'POVERTY - Who’s to Blame?' - The 2019 Hayek Memorial Lecture - Professor Bryan Caplan

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  • Опубліковано 12 лис 2024

КОМЕНТАРІ • 135

  • @EdwardCoplinBatman
    @EdwardCoplinBatman 3 роки тому +44

    Caplan is a legit genius. And underratedly hilarious

  • @yashpatel261
    @yashpatel261 5 місяців тому +2

    This man is so criminally underrated. He makes economics simplified and he is honest and i feel such a strong sense of responsible behavior coming off of him. This is the kinda guy young people should listen to. I bet he can change a few lives.

    • @Macrocompassion
      @Macrocompassion 5 місяців тому

      who is committing the crime? You might think it is only the landowners, but most of them don't know it, and the government supports land ownership. Do you know of any politician who can claim that different taxation is beneficial? There ain't none!

  • @TM-cb2te
    @TM-cb2te 4 роки тому +61

    I honestly think than Bryan Caplan is the intellectual heir of Milton Friedman

    • @kylewatson5133
      @kylewatson5133 4 роки тому

      Apples and oranges. They are both great but akin? hmmm idunno.

    • @nicholasd.5017
      @nicholasd.5017 3 роки тому +7

      Yeah, I completely disagree with him being linked to Friedman as his heir or something. Friedman dealt mainly in monetary policy, whilst Caplan deals with public choice, essentially.

    • @nickshelbourne4426
      @nickshelbourne4426 3 роки тому +1

      More like Thomas Sowell

    • @mns8732
      @mns8732 3 роки тому +1

      @,TM : that's a dubious distinction at best.

    • @sterlingweston
      @sterlingweston 2 роки тому +2

      Friedman's son David is far superior.

  • @jeffreywolberg3735
    @jeffreywolberg3735 2 роки тому +5

    Caplan is the man. A common sense thinker that says what needs to be heard.

  • @Sondre7
    @Sondre7 5 років тому +18

    Lovely talk. Was fascinating to observe in myself how any responsibility on the side of the poor can be discussed. Even though it is clearly the more dignified and respectful thing to do.

    • @MRCKify
      @MRCKify 2 роки тому

      What, instead of treating them like children or livestock?

  • @Michael-vf2mw
    @Michael-vf2mw Рік тому

    Just discovered this guy. I like the way he thinks. Critically and honestly.

  • @Chasebald
    @Chasebald 4 роки тому +13

    Of course he gets blank stares when he references Zombieland.

  • @friedrich7891
    @friedrich7891 5 років тому +13

    26:30 the best moment
    Very interesting lecture as usual by Bryan Caplan!

  • @davidjones1310
    @davidjones1310 4 роки тому +11

    Who else here also sees the irony in Caplan giving the Hayek Memorial Lecture, when his 1997 essay "Why I'm Not An Austrian Economist" is STILL the subject of essays, podcasts, etc. from Austrian School economists?

    • @llamasarus1
      @llamasarus1 4 роки тому +5

      He is influenced by the Austrian school looking at his book suggestion list.

    • @arguewithmepodcast
      @arguewithmepodcast 3 роки тому +14

      Just shows that Austrians don't demand lock step thinking.

    • @spencerantoniomarlen-starr3069
      @spencerantoniomarlen-starr3069 7 місяців тому

      Have you read that essay? I didn't finish it, but I did start it, and right up front he clarifies that he is talking about Mises and Rothbard and their followers, not Hayek.

  • @thestonemaster81
    @thestonemaster81 4 роки тому +4

    I think the problem is a consequence of choice. It is a result of bad choices so the rest of us can look at that and say that’s a bad choice I’m not gonna follow that path.

  • @michaelbailey8446
    @michaelbailey8446 4 роки тому +2

    Can't wait for the new book!

  • @Macrocompassion
    @Macrocompassion 5 місяців тому +2

    I hate to say it but this economist has no idea of what is the cause of poverty. The cause is not simply who but it is also what it is due to. It is due to lack of opportunity, due to land appropriation and speculation in its values. Henry George explained it in 1879 in his classic book "Progress and Poverty" but even today this approach is shunned by less responsible politicians and their supporting economists of which unfortunately this speaker is one!

  • @ianperfitt
    @ianperfitt Рік тому +3

    if one billion people are still making less than $1.25 a day and governments and employers set those prices then poverty is created by the governments and employers....seems that they know what they are doing which is not to eradicate poverty

    • @anarchic_ramblings
      @anarchic_ramblings 5 місяців тому

      An employee being paid $1.25/day is wealthier than an unemployed person making nothing. Employment creates wealth; that's why it exists in the first place. Prices including wages are 'set' by the market, not by employers. Governments hamper this wealth creation through regulations, taxes, money printing (inflation), immigration restrictions, redistribution etc. In some cases governments do indeed 'set' prices but the problem there isn't that the prices being set are too low, but that they are too high. For example, minimum wage laws effectively outlaw those modes of production that the least skilled and experienced people are able to participate in, leaving them jobless.

  • @benjamingeorgecoles8060
    @benjamingeorgecoles8060 6 місяців тому

    I would love to see him in discussion/debate with Ha-Joon Chang, for instance, on what constitute 'sensible' growth policies for a developing country to adopt.

  • @Pst103
    @Pst103 3 місяці тому +1

    Nice talk

  • @rogerbarris8605
    @rogerbarris8605 4 роки тому +11

    The implication of Bryan's three drivers of poverty - bad policies in 3rd world country, immigration barriers in 1st world countries, and irresponsible behavior - is that any poverty in a 1st world country is exclusively the result of irresponsible behavior. This is probably true of absolute poverty, although even here there could be cases of extreme bad luck, but there are certainly 1st world policies that contribute to poverty and severely mobility, namely:
    * land use restrictions which drive up the cost of housing in high-productivity areas (which Prof Caplan mentions)
    * very bad public education (which prevents the learning of even basic skills)
    * over-incarceration, including for victimless crimes, along with the impact of having a criminal record on subsequent job availability
    * occupational licensing, which cuts off access to jobs and reduces labor mobility, and
    * badly designed "social safety nets" including with built-in poverty traps.

    • @rogerbarris8605
      @rogerbarris8605 4 роки тому

      @Maiahi Which is why I began the second sentence with "This is probably true of absolute poverty....."

    • @ajitkirpekar4251
      @ajitkirpekar4251 4 роки тому +1

      He might be suggesting that its impossible to be third word poor in a 1st world country. This certainly seems the case as I have recently come back from India and I live in San Francisco. While its still a tragedy, the typical homeless person on the streets of SF is miles ahead of even the most well off beggar in India. Its shocking how much better off.

    • @TheBswan
      @TheBswan 4 роки тому +3

      @37:50 he literally says that his book doesn't have all the answers because you can't boil down poverty to just 3 things. Nice try.

    • @llamasarus1
      @llamasarus1 4 роки тому

      He gives Bad Luck as a blanket for the things that don't cover irresponsible behavior

    • @soulfuzz368
      @soulfuzz368 4 роки тому +3

      He would agree with all of those except the one on education, he believes the government shouldn’t fund it at all.

  • @benjamingeorgecoles8060
    @benjamingeorgecoles8060 6 місяців тому +1

    It does seem to me in some way right to say we should (often, certainly not always) treat poor people as in part responsible for their poverty, and even that that can be helpful. It also however seems to me a big mistake to emphasise that responsibility over the responsibility of the rich and powerful to end poverty through courageous, non-greedy and intelligent action, and over the motivating empathy we should feel towards those in poverty. I mean, it seems to me twisted that Caplan is so keen to talk about how people's bad decisions cause their poverty, and so uninterested in considering how people's poverty propels them towards those bad decisions, by doing so much to truly limit their options, their education, their understanding of so many things, and to form their mentalities and their sense of what's possible for them and what's normal, and to even directly put them in harm's way, traumatise them, leave them with severe hang-ups, burdens, etc. And then also shocking to me is that Caplan so little thought here to the question of what has led to concentrations of wealth in certain countries, communities, families - to (not the whole of that picture, but important parts:) histories of brutal exploitation and cronyism and system-rigging - let alone consider the possibility that such things ought to be compensated for in so far as they can be. Caplan's clearly a smart guy, and I'd always appreciate his contribution to any debate, but in some ways his thinking seems very shallow to me, and pretty smug as well.

  • @CJinsoo
    @CJinsoo 4 роки тому +5

    Would also like to hear his thoughts on the lack of law enforcement or rule of law for the poor and contributing to poverty.

    • @nixpix814
      @nixpix814 3 роки тому +1

      because they attack the police units?

    • @CJinsoo
      @CJinsoo 3 роки тому +1

      @@nixpix814 Huh? No idea what you are talking about. I made the comment because corruption, lack of enforcement of laws on the books, and lack of legal protection contribute to keeping many in poverty world-wide.

    • @nixpix814
      @nixpix814 3 роки тому +1

      @@CJinsoo Sure, doesn't mean that much of it, at least in the west isnt due to poor decisions.

    • @CJinsoo
      @CJinsoo 3 роки тому +1

      @@nixpix814 agree about the west, but in reality the “poor” in the west aren’t really poor-they are a political chip, and kept “poor” (subsidized housing, food, schools, medical care) -referring to them as poor is somewhat of an insult to poverty. In the real world of poverty, the institutional support and enforcement is a large problem.

  • @mirceaecrim1
    @mirceaecrim1 2 роки тому +4

    The talk started with 2 big unexamined assumptions:
    ♦️ Is Poverty a Natural Phenomena ?
    ♦️Is Poverty a Natural Problem or is a Creation of the Human Social Structure?

  • @republitarian484
    @republitarian484 2 роки тому +3

    I agree with Professor Caplan on a lot, but he discounts Culture. Most people don't want to live in a multicultural society and do not want open border regardless of what beneficial economic arguments can be made.

  • @diegomorales8616
    @diegomorales8616 3 роки тому +2

    People don't do what works in reality. They do what they think is right. The morality must be changed in order for the actions and policies to be changed. Without that, all the evidence in the world will continue to fall on deaf ears. Ayn Rand challenged what people took for granted as right and good. Read The Objectivist Ethics and ask yourself what facts of reality lead you to think that suffering is a virtue.

  • @CJinsoo
    @CJinsoo 4 роки тому +3

    I suspect he has addressed this topic, given his thorough thinking on this topic, but, how should immigration policy be structured so that we end up with the productive instead of more subsidizing sloth, illegitimacy, and criminal behavior?
    And if that can be addressed sufficiently for immigration policy, then why not apply to government policy that otherwise currently pays for more domestic poverty?

    • @soulfuzz368
      @soulfuzz368 4 роки тому +4

      I would bet that he would say that this isn’t an immigration question but a welfare policy question. Stop the programs that incentivize slothful behaviour and less sloths will want to immigrate.

    • @CJinsoo
      @CJinsoo 4 роки тому +2

      @@soulfuzz368 I agree that ultimately it is a welfare policy question, but there is a significant unintended consequence when the welfare policy has few limitations and is much more difficult to change.
      There are other immigration policy approaches that could help here, e.g., giving the immigrant the choice of welfare plus taxes but never citizenship, or citizenship plus taxes but no welfare, or others...

    • @robinthestate6548
      @robinthestate6548 3 роки тому +1

      easy Bryan would probably say the problem isn't immigration is the wellfare which is true.

    • @monad_tcp
      @monad_tcp 3 роки тому +1

      By requiring proof of specialization, you have to study.

  • @marcusmoonstein242
    @marcusmoonstein242 8 місяців тому +1

    26:06 Those "reasonable steps" to avoid poverty should include a fourth item: don't try drugs, not even once. Drug addiction (including alcohol addiction) is the most reliable way to ruin your life and become poor.
    EDIT: A brilliant lecture. I particularly like the point that (to some degree) many poor people have some responsibility for their poverty. I know this for a fact because I have a business that supplies a service to blue-collar workers. Some of the lifestyle choices and financial irresponsibility I've witnessed first hand initially shocked me.

  • @Macrocompassion
    @Macrocompassion 5 років тому +4

    TAX LAND NOT PEOPLE; TAX TAKINGS NOT MAKINGS! As described below.

    • @MRCKify
      @MRCKify 4 роки тому

      What's the difference between you and a Georgist?

    • @thelaw3536
      @thelaw3536 4 роки тому +2

      Than you will lower the value to buy real estate unless it is disconnected to the land as the cost will increase. One of the major causes of wealth dispiarty is high cost of housing driven by restrictive development policy. This also means you wouldn't want to own land, which is usually a package with the house.

    • @gordovious
      @gordovious 4 роки тому

      Tax nothing.

    • @monad_tcp
      @monad_tcp 3 роки тому

      @@gordovious Governments literally print money, they control the supply of money, taxation is basically stealing, let the economy be free and individuals do their transactions without the government middle man.
      On how to not be a poor country.

    • @anarchic_ramblings
      @anarchic_ramblings 5 місяців тому

      Land doesn't pay taxes, people do.

  • @SeanCosgrove1
    @SeanCosgrove1 4 роки тому +10

    So, many poor people are poor because they live irresponsibly. But, move some of those poor and irresponsible people to a place like the United States and they'll live responsibly because they crossed an imaginary line? Yes, they can be more economically productive than in their past country, but add in a welfare state which subsidizes parents who make bad decisions, why would they change their behavior?

    • @monad_tcp
      @monad_tcp 3 роки тому +2

      " but add in a welfare state which subsidizes parents who make bad decisions, why would they change their behavior? "
      The idea of moving to a rich country like the US is precisely that it doesn't do that, so you are actually forced to be responsible.

    • @peterpehlivan157
      @peterpehlivan157 2 роки тому

      I think you'll notice a trend with people like Caplan where the only thing that's consistent is making the rich richer and screwing everyone else. There's no other consistency, they're just looking to stuff their pockets with billionaire $$$ at "Liberty" think tanks.

    • @Michael-vf2mw
      @Michael-vf2mw Рік тому +2

      Are you straw manning? Caplan stated that irresponsibility is only one reason. Another is bad developmental policy, hence the existence of poor countries.

  • @nicmart
    @nicmart 2 роки тому +1

    The book never appeared, correct?

  • @deepthinker8153
    @deepthinker8153 3 роки тому +2

    The majority should Learn skills & learn facts. Scientists should deal with theories. Save time of students + provide jobs to students.

  • @benjamingeorgecoles8060
    @benjamingeorgecoles8060 6 місяців тому +1

    It seems to me he clearly shows his limitations as a thinker at the start when he talks in that jokey, dismissive way about first-world problems. Of course there are extremely serious problems that people commonly have even in the richest parts of the world - perhaps most notably problems like intense loneliness, feelings of meaninglessness, purposelessness, worthlessness, feelings of being trapped in pointless, mechanistic jobs that allow no creativity, little dignity, little connection with others, etc. (We can't all just choose to become professors because that seems like a fun job, and then do that.)

  • @nthperson
    @nthperson 8 місяців тому

    Professor Caplan ignores one aspect of the historical record and our contemporary experience. This is the consequence of the long history of the private appropriation of what political economists termed "rent." Rent is societally-created, arising as population increases and locations with the greatest potential for yielding wealth (with the same input of labor and capital goods) are all taken up. The best land still available has the potential to yield something less (again, with the same input of labor and capital goods). Thus, the best land now yields a rent independent of what the holder of the best land does or does not do to improve the land held. Justice requires, therefore, that rent be captured by society for use in creation of physical and social infrastructure.
    Societies that fail to adopt law that captures rent must raise revenue by confiscation of income flows earned by producing goods and providing services. Such taxation makes impossible sustained full employment without inflation. Some will always be relegated to bare subsistence, to a life of impoverishment.

  • @realityalwaysbulliesopinio1961

    The human species began in poverty and standards of living have improved. Pretending it is the other way round is just intellectual BS

  • @darbyohara
    @darbyohara 4 роки тому +9

    FINALLY! A college professor who deals in actual facts and puts the blame on the poor for being poor.
    The poor make bad choices and that’s why they’re poor in most cases.

    • @MRCKify
      @MRCKify 4 роки тому +8

      Well, if you simply his other 2 diagnosed factors to Zero, yes that's the remaining factor.

    • @llamasarus1
      @llamasarus1 4 роки тому +3

      You can't skip to that conclusion first without bringing up bad luck and bad policy

    • @darbyohara
      @darbyohara 4 роки тому +1

      llamasarus1 my father came from a family of 12. Poor growing up and likely to stay that way unless he made the right choices. Instead he’s a self made millionaire. Luck or policy had nothing to do with it.

    • @robinthestate6548
      @robinthestate6548 3 роки тому

      @@darbyohara he lives in a first world country I'm assuming...

    • @monad_tcp
      @monad_tcp 3 роки тому +1

      @@darbyohara My father did the same, one of 12 brothers, but he went for engineering school, and then I, one of 3, when to computing science school and choose the gold rush of information-technology.
      I'm more than half-way becoming millionaire by 30. And I probably will have only 1 child.
      Just do the right choices, like not dropping out of high-school to use drugs, like the others, or actually getting to university.
      Also, what's the problem with poor people spending so much money in clothes (or alcohol, or shoes), its ridicule, poor people spend half of what they earn on clothes, I never did that because I was poor (It was better to save money or spend it on paying student debt, or paying any debt), even now that I can get any clothing I want, I simply don't do out of not having this bad habit, I just dress like Steve Jobs.
      How to not be poor:
      1. study
      2. learn to save
      3. don't make bad decisions, aka, think of the future
      People say I had luck, what luck ? not being stupid or something, is that lucky ? I say no, just make the right choices, and that's that.
      I'll never understand, even thou my grand-grand-father ran away from literal fascism and started from the literal 0, by working on the fields, it only took 3 generations.
      Perhaps Brian is right, people are poor because of bad decisions.

  • @GreatGazoo8
    @GreatGazoo8 4 роки тому +1

    If you guys knock this down to ten minutes I'll watch!

  • @thelaw3536
    @thelaw3536 2 роки тому

    Where's the book?

  • @deepthinker8153
    @deepthinker8153 3 роки тому

    Recently, Bryan Caplan has contradictory ideas with respect to mass. After 50~60 years, People will try to think about Bryan Caplan’s ideas. This time, We mostly think. He highlights minor underground issues. Government intellectuals can beat his ideas 💡 by showing own status/power/indirect public support & good salaries than Bryan caplan. But, We can really feel these issues. We also don’t wanna say so bcz of majority isn’t saying. But, People really wanna say so as Bryan caplan.

  • @terkfranks1538
    @terkfranks1538 2 роки тому +1

    I've heard him before and he basically says 1)blame the poor 2) let 3rd world country people come to US and work for low wages 3) eliminate housing regulations
    That's a recipe for making working class Americans even poorer, the rich even more rich and housing would be even worse as more expensive and unsafe. 🤦‍♀️

    • @turkishlibertarian74
      @turkishlibertarian74 2 роки тому

      No it isn't

    • @terkfranks1538
      @terkfranks1538 2 роки тому

      @@turkishlibertarian74 which one is incorrect, please do your best to explain if you can.

    • @michaelhutchings6602
      @michaelhutchings6602 Рік тому

      @@terkfranks1538 How would making housing cheaper by increasing supply make people poorer?

    • @terkfranks1538
      @terkfranks1538 Рік тому

      @@michaelhutchings6602 if you mean cut regulations as in less safe, that's a no for me. If you mean by allowing rich to build expensive micro apartments at astronomical prices, that's a no for me. If you mean, reducing the 3,000 Sq foot 3 car garage requirements in some areas - sure thing 👍

  • @franke4369
    @franke4369 4 роки тому

    The U.S in blue? and Europe and Scandinavia in green what ? really we are the best? This must be a joke!

  • @ConanDuke
    @ConanDuke Рік тому +1

    BS

  • @tropics8407
    @tropics8407 7 місяців тому

    Really ?! Is a presentation like this really required ? 😳🤷‍♂️

  • @kx5517
    @kx5517 4 роки тому +2

    Isn't unprotected sex and high birthrates just a fundamental constant of poverty stricken communities/areas, around which we form policy?

    • @Macrocompassion
      @Macrocompassion 4 роки тому

      Also child disease and early death rates tend to "compensate" for their higher rates of birth!

  • @FrankEdavidson
    @FrankEdavidson 4 роки тому +7

    I'm not for the open borders. A nation state's society is more than its GDP.

    • @abcw114
      @abcw114 4 роки тому +10

      Well, it's not just GDP. It's the uplift of humanity.
      I suppose if you put culture or whatever else over amelioration of desperate poverty, okay. If you think GDP is just numbers and do not see the value of economic growth in the long term, okay.

    • @sawyerjonathan
      @sawyerjonathan 4 роки тому +8

      Please provide a contemporary example where free migration was a *net* negative for the native population.
      Certainly, there are isolated instances where some immigrants can be socially destructive, but the same can be said about natives. The spread of ideas across borders probably undermines native culture more than immigrants crossing borders.

    • @gsockpuppet2490
      @gsockpuppet2490 4 роки тому +7

      I'd highly encourage reading Caplans book on open borders. It addresses this very concern.

    • @martymcfly5423
      @martymcfly5423 4 роки тому +2

      The USA has to be protected from criminal, illegal Invaders who are going to rob, steal, rape and murder innocent Civilians including Children.

    • @gregorymalchuk272
      @gregorymalchuk272 4 роки тому +2

      @@sawyerjonathan
      The late Roman Empire, where the immigrants sided with foreign invaders and sacked their capitol city.

  • @mns8732
    @mns8732 3 роки тому +1

    I know from knowing immigrants for 40 years how easy or not to get into this country.
    This guy is a liar. He does not know. This is why the fairness doctrine needs to be resurrected otherwise policy cannot be weighed by voters.

    • @monad_tcp
      @monad_tcp 3 роки тому +3

      I think he was talking about legal migration.
      It hard to actually do that.

  • @StevenOwensby
    @StevenOwensby 4 роки тому +3

    eat the rich

    • @TM-cb2te
      @TM-cb2te 4 роки тому +9

      I'll sell you the sauce, forks, plates, and knives.

    • @StevenOwensby
      @StevenOwensby 4 роки тому +2

      @@TM-cb2te you trying to get rich?

    • @TM-cb2te
      @TM-cb2te 4 роки тому +6

      @@StevenOwensby What does it matter to you, you're still trying to eat the rich aren't you?

    • @robinthestate6548
      @robinthestate6548 3 роки тому

      @@TM-cb2te they want to eat you when you become rich🤣

    • @monad_tcp
      @monad_tcp 3 роки тому +1

      that's why you are poor.
      the rich is too strong for you to eat, you start with other poor.
      eat the poor.

  • @gloworm6387
    @gloworm6387 3 роки тому +2

    He talks like someone who only reads books to research. Why didn't he live with the poor people. That's the only way to get real accurate data. This is b s.

    • @nixpix814
      @nixpix814 3 роки тому +7

      what?

    • @monad_tcp
      @monad_tcp 3 роки тому +3

      doh, because there's people who did that and wrote the fucking books ?
      and that's not the only way to get data, personal anecdote is not data