What Benjamin Franklin Taught Me About Money, Mistakes, and Meaning I Mark Skousen

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1:30Welcome to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci. Joining us today is Professor Mark Skousen. He is the chair of the Free Enterprise Institute at Chapman University in California. But he's an amazing author. I've read many of your books, Mark, but this new book I think could be your best one. And it's the book title, The Greatest American, Benjamin Franklin, The World's Most Versatile Genius. And of course, I read years ago your annotation of his autobiography, which I thought was also brilliant. But Mark, it's great to have you be here with us. But before we get into the book, you're a direct descendant from Ben Franklin.

2:14You look a little bit like a$100 bill. Tell us about your relationship with Ben Franklin. Yeah, there's been a longstanding tradition in our family on my mother's side. She's from Pennsylvania and that we were direct descendants, but we didn't really know exactly our genealogy until my wife and I went to Philadelphia. We discovered a a will written by the grandson of Benjamin Franklin. His name was Louis Bache through his daughter, Sally. And turned out that it was through two natural He had two natural born children Meaning illegitimate children So the Franklin tradition of having an illegitimate child continued And that's, so we're a sixth generation I'm a sixth generation grandson of Benjamin Franklin And so I've had an interest in Franklin and I'm part of the family.

3:15We meet every five years in Philadelphia. We'll be meeting next year. So it's nice to have that kind of relationship. I don't think I've inherited a lot from Franklin. We're both left-handed. We have both written, he wrote, The Poor Richard's Almanac with a bunch of one-liners. And I've done similar with The Maxim's of Wall Street. So we have interest in finance. Like him, I work for the government. But he's definitely a cut above my achievements and really a cut above almost everybody's achievements. I came up with 22 careers that he had. So he was the jack of all trades and the master of most.

4:04You know, my favorite book is actually Fart Proudly. Have you read that one? Did you read for it proudly? Yeah, I've got a copy of that. He actually did have some bawdy jokes and stuff like that. I think one of the famous lines he had is, what is it? I've got a list here. There are three friends in life, a faithful wife, an old mistress, and ready money. Right. And you're going to need ready money when you have both. Right. Amen. Amen. God bless him. So let's talk about this. Okay. He was a public servant. You describe him in the book as a cunning chameleon. We'll get into a little bit of that.

4:49He's a family man, but he was also a womanizer. He's a scientist, arguably the best self-promoter of the founding fathers. He was also a cunning political operator. And how do we reconcile all of these different facets to his personality. So there's no question that he was an extraordinary genius. I call him the world's most versatile genius because of these 22 different careers. And he was controversial. As you say, he was a self-promoter. He was an opportunist. He wanted to, he was always interested in financial dealings and becoming successful. I mean, you know, he started off dirt poor in Boston and became a wealthy man.

5:40But at the end of his life, he made a lot of changes in his life. And in fact, in the autobiography, you know, he lists all of these 12, 13 virtues that he wants to live by. And somebody came up to him and said, well, you know, you've left off humility because I don't know if you know this or not, But Dr. Franklin, you're known as a very vain, arrogant person. And so Franklin had to fight off. He had quite a few enemies, but he did make the decision to become the greatest diplomat. I mean, Ken Burns says he's America's greatest diplomat. And the reason he said that is because Franklin made a decision not to speak ill of anyone in public.

6:26like, boy, that's a hard one to do in today's world, right? Yeah, no, no question. But I see him and I'm wondering if we have anybody like him now. You know, Charlie Munger used to write about him, talk about him, you know, used to tease people, say he was a reincarnation of him and so forth. But I see him as a polymath and I see him as a statesman and I see him as a conciliary, if you will, for other founding fathers. I think for me, he's my favorite founding father, even more favored to me than George Washington because of this skill set that he had. Describe this skill set, right? He's helping to proofread and add things to the Declaration of Independence, most famously replacing the words property with the pursuit of happiness in the first paragraph.

7:21No, that was actually Thomas Jefferson who made that change. His change. Oh, my bad. I thought he made that change. No, Frank Jefferson said, we hold these truths to be not self-evident. He said sacred and undeniable. And so there's a religious overtone there. And Franklin, being a secular scientist at the time, said, scratched out with his left hand, you can see it, where he says, well, okay, it's self-evident. So this was kind of a rational scientist at work rather than a religious symbol. But actually, Franklin changed his mind at the end of his life in the Constitutional Convention. He became more religious.

8:05He said, have we not seen that God governs in the affairs of men and made it possible through a variety of miracles that we would win this independence? The longer I live, the more I know that God governs in the affairs of men. So even though he was not a churchgoer, he was considered a heretic by John Adams and many of his other friends. He actually converted to some form of a believing theist, if you will, and not necessarily Christian or churchgoing and that sort of thing, but a believer that God governed in the affairs of men. So that's, I think he would actually go back now and say, Jefferson may have been right.

8:55We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable that all men are created equal and endowed with their creator with certain inalienable rights among those life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So that pursuit of happiness is really Jeffersonian. And John Locke said property, but Jefferson said pursuit of happiness. And I think Franklin would agree with Pursuit of Happiness because he thought private property could be taxed to pay for the war and to pay for government. He was not a he was not a he was a limited government guy, very much so. Laissez faire. He was a follower of Adam Smith, but he was not a and he was certainly not an anarchist.

9:42You know, so I just got something wrong in the mythology of Franklin. And I thought he changed the word. And you're right. This is from Jefferson. But tell us some other myths that we get wrong. What's one of the things that people get wrong and don't know at all about Franklin? So Franklin, I think, changed his mind on a number of issues. One of the criticism I have in chapter 80, the final chapter is called Franklin and his critics. And that's really a fun chapter in this book, The Greatest American. So one of the things that he's criticized for is he's abandoning his wife. And what happened was he was appointed to be the London agent for like four colonies, originally Pennsylvania.

10:32So he goes over to England and he tries to get his wife to come, but she has an extreme aversion to going on the ocean. It was a risky time period. A lot of people died, and she was afraid of that. She absolutely refused to go. So they became somewhat estranged. But I don't think he abandoned his wife. I think his wife abandoned him in that respect. And they were different philosophically as well. And this is often the case in marriages where you might be an intellectual. And in case of Deborah, she was more pedestrian, interested in things at home and taking care of the household and all that sort of thing.

11:17She felt uncomfortable being among aristocrats and intellectuals and the kings and so forth. One thing that was really cool about Franklin is that he's the kind of person, you mentioned he's your favorite founding father. And I think a lot of people would feel more comfortable having lunch or a beer with Ben Franklin because he would say he had an illegitimate child and he had that errata in life that he tried to reveal. If you ask George Washington, why didn't you have any children? He would think that was inappropriate. If you ask Thomas Jefferson, well, what's your relationship with Sally Hemings, your slave?

12:01He would take great umbrage and refuse to answer that question. Franklin was very frank and willing to make those kinds of statements. He also talked about another change. He did originally own some slaves. They were servants, not a plantation like Jefferson or Franklin or like Washington. But he had several servants who were slaves. But in visiting the Negro School of Philadelphia with George Whitefield, Reverend George Whitefield, he said, I discovered to much amazement that the black kids were just as bright as the white kids. And so that was his journey And at the end of his life He was an abolitionist And was the president of the first Philadelphia society To abolish slavery So that's a big change too But he has been criticized for being a slave owner But look at the difference Between him and Jefferson and Washington Who never freed their slaves Until after they died So There's some great stories about Franklin in your book.

13:15Let's go to Franklin as the diplomat. Let's go to his contribution to the American Revolution and his influence on the French government. And how was he able to manifest that? Tell us a few stories there. Yeah. So I'm glad you brought that up because he was 70 years old after signing the Declaration of Independence and the Continental Congress said, well, who can we send to France and other countries to get them to support us financially, to loan us some money, to give us armaments. We desperately need arms and uniforms and we need generals. And Franklin did all of that. But he was 70 years old and they didn't trust him.

13:59So they sent four other commissioners, including Arthur Lee and William Lee, who were rather cantankerous. Richard Henry Lee, kind of, you know, I'm sure you're familiar with the Lee brothers. They were difficult people to deal with. They weren't necessarily diplomats. And then John Adams, and he brought his wife Abigail. And they did not get along with the French at all. Only Franklin loved the French, and the French loved him because he was a scientist. He was the most famous American in that time period. And they adored him And he came across as a rustic His skin cap and that sort of thing He was very impressive And what was interesting was that With all the contention among the commissioners Who didn't like Franklin Franklin was the only one who raised any money The millions of livres that were necessary on loan And my favorite story in that regard is the story when the Continental Congress desperately needed another 25 million livres in a loan.

15:20And this is after Franklin had already raised so much money, but he was tired of the fundraising. And he said, the French people will not want to loan any more money. We've already loaned them plenty and so forth. But nevertheless, Congress saying, no, no, you must write. And we definitely need this money. So finally, in his best diplomatic skills, he writes a letter to Verschun, the foreign minister, begging money, saying, you know, if the British win, they will dominate the world for the next hundred years. And please give us, we need a loan of 25 million livres. So he sends those letters off to Versailles, doesn't hear anything for a week, nothing.

16:07Two weeks pass, nothing. And finally, he writes a letter to Vergen and he says, what's up? Didn't you get my letter? Vergen writes back and says, come to Versailles and let's talk. So Franklin immediately gets in his carriage, takes the hour or two to get to Vergen, walks into the office to Vergen. And Bergen has this very serious look on his face. And he says, Dr. Franklin, you know, we know that you're broke. We know that you're not only, you won't even be able to pay the interest on the debt, let alone the debt. And not only that, Dr. Franklin, but we're broke too. We can't loan you any money.

16:50We don't have any money in the treasury. So I'm sorry, Dr. Franklin. we cannot loan you your 25 million livres. And then he paused and he looked straight at Dr. Franklin. He said, but because of your love of the French people and because the French people love you and the king of France, Louis XVI, loves you as well, he has decided to give you, not as a loan, but as a gift, out of his own personal account, 6 million livres. Now, Anthony, that's what we call fundraising. He was a fundraiser extraordinaire. No kidding. And I think people sometimes forget that the whole crux of history, the whole pivots in history are really born from personal relationships and are born from the ability to just imagine Churchill and Roosevelt not getting along and not having a mutuality of respect for each other, how dangerous that would have been 80, 85 years ago.

17:54But here's our man, my favorite founding father. He's securing what is necessary for the Continental Army to be back the British Army. And I think it's something people, look, we give Washington praise for his command of the Army, but you need the money and you need help from Lafayette and others to get the job done. So this is something that you bring up, which I love and adore about your book. Can you talk a little bit about his modernity? He was a modern mind before we started talking about that, before the evolution of Freud and all the other people that discuss modernity. I feel like he led them.

18:41He was 100 years or so before them. Yeah, and I just got an email from Joel Wade, who is a philosopher and a motivational speaker, and he wrote the following. Ben Franklin is the ultimate example of a generative individual. His philosophical, scientific, and political impact is still felt today, resonating throughout American culture. So that's exactly the issue that you're bringing up in writing this book. And by the way, this is not a biography of Ben Franklin. This is 80 short chapters on how to apply Franklin's views in his life and his experiences to today's issues, whether it's business, personal finance, investing.

19:32He went through two world wars Depressions, banking crises Hyperinflation of the continental currency He suffered all the things that you and I have gone through Through the booms and busts of today So the first 30 or 40 chapters is on his personal finance And how he survived And he ended up in his life saying As the years go by I want to be known when I die as I provided a useful life and didn't just die rich. So there's a lot to be said for that. But in today, if he were alive and he wanted to live two to three hundred years later, and that would be now, and he would be the first to enjoy the new technologies.

20:22He would be texting. He'd have a cell phone and HD television and streaming and all of this and AI and all that sort of thing. But he would be appalled by the size and scope of government, by the national debt, which he felt needed to be paid for and be reduced. But he's very modern in the sense of he would favor a central bank. He loved big cities, commercial life. He did not believe, as Jefferson did, that agriculture is the highest form of occupation, being a farmer and that sort of thing. No, he loved the big cities. He loved commercial life. He thought money-making was perfectly fine. Speculation, all of that sort of thing, is not a sin.

21:14Self-interest is positive. He was a very big supporter of Adam Smith and laissez-faire, but he would be appalled by the welfare state and the permanent inflation that we're suffering and that sort of thing. He was very much a free trader, by the way, you'd be interested in knowing. No nation was ever ruined by trade, he says. And while he did believe in fair trade and working up, making sure that you have an open society, very much in favor of liberal immigration, he would not be closing the borders to everybody. He would favor a melting pot that we have today, which has made America great. Great.

22:00So there's a lot of things that he would think is important that we could apply to today for sure. So, Mark, my producer and I, we prepare five words for our authors. And then we ask our authors to react to these five words, basically just called from your book. And so, you know, it's sort of a raw shot test. So if I say the word genius, you say what? A genius has to be a unique individual who does things that us ordinary people just don't do. And Franklin's calling him the most versatile genius. I mean, he's rated one of the top 100 scientists for his uniformity of electricity. He invented the terms plus and minus and battery and terms that we use on a regular basis.

23:00So he's considered one of the top 100 scientists. He's considered one of the top 100 philosophers in defense of commercial society and moneymaking. So we give him credit for that. He's considered the greatest diplomat. Ken Burns says he's America's greatest diplomat. So genius is, I think he exceeds everyone else in their genius category I mean, Elon Musk is good at three or four different things perhaps But as Franklin says, you don't want to chase two hares with one dog, right? You got into trouble by getting involved in politics So Franklin got involved in politics, investments, business, speculations, diplomacy, science.

23:54So that's a pretty incredible definition of genius, I think. I think it's very well said. What if I say revolution? You say what? Franklin became a revolutionary older in his age. revolution means a transformation of society. And there's no question that the Constitution, which Franklin was a big supporter of, he signed the Declaration of Independence. And 56 delegates signed the Declaration of Independence, but only 39 signed the Constitution because of the controversies of what was happening. Franklin was such a fan of the Constitution. He sent it to all of his friends in England and Germany and France and Italy and so forth.

24:47So he thought America was going through a revolution that would revolutionize the entire world and not just America. Let's go to the two words, founding father. Well, he was a generation older than all the founding fathers, older, 30 years older than George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or John Adams. So he was considered the wise old man who was frail physically. He suffered from the gout and the kidney stone in old age. But he was looked upon as the wise compromiser. And the older he got, the more he was willing to compromise and change his mind on things. He changed his mind on religion. He changed his mind about slavery.

25:39there were a lot of things that he would change and he used to be a loyalist and now is a revolutionary. So the, but the founding fathers together, all the historic, almost all the historians agree that they were the greatest generation. We talk about the greatest generation after World War II, but the greatest generation in our 250 years is no doubt the founding, founding fathers and their support and so forth. So, yeah, I think it's a unique group of individuals for sure. If I say the word American, you say what? He certainly believed in American exceptionalism, that America was leading the world in this revolution and this enlightenment.

26:34And in fact, Alan Greenspan, who we all know is a former Fed chairman, wrote a book, Capitalism in America. And in it, he said that Adam Smith, America symbolized Adam Smith's system of natural liberty better than any other country. And the biggest promoter of Adam Smith in America was Ben Franklin for free trade, laissez fair, limited government. He made two statements that are very American, I think. He said, a virtuous and industrious people may be cheaply governed. So cheap government, cheaper and better government is Ben Franklin and Adam Smith's slogan. His other - Well, last word. I'm going to give you the last word.

27:27The two words, ready? Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin, I've listed, of course, I'm a direct descendant, so I'm prejudiced, but I consider him the greatest American. And he was thought so by a number of historians. It's one I'm very proud of being a direct descendant, and particularly the fact that he changed his mind to a more modern view, liberal-minded, open-minded, willing to debate people in a civil manner. and is one we can look up to. So I believe my book, The Greatest American, belongs on, it should be taken down from the bookshelf and the nightstand and put on the coffee table. The Greatest American, Ben Franklin, the world's most versatile genius and see what people think.

28:15But I suspect it unifies people better than any other founding father. Well, I love your book. I love you. You and I know each other a very long time. Even before we met, Mark, I was a devout subscriber to your newsletter. Okay. I think you're an investment genius. And I bought all of those Austrian economic textbooks 30 years ago that you recommended. What's your next project, sir, before we go? Well, I'm actually not sure. It's always a tough decision on what to do. Right now, I'm just doing a book tour and spending time talking about Frankenstein. You know, it's the 250th anniversary. So one of the things I'm working on with C-SPAN is to do the four bestsellers, bestselling books in 1776.

29:08Do you know what they are? Tell me. Yeah. Common Sense by Tom Paine, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by, name slips my mind, Edward Gibbon. then The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith and last but not least Thomas Jefferson The Declaration of Independence so those are the four bestsellers that you can find in every bookstore today and so we're going to have a C-SPAN coverage with Peter Slin on those four books so that should be a lot of fun that's for the celebration of the 250th anniversary of our country well Mark Skousen the title of the book The Greatest American, Benjamin Franklin, The World's Most Versatile Genius.

29:55It's out now. And we greatly appreciate you joining us today on Open Book. Be free. Thank you. I am Anthony Scaramucci, and that was Open Book. Thank you so much for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. While you're there, please leave us a rating or review. If you want to connect with me or chat more about the discussions, it's at Scaramucci on X or Instagram. I'd love to hear from you. I'll see you back here next week.

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