WEBVTT 1 00:00:18.900 --> 00:00:23.440 The film you are about to see was made to provoke discussion of our private enterprise 2 00:00:23.440 --> 00:00:24.440 economic system. 3 00:00:24.960 --> 00:00:28.840 During the film, high school students discuss the pros and cons of the system. 4 00:00:28.840 --> 00:00:33.420 You will probably agree with some of the ideas expressed and disagree with others. 5 00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:36.700 When the film is over, you will want to discuss what you have heard. 6 00:00:37.500 --> 00:00:38.580 But there's also another thing. 7 00:00:39.120 --> 00:00:40.620 Yeah, no, that's right. 8 00:00:40.820 --> 00:00:41.100 Explain. 9 00:00:41.360 --> 00:00:42.900 Besides the fact that you find that... 10 00:00:42.900 --> 00:00:43.860 Okay, let me ask you this. 11 00:00:44.060 --> 00:00:44.520 Well, I don't think... 12 00:00:45.520 --> 00:00:46.440 No, no, no. 13 00:00:46.440 --> 00:00:47.140 That's contradicting. 14 00:00:47.400 --> 00:00:48.700 I don't believe that. 15 00:00:48.820 --> 00:00:49.860 So what's the problem then? 16 00:00:49.860 --> 00:00:50.260 That's right. 17 00:00:50.540 --> 00:00:51.820 No, that's perhaps true. 18 00:00:52.160 --> 00:00:52.820 How about that? 19 00:00:54.680 --> 00:00:59.540 Let's start out by defining the economic system we have in this country. 20 00:00:59.840 --> 00:01:00.920 What is it, first of all? 21 00:01:01.880 --> 00:01:03.800 Well, as we call it, free enterprise. 22 00:01:04.520 --> 00:01:10.280 But it's like being able to start a business without having the government tell you whether 23 00:01:10.280 --> 00:01:11.020 you can or not. 24 00:01:11.240 --> 00:01:13.620 It started that way way back in the beginning. 25 00:01:14.600 --> 00:01:16.300 But it has changed quite a bit now. 26 00:01:16.620 --> 00:01:19.720 In 200 years, the government has come into it quite a bit now. 27 00:01:19.720 --> 00:01:21.820 There are controls for these things. 28 00:01:21.960 --> 00:01:26.080 I think the free enterprise system is probably one that's just based on competition, where 29 00:01:26.080 --> 00:01:31.280 everyone receives his material benefits in accordance to the work he does and the productivity 30 00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:32.700 he puts into society. 31 00:01:32.940 --> 00:01:37.000 And I think that's probably the greatest advantage of the system, that it does have that incentive 32 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:40.960 to work for an individual to work and for an individual to produce. 33 00:01:41.360 --> 00:01:48.320 I think probably that's one of the things that has contributed to the massive accumulation 34 00:01:48.320 --> 00:01:50.840 of material goods we have in the free world today. 35 00:01:51.140 --> 00:01:54.580 The free enterprise system only works like that, though, if you have sincere and true 36 00:01:54.580 --> 00:01:55.160 competition. 37 00:01:55.500 --> 00:02:00.060 Well, the way I look at a free enterprise system is that it leaves business unlimited. 38 00:02:00.100 --> 00:02:01.920 It can go as big as it wants to. 39 00:02:02.660 --> 00:02:08.560 And there isn't a limited market or a limited anything. 40 00:02:08.640 --> 00:02:10.060 Then you eliminate the competition. 41 00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:13.800 Free enterprise becomes control over the economy rather than competition. 42 00:02:14.380 --> 00:02:18.300 Isn't big, isn't becoming a monopoly, isn't that part of the system? 43 00:02:18.860 --> 00:02:23.300 Isn't that, OK, you start off very little and you grow and you grow. 44 00:02:23.400 --> 00:02:24.420 Isn't that part of the system? 45 00:02:24.520 --> 00:02:25.960 That's the only problem with big businesses. 46 00:02:26.320 --> 00:02:34.720 When one gets bigger or when a group of big businesses merge and form like a conspiracy, 47 00:02:34.880 --> 00:02:35.740 then we're at their mercy. 48 00:02:36.020 --> 00:02:38.860 And you can produce the product cheaper, then there's nothing wrong with it, because that's 49 00:02:38.860 --> 00:02:39.780 the whole purpose of society. 50 00:02:39.780 --> 00:02:40.140 Certainly. 51 00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:41.240 That's right. 52 00:02:42.060 --> 00:02:45.820 Except, Mike, the point is that no one is going to do that if they don't have any competition. 53 00:02:45.920 --> 00:02:47.660 And who are they going to compare prices against? 54 00:02:48.040 --> 00:02:52.080 I think they'll soak us for as much as they can get, as long as we let them. 55 00:02:52.320 --> 00:02:57.060 I agree that they could raise their prices, but then there would be the one guy who'd 56 00:02:57.060 --> 00:02:58.460 say, oh, they're all going to raise their prices. 57 00:02:58.500 --> 00:03:01.020 I'll lower them and I'll sell more and I'll make more because they all have... 58 00:03:01.020 --> 00:03:02.200 That's not necessarily true. 59 00:03:02.480 --> 00:03:03.020 Yes, it is. 60 00:03:03.060 --> 00:03:06.120 Because once they become inefficient or someone can do it better than them, then they come 61 00:03:06.120 --> 00:03:06.940 in and compete with them. 62 00:03:08.020 --> 00:03:11.600 Well, doesn't the corporation have to be sensitive to the consumer and what the consumer wants 63 00:03:11.600 --> 00:03:13.340 and to serve the consumer to be successful? 64 00:03:13.620 --> 00:03:17.180 Yes, but then you get back to once it gets big enough, it doesn't have to if it's a necessary 65 00:03:17.180 --> 00:03:17.680 product. 66 00:03:18.040 --> 00:03:19.420 Well, then look at the food industry. 67 00:03:19.520 --> 00:03:22.500 That's the marketing professions like in the oil industry where you have to be so big just 68 00:03:22.500 --> 00:03:23.780 to get started that... 69 00:03:23.780 --> 00:03:25.740 There are about seven oil companies now. 70 00:03:26.420 --> 00:03:26.780 That's right. 71 00:03:26.780 --> 00:03:27.660 It's not just one. 72 00:03:27.840 --> 00:03:31.020 Yeah, but they all work together and they all... 73 00:03:31.020 --> 00:03:31.920 I have a question. 74 00:03:32.660 --> 00:03:34.080 Why couldn't... 75 00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:40.760 Mike's not stupid, but why couldn't one company that has all the oil, just one company control, 76 00:03:40.860 --> 00:03:46.560 everything that has to do with the mining of oil and putting it on the market, one company 77 00:03:46.560 --> 00:03:47.880 could do that really efficiently. 78 00:03:49.320 --> 00:03:49.880 Why could... 79 00:03:49.880 --> 00:03:50.660 What's wrong with that? 80 00:03:50.740 --> 00:03:51.540 There's a monopoly. 81 00:03:52.020 --> 00:03:52.700 Well, oligopoly... 82 00:03:52.700 --> 00:03:54.120 I know, but what is wrong with that? 83 00:03:54.200 --> 00:03:54.500 I mean, if... 84 00:03:54.500 --> 00:03:57.020 They can charge anything they want to do that. 85 00:03:57.320 --> 00:03:59.060 They can double the prices. 86 00:03:59.460 --> 00:04:02.020 Well, that's why free enterprise is always going to be contradictory. 87 00:04:02.240 --> 00:04:05.480 It depends on if you want to give everyone an incentive to be able to enter the system 88 00:04:05.480 --> 00:04:08.620 or if you want the most efficient system and you're not going to get both in the age where 89 00:04:08.620 --> 00:04:09.800 you can have mass production. 90 00:04:10.160 --> 00:04:12.900 How is that free enterprise when you get stopped at a certain point? 91 00:04:13.220 --> 00:04:16.220 It's a possibility to have a completely free enterprise system. 92 00:04:16.220 --> 00:04:20.140 As a company, as a big business gets more and more successful, it eliminates the competition 93 00:04:20.140 --> 00:04:22.180 and suddenly it controls the whole market. 94 00:04:22.300 --> 00:04:26.160 Then the government, who isn't really supposed to enter into the free market and into free 95 00:04:26.160 --> 00:04:28.480 enterprise, has to come in to preserve competition. 96 00:04:28.900 --> 00:04:33.460 And that's their only function, I believe, is to preserve it, the competition... 97 00:04:33.460 --> 00:04:37.060 You're going to have to have some government controls for like price fixing and things 98 00:04:37.060 --> 00:04:37.640 like that. 99 00:04:37.780 --> 00:04:38.980 Big business can't be the... 100 00:04:39.500 --> 00:04:41.220 Yeah, it can't be the leader in the country. 101 00:04:41.260 --> 00:04:42.480 The government has to be the leader. 102 00:04:43.700 --> 00:04:44.140 And... 103 00:04:44.140 --> 00:04:46.060 But still, you have to have big business... 104 00:04:46.060 --> 00:04:49.860 Well, it's the function of profits is to, of course, ideally... 105 00:04:49.860 --> 00:04:51.520 The way profits don't really exist anyway. 106 00:04:51.540 --> 00:04:54.420 It's all on paper if you could figure out exactly what the profit is. 107 00:04:54.440 --> 00:04:58.300 But really, all the money is going from one place into another, being reinvested or going 108 00:04:58.300 --> 00:05:00.980 into more technology, more research and development. 109 00:05:01.080 --> 00:05:02.800 So that's how it should work. 110 00:05:02.900 --> 00:05:07.000 The reality is that perhaps in the long term it will be successful, but you need in the 111 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:09.260 short term the government to step in and close some of the gaps. 112 00:05:10.880 --> 00:05:15.640 Jim, you said that it's better in the long run, but Harry Hopkins, who worked for President 113 00:05:15.640 --> 00:05:19.820 Roosevelt in the 1930s, said that people do not eat in the long run. 114 00:05:19.960 --> 00:05:20.700 They eat every day. 115 00:05:20.880 --> 00:05:21.760 And I think that's the important point. 116 00:05:21.760 --> 00:05:26.580 The point is that people are basically in industry and in everything out for themselves, 117 00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:29.640 not out for the good of the millions of masses. 118 00:05:29.860 --> 00:05:33.800 And I mean, when they do something, it's to benefit themselves, not saying, well, we might 119 00:05:33.800 --> 00:05:38.320 be able to make some money doing this and give 10 billion people jobs, but I'd rather 120 00:05:38.320 --> 00:05:39.080 do something else. 121 00:05:39.100 --> 00:05:39.640 Yeah, that's true. 122 00:05:39.840 --> 00:05:40.200 Exactly. 123 00:05:40.280 --> 00:05:45.400 You can't have one monopoly and no other companies, but you can have a bigger business and other 124 00:05:45.400 --> 00:05:48.800 small businesses that will try to work up towards competing. 125 00:05:48.800 --> 00:05:49.540 Yeah, but I don't know. 126 00:05:49.680 --> 00:05:51.900 Okay, but everybody, we've all got to have a medium, right? 127 00:05:51.920 --> 00:05:54.580 I mean, we're not down the dumps or we're not way up high. 128 00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:58.740 I mean, so isn't society doing, or government and business doing us okay? 129 00:05:59.040 --> 00:06:00.020 A good job, I mean. 130 00:06:00.580 --> 00:06:01.060 No, really. 131 00:06:01.060 --> 00:06:01.420 Oh, yeah. 132 00:06:02.040 --> 00:06:02.400 Yeah. 133 00:06:02.840 --> 00:06:04.080 We should never work out. 134 00:06:04.240 --> 00:06:08.940 Well, we work to the heart all the time, and look what we get for our corn. 135 00:06:09.560 --> 00:06:11.540 The price we get for our corn is going down. 136 00:06:11.780 --> 00:06:14.800 Look at the price we get for our milk, going down a dollar a hundred just the other day. 137 00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:17.040 What system would you suggest to help that? 138 00:06:17.320 --> 00:06:17.540 I mean, what? 139 00:06:18.260 --> 00:06:22.240 Well, I think you could go just give the farmers an even break. 140 00:06:22.460 --> 00:06:22.980 But how? 141 00:06:23.220 --> 00:06:24.140 Well, I mean, it's still supplying the man. 142 00:06:24.140 --> 00:06:25.940 Well, it's the same story in every business. 143 00:06:26.140 --> 00:06:26.320 I mean. 144 00:06:26.840 --> 00:06:27.980 Oh, God, his prices are so high all the time. 145 00:06:27.980 --> 00:06:30.880 My father would like an even break, too. 146 00:06:30.960 --> 00:06:34.500 His furniture prices keep constantly going up, but what can he do about it? 147 00:06:34.720 --> 00:06:39.600 He has to do what the furniture manufacturers tell him to put the price at. 148 00:06:39.600 --> 00:06:40.960 He wishes the prices were lower. 149 00:06:41.180 --> 00:06:44.780 First of all, all right, if they raise their prices, that's when you need government regulation. 150 00:06:44.780 --> 00:06:47.600 To price cut when they start putting little businesses out. 151 00:06:47.900 --> 00:06:53.200 You find that the large corporation owners and so forth are the ones who are controlling 152 00:06:53.200 --> 00:06:54.920 the government, so therefore it doesn't work. 153 00:06:55.280 --> 00:06:56.280 What can you do then? 154 00:06:56.440 --> 00:07:00.080 Well, I don't believe they control the government, not by any means. 155 00:07:00.480 --> 00:07:02.900 But you know they have a large influence over what goes on in the country. 156 00:07:02.920 --> 00:07:03.160 That's true. 157 00:07:03.300 --> 00:07:07.360 We can't really believe that companies will always do what is best for society. 158 00:07:07.960 --> 00:07:13.500 When a company finds it more profitable to buy a machine that will put 20 or 30 people 159 00:07:13.500 --> 00:07:16.740 out of work, that certainly is not going to better society. 160 00:07:16.960 --> 00:07:20.080 Right, but what happens is secondary, even though they're not trying to, they better 161 00:07:20.080 --> 00:07:21.880 society and they employ more people. 162 00:07:22.680 --> 00:07:24.660 How do they better society, though? 163 00:07:24.660 --> 00:07:26.560 By increasing the profits for themselves. 164 00:07:26.700 --> 00:07:30.120 By increasing the profits, they put the profits back into something else and therefore create 165 00:07:30.120 --> 00:07:33.680 more efficiency in some other type of the market and therefore lower the prices in everything. 166 00:07:33.700 --> 00:07:34.680 Are they really doing it? 167 00:07:34.680 --> 00:07:37.020 Are they really lowering prices by making higher profits? 168 00:07:37.140 --> 00:07:37.920 Are they really? 169 00:07:37.980 --> 00:07:42.360 The question is, is the system working as far as people are concerned, as far as society 170 00:07:42.360 --> 00:07:43.000 is concerned? 171 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:46.640 With a few minor faults, I think it's... 172 00:07:46.640 --> 00:07:48.100 Yep, with a few minor faults. 173 00:07:48.980 --> 00:07:54.040 No, really, I think that with a small exception of about 10% of the people. 174 00:07:54.260 --> 00:07:59.080 I think it's quite obvious that our system would have to be considered the best in the 175 00:07:59.080 --> 00:08:03.080 world in that we are the number one producer in the world. 176 00:08:03.660 --> 00:08:07.960 That's why I think our system works so well is because it's so responsive to what the 177 00:08:07.960 --> 00:08:08.720 consumer wants. 178 00:08:09.020 --> 00:08:10.040 Yeah, I think so, too. 179 00:08:10.040 --> 00:08:14.000 He can decide what he wants and how much he wants to pay for it by just looking around. 180 00:08:14.120 --> 00:08:15.000 Wait a minute, now... 181 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:18.660 See, talking about other corporations and the profit motive is that they are sensitive 182 00:08:18.660 --> 00:08:22.960 to consumer, but they're sensitive to the middle class consumer who can afford to buy 183 00:08:22.960 --> 00:08:28.440 whatever they want, who buys ridiculous things like cheese kisses and stuff that they don't 184 00:08:28.440 --> 00:08:28.680 need. 185 00:08:28.760 --> 00:08:29.560 There is no cheese. 186 00:08:29.940 --> 00:08:31.440 But they don't have... 187 00:08:31.440 --> 00:08:34.020 Come on, I mean, why can't we just live on necessities? 188 00:08:34.480 --> 00:08:36.420 I mean, if that's the whole purpose of society, I should just have a house? 189 00:08:36.420 --> 00:08:39.660 But there are some people who don't even have the necessities, Michael. 190 00:08:40.600 --> 00:08:42.760 So I should give away my income that I work for them. 191 00:08:42.820 --> 00:08:44.060 Now what kind of answer is that? 192 00:08:44.280 --> 00:08:45.680 That was ridiculous extreme. 193 00:08:45.860 --> 00:08:47.160 What about the people that really need it? 194 00:08:47.460 --> 00:08:50.540 The poor that, I don't know, they don't have that good of jobs or anything. 195 00:08:50.920 --> 00:08:51.940 What are they going to do? 196 00:08:52.140 --> 00:08:56.760 Is that the goal of pre-enterprise, to provide for the welfare of society, the good of society? 197 00:08:56.980 --> 00:09:01.860 A long time ago, Michael said that the goal of society was to make things as efficiently 198 00:09:01.860 --> 00:09:05.960 as possible at the lowest possible prices, but you've got to figure out if you're sacrificing, 199 00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:12.980 if you're sacrificing more people who have a lower standard of living, industry is working 200 00:09:12.980 --> 00:09:17.720 to better the middle class and the upper class, but the poor and the unemployed are the ones 201 00:09:17.720 --> 00:09:20.060 that are going to suffer and we have to decide whether... 202 00:09:21.040 --> 00:09:25.360 Say, some industry, like the automobile industry, can be more efficient at the sacrifice of 203 00:09:25.360 --> 00:09:26.560 unemployed a lot of people. 204 00:09:26.800 --> 00:09:31.600 Okay, you might unemployed 50 people if you go to mechanized, let's say auto industry, 205 00:09:31.900 --> 00:09:34.860 but at the same time, you have to have people who will maintain those machines. 206 00:09:34.860 --> 00:09:35.620 And how many? 207 00:09:35.680 --> 00:09:36.980 Do you need 50 people to do that? 208 00:09:37.580 --> 00:09:38.560 Why would you need 50 people? 209 00:09:38.800 --> 00:09:39.640 That's not true. 210 00:09:39.740 --> 00:09:42.820 You know, if you carry it to an extreme, you could become completely mechanized in the 211 00:09:42.820 --> 00:09:45.640 auto industry and lay everybody off because of technology. 212 00:09:45.960 --> 00:09:50.160 I think, you know, the problem with unemployment is not technology. 213 00:09:50.240 --> 00:09:53.820 I will admit, there's certainly a serious problem there and it has to be solved, but 214 00:09:53.820 --> 00:09:57.940 it cannot be solved by simply cutting back in technology and going to a more labor intensive... 215 00:09:57.940 --> 00:10:01.880 What about the system and the individual, the opportunity provided by the system for 216 00:10:01.880 --> 00:10:07.140 the individual to do what he wants to do, to start his own business, for you to get 217 00:10:07.140 --> 00:10:08.300 rich, to achieve? 218 00:10:08.680 --> 00:10:10.100 That's where our system... 219 00:10:10.100 --> 00:10:12.540 That's where it comes through. 220 00:10:12.820 --> 00:10:17.760 No, there are certain people that are going to get way ahead financially, socially, and 221 00:10:17.760 --> 00:10:19.780 every other way and then other people that... 222 00:10:19.780 --> 00:10:23.420 Each man delivers his own wealth. 223 00:10:24.040 --> 00:10:26.460 Whatever the man does, he gets. 224 00:10:26.460 --> 00:10:32.020 If you're poor and you live in the ghetto, you can't get a good education in the lower 225 00:10:32.020 --> 00:10:32.600 grade schools. 226 00:10:32.820 --> 00:10:35.320 Malta is not just providing those people better schools. 227 00:10:35.740 --> 00:10:36.440 That's impossible. 228 00:10:37.400 --> 00:10:38.960 Well, education would help, wouldn't it? 229 00:10:39.440 --> 00:10:41.120 But it needs a change in the whole... 230 00:10:41.980 --> 00:10:47.020 There are some people that are in our society that we cannot ignore, you know, like the 231 00:10:47.020 --> 00:10:51.800 retirees, the divorces with 100 kids or something. 232 00:10:51.800 --> 00:10:57.940 And we can't ignore these people, so we have to have a system set up to support those people. 233 00:10:58.220 --> 00:11:02.840 Okay, those cases excluded, what about the people who don't work because they don't want 234 00:11:02.840 --> 00:11:03.120 to? 235 00:11:04.280 --> 00:11:09.120 Look, I mean, it's so easy for us to sit here and talk about this and talk about percentages 236 00:11:09.120 --> 00:11:10.140 of unemployed, but... 237 00:11:10.140 --> 00:11:12.320 What percent of those people are really trying to get jobs? 238 00:11:13.680 --> 00:11:16.620 Those are the only things that you have to correct, not things that you have to change 239 00:11:16.620 --> 00:11:17.380 the whole system for. 240 00:11:17.440 --> 00:11:19.260 So why don't we just provide them the jobs? 241 00:11:19.340 --> 00:11:21.240 What do we need to change the system for? 242 00:11:21.240 --> 00:11:25.440 Then you're talking government intervention, not talking free enterprise. 243 00:11:26.340 --> 00:11:28.360 We're talking about free enterprise in this country. 244 00:11:28.540 --> 00:11:32.240 We've got to realize that we're talking about free enterprise for the small businessmen 245 00:11:32.760 --> 00:11:34.940 and socialism for the big businessmen. 246 00:11:34.980 --> 00:11:37.160 Who are we giving millions of dollars to? 247 00:11:37.160 --> 00:11:39.980 We're giving millions of dollars to Amtrak, to Penn Central. 248 00:11:40.360 --> 00:11:41.720 Is that free enterprise? 249 00:11:42.260 --> 00:11:45.700 The thing is, though, that the government also gives lots of money, say, to small airlines, 250 00:11:45.900 --> 00:11:48.280 the feeder airlines like North Central and Piedmont. 251 00:11:48.280 --> 00:11:51.720 They get all sorts of government subsidies so that they service the small towns rather 252 00:11:51.720 --> 00:11:54.020 than trying to make more profitable runs like... 253 00:11:54.020 --> 00:11:58.320 But how do you justify the fact that we're giving millions of dollars to all the companies 254 00:11:58.320 --> 00:12:03.000 as soon as they fail, as soon as they show some sign of maybe we're going to go out of business, 255 00:12:03.320 --> 00:12:04.840 we're going to go bankrupt. 256 00:12:05.300 --> 00:12:08.240 We say the company can say to the federal government, 257 00:12:08.380 --> 00:12:11.220 look, if we go out of business, we're going to be employing unemployed... 258 00:12:11.220 --> 00:12:12.660 Competition is the high value. 259 00:12:12.700 --> 00:12:15.900 That's sort of necessary in the auto industry because if Chrysler goes out of business, 260 00:12:15.900 --> 00:12:18.940 that leaves only two, which is more of a monopoly, a bigger oligopoly. 261 00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:22.240 Isn't the government kind of in the business of preserving competition? 262 00:12:23.140 --> 00:12:25.880 The trouble is, in free enterprise, the democracy is not working anymore 263 00:12:25.880 --> 00:12:31.720 because big businesses have the money to organize and to sway votes and to advertise so that they... 264 00:12:31.720 --> 00:12:33.020 Okay, well, I don't know. 265 00:12:33.020 --> 00:12:37.500 I just don't think that there's any other system except this one where everything just keeps going up and up. 266 00:12:37.800 --> 00:12:38.460 Yeah, okay. 267 00:12:40.100 --> 00:12:41.120 It's better to avoid. 268 00:12:41.760 --> 00:12:44.580 I mean, you know, it'd be nice to say it, but what other system is there? 269 00:12:44.580 --> 00:12:48.920 Okay, we haven't even touched on it, but I think communism, that's more or less a social system, 270 00:12:49.380 --> 00:12:51.860 but where everybody is his own incentive. 271 00:12:52.380 --> 00:12:55.560 Everybody is greedy. Everybody wants to be a millionaire. 272 00:12:55.660 --> 00:12:57.360 Who wouldn't want to have everything? 273 00:12:57.960 --> 00:12:59.040 Is that evil? 274 00:12:59.480 --> 00:13:01.860 No, that's not evil, but it's just a fact. 275 00:13:02.060 --> 00:13:05.900 Well, the only thing is that it is evil to the extent that other people are suffering 276 00:13:05.900 --> 00:13:09.100 because other people are getting richer and other people are staying poor. 277 00:13:09.300 --> 00:13:12.500 Yet we can't limit the people who can develop themselves and promote business 278 00:13:12.500 --> 00:13:14.880 and go on to be so-called success. 279 00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:18.840 Then the question is whether this system does or does not really serve the consumer 280 00:13:18.840 --> 00:13:21.160 and serve society as opposed to other systems. 281 00:13:21.480 --> 00:13:25.120 I don't know how long it's going to take until we realize that there is really something 282 00:13:25.120 --> 00:13:27.360 drastically wrong in the country today. 283 00:13:27.840 --> 00:13:29.840 In what other system are you allowed to... 284 00:13:29.840 --> 00:13:34.120 All right, the consumer doesn't have a lot of say in what the companies do 285 00:13:34.120 --> 00:13:35.380 or what they do with their money, 286 00:13:35.680 --> 00:13:40.920 but you take a communist or a socialist system, the consumer has no say. 287 00:13:40.920 --> 00:13:41.620 He's not allowed. 288 00:13:42.260 --> 00:13:44.120 That is absolutely untrue because what... 289 00:13:44.120 --> 00:13:47.320 You see, in the pre-enterprise system, the consumer can't control the government 290 00:13:47.320 --> 00:13:50.460 because big businesses control the government because they have the money. 291 00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:51.720 If the government is... 292 00:13:51.720 --> 00:13:52.860 Because the consumer... 293 00:13:52.860 --> 00:13:54.760 You just got through saying that... 294 00:13:54.760 --> 00:13:57.120 No, listen. What's socialism? 295 00:13:58.380 --> 00:14:01.880 What incentive does the government have to produce the best toothpaste 296 00:14:01.880 --> 00:14:04.800 to produce the best car or whatever if there's no communist... 297 00:14:04.800 --> 00:14:09.900 See, the point is that socialism, ideally, is what it means is that the means of production 298 00:14:09.900 --> 00:14:15.320 instead of being owned by an elite amount of people are owned by everybody and they have a say. 299 00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:17.340 We think the consumer has a bigger say in what goes... 300 00:14:17.340 --> 00:14:23.320 People like us or our parents or whoever, they're left out nine times out of ten out of what's going on. 301 00:14:23.320 --> 00:14:24.440 They really have no say. 302 00:14:24.580 --> 00:14:27.220 I think we're not left out. I think we have some of the highest standards of living. 303 00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:29.720 And if we were living in another society, we have a lower standard. 304 00:14:30.380 --> 00:14:30.880 Look at the people that are out of jobs. 305 00:14:30.880 --> 00:14:33.820 Look at the people that are living below the poverty level. 306 00:14:33.980 --> 00:14:35.040 Wait a minute, though. Wait a minute. 307 00:14:35.040 --> 00:14:36.460 Are we living under the higher standard of living? 308 00:14:36.980 --> 00:14:42.860 America is only 200 years old and we're one of the better countries in the world. 309 00:14:43.040 --> 00:14:43.460 Yeah, 100%. 310 00:14:44.040 --> 00:14:47.860 Free enterprise. Maybe a free enterprise has some flaws, but it's working. 311 00:14:48.380 --> 00:14:50.820 You think socialism, where it exists now, is working? 312 00:14:51.200 --> 00:14:53.780 Socialism might be... is working just as well as free enterprise. 313 00:14:53.780 --> 00:14:54.600 No, it doesn't. 314 00:14:54.780 --> 00:14:56.680 I mean, free enterprise is not working either. 315 00:14:56.760 --> 00:14:59.900 Look at the way that other socialism or that kind of economy function. 316 00:14:59.960 --> 00:15:04.180 It does not function as efficiently or does not provide as high a standard of living as free enterprise. 317 00:15:04.180 --> 00:15:08.620 Just because we are better than Russia does not mean we are where it ought to be. 318 00:15:08.880 --> 00:15:12.020 And the point is, the free enterprise system is not sacred. 319 00:15:12.200 --> 00:15:19.960 The only reason that the free enterprise system is in use in this country today is because it supposedly benefits the general public. 320 00:15:20.400 --> 00:15:21.500 And if it doesn't... 321 00:15:21.500 --> 00:15:21.820 Communism... 322 00:15:21.820 --> 00:15:22.760 Let's talk about economy. 323 00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:23.480 Wait a minute. 324 00:15:23.480 --> 00:15:25.520 I don't believe that. I do not believe that. 325 00:15:25.520 --> 00:15:36.040 No, wait. You take, you know, the communism, I think, is the system, economic system, most beneficial to the consumer because it tries to make everything equal. 326 00:15:36.680 --> 00:15:37.520 That's absolutely ridiculous. 327 00:15:38.460 --> 00:15:38.460 328 00:15:39.300 --> 00:15:40.800 Usually they don't think that works. 329 00:15:40.820 --> 00:15:44.440 That's why you have small proprietorships in England and all those countries that are socialists. 330 00:15:44.600 --> 00:15:46.460 They want some free enterprise in the system. 331 00:15:46.660 --> 00:15:49.040 So they have to show you to some extent that free enterprise is good. 332 00:15:49.060 --> 00:15:52.840 No, it would be nice to think that you don't have a limit or anything like that, that you can. 333 00:15:52.840 --> 00:15:59.080 Therefore, instead of moving to something that's socialistic, you should stay in free enterprise, just correct some of the imperfections. 334 00:15:59.160 --> 00:16:05.200 But is that the whole idea of the free enterprise system is to have the chance for someone to go from rags to riches? 335 00:16:05.700 --> 00:16:10.460 The only thing is, no, I think that the idea of going from rags to riches is impossible. 336 00:16:10.700 --> 00:16:13.960 Where, then, is the reality of the free enterprise system? 337 00:16:17.640 --> 00:16:20.720 Does our private enterprise system meet the needs of the consumer? 338 00:16:24.800 --> 00:16:27.340 How much should the government be involved? 339 00:16:30.840 --> 00:16:34.920 Does our system serve the consumer better than any other economic system? 340 00:16:43.160 --> 00:16:46.480 What do you think? Now it's your turn. 341 00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:56.400 Thank you.