Interview with Ken Schoolland (2/3): Adventures of Jonathan Gullible

Commentary edition of the book The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: a Free Market Odyssey can be downloaded at www.jonathangullible.com 

(see video at the bottom of the article).

Part 1: http://www.slobodaiprosperitet.tv/en/node/515

Part 3: http://www.slobodaiprosperitet.tv/en/node/538

Transcript of part 2:

Jadranko Brkic: From your other interviews, we know that the book the Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: a Free Market Odyssey was basically born out of a frustration to teach people some free market economics. So can you tell us more about where we are today with the book, and its progress update?

Ken Schoolland: Well, the book originated as a series of radio commentaries here in Hawaii, and I did them up in Alaska before coming back here and publishing them as a book. And it has really hit a chord in other countries, even more so than in the United States. There is interest in the United States, and there have been number of copies that have been published, but the biggest audience that has perked up for this has been internationally. Maybe you can see that I've got a lot of editions that's now been published in 45 languages. Still coming this week will be the French edition. But we've got them from all over the World, we've got Arabic, and we've got Mongolian, and Kiswahili, and across Europe. Europe has been probably the most prolific in producing books, and I have to thank Tomislav Krsmanovic in Belgrade for his help in finding people throughout the Balkans and arranging translations for the books in a Slovenian, and a, well, I can't recognize all the languages off the top but maybe you can, yea, Croatian, and maybe then, this one was a, Ljubljana, so Slovenia, first Slovenian edition. And then we did Roma edition, Gypsy language. And a Serbian, earliest of editions. And perhaps you can recognize that.

Jadranko Brkic: This is Montenegro, here it says. It's in Cyrillic. Here's a Bosnian edition.

Ken Schoolland: And my guess this maybe a, I think this is Macedonian.

Jadranko Brkic: Macedonian, right here.

Ken Schoolland: And so than we also have the Czech, Bulgarian, actually many of these languages have been published more than once.

Jadranko Brkic: Those are basically improvements in translations, or in graphics as well?

Ken Schoolland: Yea, sometimes there are graphics, but also, sometimes they are commentary editions. Because in English not only do we have the English edition the story, but we also have a commentary edition. This one was first published in the United Kingdom, in South Africa actually. But it's an English edition with commentary with every chapter of the book, no illustrations. And we now have a new Polish edition with beautiful illustrations that are now being adapted to the English, that has just been published. So I see there is a lot of appeal, we have even had it produced in plays, in Nigeria and in Slovakia. We have had a woman Susan Wells who produced a screenplay for the movie version of the book, but we haven't yet gotten off the ground with the movie. One day we will have it on the silver screen.

Jadranko Brkic: Since politicians nowadays never seem to stop amazing us with all the great new stuff that they basically annoy us with, I guess you have plenty of new inspiration coming for some additions to the book.

Ken Schoolland: Yea, there's always new ideas for new chapters. Some people say, well, what more ideas could you write about? Well, I said, there's every day in the newspapers filled with lots of stories that you could satirize. And that's the beauty of this kind of approach, satire is the greatest way of getting around the barriers. Whether it was in Farsi edition to get passed the mullahs in Iran, so that the they would allow free market talk in one of the most repressive countries in the World. Or whether it was just in schools where you have to get passed the censors before you are allowed into the classroom. So, satire has always been I think one of the best ways of talking about freedom in an un-free world. And so I have alot of hope for that.

Also, I wrote the book as a kind of an undated story of an older time. I tried not to make it seem like it's only just to this particular issue, so that people will apply the principle to any issue that comes up year after year after year. That's why this book has been somewhat timeless, it's now been 23 years that we've been doing this book. And everywhere I go people say, well, how long have you been living in Poland, you understood all of our issues. I said, well I wasn't really writing about Poland, I was writing about Hawaii, but these issues are pervasive and universal.

Jadranko Brkic: Can you tell us a little bit about some of the economic issues, some of the economic principles that the book is talking about. Like in particular the one I like is “the tall tax.” So can you tell us what that story teaches about?

Ken Schoolland: Yea, yea, right. Well, Jonathan is wondering through this street, he is kind of like the little prince in the story Little Prince or Gulliver's Travels. He's wandering through and just asks questions. And people by their really strange and bizarre behavior and answers reveal a lot about society and people's normal activity. And he runs across this guy who's walking on his knees. And he is in a lot of pain, because it's uncomfortable and it's slow, and Jonathan offers to help him up, and he says: oh no no no, I'm trying to avoid the “tall tax.” Jonathan is puzzled by this, what do you mean the tall tax? Well, in our society we decided it was unfair for some people to be taller than others. I mean there are all kinds of advantages that go by promotions and jobs and politics and marriage, and so there should be a penalty for taller people, they would be taxed more. And you can avoid this tax by walking around on your knees, and you could really get them low by crawling. And so Jonathan is essentially seeing this really strange behavior of human beings, they shape their lives to the tax code.

And you ask people almost anywhere in the World: has the tax code effected your behavior? At first they may think no, but they give it some more thought and they like yea, I bought this house, I bought this car, I did these things because of the certain tax advantages, tax breaks, and so really their lives are shaped by the tax code. Which is ironic, because if you ask people what do they think about the politicians that are making these rules, do they have high moral standards or low moral standards; I mean universally, when I ask this kind of question almost everyone says: well the politicians are scoundrels. They are dishonest, they have low moral standards. But when you put them all together into a room to make laws for the rest of us, to determine what our values should be, people seem to nod and agree with them; oh, it must be for our good, that the politicians have shaped our values through the tax code. In so many other was too, regulations are more direct, but the tax code is really subtle form of manipulation. And so that's one of the chapters in the book.

Jadranko Brkic: And we will let our viewers read the rest of it and find out what's it all about. There is a English commentary book available for free online, right?

Ken Schoolland: That's right, at the present you can view it, free download from jonathangullible.com on the page about language editions. Actually you can get a free download in about 30 different languages. I think Tomislav has provided all the Balkan languages online.

Jadranko Brkic: Yea, I think I had found it somewhere, but I think it was on a adifferent website, not on the jonathangulible website. So maybe we will link that.

Ken Schoolland: Yea, sure, really glad to do that.

Jadranko Brkic: You know, when I think about Jonathan Gullible, I'm really thinking this could have been Ayn Rand's John Galt in his youth. Was that sort of an inspiration for you?

Ken Schoolland: Well that's a good point. It's been pointed out to me before, because J.G. is Jonathan Gullible and it's John Galt. Maybe subcosciously I had that in mind.

Jadranko Brkic: How long ago did you read the book Atlas Shrugged?

Ken Schoolland: Atlas Shrugged I read in early 1970's, so I'm old, I'm 62, but yes that book made a very very profound impact on me. I'd say that Ayn Rand's philosophy of individual liberty was something that really propelled me towards acting on this kind of philosophy. Other greats, I was very much impressed by Milton Friedman, even more so by his son David Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, von Mises, all these great Austrian economists. But Ayn Rand reached out in a very passionate way through the novel, and that's what I think is going to be the effect of this book. There's a role for many different academic works, but the role of the fiction work is to reach out to people who aren't so much interested in the academic world, but are still very much interested in ideas. ….

Jadranko Brkic: Jonathan Gullible has gotten some really good reviews and some real praise, Milton Friedman?

Ken Schoolland: Ah yea, we've gotten some endorsements by Milton Friedman, I was very much appreciative of that. Also, Walter Williams, renowned free market economist from George Mason University. And Steve Forbes, Forbes magazine has endorsed the book. John Stossel, the renowned journalist in the United States and a Mark Skousen, so yea, we've gotten some very nice acknowledgments. Actually everybody that I've asked for endorsements has given it.

(End of part 2)