TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: How To Turn Gaza Into Singapore & Fix Your Finances
Date: 04/05/24 Length: 1:48:35
Daniel Lapin
Greetings, happy warriors. And thank you for being part of the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show where I, your rabbi, and solemnly dedicated to revealing how the world really works for each and every one of you happy warriors and what is a happy warrior you might ask? Well, as William Wordsworth, the great English poet wrote, "The happy warrior is one who finds comfort in himself and in his cause. And while the mortal mysteries gathering draws his breath in confidence of Heaven's applause, this is the happy warrior, this is he that every man in arms should wish to be." And so it is, I think that most of the listeners to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show are indeed happy warriors. You know why I say that because I love William Ernest Henley's poem Invictus, and the closing lines of it, "I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul." You see, because happy warriors are not tennis balls floating down the gutter of life. And that's why it is my honor to serve each and every one of you happy warriors. Because we're all happy warriors, men and women because to live productively, you have to fight. That's all there is to it, you're in a struggle every day, against the force of entropy. If nothing else, the force that tends to reduce your world with all its many orbits into chaos, you fight to maintain your possessions. You fight to build and maintain your family. You fight to build and maintain your money, your body even, and your business or your profession or your career or your job. God created a world in which chaos and disorder rule, they enjoy an advantage. Chaos and disorder are the default condition. Beautiful gardens don't just happen, weeds and jungles just happen. And so we got to know that life is a fight. And that's a good thing. Because to stop fighting and to stop seeking and to stop striving is to die. And I call you not just Warriors don't just people who are willing to fight the good fight. But I call you Happy Warriors. Because to throw yourself into the fight for eight or 10 hours a day, six days a week. That's one thing. And I know you're doing that and you shouldn't be doing that. But to do it with a debonair smile on your face and jaunty pace to your stride to do all that, while generating an irrepressible surge of happiness welling up in your soul. Well, that means my dear friends, my dear Happy Warriors, you are spiritually grounded in everything that is life-affirming. You're devoted to your faith, your families, your finances, your fitness and your friends, knowing that you can triumph over those who both intentionally and unknowingly promote a dark abyss of satanic secular socialism, and all the many destructive and evil social pathologies that it generates.
Daniel Lapin
And for those reasons, I thought that we should take a good look at a basic question, but one which has implications on how you relate to your money and your finances. The basic question is, Gaza is and has been since Israel evacuated and we left in 2005. And Gaza has been pretty much of a hellhole. I don't know any travel agent that is offering trips or was not right now. Of course not but even was offering trips to Gaza. So why is it that many other small principalities, small countries, you know, not not much bigger than Gaza, some of them are smaller than Gaza, dotted around the world. And I mean, just to name half a dozen of them right Malta? beautiful island of Malta. If you've ever been lucky enough to travel there And then it's wonderful Gibraltar. What a fascinating place and it's comfortable. Dubai. Yeah. Out carved out of the desert out of nothingness. Dubai. It's a nice place to visit Liechtenstein small little place in the heart of Europe, and lovely island in the Caribbean, St. Kitts and Nevis, Monaco, Luxembourg. And perhaps the best example of all Singapore, pretty much just a little bit larger than, than Gaza. And I mean, you know, it's not, it's not a country the size of the United Kingdom or France. Singapore is a small, little tiny place, Gaza is a small, little tiny place. And yet, each one of these places I mentioned, is a comparative paradise. Each one of these places, fills up with tourists, and has activities going along revenue producing activities, has a safe and safe, safe and stable environment. Why not Gaza? What you got to ask yourself this question. And in understanding the answer, we gain significant and helpful insight into our own finances as well. I mean, what is it? There are other failed societies on the planet as well, let's make no mistake about it. But Gaza, it's it's so stock. I mean, there it is, it's on the coast, it could be completely independent of Israel. In fact, it could engage in mutually remunerative trade with Israel, there's so much that could be going on there. And yet, until October, the seventh when all hell broke loose, and it was not a place that anybody ever wanted to visit, you have to ask that because we are captains of our souls. But we are not tennis balls floating down the gutter of life. And the worst thing of all, is when a group of people are persuaded that they are incapable of any agency in their life, they are victims of outside forces. And whether you are a minority in the United States of America, or you are located in, in Gaza, when people tell you that you are a victim, and that you have no ability to improve your life, because of whoever it is. You are being harmed seriously, and probably fatally.
Daniel Lapin
I want to ask you, please to subscribe to the podcast the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show. So if you haven't done that, I mean, I know everybody asked you to do what anytime you're listening to a podcast. Yeah, please subscribe, hit the subscribe button. Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. But if indeed, you feel that you gain anything at all, if you gain value from this show. And gosh, if you don't, then I'm wasting my time. Because the only reason I do this is in order to convey value to you in the form of practical, useful, applicable information from ancient Jewish wisdom on how the world really works. Because there is nobody listening, or for that matter, talking, who doesn't have the ability to improve his life, you and me, both of us. We all have the ability. So the only question is, what are we doing that we should stop doing? And what are we not doing that we should start doing? And away we go, we can improve our lives dramatically. That's what we get from ancient Jewish wisdom. And I want to try and suggest a quid pro quo here which is if you do feel you get any value from the show, then a good way to repay me because no happy warrior wants to receive charity. No happy warrior wants something for nothing. A good way to repent. Go ahead and subscribe that's simple and easy to do. And for those of you who would like to avail yourself of even more before I delve into the difference between Gaza and Singapore.
Daniel Lapin
Right now we are getting ready for Passover which is a huge event because the the reality is that it is so easy to start feeling powerless. It is so easy in our lives, whether it's because of government and bureaucrats and regulators that are oppressing you in whatever it is you need to be doing, or whether it's because of a brutal boss at work, or whether it's just because of self imposed deadlines in your career, or your job or your business. But you're feeling oppressed. And feeling oppressed is no way to bounce back. feeling oppressed is no way to launch yourself onto a new trajectory for life. And in order to do those things, you've got to feel the exhilaration of freedom. And once a year, we Hebrews have the holiday of Passover, to allow that to happen. A lot of people mistakenly think, Oh, it's a celebration of something that happened 3300 years ago, the Israelites got out of Egypt and Moses took them to the promised land up good, wonderful. Let's see it. You know, a lot of people have and think that's what a Passover experiences is really all about. But it isn't. A positive experience is much more like an inoculation. You know, how you you sometimes get an inoculation against the disease. And let me not start talking about vaccinations please, for sure. Gosh, what a disaster. But in, in, in real terms, the concept of being able to take an antidote to prevent you being impacted by something that's out there in the air, or in the atmosphere or in the culture. That's a very real idea. And so Passover is an annual shot. It's an annual inoculation. It's an annual antidote to what's very much in the air at the moment, which is just heavy imposition of demands and expectations. I don't know if you have a boss who texts you at all hours of the night, but many people do. And you hear you know, if you don't put your phone on silent, you can be woken up by a notification ding. And you groggily reach out, to get your phone and you lift it up, and you take a look at it. And it's your boss with a list of things that are needed by Wednesday morning. You know, this stuff. I mean, that is really very difficult. And constantly feeling that you are in the grip, of social media, all of these things. They really are a form of oppression, they restrict your sense of freedom. And that deeply implanted exhilarating sense of freedom where you feel filled with possibility and opportunity and anything could happen. That's a wonderful thing. Because that's usually when anything does happen. And it's an opportunity for you to make things happen. And, and so we have this annual activity called the Passover Seder. This year is April, Monday night, April 22, April 23, in the United States. And if you want to know more about that, if you might even be thinking of incorporating some of the principles into your family and, and there is a last supper element to it as well. But that gets into a complicated area. But at any rate, on the website at Rabbi Daniel Lapin.com, you will find something called The Seder Set. Right at Passover Seder, right, the Seder set, and it's currently on sale for $19, which is quite a lot down from its regular price. The sale ends on Monday, April Oh, man, that's terrible. Because some of you aren't even going to hear this till till then. I you know, I'm going to see if we can't get that extended, I'm going to speak to the people in charge. At any rate. At the moment of the time, I'm recording this, the Seder set is on sale, and I am going to try and see if I can extend the time of that sale. And you'll find that at Rabbi Daniel lapin.com. And also starting on Tuesday, April 8. If you go ahead and get Scrolling through Scripture Unit 1, or the Scrolling through Scripture set, you will get for free, as a gift along with your order, you will get the Thought Tools Book Set for free. Take a look at this. This is all on the website at Rabbi Daniel Lapin.com. But you can also To get a free lesson in on Scrolling through Scripture, the Scrolling through Scripture is an incredible and it's, it's perhaps one of my most important works. And it's, well, I'm not even at you because if you're interested, you can read about it on on the site. And it's it's pretty mind blowing if, if you recognize the Bible as a significant factor in the emergence of what we call civilization, then you'll want to know more about scrolling through Scripture. So at any rate, all of that is at Rabbi Daniel Lapin.com.
Daniel Lapin
And we have to now seriously start delving into Gaza. Malta Gibraltar, lift and sign Singapore. And here is here's the big problem. The big problem is that if you were a Martian, just human me for the moment, will you if you were a Martian, intelligent Martian, and you just arrived, and I'm the first person you meet. And I tell you this thing called the internet, which makes information instantaneously available universally anywhere on the planet. I'm telling you that that in the you can be anywhere. And today, it's possible to link to the internet. And information on any topic is just waiting for you with a click or two of your button. So you're a Martian, I'm telling you information is freely available everywhere. And then I'll also tell you that capital money can cross national borders, so easily. investment funds, if you've got investment funds, they can be pulled from one country to another, almost instantaneously, whenever a new business opportunity presents itself. So
Daniel Lapin
you're the Martian, I'm telling you information and money, can travel anywhere in a way that was never true before in human history. The Martian says that's astounding. And you now say to the Martian. Now, here, I want you to guess, do you think that all countries are at a roughly equivalent state of economic development? Or is there a huge disparity? Just as there is among people in countries? Is there a huge disparity among the 120 Plus nations around the Earth? Some of them are much more economically advanced and developed than others, some of them are positively backward and, and slow. What would the Martian say? I tell you what I think he would say the most logical thing. And this is a very logical motion that we're talking to. I think he would say, well, since you've told me that money can go anywhere, wherever good opportunities and good ideas are found. And you're told me that information can go anywhere, I have to conclude that every single nation uses the availability of information and the availability of capital to advance their economies to roughly the same level is now what you'd say. I think, but it's not true. This is what is so weird. I mean, all you would need, no matter where you are, all you would need for opportunity to blossom is to have your phone in your hand. And you put together an idea and you put together sources of capital, and the money will flow. And it really will, to this very day. If you come up with a really good business plan, you will be able to get capital for it. You really will. It's got to be a good business plan. But people are doing it all the time. So why is this not happening? Gaza should be able to become a new Singapore. And you know, don't forget, Singapore has not always been what it is today. Singapore has not always been a remarkable incubator of economic opportunity. Our highly successful society No, it hasn't been Singapore in Lee Kuan Yew You became the prime minister in about 1965. I'm, I'm going to very, very close to 65. And, and then, you know, from then onwards, but at 65 See, in 1965, at that point, Singapore was not particularly affluent at all. Not at all, it had got badly battered in World War Two. And it was it was no more advanced than then many other small Asian countries. It just wasn't. And then all of a sudden, from about 60, round about the early 60s, Singapore took off, and it became one of the four, what are called the Four Asian tigers, right? That's Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. These are all countries that only 60 years ago, were, there was nothing very distinctive about them, perhaps Perhaps, Hong Kong is a little different in that respect. And then all of a sudden, the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st. And the economic development of these countries is absolutely stunning. But, you know, Palestinians in Gaza, have phones, they have the internet, there is certainly very much capital, just waiting for an opportunity to be pumped into. In fact, there's been capital being pumped in all the time, through UNRWA, the United Nations agency created specifically for Palestinians. There's been a lot of money coming in. And so look, what could have been done, people by now could have been from all over the world flocking to luxury hotels along the Gaza, oceanfront to enjoy the warm Mediterranean sunshine. And too, there could have been good food and entertainment, it could have drawn people they would have been shopping. Why not? And I'm not referring only to Gaza, because there are many corners of the world where there just hasn't been economic development. Haiti is another example I spoke about the difference between Haiti and Dominican Republic. To many people's dismay, I got quite a lot of mail from people who were not happy with what with what I explained. But I, I urge people to listen again carefully to what I said, and I don't think you should take offense, you might disagree with me. But taking offense always. Yeah, that's another story. But you know, many of the islands of the Pacific, in the Maldives, and in many, many other of the islands there, they're not really doing as well as they could or should be, why not? And so we've really got to ask ourselves. Why? Because if we can understand what distinguishes successful societies, and successful economies like Singapore, from places like Gaza, you know, why is it Monaco is so successful? Why is Luxembourg? Why is Dubai so successful? Why is Malta so successful?
Daniel Lapin
And why are so many places including Gaza really just struggling? Little places of poverty? It's just sad. Surely it's not necessary? I mean, is there something toxic in the air in these places? Is there something is there some poisonous substance in the soil that makes it impossible for wealth and affluence and capitalism to to take root there, what on earth is going on? And you can see that if we if we can arrive at any understanding here, then it is useful, not from a geopolitical point of view, because none of us are in charge of Gaza, or Singapore or Maldives or Botswana or Fiji. But we're in charge of our own lives. And so if we find out what the secret is why we can just go ahead and deploy the secret principles in our own lives as well. And so what is the problem? What what is the idea what's going on here? Well, you remember I've told you in the past that economics used to be known as the dismal science. And there is a little disagreement as to why that is. But I believe the main explanation for it is that, ordinarily, with a science, when you plug in the variables, and you plug in the formula, and you and you press the button, out pops the unknown, and you get it. In other words, science is predictable. And from what I've just told you already today, you can see that this is simply not the case, with with economics, because you can plug in all the information, you can plug in capital, and these countries should perform. And it drives economists nuts, not all, but some, and it drives them completely nuts, because the dismal science, it doesn't seem to work. Right? Ordinarily, if you're if you're trying to build a business, if you're trying to build a building, you, you plug in the strength of materials and the weight of the building and wind forces, you plug in all the details, and out pops out of the computer pops all the information, go ahead and build the building, it'll stand. But if you're trying to build an economy, if you're trying to build a business, somehow or another, it doesn't seem to work predictably. So yes, economics seems to be a dismal science. And it simply doesn't know what to do with this problem of different countries having completely different results, even though you can plug in information and capital to all of them in an equal way. And so the conclusion that economists who bother by this come up with, as does everyone else, which is culture matters. And culture is a word that is sort of a catch all. It's a sort of portmanteau word that holds together
Daniel Lapin
all the aspects that make up how a person or a group of people live. And I'm going to try and clarify because for this to be useful to you, isn't going to be helpful, if I just throw out some definitions for you to use, I must actually give you something much more helpful, practical and substantive than that I've got to give you something you can actually get a grip on. So originally, before economics began to be thought of as a science, which it isn't, because anything that involves human beings cannot be a science. Even medicine isn't like that, right? You know, you can't just plug in the same drugs to each person and get exactly the same results. Each of us is an individual. And every doctor who's experienced will tell you that they can tell when a very ill patient gives up hope and loses the determination to live. And there's an immediate deterioration. And different patients have different strengths and willpower. When you're dealing with human beings, you're not dealing with science, and economics, if it's about anything, it's about human beings. And it used to be that way until, until they introduced this idea of econometrics and trying to make economics a science. And this was I'm gonna say is probably I'm not sure when that began to happen. But it was, it was 20th century, late, late, late, later part of the 20th century. But in the earliest days, economics took into account the vagaries of human nature. Adam Smith, who's really sort of one of the founders of modern economics, wrote his famous book called Wealth of Nations, the wealth of the nations or the wealth of the nations. And by the way, that was published in 1776.
Daniel Lapin
Interestingly enough, and there he speaks about this idea, that if every individual who is motivated by his own self interests, that that person can contribute to the public interest in an invisible system, that sort of self regulate, and Adam Smith understood that pursuing personal interests was much more than just a selfish focus on making money. That's why he also wrote a book called The Theory of Moral Sentiments. And in his book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith wrote extensively about what I would call the cultural aspects of, of economics really important. In other words, he doesn't specifically say this what I'm about to say, but it gives you an idea, which is that if theoretically, we could find two human beings that have the same physical characteristics, you know, they're both men of the same age, they both have the same earning history, the same education, the same background, the same skills, everything. And so we arrive at a situation where we've got two men, shall we say, to 40 year old men, both of whom have been making exactly the same amount of money for the same amount of time. And we now look to see what their net worths are like, and this is what bothers me, Claire, you know, economist who wants to see economics as a science, because these two men are not going to have the same value, then they're not going to have the same assets. Why? Because one of the men tends to spend a lot and the other tends to save and invest a lot. This is a spiritual characteristic in these two men, that have a different approach to how to do these things. It takes considerably more self discipline, and restraint in order to save and invest. And it's more self indulgent to spend on whatever it is you spend. And so these two men might go and speak to a High School, graduating class and say, here are these two approaches. And the responsible teacher would say to the students, hey, you really want to learn more about how to emulate man be than man a? Because you would do better by saving and investing? And the student says, oh, okay, wouldn't Shouldn't we really just sort of find out what instruments he invested in? Did he invest in, in equities or in bonds? Or did he invest in real estate trust? What did he invest in know that he was? No, that's not it, what you're going to have to figure out is how do you acquire the spiritual characteristics? How do you acquire the cultural traits of being a saver and an investor rather than a spender? How do you do that? That's the question.
Daniel Lapin
And so the something that Adam Smith really understood, although it's less present in the Wealth of Nations, but it's very present in his book Theory of Moral Sentiments, that the internal makeup of the human being the cultural values, which includes religion, by the way, very much. So. So I mean, this stuff used to be fairly well understood. If I would have been saying this, you know, in the 1800s, I think I would have just got bigger yawns from everybody, because I would have been telling you things that everybody knows. But right now, it's not that clearly understood back then, in about 1850, or there abouts John Stuart Mill, who is, you know, a very influential guy on the both in England and the United States. But he stressed several times in his work, that the cultural influence in an individual's life in a man or a woman's life has a stronger impact on the kind of life they are going to live than simply financial factors. Because financial factors do not control culture. But culture does control or impact financial factors. I've spoken before so about Max Weber, WEBER, Max Weber was a German economist or a sociologist. And again, he was about he lived about 100 years ago from now. And he wrote a famous book called capitalism and the Protestant work ethic, I think it was and, and very important writing because he identifies exactly what we're talking about that your internal value system, the culture in which you are imbued the culture with which you are imbued, has a huge impact on how well your life goes. And he, he even writes about discussing why Protestants were much more economically productive and Catholics throughout Europe, Europe, and to this day, Germany and Great Britain. Were sort of the the most notable Protestant countries and then compare them to Ireland, Spain. In Portugal, Italy. And well Greece's is a slightly different category. But to this day, one of the big problems, one of the reasons the European Economic Union is probably not going to be around for very much longer is because they are dragged down by what are called the pigs countries. Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, Ireland, did I say Portugal? Yeah, those countries are not doing well. Anyway, Max Weber wrote about the difference. It's, it's a really significant difference. And you see it modes, most notably, when you compare Belgium and Holland, Holland is an economic powerhouse. That is the home to the founding of many, many huge, powerful multinational corporations extremely successful. Holland is, is an economic powerhouse. And next to it with the same racial stock, the same sort of people the same weather, the same lack of natural resources, the same kind of landscape, Belgium and Holland, I mean, there's just a pencil line on a map separating them. But there's a religion separating them. Belgium is Catholic, and Holland is Protestant. And Max Weber speaks about the difference. In other words, without going into details, we don't have to do that now. But what we do have to understand is that these, you can see that religion is very much a part of culture. And it has an enormous impact. Round about the same time, Max Weber had a colleague called Werner Sombart, he was also a a German economist. And he wrote something called de Uden. And das vert shafts, Leben. It's usually it's when the and I have a, I have an excellent translation of the book, the title is translated as The Jews and Modern Capitalism.
Daniel Lapin
And so he goes a little bit further than Max Weber. And he speaks about Jewish involvement in a capitalist development and how Jews were excluded from the guilds, which were very important. And he speaks about the the Hanseatic League, the Association of, of cities and guilds, that really controlled trade and remember this for later in today's discussion, they controlled trade and the way Jews were in that and out of that, and, and how the Jews played a role in Europe in opening things up. And that introduced vos new avenues of wealth creation. And, and essentially, what the Jews managed to do was, instead of the sort of protected little fiefdoms, they they opened it up and essentially made it a society of unlimited competition between people. And that, the only thing you had to do was please your customer. That was the main thing. It's a remarkable book, by the way, and very, very interesting. songbird was I don't, I'm pretty sure he wasn't Jewish. But one thing is for sure, and that is that Paul Johnson, the great historian, just passed away a little while ago, wonderful, wonderful historian, you can't go wrong with Paul Johnson's history books, and Paul Johnson, raves about Werner Sombart's book, Jews and modern capitalism, but he says he doesn't pay enough attention to the religious and mystical elements of Judaism. And I know exactly what he means. And I've written about it and spoken about it a little bit as well.
Daniel Lapin
Now, around about the same time, as Adam Smith publishes the wealth of the nations in 1776. Round about the same time a little bit later, an English economist called Thomas Malthus had persuaded the the world that wealth was a constant figure, there's a certain amount, and because people are increasing all the time, everyone's going to have less and less. And the reason he said that wealth is a fixed amount, is that you look around, you're right, there's only so much land. And there are more and more people all the time. So clearly, right? There's gonna have to be less and less for each person. Now, you might laugh at this today, but I don't think You should, because Thomas Malthus was not a nobody, he was not an ignoramus. He was a respected economist and academic to the extent that intellectual academics can be respected. And he said, it this makes sense. Just think about it, how many sheep are there in England? And he came up with a number. And he said, Now how quickly do is it possible for sheep to increase and he came up with me, he said, Well, look at the way people are increasing. And so clearly, we're going to reach a point where there is not enough wool to close all the people. And there's going to be a terrible endpoint, where poverty is gonna result in deaths. That's what he said, because the world's population will end up fighting over the tiny scraps that are left for each person. Now, the reason I say don't laugh at this is because I want you to understand my dear happy warriors. This is such an important point, that if your worldview is material, if your worldview is physical, then you cannot argue with Thomas Malthus makes perfect sense. And he's not the only one, by the way, a respected professor of Stanford called Paul Ehrlich essentially wrote the same thing in 1968, he wrote a book called The Population Bomb. And virtually every single thing he ever said is wrong. But, you know, he remains. He's an older guy today. But he I think he's still a professor at Stanford, still widely respected. And he said much the same thing. He said, Look, there's no question he didn't say, I thought he said, by the end of the century by 2000, but when I checked, he actually said by the 1970s, was a very reckless prophecy, he said that large numbers of Americans would be dying of starvation. Well, large numbers of Americans are dying of obesity, but starvation were you talking about? But again, if your worldview is purely physical, then in his in essence, you kind of are rooted in Marxist theory where everything is materialistic and physical, there is no spiritual? And therefore, since physical things are obviously limited, yes, by definition, right, they obviously are, is there enough copper in the world? For everybody to have two telephone lines run with copper twisted pairs? Like they used to run phone lines in 1980? And the answer is no. And therefore, it was possible to make a prediction that there will be huge dislocation and social turbulence, because just as Americans tended to get two phone lines, one for phone and one for a fax machine, if you happen to remember that piece of primitive technology. And if everyone in the world wanted to phone lines, there just wasn't enough copper in the world to make that happen. And so if you're a materialist, if you have no spiritual reality, right, and this is why our new book is integrating family and friendships, and finance and fitness and faith, why and faith because faith is the vital component of spirituality. And so from a purely material point of view, these people Malthus was right. Paul Ehrlich in Stanford was right. People who said that there's not going to be enough copper for everyone to get phones was right.
Daniel Lapin
But human beings are touched by the finger of God. And that means that we're like, God, we have the power of creativity. And so today, virtually all of Africa is on the telephone. But there's not a copper wire in sight. They just jumped straight to cell phones. No copper wire, and the price of copper isn't higher now than it was in the 1980s. In real terms, it's lower. Because there's there's less use for it, starting to use more of it in cars now electric cars, but basically, yeah, it's really worthwhile understanding. One of my favorites by the guy who, by the way, was a fellow in 1865. All right, this and this again. maltose had been very popular during the first half of the 19th century. And so in 1865, there was a very influential guy, he was an economics professor, an academic intellectual, at London University. And in 1865, he wrote a paper which you can see on the internet it's fascinating. It's called the coal question coal, right? The black stuff you burn basic energy, the coal question and inquiry concerning the progress of the nation and the probable exhaustion of our coal mines. And what William Jevons said, Gee, that's je vo ns. What William Jevons suggested is, hey, let's slow down industry. Maybe we make factories turn off for an extra day, every week, because they're using up coal too quickly. And we've got to make our coal last longer. Well, they didn't slow down industry, they continued burning coal, right through the rest of the 19th century, and through all the 20th century. And it wasn't until the 21st century that Britain running out of coal, no, there's still plenty coal, but it's that Britain is trying to move off coal, for environmental reasons. So this is an old old story that we're running out, because these people are all secular materialists. And as secular materialists, they operate on the basic, irrefutable observation that human beings need material stuff, like food and clothing and energy. And since material things are limited, and human beings seem to reproduce, with no slowdown in sight, well, that's not true. I call correct that in a moment. Clearly, people are going to be reduced to terrible circumstances. But yet none of these prophecies come true. Because human beings are creative. And, you know, we saw that in American colonial times, everyone was writing and complaining, we're running out of whale oil, because we're harvesting more and more whales, we're
Daniel Lapin
killing off all the whales. America's gonna go dark. Well, of course, Edwin Drake found oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania, he was a railway conductor. And the rest is history. America within a few years was being lit by Kerosene no longer by whale oil and the whales were safe. But it's human ingenuity that doesn't human creativity, the aspect of in God's image he created us that's the image we're talking about. That's what it means. And so the problem in America now is that the reproductive rate, the fertility rate is dropping precipitously. And it's now well below replacement level 2.1 children per woman is basic replacement. And we're at about 1.7 or 1.8. In the United States at the moment, huge problem, by the way, why? Because it's a reduction in creativity, apart from anything else. Anyways. And the fact is, remember, when, when I'm forgetting God's, the economies of the United States and and many, many European countries were in a huge growth phase during the 19 century, they were really expanding. But we needed some way to try and understand what is it that is actually responsible. And we had to begin to understand that there is not simply a fixed amount of wealth, that's not the case. And if you look at what the Dow Jones index has done in the United States, since, shall we say, you know, 1975, and you'll see that it's just giving why Yeah, because the economy is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. That is absolutely true. It's not a fixed amount of wealth. There is a fixed amount of material things, but not a fixed amount of wealth. So really, when when we realize this, and we realize that the wealth of societies didn't depend just on what their natural resources were, because Switzerland had no natural resources, and they were very successful. And Hong Kong, no natural resources very successful. So there was really in theory, no reason why every nation on the planet shouldn't be able to draw on capital and to draw on information to build up viable, successful thriving economies. Yet, they did not. And so economists, academic and intellectual economists continued focusing on money, supply figures and inflation and deflation figures and and income policies and price stability policies and inflation control and, and building up mathematical tools that will test the economic theories that have been coming out of the economics departments of universities. And they've been trying to measure the impact of different economic strategies on financial and economic circumstances. So they could end up with a formula a dependable set of guidelines that could manage Create Guide economies all around the world. Trouble is none of us worked. And, and the whole dream that people could be treated like machinery, you know, as, as any designer of machinery knows, you build a machine, so that when you feed into the machine, what it needs, it'll pop things out the other end, whether the things are paper clips, or, or, or bottles of soda, or cans of soda, whatever it is, that a machine is totally predictable. And economists had been working on trying to turn or visualize or create a set of formulae that would allow us to see human beings as sort of economic machines. And that all would simply behave reliably. And that once we've done that, then we can internationalize these principles and these technologies, and all people in all countries will develop successful economies. And the only problem is that I'm afraid culture actually does matter. Because in spite of 50 years of economists trying to reduce this, this all to a set of formulae and principles and rules and guidelines, the fact remains that some countries are doing very well like Singapore, while others simply failed to develop at all.
Daniel Lapin
Gaza is one of those, but there are many others. Of course, there are many countries in Africa like Zimbabwe, where I mean, how do we explain the repeated failure of some of those nations. And even when a lot of international financial aid is given in huge amounts to develop their economy, it doesn't help a bit. Indonesia, the Philippines, right, they've got resources, they've got good locations, they've got a well educated population. They're not developing well, very slowly. Right, Pacific island nations falling further and further behind. And you know who else is falling further and further behind America is not what the United States used to be. The financial performance of the United States has been declining. Now, the government goes to great lengths to generate figures that show Oh, inflation is over, everything is going well, the country's getting better and better, but it isn't. The reality is that the American economy is declining. Why? for cultural reasons, culture has to do with the quality of the individual's not their innate quality, not not intelligence, but it's their internal fortitude, the extent to which they can exert self control, the extent to which they can exert self discipline, the extent to which they can make themselves work, as work should be done. And in America, that has been on a terrible decline. The economic results are in escapable. So we've got to try and maybe get a slightly better handle on what aspects of culture impact economic development, what parts of culture, impact financial progress. Why do some ethnic groups do so well in business, and even when these ethnic groups are minorities in other cultures? A book I found interesting and I'm going to tell you the the substance of it in on this topic is Amy chihuahuas book called world on fire. And she speaks about Chinese people throughout Southeast Asia. Indians in East Asia. Africa and parts of the Caribbean, lots of Lebanese in West Africa, and parts of the Caribbean. Indians in East Africa. Tamils in Sri Lanka, the list goes on and on. These are all minorities in the societies in which they live, whose economic ability vastly outstrips the general populations among whom they live. Right? I wrote a whole book, thou shalt prosper, which you can see on my website at Rabbi Daniel lapin.com. I wrote a whole book explaining why and how Jews outperform financially, the majority of people in whichever culture they live. So and, and we're talking about serious economic dominance, we're talking about dramatically disproportionate control of major sectors of the economy, by small numbers of people. And it almost always results in ethnic conflict. In Indonesia, by the way, until recently, Chinese people with 3% of the population in Indonesia, and they controlled over 60% of the private economy. Right? I mean, it's a very real thing. And we've got to understand I mean, and again, as I spelled written about, Jews are a very, very much part of this phenomenon. So something that I do want to point out,
Daniel Lapin
is that economically dominant minorities in it's something that's found more in developing countries than in developed countries, so take United States, or the United Kingdom, for that matter. Although some ethnic minorities have outperformed others, you got to remember, the economy is not dominated by any ethnic minority, nothing like what I was telling you about in Indonesia, there's no comparison. So, you know, you hear about Koreans doing disproportionately Well, in America, and they do you hear about Jews doing disproportionately, and they do, but they don't control any significant percentage of the US private economy. That seems to be a factor, which happens more in the underdeveloped income in poorer countries, rather than in successful countries. So in what I referred to before is the Four Asian tigers, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, I said Hong Kong as well. But I didn't I left out Japan, I suppose Japan really belongs there. You do not find in any of these countries, you do not find Jews or Koreans or Indians or anybody dominating major sections of the economy. So that's an interesting observation right there. So in other words, these minorities, whether it was Koreans in America, or Chinese in Indonesia, they have something going for them, which works when they are in a population that does not have that thing going for them. But in a country like the United States, where the majority of people until recently had that thing going for them, what is that thing? Well, it's what we're calling culture. The Chinese or the Koreans or the Japanese or the Jews don't stand out. So there again, we get a confirmation of this basic idea I'm trying to teach in today's thought in today's podcast, that the that the distinguishing characteristic between financial success and failure is not the amount of capital or the amount of data and information. It's internal, it's culture. And I will, I will try and hone in a little bit on what those cultural qualities are. You will see that we are gradually homing in on the central idea that it is culture, spiritual well factors not economically material factors that shape a society's success. Hong Kong, no natural resources Singapore no natural resource Switzerland no natural resources. Somalia, plenty net Draw resources, but no financial success.
Daniel Lapin
It's not a case of material, it's a case of spiritual. And we will see that there is a spiritual problem with countries that are not succeeding financially. And what they lack are not the material characteristics of successful countries, because those are available. They lack the culture. And in order to clarify this, we need to answer one of the biggest questions in this area of economics. And that is, why did the industrial revolution happen in England? So, huge question. Because, you know, there was a lot of scientific and technical advance in other places as well. And yet, and I dated at 1750. As I always say, it's hard to put an exact year on a major epoch or event, such as the industrial revolution. But, you know, the emergence of steam power in the spinning industry and the fabric industry, all of these things. Yes, 1750, say, the happening of the Industrial Revolution in England in 1750. Really weird, because that's sort of where it took off. And all of a sudden, railways are all within a short space of time becoming a reality, the transport, it's remarkable steamships become a reality, all of this is, is exploding vitality off to 1750, but primarily in England, and yet, there's machinery being designed and invented and built in America in in Germany, Daimler Benz. Have you heard of Mercedes Benz? The diesel engine, Rudolph diesel? Germany has a lot going on? Why didn't it happen there? And elsewhere as well, you know, I mean, China had a lot of advances, nothing even remotely close to an industrial revolution in China in the 18th century, didn't happen until the 20th century. And so what is the different about England that makes it happen there? Well, two things of interest. The second, I think, more important than the first perhaps the first one is that Jews were thrown out of yet. That's right. I know. I know, you're probably thinking oh, he's always gonna find a way to bring Jews into it. But I'm sorry, it's a reality. Jews are disproportionately relevant in the world, as I've pointed out many times there at the time, Israel was founded in 1948. There were about the same number of Sri Lankans on the island of Ceylon as they were Jews in the world. And, and now, you know, 76 years later, there's double the number of Sri Lankans, then the number of Jews and like many more times the number of Sri Lankans and the number of Israelis, and yet, what do you hear more of, you know, what plays more of a role in the world? It's it's not a case, the numbers. And I've spoken in the past about the word Paul Johnson would speak about the as the mystical and religious secrets of the Jewish people. Anyway, not for now. Bottom line is that King Edward throws the Jews out of England in 1290, lots of pogroms, lots of massacres. And they're thrown out why? Because they have significant control of the economy and banking. And they hold the mortgages on many of the stately homes and aristocratic estates in England. And, by the way, this is I'm quoting you not word for word. But this is what Churchill explains, in his monumental work, the history of the English speaking people, which I've got a lot of value out of. And by the way,
Daniel Lapin
every time I mentioned a book, and I'd say I found it useful, not a recommendation to read it at all. I'm very, very careful with my time and with your time. And so if I recommend a book, I'll do so explicitly and say, you really ought to try and read this book. Like you really ought to try and read my book, The holistic you Yes, I'm serious about that. And the fact that I benefit by a couple of dollars every time you buy a copy of the book, is neither here No, there, the book is true. It is significant. And it explains how the world really works with respect to your life. So there are books, I do recommend that there are also books I haven't written that I recommend. But at any rate, Churchill explains how, because Jews dominated finance in England at the time, they held the mortgages, they loaned money in exchange for a mortgage on the title of aristocratic estates and stately homes. And Edward the first realized he could curry great favor with all his couriers and, and aristocratic and the entire aristocracy would love him if he got rid of the Jews, because they will take away the mortgages and imagine what that means, right? It's very tempting, right? If if you could kill the person who holds the mortgage on your home, and you would suddenly own it free and clear, all right, pretty tempting, right? They can't do it today, because it's an institution. But in those days, by killing or expelling all the Jews out of England and 1290. It was an enormous boon for all the aristocrats. It wasn't for over 350 years, that the Jews were before the Jews were allowed back. Oliver Cromwell allowed Jews back in 1656, it was Oliver Cromwell, who was a Bible believing Christian, and for that reason, at odds with the government of England, and then you've got the whole English Civil War in the middle 1600s. At any rate, Jews come back 100 years before the Industrial Revolution, you know, the impact. The impact is that all of a sudden, there was capital, there was banking, there was finance. And so the the originators, discoverers, inventors, of the machinery of the Industrial Revolution, were able to get the financing. And that made a huge difference. Because how did this happen? 100 years early, there were no Jews, it took Jews 100 years to rebuild their dominance in finance and banking. And they did. And it was just in time, as these inventions started coming out, the spinning jenny and the steam engine, and many, many, many other wonderful machines. The finance was there, and away it went.
Daniel Lapin
But there's another reason. And I think this reason is more important. And that is that there is an expression that I heard, for the first time, in a speech that Margaret Thatcher who was then Prime Minister of England, made now she was the daughter of a greengrocer. And she says that a lot of her understanding of economics derived from the family business, and and that's really important and registered with me, but I actually gave a speech in 1975. And here's what she said, we used to be famous for two things, as a nation of shopkeepers. And as the workshop of the world. One is trade. The other is industry, we must get back our reputation. And I was interested in that phrase, the nation of shopkeepers, because the way she said it, it sounded as if it was an established phrase. And it turns out a was it's attributed to Napoleon who said a disparagingly about England, but I'm not sure he actually didn't. It's not important whether he did or he didn't. But he he if he did he meant to say, well, you know, they're just a nation of shopkeepers. But the reality is, he could just as easily have meant it, very admiringly. Because ladies and gentlemen, happy warriors, all of you. The strength of a nation flows upwards from its family towards the state, not downwards from the state to the individuals. A state cannot impose greatness on people. But the families of a nation can create greatness in their children. And the nation then can become great, the state can become great. And so you've always got to examine the micro not the macro. It's not the statements on Capitol Hill in the White House. You've got to see what is happening on the ground, on the high streets of America, in the homes, around the fireplaces, in the cafes, in the coffee shops of America, and that will give you a much better idea of what's really going on? And so what if Napoleon did say, what he was saying is it's a nation of shopkeepers. In other words, if nobody's sitting around on the dole, nobody's sitting around for government welfare, nobody's sitting around as a victim waiting for somebody else to take care of them. Everybody is trading, they're all shopkeepers. And therein lies, I believe, the secret to British economic strength, and why the industrial revolution happened in England. Because when you think back to that period, right, it was about it was not about it was 1700, that England and Scotland and Wales joined together to become the United Kingdom, Great Britain. And it was roundabout then that the Empire really took off. And the British Empire began to grow. And so Southern Africa, for instance, which had originally been established by the Dutch, who were the the world travelers in the 1600s, all of a sudden, Britain took it over, they captured it, and because Britain took over, and all of a sudden, it was British trading houses, and trading companies that were developing trade routes around the world. And it was Britain, that was setting up Hong Kong, and Australia and New Zealand and South Africa and Rhodesia. England became the shopkeepers of the world. They were the tradesmen of the world. And that is, you know, be back between being a tradesman. between being a tradesman, a trader, and a craftsman. You've got the keys to prosperity right there. Switzerland, trades, everything wherever they can usually tourist dollars for steel, and gold. And they're craftsmen in Beale, turn that into Rolex watches. And then those Rolex watches are exported and sent back. And so they might import $10 of metals. And they sell the result for $2,000. Because of what they did to it, now you think about that, right? Is that so hard? Is that something that Fiji couldn't do? Is that something that Haiti couldn't do? Is that something that Gaza couldn't do? So why didn't they do it? Well, we got we've got to try and understand more. But the key thing is trade. Why do I say it's a key thing?
Daniel Lapin
Because very early on in the Bible, in the second chapter of the book of Genesis, we find the words it's not good for man to be alone. That said, God said that. And it's not being said, exclusively, in consideration of Adam's matrimonial prospects with Eve. It's a fundamental statement of the human condition. We do not do well in isolation. And by trading, that is the most beautiful and obvious example of overcoming isolation. Because if you're disconnected from other people, you cannot possibly trade and trading is the key to generating wealth. You can't create more land, but you can create wealth, you can create money, and that's what happens. Because when I trade with eBay, and I sell my navigational sextant, because I don't think I'm going to be needing it on any ocean crossings in the near future. And I sell it to somebody who likes collecting nautical memorabilia. And the person gives me you know, either No, shall we say $300 for it cost $1,200 many years ago that $300 is now $300 I didn't have and you say well, you don't have your valuable sextant anymore. I didn't need my sex and I wasn't sailing the oceans anymore. I don't need it. But I do need $300 So I'm so much better off and the guy who buys it from me. Well, he had some discretionary money sitting around And to add to his collection, he wanted a sextant, because since he has a collection, the second in his collection is worth much more than $300 He gave me. So he if he would allow sell his whole collection, the second part of it would fetch many, many times more than the 300. And so he's as happy as could be, because he's better off. And I'm as happy as could be, because I'm better off, we have created value, we have actually created wealth by trading. That is a key fundamental principle. Got to understand that.
Daniel Lapin
Now all you have to do is think about what are the qualities necessary that would enable two strangers to trade. Now, admittedly, eBay makes it easier. But it could also have been at a marketplace, it could have been at a swap meet, what makes it work. And what makes it work is a fundamental presumption of honesty, the purchase of my sex and assumes that the instrument is buying is exactly what I claim it to be. And I assume that the check he gives me for $300 will clear and that we have a transaction. But if we lived in a society, where presumption of integrity was absent, they wouldn't be trade. So there you see right there, one of the cultural characteristics that create wealth, if you cannot trust one another, then they cannot be wealth creation. And one of the interesting phenomena that have a lot to do with this topic is that in certain societies, only family is trusted. These are tribal societies. And in tribal societies, there is distrust of wider circles of people, the trust circle is very narrow and very small. So there right away, you find that tribal societies are handicapped, because not only do they not trust anyone outside the immediate family, or the immediate tribe, they actually generate enmity and hostility towards those in other tribes and other groups. And so again, one of the things that happens in England, in this period, is the creation of a an identity that is a country. I'm an Englishman, right? I'm not part of the Jones clan. I'm an Englishman. And that means I have something in common law of Englishmen, which means I'm open to trading with all other Englishmen, yes, England, a nation of shopkeepers, a hugely valuable attributes. Very, very important. Now, again, another interesting idea that captured me the minute I understood it and read it, that showed again, the culture is what makes the difference. So industrial revolution, all of a sudden, the laborious work of converting wool into fabric for clothing, which used to be done by housewives, holding a kid in their lap with one hand and operating a pedal with their feet a treadle treadle pedal, to operate a spinning wheel, and laboriously converting wool or cotton into yarn and then weaving it into fabric. All of this reduced to take place in sort of cottage industries, industrial revolutions, 1750 to 1800, all of a sudden, this is happening on a large scale. And it's being done by steam driven machinery, or machinery driven by a waterwheel that is turned by a river flowing by or a canal.
Daniel Lapin
And it's incredible the amount of wool all of a sudden Malthus's dire warnings of people not having clothing. It was a joke, nobody it was it was silly, because there was so much fabric, and the price was dropping, all of a sudden, ordinary people could afford more than one article of clothing. So the British, by this time, of course, have a huge empire. And they they own India. And so they say to themselves, all we're going to do, we just got to ship over a bunch of spinning machines and weaving machines over to India. And we will have people there, produce the fabric and it should be very effective. We'll be able to use their labor and we don't have to pay them as much as we paid British Workers in, in British fabric industries. So that ought to run. So the these British run fabric mills that they set up in India, were running at the basis of about 25% of the cost of operating a British mill. And yet, they were not even close to being equivalently productive. The productivity in England was so much higher, that even though labor costs were less, a lot less in India, they didn't come close to equaling the economic productivity of the British fabric industry in the Midlands of England. And so British Mills operated on far fewer employees, Indian Mills somehow needed a lot of people working. So at the end of the day, we saw that it was people and the values that they had absorbed over the years that determine the economic effectiveness of the era, not the technology. The technology certainly made a difference. But when the technology was used by people with high social capital, high cultural values, and people with low cultural values, the difference was very profound. So what are some of these differences? In the 20th century, first off the 20th century, a fantastic sociologist, by the name of Joseph Daniel Anwen, un win Anwen, studied at different tribes, and six established civilizations. And he studied it through 5000 years of history. And he showed that there was this irrefutable correlation between the cultural achievement of a people and the sexual restraint that they observed in their society. Do you hear what I just said, this is huge. This is such important information. And the beauty of it is that you don't need Joseph Daniel on one, you can actually just look around you, whatever country in the world you look at, you will see that in societies in your country, societies that are big on marriage, big on monogamous marriage on traditional, loyal, reliable, durable, long lasting marriages. Those people do better than people who act and live in a sexually concupiscent manner. That was that was the life work of Joseph Daniel Anwen. And the name of his book was Sex and Culture. And it's like 600 pages or something. And Anwen writes in it. It's a remarkable book he entered, he writes that he would have needed to have written another six or seven books of the same size, to capture everything he discovered during his work. But the most important finding was just this, that that number one, and nation for one reason or another, we'll look at the reasons one reason or another nation establishes a tradition of cultural sexual restraint. People don't just run around and sleep with whoever they want to sleep with. There is a formal structure and it's marriage. Those societies become effective civilizations, the ones that just have a licentious lifestyle. They never, ever create any wealth at all. Hello, do you see it? It's pretty amazing.
Daniel Lapin
And then he goes on to write by the way, he also says that later on once the nation that is that was built up on discipline and restraint. Once it becomes prosperous, it inevitably becomes very sexually unrestrained, it acquires a liberal sexual morality, and thereby it begins to lose its cohesion and its structure and its fuel and its impetus and its purpose. And when that happens, it's all over. That's why I say that Western countries like the United States are in very dire straits at the moment. Because having any you know you think about a think about the Christian religious for strain there was part of American society. And you see now he's right, that was associated with what built up the unprecedented American prosperity. Having achieved that state of prosperity, we hit the 60s. And all of a sudden, we start reversing our position on sexual morality. Who would have thought that who and how you sleep with people impacts the wealth of your society? Who would have thought? Well, Joseph, Daniel Anwen, would have thought. And sure enough, that is exactly what happened. His actual words. And let me quote you from the book here. In the past, the greatest energy has been displayed only by those societies who have reduced their sexual opportunity to a minimum by the adoption of absolute monogamy. That's right. That was that was England. At the time of the Industrial Revolution, sure. It was a ---and people Victorian prudishness or in America, they say, it was the original pilgrims and their Christian views, and they were all closed up on sexual matters. No, they weren't. But they were restrained. And society's successful societies are those that are restrained, I would have to say, based on some of the things that have become apparent about Gaza in the last few months, sexual restraint, perhaps could use a little work.
Daniel Lapin
I have a very dear friend, who as a young man, was a student at Harvard University, which in those days, was actually a good university. And I remember him telling me that he used to have a professor called Edward Banfield. And he told me, you've got to read Edward Banfield book, the UN heavenly city. And because I respected this friend of mine, and still do so much, he I absolutely did. And I was so taken up with it. I also read Edward Banfield book called The moral basis of a backward society. And it's, it's, it's kind of interesting, because what he does is he looks at Southern Italy, where economic development is very, very, unexciting, there's not much happening there. Northern Italy, quite different. And I've spoken about the difference. But Edward Banfield looks at South Italy. And he says, The reason there's been no economic growth there is because of the excessive sense of the people in South Italy have narrow self interest, who don't trust anyone outside their family, like what I was just explaining. And in his book, The moral basis of a backward society, and again, right, this society is backward, not because they don't have capital, not because I don't have information, the site is is is backward, because of moral reasons, cultural reasons. And so he visits Southern Italy, and he, he comes up, you know, makes up a name of a region, he doesn't want to sort of speak about good people. And he says, Look, it's a self interested family centric society, which sacrifices public good for the sake of nepotism. And the immediate family. And, and so he speaks about that. And I was very struck because Susan, and I have a number of friends in the Amish and Mennonite communities of Pennsylvania and elsewhere. And one of the things we love is that whenever a if a storm blows down somebody's barn, like within a day, like 5060 Guys from the neighborhood show up, and they rebuild the barn down there it is finished. You know, the women provide lunch and meals and, and food during the, and then like a day or two later, it's all repaired, but the community, it's not just immediate family, there is a community and that is so very important. You got to care about a larger group. You know, as I said, it's, you know, becoming an Englishman, becoming an American. You know, I'm not just part of the Jones clan. I'm an American and that was very important. And in the poverty stricken pockets of the United Kingdom and the United States, you will find that that is very absent. And so that's, that's exactly what what Banfield speaks about. And it's just interesting for me as all these pieces started coming together helping me understand that that there was a time in England, excuse me, there was a time in Italy, in the 1600s, when, you know, Venice was one of the most important cities in the world. And there you have the city states, and their people were willing to invest in social capital. And there was a sense of trust that developed over a long period of time. And somehow, for reasons I don't understand and don't know about, it sort of declined and went away to the point where, in southern Italy today, as Banfield says, There is no wealth generation, there's no wealth creation, it just isn't working there at all. And that's something that, that I find very interesting. There's a book, also I've, I've quoted from it in my writing, and also on the show, called the wealth and poverty of nations. And it's written by a guy called David Landis, I often quote from the book. And the point of his book is exactly the same thing. And that is that some countries have thriving economies, and some don't. And it is cultural factors, more than anything else are the people do the people have. And here we're getting down some of the values some of the cultural characteristics that make for the creation of wealth, whether it's a country or whether it's you in your neighborhood, your society, your family, Thrift, careful with money, devoted to hard work, find hard work, exhilarating.
Daniel Lapin
And again, back to my friends, in the Amish communities in the Mennonite communities, you'll find guys in their 80s, you know, swinging a hammer every day going to their jobs in their 80s. They're not interested in retiring, because they find work meaningful. And work can be meaningful. Values like honesty, integrity, tenacity, you willing to stick with something even when it gets hard. These are important cultural values, cultural, cultural factors that make all the difference. And whether it's Max Weber or David Landis in the wealth, and poverty of nations, everybody who's thought about this is forced to this conclusion, mainly because there is no other explanation that makes any sense at all. It's a very big thing, by the way, it's really, it's worth thinking about. Because there is an entire class of intellectuals who are obsessed with the material. Everything is physical, everything is material. Everything is evolutionary biology, everything we do is because our ancestors, the baboons were hunter gatherer you can, you can get tired, the stuff gets boring really quickly. They wrong. It's not how it works. And this is a much more accurate depiction of reality. So these, these cultural values that I'm talking about, trust, integrity, belief in the importance of you're doing an effort, it's not what society is going to do for me, it's not what the government is going to give me. It's my individual effort. And I have trust among a circle of people. And, and there's also a sexual morality, I'm not dissipating my energies in licentious and concupiscent way. And these these values, really create higher GDPs in societies that practice them. So we've got to realize that you got to get rid of the idea that modern technology by itself can turn around an economy and create a prosperous society. All that economic information, all that more mathematical information can advance the standard of living within a population. No, that's not how it works. It's a process of developing a spiritual set of conditions and mindset, with values and habits that up Part of it. That's it's absolutely essential.
Daniel Lapin
Formal education contributes very little to this certainly not at a GIC, a government indoctrination camp, formerly known as public schools, no, you're not going to get any of us there. As a matter of fact, they meticulously and diligently stripped it out, starting in the 60s. skills alone isn't going to do it. This is the huge paradox. And it's a shock to weather economists or anybody else to suddenly discover that it's not as if this can be externally imposed. It's not as if it can be brought in by the the World Bank, or the International Monetary Fund can parachute into a primitive society and turn them into a modern vibrant functioning economy. No, that's not how it works. Cultural change has to precede everything. And, you know, this, of course, is not, I mean, you can see why they don't like this information, right? I'm not expecting to get lots of people enthusiastic about what I'm saying, because it's a little bit disappointing, because it means that less developed parts of the world are not going to be able to be suddenly boosted into 21st century American, or European productivity. That's just even European and American productivity, because of the decline of these cultural values. So palpably invisibly? Well, it's it's all going down, because wealth is tied to culture. So these are obviously really important things, but not popular. Whenever you listen to politicians speak about, oh, you know, we're going to improve economic prospects, we're going to make things better. What they all talk about is education. That all we get, all we need is education. And while obviously improved education for people, is it called hurt? The fact is that everyone recognizes not politicians. But people have researched this and looked into it, they realize, you know, and you even though you're not a researcher, and you haven't studied this, all you have to look at is the result of American GIC. Look at the children coming out of public schools in America today. Are they people you can hire in your company? Are they people ready to work? No. At the very best, even if the GIC succeeded, which most of them are not doing in teaching, reading, writing, and arithmetic, for heaven's sake, at a bare minimum. They all know about diversity and equity and inclusion. But even assuming for the moment that you can get a 17 year old coming out with reading, writing and arithmetic skills, even if you could, they still don't have the cultural characteristics of grit, determination, resilience, a love of work, a desire to please the customer. These are huge problems. How do we manage it? You remember, I was just talking a few minutes ago about how sending the machinery and the technical training to India did not ever allow Indian mill workers to be anywhere near as productive as the British mills were. And the resulting conclusion was that obviously, it's a cultural problem there. Interestingly enough, in the 1930s. By the 1930s, before World War Two, Japan was massively out producing India on fabric production, because fabric production had moved to Japan, and they had acquired machines originally from England. And they were weaving wool. Again, much of it had to be imported, right. There's not a lot in the way of natural resources in Japan. But Japan was dramatically at producing Indian Mills again, you know, the, the reason, right? Japanese people had incredible discipline still do, I think. And so part of the cultural values of Japan are discipline. And by the way, also sexual control. You don't find a lot of rapes on the streets of Japan. You really don't. There are other places in the world where you do find rapes. Would you be shocked to hear that those are places that are economically impoverished? Well, if you've heard and understood the wisdom of Joseph Daniel Anwen. You won't be surprised at all.
Daniel Lapin
And so people are realizing now that not everybody but you happy warriors understand that for economic growth to happen, it takes much more than investment capital, much more than information much more than the latest technology. And even even more than dependable political and economic institutions like governments, judiciaries, all of those things, obviously helpful. But there's a critical absent factor, and that is culture. The cultural values that bring about financial success are absolutely critical. What are they sexual self regulation, deferment of gratification, identification with a group beyond the nuclear family, self regulation of honesty and integrity, a desire to serve and help other people. A bottom up not a top down mentality, that the really important things are happening in the families of the society, the most important thing going on is not going on in cap on Capitol Hill or in Whitehall, it's going on in your family, in your five F's, what you are building yourself, that's where it's happening. And so this is why it's so important. That while you're focusing on your family, and your faith, and your your finances, and your friendships and your fitness, faith is a critical part of that as well. And that doesn't just mean fat don't just mean belief in God. Faith is all the spiritual realities, all the if you like cultural characteristics and spiritual traits, that you have to implant in yourself and help your spouse and your children. So is that your basic little subgroup your family can prosper, and how you can then spread that and evangelize the ideas to those around you become part of a group of like minded people, trade among yourselves. I was once called in to defend a group in, in the south of the United States of America, they were being accused of being anti semitic, because they had created a Christian Yellow Pages. It's a fantastic idea, a yellow pages in a neighborhood. This was in if I remember correctly, I think it was South Carolina. But I'm not 100% Sure it was a few years ago. And they've created they got together got a whole lot of people in different occupations. And they put together a yellow pages. So if you needed hardware, why not patronize a fellow Christian? Why not patronize somebody in your community of like minded people? Wonderful, wonderful idea. Very good. And you should, by all means do it. If you are helping to build a community of like minded people, by all means, make sure you all know what one another does. So you can you can trade among yourselves very important. Anyway, they were accused by the anti Defamation League and the local reformed rabbi of being anti semitic, because they didn't allow Jews into that yellow pages. If you can believe such a thing. And so I went down there to
Daniel Lapin
testify that there's nothing anti semitic about that at all. And that's exactly by the way, our organization that I work for, called the American Alliance of Jews and Christians is exactly what we do. That's, that is part of what's so important. How did I solve it? By the way, I simply showed them that in Brooklyn, New York, there is a similar organization of religious Jews who publish their own Yellow Pages. Yes, there's nothing wrong with it at all. It's not exclusionary at all. It's to enable you to expand your circle of trust, because that enables you to trade and trade, produces wealth exchange, doing things for others, letting them do things for you buying things rather selling things to others, all of that huge ly significant. And so, turning Gaza into Monaco, turning Gaza into Malta, turning Gaza into Dubai, turning it into a paradise of economic proximate productivity and tourism tranquillity. Yeah, you can stop sending money, UNRWA, United Nations. That's not going to Do it, we've already established that. It's got to be a change of culture. That's all change, a culture changes everything. Accepting, it's much easier to send $1 than it is to change your culture. But why waste the money when it's not going to achieve anything without cultural change? Change the culture and everything else changes. Dubai, can you believe Dubai has kosher restaurants. If I wanted to, I could go and spend Passover in Dubai, and have all my needs taken care of. That's a Muslim country. That's right. But it's a Muslim country that has adopted the cultural values of wealth creation. And because these are so tied to God's statement in chapter two of Genesis, not good for man to be alone, you won't be shocked to hear that behavior that brings people together produces economic wealth, and the behavior that produces economic wealth tends to bring people together. What's not to like, in a system such as that.
Daniel Lapin
And so dear friends, are happy warriors all we come to the end of a longer show than normal today, but I think you'll agree an important run, please, please tell me if you feel it was worthwhile. If you want to make sure that I do not do any more long shows, and I keep a much shorter form, please let me know I do want to hear from you. Make sure you become a happy warrior. If you're not yet, that's a way of expanding your circle of trust. It's a way of becoming community associated with like minded people. So just go to Rabbi Daniel Lapin.com. And sign up, become a happy warrior, join our community. And that way, you can be encouraged and help other people. And just as importantly, you can encourage and help others. It's all how community works. That's exactly what I've been talking about in today's show. And again, a reminder, the Seder set, how to do a Passover experience, and liberate yourself from the tyranny of economic slavery. All of that, yes, and we are expanded, we're extending, I already checked, we extending the sale. So the special sale price will be applicable. Even after Monday, April 7, for another week, I believe. Scrolling through Scripture, you can get that and get a free set of photo books, you will enjoy that. And also get a free lesson. You can also by the way, get a free ebook, the Taste of The Holistic You all of that at the website, you excuse me, Rabbi Daniel lapin.com, Rabbi Daniel lapin.com. And see all of those things right there. So sorry, if it's been a little bit of a longer show and being hard to listen to, I hope not. But at any rate, you can let me know. Until next week, everybody, I want to wish you a week of real progress. Obviously in your fitness, your health, your finances, your family, your friendships, expand those friendships and with a focus on spiritual values, your faith as well. So until next week, I'm Rabbi Daniel Lapin. God bless you.
