent decisions 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:24.920 frequently and ending empires because of it, which is very. 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:25.520 Relevant to America. 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:29.480 I do think though, that the what we call the Enlightenment, 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.360 in this kind of birth of liberalism as a political force, 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:37.160 it did change things somewhat because if you look at 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:40.800 you know, say the War of Spanish Succession in seventeen hundred, 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:45.280 there's not this ideological bent to it about egalitarianism or 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:47.440 about leveling. And similarly, if you get back to Rome, 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:49.840 they had conflicts with the Germans and didn't see the 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:52.920 barbarians on the step as their equals. But it wasn't 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:55.280 this ideological fight. It was just a fight, as you're 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:57.880 talked about earlier, to fight for survival. Whereas in the 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:02.800 post French Revolution, post mid seventeen hundred's world, there's this 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.199 ideology of leveling that's attendant to a lot of conflict, 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:07.959 and I think it's very hard to detach from it. 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:12.920 And though that impulse has existed before, I think the 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.920 dominance of it as an ideology and something to which 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.520 just so many people in positions of power attached is 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:19.880 something relatively near. 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.559 It makes this era different from ones that preceded it. 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.720 Yeah, you said that democracy ends a lot of times 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:31.199 because of bad decisions? Is that? I think you had 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:35.200 written a piece talking about was it maybe Socrates and 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.760 how they had thought about a democracy? And I think 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:41.440 you likened it to how could you vote for a 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:43.520 captain of a ship if you know nothing about saling? 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:49.040 Was that your writing? But you talk about democracy any 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:51.360 because of bad decisions? And so is that where you 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.800 have sort of ruled by the mobs, but the uneducated 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.480 mobs who are uneducated and don't understand the situations like so, 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:00.840 for example, in this last presidential election states maybe one 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:05.400 of the top issues was inflation. For example, most people 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.640 have zero idea about inflation or what causes it. So 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:11.120 then how do you vote for somebody to fix inflation 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.080 if you don't even understand what the situation is that 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:14.800 has caused it? 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:19.560 Right, one thing that comes up when you mentioned that. Now, 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:21.280 I'll get to your foot in one second, and this 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:23.320 just reminds me of it. If you say, well, you know, 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.800 perhaps some there's some people who, because they've been pread 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:28.800 to rule, they might do a better job at governing, 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.199 at least on the edges, at least comparatively to the average. 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:34.199 And people say, well, there's reversion to the mean. 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:36.840 It's hard to do this over time because everyone just 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.320 reverts the mean. And in some ways that's true. You 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.040 revert to the mean of your ancestors. But do race 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.920 horses revert to the mean of donkeys. No, If they do, 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:48.520 it's very rare. And so I think that's something you 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:52.160 run into with democracy as a system, is because there's 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:53.800 no guidelines on who can vote. 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:56.079 And Athens at least had a system. 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:57.920 Where if you proposed a law, you did it with 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.400 a news around your neck, because if the chain to 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:02.480 their current laws were voted down and you proposed it, 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.360 you'd be hanged because they didn't want this constant turmoil 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.960 of law suggestion, which we of course don't have, And 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:12.400 so republics can mind some of the old benefits of 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:15.480 aristocracy with some of the other benefits of democracy, which 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:17.679 I think there's a great mix there. In America did 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.480 it quite well for a period, but mass democracy has 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:22.559 this problem where that you know, the worst will always 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:25.600 outweigh the best if their votes are all equal, and 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:27.480 that's something you really don't want. You want to have 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.280 some limitation that it keeps the vote or keeps the 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:33.160 ability to steward the wealth and prosperity in future of 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.640 the nation in the hands of people who I think 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:39.839 have shown the ability to steward things personally. Rhodesia did 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:42.360 that with property voting, as America and Britain did up 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.240 until the eighteen thirties. I don't think it has to 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:47.760 be hereditary, but it does certainly need to be limited 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:52.040 to people who have shown personal a personal ability to 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:55.839 have the qualities that you want of the qualities of 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:56.600 people in charge. 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:58.080 I know that kind of jump around at the. 0:11:58.120 --> 0:11:59.840 End of it and maybe it's more than that. It's 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.439 even skin in the game. It's in centron systems, if 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:04.520 you will. Right, So, like I used to live in 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:07.160 a gated neighborhood. I didn't really like the rules they had, 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:08.520 so I moved out of the gated neighborhood. But I 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:10.719 don't get a vote in that gate neighborhood anymore. Or 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:12.800 if I went and rented a home in that neighborhood, 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:14.640 I don't get a vote because I don't own the 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:16.600 I'm just renting a home in that neighborhood, and so 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.839 I have no incentive system or I'm not incentivized to 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:22.199 keep that neighborhood up. So I wouldn't want to pay 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:24.160 to increase the rates because I don't care what the 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.360 streets look like. For example, I don't care if it 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.199 brings home values down since I don't own a home 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:31.160 in that area. Because you're trying about some sort of 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:33.240 a system like that would incentivize. 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:35.160 That right, and you know, as a skin in the game. 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:38.520 Example, A Rishi Sunac is the former Prime Minister of 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:41.200 Britain who did a very bad job of it is 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:44.160 probably the charitable way of putting it. He's now considering 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:46.160 just coming to America and going back to being a 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:48.960 banker here because he's done with politics in England. And 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:50.880 I think if you're a leader who can destroy the 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.600 country and then just leave and go back to having 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.240 a normal career, someone else he never really had skin 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:58.360 in the game. How his policies played out or her 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.959 policies played out didn't really matter. Is so could kind 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:03.679 of whatever could happen, it didn't matter. There's no need 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.199 to steward things. There's no need to plan ahead. Whereas 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:08.520 you know, when it was the aristocracy or the gentry 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.840 running things in eighteen thirty, if they did something that 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:13.560 was so bad it costs a revolution, they were going 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:15.120 to have to deal with that, and all their wealth 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:17.520 was tied up in a given counties, so they'd be 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:19.719 done if something that happened. And so you see, I 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:23.120 think much more reasonable decision making and much more planning 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:25.320 for the long term. This ability to plant trees and 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:28.240 the shade of which you'll never sit, but your grandchildren will. 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.439 That's one of the hallmarks of Western civilization, and it's 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.800 something that the high time preference of mass democracy really 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.079 just erodes. So yes, I think you do need a 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:38.960 way to have skin in the game for the long term. 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.760 That mass democracy as a system generally doesn't provide. 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.719 The high time preference of democracy specifically around sort of 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:47.760 like a two year or four year cycle where I'm 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:49.319 here for two years or four years, I see what 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:51.199 I could do, so maybe I get voted in back 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:52.559 again and maybe I don't. 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.280 Right, And you see this in other areas of life 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:59.480 and some America too. A ceo pay is a great example. 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.559 How many just horror stories have we heard of CEOs 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:06.280 having their compensation based on very short term metrics something 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:09.120 they get this huge golden parachute, but the company just 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:11.800 is destroyed in the long run. That General Electric is 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.520 one famous example. They're kind of The oil boom of 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:16.960 the early two thousands is another with how that played out. 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:19.160 But you see that just on a grander scale. And 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:21.760 democratic politics where people don't have to plan for the 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.560 long term, so they don't they plan for the election 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:27.480 cycle you mentioned, which is nevery deleterious. 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:29.320 I think dark country when. 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:31.200 You think about I think you'd written about sort of 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:33.080 like when you look in through the long lens of history, 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:38.160 it's typically sort of powerful men that drive drive that 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.440 influence right. So whether that might have been old powerful 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.680 men as in you know, fighting ability, for example, ability 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:50.840 to conquer, they drove sort of that policy shift. Today 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:53.600 you might argue that we still have powerful men driving things, 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:57.000 but now it's more like soft power, right through politics 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.320 but even also through money. I'm curious how how you 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:04.560 think about that powerful mean driving that narrative, and how 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:06.520 that shifted over time and why that matters. 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:10.200 It certainly shifted. There's one I find it very funny 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:14.320 anecdote about this. Around the first decade of the twentieth century, 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.080 the Prime Minister in England was Floyd George, and he 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:19.520 was creating a large number of peerages, which are the 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.920 aristocratic titles for different merchants and bankers and people in 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.560 England who wanted one and donated a lot to his party. 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:28.040 And the old Lord, one of the people who had 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:30.200 arrived with William the conqueror in the Conquest about a 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:32.600 thousand years before, approached him in the House of Lords 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.000 and was berating him for this and more. George, you 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:36.960 didn't know the man's background, said well, where did you 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:40.440 get your title? What did your family do? And Thelloyd 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:42.440 George said, where did you get your title. The lord 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:44.560 looked at him and said, with the battle axe, sir, 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:45.920 with the battle. 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:47.920 Axe, and left it there. 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:50.240 So it's kind of a funny story, but it does 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.520 the authority this does right here. Yes, we still have 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:55.200 it on the wall at oh I can show you 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.200 the And you know, that's a different type of authority because, 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.600 for one, that elite isn't just a rentier class as 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.760 a purpose, and that's military leadership, which it did largely 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:07.880 exercise around the end of the Boer War, perhaps when 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.320 that ended. There's a long history of suffering and fighting 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:14.720 and bearing the brunt of the country's foreign adventures that 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.760 had existed for a thousand years, and they continued to exercise. 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:19.359 So then when they're considering. 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:21.560 Policies that they have skin in the game regarding that 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:24.400 both at home with land and taxes and then abroad 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:25.680 with having to be the ones who are going to 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.680 go fight in Sudan or wherever. And that's a different system. 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.360 Whereas that started to shift, as the story shows, towards 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.240 this merchant class that certainly brought a great degree of 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:37.400 prosperity to the country and certainly did America Mendling, Chaping, 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:40.800 Morgan or Rockefeller but it's a different sort of person 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.200 and the skin in the game because the instruments are 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:47.720 so financialized and somewhat made up, or at least it's 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:50.960 not a real asset, it's an abstracted one. Their power 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:52.640 and their wealth is somewhat different, where they have a 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.880 different conception of the state of the country, the state 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.000 of prosperity, and what their duties are, if any, to 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.320 their fellow citizens. And I think that's really the big 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:04.920 shift you see over time, and it happens again and again. 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.920 Is this old landed elite kind of rule. 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:10.960 Is it going to be the Rome of the patricians 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:13.960 and the equities, or the Britain of the lords and gentry, 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:16.399 or the America of the Virginia gentry that existed for 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:18.560 a long time, or is it going to be a 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:21.679 country of merchants and bankers that are very successful but 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:24.600 certainly have different priorities and different priors that they bring 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:26.639 to the table. And it's a shift you see repeatedly, 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:29.159 and I think we saw it in the twentieth century. 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.120 So do you think it's a difference in the type 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:34.080 of wealth that they have. So you mentioned sort of 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.800 like Richie Suna, who just can move and can potentially 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:40.119 just take his wealth with them, because you know, whatever 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:43.159 it's in the markets, as opposed to the class of 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:45.160 the old who really had it tied up in the land, 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:46.760 so they got driven off the land, they had no 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:50.680 more assets, and so today you have this sort of oligarchy, 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:53.760 if you will. But they sort of have this wealth 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:55.359 that's like global wealth, and they could just kind of 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:57.040 go wherever. And you think that's sort of like one 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.720 of the main things that really changes the skin of 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:01.120 the game, if you will. On that. 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:03.720 I think that's certainly part of it. 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:05.800