How Nations Actually Get Rich (It’s Not Socialism)

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]I'm a democratic socialist.

[00:00:01]>> You're not a communist. I agree with that.

[00:00:03]>> No, I'm not a communist.

[00:00:03]>> Well, you're like sort of like a Scandinavian type of politician, I would say. Right.

[00:00:08]>> He wants America to look more like Scandinavia.

[00:00:10]>> That's right. That's right. And what's wrong with that?

[00:00:14]>> What's wrong with that is the Scandinavian countries are now fully more capitalist than the United States.

[00:00:19]Sweden has more billionaires per person than the US. Much like China and China's rise, the story of Scandinavia is a story of essentially free market success. People like Zaran Mam Donnie and Bernie Sanders are liars.

[00:00:38]Hey there friends, fans and foes of Dad Saves America. John Pola here and I thought I would take this Friday well to combat misunderstandings about communism both big and small. And we got to start with the big because President Trump uh spent the week traveling to China. President Trump arriving in China to a lavish welcome.

[00:01:03]Hundreds of kids waving Chinese and American flags. Among the president's entourage, top American CEOs. You can see Elon Musk. And that's Jensen Wang, CEO of American AI chip maker Nvidia. I guess this isn't CNBC because they'd know to pronounce it Nvidia, not Nvidia.

[00:01:26]H how are you in journalism, sir? I'm sorry.

[00:01:30]I know it's just a slip up, but it's Nvidia.

[00:01:35]>> President Trump trying to level the playing field for US companies here.

[00:01:39]He's hit China with some of his biggest tariffs. And the US trade deficit with China dropped 30% last year to around $200 billion. And there's a new battle over AI. The Trump administration accuses China of an industrialcale effort to steal US technology on AI. And there's a fierce debate over whether more American companies should sell AI computer chips to China. One of the challenges that's taking place right now in the grand AI battle, of course, is that Nvidia uh which makes the uh the GeForce chips, the formerly gaming chips that now power all of these AI uh data centers, well, they have their market share in China has totally collapsed as a result of the the various trade embargos on selling chips and the and the tariffs. And uh that creates an interesting challenge for competitiveness as essentially the Chinese just use their own stuff. But just one element of the complexity going on. And here's just a quick obligatory reminder to hit that like button and subscribe to the channel. Only half of you are subscribed. So if you want to see more Dad Saves America, hit that button. And now let's get back to it.

[00:02:56]Then there's Taiwan. the democratic self-governing island that China's communist government claims as a part of its territory. How will President Trump respond when China's expected to push the US to soften its stance on defending Taiwan? And it's fitting that we uh we pause on tanks because we are in the middle of a great powers struggle and President Xi um well he laid out something that was a little ominous. Uh and I I I ran his speech or the beginning of it through the hey genen, you know, Nvidia powered AI generator.

[00:03:37]So, uh, I would spare you the subtitles and instead present you with a slightly robotic sheerly lip synced, which is also creepy and kind of a deep fake. Honorable President Trump, it is a great pleasure to meet with you in Beijing. This is your return to China after a lapse of 9 years. Our meeting is now, one could say, the focus of global attention. Currently, changes unseen in a century are accelerating.

[00:04:04]The international situation is intertwined with change and turmoil. The world has reached a new crossroads. Can China and the US transcend the so-called thusidites trap and create a new paradigm for major country relations?

[00:04:17]Can we work together to address global challenges and inject more stability into the world?

[00:04:23]>> This moment here in the middle really kind of took off this question of the and the AI sort of mispronounced it thusidities trap. What is the Thusidities trap? Well, apparently I'm not the only one that was wondering what is the Thusidities trap because it was the number one trending Google search in politics. At least as I sit here, even the New York Times is saying Xi warned of the Thusidities trap. What is it?

[00:04:52]This first came up in the first Trump administration, the year 478 BC. Athens has just allied itself with a collection of Greek citystates to project its own growing power and prestige. But a rival power, Sparta, has a formidable alliance of its own. The two systems are wildly different. One ruled by kings, the other by democracy. But according to ancient Greek historian Thusidities, it is the fear of a rising ever more powerful Athens that pushes Sparta to act. and makes war inevitable.

[00:05:30]Now, fast forward two and a half millennia, >> the year 2017.

[00:05:40]>> Let me explain how the world works.

[00:05:42]Okay, >> Donald Trump is in the White House and a Harvard professor pays his National Security Council a visit. The topic, what to do about China, the world's newest rising power. And Graham Allison, that professor, has brought with him a cautionary tale. Over the past 500 years, the world has seen 16 cases of a major rising power threatening to replace the ruling one. 12 of them ended in war. 12 of them ended in war. Look at some of these. Okay, first half of the 16th, France versus the Hapsburg. Then the Hapsburgs versus the Ottoman Empire.

[00:06:17]That's sort of the fall of the the great Austrohungarian Empire. Hapsburgs versus Sweden. And then the Dutch Republic versus England, France versus Great Britain, that's 17th and mid- 18th century. That's where America starts to come to life as an independent place, as a new country. Um, you know, back and forth, France, Germany, Britain, France and UK versus Russia. And so you see that uh this is the this is the fear as powers change, as great powers rise and fall. Um, well, the current king of the hill gets worried that somebody else is climbing and turns towards war. Or perhaps war is what brings about the change. It's known as the Thusidities trap after that ancient historian who documented the Pelpeneisian War.

[00:07:12]Conflict between rival great powers is likely, but it doesn't have to be.

[00:07:17]Creative Statecraft has helped to avert war in four of those cases, including three from the last century. Allison is using history as a warning, a wake-up call for both American and Chinese leaders to better understand each other's intentions less an emerging divide between Washington and Beijing further escalates. Now, that video goes on to explain how basically in the first Trump administration, uh, this warning was met with a lot of resistance by none other than Steve Bannon, who basically said, "Nah, we should go hard against China." Uh, any of this Day tant stuff.

[00:07:52]You're being a wimp.

[00:07:55]Better to go hard at them now while we still can while we still have some uh some some kind of leverage. Let's say Graham Allison was not new to this. This is something he had been talking about for years. Here's an article in the Atlantic in 2015. Um I think maybe before Trump took that golden escalator down to announce his presidency. So this has been an idea floating around focused on China versus the US for a while now.

[00:08:26]If we want to take Xi at his word and say that he doesn't want to end up in a war with the US, that is offset or you could say it's undermined by Chinese spies in the US kind of repeatedly making uh making incursions into our security. And that was another big story this week. One that actually got over 10 million views on Twitter just from one post talking about how a mayor of of course a mayor just outside of Los Angeles turned out to be a Chinese spy.

[00:09:04]>> I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

[00:09:09]>> Video shows 58-year-old Eileen Wang being sworn in as mayor of Arcadia earlier this year. It is truly an honor and a humbling privilege to stand before you.

[00:09:21]>> But just months later, Wang stepped down from the position amid growing controversy tied to a federal investigation. The FBI accusing Wang of spreading propaganda.

[00:09:31]>> Chief of the propaganda apparently being this photo, which is like that's not the same person. That's not the same person.

[00:09:40]Federal prosecutors say Wang has agreed to plead guilty to one felony count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government.

[00:09:48]>> The charges she's facing are very serious. She could be sent to prison for up to 10 years. The key here is her failure to disclose her connection with the government of China. The allegation is that she was really acting at their direction. She was their agent. And whether she's stealing nuclear secrets or just posting editorials that were pro-China, the fact is without registering as an agent, she's breaking federal law.

[00:10:14]>> The charges against Wang come after her fiance, 65-year-old Yao Ning Mike Son of Chino Hills, was arrested in 2024 and was sentenced to four years in prison for acting as an illegal agent of China.

[00:10:26]According to investigators, the two worked together from 2020 to 2022, and Wang admitted they operated a website together that provided news to the Chinese American community at the direction and control of the People's Republic of China.

[00:10:41]>> So, apparently the local the local op-ed research in Arcadia is not doing a good enough job because she's been engaged in spycraft for a while. All right, here's a quick word from the sponsor of this video, Van Man. Have you ever actually read what's in your toothpaste? Fluoride, SLS, glycerin, foaming agents. It's a chemical cocktail you're putting in your mouth twice a day. And frankly, big toothpaste has been selling you the same toxic formula for decades, which is why the Van Man Company is changing that with their miracle toothpowder. Here it is. I use it. It is quite good. People, including myself, are ditching traditional toothpaste by the thousands. The reason why I use it is because if I so much as nick my mouth, I get a horrible canker sore that lasts for weeks. And I have found that traditional toothpaste makes that much, much worse. But I get a lot less of that with this Van Man powder.

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[00:13:00]Okay, she's not alone. Of course, this is just the latest in the string of Chinese spy games being played against Americans.

[00:13:10]>> The Bay Area is a hotbed for Russian and Chinese espionage. All eyes are on Chinese intelligence in the Bay Area after Politico reported last week that a staffer for Senator Diane Feinstein turned out to be a Chinese spy reporting back about local politics. Today, the Chronicle has uncovered details. Citing an unnamed FBI source, the Matan Ross column revealed the Chinese spy was Feinstein's driver who also served as a gopher in the Bay Area office and was a liazison to the Asian-American community. He even attended Chinese consulate functions for the senator.

[00:13:44]Feinstein, who was the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, was reportedly mortified when the FBI told her she'd been infiltrated.

[00:13:52]Former FBI agent and KPIX-5 security analyst Jeff Harp says he's not surprised.

[00:13:57]>> Think about Diane Feinstein and what she had access to. You know, one, she had access to the the Chinese community here in San Francisco. Great amount of political influence. Two, Diane Feinstein, correct me if I'm wrong, still has very close ties to the intelligence committees there in Washington DC.

[00:14:15]>> Harp ran counter espionage for the FBI in the Bay Area and says in addition to traditional political intel and diplomatic secrets, Bay Area spies are often focused on things like R&D, technology, and trade secrets. They also have an interest in, you know, the economy here, you know, how to get political influence here, what's being developed down in Silicon Valley that has dual use technology. All of that is tied here to the Bay Area.

[00:14:40]>> And he says, like in many areas, when it comes to counter intelligence and espionage, the Bay Area is a trend setter.

[00:14:46]>> As the Bay Area goes, so does the nation when it comes to technology. So why not when it comes to spying? I like that the at the end of this um two 2018 video that they could just do generic uh Matrix Matrix text B-roll. So yeah, this has been going on uh suspected Chinese spy talk. California in particular, of course, you know, it is China facing being the West Coast and the left coast. So there's a lot of reasons why I think the Chinese have put a lot of attention on California. There is more sympathy for Mauism literally in California and that reflects in their their focus. It looks like a disgraced California politician, Eric Swallwell, got into some uncomfortable relational territory with a another operative named Fang Fang and he's been called out in town halls.

[00:15:46]>> Where's Fang Fang?

[00:15:47]>> I'm glad somebody was asking a question that was coherent. Where's Fang Fang? So if we want to avoid the Thusidities trap, China, maybe don't send quite so many spies to California to try to disrupt American politics. Now, we aren't seeing the stories of American spies in China. I'm sure we have them.

[00:16:07]That's how this goes. You know, spy games are the way of the world in the great powers 20th and 21st century. We had spy versus spy throughout the Cold War. And there's a sort of cool war going on with China.

[00:16:24]What's not cold, what's hot, what's crazy is that at least these spies are clandestine.

[00:16:31]A growing number of people on the far left and not so far left are just outright fans of China and specifically of Mao like New York Times favorite Hassan [ __ ] who took a trip to China and was just truly honored by this gift.

[00:16:51]>> No problem chat.

[00:16:52]>> Oh no wait.

[00:16:55]>> It's a small one.

[00:16:56]>> It's the first version of >> this the first Wait.

[00:16:59]>> Yeah. Really? Is that a Bible >> person? No, that's a little red book.

[00:17:02]>> It is basically >> the little red book.

[00:17:05]>> The little red book. It's the red Bible is what it is.

[00:17:07]>> Okay.

[00:17:08]>> Yeah.

[00:17:08]>> Some may say more important than the Bible. Some may >> especially over here.

[00:17:12]>> Yep.

[00:17:14]>> Yeah.

[00:17:15]>> This the crew the enthusiasm for mass murderer Ma Tong. Truly truly diabolical. I've played this clip before but it's worth coming back to given it's you know China week.

[00:17:27]>> I know. So, so yeah, >> that's crazy.

[00:17:31]Okay, these were incred Well, they weren't very rare at the time, but this is a this is a red book.

[00:17:39]>> Okay, chair uh quotations from the chairman Ma Dong. And this is an English version from the this I guess from 1966.

[00:17:51]And this is really really special.

[00:17:54]>> Yes, it's really really special. Yeah, it's super special. You know, it's also special knowing the history. So, I figured let's just let's just take a quick way back machine into Mao, specifically his cultural revolution.

[00:18:07]And um and the fact of the matter is is that we did have we the United States had a relationship with the leadership of China prior to Mao that was a source of contention. So, we have been intertwined in different ways with China for a long time.

[00:18:23]Prior to the 1949 revolution, China was ruled by a US backed dictator, Shang Kaishek.

[00:18:30]>> Well known to every American, his lean, keen Chung Kaishek, undisputed leader and idol of millions of Chinese.

[00:18:38]>> Mao called Chang a running dog of imperialism.

[00:18:42]He fought to depose Chang for 22 years.

[00:18:46]>> Despite aid from America, Chang's forces were beaten back. The revolution was now within Ma's grasp, and it was the start of the biggest political and economic experiment the world has ever seen.

[00:18:58]>> Before Mao's victory, China was among the world's poorest nations.

[00:19:04]>> This is an important point. China was desperately poor. China has a much longer history than well, than the US than than than Europe. China has a multi,000-year history. There were periods of time where China was the wealthiest, most technologically advanced society on planet Earth. Um, but by this time that was certainly not true.

[00:19:28]>> Inspired by communist theory, Mao blamed China's wealthy elites for the nation's ills.

[00:19:39]And here's the Hassan [ __ ] of her time.

[00:19:44]A red guard member >> Mao embraced communist propaganda like this film to rally the people against landowners.

[00:19:59]Dunc caps, a regular feature of Mao, China, were used to publicly humiliate landowners, intellectuals, and disloyal politicians.

[00:20:11]Thun caps and enormous mass graves. Let's not forget there was the humiliation and then there was the incredible amounts of sheer murder.

[00:20:28]In 1962, when Xi Jinping was just 9 years old, his father became an unlikely victim of these purges.

[00:20:37]>> And this is a really interesting thing to remember. The current president was traumatized by Mao.

[00:20:45]>> Mao accused him of being disloyal.

[00:20:50]She's father was subjected to so-called struggle sessions where he was beaten and denounced.

[00:20:58]>> His father was framed by a trumpup charge that he supported a novel that might have cast out or a mouse leadership and that's simple. And >> professor Alfred Chan is author of an exhaustive biography of Xi Jinping that chronicles his life. seen his father was dragged out and parade in the street. Uh in those day they put a dun cap on him and he was subjected to mock trials.

[00:21:25]Those were essentially kangaroo courts.

[00:21:30]Here a sign hangs around the neck of she's father that reads anti-party element xi jang sh.

[00:21:38]>> We know that this was an emotionally traumatizing experience for him. When you're a member of the Chinese Communist Party, everything is the party. Your entire life is the party. So for the party to tell you that you oppose Mao, it's hard to overestimate just how glowing it is for a member of this kind of organization to hear that.

[00:22:02]>> She's father was sent to work in a factory and was later incarcerated for 8 years.

[00:22:13]Meanwhile, some of the party elite were having doubts about Mao's leadership.

[00:22:18]>> Gee, I wonder why you can only torture and kill so many of your uh direct reports before uh you start to lose favor.

[00:22:31]>> A famine, the result of Mao's failed farm policies, had devastated the country. These people have come with reports of people dying in the fields, starving peasants eating some of the seed for next year's planning.

[00:22:43]>> So ma China was a disaster through and through. The country was a poor country.

[00:22:48]It remained desperately poor even as the rest of the world or at least the west certainly was was rising. Even the Soviet Union in in in a sense was doing better than Mao. Mao went, one could say Mao was more truly communist than any other place, you know, with the exception now today of perhaps North Korea.

[00:23:14]And uh and yet, you know, as we sit here, it's worth going back to what would come next. So as Mau's cultural revolution, his great leap forward, all of these various glorious utopia, hopeful dystopia creating sequence of purges and terrors took place. Ma's Ma's time is coming to an end. and a somewhat Trump-like, although frankly far more sophisticated thinker, President Nixon has his moment that will truly go down in history going to China.

[00:23:55]>> The announcement I shall now read is being issued simultaneously in Ping and in the United States. Knowing of President Nixon's expressed desire to visit the People's Republic of China, Premier Cho and Lie on behalf of the government of the People's Republic of China has extended an invitation to President Nixon to visit China. The Cold War was raging. In Southeast Asia, China was North Vietnam's ally, and Richard Nixon's credentials as an anti-communist were long-standing and impeccable.

[00:24:29]But in the fall of 1967, Nixon wrote a seminal article about Asia after Vietnam. Taking the long view, he wrote, "We simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations.

[00:24:43]There's no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation."

[00:24:51]I I find this such a remarkable statement from uh an often surirly President Nixon. Nixon was um one of the most capable foreign policy presidents probably we've ever had. And that he could do this while being a rabid, justifiably anti-communist.

[00:25:14]And uh is really something. It's really remarkable. It shows you how unlikely uh characters can can can change things.

[00:25:26]>> 1972, after 2 years of secret and delicate negotiations, the president and first lady were on their way to China.

[00:25:34]When our hands met, one era ended and another began. A few hours later, the president met with chairman Mount Maung.

[00:25:41]The 79year-old leader was in frail health, but the lively hour-long meeting included philosophy, history, and banter. Mao said, "I voted for you during your last election." What does that mean? I voted for you during your last election.

[00:25:56]Was he in California? Did come to California and vote for Nixon?

[00:26:01]Was it already that broken then? Nixon said, "I think the most important thing to note is that in America, at least at this time, those on the right can do what those on the left can only talk about." And and by that, I think he meant that as a hardliner, he could extend the olive branch of diplomacy in a way that would be far more legitimate than uh than the softies on the left. That is even more true today. Trump going to China is far more important in many ways given his hard stance.

[00:26:37]>> The Chinese people are a great people.

[00:26:42]The American people are a great people.

[00:26:45]We have at times in the past been enemies.

[00:26:50]We have great differences today.

[00:26:53]What brings us together is that we have common interests which transcend those differences.

[00:27:02]This was the week that changed the world.

[00:27:09]>> During a visit to the Great Wall, the president reflected on the purpose and potential of the trip. when one stands there and sees the wall going to the peak of this mountain and I think that you would have to conclude that this is a great wall and that it had to be built by a great people. I think one of the results of our trip, we hope may be that the walls that are erected uh whether they are physical walls like this or whether they are other walls of ideology or philosophy will not divide peoples in the world. uh that peoples regardless of their differences in backgrounds and their philosophies will have an opportunity to communicate with each with each other to know each other and to share with each other uh those particular endeavors that will mean peaceful progress in the years ahead.

[00:28:06]>> Well, goodbye. After President Nixon returned home, Clare Booth Loose told him that a thousand years from now they will say of you he went to China.

[00:28:18]Nixon goes to China. That has been stamped into history for all times. Uh, fast forward, China enters the World Trade Organization and the period in between then and now I wanted to spend some time on because it is misunderstood in ways that lead our current young people especially but not singularly astray. So what happened? How did we suddenly end up with China being such a powerhouse? Well, one of the things that was a turning point was actually their admission into the World Trade Organization, amazingly in November of 2001. So, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, it's just the way of the world. Sometimes just things all come crashing together.

[00:29:08]>> By adding China to the WTO, we strengthen the organization by further integrating China's $1.2 2 billion people and 1 trillion economy into the world market network. Think about that.

[00:29:22]In 2001, that 1.2 billion people had an economy of just 1 trillion, which I mean 1 trillion is a lot, but if you Google it right now, it says it's about 20 trillion. Now, that's not adjusting for inflation. So, it's not exactly 20x as big an economy as it was in 2001, but it's dramatically bigger.

[00:29:45]This step represents great progress for China, the WTO and the world trading system. Uh it has the potential in the next 20 years to become the second largest tra uh uh economic entity in the whole world and it will provide an enor enormous market uh for foreign products.

[00:30:06]So as China becomes a member of the WTO, as China uh gradually further opens up her markets, uh as China uh embraces the multilateral rules of uh international trade, I think everybody stands to gain from China's membership.

[00:30:24]It's very important that nations who are particularly ones who are emerging economies and China has such huge potential for the future should be part of the world trading family >> and the best is yet to come.

[00:30:37]>> The best is yet to come. So it could be that >> China's accession to the WTO is the result of China's opening up and reform is also required by the development of the World Trade Organization as well as the whole world economy.

[00:31:05]China's accession to the WTO is not only conducive to China itself but also to all the members of the World Trade Organization.

[00:31:12]>> So what would follow has been called the China shock, China's mass of people.

[00:31:19]And uh and frankly uh some aspects of their culture that made them hard workers uh on average. It's worth remembering actually that the very first immigration restrictions of any significance in the United States were targeted at Chinese immigrants going all the way back to the 1800s before the big shutdown of immigration in 1924.

[00:31:44]And one of the arguments made against these Chinese immigrants was that they were hard workers and and and dubious claims that they well they could just work on less food. All they needed was a little bit of rice and they could outcome. How could we compete with these rice eating Chinese immigrants? Uh so we've had this fraught relationship with competing with Chinese people in America for a long time.

[00:32:09]But what came next was the China shock, the the integration and ultimately outsourcing of lots and lots of manufacturing in exchange for much more affordable goods. Most I mean look, you know, still to this day, my iPhone is assembled in China. It's not designed in China. uh you know we still have a deeply integrated world trading system but you know it goes without saying the Chinese entrance into the world trade organization had a huge impact on all of us and has become something that many people broadly regret. Now, I don't overall regret it in the sense that I think the world has gotten better because of more people creating value for other people voluntarily. And that is the actual story behind what led to China's rise between the death of Mao and its admission in 2001 into the World Trade Organization. And I want to spend some time on this because this is now being retconed by the radical left. We are being told we are being told that Chinese economic success is actually the success of Mauism basically of gigantic government central planning. This clip from Jubilee is a sort of perfect representation of the new Gen Z/Millennial uh retcon on China's transformation. So I would argue that governments have actually lifted the most people out of poverty. If you look historically, we look at China for instance had the most significant poverty reduction in all of human history. They poured eight they pulled 800 million people out of poverty using state-owned enterprises and state centralized planning redistributing the wealth. It's interesting that you can have a desperately poor society, one that has gone through multiple famines, and somehow redist redistributing the wealth gets you to wealth. How do you go from desperate poverty and no wealth to technologically advanced wealth by redistributing the wealth that you didn't have? Like, I don't know how that works. I don't that's magic talk. Even the little fact check here is basically using weasel words. According to the World Bank, China pulled 964 million people out of poverty from 1999 to 2021. Now, I want to just focus on this language for a little bit. What does that mean? What is China in this sentence? And how did China, the entity, pull nearly a billion people out of poverty? This is collectivist Marxist language hiding in plain sight. It is China, the the society, the collective. It's really China, the government of China, pulling like like with hands all these people out of poverty. That's not what happened. That's not what happened at all. That is that is a story that is a left-wing propaganda story. It is one that is also held by Bernie Sanders. But what we have to say about China in fairness to China and its leadership is if I'm not mistaken they have made more progress in addressing extreme poverty than any country in the history of civilization. Okay. So they've done a lot of things for their people. Uh their economy now is struggling. Uh but I think it is absolutely possible for us to have a positive working relationship with China. They've done a lot for their people. Who's the they?

[00:35:47]Listen, you got to listen to this stuff.

[00:35:48]Who's the they that did a lot for their people? The answer is the they is the people. The reason why China suddenly stopped being a desperately poor disaster is because the boot of the state was lifted off the neck of the people. And there is a book written by one of the most famous economists Ronald Coo whose theory of the firm is a really important thing to understand. uh together with a Chinese economist Ning Wang, how China became capitalist, they investigated deeply the processes, the mechanisms, what happened here, how did this actually occur? because they were encountering these stories that that this was a statedirected effort that suddenly Ding Xiaoing and all these new leaders they they just became enlightened central planners for the very first time and they knew exactly how to finetune this society somehow. They the the knowledge just sprung into their minds after decades of grinding terror that doesn't pass the sniff test and it didn't pass their sniff test and so they actually looked into it a little closer. people that had a a wrong idea of what happened. Here was a country controlled by the Communist Party which introduced the country to capitalism. This is not what you'd expect. since 1978 was regarded by the Chinese government as the the start of reform. And if you go back to read that account basically says the Chinese government somehow magically designed this um and that's you know seem to us not credible and our account showed what we call the it was the marginal revolutions that led to market forces and paved the way for market transformation in China.

[00:37:56]>> So what's he talking about marginal forces? He means at the margin, the next change, this the next small step. I went from here to there. I've talked about some of these examples uh in prior episodes including you know this one small town farming town example where the farmers essentially invented the rules of capitalism under threat of death began to keep their surplus began to act as if they had private property even though the Mauist governors were saying you don't even own the teeth in your mouth that is not state directed reform that is people literally reinventing capitalism in spite of being told they'll be killed if they do so.

[00:38:38]And that was happening all across the country. Partly out of desperation and out of the basic nature of humankind. We are a creature that wants to create. It is in our nature.

[00:38:50]>> One of the marginal revolutions was the interaction of private farms. Previously it's been collectivists run by the government and gradually private farming was introduced in spite of the government. In spite of the government as I said without any change other than the incentives the incentive of ownership these farms these collective farms where we own everything went from being unproductive to highly productive and that began the transformation. private farming not only just emerged in that particular village in Ani province but was widespread in China before Beijing make that a policy.

[00:39:39]And uh uh so the reason why agricultural reform that is private farming spread out so quickly not because Beijing had a heavy hand be able to enforce that policy but exactly because that practice was widespread long before the policy was enacted. That explained the success and the rapid uh uh spread out of private farming in China. It's important because people didn't think think this was the way it happened. They thought of it as something controlled set up by the Chinese government and it wasn't. the concept that's very much derived from professor Kos's early work on the market for ideas and I think we think that concept provide a better framework to think about the success and the failure of China's market transformation >> the market for ideas the idea of private property of keeping of of keeping what you sew of um of of being able to earn it to earn success.

[00:40:54]That idea turned out to be quite viral when you didn't have actual murder squads parrolling the streets. All I believe that really ultimately happened is the successive waves of murder factory came to an end and that just gave the human spirit the chance to be revived. It you can't have trust. You can't build anything under a state of pure terror. But once the terror finally waned, the desire to truck and barter came roaring back. One other thing before we move on about the changes that took place in China that led to their explosive growth again were policy changes that were not top-down progressive planning, but quite the opposite.

[00:41:43]releasing controls, price controls, wage price controls, restrictions on trade within the country. When you have a billion people, that is a gigantic market with which to trade and compete.

[00:41:57]And when you're competing with a billion other people, you better get pretty good at what you do. And that is precisely what happened. China implemented uh in ' 92 uh price reform and then tax reform in 94 and then started to privatize state on the enterprises in the mid uh 90s.

[00:42:20]Those reform measures paved the way for the rise of a common national market which was able to discipline all economic actors in the economy.

[00:42:33]uh that uh uh allowed regional competition to become a transformative force in the in the in the economy.

[00:42:42]>> There's a lot more to the story, but at the end of the day, China got rich by letting their people have more freedom than they had. A lot more. Not by the government suddenly becoming less murderous and more enlightened. That's not what happened. It's not what happened at all. But this this is just one of our sort of international fake stories mi misunderstandings slashinttentional propaganda going on in our schools in our universities and on the progressive left in our politics that we need to confront. This is the big story. This is the big communist lie. There's a smaller less communist but still fundamentally communist lie and that is that our our movements toward democratic socialism are really just a desire to become more like Scandinavia. That Scandinavia has democratic socialism and that that's all our current democratic socialists really want. This is also a story that's in the news because of changes that have been noted in Sweden. But before I get to that, let's just recap how much love our progressive left has for the so-called Scandinavian model.

[00:43:57]>> Is it really possible for someone who calls himself a socialist to be elected president of the United States?

[00:44:02]>> Well, so long as we know what democratic socialism is, and if we know that in countries in Scandinavia like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, they are very democratic countries. Obviously, the voter turnout is a lot higher than it is in the United States. In those countries, healthcare is a right of all people. In those countries, college education, graduate school is free.

[00:44:19]>> Healthcare is not a right at all.

[00:44:22]Healthc care is a service provided and there is no system that guarantees it is always given to every citizen. There is always scarcity and nothing is free.

[00:44:32]Couple provos there. That's all language. Everything that people do has costs. Nothing's free. So the school's not free. And uh and there's no such thing as a right to other people's work.

[00:44:43]So that's all talk. uh they have different approaches but neither of those things as as presented are correct.

[00:44:50]>> Uh in those countries retirement benefits, child care are stronger than in the United States of America and in those countries by and large government works for ordinary people in the middle class rather than as is the case right now in our country for the billionaire.

[00:45:04]>> I can hear the Republican attack ad right now. He wants America to look more like Scandinavia.

[00:45:08]>> That's right. That's right. And what's wrong with that?

[00:45:12]>> What's wrong with that is that that's not actually true. But let's keep going before I get to why. So, >> you call yourself a democratic socialist. How can any kind of socialist win a general election in the United States?

[00:45:22]>> Well, we're going to win because first we're going to explain what democratic socialism is. And what democratic socialism is about is saying that it is immoral and wrong that the top onetenth of 1% in this country own almost 90% almost own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. And I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people.

[00:45:49]>> Denmark is a country that has a population of 5.6 million people. The question is really about electability here. And that's what I'm trying to get at. You the the the Republican attack act against you in a general election.

[00:46:00]It writes itself. You supported the Sandines in Nicaragua. You honeymooned the Soviet Union. And just this weekend, you said you're not a capitalist.

[00:46:07]Doesn't doesn't that ad write itself? Of course, that ad doesn't write itself because our school system has created a generation of utterly confused Americans, and Bernie Sanders probably would have gotten the nomination and may have won if Hillary hadn't stolen it from him. Uh, but these are old clips, but of course, Bernie is the uh is the underpinnings. He's now he's practically a conservative by today's standards. And uh the new version is more transparently radical but still sings the same song.

[00:46:38]>> I'm a democratic socialist. That means I believe in dignity for all people.

[00:46:43]>> It means more than that.

[00:46:45]>> I believe in dignity for all people.

[00:46:47]Okay. Does dignity mean you get to have property that you that and and contracts that are honored? You know, like a man is only worth his word. Uh is that dignity? That's not dignity. Dignity is free stuff that you take from others, right? That's what dignity means. Okay, let's keep going.

[00:47:05]>> It means more than that.

[00:47:07]>> Yeah, I I think >> you're not a communist. I agree with that.

[00:47:09]>> No, I'm not a communist. And I think, you know, a lot of New Yorkers have asked me, "What does it mean that you're a democratic socialist?" And I tell them to think about the words of Dr. King from decades ago. He said, "Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism. There has to be a better distribution of wealth for all of God's children in this country." And that's that's the hard.

[00:47:25]>> Okay. Well, you're like sort of like a Scandinavian type of politician, I would say. Right.

[00:47:30]>> A little more brown, but yes.

[00:47:31]>> Okay.

[00:47:33]>> But yes, but no. But no, that is not at all what he is. Uh we'll come back to his calls for the seizing of private property. But just one more take on the let's just be more like Scandinavia before we dig into actual Scandinavia.

[00:47:48]>> The history of America's relationship with government >> is a very antagonistic one, right? Like the inception of America is government, people telling us what to do.

[00:47:59]>> The reason why I hope you can succeed is because I would love us to have more faith in government. If you spent time abroad, like you know, you live in Europe and it's like, yeah, they're annoyed at their government, but at the same time, they're kind of like, ah, it's cool. I get healthcare. There's a little bit more faith and trust. And then you go to like Scandinavia and they're like, the government can do no wrong. You know, I mean, they could literally just they could kill like 400 people and the government would be like the people would be like, "Ah, it probably did something bad." Like there's just so trusting of the government. I I think Americans need to see government working for them.

[00:48:33]>> Yeah.

[00:48:34]>> And if that actually works, I think it would be a really beautiful thing where we can start believing instead of being skeptical of every single thing.

[00:48:44]>> Yeah. Now, Schultz is right that we are as a people historically skeptical of centralized power. That's healthy because centralized power is corrupting and you know it'd be nice to have a trustworthy government. That's true. It would be lovely to have a government worthy of more trust than we have. Uh we do not have that. Um and maybe one of the reasons why we don't is because politicians just lie. Like this little lie from Bernie about, you know, the joke, the joke here of what he believes.

[00:49:17]So the next time that you hear me attacked as a socialist, remember this.

[00:49:24]I don't believe government should take over, you know, the grocery store down the street or own the means of production. I don't believe the government should own the grocery store down the street. And yet here he is swearing in the mayor who said exactly those two things. Thank you to the man whose leadership I seek most to emulate, who I am so grateful to be sworn in by today, Senator Bernie Sanders.

[00:49:59]I was elected as a democratic socialist and I will govern as a democratic socialist.

[00:50:11]>> I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical. we should maybe have not abandoned our immigration law which doesn't allow communists to enter the country uh because he is indeed a communist and we have it on tape.

[00:50:26]>> We have to continue to elect more socialists and we have to ensure that we are unapologetic about our socialism.

[00:50:34]There are also other issues that we firmly believe in. Whether it's the the end goal of of ceasing the means of production. And with every battle that we fight as socialists, we need to remember what the stakes are and ground ourselves in them and why those stakes are important and critical to us as individuals.

[00:50:51]>> So he wants to seize the means of production. He claims he's a Scandinavian. And none of this is coherent or true because the Scandinavian countries are now fully more capitalist than the United States.

[00:51:04]particularly Sweden. So this article I want to read from a little bit. You need to know this. You need to tell your kids this. Everyone in America who says we need democratic socialism like Sweden, like Scandinavian countries, these are people who have gone to these countries on a long weekend or a week-l long vacation. They've ridden a bike in Copenhagen and think they understand the society. They've gone on a tram through Oslo and think, "Isn't this lovely?"

[00:51:35]They go see the fjords and they think they understand what's going on in these countries. They are, in the case of the politicians, just rank liars. And then for the rest of us who aren't supposed to know these things, just confused, misinformed, and politically motivated.

[00:51:53]So, what's really going on here? Much like China and China's rise, the story of Scandinavia is a story of essentially free market success. So here we have it.

[00:52:06]The world's most surprising capitalist makeover is underway in Sweden. The shakeup of cradletograve care is in is lowering government spending, spurring innovation, and stirring fears about those left behind. Now, there are just some unbelievable things that have taken place in Sweden of all places, and we will put a link to this over at dadsavesamerica.com. So, you should head over there for sure, so you can read the whole article, but let me just put a couple highlights in front of you. First of all, for decades, Sweden was shorthand for the brand of high tax, high-spend government that managed people's lives from cradle to grave through state-run hospitals, schools, and care homes. In other words, it was California as a country. But no longer. With little fanfare, this Nordic country of 11 million has embraced capitalism. And of course, it had capitalism all along with a very narrow window of exception, which we'll come back to later. Today, nearly half of private health care clinics are privately owned, many by private equity firms. One in three public high schools is privately run, up from 20% in 2011.

[00:53:23]See, Sweden actually has universal school choice across the whole country.

[00:53:28]And you can send your kid to a private school of your choice with a voucher.

[00:53:33]They have Milton Freriedman schooling in Sweden.

[00:53:38]Sweden's experience has lessons, good and bad, for other rich countries. Uh, and let's get into some of those. The capitalist makeover has allowed Sweden to do what few industrialized countries have managed in recent years. Shrink the size of the state. That has enabled the government to sharply lower taxes and economists say sparked a surge in entrepreneurship and economic growth.

[00:54:03]This is crazy. Its total public social spending bill, which includes health care, education, and all welfare payments, has fallen to 24% of gross domestic product. Similar to the United States and well below the over 30% for nations like France and my beloved Italy, who's an economic basket case.

[00:54:27]Look at this. Look at this graph right here. public social spending as a portion of GDP in 2022 or the most recent data. Sweden is just 1% more than the US.

[00:54:44]Unbelievable.

[00:54:46]And in so many other ways, Sweden is actually ahead of us. And Sweden's not alone, actually. But Sweden is perhaps the most um extreme example of hardcore free enterprise in Scandinavia. While many European countries are raising taxes, Sweden has cut them three years in a row. Sweden's top income tax rate has fallen close to 50%. Down from 90% in the 1980s. And remember, the US had 90% top marginal tax rates in the 1940s and50s. So even that's not especially socialist, although it's it's just stupid. It's just stupid and ineffective. Look at this graph.

[00:55:24]Government expenditures as a portion of GDP. So let me just I'll mouse over this so you can see. Here's the US and you can see basically government spending as a share of GDP was 26% in 1963.

[00:55:38]It has largely grown steadily. So the notion that we have gutted our system of government provision since the 1980s under laser Ronald Reagan is just false. He basically halted the growth which has since resumed so that as we sit as we sit here roughly in 2024 for this data government expenditures are 37.9% of GDP.

[00:56:11]Look at Sweden now. Sweden is still technically spending more as a share of their economy than the US but they have been declining since 1990.

[00:56:23]1990, if you look here, 1993 was their peak.

[00:56:27]70% of the dollars spent in the Swedish economy were spent by the government.

[00:56:37]That is pretty crazy. And the reason why this collapsed is because they went through a horrendous financial crisis.

[00:56:45]None of it worked.

[00:56:47]This is the Sweden that is pitched to us by academics and dishonest politicians on the left like Bernie Sanders and Zaran Mandani and and frankly Zoran Mandani barely will put on the the smile and say, "Yeah, I'm a Scandinavian." He knows he's not. He knows he's a Mauist.

[00:57:08]But that's what's happened. Other other more basket case countries like France and I mean, ironically, Germany have gone in the wrong direction. But Sweden has charted a different course. One other thing and then we'll move on to some clips. The interest paid on public debt is really something. So the US is going out of control. This and it's gotten so much worse even since 2024 on the debt and interest payments on the debt front. But look at Sweden. Sweden is literally sustainable. A word that is always abused.

[00:57:41]Sweden's high was 1985, 10%.

[00:57:44]Because of course, they grew the government massively. They taxed people crazily and debt went through the roof.

[00:57:51]So, it wasn't like they were paying for their socialism. They were borrowing from the future to temporarily pay for their socialism. And as we heard from good old Ma Margaret Thatcher last week, >> they always run out of other people's money.

[00:58:05]>> But as we sit here, they are basically the model of fiscal health. their their Sweden's debt to GDP is a mere 36% compared to 129% for the US, which should be alarming, but it is not. Most Americans don't care. We won't care until there's a crisis. I'm not going to waste too much energy trying to convince you to care. You should care. I know you don't. That's a bummer. That's a bummer for us and for our kids. We're acting like children in this society. Here's perhaps one of the most striking things narratively of all before we move on.

[00:58:46]Sweden, the country, saw more than 500 initial public offerings over the 10 years through 2024. More than Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Spain combined. According to a landmark 2024 report on Europe's economy by former ECB president, that's the European Central Bank Mario Draghi, it now has moved ahead of the US in the number of billionaires per capita thanks to a thriving tech sector and video game industry that has produced hits like Minecraft and Candy Crush. Let that sink in. Sweden has more billionaires per person than the US. The vaunted 1% is doing better in Scandinavia than they are here.

[00:59:37]Nobody knows this. Nobody you talk to on social media knows this, but this is the facts. This is reality. And the article goes on to explain that they have privatized their hospitals and are delivering AI powered solutions and fast turnaround. Their doctors are going home on time because they're they've gotten so good at delivering their services because they're privatized. It is the reason why private markets work is because you have an incentive to do better when you get to keep the proceeds of doing better. The Soviet Union used to say, "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work." That's what happens when everyone owns everything. Nobody washes rental cars for a reason.

[01:00:24]Incentives matter. This is the reality of what's going on. And you don't just take my word for it. Or the Wall Street Journal. Here's the Danish president back in 2015 responding to good old Bernie Sanders saying he thinks we should have democratic socialism like Denmark. I know that uh some people in in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism.

[01:00:46]Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Uh Denmark is uh far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy. The Nordic model uh is an expanded welfare state which provides a high level of security for its citizens.

[01:01:05]But it is also a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish.

[01:01:13]None of this is new if you're paying attention. Denmark starts to trim its admired safety net. This is from the New York Times in 2010. Denmark had recognized that when you pay people for not working, they don't work. And so their very extended multi-year unemployment program was so thoroughly abused that it was impossible to ignore.

[01:01:36]And so they shrunk it back dramatically.

[01:01:38]One of the other things that these countries have is something called flex security. So Zoran Mandani, Bernie Sanders, AOC, all of the California political order, they want to make everything hard. They want to make firing impossible. They want to make every type of thing you do in a business subject to top- down rules and regulations, which means you won't do anything. In Denmark, you can hire and fire with these. That's flexible security, and they just do it better.

[01:02:07]They these countries are also high trust because they are in very very homogeneous. And I'm not going to get into the immigration issue, but Sweden also did a U-turn on immigration. At one point Sweden was one of the highest immigration countries of migrants largely from these Islamic North Africa and Arab countries uh places like Syria because of the Syrian civil war uh Somalia etc. And it became a catastrophe. Stockholm turned into a more dangerous place than the worst parts of London. They had the highest levels of gun violence and gun related murder in Europe. And now they've reversed all that and they're net negative migration. So, you know, there's a bunch of other stuff that they've reversed on, but that's what's going on. These places are not what you think.

[01:02:57]>> Democrat Bernie Sanders points to Denmark as a model for what he wants to see the United States be more like. The Danes we've talked to appreciate all the attention on the presidential debate stage, but some of them are a little concerned that Bernie Sanders is not necessarily getting their system exactly right.

[01:03:13]the major political parties in the center left and the center right would oppose many of the proposals of Bernie Sanders. So did you hear that even the center left in Denmark thinks Bernie Sanders and Zoran Mani are too far left?

[01:03:29]That's that's what the high trust capitalist societies of the Scandinavia actually think. And just to underline it, the Frasier Institute ranks countries on the basis of how capitalist they are called economic freedom. How low are taxes? How strong are property rights? You know that much hated private property and contract.

[01:03:54]How secure are they? Hong Kong, according to their 2023 ranking, was actually incredibly still number one.

[01:04:00]Again, communist China, not so much. Not so communist politically single party but only communist basically in name only. Singapore number two. The US sits at number five below switzerland and New Zealand. Another place that many people think is a lefty a lefty society. It is not. Not economically.

[01:04:25]But when you don't have to go that far down to find Denmark at number nine, the Netherlands number 10, Finland 15, and since this is 2023, I bet Sweden will crack into the top 20 probably already has. One of the things that's important to to look at when we look at Scandinavia and think about the lessons we as Americans, if any, we should take from these small homogeneous northern societies is that how they got to be wealthy countries should matter to your story if you want to be like Sweden or Norway or Denmark. Now, Norway is a little more left because they're basically again a petrol state and all communism is powered by oil. Russia, Venezuela, and though not communist, Norway is more left because they have massive oil reserves more so than the other countries. But how do these countries get to be wealthy in the first place? You need to know that story.

[01:05:22]Here's Johan Norberg to tell it. Swedish thinkers going back before Adam Smith supported limited government, open markets and trade, secure property rights, and general economic freedom and greatly influenced the development of Sweden's economy. Consider that in 1870, Sweden's total government spending as a share of the economy was only 6%. That was less than the average for OECD countries, which includes most of the world's wealthy industrialized countries, and it was even less than the United Kingdom's spending.

[01:05:55]Even by 1970, after substantial increases in government spending by most Western countries, Sweden still had a relatively limited government. Spending as a share of the economy, for instance, was 29.5% less than the average for the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

[01:06:12]So, as of 1970, Sweden was a more free market society than the United States in 1970.

[01:06:21]and they were already essentially a modern western country. So they didn't get wealthy with socialism and social transfers.

[01:06:30]This approach to the economy which relied on limited government and open markets led to one of the fastest growth rates in the world and what Swedes still refer to as the 100 years of prosperity.

[01:06:43]In 1870, Sweden's per person GDP in US dollars, the broadest measure of living standards, was $2,144 per suite, compared to a world average of $1,498.

[01:06:55]Sweden enjoyed living standard about 43% higher than the global average at that time. By 1970, Sweden's per person GDP was more than three times greater than the global average and higher than most Western countries.

[01:07:09]>> So, that gives you a sense. Sweden was built and so were the rest of its neighbors on capitalism. That's how they got to be a wealthy society.

[01:07:17]>> It's important to recognize that while Sweden balanced its budget, government spending was still high compared to most other western countries. And that spending has to be finest some way. So what you can see here is that this is the period of flirting with being more socialist in Sweden into the 1980s, peaking in the early '9s where these places all went into financial crisis.

[01:07:42]Sweden got bit by the let's see how far left we can go bug. So did the rest of Scandinavia and spending went through the roof and taxes went through the roof and the government takeover of industries was attempted. This led to very high levels of spending. It also led to financial crisis and catastrophe which is part of what caused things to roll back. You can just Google, you know, Scandinavian financial crisis in the '9s and you'll find a treasure trove of geekery to dig into. The way they finance this spending is the other part of the lie in the American left and that is that we can finance our fake version of Sweden by taxing the rich and the rich alone.

[01:08:31]That has never been true. That is not the way these social democrat style systems work that do have at this well actually it's funny because at this point Sweden even doesn't spend more than the US as a share of GDP but even the countries that do they don't soak the rich to pay for their schemes. It's important to recognize that while Sweden balanced its budget government spending was still high compared to most other western countries and that spending has to be financed some way. But contrary to popular perception, Sweden's high tax burden is widely shared amongst average Swedes. It's not about taking from the rich and giving to the poor. So Sweden's sales tax, for instance, is the second highest in the industrialized world at 25% and is one of two main sources used to finance higher government spending in Sweden.

[01:09:22]>> So this is what what's called regressive taxes. Everybody pays the sales tax.

[01:09:26]It's a tax on everybody. The other tax used to finance higher spending is the personal income tax. But unlike countries like Canada, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, where personal income tax rates are steeply progressive, Sweden's high personal income taxes are largely levied on the middle class. Sweden's high top personal income tax rate, for instance, kicks in at fairly low levels of income.

[01:09:53]This means that many ordinary Swedes pay the top tax rate of a little over 52%.

[01:10:00]So for context, let's look at the US dollar equivalent of where the top personal income tax rate starts for different countries. Sweden's kicks in at about $62,000.

[01:10:12]While in Australia, the next lowest, it starts at about $120,000.

[01:10:19]And in the US, it is over $500,000.

[01:10:23]>> I've brought this up in other uh videos.

[01:10:26]We soak the rich more than every other country.

[01:10:29]So the soak the rich, tax the rich, tax the rich thing like mom Donnie, that's not what any of these countries do. We do that already. And that's the problem. That is the problem with our discourse and our politics when it comes to economics. We are basically told a continual stream of pure lies about places that do exist with histories that you can look up if you want to. Uh but nobody has the time to do it and so we don't. And the people who say these things who should know are just liars.

[01:11:04]So they lie to you. People like Zaran Mamani and Bernie Sanders are liars when they say, "I want America to be more like Sweden, and that's why we want to have high minimum wages," which places like Denmark don't have. Denmark doesn't have a minimum wage. They have negotiations. They have high wages. They don't have a minimum wage.

[01:11:25]>> We don't have a government regulated minimum wages in Denmark.

[01:11:29]>> Uh if you want to work for less than $15, as Bernie Sanders suggest, you can easily do that in Denmark. In the United States, McDonald's is used in the debate over minimum wage. In Denmark, there is no minimum wage. But because of union negotiations, people who work at McDonald's here make almost $20 an hour.

[01:11:44]And even though things are very costly in Denmark, this Big Mac costs less than in the United States when compared to the nation's purchasing power. Go figure.

[01:11:54]>> Nothing you've heard about these countries is true. Nothing you've heard about the reasons China got more wealthy more rapidly is true. The same happened in India by the way in roughly the same time period as the Berlin wall was falling as the Soviet Union was collapsing places like India and China started to boom because they were desperately poor and they wanted to make it. They wanted a chance to earn their success. We in the states with our wealth and comfort, we're sending our kids to places like Colombia where people like Zaran mom Donniey's father tells them that our societyy's horrible and socialism is the way forward and we have to stop. We have to stop that. So, as I come to a close, that's my lesson for you today. Just look up the facts.

[01:12:47]Free markets is the facts. It's the way the world actually gets richer. It's the way the countries that are richer have gotten richer. There is plenty to criticize in every society, including our own. We don't have a perfectly free market economy. We've we've got all kinds of crazy government schemes and crooked crony bailouts. But the direction towards progress as in material progress, human flourishing, all that stuff, our kids living better than we do, is actually towards copying places like Sweden, getting freer markets. That's what we need. That's the path forward. If we want to be successful, if we want to be competitive on the global stage, we need to actually compete to be competitive. And we need to teach our kids the reality of history. How wealthy countries got wealthy in the first place. How countries that were wealthy impoverished themselves by embracing socialism. And why we need to relegate that idea to the dust bin of history. And no matter what adjectives you use, socialism, democratic socialism, they're all the same thing. Socialists are just progressives in a hurry. and every flavor of socialism is just slow communism. So we need to reject all of that, especially as Americans, because our constitution makes clear that we have equality under the law as a right of being created. And that means we have a right to work together, interact with each other, have private property that we exchange through contract. And nobody should stand in the way of two capitalist consenting adults engaging in an exchange. That is the way forward. Uh and we need much more of it here, frankly. But let me know what you think.

[01:14:33]Has this armed you with some new arguments when you hear one of your neighbors talk about how we they wish we were more like Denmark? Are you going to be able to talk to your kids about this this weekend over dinner? Let me know in the comments. Head over to dadsavesamea.com where you can get the links to all these videos and the uh the the research and reports and of course if you want to support us, you can donate. We are a nonprofit organization after all dedicated to public education.

[01:14:59]At least I'm trying. And you can of course buy our merch. We've got mugs and t-shirts and all kinds of stuff down on the shelf below.

[01:15:08]And if you have made it this far to the end and you really like what we do, well, I've got news for you. We are hiring here. And this by here, I don't just mean Dad Saves America. I mean the studio behind it that I founded 5 years ago, Emergent Order Foundation.

[01:15:25]Head over to eo.foundation/careers.

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[01:15:48]I'm coming to work for you, John." And I'm glad he did cuz he's been awesome.

[01:15:52]So, we've got entry- level positions as fellowships for young people and students to come on board. We're also looking for editors, designers, and an associate producer to help with our show and other shows we're launching. So, head over to eio.foundation/careers.

[01:16:11]Put in an application. It will be rigorous. We're looking for people that want to be part of this team, want to spread the same ideas that we talk about every week, and um and want to learn and want to grow. and you can grow with us here in Austin, Texas.

[01:16:31]Have a great weekend.