Good evening everyone and happy Makar Sikranti and all the festivals which are there in pan-India. And being the festivity on that particular day we can understand legal nuances and otherwise different aspects from a person like Mr. Subramanya who is not only the dean of CMR and this is the part two of the continuum in the series which we have started the elements of research methods in scholarly writing. Being a Sunday or being a Saturday we will not take much time and we request Mr. Subramanya to share his knowledge over to you sir. Yeah thank you Mr. Vikas in your team today we will be just discussing something relating to the relevant series of research methods in scholarly writing. The fundamental thing that comes to the mind is whether methods are required in scholarly writing. If you examine the great scholars of the time most of them most of them write from the 16th century until the present without a systematic scientific approach have followed certain methods. Now when I speak of this I shall just give you a few instances and illustrations and these instances and illustrations come in from the 16th century itself. Now this naturally helps us to know what we call as the comparative method of legal research in socioeconomic society. Now what is this comparative legal research and this comparative legal research made the scholars of the time to go into the societal problems and to know the societal problems very clearly and very systematically and having understood these societal problems they were in a position to give a remedy by way of a conclusion or by way of a solution or by way of a resolution. Now you take one or two important writers who came during the who appeared during the time of the French Revolution. Now one such writer happened to be the great Rousseau. Now the Rousseau social contract happened to be the Magna Carta of that time and most of the scholars especially Professor H. L. Fisher who in a study on history of Europe points out that man is born free but everywhere he is in chains actually lit the fire of French Revolution. So it actually lit the fire of French Revolution and this one slogan that is man is born free but everywhere is in chains. Remember remember was a challenge to human civilization. Now the point it issues here is a man who had developed as currently a temperament who observes the society of the time. There were lots of problems in the French society at that time. When I speak of the problems in the French society being a weakness of the rulers who succeeded after Louis XIV to the state of France. They were very weak Louis XV mounted the throne of the state of France at the age of five and when he mounted he just said we are so young and he did not do anything but then when he was on his deathbed he said it will last as long as I my successor will have to take care of himself or herself. Now these are the remember the predictions which they were saying soliloquies which they have said my successor will have to take care of himself or herself. Now you just examine the French society of the time. The French society of the time happened to be split into three divisions. One is the ruling class. They enjoyed they had control and supremacy of the wealth of everyone. Now those second one is the nobility and the nobility class remember they did not bother when the crop especially was about to be harvested in kilometers all the the paddy the wheat grounds and other areas. These people will take their horses and just destroy the crops and it became a hunting ground for these what we call as their animals to be taken there and we parade it. Now there was another class which is known as the clergy. Now the clergy class as you know you might be knowing right from the day of the Crusades just taken place soon after the 11th century they have been managing and trying to control the emperors and there were another that is called the peasants. Now the peasants who had to pay the tax and their condition was palpable, miserable and there was nobody to take care of their position and there was nobody to protect them and slowly and steadily the what we call as the resurgence or the anti-government movement was taking place within and at this juncture there came who so he was observing he was analyzing he was trying to understand it and they said people need their basic rights and these basic rights are being violated and it is the duty of the concerned state to protect these rights and if they do not or if they fail to protect this right they should be overthrown. See many of them today when they read Russo's writing they say no they did not follow any methodology but then this scientific temperament that was taking place in the society and a comparative methodology that was taking place between the state of France and the state of England and in England the society was peaceful but still it was flourishing and there was no sunset as the writer used to say but then here is a case wherein the because of the exploitation that was continuously perpetrated the society was suffering and that came through their pen and that made the revolution real. Now similarly there was another important writer who is known as Montesquieu. Montesquieu is the person who wrote the spirit of loss and the spirit of loss remember it ran into 21 editions in just 18 months and that is where remember the people read they reread they bought the book again and they read and ultimately there was a rose in the world and the revolution have taken place. The very purpose of bringing out these things is just to tell you that what we call as the the sociological method of research or the the application of the principle of societal attitude and the societal behavior to the legislations was there then in the 17th and 18th and the 19th century itself. Now that is where when we come to the 19th and 20th century there appeared great scholars Max Weber and Levelyn and these are the two scholars who go to the extent of pointing out that Rousseau, Montesquieu and many others had remember cultivated the type of what we call as the sociological attitude and the trends in the society and the changing attitude of society were taken care of by them. Now one important aspect that I just intend to bring home here now if you take up comparative legal research now you make a study of your own country or your own problem maybe in the federal structure or within a state. Now when you take up this problem and are afterwards you compare with the federal structure or within the federation of a single state you get to know the plus points as well as the minus points. Suppose for example in India a particular person is doing a research on a topic and when he does this job topic a research on this topic he naturally intends to study something in the state of Great Britain. There afterwards he makes a comparison when he makes a comparison he will find out what we call as the missed opportunities the loopholes the stumbling blocks the drawbacks all of them he will come to know and then by taking into consideration the other society he can give a kind of solution which are implementable that is the advantage of comparative legal research. When we go further there are other types of researchers as well when I speak about other types of researchers I just intend to speak to you today concentrate mainly go on one important type of research which is gaining momentum which is called as action research. Now what exactly you mean by action research and how and why this action research is being pampered or facilitated or given patronage by the research scholars of the time and it is being applied even by the universities. Now for example I will give you instances and displaying through illustrations and these illustrations which I am going to give are practical ones so that everyone understands the point better. Now one instance happened to be an instance just apply your mind go back to 2013 it was in the year 2013 the criminal law amendment act was passed by the government of India after the Nilbaya case another 2013 amendment came in and this amendment introduced section 454 or 354 or ABCD. Now when they introduced these sections they said these are certain sections which are very much essential to regulate and to control the behavior and the behavior pattern for the people and it should be seriously taken and if they are found guilty with the convincing evidence they are to be punished. Now the 354 A happened to be a case related to what we call as sexual harassment. B happened to be related to sexual assault. Now the three happened to be voyeurism and D happened to be one more which is called a stoking and most of the students of law and those listeners who are here will be in a position to appreciate the point better. Now the point at issue is in these cases they went to the extent of pointing out that in the event of finding evidence by the court of law and in the event of finding convincing evidence the concerned person who is responsible in committing this offense may be sexual harassment or may be sexual harassment and cruelty that is being shown or voyeurism or that is voyeurism is just trying to chase the girl either through various modes taking her photograph and other things and the stoking is following the girl through internet, through WhatsApp, through Twitter all are punishable up to a period of a minimum period of three years. Not only it is punishable up to a period of minimum three years and the punishment can be extended up to a period of five years. Now what has happened was the government of India immediately later created a criminal compensation fund and especially for example we take the instance relating to 326A. Now this is a section which is added for purpose of preventing acid attacks that are taking place in the university campuses and other places. In the event of a particular person who becomes a victim of an acid attack the punishment that is being given is a minimum of five years and it can be extended up to a period of seven years. Now you may be interested to know what is this research I am speaking about action research. Now since 2013 the legislation is enforced. When the legislation is enforced as a student of law as a with a research fund you should try to find out how many cases after the enactment of the legislation have come up before the court of law and how many of them are booked for these cases and how many of them are tried and how many of them are convicted and then afterwards you take the statistics of a state and from each state remember how many of them are convicted whether it is enforced or at all if at all and if it is enforced how many of them are booked how many of them are tried the trial has completed and how many of them are convicted you just to bring out a put a graph or a pie chart which state is leading for this type of research for example when we speak of acid attack now just find out the same way how many of them are booked under an acid attack how many of the states have become parties to this amendment and how many of them have applied for criminal injuries compensation through the fund that is being allocated by the government of India and which is dispersed by what we call as the legal service authority now legal service authority how much fund has been given each year how many of them are being dispersed how many applications are pending with the state legal service authority now this is what we call as the action research on a particular point now for example the legislation has come how do you find out that the legislation to a certain extent to be and in which areas are which areas you find the weakness of legislation which is apparent on the faces that are called and this would actually help the administration in overcoming the problem and these instances of these types of research are to be given importance today so you take another instance another instance happened to be for example the right to information act has come into force since 2005 and it is almost remember it is 22 years since the passing of the legislation having the legislation which has come into force now you just to take a topic of research relating to how many of the in how many of the panchayas in rural areas this legislation is being followed now how many of the panchayas members in the rural areas are aware of a legislation which is known as the right to information act now for example take it this way you have narega under narega there are several schemes which are being given and you might be knowing during the time of corona the government of india announced that for 100 days they will give a job to anybody go to the panchayat office and within the locality the panchayat office just find out how many of the people situated or living within the vicinity of the panchayat attached to the panchayat office have been given a job 100 days job and how much money has been dispersed and how much money they have received from the central government as well as from the state government take a statistics of this and compare it with other villages now if you find certain basic apparent what we call as loop holes you suggest it so that the government will be in a position to plug these loop holes and later the government of india made initiate action in improving the legislation and make it more effective this is very much essential for a developing society like india that is why action research is given and considered as an important type of research today now take another area for example now how many people in a remote society maybe in west bingor or maybe in karnataka are aware of the presence of legislation known as the right to information act and in the panchayat itself some of the members may not be knowing it is a fact and in such situation how we can bring them a bring the knowledge of these acts to these people and whether the canvassing mode done by the panchayat is upright or not for example when i speak about the canvass first they put it in the billboards then they may place street place or then they may be advertisement and whether these modes are good enough or some other modes are to be followed or observed and these are to be done by the researchers themselves that is where the thought process is incessant and continuous and when this is done instantly and continuously remember you can expect certain progress in the society because you get to know the weakness of the legislation now you take another important legislation like what are we guarantee of services act now what is this guarantee of services act now the state of karnataka in the year 2011 brought a legislation known as the karnataka guarantee of services act suppose for example a particular person has applied for the clearance of his file with a purpose to the with an soul now when he does this job at times what happens is application remember will not be known where it has gone and what is its fate now that is where guarantee of services act provides guarantee of the service which you are asking from the concerned state karnataka passed this legislation in the year 2011 and west Bengal government passed it in the year 2013 and thereafter the other state is Maharashtra which passed the legislation in the year 2015 so certain services are given to the subject wherein these services are protected suppose for example for take it this way today if you apply before the office of the or before the office of deputy commissioner you get to know where the application is from where it goes from the if it's suppose for example if you submit it to the office of the office it will go to the office of the assistant commissioner from the office of the assistant commissioner will go to the deputy commissioner from the deputy commissioner to the division commissioner from there to the chief secretary and the services are to be given within the period of fixed sort of time they cannot just sleep over the file now this has to be done this is done with a purpose to see that the administration that is being done should be smooth and it should be in a position to render justice to society now these states are the premier states which immediately passed the legislation of this type now try to make an analysis of this and afterwards try to find a comparison a comparative study of this and which of the laws which are functioning more effectively and in the states which is not more effective what exactly are the weaknesses and the loopholes and how this could be plugged as a researcher especially in law remember you have to take from societal problems and it is not doctrinal research if you take up doctrinal research or analytical research remember you will not be discussing issues relating to what ought to be you know only what is unless you get to know what ought to be you cannot think of becoming a good research scholar and your writing can never be considered as scholarly that is the very purpose of telling these important things one important developmental installation which came in the year 2017 this 17 happened to be the period that was given for purpose of maternity was increased from 12 weeks to 26 weeks so earlier it was 12 weeks so maternity benefit if a person working in a government office or anywhere is entitled to get the benefit up to 12 weeks six weeks before the delivery and six weeks after the delivery so the legislation which was brought in the year 2017 has gone that far and he said remember six months you can avail it and eight weeks that is two months before the delivery and remaining four months after the delivery and this benefit is even given to a mother who adopts a child who is below three months so a mother who adopts a child and the age of the child is just below three months is also entitled to remember get the benefit at least up to 12 weeks now in situations of this type make an analysis whether any of the states have become parties to this legislation within the federal structure how many of them are not adopted to this legislation and those states wherein the legislation is adopted and implemented how many cases have come before the court of law how much money and salary is dispersed under this count and what exactly are the reasons for not encouraging a legislation of this type so in order to know this remember you should make a study this is action research you get to know you come to know you actually know the real weaknesses of legislation through action now that afterwards I just intend to give you two three other illustrations as well now these illustrations are very natural illustrations which are being given by the great learners scholars of this country under action research now one such instance happened to me for example take this week in the state of West Bengal you have a place known as Jalapai Gudi Jalapai Gudi remember known for witchcraft and witch hunting and in the name of witch hunting and witchcraft human sacrifices are made and how do you prevent this I was working in NEJS Kolkata as the head of the center director of the center on public policy so first is we wanted to know the problem and when we wanted to know the problem we we just try to invert the best of resource resource persons from India there were several resource persons the rest of them came from the different places two of them came from Maharashtra two of them from Delhi and two three of them Kolkata and we had a discussion and we came to know the realities of the problem having come to know the realities of the problem remember we wanted to research on this problem and remember in order to research in this area you have to go to Jalapai Gudi and having gone to Jalapai Gudi you have to earn the goodwill of the people but if you don't earn the goodwill of the people and if you don't become one with them and if you don't get their confidence you will not be getting any information or your life will be in danger so in order to avoid that remember we have to be very friendly with them we should become part of their system and that of course slowly get into know why this is happening and once you come to know the reasons then remember the education is the best mode try to put these children into schools those who have the age they can be put to schools and they can be made to study there and as and when they come as and when they go being friends remember we live in a position to eradicate what is the preconceived notion which is overworking in their minds and afterwards remember you just try to observe certain things they have several festivals and in these festivals you have remember empty sacrifices are made and you should have a very good relationship with them and afterwards you should convince them how to avoid these things so that you become good citizens of tomorrow and you are wasting your precious money hard earned money and so that you become good citizens for a period of time and this was also done now another instance happened to me again I am giving you the instance of the state of East Bengal in the state of East Bengal what was happening is maybe happening even now also now there were several Bangladesh refugees who cross into the border state of India having crossed into the border state of India these women and children are used for purpose of smuggling or racking or under article 23 of the constitution of India but in such a situation how do you how do you prevent them if you go there you will not get the information you have to collect the information and then afterwards study the situation and then you can go in order to prevent these incidents and instances there are certainly NGOs who are working and they approve the NGOs and having approved the NGOs you try to know why this is happening and when you get to know through what we call as the reserve to police force which are being put there you will get more information and there of course you go to the spot know you will be one with the NGOs as well as the reserve police force CRPF then you try to give a solution to them so that the smuggling of these women and the children could be prevented to a certain extent you might be knowing last year many of them were found in Tamil Nadu in Chennai and most of them were happened to be Bangladesh in Iceland and they had other card everything all of them and they were about to be packed off to some countries who are nearby maybe to the Gulf or some other place now if this has to be prevented and human rights are to be restored come what may and this is the only method which is by through by action because they see you become first and foremost you observe what is happening there you will not get the information immediately how they seek in and sneak into the territory of the state of India and when one day sneak in who are going to give protection to them and there are several parties to this and you have to take everyone into consideration and confidence and afterwards remember eliminate the bad elements and try to give good education to them and try to overcome this is the effect of the implementation of a legislation which is being done and enacted by state government now you take another instance another instance happened to be it is related to the problem of poverty there was a professor of economics and this professor of economics Muhammad Yunus got the Nobel Prize and he's a Bangladeshi now he was working in the as a professor of economics in the new state of Chitra now he wanted to conduct a study a study relating to the improvement of poverty see all people in the villages are poverty stricken their earnings were very low and in a few cases there was no earning and if they go there and work still the barter system prevailing there in such a situation Muhammad Yunus it goes to a few villages having gone to a particular village he tried to study the problem having tried to study the problem but he found out that these women had no access to finance and if they go and seek finance from the money lenders they would exploit them oh money lenders is flawed to such an extent wherein they will give more in the morning they will give 10 rupees and in the evening they will ask for 20 rupees so it is 100 interest this was a situation that was prevailing now having studied their problem didn't bear in these villages along with the students and research scholars he tried to find out a few people there and most of them were women and for those women he just gives some money and tells them that the only minimal interest is going to be charged and using this money you prepare the local what we call as bamboo chairs so in that area you find a lot of bamboos and of these bamboos they would prepare stools and take it to the market and sell make money so when some finance is being given to them and these people brought the required material and started doing it and they sold it and they flourished and without any difficulty without any hiccup they were able to give the money which was advanced to them by this professor so the professor understood the problem having understood the problem then he did it in a larger scale and when he did it in a larger scale remember lots of people got the benefit and the society and the villages started improving their economic conditions and when the very activity spread far and wide into a few villages he approaches the government first he took money from the Grameen bank first on the in the first instance he spent the money from his pocket then he approaches the Grameen bank where any a few more got the benefit anyway he realized that this is not enough he should go in a bigger scale he approaches the government and the government bank gave the money and established a few Grameen banks for this purpose only to improve the economic conditions of the people this is how remember action research in every sphere you know comes to the rescue of everyone now that afterwards I just you can just do something relating to what we call as a prognostic type of research now what is this prognostic type of research why it is relevant today now based on the certain set of facts based on the certain set of circumstances to forecast the shape of things to come for example now the economics of India as well as the state of United States today go to the extent of pointing out just news which I read by 2033 you have few economies in the world and even of our neighbors are going to come down and they will have a very difficult time and remember if they prepare or take steps to overcome this they will be in a position to improve otherwise it will be climax and peril so in order to overcome the peril they have to adopt methods now itself and if they fail to adopt methods now itself in the next 10 years there will be problems which cannot be visualized and which cannot be thought of which cannot be given a solution that is what what is indicated by that so this is where what we call as based on the present set of facts you try to remember find out the shape of things to come in the nearest future now there was a great scholar a great historian he's known as H.G. Wells H.G. Wells is the man who wrote the world history you might be knowing many of you have heard him about also must have heard him also H.G. Wells in the year 1937-38 wrote a book and the name of the book is the shape of things to come in the future now when I speak about the shape of things to come in the future now he was the one who said the present iron age is going to be replaced by the plastic age what do you mean by this in 1938 remember it that time all the buckets were made of iron tumblers were made of iron glasses were made of iron and even the eating plates were made of iron you know and the present day generation may find difficult to lift even and here is the man he said the present iron age is going to be replaced by the plastic age the world war came to an end and afterwards introduction of plastic started and today you find all materials which are made plastic even the computer chips are attached to plastic material see he was the one who was shaping telling the the shape of things to come in the future there was another person by name Arnold J. Toynbee Arnold J. Toynbee may happen to be a man remember who wrote the study of history in 24 volumes and in one in the concluding part he says the present society is going to be a society at the end wherein the microscopic minority will be the dominant majority which is called as the nemesis the microscopic minority is going to be the dominant majority now if you look to the economics and the development developing pattern and the population and the demography you will admit of what Arnold J. Toynbee has said remember about 60 years ago or 70 years ago in the study of history and this is proving beyond doubt now my point is remember the analysis of the mind the analysis which was made by them were in a position to say if this is the statistics today this is going to be the future tomorrow maybe after 50 years and for a developing country like India we need prognostic research scholars in plenty because we have plenty of problems water scarcity ravaging the country during summer and we need solution to that and we have several other problems in almost all areas and we need remember researchers in this area and if you take doctrinal researchers it is nothing but studying the studied repeating the repeated and telling the told already and we don't want such type of researchers but we need solution to the existing problem in the country and that has to be done and you take another scholar another scholar happened to be the man who wrote dust capital now dust capital remember was written by the great Karl Marx and he wrote one in 1846 another one 1847 and other one in 1848 poverty of philosophy came in and then came the dust capital now remember he was a German and he was remember he was a cute observer of things this cute observer of things was just looking to the state of Soviet Russia he was just looking to what was happening in the society of the state of Soviet Russia now remember there was there were two classes one is the what we call as the ruling class they are called the bourgeois and the second one is the nobility supported by the ruling class and other one is the proletariat the poor working class and a poor working class remember he is being abused misused and overused at every level and he was made to work and in return he did not get anything this man sitting in a house just watching whether it will continue he said it is not going to continue but there will be resistance and resistance will be remember will be ruthlessly snubbed and stopped because power is in the hands of what we call as the nobility and the ruling class and when they have the the ruling class when they have the power the lawmaking power they know how to curb it through the machinery which is being employed by them but then the fight is not going to stop it will continue it will continue and continue for a period of time and till the dictatorship of the proletariat remember this man pointed out about the fight between the rich and the poor or between the bourgeois and the proletariat and this fight will continue but one day the proletariat the people the what we call as the workers of the state of Soviet Russia will become supreme and they will start running the administration now 68 years afterwards 1848 add 68 69 years in the year 1917 the Bolshevik revolution took place and the Bolshevik revolution that has taken place the entire what we call as the edifice was removed and just eliminated and the dictatorship of the proletariat led by Lalind came to be established in the state of Soviet Russia now we are not interested in the story of it we are just wanted to end the solution which was given by this man or a shape of the things which is likely to come a forecast that was made and a forecast which was made by him ultimately remember respected by everyone I will go back a little before during the course of French revolution there was a British statesman and the British and the French remember always at loggerheads and this statesman was named by Edmund Burke and was the greatest parliamentarian of the time and this greatest parliamentarian of the time remember the well-read person and his knowledge in comparative constitutional law at that time was respected in high esteem and remember he has been receiving letters from the state of France and certain people who have visited the state of France to the course of the French revolution were writing to him I just intend to tell you a letter which was written by Lord North Lord North remember was in the state of Normandy in the state of France Lord North writes a letter to Lord Temple who was in England and the content of the letter is very simple the greatest thing to admit today is to say that this country is on the verge of a great revolution the people of Normandy are surviving on the route as well as the grass or the concerned place where they live so it was revolution is inevitable and it came and it revived the state of France see this is where this thinker Edmund Burke was able to see the developments and ultimately he was in a position to give a solution he wrote a book in 1790 in 1789 the revolution broke out just within one year within 365 days this person writes a book and in the book he simply states this will not lead to an order to progress ultimately the state of France will be taken over by a dictator Napoleon Bonaparte of the state of France became a dictator and crowned himself as the dictator of the state of France in 1894 and he became an emperor 10 years afterwards so this is the story what we call as remember the sociological thinkers comparative studies which are made by them and the other development which are created by them now you take an instance an instance happened to be creative research what is this creative research now when you take up creative research creative research remember is the imagination of the mind how beautiful it should be now you have at least a few of you know FM Hussain a great artist at least a few of you if you are from the south or from the goba you know a person known as a mario mirand so they are artists of high caliber if you invite a function and just request them and give a piece of chalk or a pencil please draw something and they will immediately go there and finish it within just to remember three to four minutes and afterwards they will give a lecture on those art for about two hours what is this and it depicts it represents what each each line will represent something and one which he'll be able to speak ours today now this is what we call as creative research as and when you work you will be in a position to say that this should be depicted and it should be told to the people and if it is told they will understand it better when you take take the best of what we call as the creative of singers for example take bibshon jyoshi oh then you take many of them are they're subalashmi and basuraj raju guru all the the best of the hindustani singers and the best of the vocalists in south or the best of the what we call as drum beaters now taken this ways a particular lady for instance a bharatanatyam dancer like titra vishu ashram is performing a bharatanatyam when she is performing before the public a bharatanatyam there will be a plus and people clap and keep clapping the lady is not interested but she's interested and she's immersed in dancing because she is worried only to see the how the next step has to be given and if the next step is given in a particular way it will be appreciated it will be admired no that is what always she thinks of it she thinks of it how best i can move my legs how it should be depicted and it should be flawless now you think of the singers for example in this way bandit bibshon jyoshi and he gives a raga vairavi when he sings remember the when it is presented he is not worried about you he is immersed in the music and he knows it comes in a particular alaapana then only that raga will be appreciated otherwise people will not having gone home when people send a cassette or the dvd whatever it is he will listen and say there are still scope for improvement that is the imagination of the creative research that is why for example take it this way as in when you start your research writing and when you start your research writing you know what materials you have collected and how best it can be made you so that also you know and you have made the tentative chapterization as well first remember at that time you just suddenly just like ureka in the famous ureka ureka he said the same person argument is so you develop certain things this principle can be brought in and if it can be brought in it can be justified also this is creative mind as and when you listen remember you should know how this should be developed and what should not be developed and how we go about it now you take one more research method which is called the historical method of research when i speak about the historical method of research remember history is a science no less no more this is not said by me it is said by jb more a great historian history is a science no less no more now the art of writing history is totally different from collecting materials now take it this way when i speak of collecting the sources for purpose of writing history it depends on remember three or four important sources first is what we call as the inscriptional evidences then come the literal evidences the third one is the numismatic evidences and fourth one is the archaeological evidences now you may ask me what is this inscriptional evidences when i speak about the inscriptional evidences suppose for example you were doing the time of ashok or the during the time of mauryas or guptas or any dynasty cholas now they have left hundreds of inscriptions and these inscriptions which is left behind to possibility indicate the economic development of the country that has taken place it virtually speaks about what work they have done whom they worshipped how they lived all these things are being shown through the inscriptions and to know the inscriptions and read you should know a person who knows the language in what is written suppose for example you are working somewhere in the north and you know only hindi and the inscriptions are left in prakrit or it is written in Sanskrit or it is written in tamil naturally you should go and find out a man who is well versed in these languages to get the true meaning of it that is what what we call as inscriptional evidences which is very much essential for a scholar in history and it is useful even for other writings as well then what we call as the numismatic evidences now several several dynasties have issued coins gold coins except murmur bintolak who issued only the coins which are made of leather now these coins virtually speak about the economic conditions of the state how the people flourish there and remember in these coins remember there are certain symbols these symbols in the glass in actually represent the strength of the economy of the people or the rulers and studying these coins taking up the coins studying these coins oh you know it's not a small job you have lots of people require and you have to take the suggestions because it is in different languages so this is study of numismatics now studying of archaeology again this way you go to temples and remember the richest temples like the raja raja temple in tangio or madurai minakshi temple or many of them or the lake temple in mahalipuram all that remember world sites today protected by the what we call as the inesco and remember you have a history of its own you get to know and literally writings another oh each dynasty will have scholars and have left behind for example when you go to the muggle history or the history of the thuglaks or the kaljis and bhamanis you come to know a name of a great writer ziaul varani and ziaul varani remember he has left a lot of writings which speaks about the culture of the people and the administration how it is being done and for which you should know the language otherwise you cannot and more or it is written in a political language explanation is very difficult to know and again you will relay exclusively on the person this is something we need to do historical method now when we speak about historical methods remember there is there are four types of points which are being harpooned from in historical research one is heuristics that is the art of collecting the documents other than they have spoken to you how difficult it is to collect a document then that afterwards the other one is criticism then comes what we call as the synth exposition and afterwards synthesis exposition remember you should be in a position to put it in such a way wherein continuity of thought in your presentation is maintained so that there is no problem or no criticism which can be made by anybody now when we take up the historical method there are two or three important developments which are being spoken now the first thing that is being said to happen to me now individuals history collective history and typical history now I will start with the last one which I said what is this typical history which is peculiar to society now when you speak about peculiar that is the typical history of a society now you take the prudha system in this country or you take the other one that is the in the event of the death of the husband the wife is jumping into the funeral fire sati system now that is remember a typical thing which is being followed and today the laws are being enacted and this put to an end or these are put to an end today so these are difficult facts typical facts in the history of a particular country now what are the collective facts when I speak about the collective facts remember it may be wars it may be revolutions or it may be relating to some other developments that has taken place sociological development or the religious moments you take the history of the state of India these days speak about the Kalinga war and Kalinga war is important because after the Kalinga war the man who fought the war and won the war remember relinquished and accepted his religion and accepted Buddhism and afterwards he became a propagator sent his brother and sister all of them to different countries in south east asia to spread the message of buddha buddhism now you take another another instance happened to me this is religious moments life and times of buddha or life life and times of adi shankara they're all religious moments that is why we convey movements that have taken place in the society now the other one is after this individual facts when I speak about the individual facts individual facts collective facts typical facts in individual facts remember the the activities which are being done by an important individual for example the Kalinga war or the other war the the war that was fought during the time of third war battle of panipat's 17th century life now like that we have several instances the historians will speak much about it and that actually helps in the development of history so the very purpose of telling this is very simple now there are as many as eight to nine methods all methods are important no experimental method remember is very much essential because only through experiments will be the position to find out the truth not truth but the truth because experiments will have to be done a period over a period of time and when it is done over a period of time you come to know this exactly is the truth that is why it is experimental method now in administration also you find and when there is some loss to the country they will try to bring in a registration by way of an experiment if this experiment succeeds this will remain or else some other experiment which will given by someone else or invented by someone or propagated by one someone will replace the older one and in always an experimental method remember you should have wonderful peace peace of mind is very much required for a research scholar and if you don't get don't have peace of mind you can never think of becoming a good scholar especially in experimental research sociological research I just find it out and give you umpteen illustrations I spoke to you about action research I spoke one more research which is being being have to be discussed happened to be a research which is being departmental research for example you take the instance in the instance of metiaioc now metiaioc will bring in certain policies and having brought certain policies these departmental research will try to examine the effectiveness of those policies the success of those policies the failures if any of those policies and once this is being done they try to give a solution to it as well there are several programs which are being introduced a few of them are being withdrawn because they went to the extent of pointing out it is just not possible to carry with this because no purpose will be served by retaining this and descriptive research I have spoken to you yesterday the other day and then the doctoral research I have spoken to you and today the methods of research which I have spoken to you will help you in a long way and give solutions to in becoming a good scholar especially in research writing thank you very much the way you speak fluently that too with large perspectives of aspects to be taken that I always feel fascinated about and I always feel that one has to learn how to remember things that we are doing sessions on that aspect how to remember things how to read fast but on such a large variety we have taken on environment law we have done on international law and how to do research and then this research topic also we have seen that you have connected the dots into so much in different lines it becomes so impressive that I will feel that one should also have a session that how you should remember things and how to collate the facts and thereafter dissipate to the people at large so thank you sir and thank you to all those who have been connected with us everyone stay safe, stay blessed and stay connected with us tomorrow at 6 p.m. we will be having a session on the jurisprudence regarding the GST etc


This is what the argument is, right? So they're saying that when Calry or Kanye makes some of these outlandish stances publicly, that it's for the collective. It's not. No.  They can interview you tomorrow. You could be on Good Morning America. You go on there and say, your whole mind might change.  Yes, Lord.  I don't know. I just, something in my spirit told me to say that.  We ain't discussed this. We ain't went through no drill.   But that's what I'm saying. Damn. Some mornings I need like three times a week cool enough for me. But I think LeBron speaks for himself. Exactly. Everybody does. Everybody does. But what does that say? We can't ignore that some people have influence. Then we'll be doing ourselves a disservice, right? He does have influence, but then we should also be influencing people to have their own mind. Right. And whatever sounds right to you sounds right to you. Okay, so check this out.  What if he authentically just disagrees? Yeah, yeah. He has that right. That's what's important to know too. He has a right to disagree. Even if, at the detriment of the collective, it's if that's what he truly feels. And sometimes because we black, and I think because we've been so far behind. You don't know the status of their relationship. Yeah. That nigga might disagree with everything that niggas say.  I mean, he got a right to disagree. It says, when do you start asking this nigga about this nigga? Yeah.  Right. Kairi drives a Ferrari. Nigga got a limbo.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.


Comic Con has evolved from a small gathering of comic book enthusiasts in the basement of a San Diego hotel in 1970 into a multinational event that celebrates every corner of pop culture. Megan McGar got the chance to visit her first con this year with MWR's Liberty Program. I have never been to Comic Con. Even back in the states, I had heard of it but never went. I know in California it's big in San Diego and I was pretty pumped to have Comic Con so close living here in Sicily. No matter what you're into, whether it's Star Wars, comic books, video games or anime, you will find it here along with many other people who share that interest. Comic Con is a melting pot for all things pop culture. I thought it was just for comics but now I see it covers like a lot of different genres anywhere from like Game of Thrones to all kinds of stuff. From Naval Air Station Siganella, I'm Seaman Lukaski.


Welcome to Free Thoughts, a podcast project of the Cato Institute's Libertarianism.org. Free Thoughts is a show about libertarianism and the ideas that influence it. I'm Aaron Powell, editor of Libertarianism.org and a research fellow here at the Cato Institute. And I'm Trevor Burrus, a research fellow at the Cato Institute Center for Constitutional Studies. So today we're going to do something a little different. A while back on our Facebook page, we asked for listener questions and we got a lot of really good ones. So we are going to try to answer as many as we can in the time we have available. And I'd like to start, Trevor, with I think the hard one. This is the one that as libertarians we get asked all the time and it stops us in our tracks. I mean it's the end of the conversation. Libertarianism is done as soon as this question is raised. And that's what about the roads? What about the roads? Now, if you're not included on this joke, it's something that we make a lot of reference to as a joke around if you're hanging out with libertarians a lot because as Aaron said, it is this thing where it's supposed to be this silver bullet that takes you down and therefore everything you say is invalid. So first of all, I want to say that as a broader point, the fact that that argument is brought up as much as it actually is, is a demonstration of how libertarianism is treated that's different from other political ideologies because a lot of times the idea is that if you can find that libertarianism can't account or will allow something horrible to happen like there being no roads, then all of our points about, hey, we have a debt problem. Hey, we shouldn't be putting people in prison for basic drug violations. All those are out the window just because you can't tell me about roads. And that seems a little bit inaccurate to say the least and unfair because I don't argue against other people in a similar way and say, hey, Mr. Progressive, what about Mao? Like what about when the entire government decides to kill millions and millions of people? Now I look at their points that they make and we can have an interesting philosophical conversation about bigger points. So on to the topic of roads though, what about roads? The funniest thing is private provision of roads is one of the easiest questions you can answer in terms of how it would be done. Roads are not public goods. And this is a very important point. Public goods is a defined economic concept. And if you want to check my sources, just wiki public goods and see what the first thing it says is. I'm sure it will say that public goods are non-rivalrous and non-excludable. A non-rivalrous good is one that says when you use it, you don't take away any of it from someone else. And a non-excludable good is one that you can't exclude other people from. So the classic example of this would be national defense. National defense. If we have a military that's defending us, me using it doesn't remove it from you. Exactly. The marginal cost of an additional unit of supply is zero is the way an economist would say it. So the fact that there are 20 people in a country versus 21 people in a country, you still do the same thing. Now clearly, an economist who are libertarian or not would agree that I would say that public roads are not public goods. They may be good for the public, but that's not the same thing as a public good. You can absolutely exclude people from a road. And that happens all the time with toll roads.  And one of the things that you see when you publicly provide something that maybe shouldn't be publicly provided in all instances, we can talk about the scope of this. But one of the things you see in that is you see overconsumption to human people use it because they don't have to pay for using it because they think it's not rivalrous. So you see the traffic jams we have. And you also see the roads or whatever we're talking about with this instance roads being used and going to places to where people may not actually want to use them. So one of the things that government without price signals, if it's providing something, it's really good at providing either too much of something or not enough of it because it doesn't really know how much needs to be provided. So let me push back on that just a second because I can see kind of two answers to the two prongs that you just gave of this question. The first is people do have to pay for roads in the sense that they have to pay for the gasoline that they use on the road. Like gasoline, you know, once it's in your car, it doesn't really have any other use besides driving. So and it's you're using it up on a per mile basis. So as you drive, you're paying for it and gasoline taxes towards roads. So there's that the other one is it seems like roads more or less anywhere one wants to get right now. There's a road to it unless it's wilderness and that also the presence of roads creates places people want to go, right? So these towns that grow up along the interstate or used to grow up along the railroad tracks. So to say that roads go places where people don't want to go, does that sort of tell the whole story? That's a great question because it forces us to think about the way the state does certain things in a different way, because it is absolutely true that if the state decides to build a road where at the time no one wants to go, that eventually people may want to go there because there is now a free or at least no huge cost of them pathway there. So, you know, we're in Washington, D.C. right now and there's a commuter district around D.C. And if they decided they wanted to build a road to the middle of Pennsylvania, although right now no one wants to go there. If they did that, there would be towns that developed along the road to Pennsylvania. And then and then people will come along and say, well, hey, look, like if we didn't have this road, then the people from Pennsylvania shouldn't wouldn't be able to get to D.C. And we have to say, why are people from Pennsylvania commuting to D.C. And this is an interesting question for what happens when you publicly provide roads, because one of the things you do is you subsidize sprawl and you also subsidize pollution. And this is this is a broader libertarian point for something like global warming or just pollution in general and also sprawl something that the left generally likes to complain about is that if you build free roads that go out to the outskirts of the city, then people are not paying what it actually costs them to drive into the city. And so they all live in these suburbs that are heavily criticized and everyone says we need high density living. And if you wanted high density living, then you shouldn't be subsidizing roads that go out to places where initially people don't want to go, but then eventually they do want to go there. And then you say, well, how could the people in the suburbs ever get into the city? OK, but let's so let's agree the government doesn't have some problems with the way it builds roads. It may be builds roads in places it shouldn't doesn't build roads in places it should it doesn't necessarily maintain them as well as it could. But I think the question is not so much, you know, how should the government build roads or does the government do a good job of it? But in the absence of a government building roads, how would we have them?  Well, I think the roads would look. Well, OK, first of all, I think that clearly there would be roads without governments. And if you went to if you thought about the actual organic-ness of roads, whether it's it includes even another species, if there's a group of antelope who constantly, you know, trod on one piece of land and wear it down and there's just a path there. Well, people do the same thing. And if you've ever seen a park in the way that, you know, shortcuts, cut through different parts of the park, become become new pathways that they don't want to use the sidewalks, you get an idea of what sort of spontaneous human movement is like versus controlled human movement. So there would definitely be roads. I think that that's clear. I've never really heard an argument, the serious one that said there wouldn't be any at all. The only question would be about the provision and scope of roads and whether or not they did the right thing. And straight roads, for example, are not very common in an organic community compared to something the government builds in with very straight lines. And they often built them for military purposes, for example, the Appian Way in Rome was the big highway in Rome. That was primarily built for military purposes and then used by other people. The federal government actually built the Alaska highway, the US government built the Alaska highway between British Columbia and Alaska in order to move troops back and forth during World War Two, fearing a Japanese invasion on the West Coast and then gave it to Canada. So that's why you get a lot of straight roads that create different things. But in generally speaking, if you go to downtown Boston, for example, I was there recently and I noticed how haphazard the roads were because they were just organically grown from where they were set down. And so that's what we would see. We would see people, there would first be a pathway is created and they'd be used generally and then maintenance would be a different thing. And if someone wanted to take over one of those roads to maintain it and charge people, there would be people who would want to go on the better road versus the worse road and they would be willing to pay for that. And the big question always is I can name a lot of things that people want to use, but they're not willing to pay for. And then it would include a lot of different roads. I mean, I can name an infinite number of things that I want to use that I don't want to pay for. And so just saying we need these here to be pathways that people don't have to pay for, well, if they paid for them, they would be a better upkeep and we've seen this in Turnpikes and Tollways in America. If they paid for them, they would be a better upkeep and they would be more used and you wouldn't be wasting resources on other things. It seems like part of the concern, though, with this libertarian view of private roads. And I should note that this isn't, it isn't like all libertarians believe that we should have private roads. And of course, the roads are one of my least grievances of the government. Right. So it's possible. Yeah. The government can do things. Roads might be one of them. This isn't this isn't kind of a uniform. Yeah. We're not libertarians because we hate roads. But I think that one of the concerns is like, yes, a toll roads is kind of the model, you know, like if we didn't have government provided roads, we'd have more toll roads. But the concern is then that toll roads are potentially expensive. Building roads, especially very long roads, is quite expensive and that therefore people without a lot of resources would have a really hard time achieving the kind of mobility that they would like to achieve and the kind of mobility that is often necessary in order to earn more money and move to places where there are better jobs and whatever else. So that's that's first of all, it's an important point. That's a distribution criticism, though, and not really a market criticism. So it wouldn't it's not necessarily a market failure based on what the distribution looks like in the traditional sense of the word market failure. It's just saying whatever the market ends up providing, it will not be distributed in the way that I would like. So I can kind of grant that, but we have to compare it to something else, for example, the gas tax, which is very retrogressive and by itself in the sense that if everyone pays the same amount for gas tax, it's not adjusted for rich people versus poor people and the poor people have to drive somewhere, they pay the gas tax, which is mostly used to it's mostly pay as you go on the roads, although it hasn't been that way for a few, about a decade, but for most of the Federal Highway Act, it's been pay as you go. So we still are a funding system right now that disproportionately hurts the people who have less. So I'm actually trying to advocate a system, not total private roads, but more private roads, which we've been seeing. We've been seeing congestion pricing becoming a thing. People are using market forces on these public thoroughfares because there's other costs that emerge and they're also put on the poor. Congestion is a cost that is put on the poor if they have to live in the suburbs and rich people can afford to live in high density, modern urban housing and then walk to work. That's another cost and maybe the situation there is not totally equitable for the way we have it now. So we have to compare it to actual alternatives as opposed to saying the roads that we provide are for everyone and everyone has equal access to them. That's not true at all. Okay, so just the takeaway then is roads would be built. Even if the government wasn't building them, they would be built. They might look different than they do right now, but we would still have them. Yes. Even in a libertarian state, there would be roads. Yes, the sort answer is that, yes. And if someone wants to give me an example of how that wouldn't be, I would love to hear someone say that there would be no roads in a libertarian state, that would be amazing to me. So thank you to David Paul Milner, who was the one who raised that important question. Miller, sorry. So let me let's move on to the next question, which is from John Elwood, which is who or what would control corporations in a libertarian government? And I think that before we say who would control corporations, we need to get it. There's kind of an assumption behind that question, which is that control happens because of government.  I don't go around lying to all of my friends. I don't go around behaving badly. And some of those things are illegal, but many of them are not. And I still don't do them. And so it would be odd to say like, well, in the absence of government, what would keep people from lying to each other? That most people aren't jerks for one. And there are social repercussions for these sorts of things. And those controls exist now controlling corporations, which are just people acting in groups for common purposes. Those controls exist now, and they would continue to exist with more corporate regulation or substantially less. But now as to the specific controls, what would stop corporations if they figured out they could make a ton of money by, say, selling dangerous products, this toy that explodes the off chance and injures people? Without a government passing laws and making that illegal, what's to stop them from just taking these risks with our lives in order to run out profits? This is a very good question. So this goes back to the comparative analysis when I was talking about roads. We clearly have this now. There are corporations that have products out there that hurt people in a variety of ways. There are also corporations out there that have products that don't really hurt people. This has been happening with automobile regulation where there's a recall because the National Highway Transportation Safety Board, they decide that something is not safe enough and it might be the plastic fender on a car and that has no real danger to it, but now there's a bunch of extra costs. So they overestimate the cost, but we have a system here that's trying to create safety and I would be wrong and overstitting myself to say it never does that. But of course, the other side is wrong in overstitting themselves to say that the market never tries to guarantee safety in any way. It doesn't make a lot of sense to kill your customers is the basic idea. And a lot of people will roll their eyes when you hear this. It doesn't make a lot of sense to kill your customers. But in a modern society, consumers have a lot of avenues out there to try and figure out where the safety lies. They care about safety. They care about safety to different degrees. A lot of times when I lecture I ask this question about meat regulation, which is who here wants safe meat? And everyone raises their hand. And I say who here will shop for meat in the absence of meat control authority from the government? Who here would shop for meat looking for safety as one of the reasons they would shop for meat and everyone raises their hand? And then the other question, which is who here has different desire for safe meat? Who here will eat raw beef and see a few people raise their hand? Who here will only eat well-done steaks? Who will eat street food in Bangladesh? All these type of questions. So there's a huge diversity of the amount of risk that people are willing to take and people want it. So from that, I infer that corporations will generally, I think it is a safe bet, they will generally try to make their products safe. The question is what about the one guy who doesn't, right? Right. And it's not like that one guy isn't around today and it's not like there aren't corporations that produce dangerous products that slip through the regulations. So the question is, how well do the regulations work, the trade-offs of them and the liberty that they impinge in other ways, the regulations themselves, I'm sure you can speak to, you can have pernicious effects beyond any safety benefits that they create. So we need to have a realistic picture, but we can recognize that there are all these checks against bad behavior by anyone, including corporations. And it's not like, again, it's not the case we believe in a non-regulated market. And it's not even the case that I believe in no top-down regulations. But I take the question seriously about which ones will be more effective in a cost-benefit analysis and there's another type of regulation which is bottom-up. And that occurs both because of consumer choice and that also occurs because of litigation, tort litigation. But consumer choice is even more important in this. I mean, you talk to any businessman who's successful and they care most about the consumer thinking that that business is a good business that they can trust and they play the long game, the long game being like, I want that consumer to be my customer for 20 years and I don't ever want to alienate them because they got sick once by something they ate here. That's how most businessmen think. But I'm not going to say at all that there are many rapacious businessmen out there. They exist under both the government system and the more free market system. And in the government system they also can be more in government, which is a problem by itself. But of course, the corporation's question is even broader and I think you can talk about I mean, who controls the corporations as about as general as you can get. I mean, corporations and government really antagonistic to each other? No, not at all. I mean, this is this is what regulatory capture and these ideas that, you know, the powerful as a corporation becomes powerful, it can influence political actors to rig the system in its favor. And so to say that corporations and government are always at each other's throats, the government is what is protecting us from the corporations is just in most cases not true that in fact, government, a lot of the bad things that we say corporations do are enabled by the government are enabled by the regulations that are passed in their favor when a big business comes in and says, you know, this little guy over here is competing against me. I have a lot more money than he does so I can afford to bear certain costs that he can't. So I'm going to go talk the regulators into passing a regulation that's going to cause us to have to spend money to do something. We have to comply with it. We have to file more paperwork. We have to buy a certain sort of equipment or whatever. That's going to hurt him a lot more than it's going to hurt me. And once I drive him out, I'm going to benefit greatly. And this sort of stuff happens all the time. I mean, it happens when we watch the taxi cab companies, lobby state and city governments to ban the startup Uber, which is a bride at transport.   It's an absolutely terrific service. In many cases, it's much better than using a taxi, but they can't stand it because it's competing with them. And so they get the city governments to pass laws basically outlawing Uber. It happens with restaurants that get they feel threatened by food trucks because food trucks can operate at lower costs and can go where people are. And so the restaurants get regulations passing. You know, only so many cars can be parked on the street or you have to be parked a certain distance from different locations or whatever. And all these are designed to use the muscle of the state to benefit themselves, not just at the expense of these other businesses, which is bad in and of itself, but it's at the expense of us as consumers because the reason these other businesses are a threat to the incumbent companies is that we as consumers want to go to them. We prefer them. Uber gives us a better experience. We want to use it. The food trucks give us tastier food at a lower price or more convenience. We want to use them. Yeah, that's the double-sided.  Right. Yeah. I think that that also occurs, of course, on the bigger level. When you get into the SEC, you know, the Securities Exchange Commission, I mean, it occurs at the high levels and more things we put into place like the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. These are all going to be something where the corporations have more influence. The bigger ones have more influence than you do if you're trying to compete against them.  I wouldn't say worse. We go pretty far on that. But the sillier things they've done, such as during the New Deal, they created the National Recovery Act and the National Recovery Administration, which was an entire cartilization scheme created by FDR to have big businesses write their codes of fair competition. I'm putting fair competition and scare quotes here in order to create nonruinous competition. They thought competition was destructive of productivity. And if you read some of their accounts of this, you see a perfect example of big business capturing government and doing it in favor of outcompeting their smaller competitors. There's a story about a tire company in Ohio. So in Ohio, they had a code of fair competition for tires, which was written entirely by Goodyear, Firestone, and Michelin. And if you were there's a company called the Ferris Tire Company, P-H-A-R-I-S that wrote into the Senate and said we're trying to compete against them, but they wrote the code of fair competition, which means we often have the same prices. And the only way we can compete against them is to have a lower price because we can't compete against their national name. We have a lower price tire and they have a national name. And if the customer has to pay the same for every tire, then they're going to buy the national name because it's the one they know more about. That's just generally true. That's what it's like to compete against a big business. And if you look at just the massive pages of federal regulations and how much they prefer big corporations the name of small businesses. Now, that being said, I mean, our ideal world does not have corporate malfeasance in it. It's going to have that. It's just whether or not you exacerbate it by government regulations that are captured by corporations. Our next question, it's actually two quite good questions, comes from James Michael Gerard Jones. So the first is, are all libertarians anarchists? And the answer to that is no. I mean, libertarianism is a big tent that runs the gamut from, yes, there are outright anarchists who believe that there should be no state to say classical liberals who argue that there should be a state and it's much larger than the anarchists would allow a state that protects our rights. You know, it has police and national defense and potentially builds roads and provides all sorts of services. They're, I mean, what, what ties these together, what makes them all libertarian is the respect for liberty and that they want a state that's much smaller than the one we've got now. So no, you don't, you do not need to be an anarchist to be a libertarian and not all libertarians are anarchists. Some people, there are some people who would say libertarians have to be anarchists and they're the same thing. I think that I'm a little bit more ecumenical about the people that will include libertarians, especially in terms of the fight we have before us, which is an incredibly large state that is constantly growing and doing more and more things that are not in anyone who believes in limited government, classical liberal down to anarchists, none of these things are okay with any of us. So I think we should all be on the same team in fighting for that. I do think though that even, even not being anarchists, anarchism should be taken seriously for the questions that it provokes. I think this is the value of anarchism no matter what your particular political views are because what anarchism does is, it says every action that the state takes has to be justified and justifying it is often very difficult. And so the anarchist arguments, the arguments that they raise, even if you don't ultimately accept their conclusions that therefore the state is not justified in any form, still make it difficult to answer in the affirmative this justification of each step that the state takes. And so you can listen to our prior episode with philosopher Jason Brennan on the duty to obey the law where we go into a lot of these sorts of questions that anarchism raises and how difficult they are to overcome. But I think that's the value of anarchism even for non-anarchists is that it puts the state at least more on the defensive than it usually is and makes it have to work harder to violate our freedoms or to limit our liberties for whatever benefits it might create. Yeah, and I also, I heard Jonah Goldberg say one time that conservatives should always have a libertarian in the room because they keep conservatives honest because the libertarians is the first person to say, why is the government even doing this? And I can say they say the same thing about libertarians. Libertarians should always have an anarchist in the room because they're the first person to say, why is the government doing anything at all? And that's a valuable point if it's not done in any sort of, I would say lowbrow or punk rock way. Just, you know, when you actually have intelligent anarchists who usually know a lot about the possibilities of a stateless existence and will be the first person people to point out to when someone says, well, we have to have the state to provide money and they'll be the first people to say, well, the United States didn't provide money until the 1860s, so we clearly don't need that. Sure, and we'll put a link in the show notes to we have a lecture video with David Friedman, an economist and an anarcho-capitalist who in that he explains a lot of these ways that he thinks that a stateless society could provide many of the things that we think our, that a state is needed for. So that would be probably of interest. So let's move on to then the second James's two questions, which is similar to the first one. So in the sense of asking this question of who can be within this libertarian tent? And of course, there's no one, there's no one at the gates of these tents. There's no one saying who's allowed to enter or not. But the question is, you know, are my views that I particularly, that I happen to hold generally libertarian or not? And so his question here is, can Christians be libertarians? Well, absolutely. And depending on how far you wanna take this, you could say that, you know, Christians should be libertarians if you agreed with me on what helps people the best. So if your biggest commitment from a Christian standpoint is to help people, well, then I would say look at government programs and private programs and this program, this libertarian solution versus the other ones and see which one you think helps people the most and which one would be something that Jesus would be most in line with. But of course, it doesn't mean that a Christian must be a libertarian or that he can't be a socialist either. Of course, the libertarian view is a bigger tent.  We would never ever say anything like that, not only because we don't really care and we want 1,000 flowers to bloom in a world of human, diverse human flourishing and we don't think there's only one way a person can be to live in our world. In fact, I find that world pretty boring and I don't want to use the state to try and make everyone another the same type of person. It is interesting to look at how and why socialists or communists did have to eventually say that Christians couldn't be part of their society because they had allegiances that were not to the state and they had allegiances of charity that were not through the state and all these other attitudes that didn't work with them and we are on the exact opposite of that. The private charity and the beliefs that Christians have are a huge part of the world that we advocate and a bunch of other beliefs too. Timothy M. Barrett asks what objective basis, on what objective basis does a libertarian determine right versus wrong? And answering this question, I think the first thing that we have to note is that libertarianism is a political philosophy and so any given set of arguments for libertarianism is going to assume a moral philosophy behind it and so answering that question, how do we determine right versus wrong? That's not a political question ultimately, that's a moral question so how a given person answers it, libertarian or not, is going to depend on the moral philosophy that they're grounding their beliefs in and so a consequentialist or utilitarian libertarianism. So utilitarianism is the idea that an action is morally right if it maximizes happiness in the world and so an action is better, the better action is the one that more maximizes happiness and the worse is the one that either doesn't or creates more pain. So a utilitarian libertarian is going to say precisely that we should maximize utility as it's called. A natural rights libertarian is going to say well we can tell right and wrong based on this set of natural rights that we have and what's wrong is what violates those rights and go on from there. A virtue ethicist libertarian as I tend to call myself will say that what's right is what a good person would do in these circumstances. So you say like I don't know what I should do in this situation so you try to imagine the best person possible, the person with the best character traits, the most admirable person, you say how would they behave and that's how you ought to behave and then from all of these we can get to libertarian policy prescriptions to a libertarian political philosophy because a limited state best maximizes utility or a limited state is most in line with natural rights or a limited state is the one that both allows us to be the best people possible and gives us the most options for leading really good lives. But so there isn't one libertarian way to determine right from wrong and this question isn't unique to libertarianism. We could just as well ask like how does a progressive determine right from wrong and again that's not gonna be contained. You're not gonna draw that answer directly from their political prescriptions because it'd be weird to say like well we should have absolute democracy and majoritarian rule and so the way we determine what's right is whatever the majority thinks. Most people would say that doesn't sound quite right. That's a fairly troubling view so there would be an underlying moral philosophy there as well. Yeah it's important to point out that so if all three of these schools of thought and Aaron listed the three that are usually in what if you took an ethics class and philosophy class and undergrad, your three ethical systems will generally be consequentialism or utilitarianism, deontology which is the natural rights type of theory. Right to rules based morality. What's right is following a set of rules. And not looking at the outcomes and then virtue ethics which is sort of a grounded first and Aristotle. Now all of those can point to libertarianism. All of them theoretically could point to any system. Right given that they're kind of the big three chances are that any given person's moral philosophy no matter which political system they believe in is going to fall within one of these three. Exactly but interestingly I think it's something to commend libertarianism that all of them could lead someone to libertarian thought and in the, there are other types of political philosophies though extreme progressives, communism for example, where in the natural rights theory cannot lead you to that theory. They have to go completely, they have to discard that one and say no, pure utilitarianism is what we're after. We don't look at rights at all, we violate, we don't believe in them, we violate them all the time and if we can kill 10 people or 10,000 people to make 100,000 people better off, we will because rights don't really matter and I think that that's something that puts the huge detriment in their scorecard that they don't really pay attention generally speaking to rights based or deontological rules based ethics. It's something that libertarianism has in its cards that they don't. So quite a few people asked us about this next topic which is abortion. So where do libertarians stand on abortion? And this of course could be its own podcast but we can talk a little bit about it. Right, so I should say that generally speaking my sense is that people who identify as libertarian tend to be pro-choice but there are certainly plenty of pro-life libertarians and the reason for this is that basic libertarian principles I think can arguably lead to either position. Both positions can be justified within a libertarian framework, can be plausibly justified. And so let me just start by saying that abortion, I mean abortion is a really complicated and difficult moral issue. I think it is the most complicated and most difficult moral issue imaginable actually. Yeah, I would probably agree with that. So to say like well there's one answer on it it's there may be one answer on it but arguing for that one answer is not an easy task. So for the pro-choice, to be a pro-choice libertarian say the argument goes let's start with kind of rights. Like I have a right to control my own body. Every person has, women have a right to control their body and so abortion is an act of controlling your body. You know there's this fetus growing inside of you you want to get it out. So the rest of us don't have a right to tell you what you can do or can't do with your own body. So therefore pro-life or pro-choice sorry. The pro-life argument simply says it takes the rights question instead of looking at the rights of the woman it says well this fetus is a person and there's again is a very complicated issue of whether a fetus is a person or not and whether a fetus is the kind of thing that has rights or not but this argument says it is and that fetus just like every other person has a right to life and that right to life trumps anyone else's right to control their own body. So I can use my body to do all sorts of things but one of the things I can't use it to do is to kill you and so abortion would be the act of killing again if we see the fetus as a person it would be the act of killing a person. If one of the core functions of the state is to protect life, liberty and property then it's a minimal state would still step in there and prevent that harm. Right and so then we get to pro-life that the woman's right to control her body does not trump the fetus's right to life. And the other question which I won't go too into because I said this could be its own podcast but a lot of people also forget that there's a secondary question on abortion which is who decides? And by that I kind of mean what level of government decides and that's interesting that when anytime you bring government into a moral equation that's always a question because it might be the case that there is a fundamental right that exists but it should not be the case that the UN for example the United Nations should be the enforcing mechanism for that fundamental right. So the secondary question which comes into libertarianism is should the federal government or the states be the ones that decide it or maybe even the UN. But that's a second moral question to say this is the right choice and then secondly I want this level of government to enforce it because if you think that all things that you think are morally correct need to be enforced by the highest level of government then I guess all these things should be reposed in the UN or everything should be in the federal government not just as a matter of morality but just as all good things should be in the highest level of government and I disagree with that and most libertarians would disagree with that so that's the second question which we hopefully can maybe figure out a podcast on this in a future date to talk about it more in depth. Right but as a general answer to this question of abortion there are libertarians who fall on both sides of it and so no matter what your view on it that's not a reason to exclude yourself from libertarianism. Absolutely. Next up Albert Greer asked what would a libertarian party government look like today and this gives me an opportunity to clarify something because it's a confusion that I think shows up a lot which is the distinction between the libertarian party as an organization and libertarianism. They both have the same name which ends up causing I think this confusion but think of it this way like there are people out there who identify as progressives and then there's the democratic party the democratic party is made up largely of progressives but it's not the same thing as progressivism progressivism is a belief system and ideology a political philosophy and then there's an organization that claims it and says you know like we represent some of its views but they're not, they don't include all of it. They're in conservatives same thing. Conservatives same thing like not all conservatives are Republicans and the Republican party is not conservatism because conservatism is a set of ideas so similarly the libertarian party exists as an organization but libertarianism is a political philosophy and Cato is not associated with the libertarian party right and nor is libertarianism.org is not in any way associated with the libertarian party. So then I guess we'll just rephrase the question then to be what would a libertarian government look like today? Well of course that's the big question that's a lot of what Aaron and I have devoted our careers to a lot of what we talk about at Cato and one of the great things about Cato is that we have such diverse experts on so many different fields that I've given what I specialize in realizing that I can't tell you everything that our foreign policy is gonna look like everything that our trade policy is gonna look like because we have specialists who do that. So it might seem like a cop out to say if you wanna get an idea what a libertarian government would look like, look at Cato.org and see the proposals that we put forward for all different areas but I'm not an expert in all of these areas. Generally speaking I can tell you this it would be way, way, way smaller. I can tell you that and I can tell you as a consequence of that growth would be faster and more dynamic and maybe we'd have flying cars. Now that's a little bit of a challenge. And we'd all be a lot more free than we are today. It would be a lot more free than we have today. We wouldn't put people in cages for putting things into their body. I mean there's some basic things I can tell you that would not be, we'd open up federal prisons and say all right guys, sorry, are bad. We wouldn't have trade restrictions like start trade restrictions. We wouldn't invade countries randomly because we didn't like what they were doing. Just a lot of those things, we wouldn't do those things in the libertarian world. The more nuanced stuff I would say look at Cato.org. And should you not want to just plunge into the whole of the internet's writings on libertarian policy? Let me recommend, our colleague David Bose has wrote a book called Libertarianism a Primer which is short, very easy to read, covers the history of libertarian thought. It covers the philosophy behind libertarian views but it also has large sections on what this would look like in practice. There's, there'll be a new edition coming out so I definitely commend that book to you. So on Facebook Josh Caldwell asked us. He said, I'm a union government employee but the libertarian set of values is very appealing to me. Where do I fit in? Well of course as a union member and a government employee you can be a libertarian. You might be a union member because you had no choice which is problematic from a libertarian standpoint but if you look more at the government employee issue I guess the question there that you might have to wrestle with is whether or not you can advocate putting yourself out of a job and sometimes people do. I've said that about my work here at Kato and I think Aaron said the same thing that if we could actually put the government in a place that we thought it could maybe some parts of Kato could close up and we could all go and do something productive rather than criticizing this huge Leviathan entity. They make us, they give us work to do by doing what they do best which is growing and taking. It's also I guess it depends on whether the work you're employed in for the government is one of the legitimate functions of government. I mean for non-anarchist libertarians there's going to be a government of some kind and so if you're employed in one of those things then that certainly doesn't conflict with libertarian views. I think though that there are certain things that make it harder to really hold libertarian views if you're doing them. So I think if you, to call yourself a libertarian while locking people in cages for non-violent drug offenses. Or kicking down doors as a member of the DEA.  Hold the values, yeah. And you could always say oh well if not me who would do it but I'm a believer in civil disobedience. I would be amazing if tomorrow everyone decided not to enforce the drug laws and I think it would be a moral, it would be a moral uptick, it would be a more moral society tomorrow if everyone decided to stop enforcing drug laws. So running out of time and I want to close with this final question from William Wright which I think is an important one. And that's how do you or how do libertarians or how would libertarian policy prevent states from allowing child labor? Well child labor is a difficult question. It's difficult because we all care about it and we all care about children not working. But of course children not working occurs because poverty goes away or children working occurs because of poverty and the best way of thinking about this is the farm and this is something that when you hear progressives particularly progressives now talk about the progressive era which is the 1929 when child labor laws started being put into effect for factories and other situations like that. They often say libertarians are okay with rapacious capitalist employing children. But of course on the farm which is where these people were coming from the children worked all the time and even more. That's because poverty is what really causes child labor. Every parent would love their kids to just enjoy their childhood and have a great time and not have to slip away in the farm or in the factory. But for many of these parents in poverty it wasn't a choice it was either they do that or they die they can't feed themselves. And of course wealth invented a bunch of these things that we take for granted now. You could say in some way wealth invented childhood and I mean a childhood of leisure where you get things from Santa on Christmas morning and it's against the law to have you work and then after so first invented childhood let's say up to 10 years old. And then people got wealthy enough in the 50s that it actually invented teenagers. And teenagers were now not supposed to work either and they could consume rock and roll music and start garage bands when they had garages so you had teenagers. And it's funny because the progression has even moved to 20 year olds because you have people saying that 20 year olds and you should be allowed to live off their parents and the government should facilitate your 20s as being a time to figure out what's best for you. But all of these are only possible in a world of wealth. They're kind of this interesting way of taking the fruits of capitalism which is incredible wealth that it had not been seen for most of human history when most of humans have always lived in dire poverty when children have had to work. And then trying to redistribute it down and saying well this needs to be an entitlement for everyone to not work until your 30s. So that's just the general observation. Now do I think there should be child labor laws on a local level? Yes, in America. But in other places it can be very difficult because in Thailand for example child labor laws can force children out of the above market the non-black market labor market and put them into the black market labor market because the poverty makes it so they have to work. And the black market labor market for children is way worse than the non-black labor market. It includes things like child prostitution. So you have to make an analysis about the world as we have it which is that the government doesn't have magic words. It cannot simply state that something shouldn't exist and then have that happen. And that doesn't occur no matter how big the state is and on a libertarian level the government could pronounce this magic word and say no child labor and I would be okay with that but we really need to focus on wealth if we wanna eliminate child labor and create childhoods for people in poor countries now just like childhoods were created for us meaning the Western world and nearly anyone who I imagine is listening to this. Thank you for listening and thank you for your questions. We really appreciate hearing from our listeners and if you have other questions you'd like us to answer because we plan to do more episodes like this in the future you can contact us on Twitter. I'm at A-R-O-S-P that's A-R-O-S-S-P and I'm at TC Burris, T-C-B-U-R-R-U-S. And to learn more about libertarianism visit us on the web at www.libertarianism.org.