Friday Interview: Stossel Pushes Policies That Promote Liberty | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is the CJ Staff, who is a contributor to the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

Fox Business Network host explains government often does more harm than good

    RALEIGH     Once a self-described liberal consumer affairs reporter convinced that government needed to do something about greedy, cheating businessmen, John Stossel is now one of the nation's leading libertarian voices. He recently visited Chapel Hill to record an episode of his Fox Business Network program, "Stossel." He discussed his love of freedom during an interview with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)

    Kokai: When people ask you why you're a libertarian, what do you say?

    Stossel: I say that conservatives want to police the bedroom and the world, and the liberals want to police the workplace and my speech and what I eat and a million other things. And they both seem to want a bigger government, which is unsustainable.

    Kokai: When you put it that way, it sounds very sensible. Why aren't more people calling themselves libertarians?

    Stossel: I don't know. What's wrong with them? [Laugh.] I mean, maybe it's just people are slow to think about it. Most people don't think about these issues the way we do. They think about food and sex and sports and celebrities. And they don't have time. They're trying to raise their families, or they're less interested.

    There's this saying that 1 percent of the people make things happen, and 9 percent watch the people make things happen, and the other 90 percent wake up one day and say, "What happened?" And I think that's probably true. And the 9 percent and the 90 percent don't think that hard about these issues. And it's also ... this is not intuitive: liberty. It's intuitive that mommy government protects us, solves our problems.

    Kokai: I understand you started out with a different philosophical approach, then had a light-bulb moment and embraced a more libertarian perspective.

    Stossel: Slower than a light bulb moment. I was a garden-variety liberal. At Princeton they taught me that we can solve poverty, that we now know what works, and these wise people in Washington can set up programs that will end poverty. In this rich country, there's no excuse for it. But then I, in my first reporting job in Portland, Ore., I watched these poverty programs fail and build up these poverty pimps -- building little empires for them.

    Then I became a consumer reporter, and I was mad that people were getting ripped off. And I watched -- and I'd say, "We've got to have a law, regulation." And I got regulations. And they came in and licensed TV repairmen because of a story I did. But five years later, I saw that the cheating didn't change. There's always some. And now there was this new bureaucracy, and the immigrant was in trouble if he opened a TV repair shop because he didn't have a license. He didn't know how to get a license. All this other money had to be spent gaming the system. It kept making things worse.

    And so it was very slow for me. I was stupider than most of your listeners. But, eventually, I discovered Reason magazine and, wow, I found I had a movement and people who really understood this.

    Kokai: So what do libertarians need to do to reach people and convince them that, say, regulation of something like the pharmaceutical industry does more harm than good?

    Stossel: By and large, we don't get to them. We don't convince enough people. But you have to answer it one by one. If they say the pharmaceutical industry, I would say it does intuitively sound right. I don't want some snake-oil seller to sell me something that might hurt me. They're all looking to make money. They're all greedy. And it's nice that the [Food and Drug Administration] is there to make sure it's safe and effective.

    But think about it. A few years back they said, "Oh, we're going to approve this new heart drug, and it'll save 14,000 American lives a year." And all the reporters said, "Great." But it takes 10 years and $1 billion to get a drug approved. So if they're saving 14,000 this year with the new drug, didn't that mean they killed 14,000 people last year and the year before that -- back 10 years? It did mean that. But you don't think that way. You only think about how you're being protected. You don't think about all the life-saving stuff we don't get because this process is so burdensome.

    Furthermore, are we free, or are we not? Don't you own your own body? If you're dying of a terminal illness, you're not allowed to experiment with a drug in America. You have to break your country's laws and sneak to some other country. Isn't that anti-freedom? Each of these arguments takes a while -- takes some work.

    Kokai: How about politicians? What will it take to convince elected leaders that the country needs a more libertarian approach to its major public policy issues?

    Stossel: Beats me. I've been trying for 40 years. I think the public has to get there first. And I have a charity that I donate to which gives my free-market videos to teachers to use in high schools. And more people watch them now in high school than watch "20/20" or Fox Business [Network]. So that's my attempt to get these ideas to people. And maybe if the high school kids open their minds, they'll lead the politicians.

    Kokai: You mentioned that you've been at this for a long time. How is the public reception to your arguments? Have you seen any change in people's receptiveness to libertarian ideas?

    Stossel: I think it's better, but only a little better. And now there's a movement. There are at least politicians who talk the talk and try to sell these ideas in the Tea Party. Plus kids: These Student For Liberty movements on college campuses are a great thing.

    Kokai: Are there any examples you point to of other countries that have seen major positive results from adopting a more pro-liberty approach within their governments?

    Stossel: Well, I'll play with four. Certainly, Britain was going in the tank until Margaret Thatcher came in and reduced the size of government and stopped the government control of the coal industry and so forth. But, then she got voted out. New Zealand, same thing. A government came in, went to [a] free market. They got voted out.

    Now, Canada was on our track nine years ago. Deep in debt, the Canadian dollar was worth only 70-some cents, and a liberal government -- maybe it has to be done by a liberal government -- they cut spending. Real cuts, not the fake Washington ones where they cut it from what they would have wanted to spend extra next year. Real cuts. ... They did increase taxes. But 6-1 spending cuts over taxes. And Canada is in much better shape.

    More recently, Puerto Rico fired 20,000 government workers. In Wisconsin, they didn't fire anybody. The jury is still out on Puerto Rico. Will the public support that? We'll see at the next election.

    I just also want to add the obvious examples: Singapore and Hong Kong, which are really free and went from Third World to First World in 40 years.

    Kokai: What happens in our country if we reject an approach based on individual liberty and stick with a big-government approach to solving society's problems?

    Stossel: We atrophy. We maybe have massive inflation as the politicians print more money to pay for the promises that they can't possibly keep, for Medicare especially. And we have a diminished life. Maybe social unrest. Bad news.

    Kokai: Some people might be listening to us and saying, "What he's saying seems to make sense, but I'm not sure. I'd like to learn more about this pro-liberty or libertarian approach." Where should people go to find more information about these ideas?

    Stossel: Read No They Can't by John Stossel. "Why government fails, but individuals succeed." And then read Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell, and join the Cato Institute and the John Locke Foundation. A lot of good freedom thinkers around.