TRIGGERnometry - Dominic Frisby： The Case for Less Government

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantin Kissin.

00:00:09.120 And this is the show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:14.880 Our brilliant guest this week is a comedian, author and overall good egg, Dominic Frisby.

00:00:19.700 Welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you very much, Constantin. Thank you, Francis.

00:00:23.740 Thank you. I love the way you paused after me as if you were considering whether to thank Francis or not.

00:00:29.520 Well, no, I'll tell you what the pause was, because normally there's only one host.

00:00:32.840 So I thought, thank you, Constance.

00:00:34.380 And then I was, ah, right.

00:00:36.080 He's there as well.

00:00:37.360 The pause was thought.

00:00:38.420 I introduced you.

00:00:39.500 You're a man of many skills.

00:00:40.780 But one of the things is an author, and you are the author of a book that's doing very well right now,

00:00:44.820 which is this book here, Daylight Robbery, which is all about tax.

00:00:48.420 It is about tax.

00:00:49.100 A riveting subject, which may be dry, but you have managed to make it interesting.

00:00:54.660 And before you tell us all about that, just tell everybody who are you, how are you, where you are, what has been your journey through life?

00:01:01.920 Okay. And do I tell you or do I go straight down the camera?

00:01:04.260 You tell us.

00:01:04.920 Okay.

00:01:05.660 They don't matter, man.

00:01:07.540 So I'm 50 years old.

00:01:10.120 I'm a Londoner.

00:01:10.760 I have quite an unusual background in that I started out, I went to drama school when I was, you know, after university.

00:01:20.640 But the reason I went to drama school is I thought all the best writers started out as actors.

00:01:26.320 So I sort of deliberately went to drama school to almost train as a writer.

00:01:29.880 And then for some bizarre reason, I was the best at radio in drama school.

00:01:34.560 And I got a voiceover agent like almost before I'd left drama school and found myself straight away doing voiceovers.

00:01:41.900 And voiceovers is a very nice life.

00:01:43.920 It's quite well paid.

00:01:45.000 And you're sort of treated like royalty wherever you go.

00:01:47.560 and you're looked after and you're not treated like muck in the same way 0.56

00:01:50.500 if you're like a lowly comedian or a lowly actor or something like that.

00:01:54.100 And so I just sort of fell into doing voiceovers.

00:01:56.560 And then in the late 90s, I'd written this song called The Upper Class Rap,

00:02:00.660 which was the idea was it was going to be a novelty song

00:02:03.420 that I wanted to release for Christmas.

00:02:05.660 And I phoned up this friend of mine who I knew was a music agent,

00:02:08.420 an old university friend, and he said to me,

00:02:10.700 oh, no, I can't.

00:02:11.960 He represented the Scissor Sisters.

00:02:14.080 Do you remember the Scissor Sisters?

00:02:15.500 And he said, I can't be bothered with this,

00:02:16.640 would go and try it at my brother's club and his brother was Malcolm Hardy and yeah and so um on

00:02:23.820 and I remember it was a Sunday evening in 1997 and they used to do the they'd have the open spots

00:02:29.580 and they'd have two acts in the first half then they have the open spots and the audience would

00:02:33.980 always you know be horrible to the open spots but if you did well you got a paid booking

00:02:37.560 and um the guy before me was a guy called Nige um who was not Nige um

00:02:43.780 oh fuck i forgot hovis hovis presley was his name hovis presley is sadly no longer with us but he 0.86

00:02:52.300 was brilliant and he was so funny and he used to do these sort of lyrical lancastrian poems 0.97

00:02:57.400 and uh in this sort of lyrical lancastrian voice and and the reason i said nigel is one of his 0.91

00:03:02.940 lines was my dog my mate's got a dog called nigel talk about giving a dog a bad name so i always

00:03:08.920 remember Nigel anyway and they just were not having him in south east London and and they

00:03:14.280 were throwing things at him but because he was very good and he knew what he was doing he was

00:03:17.480 determined he just carried on and on and on and by the time he'd finished I mean it was the first

00:03:22.500 time obviously I was ever performing but I'd never seen a room in such total mayhem and

00:03:27.880 Malcolm just came on and said right our next actor is making me brothers here he is could be 0.92

00:03:33.260 shit it's his first time on stage and just introduced me on stage like that and I borrowed 0.98

00:03:37.640 my flatmate's pinstriped suit and i was going hello hello i'm the upper class rapper and all 0.94

00:03:41.920 this and the audience just went they just started it was like even more chaos than it was when

00:03:48.780 nige had been on but for but it was a rap so they played the music and i did the rap and i had no

00:03:55.580 so i couldn't get involved in any banter because it was just an act so i just did the act and they

00:04:00.880 just eventually just shut up and listened to it and found it very funny and malcolm just honored

00:04:05.560 his promise and gave me a paid gig the following

00:04:07.660 Friday and that went very well

00:04:09.540 so I got another paid gig and

00:04:11.380 I remember they said, I think it's a little early to give you

00:04:13.560 a paid 20 given that it's only your second gig but we

00:04:15.580 will give you a paid 10 and they both

00:04:17.680 went well and they just put

00:04:19.460 Jane then

00:04:21.520 phoned up some other comedy clubs around London

00:04:23.600 East Dulwich Tavern and

00:04:25.340 Comedy Caf and a couple of others and said this guy

00:04:27.540 is really fun, you should give him a thing and suddenly I was a stand up

00:04:29.740 comedian. I'll have times have

00:04:31.580 changed. There's

00:04:33.560 young comedians listening to this now

00:04:35.520 going i've been a comedian for three years i still haven't got it yeah i know there's no justice

00:04:39.800 but we were just like they were quite old school up the creek and there were other clubs that would

00:04:44.560 make you jump through the hoops yeah like they do now but but but up the creek in those days were

00:04:48.880 they honored their promise and that was um and yes so i found myself as a comedian and then

00:04:54.860 in the right about the mid-naughties combination of whatever i'd made a bit of money and i wanted

00:04:59.760 to invest it um sensibly and i started i met a couple of people who fund managers and so on

00:05:07.500 and i just didn't like them it's something you know when you just don't like instinctively they

00:05:11.580 want to take their percentages and i just instinctively didn't like them and you start

00:05:15.420 reading on the internet back then i was reading all about gold and you think gold is just you

00:05:20.900 know jewelry whatever it is but of course gold until the 20th century was always money and so

00:05:25.200 it's a very political investment and i became convinced that gold was a good investment for

00:05:28.860 one thing and another. And there were these really interesting people talking about gold

00:05:35.160 and a bit like what you guys have done. I was thinking, how do I talk to these people? I don't

00:05:39.860 have to pay them 200 pounds an hour or whatever their fee is to get investment advice, but I'd

00:05:44.620 really like to meet these people. So I actually started a podcast as a means to meet these people

00:05:49.640 and talk to them. And you, as you probably discovered the best, when you have a, do an

00:05:54.040 interview with something it's like that it's it's a heightened conversation so you get in one

00:05:58.900 interview you get to know somebody much quicker than you would if you just you know met them for

00:06:02.520 a cup of coffee not the way we don't dominate but anyway i started this podcast and i was

00:06:08.480 interviewing all these you know people talking about gold and learning about the history of

00:06:12.640 money and so on and one of the people i interviewed was a lady called maryne somerset webb who was

00:06:16.580 the managing editor of of money week oh we spoke with her in edinburgh together didn't we yeah

00:06:21.000 we did her show in Edinburgh we've since become great friends but Mary said oh we need people

00:06:24.820 like you to come and write for us and and by that they meant people who can talk about finance

00:06:29.420 without using financial jargon and put it in a language that you know isn't alienating but

00:06:33.900 is is interesting to ordinary people so suddenly I found myself with a column for Money Week

00:06:38.280 and then from there I um this other guy called Ross Ashcroft got me to write this film for him

00:06:43.100 called um Four Horsemen which became a big hit and then so suddenly I was like a financial writer

00:06:47.820 as well as being a comedian and then I've written now three books all about finance I wrote the

00:06:52.500 first book about bitcoin way back when in 2014 and I've always been very interested in in the

00:06:58.360 impact of our systems of money on the way society works and you know people try and explain how is

00:07:05.040 it that governments are so big in our lives how is it the government is 40 50 percent of GDP

00:07:10.760 Why is, you know, why is government everywhere?

00:07:13.700 And I used to, it was because once upon a time, gold used to be money.

00:07:18.380 And, you know, gold put a discipline on government.

00:07:22.460 So they could only spend as much money as they had gold.

00:07:24.980 It's a bit more complicated than that.

00:07:26.740 And so that put a sort of restriction on how big government could grow.

00:07:30.560 But, of course, in the First World War, to pay for the First World War,

00:07:34.220 the British, German and French governments took their countries off the gold standard

00:07:39.220 in order to print the money to pay for the war.

00:07:41.160 If they'd stayed on the gold standard,

00:07:42.240 the war couldn't have gone on for as long as it did.

00:07:45.040 But they printed money.

00:07:45.820 And we went into a system of what's called fiat money,

00:07:48.000 where governments effectively issue money.

00:07:50.240 And that has enabled governments to just grow and grow and grow.

00:07:54.340 So this is the reason we have such large national debts

00:07:57.240 and we're able to run such large deficits.

00:08:00.280 Basically, it's the system of money.

00:08:02.320 It's inherent.

00:08:03.200 It's what's called debt-based fiat money.

00:08:05.720 That's really interesting.

00:08:06.720 So if we were still on a gold standard,

00:08:08.260 we would have to live within our means much more yeah well much more and and that includes

00:08:13.300 governments yeah and or they go bankrupt but because they have control anyway the bond market

00:08:18.240 it's a bit more complicated than but but but basically and so this was my big sort of theory

00:08:22.500 and then in about 2015 i'm i sort of developed the thing i was thinking no it's not just money

00:08:27.440 it's tax as well taxes and and so i started reading about tax and became slightly obsessed

00:08:32.940 and did a show in Edinburgh called Let's Talk About Tax 2016.

00:08:37.900 And it went very well, and I got my little laurel for selling it out.

00:08:41.520 You got a laurel, presumably, for your...

00:08:43.460 What's the sell-out percentage that you have?

00:08:46.240 I don't know.

00:08:46.480 Is it like 93% or something?

00:08:48.000 I don't know.

00:08:48.500 Anyway, I'm not sure.

00:08:50.220 Okay.

00:08:50.660 It's funny to me because you were very enthusiastic

00:08:53.860 about my show being nominated for Best Newcomer.

00:08:57.220 I'm sure it would be.

00:08:58.260 And I told Simon Evans, our mutual friend, about this,

00:09:01.140 and he went nominated.

00:09:02.460 You're lucky you didn't get assassinated.

00:09:05.440 So I'm not sure I was going to get any kind of laurels for anything.

00:09:08.800 Well, no, but I think the laurel is not based on

00:09:11.600 whether you've got the right or wrong opinion.

00:09:13.040 I think it's based on...

00:09:14.060 I think everything in Edinburgh is based on whether you've got the right.

00:09:17.140 Anyway.

00:09:17.380 Oh, OK.

00:09:17.820 But Simon's terribly realistic about those kind of things.

00:09:20.660 But actually, in terms of the money thing,

00:09:22.060 one of the curious things about you is you're someone who's been very wealthy

00:09:25.460 and you've also gone bankrupt or certainly lost a lot of your money.

00:09:29.260 Not gone bankrupt.

00:09:30.020 Sorry, I don't mean to smear you.

00:09:31.060 Yeah, no, I've never gone bankrupt.

00:09:32.340 I've made a lot of money twice, and I've lost a lot of money twice.

00:09:35.680 How did that happen?

00:09:36.720 Well, I don't really want to talk about that.

00:09:38.960 Basically, I made a lot of money in gold and gold shares.

00:09:40.840 Let's not talk about it then.

00:09:41.340 Well, it all collapsed in 2013.

00:09:44.600 Mining completely collapsed.

00:09:45.660 And so, you know, all the money I've made, I effectively gave back.

00:09:49.980 And then I was very early into Bitcoin, and so, you know, that was an extraordinary opportunity.

00:09:57.100 But unfortunately, I got hacked.

00:09:58.440 Yeah.

00:09:58.840 And so I had my Bitcoin stolen way, way back when.

00:10:01.340 So you'd be like a super millionaire by now. 0.98

00:10:04.920 Fucking hell, he could be funding this podcast right now. 0.95

00:10:07.980 I come to terms with it now, but in 2016, 2017, when Bitcoin went to $20,000, 0.99

00:10:13.800 every night I was having sleep this night.

00:10:16.200 Oh, my God.

00:10:17.520 You could never have to work again, retired.

00:10:23.300 There's one thing I've always wanted to do.

00:10:24.920 I've got this West End musical that I want to put on,

00:10:26.960 and in order to put it on, I need probably £5 million.

00:10:31.340 And, and, you know, so a lot of money and the, but I could have just like, I'm doing that. 0.99

00:10:38.300 Fuck. 1.00

00:10:38.660 Really? 1.00

00:10:39.200 Yeah. And without, without it being an issue.

00:10:42.200 Now, I think, you know, this story with Bitcoin, I bought half a Bitcoin for 200 pounds.

00:10:49.540 And then when it went up to 400 pounds, I was like, oh, look, I've doubled my money.

00:10:53.480 And I sold it. Half a Bitcoin now, that's what, like six grand?

00:10:57.080 Well, actually, we're talking in the midst of the coronavirus.

00:10:59.960 And so yesterday, the Bitcoin price had a pretty bad day.

00:11:03.180 Oh, did it?

00:11:04.100 So it's probably only worth maybe $3,000 now, something like that.

00:11:08.460 All right.

00:11:09.340 Wow, the fluctuations are huge.

00:11:11.780 If I had a Bitcoin for every person that's told me a story like that about how they sold too early,

00:11:17.200 I'd probably own the entire global supply.

00:11:20.400 Well, look, we've touched on Bitcoin.

00:11:22.160 So why don't we talk about crypto just very, very quickly.

00:11:25.540 Because you were triggered by our interview with Jim Rickard, were you not?

00:11:28.940 Yeah.

00:11:29.760 You got very upset with Jim, but he basically...

00:11:33.480 No, I haven't actually seen the interview he did with you.

00:11:35.680 Oh, okay.

00:11:36.000 But Jim and I had a big debate at Kilkenomics.

00:11:38.380 Ah, right, right.

00:11:39.520 Were you in the audience?

00:11:40.900 I don't think you were there.

00:11:41.700 No, I wasn't there.

00:11:42.400 But essentially, we were talking about it in the bar at Kilkenomics

00:11:45.380 because Jim's position, and I hope I'm not misquoting,

00:11:48.620 he basically says that it's a bit of a fraud.

00:11:51.500 Yeah.

00:11:51.900 Well, it's not a bit.

00:11:52.720 It's a fraud, he thinks.

00:11:54.260 And it's a bubble, and it's the worst type of bubble.

00:11:57.840 You disagree with that?

00:11:58.920 Can you put the case forward for Bitcoin and crypto and why is it a good thing?

00:12:03.120 Well, I would distinguish between Bitcoin and crypto because there are there are lots of like.

00:12:09.920 OK, so let's just backtrack a bit. Every time you have a new breakthrough technology, you almost always it is accompanied with a speculative bubble.

00:12:21.800 So if you think of the Internet, you know, there was a huge bubble in dot-com stocks.

00:12:26.520 And the story around the Internet was, you know, the Internet is going to change the world.

00:12:30.520 And that story was right. It is going to change the world. It did change the world.

00:12:34.980 But that didn't stop loads of stupid speculative money going in. 0.99

00:12:39.500 And, you know, how many dot-com effectively scammed companies there were, people raising money for just ridiculous companies. 0.98

00:12:47.000 And so and you had it with the railways, for example, in the 1830s and the 1850s in America, in the UK, there were huge bubbles around railway technology.

00:12:56.000 And you just always happens. You get a new technology and, you know, everyone gets very excited about it and it gets ahead of itself.

00:13:03.580 But you need bubbles because bubbles accelerate the investment.

00:13:07.960 So if we didn't have that bubble in tech in 2000, you know, the all the, you know, the railway tracks wouldn't have been laid that the cables wouldn't have been laid.

00:13:19.080 So it accelerates investment. So, you know, a lot of people say, oh, bubbles are terrible now.

00:13:25.120 But what you have with Bitcoin, it's a new technology. It's a breakthrough technology.

00:13:28.680 But not only that, it's a new technology that is a new system of money.

00:13:32.980 So if you were like a Marvel comic superhero designing like the ultimate bubble, it would be Bitcoin. And there's a finite supply of it. So that, again, increases the speculative potential of it.

00:13:52.680 And so it is inherently bubbly.

00:13:56.320 And people go, Bitcoin's a bubble.

00:13:57.600 There have been about maybe five booms and busts in Bitcoin in the 10 years that it's evolved.

00:14:04.140 It is inherently speculative. 0.99

00:14:06.400 And if you think of all the, you know, they're known in the crypto community as shit coins. 0.99

00:14:10.640 But if you think of all the shit coins that have sprung up, you know, on the back of Bitcoins, 0.99

00:14:14.520 almost there's about 95 percent of them are scams one way or the other. 0.98

00:14:17.680 So there are loads of scams in the Bitcoin space.

00:14:20.840 And then there's the story that Jamie Bartlett's thing did.

00:14:24.040 He did on the radio about the crypto queen.

00:14:26.020 You know, that was just a massive, massive scam.

00:14:28.640 And I believe the people that were involved in that scam believed in it when they were operating.

00:14:33.560 But that was a sort of self-delusion thing.

00:14:35.140 I think, you know, the best scammers actually almost they kid themselves when they're when they're performing.

00:14:40.000 So when Jim says it is, you know, it is full of scams and frauds and all the rest of it.

00:14:48.240 But Bitcoin itself is not a fraud.

00:14:51.500 And Jim has made a big mistake.

00:14:53.960 Jim's, you know, he studies money and has been writing about it.

00:14:58.360 Jim should have just bought some Bitcoins.

00:15:00.600 And because you just look at it and you go, it might not be,

00:15:04.480 but it has the potential to be the default cash system of the Internet.

00:15:09.560 And remember, the Internet is a borderless medium, effectively.

00:15:13.860 And why is that, Dominic?

00:15:14.780 What makes Bitcoin so good for being the exchange medium of the Internet?

00:15:18.820 Because I distinguish between cash and money. So if you if you go into a sweet shop and you'd get your card out and you buy whatever you buy in the sweet shop and you go with your card, that is not a cash transaction because it involves a card company and a bank and all sorts of middlemen processing that transaction.

00:15:41.240 and all these middlemen, they take their cut on the transaction

00:15:45.560 and they all know there is a record of that transaction having taken place.

00:15:49.580 If I go into the sweet shop and I buy a newspaper, whatever it is,

00:15:52.660 and I give the newspaper man a pound or whatever the cost of the newspaper is,

00:15:57.480 it is a direct transaction, cash transaction that involves no middlemen.

00:16:02.360 And we're going into this kind of cashless society at the moment,

00:16:06.540 but we need cash.

00:16:08.060 You need cash for small transactions, for private transactions,

00:16:11.240 for quick transactions but especially you know illegal transactions there are all reasons that's

00:16:17.060 why you need it and you know you can say well cash is illegal but you can you can then make

00:16:21.280 the argument well no the law is immoral it's not me that's buying weed that's being immoral and

00:16:27.040 using cash it is the law making weed that's immoral and it's forcing me into an elite you

00:16:31.200 know so there's all it's not a cut and dry thing but we need cash and above all we need cash for

00:16:38.060 privacy and to protect privacy and Bitcoin is cash for the internet. In other words if I want

00:16:49.500 to send money from me to you I can send it directly from me to you with no middleman and nobody else

00:16:56.560 need know about that transaction and it can happen privately, it can happen instantly, it can happen

00:17:01.520 for tiny amounts of money, fractions of a penny.

00:17:04.680 And so that's how it is cash.

00:17:07.720 But aren't all Bitcoin transactions traceable?

00:17:10.520 They are.

00:17:11.920 Every Bitcoin transaction is broadcast on the blockchain,

00:17:16.480 which is effectively a huge database.

00:17:18.660 So you can see that money, this amount of money,

00:17:21.680 went from this wallet with this address to this wallet with this address.

00:17:25.340 But what you can't see is who owns the two wallets.

00:17:29.680 So if you want to keep your wallet address private, then you keep it private and then you can keep it private.

00:17:34.940 There's also things called Bitcoin mixers and all sorts of little technologies that have been added on, which basically obfuscate.

00:17:44.140 They put loads of transactions into one thing, muddle them all up and so it all gets obfuscated.

00:17:49.180 So it makes it very hard to trace.

00:17:50.980 And where do you stand on this argument that goes, hang on, aren't you just encouraging the Wild West nature of the Internet?

00:17:56.660 You know, these nefarious people who want to trade anything from drugs to child pornography to whatever it is.

00:18:04.040 And Bitcoin is essentially aiding that.

00:18:06.760 It certainly facilitates and aids illegal activity.

00:18:11.040 But if you look at the somebody's done a study on it and the amount of Bitcoins that are actually used for the kind of transactions you described, it's like fewer than two percent or something.

00:18:23.320 is like an incredibly small percentage.

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00:19:33.380 Well, let's move on to talk about your book and tax, because it's a fascinating angle of attack that you have,

00:19:39.800 where you talk about the fact that almost all of the major events in history can be interpreted through the lens of tax

00:19:48.500 in a way that gives you a different perspective on it.

00:19:50.940 So for our viewers and listeners to whom that may sound a bit of an alien concept,

00:19:55.820 just give us some examples of what you're talking about.

00:19:58.100 So when I started writing this book, I did the show in 2016 and then that led to a book deal.

00:20:05.580 And the central thesis of the book is that taxation is as old as civilization itself.

00:20:12.560 There has never been in all recorded history a civilization without taxation of some kind.

00:20:18.500 And in fact, taxation probably predated civilization.

00:20:22.080 In the hunter-gatherer societies before human beings settled on the fertile plains between the Tigris and the Euphrates,

00:20:28.860 there was probably already existed this sense of duty to the greater collective.

00:20:34.060 And that is the central principle of taxation.

00:20:38.140 And, you know, the very first taxes we have were in ancient Mesopotamia.

00:20:41.600 And in fact, the very first examples we have of ancient handwriting are tax records, tax documents.

00:20:51.580 And you can look at this, you know, tax records are always, historians always look at tax records first because they're, for obvious reasons, the best preserved records because they're records of debts.

00:21:02.340 And in all the time since then, there's never been a civilization without taxation.

00:21:06.680 Now, taxation can take various different forms.

00:21:09.180 So you pay taxes in cash. But in, you know, in ancient civilization, there wasn't necessarily money yet.

00:21:18.280 You know, so you might pay your taxes with a share of your produce is given.

00:21:23.420 And in fact, the very first tithes were in ancient Mesopotamia or a share of your labor.

00:21:29.500 Or so taxes not just taken in in cash are taken in the form of labor.

00:21:34.080 And then you have these sort of two extremes where you might have a slave at one extreme where 100% of that slave's labor is owned.

00:21:44.740 In fact, the slave has no ownership of nothing.

00:21:48.160 And at the other extent, if you have a complete anarchy with no government, no leaders whatsoever, and so total freedom, nothing is taken.

00:21:59.900 And so those would be the two extremes. But that society where nothing has taken has pretty much never existed.

00:22:05.740 Although in ancient Greece, quite interestingly, in ancient Athens before the Peloponnesian War, taxes were voluntary.

00:22:12.400 Oh, really? Yeah. So it's like Greece now then?

00:22:14.980 Well, sort of.

00:22:19.580 So they were voluntary. And how did people pay them?

00:22:23.520 Yeah. The taxes were only paid by the very rich. And it was expected that there was this sort of culture of social duty and benevolence in ancient Greek society.

00:22:36.260 And there was this idea of that. So if you think of someone like Pericles, you know, King Pericles, they would if the if it was deemed that the city needed a games or it needed a new bridge or it needed a new building built or needed a warship or whatever it is, it would be beholden to the rich to pay for the construction of that for the for those games or for that building or for that bridge or for that ship.

00:23:03.360 and not only would they were expected to pay for it they would be expected to carry out

00:23:08.500 the that work as well so rather than give your money to a bureaucrat who gives it to a you know

00:23:15.600 a company that to do the thing that person would carry and then they would then put their own name

00:23:20.220 on it so it would be you know pericles's bridge or pericles's building and many of you know the

00:23:26.580 greatest work buildings in ancient greece were built in this way it was called liturgy the

00:23:30.620 Parthenon, it's believed, was built. And they provided the warships that protected the Athenian

00:23:37.960 shipping lanes from pirates and so on. Athens back then was a big trading empire. And because

00:23:44.020 the rich person was putting his name on it, his reputation was at stake. So the actual result was

00:23:51.220 he often carried out the piece of work to the highest possible standard, because his reputation

00:23:57.240 is standing and would often spend more than the minimum whereas now we have this culture of you

00:24:03.800 know paying the least possible tax they would often spend more because they wanted to make

00:24:07.580 sure it was done to think and it was just sort of this your kind of social duty and funnily enough

00:24:12.500 duty we have this word duty duty is actually a tax it's another word for tax right so so you have

00:24:18.720 all these different but but there has in all that time there has never existed a society without

00:24:23.560 taxation of some kind. So that was the first kind of realisation. You know, as Benjamin Franklin

00:24:29.580 said, you know, taxes and death are the two inevitabilities. And actually that phrase,

00:24:35.580 he wasn't the first person to say that. He's credited as being the first person to say that.

00:24:39.180 But the first person to say that was actually a comedian in an early 18th century farce called

00:24:45.440 The Cobbler of Preston, this idea that these are the two inevitabilities. Anyway, but you can

00:24:52.220 look back through history and you you get this you suddenly realize that tax is power if a king

00:24:59.580 or a government or an emperor whoever the leader is as as long as they control that as soon as they

00:25:04.940 lose their tax revenue they lose their power taxation is power it is control and you you when

00:25:13.840 you when you start to look at things through that you know imagine if governments today don't have

00:25:17.260 the tax revenue, pretty quickly the whole thing falls apart. And you then think every war in

00:25:25.440 history was funded by some kind of tax. Every single war. You tax during the event and then

00:25:32.320 afterwards, you know, the conquered territories would be plundered and then taxed. And often wars

00:25:38.180 are funded through debt, but debt is just a taxation on the future. I regard debt as another

00:25:43.640 form of taxation. Every revolution has been a rising up, a revolt against some kind of injustice

00:25:50.820 perpetrated by the tax system. The most famous ones being the French Revolution, the American

00:25:56.840 Civil War, no taxation without representation. Even the Russian Revolution. The American Revolution,

00:26:02.000 yeah. No, that was the US American Revolution, but even the Russian Revolution. No, sorry,

00:26:07.760 you said American Civil War, that's why. Oh, sorry, the American Revolution. And, sorry,

00:26:11.740 I always get those two.

00:26:13.020 And the Russian Revolution.

00:26:14.220 Tell me about that one.

00:26:15.060 Well, you're going to know more about it than I am.

00:26:17.040 Highly unlikely, mate.

00:26:18.260 Well, okay.

00:26:18.840 But it was an overthrowing of serfdom, effectively.

00:26:22.820 And serfdom was, again, a system of taxing and rule.

00:26:26.060 Serfs paid.

00:26:28.520 They didn't necessarily pay cash, but their labour was owned

00:26:31.020 and they paid their labour and their labour was taken by their lords and so on.

00:26:35.020 And funnily enough, quite interesting, serfdom was overthrown in Western Europe. 0.68

00:26:39.680 The feudal system was overthrown in Western Europe.

00:26:41.740 by the Black Death because it wiped everyone out

00:26:45.380 and suddenly there was a shortage of labor

00:26:46.880 and serfs were able to demand their freedom

00:26:49.060 and payment for their labor.

00:26:51.080 And so even though two-thirds of the population was wiped out,

00:26:55.180 it gave serfs them the freedom.

00:26:56.460 Black Death never hit Russia in the same way

00:26:57.980 that it did Western Europe.

00:26:59.360 And so the culture, the system remained

00:27:01.700 and it took the Russian Revolution to get rid of it.

00:27:04.100 Well, there's a silver lining to the coronavirus.

00:27:06.980 If two-thirds of us are wiped out,

00:27:09.280 the rest of us might have some better bargaining.

00:27:11.200 Well, there is that argument, but it's not one I entirely agree with. 0.98

00:27:17.520 It was just a fucking joke about it. 0.98

00:27:18.900 I know, I know, I know. 0.99

00:27:20.280 But so, you know, so then you think every war, every revolution, every, you know,

00:27:24.880 even things like the birth of Christ, Mary and Joseph were only in Bethlehem to pay taxes

00:27:31.280 because Caesar Augustus had issued a census, and that's why Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem.

00:27:36.600 If Augustus hadn't issued that census, and by the way, census,

00:27:41.200 where we get the word censorship, the censor in ancient Rome was the guy who adjudicated public

00:27:47.280 morality, but he was also the tax collector. And there's often been this moral thing with taxes.

00:27:53.460 As I said, we mentioned the word duty. And that moral argument gets used in taxation today. It is

00:27:58.900 your social duty to the greatest collective to pay your taxes so that we can have good health

00:28:03.800 care and welfare and so on. But anyway, Mary and Joseph would not have been in Bethlehem were it

00:28:08.680 not to pay taxes effectively. And without that, Christianity would never have evolved in the way

00:28:15.240 that it did. Moses led the Jews out of Egypt to escape the burden of taxation. The persecution

00:28:23.960 of the Jews in ancient Egypt began with taxation, and then it eventually led to slavery. The reason 1.00

00:28:29.380 the Jews were enslaved was non-payment of taxes. Prisoners of war and non-payment of taxes were

00:28:34.520 the ways that you could be enslaved in ancient Egypt. So effectively Moses led 0.94

00:28:39.680 the Jews out of Egypt and from there we have the Ten Commandments. So 1.00

00:28:43.820 there's a tax story at the birth of Judaism. And by the way the persecution

00:28:48.620 of the Jews in Nazi Germany began with taxes as well. And in the medieval

00:28:55.280 kingdoms which... Sure, there were all sorts of Jewish tithes were levied and even 0.65

00:28:59.900 Islam. There's a tax story at the birth of Islam and people can't 1.00

00:29:03.920 understand how in from between 660 and 690, in like the first four or five caliphs from Muhammad

00:29:10.020 and then the first four caliphs, Islam went from being nothing to basically owning most of the 0.54

00:29:15.740 Middle East and most of North Africa. And then you realize they had this policy of the countries

00:29:22.900 they conquered were heavily conquered, end of the Roman Empire, Sasanian Empire, Byzantine Empire,

00:29:27.580 and people so heavily taxed, they have very little loyalty to their existing rulers. And they were

00:29:32.900 just grateful for relief from taxes. But there was a chap called Abu Bakir, the first caliph,

00:29:39.600 and some of his successors. And they pursued a policy of when they conquered people,

00:29:43.920 they gave them exemption from taxation if they converted to Islam. And if you didn't convert to

00:29:50.500 Islam, you would have to pay poll taxes. And if you didn't pay the poll taxes, you would kill. 1.00

00:29:55.280 So it was death, taxes or Islam. Which one are you going to pick? Absolutely. And then the early 1.00

00:30:01.960 caliphs were brilliant, brilliant people. So they had this policy, but they also had this

00:30:06.880 idea that they shouldn't burden conquered nations with heavy taxes. So if, for example,

00:30:15.160 there was a bad weather, then they would say, lighten the tax load. Let these people be,

00:30:21.700 you know, trade and get rich because more money will, if the people are rich, more money will

00:30:26.520 eventually make its way to the exchequer. And this was an argument that was championed by

00:30:30.620 economists like Arthur Laffer later on and in Hong Kong and, you know, this idea that tax people

00:30:36.540 less and more money ends up making its way to the exchequer. So Islam, you know, so there's a tax 1.00

00:30:42.220 story at the birth of Islam, even something like, you know, 9-11, the Twin Towers were built largely 0.88

00:30:46.820 with tax money. First men on the moon were paid, you know, NASA was a tax funded operation. And

00:30:51.660 you just look at any event in history and you'll suddenly realise that without this sort of untold

00:30:56.980 tax story. Things would have unfolded in a very different way. So we were talking about power.

00:31:02.480 Now, to me, it seems the government and any government has to strike a very fine balance.

00:31:08.100 Like you said, they need tax revenue in order to keep going. But if the taxes are deemed to be

00:31:13.100 unacceptable or too high, they can lose their power. So the last time I remember something

00:31:17.800 like that happening was the poll tax, right? In the early 90s. Yeah. And in fact, the sort of

00:31:23.460 golden rule is that that governments find it very difficult to levy new taxes in times of peace

00:31:30.280 so the poll tax was what thatcher was actually attempting to do with the poll tax it's quite

00:31:35.560 interesting is she was trying to bring more accountability to local councils and make their 0.99

00:31:39.980 out of control spending more transparent and but what ended up happening is is that the out of

00:31:47.160 control spending from local councils was so apparent because poll taxes became so high so

00:31:51.060 quickly that everyone was utterly outraged. But rather than having a go at the local council,

00:31:55.900 Thatcher was blamed because she'd brought it in. But nevertheless, and the poll tax brought down 1.00

00:31:59.880 Thatcher, you know, arguably the most successful, you know, post-war politician of the second half

00:32:05.960 of the 20th century, maybe Tony Blair. But, you know, his poll tax brought her down. And,

00:32:11.360 you know, even things, stupid things like, you know, George Osborne's pasty tax and Ed Miliband's 0.99

00:32:18.120 mansion taxes, they just don't get through in times of peace. In order to get new taxes in, 0.99

00:32:23.940 you need some kind of crisis, usually a war. And so, for example, 2008, the financial crisis

00:32:30.440 gave us quantitative easing, which is another, it's taxation by inflation. Milton Friedman

00:32:35.840 called inflation taxation without legislation. But, you know, you need, you know, the idea of

00:32:43.160 printing money and quantitative easing and zero interest rates, if there wasn't a financial

00:32:46.840 crisis and the global financial system wasn't about to implode, everyone would have gone,

00:32:50.540 what? No. And so World War II, prior to World War II, ordinary Americans didn't pay income tax.

00:32:58.680 It was only the richest Americans that paid income tax. 1942 Revenue Act brought income tax to

00:33:06.280 ordinary Americans for the very first time. Similarly, in the First World War, the British

00:33:10.280 income tax had just existed, but it was only the very rich that paid it. And ordinary British people

00:33:15.900 did not pay income tax until the First World War.

00:33:18.620 And suddenly, with the First World War time of crisis funding,

00:33:22.720 soldiers are a good thing, women come into the workforce. 1.00

00:33:25.540 And bizarrely, that's another one where people talk about women being given the vote.

00:33:29.840 Now, one of the core arguments in the women being given the vote after the First World War

00:33:34.840 was the fact that women had paid taxes during the First World War

00:33:38.500 because they were all now working.

00:33:39.760 And that was justification as to why women should be given the vote. 1.00

00:33:42.660 So even at something unconnected like the suffragettes, there's a tax story there.

00:33:45.900 but ordinary Americans did not pay income tax until 1942 and there was a the 1942 Revenue Act

00:33:52.380 and in order to like persuade Americans that it was their patriotic duty to pay there was all

00:33:58.300 sorts of like Donald there was a film commission from Walt Disney that had Donald Duck paying his

00:34:02.620 income tax really happily showing him how to fill out the form Irving Berlin was commissioned to

00:34:07.660 write a song called I Paid My Income Tax Today and it contains the line a thousand planes to

00:34:15.880 bomb Berlin they'll all be paid for and I chipped in see those bombers in the sky Rockefeller helped 0.86

00:34:23.500 to build them so did I and was ever the tax the link between tax and war more apparent I don't

00:34:29.240 think you could get away with that now could you absolutely not but I mean you know what played

00:34:33.520 for the Iraq war you know like every battle of Fallujah was funded by me but they they you know

00:34:40.440 that was that was the mentality yeah and and in fact every conquest as well has been about taking

00:34:45.300 control of the tax base, the land, the labor, the produce, the profit. So you need a crisis to

00:34:51.560 introduce new levels of tax. But what happens after the crisis passes is that taxation never

00:34:57.500 goes back to the levels that it was before the crisis began. After the Second World War, for

00:35:04.080 example, the wounded have got to be helped. We had the birth of the NHS. So a land grab goes on

00:35:11.240 in a time of crisis where government seizes some kind of control and then never gives it back

00:35:16.640 afterwards. And the IFS calls this the ratchet effect. And so if you, when you try and figure

00:35:22.060 out how it is that government, you know, if you think in 1900, government was about 10, 15% of

00:35:28.900 GDP in the UK. Now it's more like 45, 50%. Same and all across Western Europe, France is like

00:35:35.780 Government spending is like 56 percent of GDP. And the Gilets Jaunes, there's another example of another tax rebellion, oil taxes.

00:35:44.880 And this this this uprising in Lebanon was about taxes on WhatsApp.

00:35:49.920 They tried to levy a tax. Every time you make calls on WhatsApp and send taxes on WhatsApp, they tried to levy a tax and it caused a rebellion.

00:35:56.180 So so you need a crisis. And coming back today, we've got this coronavirus crisis going on.

00:36:02.460 I promise you, and the government has spent all these pledges bailing out and fiscal stimulus and all the rest of it, it's a land grab going on.

00:36:13.040 And you will see suddenly when the crisis passes, this bigger space in the economy that government occupies won't be ceded.

00:36:23.480 The Tories are supposed to believe in limited government, but...

00:36:26.100 No, they don't anymore.

00:36:27.380 Yeah, they're just social democrats by another name.

00:36:30.980 And so that's what we will see in this crisis now.

00:36:33.520 That's very interesting because under austerity,

00:36:36.560 they put the VAT up to 20%, didn't they?

00:36:39.660 And did they ever reverse it or is it still at 20%?

00:36:41.820 No.

00:36:42.360 They've halted taxes now a little bit.

00:36:44.000 There's no extra, we just had the budget this week

00:36:46.300 and there's very few extra taxes on things like alcohol.

00:36:49.840 All the sin taxes have been flattened as little.

00:36:51.560 But, you know, this is one of the big arguments

00:36:55.560 that's going on in Europe is in order to get legislation

00:36:59.520 through the EU, they have to have 100% agreement amongst the member states. And they're trying to

00:37:07.220 harmonise taxes. They want higher levels of VAT. They want to introduce financial transactions tax.

00:37:12.400 They want to introduce digital taxes. But they can't get it through because they need the

00:37:17.680 agreement. So they're trying to change the European constitution to just a majority.

00:37:23.380 And they use, Juncker and various others use all sorts of the most Orwellian language to describe

00:37:28.540 you know for the common good this this we don't need majorities anymore and without a total

00:37:35.100 majority you know the smaller eu member states will get shafted by greater taxes so that you

00:37:43.360 know but as soon as the eu starts setting taxes rather than individual nation states then the

00:37:49.280 whole power structure of europe changes you can see dominic is the author of the song 17 million

00:37:54.640 fuck off about the success of breakfast yeah that song did very well didn't it yeah it did uh it was 0.54

00:38:01.640 um my hit it got to number 43 in the chart so not wow not quite a hit it needs to be top 40 to be a 0.98

00:38:08.820 hit but um yeah it was uh i wrote it in march just before we were supposed to leave and didn't march

00:38:16.480 2019 and uh and then we did and i did a new verse after the general election in december well i

00:38:22.740 remember actually at on brexit day i turned on the tv uh to watch serious sky news coverage of the

00:38:30.580 event and it was just loads of people in the background go fuck off along to the music that 0.72

00:38:36.420 i don't think i will ever have a better moment in my entire life i performed that song on brexit 0.85

00:38:41.200 night in parliament square um somewhere between 50 and 100 000 people and just singing that song

00:38:48.160 I'll never do such a big and memorable gig.

00:38:54.660 But the really funny thing about that gig is the idea is you list all the things

00:39:00.120 that they said would happen if you voted to leave.

00:39:02.680 There'd be food shortages and riots and no sandwiches

00:39:07.100 and there'd be an outbreak of super gonorrhea 1.00

00:39:09.740 and all these stupid things they said would happen. 1.00

00:39:12.400 Funnily enough, they are happening. 1.00

00:39:15.920 But not quite for that reason. 1.00

00:39:17.580 But anyway, all these things would happen and the English told them to fuck off. 1.00

00:39:22.160 And that was the catchphrase. 1.00

00:39:23.740 But I was told if I sang the English, if I said the word fuck in Parliament Square on this thing, I'd be done for a public order offence. 0.99

00:39:31.860 So I said to the audience, I don't want to get arrested. 0.97

00:39:35.480 I don't want to get land, you know, the organisers of the event in trouble.

00:39:38.620 So I'm going to say fudge.

00:39:40.360 And so every time the thing comes, I go, the English told them to fudge off.

00:39:43.140 but you can all sing the lyrics as they were originally written and i don't think they're

00:39:49.580 gonna they can arrest 50 000 of you so the audience all just sang it and there's this as

00:39:54.340 you said there's this hilarious interview with nigel farage where he's trying to do an interview 0.68

00:39:58.860 with sky from the thing while i'm singing the song in the background and all you can hear is 0.99

00:40:03.260 the english told you to fuck off the english told you to fuck off and nigel farage is going it's 1.00

00:40:08.280 very difficult to hear it's very it's a wonderful thing and he can't hear because all he can hear 1.00

00:40:12.480 and everyone's trying not to laugh.

00:40:14.180 Is there a tax dimension to Brexit?

00:40:17.120 Well, yes, I very much think so.

00:40:18.800 Firstly, that thing I described of the EU trying to harmonise taxes

00:40:25.820 is one danger, you know, centralised power effectively in Brussels

00:40:30.420 and Brexit was a vote against that centralisation.

00:40:35.380 um but i hoped that you know i voted for brexit mainly because i'm a libertarian and i believe in

00:40:44.300 as little government as possible and it removes a layer of government effectively but my hope

00:40:49.520 perhaps a little naively was that it would lead to a sort of most libertarians voted for brexit

00:40:56.420 quite a few didn't but i think the majority of libertarians were in favor of it and we were

00:41:01.080 hoping that it would lead to a much reduced government in the UK and a much freer sovereign

00:41:07.400 society. But that doesn't appear to be the case. So Dominic, you say that you're a libertarian and

00:41:14.640 that you would prefer smaller government, lower intervention, lower taxes. Can you make the case

00:41:20.120 for libertarianism and why you believe in smaller government? Because if you look at all throughout

00:41:25.360 history, the happiest, the most inventive, the most innovative, the most wealthy societies,

00:41:32.660 the greatest societies in history, have always had very high levels of freedom.

00:41:40.840 Whether it's the early Roman Republic or ancient Athens or the greater societies,

00:41:45.980 that freedom reduces as the society evolves. But even Britain in the second half of the 19th

00:41:53.520 century, sort of Britain's golden era, was a very low tax society. Early America, you know,

00:42:00.420 the great America of extremely low tax society in the second half, the 19th and early 20th century.

00:42:06.740 And so the central case for libertarianism. And then if you look at the opposite of that,

00:42:13.720 and you look at the societies that have had very high levels of government, high levels of taxes,

00:42:18.560 low levels of freedom. And by the way, there is a relationship between taxation and freedom.

00:42:23.520 The less tax you pay, the more free you are, because the more of your own labour you own and the more economic freedom.

00:42:31.560 You can't have freedom without economic freedom, is a Thatcher line. 0.91

00:42:35.640 And so the central core is the less tax we pay, the freer we are, the more free we are to experiment with our money, with our ideas, with our thought.

00:42:46.340 You know, all you guys are big free speech guys. It's all part of the same thing.

00:42:50.040 free speech free movement free trade it's all part of the same you get all these guys are in

00:42:56.300 favor of free speech but not free trade you know come on it's free everything and um you have the

00:43:03.480 you have the greatest level of freedom but you also have the greatest levels of individual

00:43:07.020 responsibility individuals are much more accountable for their own actions for their own choices

00:43:11.680 and as a result they tend to behave better and they tend to act in a way that benefits themselves

00:43:18.420 and also as a result benefits the greater good.

00:43:21.280 And so the greatest societies in history

00:43:23.380 have always been low-tax, libertarian-type societies.

00:43:27.260 What about Scandinavia?

00:43:28.480 Because everyone always bangs on about how they've got this utopian society

00:43:32.800 with high levels of tax and wealth redistribution.

00:43:36.060 They do, and it's the core argument that's always used to champion Scandinavia.

00:43:40.980 But I don't think Scandinavia is a particularly happy place at the moment,

00:43:44.680 particularly Sweden.

00:43:46.140 And Sweden's had all sorts of problems.

00:43:47.860 But what's Scandinavia gets right? And I think there's a thing in Scandinavia. There's a there's well, let me just describe what Scandinavia gets right in its tax systems is tax.

00:44:00.520 A much higher percentage of taxes are levied locally where there is far greater accountability.

00:44:05.860 So people can see that the taxes they pay, they can see the immediate consequences of it and they can hold the people who are spending their money badly to a much greater account.

00:44:14.040 so whereas in the UK for example much higher percentages are levied centrally and there's

00:44:23.180 much less accountability so I think people are happier to pay higher levels of taxes when there

00:44:29.140 is greater accountability for the money and how it's spent and there's a more clear visible effect

00:44:34.220 between me giving this money and being able to see how that money was used and the the bomber

00:44:39.500 the bombs that it was spent on um but the other thing that i i think exists in scandinavian

00:44:46.740 countries and i think it's is almost the weather that breeds this and you you get it you probably

00:44:54.400 get it in northern russia i'm not sure i don't know enough about it but you certainly get it in

00:44:57.520 canada where there's this thing of if you do not prepare for the winter oh yeah you die oh yeah

00:45:05.060 So that breeds a sort of responsibility and a preparation and a collectiveness that maybe doesn't exist so much in, say, southern Europe or where it's hotter, where there tend to be much more laissez-faire.

00:45:18.740 And so it's sort of almost the weather creates a culture.

00:45:23.920 And so this culture of social responsibility and individual responsibility exists in the Scandinavian countries that maybe isn't as prevalent further south.

00:45:32.820 And this is a question I've always wanted to ask you, Dominic. So you're a libertarian, small government, low intervention. What about the NHS?

00:45:41.280 The NHS, a national health service, is not the best means, in my opinion, to provide the highest standard of care to the most possible people at the lowest possible cost.

00:45:53.060 And nor is state education the best means to provide the best possible education.

00:45:58.860 There's so much waste in the NHS.

00:46:01.880 It's just so big and bloated.

00:46:04.740 It's so hard to run.

00:46:06.700 And if you look at areas of the economy where it's pretty much a free market, they're not provided by the state.

00:46:16.200 You look at something like food, for example, the food revolution that's happened in the UK.

00:46:20.500 now food is as essential as good health care is essential to our survival but food is largely not

00:46:27.280 provided by government and you just see the market at work in the food industry we've got

00:46:32.600 the most incredible variety of food now the highest the most wonderful qualities you can

00:46:38.660 find fault within because i don't like supermarkets i don't like this you can find faults with stuff

00:46:42.140 but there is so much choice and the cost of food on a relative basis like food clothing and

00:46:48.260 accommodation made up over 50 percent of um a worker's outlay or i think it was like 80 percent

00:46:56.080 100 years ago something like that food clothing and accommodation now food clothing food clothing

00:47:01.660 and accommodations are much lower portion like 15 to 20 percent of somebody's outlay something like

00:47:05.940 that maybe accommodation a bit higher um but they didn't have the the most expensive purchase you

00:47:12.940 ever make is your government of course which is like over 50 percent of everything you ever earn

00:47:17.240 will end up in the government over the course of your entire life and so anyway you look at

00:47:24.020 something that that is provided largely by a free market food clothing we've got incredible choice

00:47:28.680 and you know i know we have food banks and so on but really nobody needs to go hungry you know you

00:47:34.360 can buy for a pound you can buy an incredibly the ingredients to make an incredibly healthy

00:47:39.520 vegetable soup or whatever it is that would have been a luxury 100 years ago and the problem with

00:47:45.700 the National Health Service is it is run not for the benefit of the consumer, i.e. the patient,

00:47:51.640 it is run largely for the benefit of the supplier. And whereas if you think, you know, you go into a

00:47:56.980 shop, you don't like the service you get in the shop, you don't have to go to that shop, you can

00:48:00.860 go to another shop, or you can leave that shop a bad review, or you can not pay the restaurant,

00:48:06.840 you know, the shop is so desperate for your customer, the restaurant is so desperate, they

00:48:11.040 will try and give you the best possible service and so on. That dynamic doesn't exist in the

00:48:14.800 National Health Service and it should. In the 19th century we had the friendly societies and

00:48:19.440 much more insurance-based system of health care and doctors were employed by local communities

00:48:27.680 and if the doctors didn't like what the doctor was doing, local communities, he was held

00:48:36.340 accountable to the local communities and they could sack him and employ another one. That same

00:48:40.740 dynamic just doesn't exist within the NHS. It's so rife with protectionism and special interest

00:48:46.480 groups. It is an absolute mine of crony capitalism. There's so much corruption landing

00:48:53.640 these contracts. And you get these stupid situations where, I'm going to get the figures 0.99

00:48:57.620 exactly wrong, but some companies finding a way of charging the NHS £10 per packet of paracetamol. 0.95

00:49:03.940 Whereas you look at paracetamol on the free market, you can buy it for 20p. It's absurd that

00:49:08.400 the NHS is being billed these amounts and all these inefficiencies that just wouldn't happen

00:49:12.680 if small companies were running individual businesses within the NHS on a profit and

00:49:18.460 loss basis where they had to take much greater account of waste. So it's just not the best way

00:49:23.780 to provide the best possible health care at the lowest possible cost. Now people go, if we didn't

00:49:28.660 have an NHS, then people would go untreated. And I just don't believe that. Because let's say

00:49:35.260 health care wasn't provided by the state. And you go back to a 19th century, you know,

00:49:40.840 if the state wasn't providing health care, we would all have to take precautions to look after

00:49:47.720 our own health care and provide for it, not just for ourselves, but for other people in the

00:49:52.560 community as well. And so you'd have, you know, I envisaged if there was no health care, and this

00:49:56.980 is idealistic chat, because the idea of getting away, getting rid of the NHS is just not realistic.

00:50:01.640 But, you know, people would have greater responsibility to look after their own lives, look after their own health, provide for their own health care and provide for the health care of others in their community as well.

00:50:14.360 And, you know, you'll never prove it because you can't prove something that's not going to exist.

00:50:22.960 But if government didn't provide health care, I believe that health care services and health care provision would be as advanced and as brilliant as food and clothing is.

00:50:35.540 But the obvious counter example to that would be the United States where people do go and treat.

00:50:39.240 No, it's not the obvious counter.

00:50:40.320 The United States spends almost twice as much. The United States government spends almost twice as much on health care per capita as the UK government does.

00:50:51.200 The United States government is this kind of mix, is this crony capitalist mixture of an insurance based system mixed with.

00:50:58.600 It's just horrendous and it is the worst possible outcome.

00:51:03.040 And, you know, far better systems, I think Switzerland, New Zealand, France, they all have insurance-based systems that work much better than ours do.

00:51:12.560 And what is an insurance-based system for the people who don't know?

00:51:16.780 Well, what the friendly societies did in the second half of the 19th century is as, you know, there was this huge economic boom.

00:51:26.300 It was the greatest, one of the greatest periods of wealth creation ever, ever known, saw the greatest wealth growth ever seen.

00:51:34.580 And in local communities, workers would put in a portion of their money they would give to what was their friendly society.

00:51:43.160 Like the co-op was a friendly society and they would put a portion of their earnings and they would have there would be local communities, local friendly societies.

00:51:53.220 And then that friendly society would then provide the health care, you know, would employ the doctors, employ the nurses and whatever else was needed.

00:52:05.680 And and in times of emergency, you know, there would be that five pounds that they'd put in of that five percent of their earnings or whatever they put in would be their insurance in the case of and the community would decide, you know, well, that's this is Francis.

00:52:20.560 He's been putting money in this thing all this time. He's a good guy. You know, we need to help him. Oh, this is Constantine. Constantine has lost his job. He's lost.

00:52:27.700 And so welfare was was and health care was provided on a mutual basis locally.

00:52:33.900 and it meant there was much greater flexibility so you know if constantine's a bum and he never

00:52:40.600 does the work and and and he needs to kick up the bum then that's one kind of welfare and if if 0.64

00:52:46.180 francis is a good guy and actually he needs to be you know have an arm around him and be stroked

00:52:50.220 and you know it's much more but so there's just much more flexibility whereas one now our system

00:52:56.860 of welfare is like a top-down one-size-fits-all so and that's that's how insurance worked and it

00:53:02.840 was so successful that Lloyd George and Winston Churchill in the National Insurance Act of 1911

00:53:09.220 tried to copy it on a national level. So they introduced national insurance and people would

00:53:14.480 put in a portion of their earnings into the insurance system and as a result if they needed

00:53:19.060 emergency health care or anything else that came out of the national insurance. The problem was

00:53:23.240 people couldn't afford or didn't chose not to pay national insurance and for their local thing.

00:53:29.180 They were effectively buying it twice. National insurance was compulsory. The local one wasn't.

00:53:34.020 And so they had to carry on paying the local one and the national one and the local ones all went out of business.

00:53:38.940 So it was a free market evolution that was so successful, the government copied it and then messed it up.

00:53:44.980 And today, the money you pay international insurance should be there for you to call on in an emergency.

00:53:50.620 But it isn't because the government spends it. Now, if a corporation did that, they, you know, it's what Robert Maxwell did.

00:53:56.440 It's effectively fraud. But governments, it's a different rule for them.

00:54:02.680 Well, that's nicely summed, Dominic. Our final question is always, what's the one thing that we're not talking about that we ought to be talking about?

00:54:11.180 I think the one thing we're not talking about, slowly starting to talk about it, is race and racism.

00:54:17.220 what is racism because we have had these you know accusations thrown about so and so is racist

00:54:28.360 now what actually is what actually is racism uh you know if and i say this as you know somebody

00:54:36.760 was my kids are all mixed race not all actually two of them are mixed race um what uh define

00:54:47.040 I mean, is racism actively going and persecuting somebody on account of their race?

00:54:54.240 Or is it just accidentally using the wrong word?

00:54:58.360 Right. Well, the transformation of the last 10 years on that issue has been incredible.

00:55:01.700 Racism used to mean prejudice against people on the basis of their skin color.

00:55:05.960 Now it means you said something that people can misinterpret if they so choose.

00:55:09.820 Yeah. I mean, you're racist if you use the wrong words.

00:55:14.040 But I just think we're all prejudice.

00:55:16.120 we all the constant you know a discriminating gentleman used to be a good thing now if you're

00:55:23.260 discriminating it's it's a bad thing but you know i'm constantly making judgment all the way through

00:55:28.600 having a conversation with somebody or having a relationship whatever you're constantly making

00:55:33.440 judgments on whatever level the operate the relationship works now you make judgments based

00:55:39.280 on how they look how they sound uh all how all sorts of different things and what are we just

00:55:45.300 supposed to just ignore the fact that this guy is a different race to you? Are we just supposed to

00:55:50.760 pretend that there aren't different races? Because there are. And different races, different 0.99

00:55:55.600 characters, everyone has different characteristics. They just do. And I just think there's a dishonesty

00:56:01.260 to the whole argument, whereas we're so scared of being called racist that we just airbrush the

00:56:08.440 whole thing and pretend that nothing exists that there's no and so the sooner we can um acknowledge

00:56:16.580 that make that acknowledging that people are different doesn't mean you are going to actively

00:56:22.800 go out and persecute their that person on account of their race that's the sound of dominic getting 0.89

00:56:28.220 cancelled well i i guess that well let's explore that because i think it's a really fascinating

00:56:33.100 conversation. I guess the argument would be that we've decided to be hypersensitive about race

00:56:40.300 because we went through periods in history where there was a lot of stereotyping of people based

00:56:47.740 on their ethnicity or race, which was used to then discriminate against those people.

00:56:53.920 So the idea would be, as you say, we all have our biases, but the idea would have been in the past

00:57:00.460 that a lot of people would have said, well, black people are all lazy, right, which then would

00:57:04.680 prevent a particular black person who was really hardworking, right, from being seen for who they 0.99

00:57:10.480 actually are, as opposed to being seen through the prism of their race or their skin color,

00:57:17.240 right? So, you know, that I think we would all agree is a positive that we moved away from

00:57:22.200 judging people in this broad categories, right? We agreed on that? Yeah, yeah.

00:57:29.660 Yeah. So what are you saying exactly? Because I don't want people to take what you said out of context or to misunderstand.

00:57:38.020 The the the crime of racism, the sin of racism, whatever you like, has been totally undermined by overuse of the term.

00:57:47.760 Absolutely. And just dishing it out and just going, oh, well, so and so doesn't agree with me.

00:57:52.860 they're racist and they can smear somebody with that and it's like the work once you've got the

00:57:58.360 racist label like many people just have never recovered it doesn't wash off it just yeah it

00:58:06.700 does never and and you know lives have been ruined and they've kind of been smeared with this thing

00:58:11.140 and it's a terrible thing to do to somebody like you get all these and but the the whole

00:58:16.280 the the problem now with racism is there's so much protection has gone on that it's just created

00:58:22.340 It's so many special interest groups campaigning for, you know, it's not just a race thing.

00:58:28.240 It's just any type of identity is demanding that it's got whether it's trans or or or Islamic group or a black group or a white or whatever.

00:58:37.460 And now we've got this thing where there's almost like a white, white.

00:58:42.100 I've just written a song about this very thing called I am a white man and I'm sorry.

00:58:47.020 and and it's like there's loads of white people are just going uh complaining that they're victims

00:58:52.860 of racism and they are because they're being overlooked in favor of jobs or whatever it is

00:58:57.440 because somebody's got to tick this ethnic and so it's just this insane culture of special interest

00:59:01.820 groups and i just think like i i think there are there might you know be people who go you know

00:59:10.220 we always go i don't know i hate scousers you go to liverpool and you know some scouse bloke's 0.57

00:59:16.220 horrible to you and you go I fucking hate Scousers and it's one of those things that you might say 0.99

00:59:21.500 or you know and I hear Northerns coming down to London I fucking hate Cockneys you just you know 1.00

00:59:26.400 whatever the old definition now that is racist according to today's terminology but just because 0.97

00:59:35.400 you know I've gone off you know or I go to France and there's a huge queue in passport control or 0.90

00:59:42.280 something and I'm fucking French whatever that's effectively a racist thing to say now but in 0.82

00:59:49.180 saying that thing I'm not advocating the persecution of scousers or nor those who come to London and 0.98

00:59:54.920 moan about cockneys they're not advocating the persecution of cockneys they're just one of those

00:59:58.280 things that you say so I think we just need to be more transparent and understand what is racism

01:00:05.260 which to me is is the systematic persecution of people on account of their thing and what is just

01:00:11.440 normal human behaviour.

01:00:13.760 We've got nothing to worry about

01:00:14.960 as we voted Remainment, didn't we?

01:00:16.900 We're as pure as driven snuff.

01:00:18.660 Plus our producers are Scousers,

01:00:20.020 so we're fully in favour

01:00:21.160 of oppressing Scousers.

01:00:21.780 You know, I'm immune from all charges

01:00:25.120 because of the racial makeup

01:00:26.620 of my family, but, you know...

01:00:28.880 Mate, it doesn't get me off

01:00:30.020 with my brown mother, 0.97

01:00:30.940 Venezuelan mother.

01:00:31.660 No, but he actually married

01:00:32.840 a woman of a different colour.

01:00:35.060 Yeah, I've got mixed-race kids, yeah.

01:00:37.080 There you go.

01:00:38.440 You need to,

01:00:39.840 You need to, every time someone accuses you,

01:00:41.580 just bring out a photo.

01:00:42.560 Yeah, I know.

01:00:43.600 That's the way out of it.

01:00:45.160 But, Dom, it was been...

01:00:46.060 I've been given immunity.

01:00:47.320 Yeah, you have.

01:00:48.120 Just make sure you've always got one with you at all times.

01:00:51.120 But she would...

01:00:52.240 I mean, we're not married anymore,

01:00:53.240 but she would have a go at me 1.00

01:00:54.520 on account of my, you know, race, colour, background, age,

01:00:59.660 and I would do the same to her,

01:01:01.420 and I would no longer married.

01:01:04.720 So this is just you justifying your past behaviour.

01:01:07.800 No, but you take my point.

01:01:09.160 And it's just like, everyone is so uncomfortable with it that it just makes them freeze.

01:01:17.500 And that is just not healthy.

01:01:19.380 And it's because of this sort of culture of special interest groups.

01:01:22.480 I remember many years ago now, and when I'm about to describe it, it will feel like it was 50 years ago.

01:01:29.120 But I think it was only in the mid-noughties at the very latest.

01:01:32.520 There was a conservative MP who'd been in the army who made some comments about it.

01:01:38.340 Do you remember this?

01:01:39.160 He said that, you know, there's a lot of banter that happens in armed forces. 0.99

01:01:44.520 So if you were ginger, when people were making fun of you, they would call you a ginger bastard. 1.00

01:01:50.680 And if you were black, they would call you a black bastard. 1.00

01:01:53.400 And everybody accepted it as part of the culture. 1.00

01:01:56.720 And he got instantly destroyed, had to resign, all this kind of stuff.

01:02:00.960 But I think that is what you're saying.

01:02:03.120 I am.

01:02:03.500 And I remember being in a pub, and this would have been probably early noughties,

01:02:11.080 something like that, and being in a pub, and I was watching a football game in the pub,

01:02:16.280 and Andy Cole, it was Man United were playing,

01:02:18.680 and Andy Cole missed a really goal he should have scored.

01:02:24.040 As he was prone to do, let's be honest.

01:02:25.900 And there's a bloke watching the telly in the pub, and he's saying, 1.00

01:02:29.800 oh, you black cunt. 1.00

01:02:31.640 He says that. 1.00

01:02:32.320 Now is that, is that racist? I think in 2020 that would be extremely racist.

01:02:41.260 That's what he said. Yeah. Okay. Then Schmeichel, the goalie, lets in a goal that he should have saved, and the same guy goes, you blonde bastard. Right? Is that racist?

01:02:55.820 Andy Cole

01:02:59.500 and

01:02:59.920 you know

01:03:00.680 they're both 1.00

01:03:01.220 a cunt and a bastard 1.00

01:03:02.580 because they've 1.00

01:03:03.700 not done

01:03:04.600 what the fan

01:03:05.840 was hoping they would do

01:03:06.660 on the football pitch

01:03:07.400 okay

01:03:08.080 they're not 0.88

01:03:09.000 Schmeichel's not a bastard 0.99

01:03:11.420 because he's blonde 1.00

01:03:12.200 he's a bastard 1.00

01:03:13.420 because he's a guy 1.00

01:03:14.420 he's a bastard 1.00

01:03:16.460 who happens to be blonde 1.00

01:03:17.400 he's a bastard 1.00

01:03:18.560 because he's letting a goal 1.00

01:03:19.260 and he happens to be blonde

01:03:20.000 Andy Cole 0.99

01:03:20.920 is not a cunt 1.00

01:03:21.760 because he's black 1.00

01:03:22.480 he's a cunt 1.00

01:03:23.320 because he's missed a goal 1.00

01:03:24.180 and he happens to be a black guy 0.68

01:03:25.220 right 0.92

01:03:26.200 Okay, now here's the clincher of this story. 0.86

01:03:28.300 It was a black guy who said it. 1.00

01:03:30.460 It was a black guy who called Andy Cole a black cunt. 1.00

01:03:33.380 Suddenly we can breathe again. 1.00

01:03:37.220 And I was holding my breath.

01:03:38.820 No, but, like, just in having this conversation,

01:03:42.500 and I sort of almost regret already having this conversation

01:03:46.540 because I can see it dramatically backfiring. 0.99

01:03:49.420 But, you know, just in having it, we can't even talk about this shit. 1.00

01:03:53.140 No, no. 1.00

01:03:53.360 And this is a, you know, and so is a black guy calling Andy Cole a black cunt? 1.00

01:03:58.720 That's really interesting. 1.00

01:03:59.660 Yeah, it is.

01:04:00.340 And there's so many moral questions there.

01:04:03.120 And it's, you know, and even if the guy who said it was a white guy 0.99

01:04:07.680 and he called him a black cunt, he's not advocating the persecution of black people. 1.00

01:04:11.960 He's just going, oh, you black cunt. 1.00

01:04:14.580 I guess my sense of that situation, irrespective of who's saying, 1.00

01:04:17.860 is how is their blondness or colour relevant to the fact that they're a bastard? 0.99

01:04:22.800 It was, you know, a defining characteristic. 0.99

01:04:26.580 Right. So this is what I'm saying is maybe some of the progress we have made that's been good is that we avoid judging people in these group categories when it's not relevant to the thing at hand.

01:04:38.940 Like Andy Cole fucked up, Schmeichel fucked up. Do we need to bring their skin color or hair color into it? Maybe we just leave it out. 0.92

01:04:47.000 do well yeah but then that's that sense that's well that's a form of censorship and it's a it's

01:04:53.340 a and you can choose as an individual i'm not saying we censor that i'm not saying you but

01:04:57.660 you can self-censor but that's just an individual using his judgment no all i'm saying is maybe

01:05:01.480 in that situation we we learn not to make an issue of those things when it's not relevant

01:05:06.300 that's all do you see what i'm saying yeah but i just like yeah i guess so i mean uh i don't i 0.97

01:05:15.620 I think a society in which everyone goes around calling each other black cunts 0.96

01:05:19.180 or white cunts or whatever is probably not a good thing, 0.99

01:05:24.460 but it's a football match. 0.99

01:05:25.980 Yeah.

01:05:26.640 I think the real lesson...

01:05:27.440 It's in a pub.

01:05:28.500 You know, that's when that's...

01:05:30.260 I think the real lesson here is just never to watch Man United.

01:05:34.320 Well done.

01:05:34.940 You got us out of that one.

01:05:35.840 There was the Man City player, Bernardo Silva,

01:05:41.400 who got done earlier this season

01:05:44.260 for calling the...

01:05:45.460 Was it Mendy?

01:05:46.140 Benjamin Mendy,

01:05:46.720 the black left back.

01:05:47.680 Portuguese guy

01:05:48.580 joked that Mendy looked like

01:05:50.180 some cartoon character.

01:05:51.640 Yeah, from Spain.

01:05:52.540 Yeah, but they were like mates, weren't they?

01:05:53.780 Yeah, yeah.

01:05:54.100 Mendy found it very funny.

01:05:55.660 Yeah, but it's like me going to you,

01:05:57.220 you look like whoever.

01:05:58.780 Yeah, or it's like Francis saying

01:06:00.000 we're going to deport you back to Russia. 0.90

01:06:01.400 I don't take it personally

01:06:02.280 because it's a joke.

01:06:02.840 Yeah, but then FIFA decided

01:06:04.860 to get involved

01:06:05.620 and got all holier than that.

01:06:07.020 And he got banned, didn't he? 1.00

01:06:08.740 And it's just a stupid... 1.00

01:06:10.160 that is people seeing racism 1.00

01:06:11.580 where it was not.

01:06:12.620 Oh, absolutely.

01:06:13.420 Absolutely with you on that.

01:06:14.760 Yeah.

01:06:15.360 All right. 0.98

01:06:15.840 Anyway, let's fucking end it now. 0.99

01:06:18.960 Look at Francis. 0.99

01:06:19.920 He's so uncomfortable.

01:06:21.840 He's sweating.

01:06:22.560 With his little white skin. 1.00

01:06:23.920 Yeah.

01:06:25.100 Guys, buy this book.

01:06:26.740 It's great.

01:06:27.420 Dominic's going to need the proceeds

01:06:28.740 when he gets cancelled.

01:06:30.300 It's very my legal fees.

01:06:31.960 Daylight Robbery.

01:06:33.040 Brilliant book about taxation.

01:06:34.360 Make sure you get it.

01:06:35.700 And we will see you in a week from now

01:06:37.720 with another brilliant episode

01:06:38.860 if we're still here.

01:06:39.980 Take care. See you next week, guys.

TRIGGERnometry - April 05, 2020

Dominic Frisby： The Case for Less Government

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