Steve Forbes
A CONVERSATION WITH...
should control the Internet. When you get to specifics, they sort of back off. And when you have the idea of the bureaucrats restricting what you can say, it depends on how you phrase these things. There’s never been a counter-battle on college campuses, but that’s changing. Brown University, of all places – the Wall Street Journal praised them the other day – made a very bold statement of policy on openness on the campus. The head of the University of Chicago is doing the same thing. I was at a university in the state of Washington a couple weeks ago called Gonzaga. A very far-left administration, but you have intrepid students who are fighting back and bringing on speakers. And so I think you’re finally beginning to get a reaction. As administrators realize, whatever their political bent, what is happening now only leads to tyranny. Most of these people, sadly, just took the path of least resistance until recently. Just giving in to these extremists. Now I think there’s finally beginning – I underline the word beginning – some pushback. Q: Steve, you’re one of the few mainstream political leaders and thought leaders in the country that seems to have a firm grasp of the role of gold in a free society and in the free markets. Have you paid much attention to the enormous gap between growth and productivity in our economy and the lack of growth in real wages? And how is that problem at all related to the paper- currency system that we have had for the past 40 years?
Princeton or at any other institution of higher learning currently? STEVE FORBES: No. I’d been on the Princeton board about 15 years ago for several years, and made the point when I left that real diversity means intellectual diversity, a battle that is going on even more today... But I still speak on campuses around the country. There are some intrepid souls there, fighting for what is right. There’s never been a counter- battle on college campuses, but that’s changing. Q: I don’t recognize college campuses anymore. There was a 2016 Gallup survey that raises a lot of questions about what’s going on campuses... Asked if colleges should have policies against slurs and other intentionally offensive language, 69% of students said yes, 27% believe they should be able to restrict expression of potentially offensive political views, and 63% of students polled wanted schools to restrict costumes that stereotype racial or ethnic groups. What in the heck is going on with this generation of people who are so terribly afraid of being offended? STEVE FORBES: Well, the professors are very liberal, “progressive” they call themselves now. And most of the students would be on center- left. But most I don’t think share – even despite that poll – the idea that government should control speech, that government
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84 March 2018
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