I'd like to make my case for the motion in three ways first to talk broadly about the proposition of the growth of the public sector. Secondly, too narrow win and talk about the immediate political and practical differences between not socialists and conservatives. That's too narrow the broad Democratic left all kinds of people who are not socialists or liberals who are working people who are poor people who understand that they need a growth of the public sector that's the issue here tonight is not socialism. I'll come back and debate that sometime the light up to the issue. We should the public sector grown. I want to talk about the Practical counter position there and finally very briefly. I want to return to some broader things. So first of all some broad historical perspective on the issue, I submit to you. That for the past generation under Republicans as well as under Democrats under conservatives as well as under liberals. There has been a growth in government intervention into the economy. There has been a political ization of economic decisions. I submit to you. But the real question is not whether the government is going to intervene that's settled the real question is how who's going to do it for what purpose and how that's the issue William Buckley at least in some of his moods agrees with me. on this point on on November 9th 1972. He wrote The National Review and it's interesting. This is right after the Nixon Landslide against McGovern. You wrote a rather pessimistic piece and he said there is social movement in America which is centripetal and character more and more. We ask the government to look after us the great McGovern Interruption of 1972 may be thought of in due course as nothing more than a chronological presumption rather like Norman Thomas is coming out for Social Security 10-years before Franklin Roosevelt introduced it. Okay, couple years later January 26th. 1974, Mr. Barclay talked about the Republican Party. He said what gets our juices up about the Republican party is that it can defeat a George McGovern but having defeated him it becomes I quote a party a free wealth. Huge deficits inflation subsidies for string quartets revenue-sharing in place of tax reduction, okay. Mr. Buckley and I agree in eggs are probably under a Nixon under afford. The government moves in y. Why is a historical Trend there? Is it there because of a plot? Is it there because Nixon or Ford or whatever conservative gets in sells out. I don't think so. I think there are profound economic social technological and political trends. Which force conservatives as well as liberals The Advocate more government intervention. Let me just cite three examples of what I mean. They are no sense exhausted number one take the process of Aging. 100 years ago in a rural America only 1% of the people lived over 65 years of age. Today in an urban and America with nuclear families more than 10% live over 65 years of age. That's not something invented by some reformer. That is an enormous social demographic FAQ, which is responsible. Foremost social spending in the United States being for aging and it is about two-thirds of it is for raising its not fact, which is responsible for secondly pollution the growth of Technology. particularly under corporate domination in a quasar market system, which is does not really internalized social cost or taken long-term consequences the growth of technology did the pollution problem Richard Nixon has to face up to These are the results of our society. And everybody has to face something which is why even conservatives when they get into office begin to intervene surgery. And here I think I I don't know what the exact rules are. But let me say something like a general I won't reply to anything that's been said quite yet. Working people in the United States educated the elite in a modicum of morality. Thank God. And now in this recession people who get laid off have at least some protection not enough but some and I want to tell you something that's not simply good for them. It's good for everybody. Can you imagine the shape this economy would be in if we didn't have unemployment insurance? You think that's just something you're giving to a person out of work? That is something that is keeping this economy from an absolute disaster. I suggest you there for the these are examples of trends. Which require all political Persuasions to intervene in the economy, which leads me to the proposition. It is not whether we are going to intervene but how that is really the size of however. Let me warn you don't exaggerate. Don't exaggerate the intervention the federal share. Of the gross national product from 1952 to 1976. I know William Buckley wrote an article on it that he wants to bring it up. I will show him how he's wrong. But I'll just stick to Federal share fluctuated around 20% You know how it went under Eisenhower. The federal share of GNP was 18.6% under Kennedy and Johnson. It was 19.3% under Nixon and Ford. It was 21.4% I want to tell you right away. There's some difficult complexities and that's the tistic. Don't be a taken in too easily by it. For example, one of the reasons that Ford is the biggest spender in terms of GNP in modern history. Is that he managed simultaneously to come track the GNP and have enormous expenditures for unemployment at the same time. So you have high expenditures as a percentage of a lower GNC and you got a big figure 23% That's what forward to but we have not been going hog-wild. Sometimes we talked that way Lyndon Johnson sometimes talked as if he was going to remake the country every morning, but I will tell you something you never did. But then you'll say alright, that's the feds. What about state and local? Okay state and local 1952 to 1976 that doubled as a percentage of GMP, you know, where a double figures education. That's where it went up the baby. Boom. That's the plot. And also I would point out to you that. Which is the most virtuous spending cuz it's made by hard headed people on the spot. The federal spending hasn't been going up final point on this. No. What percentage? Appleamerican employment was the Federal bureaucracy under Eisenhower in 1955. It was 3.9% What percentage was it under under Nixon actually to Lyndon Johnson figure 1969 right after Nixon gets an office. It was 3.9% Arabic going up at all between 55 and 69. It went down 71 to 3.1% So I'm saying there isn't an inexorable trend for intervention, but be careful that you do not. Exaggerated because a lot of Americans think we did so much for the poor. I will tell you something about the war on poverty poverty one. now that's my first point the broad historical point there. Is that Trent? Is the trend toward government intervention in and of itself good. Absolutely nuts. Have to be crazy to the fun government intervention in and of itself. The war in Vietnam was a terrific Public Service Employment Program. Which was a political moral and every other kind of disaster and I was very much against the two million jobs. We created through the war in Vietnam. Is there a danger of bureaucratic domination through the expansion of government intervention? Absolutely, no doubt about it. Let no one tell you they've got a solution to a guaranteed Solutions of your ocracy. Bureaucracy challenges us all. Although I happen to think the Democratic intervention is the one way to really get around bureaucracy. But what I am arguing tonight how I interpret this motion is not that any and what that it is possible and necessary to expand the public sector in a certain way. That's my proposition. I'm saying it's possible I'm saying secondly, this is now it gets very critical that it is impossible in this economy to get full employment. And full employment as the key to everything else because of that fall employment. There is no racial Justice. There is no justice for women. There is no protection of the environment. There is no decency to the 3rd World. There is nothing if we limp along the way were limping now, we will fight one another for scarce resources instead of working together to deal with our problem. We cannot yet. Practical reality today and thirdly I want to make it clear in developing this thing. But when I talked about expanding the public sector, I don't want to put everybody on the federal payroll. I want to expand cooperatives. I think one of the most imaginative programs the New Deal came up with was rural electrification. Where the federal government provide a cheap money to Farmers so they can have their own coops and it works all over this country to visit instant public sector control by the people right there. I am for regional development. There are many things wrong with the Tennessee Valley Authority Act. Sometimes like the worst private Corporation no question about it on the environment of the Tennessee Valley Authority in his blood work has demonstrated that a public Enterprise can enormous Lee increase the well-being and happiness of an entire region on a regional basis. I'm on a federal basis. So we were talking about is the possibility the necessity and the multiple forms that government intervention can take the deal with problems that faced lesson desperately faces, okay. Now, let me get down to what the real choices. Buckley gets so realistic at times He's riding in the January 20th 1975 about Gerald Ford. Mr. Buckley puts forth his program to deal with inflation and recession and includes cutting 50 billion dollars out of the budget every year for 4 years in a row. Witchy confides the readers of the National Review will result in massive unemployment. I thought that's what this program's politically impossible ends up by saying before it's not going to do this and he said Gerald Ford cannot be expected to commit Orthodoxy. That's the conservative point of view. He would be committing suicide. Why then are you politically? For a point of view, would you define a suicidal? I would suggest that what all of these free enterprise Idols really do. Is rationalize corporate collectivism. But the real choices before the society are democratic collectivism and corporates collectivism. And that was all of this flock of Adam Smith and I got the Adam Smith a little later in the free-market winds up to be a corporate collectivism. Thomas I used to have a great conflict during the Ford Administration I can never decide every morning when I woke up whether I just like robots or William Simon Moore and when Simon guy texts out at relieved me of a great deal of internal temp. I can just hate Simon & Simon March 6th, 1976 wrote the real conservative collectivist program for National Review. A nurse is arguing. There's a capital shortage. He says. By the way, I should tell you that under free enterprise economic there cannot be a capital shortage. It's impossible because if there is a real need for Capital the price of money will rise high enough to meet the needs. That's Adam. So here comes Williams Williams Simon taking a very socialistic approach. He says there are things that we should do and these things need Capital that we are not raising and their Force assignment. What the government should do is lower taxes on unearned income. on capital gains 1 people who don't work for their income on the owners of capital while holding down the wages of working people and holding down payments. the people who are hungry the people who are poor what this is is a decadent capitalism. a decadent Auntie Adam Smith capitalism Which wants the government to supply the risk capital? And the corporations to keep the profits. What the real program of free enterprise Idols get down to is socialism for the rich. A free enterprise for the poor in the rest of us. I won't work. It won't work. but but let me let me get to my point. Now. That was a terrific question from the audience. One of the speakers don't work outfit. I had the highest rates of unemployment since the Great Depression. And the question is where are the jobs? I desperately want it to be a right of every citizen to work. But I will tell you something the private sector will not give that right. Because the economist and not just a conservative Economist a liberal Economist are now saying Full Employment unemployment. We Define full employment by unemployment unemployment is now equal to 4.75% once and Paul samuelson's early textbook. It was 2 and 1/2 to 3 then Jack. Kennedy said 3% unemployment full employment. Then Lyndon Johnson said 4% is full employment. Roughly 5% Unemployment is full employment, you know where the 5% are who have to be unemployed so that the system can work. They're black. They're brown. They are female and they are young. We are taking the most. question question Am I right in assuming that that you would like falling ployment that is employee. All of all of these people you're talking about. Just pulling out my Phillips curve here. Knowing that knowing that the Full Employment will cause spiraling inflation. How can you say this? Copy of my notes in a couple of seconds. Okay. I'll answer you to believe me. Why don't you do right now? Okay fun. What I'm talking about is putting people to work making goods and services that we desperately wants. I would like to see the railroads in America restored. So some kind of decency because they are environmentally benign and energy saving and we got destroyed because corporate politics. Tuckaway one of the best forms of transportation we have let's put people to work building the railroad pool pay for it the people use the railroad. We have an energy crisis. Let's put people to work building a solar technology, but not a solar technology where Exxon buys Arizona and rents it out for the rest of us. I think only fruit has kind of plans full employment. Can you get real de centralism? Can you get neighborhoods live again? Can you get people really involved? Okay, my time is almost up a couple of specific points in anatomy summarize more generally to specific the payoff is Health premiums on the contract a Canadian Auto Worker Works 3 weeks. They spend less than I got better health National Health is one of the best anti-inflationary devices. I know what is third-party payments for a fee-for-service system, which is proliferating Madison waste inefficient rip off the whole deal National Health and we are the only enough to help with not only allow us to be just also allow us to be efficient the other example, I take it from a man from the state. I think we have to begin to put limitations in terms of this planning. limitations on corporate power Then Senator Mundial introduced a bill. It's sad when a major corporation is going to leave an area. It has to give notice. Some years in advance that has to defend itself in public and that we cannot give major corporations as we have been doing billions of dollars of investment tax credit subsidies for walking out of the entire north-east than creating ruined cities in Ruins people and destroying an entire area of the country in the name of private profit. So I'm saying is the real Choice before you immediately is a corporate collectivism of subsidized capital for the corporations or the possibility of a plan full of Plymouth at the service of human needs final point. And this is only get more philosophical in general discussion the papers I read. You can do it now but not when I'm right in the middle of my final rhetoric do it now. Okay. I like what you say. I think there are many of us here. Who do but how can you translate these soaring social Visions into support of unions that have discriminatory admissions policies and some of Jimmy Carter's Administration. I know you campaign very heavily for Jimmy Carter. How do you translate your theory into that kind of Praxis? Okay. This is not off my time, right? Okay. start as a general journal philosophical principle I believe in an imperfect world. You have to find your Archimedean point where your Archimedean point is. I believe that the American Trade union movement has got 10 million things wrong about it. And since I love it so much. I probably know more that's wrong about it than most people. But I happen to believe that working people. are absolutely essential for any Coalition for this kind of a development and you are not abstract working people the way I'd like them to be If you American workers were the way I like him to be there all be social with might be president, but that's not quite working out yet. Therefore therefore I've got to I've got to go we're working people are look at National Health, you know, I National house on the agenda at all to people put up their Walter Reuther and George meany tell me the gorge mini support of the war in Vietnam was terrible. I actually agree but don't forget George meany has been fighting the good fight for National Health for 20 years. And so did Reuther and the labor movement is a Main Place light comes from. Okay. Let me go back and I said rhetoric. I don't really mean most important thing. I'm going to say tonight. Answer this in a lot of the discussion. The papers are red. I've heard people talking about government as them. government that simply coercion government that simply bureaucracy government that simply the Watchdog of the unsocial society I want to suggest an alternative conception of government. Is it possible that government can express? feelings and sentiments that manifestations of community human solidarity a cooperation a volunteerism I think so. I don't think it's easy under the conditions that I've defined. I truly don't. I think that democratizing this technological in collectivist society is something that is going to be enormously difficult and will not be solved in the lifetime of a person in this room. But that's the way we have to work together because if we don't work together, there's no chance. Is Aladdin set in one of his poems? We have to love one another or die. As Aristotle said in the politics and I paraphrase. Is Aristotle seven the politics? A city is not a business a city is a way of living. And we recapture that I think we are as individuals and as a nation bewildered by a society, which we don't seem to be able to control. If I could get sauce individually as well as it gets us collectively. I think we have to forget that sends back and let me let me conclude with a quotation from an author who I mentioned earlier. I'd rather profound quotation. The author is Adam Smith. The book is Adam. Smith's book the theory of moral sentiments. The book not as widely read is The Wealth of Nations. I wish it were. And Adam Smith said this and I would make this the model of my urging you to support the expansion of the public sector is I defined it Adam Smith said how selfish soever a man maybe supposed. There are evidently some principles in his nature. Which interest him in the fortunes of others and renders their happiness necessary to him? So he derives nothing from it. Except the pleasure of seeing it I come into you Adam Smith and the motion. Thank you. The chair now recognizes. Mr. William F Buckley to speak 20 minutes against the motion. Mister jamming ladies and gentlemen reference has been made to your disputed partiality The provocation I grabbed was done by the by the negative. On the other hand, of course, it was there was a publication. initiated by your self without reference to National a review you say that the National Review is the Dusky of stuff magazine. In St. John's Library That may be, but don't. There are a number of neglected texts these days. We think of National Review is sort of a secular version of the Bible. No, I think I can say with some confidence about it. That since some of the liturgists of St. John's took to translating the Bible National Review is the better written of the two. indeed with all due deference to the Resident Evil Origins They have some time to succeeded. It making the modern liturgy sound rather like Harrington's paraphrases of Aristotle. And I do it. I do think Miss jamming, but it was not exactly generous of you to introduce. Mr. Harrington as the foremost American Socialist. That would be wrong on the order of pointing out the tallest building in Wichita. Melissa Harrington is above all of their a nice man. Oh, I do agree with you that his fee was exorbitant. I also appreciate you suggesting to the audience don't want to leave. Until after a speaker has completed his presentation. The last time I spoke to you. Halfway through my talk a gentleman sitting in the front row moreover undertook to depart this Vale of Tears. If I had had the statistical appetites of Mike Harrington, I might have gotten to him before the end and asked if he was over 65. I don't know whether he left. Concerning this I'm sure there was a better division thinking that they was nothing more to live for having heard my words. I'm talking. Or whether he thought he might as well take off now. rather than face a world in which I contribute to which I contributed any formation of public opinion, but there has been an awful lot of confusion here today. And it is going to be difficult to sort it out notwithstanding The Splendid job that my associates I have done in laying the groundwork. a general ignorance of the subject of socialism What is a tremendous stimulants to its acceptance? Miss the Tramon box. with his animadversions on National Review reminds me of Scott Fitzgerald. Who was so a political that he lived while his life quite convinced to the boxes to somebody who would graduated from St. Mark's School? It does not become necessary. I think for me to say something to you right away. And that is that I am by no means he had to say that the opinions. I approve all of these how much that the movement will move you if you adopt them toward the political or ascendant. I'm not here to defend the Zeitgeist. No to declare myself impotent because it is said to be inexorable. Scott King returned from his tour of modern Europe. Some of you will remember who ready when was classic. Was told by the Headmaster when he went back to school. But he could no longer teach the brakes you must teach mathematics on the grounds that the Headmaster that this would help to prepare young people for the modern world. You do understand the necessity for preparing young people for the modern world. They had lots of said The rich Scott King surviving his inclinations to timidity said no. No, I don't think so at all. I think it would be quite Wicked to prepare anybody for the modern world. I'm not here to prepare anyone on exercises and winning popularity. I do seek however the outset to set certain records straight. It seems to me laptop. Talking about you water or something. It seems to me playing that much that has been denounced here tonight. on the general subject a little birdie went tweet tweet tweet was absolutely convincing as wasn't poisonous to Harrington with his thunderous evocation of the evils. of them of subsidies has matted to American corporations. But I struggle to understand the point of the indictment. I do not struggle to understand your enthusiasm for the indictment because you need a substantially share. What does it mean? When we say the railroad was destroyed by the capitalists. So soon after being told that the railroads were owned and exploited by the capitalist. If we all capitalists who are enjoying the use of flux learning owning the railroads, why do we set out to destroy them? Capitals didn't destroy the railroads. The capitalist who owns shares around central stock selling at to $300 selling now for under $10 presumably did not do this intentional afro that we have sometimes encouraged to believe that they dominated economic and political Affairs destroyed. as a result of the activities of the public sector they were destroyed by subsidies given the comparative form to travel. It is quite correct. When was the Harrington says that huge subsidies was fat which have been exploded by the truckers who defends those subsidies. I don't neither do mine partners of of this evening. It is certainly true that the airplanes are to a considerable extent subsidized by the public sector. I don't defend that pops up saying it is certainly true that the government went to the defensive of Lockheed on a very specific transaction. Who carried that boat? a democratic house and the Democratic Senate If all high percentage of Democrats in both houses voted for that subsidy to Lockheed then out Republicans, if indeed we can spend the balance of the evening isolating interventions by the government has succeeded in giving us things like railroads that don't work succeeded in giving us things like to see a be a government intervention in the business of the airlines under whose auspices. We are required to pay twice as much money for proceeding half the distance between New York and Washington compared to San Francisco and Los Angeles and Airline on interfered with by the c a b does its own business. Then let's go ahead and and explore these opportunities of for changing the situation isolate those subsidies and the probability is that I would join with you in criticizing all those Dimensions. But what would we then be doing we would be shrinking the public sector not increasing it. Mr. Harrington might have known love for 25 years is always preaching a kind of Set a metal apocalypse. He's always he's always telling us the Dreadful things are going to happen. Unless one accept his analysis of public affairs. Topless that we tend to accept the his analysis of public affairs last to be sure are some of the totemic original to use but on the whole it is true. The government has gotten into medicine government got into Madison about 12 years ago what has happened to do we have more doctors know do we have more nurses know what we have is double the cost of a medical bill. Question have somebody who believes in the private sector by ask a very simple question when government was not interfering in Madison way back in 1964 and it was taking not 6 weeks of the laborers pay about two weeks of the laborers pay up to look after himself and his family were things in better condition. Yes, you might say giving only contingent acquiescence to this proposition to say, however, there are people who will not be here for you not being here for 1964 and I would agree with you. This argument is not an argument about how to look after those who cannot look after that... Over whether to look after those who cannot look after themselves, but how to do it And I reiterate behalf of myself and my partner has a profound conviction that the doctrine of subsidiarity as enunciated. In the rerum, novarum and reiterated on five or six successive occasions is the key to a an enlightened social understanding the doctrine of subsidiarity says let no public Enterprise undertake something that can be undertaken by private Enterprise and let no high out unit of government undertake that which can be undertaken by a lower unit. Can we justify the growth of the public sector in the light of what we see as having happened as a result of those water cystically driven by it asked with that galvanizing Genius of his can you imagine the shape? This country would be in if we have no unemployment insurance. Well, I can imagine one thing. We would have less unemployment. It doesn't mean we would have full of Full Employment, but we would have less unemployment. We would have less unemployment tomorrow. If we repeal the minimum wage laws with sorry Economist have shown maximizes in particular black teenage unemployment by as much as 100 even 200% But these these vulgar formula isms. I'll get in the way of mr. Harrington's in court enthusiasm for substituting his notion of what ought to be accomplished for other people's notion of what ought to be accomplished other people's Notions traditionally formulated by themselves working for themselves through private associations that they themselves contributed to people who built everything from the Empire State Building to the building in which we stand here today. Much. Mr. Harrington's eloquent Book 15 years ago was on the subject of hunger. one tenth of 1% of the working population of the world resident in the United States produces 25% of the world's food. Can we really do better than that by going to the public sector the way the Chinese and the Russians did huac's would rate exporting nations of foods a generation ago, but who import now at a rate that even our of a flowing granaries have occasional difficult and satisfying it is true that we are huge consumers 30% of all that is produced in the world is consumed by the United States that are only 6% of the world's population Resident Inn in the United States. It is extremely difficult is not even for the most adamant Friends of the public sector to assume that 30% of what is produced by the by the 30% of the entire world. Is National Banks of stockholders I in fact there has been as a result of the stimulation of the private sector a considerable distribution of the natural wealth, which is unmatched in any country in the world that proclaims itself to be socialist. Yes or no question. I just want to know how much of what we consume do we consume for defense purposes. How much was how much of what we consume do we consume for defense purposes? 4.4% out of 30, mr. Harrington Who? Who's on Audacity by posing up Adam Smith is basically playful Adam Smith says, there's no such thing as unavailable Capital because he says if you want something badly enough the value of money will build up its availability in the first place. He's confused with an economist called say at anybody he said it a little bit differently. But what it means is that if in the last analysis you design something for instance penicillin in the event of the scarcity of penicillin, it will become available in the sense that you will liquidate all that you own in order to make it possible for you to purchase penicillin and therefore under those circumstances of capital seems Materialize but he does not take into account that I'm in the car. So that liquidation that which was thrust aside that which was liquidated becomes no longer available. It is a fact that in order to address ourselves to the continuing problems of our society what we need, but we absolutely have to have his a surplus we have to have a residue the governor of New York State. Who ran for office is a liberal Democrat turned on in 6 months ago or two representatives of his constituents from the labor unions and said luck. In point of fact, there is movement from New York State at such a rate into adjacent States as a result of the level of Taxation that what threatens is an actual evaporation of that message you unless we have that recipe we can't help people that we have traditionally been helping under the circumstances do not make the mistake of assuming that the public sector can in and of itself create a surplus. Because the public sector can only administer it can only tell you and me what to do. You can only attempt to allocate this and that direction that in the other direction doesn't mr. Harrington recognize what has been happening during the past ten or fifteen years of Peter Drucker Point stop. We have had a socialisation. Of the ownership of production without having had a say nationalization of it at this point 40% of the ownership of all equity in the United States economy is owned by employees Pension funds by 1980 that will have risen to 50% This means that all the working people in America have a stake in the productivity of the private sector as long as that private-sector is permitted to move forward uninterrupted by those are response to his own growth unburdened by all of those regulations that have a way of becoming not merely economic. But regulations that tend to constrict the freedom of movement of the American settlers, and then we can all indeed cooperate as opposed to Harrington. So eloquently asks us to do but in the course of cooperating respect each other's individuality respect each other's enthusiasm and respect. That institution the private sector which has done more to relieve human pain while acknowledging human dignity than any other political system in the history of the world.