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tv   Rainer Zitelmann The Power of Capitalism  CSPAN  October 25, 2022 4:28pm-4:48pm EDT

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apple store and google play. download free today. she's been now, front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. >> who want to introduce you, the author of this book, power of capitalism, a journey through recent history across five continents. what are you trying to accomplish. >> a lot of people claim capitalist. only one number, 90% of the population are in extreme poverty and save less than 10%. i compared things you can't compare. north korea, south korea, china china today. they compare utopia, ideas with
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reality it is the same as i compare your real-life marriage compared to the marriage of our friends so is my approach to compare things that you can compare. forr example, the same language, the same history but different economic systems with different outcomes as one example. >> do you think china is a capitalist country today? >> no but in the united states it's not your capitalism. no work in the world pure capitalism. we have a fixture in the compare toar ingredients.
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then i look at what happens. if you add small markets as china did the last 40 years, you have most states. think about china. at the end of the 50s, they have the biggest socialist experiment in history. a lot of people don't know but 45 trillion people died. 45 million people died. almost no one thought about it. then 1981, 88% of people in china live in extreme poverty. 80%, less than 1%. why? private property, free market the state is in china but i have a friend is an
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economist at the university and says our success because of the state you have to understand that. >> you look at chili as well, they want more capitalist but thee trend now they elected a nw president on the left. >> it's crazy, i've been in chile and i spoke with people there. why?t is the most successful country, latin america if you compare with others, venezuela and other countries, much more successful, gdp and whatever take. it y is the answer from chile, left-leaning but they voted for
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socialist but why? they were extreme for white. the socialist propaganda they were given and the problem is when it comes to being successful, they forget why they became successful. i keep wanting to make it more clear. imagine someone like maybe 1150 and they make it as i have. so then they think why should i start with this? nothing could happen if they wake up the next morning again, why should i eat ice cream? we know what happened. they forgot why he became slim, he stopped eating chocolate and
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pizza and other stuff. this is what people, china is another example. they are more successful because of more markets. they forgot it. now they go opposite ways and i think it would be best for china tohi go this way and some explanationr why this happenedn chile. >> from your book, the power of capitalism, germany unwittingly became the site of large-scale keexperiment designed to determe whether humans are more likely to thrive under state-controlled or free market economy. what area are you referring to? >> everything. a few examples what a lot of people don't know that i define in my book. for example, 20% of people in east germany lost their own
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toilet in 1989. they had to share with other people, everyone. another example, 16% people in germany had a telephone, most of the people have no telephone. another thing, would you guess you had to wait for a car in germany? >> six months. >> that would be great. twelve to 17 years. if you are lucky, 12 years or maybe 17 years. you could buy a car but higher price than the new one plus you don't have the rates. twelve to 17 years. people don't know, i think this
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is a real life experiment as mentioned before. same language, but this was the economic system. then you see the different outcomes not only with this but they tell people capitalist is it. the past year, it's not true, there are much more distractions germany than west germany so it's only a few. >> would you describe europe as capitalistic c comments? >> capitalist countries and in europe, a plan economy. thiswa is similar to things joe biden wants to do here in the
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united states. climate change and others, they don't believe in that, they believe the state will solve everyav problem but if this were true, robert junior would have one and not the united states. even in europe today and that you they've become more and more, saito call it but it's not pure socialist but i'll give you one example. germany we are proud about our automobile industry and they decided what to pursue. they say the government, only in the future electric vehicle stop
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with other things. it's crazy but that's what happens right now. if you ask me, this industry, even they have a crazy energy policy, an article in the "wall thstreet journal", the energy policies in the world, it's about germany and it's true because they stopped nuclear power and they wanted windmills but we don't have so much time. it's crazy but it's idolatry. idolatry. >> voters are supporting these politicians putting these policies in place. >> yes, it's correct. because we know from history the majority is not always right and sometimes the majority is wrong in this time i think they are wrong if they support parties
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like this. >> there is a new trend in the united states when it comes to investing called es' environmental social governance movement, what is your take. >> i don't believe in this. even capitalism protects the environment. you don't need all of these things. maybe you know the economic freedom, was free and not free. the top you have free countries like switzerland and at the bottom like north korea or venezuela. and there's another, epi burned environmental protections from yale universityse and if you lok at the correlation, qc countries were the best, the freest
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countries. i think you don't need things like this. >> site two books in your book the power of capitalism you talk about thomas, the capitol in the 21st century jason riley's please stop helping us. why did you bring up those two books? >> one of the greatest books i can recommend to everyone. please stop helping us written by a black american, the welfare state and all the things that are good but bad for them. please stop helping us.ou it's the same the only here in the united states but worldwide. the continent got so much aiden in africa but did help?
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d what helped capitalism. in asia. we spoke about china but not the amount. we can speak about singapore or south korea. korea in the 60s, one of the first countries, i have a chapter in my book, north korea or south korea. today south korea great. developing state. the other book, his thesis is in the last 20, 25 years inequality is on the rise. the cap between the poor and the rich he says most part of the 20th century they've decreased inequality but something changed in the 90s and we have increased inequality. for him, these are but i tell
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you something, and 2000, 26% of the worldwide population lived in extreme poverty, today is less than 10%. these are the years he called back years. so it's whether you are focused on inequality as he does or poverty as i do. if you say inequality is the problem the chinese people should go back because they were more equala at that time but wn i was in china a lot of times they would tell me we have to go back because we were all equal. they are more unequal today because of the billionaires. but there are a lot of people better off.
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from inequality instead focusing on poverty. >> where and when did you grow up in germany and what was it like? >> i grew up in west germany, frankfurt where the banks are but now i mostly live in berlin. as long as we don't have socialist government that i would go to the united states if youw don't have bernie sanderss president. >> how do you rate scholz? >> i don't like him but to the other side, i told you about nuclear power the, there were other things. totally depends.
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americans warned us, don't do it, you can't totally depend on and. they asked about it. they are crazy, they will always deliver. they would depend on russian gas so i don't like this. >> were your parents free-market capitalist? >> they were not. they talked we were young. it's like toilet paper. you need it but it's useless. that's what he told pete. and i didn't earn, it's funny
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but they believe from our father that money is fewer. but money can be freedom. for me, money means freedom. at the moment i changed my mind, i became wealthy but started to change my mind but 93 years old now, we don't speak too much about politics but we have other topics and social democrats or pre-parties nothing different but i except they think different and i think different. >> let's conclude u with the u.,
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inwhat is your take on the u.s. economy? the role of the state in the u.s. >> on the one hand two weeks ago with market capitalization, six are from the united states. it was different ten years ago so it's amazing you have google and amazon and you attract a lot of people all over the world. >> you have this large step, the problem and another the state to have too much regulation.
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if you reduce taxes, i think this was. on the other, there were bad things. against free trade for another from biden so one chapter in my book and what i think america needs, i don't know who it is i think this would be a great thing. i moved from germany to united tstates. >> he's been 26, the most recent is the power of capitalism, under recent history across five continents, thank you for joining us on cspan's to be. >> thank you very much, i
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