Original subtitles

[man 1] All right. Arthur interview, take one.

[clapperboard clicks]

[interviewer] What do you think?

Like, how do you see yourself?

How do you see the ideas that you're...

something passionate about?

Uh, what is your story?

[tranquil music]

[crowd applauding]

[Arthur] Americans are looking for a new way forward.

Our country is more divided than it's been in years.

And we're leaving too many of our brothers and sisters behind.

People have lost trust in our political leaders

to solve these problems.

They don't think that conservatives actually care about the poor.

And frankly, liberal solutions aren't working either.

[Arthur] My name is Arthur Brooks.

I've spent the last 20 years as a professor

and head of a think tank in Washington D.C.

Working to improve public policy for human welfare.

But, this is pretty far from where I started out.

[presenter] What's this former professor of the French horn,

yes, the French horn, up to?

And how did he reach the top

of the conservative pecking order in Washington?

Arthur Brooks.

-Sir! -[crowd cheers]

[Arthur] I do research.

I travel around the world.

I get to meet with all different kinds of people.

[indistinct chatter]

[Arthur] I'm trying to learn about the best systems

for helping people improve their lives.

[Arthur] Thank you, Mr. President.

It's an honor to be here and with all of you.

The reason I came into the free enterprise movement

many years ago,

is because poverty is the thing I care about the most.

[Arthur] From 1970 until today,

the percentage of the world's population living at starvation's door

has decreased by 80 percent.

Two billion people have been pulled out of starvation level poverty.

What did that?

What did that? That was my... vision quest.

To figure out what did that.

I wanted the best answer from mainstream economists

left, right, and center.

[Arthur] I don't claim to have all the answers,

but the answers that I found have truly changed my life.

And I believe it is these same answers

that can help to lift up all Americans

and bring us back together as a country.

The point of the American experience is basically a moral consensus

that our society should push opportunity to the people who need it the most.

[Arthur] This is our pursuit,

and it's predicated on two fundamental moral principles.

Human dignity and human potential.

I wanna be a warrior for dignity and potential.

That's what it comes down to.

[upbeat music]

[Arthur] It's 1983,

I'm 19 years old,

and I've just dropped out of college.

I knew I was gonna be a professional French horn player.

What's that? Is that even a job?

[chuckles] It's a thing, it turns out.

I'm on tour in India with my brass quintet.

We're in a pretty questionable airplane

on our way to Calcutta.

And I'm excited,

because this is the first time I've really been out on my own.

We're 30,000 feet above the ground

when the pilot comes over the intercom and says,

what you never want to hear, which is,

"We have a problem, we need to land. Right now."

And so we did, we landed in a city called Chennai.

And we had a stopover that lasted for several days.

I was in a hotel at the edge of a slum.

Then wake up the next morning.

And I start walking around the slum.

And I had never seen anything like it.

I saw poverty like I've never seen before.

I saw starving kids and lepers.

And beggars everyplace.

How could we in America have so much

when other people in the same world had so little?

These are questions that haunted me for years.

[Hindol] Some in the West, uh, have this romantic notion that,

somehow, by poverty,

our souls are getting, you know, burnished

into the radiant light of God or some strange thing like that.

It isn't.

We hate being poor.

In 1947, India won independence from Britain.

The tragedy is that between 1947 and 1991,

it remained incredibly poor.

[Sadanand] When Mother Teresa was in her heyday,

India was essentially a byword for poverty.

If you thought of a part of the world

that was best known for being crowded,

dirty, and incredibly poor,

it was probably for many people, India.

[man reciting salah]

[Arthur] When I first visited,

one of the poorest places in India was a slum in Mumbai

called Dharavi.

[Krishna] Hey, look at this guy here.

[Arthur laughs]

[Krishna] He had a shaving yesterday. [grunts]

-He's... he had a shave yesterday. -[Arthur] Really?

-Because he was hot. -[Arthur chuckles]

[Arthur] I've returned to India many times over the years

since my first visit.

Along the way, I met Krishna.

He's this guy who grew up in poverty

in a little village outside of Bangalore.

[Krishna] In Western world, they think slum...

Their idea is poor people or beggars, right?

It's not. It's not true.

[Krishna speaking in Hindi]

[Arthur] Hello.

Even that comes in different sizes,

-see the big ones. -[Arthur] Yeah.

See, their painting. This is like...

-Diwali is like very busy season for them. -[Arthur] Yeah.

And also a lot of this stuff, exported.

[Krishna] Seeing Dharavi, I'm sure, nobody begs, right?

I mean, because they're all living their own dignity and pride.

[Arthur] When you go to Dharavi, you see...

a lot.

It's hugely overstimulating.

Intense smells, unbelievable heat,

incredible noise, tons of people.

It has one of the highest population densities

of any area in the world.

This is still one of the poorest urban areas in India.

And to most American eyes, the progress here is not obvious.

But look closer.

In Dharavi and places like it throughout the country,

there's been a rise in living standards

like I have never seen in my life,

or I couldn't have been able to imagine.

[Krishna] When we were children, we didn't have any proper food to eat.

-We were many kids. -[Arthur] How many?

-We are eight kids -[Arthur] Oh, yeah?

Uh...

I remember my dad when, uh, he used to eat...

he used to eat half meal and then half he used to give us

and say, "You guys share it."

[Arthur] See, in the West,

we, we sort of think there hasn't been progress.

We think that poverty in the developing world is hopeless.

Nothing can be done.

What I didn't realize in my early visits to India,

is that the country had become a battleground

in the 20th-century philosophical war

between capitalism and socialism.

And India, for decades, had chosen the latter.

In India, we had democratic socialism.

And everything, of course, was owned by the state.

All the companies were owned by the state.

[Sadanand] This belief in planning,

this belief in the all-knowing bureaucrat.

Uh, as opposed to, what?

The way that people can make their own decisions?

Uh, people know best for themselves.

So for instance, licensing.

Bureaucrats sitting in Delhi could decide,

make production decisions for a firm thousands of miles away.

That can only benefit a very tiny section of the population.

The opposing ideology seemed to promote chaos.

Set people free. [chuckles]

Let people decide what they're going to do with their talent

and their, and their time and their treasure.

And then, they will spontaneously organize in a way that creates the most wealth.

These were the ideas that were at war with each other

for years, decades, as a matter of fact.

And, and most smart people didn't know which was the right approach.

Well, we found out.

[Tom] Good evening, everyone.

From the west side of the Berlin Wall to Brandenburg Gate, I'm Tom Brokaw.

Brandenburg Gate, of course, is in East Berlin.

And the sound that you hear

and what you're seeing tonight, aren't hammers and sickles,

but hammers and chisels

that young people take down this wall,

bit by bit.

[Arthur] With the fall of the Soviet Union,

countries all over the world began to adopt

the core elements of capitalism.

Globalization,

free trade

private property rights,

the rule of law,

and entrepreneurial competition.

The results of all this have been nothing short of miraculous.

[Jagdish] We completely reversed our policies in India in '91 in a big way.

It was a closed system, no competition.

The industry was highly inefficient.

In all areas, we permitted more competition.

Competition is what helps you to improve outcomes.

[reporter 1] The World Bank forecasts India

to be the world's fastest-growing economy in 2016.

[reporter 2] It means India's growth has overtaken

that of fellow Asian giant, China.

[Hindol] You know, today, India is celebrated as this rising economy.

Where has this rising economy come from?

Did it just mushroom out of the blue one day?

No. It happened after 25 years of the economy growing

because of liberalization.

Because we opened the markets.

[Hindol] We were a closed market.

We were a statist economy.

We broke free of all that.

And we sent the companies and our entrepreneurial energies free.

[Krishna] You walk in the narrow, small lanes of Dharavi,

you hear the sound of machineries.

[whirring]

So that's what made me to say, "We have to show this."

[Krishna] Because it's changed my mindset towards Dharavi.

We have garment industries, everything.

More than 10,000 small scale industries.

That is... it's not a slum, it's a, it's a hub of industries.

[Krishna] Like you see the small place here, right?

See, something is set up there.

And all this street you will see,

every inch is used,

-every inch is... -Nothing goes to waste.

There is something... Yeah, nothing is wasted.

But everything is for entrepreneurship.

-Exactly, exactly! -[Arthur chuckles]

[indistinct chatter]

[speaking Hindi]

He's saying, "See, look at my shop," you know.

-[Arthur] Ah, yeah. -[Krishna] See? He is trying to sell me.

-[Arthur] Yeah, yeah. -Look, an entrepreneur. See?

-[laughing] -He said, "Buy something from my shop."

[Krishna] So that's what makes...

this place amazing.

[Arthur] Today, for the first time in its history,

India has a growing middle class.

Even in some of the poorest parts of the country,

there's a sense of progress.

[Hindol] Capitalism allows human beings

to choose an action to fulfill their own destiny.

If it had not been for liberalization,

people in Dharavi, many people in Dharavi...

would never have the opportunities that they have today.

[Hindol] Forget per capita GDP,

we didn't even have per capita hope.

And the markets have given us per capita hope.

[light music]

[Meenakshi in Hindi] Educated or not,

the residents of Dharavi work hard

and have their four square meals.

To run this business,

I sell the potteries worth 10 rupees for 7 rupees. Why is that?

It's because, initially,

when I started my business... [laughs]

...there was hardly any money with me.

Now, I take care of my kids' studies and the household expenses.

All I want is to educate both my sons.

If they study well and get good jobs, my fortune will revive.

Otherwise, nothing's going to change.

[Krishna] You know, we have a saying,

uh, "If you make your hand dirty,

you will get the curd to eat."

You understand? Because you do your work, you know?

You don't say it's dirty, you know?

[Hindol] I, I don't argue that the markets are always perfect.

What is ever always perfect?

But for the poor people, those people living in Dharavi,

they're proud of it.

They're building their lives.

[Sadanand] If you look at the impact on poverty,

the basic trajectory of the country has changed.

If India had not adopted economic reforms,

there would be 375 million poor people more

in the country today.

And next to China,

this has been the greatest eradication of human poverty,

uh, on the planet.

[Arthur] The progress in India over the past decades

has been extraordinary.

It turns conventional wisdom on its head.

Things are not getting worse.

They're getting better.

[Arthur] And India's not alone.

Since 1970,

the percentage of the world's population living extreme poverty,

on one dollar a day or less

has declined by 80 percent.

Two billion people around the world

have lifted themselves out of extreme poverty.

Infant mortality has fallen by 60 percent.

Literacy around the world continues to increase

year after year.

And the people who have benefited the most from this

is not the rich.

It's those at the very bottom of the economic ladder.

[ship horn honking]

[tranquil music]

[Arthur] When you go to a place like Dharavi,

and you have a sense of American history,

one of the things that you notice

is that the circumstances are very different,

because Dharavi exists in the modern world.

But the level of material success and deprivation that you see

is more or less

what you would have found in New York in the 19th century.

What's the lesson from that?

The lesson is, they are us, separated by time.

[Arthur] My great grandparents emigrated from Denmark

in the early 1900s.

They were every bit as poor as the people of Dharavi.

And they picked up and moved because they thought they could,

and because they were ambitious and entrepreneurial.

They worked hard every day, bought a farm in South Dakota.

And after a generation, my family was no longer poor.

We're a nation of people who had to start from scratch.

Under our Constitution and system of free enterprise,

the American people managed to build the most successful, most innovative,

and most charitable upwardly mobile society

in all of human history.

Across the economic spectrum,

people in America generally live materially better lives

than almost anywhere else in the world.

Which is why, year after year,

people continue to come to the United States,

seeking opportunity.

The backbone of the United States

is people who believe that progress is possible.

[birds chirping]

[Marc] I didn't want to buy this truck. I wanted to buy a big ol' nice truck,

because I wanted to look cool in it, right?

My family and my grandfather were telling me,

"Hey, man. Think smart. Think, you know, economically.

You're barely starting your business. You have very little money."

They made me buy the truck.

Yeah, I told my daughter, "I'm gonna fix his truck up...

I'm gonna repaint it,

and I'm gonna give it to you."

"I don't want that truck, Dad. I want me a new...

uh, convertible or something."

You know?

I said, "No." I said, "If you can drive this one

for two years, and then I'll buy you a brand-new car.

But you've got to start out with this one."

She, she doesn't want it.

But I think I'm gonna make her have it anyway.

[Marc laughs]

[Marc] You think y'all finish 'em today?

[worker] Hoping so.

[Marc] We've gotta do 33 of them.

-[worker] Thought it was 36. -[Marc] It's 33.

-[worker] Thirty-three? You recounted 'em? -[Marc] Yeah, it's 33.

[Marc] So I was living a, a negative lifestyle.

Just kind of stopped caring, hanging around back with my old friends,

got involved with the gang more deeply again.

Well, I would smuggle drugs,

and bring them from Mexico over here and then I would sell 'em.

And then it got to a point in my life

where I didn't abandon my daughter,

but I had to leave her because of my mistakes.

I went to prison.

And, and it destroyed me...

for a long time.

[sighs deeply]

[Marc] I knew that I had to make a change somehow.

I knew that I couldn't come out that same person.

I didn't have anything.

And the only thing I had was, was to motivate myself,

and to build something from nothing, which we have.

[Marc] Me and my brother, we've started this business

with two shovels and a wheelbarrow.

I started this from the ground up.

I learned from the bottom, all the way from the bottom,

from digging ditches, to setting the farm, to carpentry work.

I've been there. I know what it is to bend over,

grab the shovel, dig, sweat for hours,

work when you don't wanna work.

Whatever we've gotta do, however hard we got to work

to get the American Dream, honestly,

then that's what we're gonna do, you know?

[Arthur] The American free enterprise system

is our gift to the world.

And is the secret for all of us to...

to pull up the least fortunate,

most marginalized members in our own societies.

And to share those values with people all around the world.

[calm music]

Oh, man.

[Arthur] When I was a kid, I knew for sure,

where my vote came down.

[chuckles]

I was all about art music. That's all I wanted to do.

So I painted every day with my mom after school,

and then I... when I was four, I started violin.

When I was five, I started piano.

When I was nine, I started the French horn.

And that's the one that really captured my imagination.

So I was really good at it.

Oh, yeah.

[chuckles] Oh, yeah.

[Arthur] When I was 25, I moved to Barcelona.

I ended up taking a job in the Barcelona orchestra.

Actually, I didn't move there because of the orchestra,

I went there because I was chasing a girl.

This is exactly, exactly the same.

[Arthur] When I came here, I didn't even know the language.

[laughing]

[Arthur] Somehow, I convinced her to marry me.

Oh, man.

[Arthur] That was 27 years ago when we got married.

-You remember this? -[Ester] Mm-hm, yep.

[Arthur] You know, it actually looks smaller.

[Ester] It does look small.

It looks smaller. It's like there were...

thousands more people in here that could fit in here.

[chuckles]

[Ester] You've been in the States too long.

-I know, I know, I know. -[Ester chuckles]

[Arthur] Barcelona is the most hard read place in Spain.

And Spain is a pretty left-wing country.

So, she's got this family that...

that she'd been hearing since she was a kid.

[Ester in Spanish] We put the anchovies on the table, right?

-[Arthur] Yes. -[Ester] Or did you eat them all?

-[Arthur] It's okay. -[Ester] Okay.

[background chatter]

[Ester] I didn't like Americans.

I thought America was imperialistic,

materialistic, capitalistic society.

I hated it. Like everybody else around me.

So... But I meet this American guy and traveled there with him a few times.

I said, "Wait, this is not like I thought, right?"

I learned English and I changed because of him.

He showed me that Americans were okay.

[Ester in Spanish] We were like everyone else here.

-Right? We were like everyone else. -[old woman] Yes.

-But with-- -No.

-The Arthur here, a person... -No, no.

Not Arthur. Arthur said the people change.

The factor changes.

No, but I was an idiot.

-Yes, but no. -There are different kinds of idiot.

-There are different kinds of idiot. -I have a picture of you.

-There are different kinds of idiot. -[laughing]

[in Spanish] I remember when I came here to live,

it was different compared to now.

Here, I see the change.

I came here in the year '89, right?

Then married after.

And it was the post-Franco era.

But I come now and it is amazing.

It's just that a lot of people, a lot of those,

I don’t know how many shops had to close.

[woman 1 speaking Spanish]

Because during Franco’s government there was more middle class.

-[Arthur] Okay, then. -Mm.

[man] When there was more...

And if Franco did something, and he did a lot of things,

it was creating a middle class that has almost disappeared nowadays.

[Arthur in Spanish] Yes, it's that.

That every time you come here, change is worse.

-Do you believe that? -[Ester in Spanish] I do.

Its promises...

[Arthur] I go back to Barcelona all the time.

And just like in the US,

people are convinced that the system is failing them.

[man shouting on PA]

[in Spanish] [man 3] Yes, we can!

[crowd] Documents and contract!

[man 3] Yes, we can!

[crowd] Documents and contract!

[Arthur] In Spain, there's a movement called 15-M,

which means the 15th of March.

Which was the day that,

sort of the Spanish Occupy movement got kicked off.

[crowd chanting]

[Arthur] It's pretty hard to find people in Barcelona

who are not on the hard left.

What I wanted to do was to actually interview them

and ask them their views of free enterprise.

And of what American ideas are doing in the world.

[man 3 in Spanish] Good evening.

[man 4 in Spanish] I’m a full anti-capitalist.

I’m shameless.

[Arthur] Capitalism gets a pretty bad rep.

And the reason is because ordinary, good-hearted people

look around and they see exploitation...

which exists, and they see discrimination, which exists,

and they see environmental degradation, which exists.

They see a system that kind of holds people down

and takes their stuff.

They see fat cats,

who have a special deal into the government.

I say, "No, no, no, that's not capitalism."

[chuckles]

That's cronyism.

That's wired deals.

That's the antithesis of what a free society is all about.

I like to think that I understand other people's point of view,

but I don't always.

I have to remember

that people have different experiences than I have.

Which is animating them to hold a different point of view.

[in Spanish] What we have to consider

is the system we want to transform.

We wanted to welcome you

and make a symbolic action with all of you.

I don't mind

if there's very rich people,

if there isn't very poor people.

Yeah, yeah.

-The problem is inequality. -Yeah, yeah.

-Not accumulation per se. -Yeah, yeah.

Wealth and poverty aren't marked

-by having much or less money... -Yeah, yeah.

but by someone very rich living next to someone very poor.

[in Spanish] Yes, but do you think someone

could or should be able

-to set up a business? -Absolutely.

So you are okay with this part of capitalism.

This is not capitalism.

-That's... -Anyone can set up their own business.

[crowd cheering, applauding]

[Arthur] Juanma is a smart guy. [snickers]

[Arthur] One of his big causes is what he calls anti-capitalism.

I'm thinking, "You're not anti-capitalist,

you're anti some idea of capitalism

that exists in the ether."

[Arthur speaking Spanish]

-[speaking Spanish] -Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

-[continues speaking Spanish] -Yeah, yeah.

[Arthur in English] I understand that ideology,

and I understand that it dies hard.

Because it's... it's very difficult

for people to get their minds around the idea that...

the best way for you to help poor people

is the very system that you thought was rigged against the poor.

[Arthur] If you worry about inequality

and say that capitalism doesn't wipe it out,

you're simply going to say,

"I am just as happy bringing the top down

as I am bringing the bottom up."

If you want to be a social justice warrior

to bring people to their highest levels of dignity and potential.

If you believe that we're all created equal,

you should be a warrior for opportunity.

[tranquil music]

[speaking Spanish]

[woman speaking Spanish]

[Arthur speaking Spanish]

[continues speaking Spanish]

[Arthur in English] I presented capitalism as the face of...

people who want to help the world.

And that's something that most people haven't heard before.

Most people in America haven't heard that.

What I've seen on NYU's campus

and what I've seen in polls all over.

Fifty-one percent of people between 18 and 29

no longer support the system of capitalism.

Capitalism is a cancer.

And it's a... it's a pathology.

It's a... it's a sickness.

[woman 2] We need to stop investing in privatization.

We need to start worrying about the 99 percent of the population.

Uh, we need to...

start investing our money into social welfare programs

and worrying about the middle to lower class,

because we are not truly a great nation

until all of us are strong and all of us are prospering.

[crowd chanting indistinctly]

[Arthur] Here's the great irony of our times.

People across the political spectrum

in the wealthiest countries in the world

are increasingly turning against the very system

that's lifted us out of poverty.

[crowd] Cuts? No way!

Make the corporations pay!

[Arthur] Even in the US, where support for socialist parties

is small compared to Europe,

support is growing quickly.

Increasing numbers of young people are leaning towards

something called democratic socialism.

[gloomy music]

How do you talk to young people about... capitalism?

So...

Pretend I don't know anything about capitalism.

How do you describe how the capitalism...

How the capital system works today?

Well, capitalism still is a system

where a... goods and services are produced for profit.

And where investment is controlled by capitalists or large shareholders

or their appointed managers.

And where workers, working people generally,

have only their labor to sell because they don't own the capital.

So the question is, is capitalism a democratic?

[Joseph] And that do working people have any voice over how they produce

what they produce?

And then the inequalities that most capital systems generate,

you know, don't they have to be redressed by some degree

of government intervention, social welfare programs.

So that... Is that the biggest problem that you see today?

Is that capitalism, as we practice in the United States,

is fundamentally undemocratic?

I'd say it's undemocratic and fundamentally,

it doesn't fill its own claim to have equality of opportunity.

[Mary] I talk to younger people.

There's a discontent

in the field in terms of how this is working.

The American Dream is always predicated on

"You work hard, you get the right grade,

you go to the right schools or get the right trade

or whatever else, you're going to make it."

And a lot of time,

it doesn't work that way.

Sometimes, it's because of, you know, life gives you a bad hand,

but sometimes, it's... as was brought up earlier,

we all don't have the same platform

of being able to have a certain chance and opportunity.

And sometimes that's because of being born

in a certain end of economic place

or have generations who are in a certain economic place.

We don't get a real voice in this country anymore.

Until unfortunately, things get to an extreme.

You know, I hear a lot of discomfort with markets

sorting out economic problems,

because either it's really undemocratic

-or... or frankly, it's just unfair. -[Mary] Mm-hm.

What countries should we be learning from, in your view?

I would look at the Scandinavian countries in terms of the social welfare state.

In terms of state regulation of the economy,

in terms of labor rights.

[Joseph] They're much more developed than our own country.

I do think one reason why younger people

would say that socialism is preferable to capitalism

and they're more enthusiastic about socialism than capitalism,

you know, 30 and under,

is that they vaguely associate socialism

with a more egalitarian and more socially mobile society.

And I think they think of Scandinavia.

[light music]

[light music continues]

[Arthur] For years, I've been looking at these surveys

that talk about happiness from different places in the world,

and they always come to the same conclusion,

that Danes are happiest.

[Arthur] A lot of people in the United States say

this is the modern Shangri-la.

We should build our own country around the principles of Danish happiness.

We should have a, a government like this.

We should have a social welfare state like this.

[Arthur] Look, my great-grandparents were Danish.

[people shrieking]

[Arthur] They left Denmark for America in search of opportunity.

Did they make the wrong call?

Would my family been better off if they had stayed?

[Mogens] No political system can make people happy.

But we had political systems that can remove a number of reasons

for them to be unhappy.

[piano playing]

[people singing in Danish]

[singing continues]

[Arthur] These were the songs that you sang when you were a child?

-[man 5] Yeah, yeah, yeah. -[Arthur] In school?

-And that's what you would want? -[man 5] Yeah.

To do it together in the morning and start the day.

-Yeah. That's the main idea to... -Uh-huh.

And go out into the day and in a... in good spirits.

[people singing in Danish]

[singing continues]

So does anybody go to church and sing these songs anymore

-or not so much? -Not so much. No.

No, because of the library is there.

-[both laugh] -[Arthur] They go to the library.

I don't know what that was.

It was singing in the library in the morning before work.

Because...

life is better when you sing in the library

in the morning before work.

[people singing in Danish]

[Arthur] It's just a not very fast-moving life.

It's, you know, spend your morning singing in the library

as opposed to going into work early.

It's take off at noon

and go to the beach and have an ice cream with your kids.

It's the intense life in life.

[Arthur] While in Copenhagen, I met up with Michael Booth,

a British expat living in Denmark.

He's a famous travel writer,

and brings a unique perspective to Danish life.

-Welcome aboard. -Thanks.

[Michael] Well, if you talk to a Dane about Denmark,

they'll always spin you the line,

"Oh, we're only five million people, we're a very small country."

But you talk to them a little bit longer,

and you discover deep down,

they believe they have created the most modern, progressive,

well-functioning, fair society in the world.

And I'm not sure you can argue with them, actually.

[Michael] The Danes are not skipping gaily down the streets

in sombreros,

but they are incredibly satisfied with what they have.

[Olav speaking Danish]

[Olav] I don't find happiness as a...

a certain thing that you are all the time.

Happiness appears in moments,

and I think there are a lot of moments in Denmark

where Danes are happy.

[hums]

So this... this month, I'm taking care of the kids in the afternoon,

but, um, in one month,

I'm very busy, and then she will take care of the kids, so...

[both speaking in Danish]

[Sophie] When our kids were born,

we talked about, "Wow, they choose the winning ticket," you know?

They were born into this system where we have everything that we need.

Everybody's happy,

no one is suffering.

-[sizzling] -[Olav speaking Danish]

[continues speaking Danish]

Omelet?

[Olav] Omelet.

[child] Ah!

[Sophie] We have a very strong welfare system

that's quite unique, I think.

[laughing]

We go to doctor sometimes, just to get checked and stuff

and that's free.

My education is free. All I have to pay is buy books.

[man 6] Is it safe to be here?

Of course, we have violence, but not that kind of violence

we hear from other part of the world.

[Michael] Danes live really well inside their little...

-They're like hobbits. -[Arthur] Right.

They like to create a nice, cozy environment.

[Christensen] We seem to value our leisure time,

and our time with our family

more than most countries in the world.

And you can say, "Why is that?"

When we pay for all the welfare benefits,

we are paying relatively high taxes.

In fact, we are paying the highest tax in the world.

[Arthur] So what do you pay in taxes?

Top rate is about 56 percent, but that's just on income tax.

Roughly, it's about 75 percent of your income

somehow ends up...

-In the government. -...with the government.

Yeah, you've got to hold on to your heart there, Arthur.

[chuckles]

[Arthur] Denmark and Scandinavia are all what's called, socialists.

And that means everything and nothing.

Uh, what we understand is socialism has become so complicated.

The ironic thing, is that Denmark and America

actually have more in common than most people realize.

[Rasmussen] I know that, uh, some people in the US,

associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism.

Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear.

Uh, Denmark is, uh, far from a socialist-planned economy.

Denmark is a market economy.

[Arthur] Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia

are wealthy modern societies

that develop through the mid-20th century,

much like the United States did,

through free market economies and small governments

with minimal social spending.

Their large welfare systems are like our own,

a relatively recent phenomenon.

[Christensen] Denmark did not start out as a welfare state.

And I don't think it's the natural state for Denmark.

In fact,

what we have spent most of the political energy

on the economic side since the early '80s

of scaling back government.

[Sophia] I don't think it's...

a socialistic utopia.

-I don't see it that way. Not at all. -No, Not at all.

-We're highly capitalistic in the market. -Yeah.

I think capitalism is all right, you know,

because, uh, you know,

I have my own company, and I think it's okay to...

give a little bit away, you know,

to people who is not feeling so good.

[people singing in Danish]

[Arthur] There are some things in Denmark that are pretty attractive.

The place definitely has its charms.

But their culture does have a downside.

[Michael] This is not a land of individuals.

It's not, right?

And if you are eccentric, or strange, or super ambitious...

uh, you're gonna struggle here.

[Michael] Danes would probably consider themselves

to be the most free people on earth.

You know, they have free democracy, freedom of speech.

But from my perspective, when I first came here,

I didn't see them as free at all, actually.

This is, as I say, a boutique country of five million people

with this special history

which some claim, goes back a thousand years to the Vikings.

[Christensen] If you look at the Danish culture,

there is a saying called Jante Law.

Jante Law is a list of, uh, commandments.

Like old testament-style commandments.

The commandments include,

"Thou shall not think thou are all better than me."

"You shouldn't think you're something."

"Thou shall not think you can teach me anything."

"Don't think you are the special one."

[Michael] Even here in cosmopolitan Copenhagen

where they might deny it,

it still applies.

[Christensen] It is a social norm that tells you to do exactly the opposite

of the American Dream.

Don't stand out.

[people singing in Danish]

[Sophie] We built up this ideal picture of how things are gonna work.

And if you don't fit into that picture, you...

Yeah. You fail.

[Arthur] People talk about the United States

as being inadequate.

And so they look to another country

and they only see the things that they want.

[Michael] I get asked a lot,

"Should America become more like Denmark?"

Like there's some kind of template

that you can just take from a country of five million people,

and take that template,

and impose it on America, on the United States of America,

with its huge population and massive diversity.

That's insane.

[Christensen] In this system, where we are all very similar,

there is also social norms

that will ensure the misuse of social benefits are smaller.

[Olav] I think you can see Denmark as one big community.

And with that, I mean, that we are one.

We are one and the same.

Globalization is a threat to Denmark.

Danes certainly see it as a threat.

You are free in Denmark, but you're free to be Danish.

[reporter 3] The Danish People's Party is celebrating

its victorious result in legislative elections

with 21 percent of the votes.

This makes the anti-immigration People's Party,

Denmark's second largest.

Described by detractors as populist or even far-right,

the DPP confirms an anti-immigration trend in the Nordic countries.

I don't like it.

I, I didn't feel good about them.

I don't like Muslims.

[interpreters voice] They can't just come here

and do whatever they want.

Like staring at girls at nightclubs and stuff.

They shouldn't be allowed to do that.

[in Danish] These people, especially young, healthy,

fit, Muslim men have been lured here,

because they want to be a part of what we have created.

We have created something.

And what has created the success of Europe?

It's mainly the ethnic, cultural, politically homogeneous

national states that have created it.

[tense music]

[Arthur] What's attractive about Denmark to a lot of Americans,

it's just not a complete picture of the country.

-[men shouting] -[metal clanking]

[Arthur] Like much of Europe,

the Scandinavians cling to an ethnic national identity,

with centuries of cultural and ethnic tradition.

There's really not a sense of that in the United States,

because we're all different.

We're all from different places.

Uh, there's not a sense of American ethnicity.

There isn't now. I hope there never is.

Hey, what it really is, the difference is this,

um, other countries are places, United States is an idea.

[Arthur] That's what makes it so strong,

but it means we can never take this for granted.

There's a rising tide of populist nationalism in America,

and that's a real threat to what makes the US exceptional.

[crowd chanting]

Made in USA!

[Arthur] I think what we're seeing right now,

is a breakdown not so much between the right and the left,

but between people who want a more closed society

and people who want a more open society.

So why is this happening?

You know when I talk to people

who are caught up in the populism of today,

the reason that they're so uncomfortable,

and it really comes down to this,

they know that too many people in their country,

maybe including them,

have been rendered superfluous by events and by currents,

by culture, by policy, and by government.

Populism comes when people are struggling to feel needed.

[tranquil music]

[Arthur] Unfortunately, there are many communities in the United States

confronting that struggle today.

[Jerry] In this area, there's not much other work here as far as...

you know, uh, well-paid jobs.

Uh, the mines was really about the only thing here

that was a really good paying job.

[somber music]

We're like a poster child for a model economy

here in eastern Kentucky.

[Todd] It's good while it's booming.

I mean, you know, you can't blame people when it's just like my parents.

You know, my dad...

I mean, why diversify when you're making a living.

[James] They didn't think about the future.

You know, but what we're gonna do if the mines ever shut down,

or you know, coal goes away.

What we're gonna do? They didn't think about that.

-They didn't expect it. -They didn't expect it, you know.

I guess we're in a mindset right now where a lot of people has...

accepted the fact that coal is, is gone.

And, and it doesn't look good for it to ever come back.

[Eric] You know, it's just...

It's... it's hit us really hard.

[somber music]

[Arthur] Eastern Kentucky and areas like it all over the United States

are facing deep economic challenges.

These are the areas that our welfare state was built to help.

[calm music]

[crowd cheering, applauding]

[Arthur] Lyndon Johnson.

He gave his great society speech

that kicked off the Great Society in the war on poverty on May 22nd, 1964.

That was one day after I was born.

The great society rests on abundance and liberty for all.

It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice.

[Arthur] This was a set of programs

dedicated to obliterating poverty and improving civil rights.

It was an ambitious set of goals

based on the radical equality of human dignity.

And I agree with every word.

[Lee] In '64, when I was a reporter for the Ashland Daily,

the paper assigned me to come and cover...

uh, uh, Lyndon Johnson's visit to Inez,

which was part of it of a day-long trip

where he had been stopping in places all over the country.

But this Inez was a place

in which he was going to launch this war on poverty.

[indistinct chatter]

[Lee] Everyone's very excited about it.

Nobody knew exactly

how we'd been chosen for this fairly dubious honor.

[Arthur] LBJ's goals were noble,

and this poor Appalachian town was hungry for the progress that he promised.

So, 50 years later, how is Inez doing?

Are these programs helping to get people back on their feet?

[James] The reason you got more poverty here

is you got the system,

giving people, well, you know, checks every month.

You know, first times of whatever.

They, they got hold of that and they don't wanna let it go.

-You know-- -[Pricie] These generations of people.

You've got generations of people who, you know...

[Pricie] And don't get me wrong. Those are good programs.

-Yeah. -They're there to help you,

but they shouldn't have...

Raise your family, then raise your family's family.

-Right. -You know, that's been abused.

And that's what you... And that's what's happened.

[James] It is happening to some of us right now.

I mean, it is. I mean, I'm not gonna deny it.

But do I want to live on that program?

Do I want the government to tell me, "Here's how you're going to live"?

No.

Financially speaking, it's been...

It's been rough. It's been hard.

As my granny would say, "You rob Peter to pay Paul."

I mean, which, which bill can I pay at this time?

You know, which one can I let go?

-I mean, and it makes it hard. -[James] Right.

[clinking]

[calm music]

[Robert] We have done well in America

at providing material well-being for people who are struggling.

With regard to what they have for their families,

their food, their housing.

And most people on the right and left view that as an achievement.

I think they should.

We don't want to live in a society,

where there are people who are destitute all across America.

[Robert] But they're not earning their own success.

They're not finding

that dignity that comes

with knowing you're taking care of yourself and your family.

And in some respects,

the programs are encouraging people to rely on government assistance,

and not rely enough on their own value.

[James] It's hard on you, I mean,

'cause you're not working and you're used to working,

and there's nothing to do, and there's no jobs out there.

I don't have the education as the younger generations got.

If I went back to school, the time I graduated,

I would be in my 50s. Who's gonna hire me?

You know, nobody's gonna hire me. 50 years old?

[Kayla] People that I've seen a lot of their self-worth...

is directly tied to their job.

And directly tied to how productive they are today.

So if you take a coal miner, a typical coal miner,

and all of a sudden, you take away his job,

in effect, you're taking away his self-worth.

[Arthur] If we want to deliver on the promises of the great society,

we have to start by admitting that the welfare state is not doing right

by struggling people in this country.

[Arthur] From the end of World War II in 1945 through to 1965,

the poverty rate declined dramatically.

But since the implementation

of the Great Society's anti-poverty programs in 1966,

our poverty rate has remained stuck at around 13 percent.

Meanwhile,

working-age male participation in the workforce

has declined significantly.

The US welfare system has not fixed our poverty problems.

But it's not for lack of trying.

Since 1966,

the US government has spent over 23 trillion dollars

on anti-poverty programs alone.

We've failed.

And it's not 'cause... It's not about the money.

That's not what I'm worried about.

I don't care about the 20 trillion dollars.

I care about the, the human lives that have been lost.

We tend to trap people in poverty

when we treat them like liabilities to manage

as opposed to assets and the human family.

Even if you look way back to FDR,

when, uh, the safety net was sort of established in...

in, uh, the height of the Great Depression,

he called welfare a narcotic, uh...

subtle destroyer of the human spirit.

Nobody says, "I want more handouts."

Everybody says, "I want more work."

[Kathryn] If you probe more deeply, what you will discover,

is that what they want more than anything else...

is to be part of America.

They want to be citizens.

They want to be contributors to society.

[Arthur] People don't want to be given things for nothing.

They aspire to earn their success.

We have to do better in our welfare systems

than what we've done before.

[Mickey] The real poverty exists,

in this community and any community in the world,

is when a, when a young man or, or, or a young woman grows up...

with no, with no...

dream.

With no desire.

That's poverty, man.

[Arthur] It's kind of amazing.

When I listen to public policy debates today,

it sounds almost as if...

Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals

can't agree on anything except this one thing.

Poor people's work is a punishment.

That's not right.

I mean, it's like what, the one thing you can agree on

is, is that, you know, the right-wingers want to punish people with work,

and, and left-wingers want to exempt people from the punishment of work.

So we either sock it to them with them or exempt them from it.

That's both wrong.

[Arthur] All work is sanctified.

All work creates value.

When we forget this,

we move beyond needing people.

And when people don't feel needed,

they lose their basic sense of dignity.

A great society is one

in which we can instantiate the greatness inside each person.

What are the greatness inside each person?

It's the... the understanding

that the root of the pursuit of happiness

is one in which each person has the dignity

to be able to earn his or her success and the potential to make it so.

[light music]

[Arthur] This is not to say that we don't need a strong safety net.

I believe we do.

But it needs to be based on the dignity of work.

[Nazerine] So nobody's gonna do the work here for you.

The staff here are here to guide, support you.

We're here to answer and to listen to you.

And we can.

But I need to tell you something.

Most of the answers...

are within yourself.

[Arthur] These men in The Doe Fund,

they're not just the unloved members of society.

They're the people that we traditionally consider to be unlovable.

They're homeless,

they're mostly drug and alcohol dependent or have been.

It's the test of our moral fiber.

The Doe Fund does miracles with these guys.

[Alexander] The principle of The Doe Fund is incredibly simple,

and that is work works,

and that the inherent value of all people exists

and needs to be unlocked.

And when you unlock it,

then that person's potential becomes limitless

just like every other American.

[Nazerine] When guys come in, it's very hard,

because someone was so deep down in the hole

that they're not really trying to hear anything.

Self-love has to come first.

When we begin to love ourselves, then we can love other people.

[Craig] We don't care where you came from.

We treat you like you're somebody,

and you can do it.

-Let's start. Let's go. -Yeah, right here.

Right here.

[Arthur] It's really unlike any homeless shelter you've ever seen.

When the guys first arrive,

they spend their first 30 days doing basic work around the facility.

[Nazerine] This is an opportunity.

And you gotta make the most of it.

And I say that, because I am one of you.

I'm up from the bottom,

I'm from one of the seats where you were.

I just... It was 22 years ago.

[Nazarene] "Hand up" is what we do here.

We're going to provide you a road map, a direction,

and then, you're gonna do all the rest of the work.

We're not gonna do the work for you.

[tranquil music]

Let's go. You should be outside already.

-You know, ten-two. -[man 7] Gotta get one back.

Got the paperwork in here.

You're telling me, you got to find that dispatch.

He's outside already.

It's good to go.

[Craig] What we do on our program is all the men you see in blue,

they go out, clean the streets seven days a week.

Rain, sleet, snow, or shine.

Let's go here. Let's go!

[man 8] Make sure your uniforms is intact.

[man 9] Come on, as a matter of fact...

[man 8] Project "Come Clean", four teams.

We clean 150 to 175 miles of street daily.

[Maury] You ask yourself,

"How did my life...

get the way it did that...

I'm homeless?"

[sighs] [Maury] Why... Why me?

I had to look at myself and tell myself that I still matter.

I'm somebody, and I can make it.

You stay on the sidewalk. I got the curve.

[indistinct dialogue]

[calm music]

-Are you doing okay? -I'm doing well.

[man 10] He looks like he's doing better than well, man.

You think so?

-I know so. -[laughs]

You're alive. You're smiling.

[Maury] My life is going on.

My life matters.

I'm somebody. I'm gonna make it.

I'm not gonna give up.

[Johnny] Hello, Craig.

Hey, Johnny. Good morning, Johnny.

Could I get some numbers from you out of Brooklyn?

[Craig] Today, I'm working here a little over 18 years.

April 21st, 1997.

That was the last day I used any sort of drug, drink, anything.

So I've been clean since.

So...

[Craig] When I got here, it was the greatest thing

that ever happened in my life.

[Craig] Done with your homework?

-[Craig's son] Yeah. -[Craig's wife] Yeah, he's finished, yeah.

[Craig] I'm married today.

I have a son who looks up to me today.

-Ready? -Oh, yeah.

You want to do the lay-up again.

Oh, you got faster.

Having a child in my life. Having my wife in my life.

-[Craig's wife] Oh, yeah. -What was that?

That's right, Z.

Three points.

Wow, it's deep.

Just talking about it, I get, like, emotional.

-[Craig] Ah, you wanna hit the swing? -[Craig's son] Yeah, yeah.

All right. Come on.

[Craig]I had to earn to become who I am today.

You know what I'm saying? I worked hard.

I continue to work hard,

because I want to earn more.

And I think it means a lot more than just...

a job or you're getting a paycheck.

[calm music]

[indistinct chatter]

[Arthur] If you earn it and you achieve it,

and it's not given to you,

but you believe it is something that's actually come from your own merit

and hard work and personal responsibility,

that will be the source of your satisfaction.

Truly,

earned success is one of the great secrets of pursuit of happiness.

[Gino] You... and then go all the way through.

Right up to there.

Then you go this way.

You work in the kitchen,

the first job you're gonna do is prepping vegetables.

You're gonna have to stand on your, on your feet all day.

[Gino] A lot of the guys we've got now,

they're young men.

They've been in the foster system.

They... No one ever cared about 'em.

No one ever said, "Listen, you can't do that."

It's... "If you want a better life, you gotta work."

And also, I...

-Button up your thing, all right? -[man 11] Oh. My bad.

Yeah, I mean, you gotta look professional.

-All right? It's not a disco. -All right.

-Okay. -Okay? Come on.

[Gino] I have many guys who transformed their lives.

I have a young man, Angel Lopez.

Had no schooling, no work history,

and now, he's an integral part of our kitchen.

[Angel] Well, to me...

It's not... this is not a job for me.

It's like, uh... school.

Here, I'm learning something new every day.

[Angel] And I take notes down.

When no one's around

or the day is slow, I'm practicing.

-Now? -Now place the cake

right in the center here. Nice.

[Angel] Whoo.

It feels good to be doing something positive.

Something fun, you know what I mean.

It's better than being out there running in the streets.

I don't have to worry about nobody...

trying to hurt me or nothing like that. You know what I mean?

[instructor] Put your hand underneath.

And that's a complete job.

Beautiful.

[light music]

I'm looking nice today, right, boy?

-Yeah. -Looking nice so far.

Me, too. Yeah?

[Angel] Yeah, you know what's crazy?

I used to, uh...

clean the streets over here.

-Oh, really? -[Angel] Yeah.

[boy 3] Oh, you don't.

[Angel] That's how you... That's how you start the program.

Being in the streets.

What keeps me motivated is these guys.

Yeah. And, I say, you know what?

When I get older,

I don't want to be in a home by myself when I get older.

Hey, buddy, can you cross the street now?

Does the stop sign say "cross"?

-You know how to pitch, right? -There's no cars coming.

But, so what? You still got to be safe. Right or wrong?

-[boy 3] We can go now. -You see, Mile?

-[Angel] Can we go now? -Yeah.

Let's go.

[Angel] It's something we love.

I'm gonna teach him how to start baking, right?

The only thing I know how to cook is French toast.

[Angel] See, I taught him how to cook French toast.

Let's get back to this graduation.

[indistinct chatter]

Some of my same old friends from my neighborhood...

walked by me one day while I was cleaning, and kicked my bucket,

and laughed at my uniform.

[Angel] But I just kept thinking...

"I'm a working man.

And I'm not going back to prison."

I wanted to get in the kitchen, into Gino's house.

Because in the kitchen, there's love.

In the kitchen,

you can do something good all day.

Every day.

And I knew that bucket was gonna get me there.

So thank you, everyone, for my first graduation.

Thank you, for my future.

Good night.

[crowd clapping, cheering]

[indistinct chatter]

[light music]

[Arthur] What we have to find is the way that people can earn their success.

The system of opportunity and free enterprise

that's lifted so many people up

is fundamentally an aspirationally-based system,

not a greed-based system.

Greed is not the basis of capitalism.

Anybody who tells you that is lying to you

or doesn't understand capitalism.

[Arthur] People bring selfishness and greed.

You can't fix the human heart by getting rid of capitalism.

But capitalism alone can't fix society, either.

Morals have to come first.

Morals are based on the sense of social solidarity.

And that comes from a sense that we, are in fact, our brother's keeper.

That comes from love.

That comes from a sense that...

that we should have love for each other all the time.

If everything works, if anything works,

it's because we're doing what we do on the basis of love in our lives.

[birds chirping]

This... this road is made for one and a quarter cars.

-So... -[chuckles]

...the cars are coming up here around blind corners passing.

[Arthur] These guys are professionals.

But then you notice that there's a burned-out hole of a car,

off the side all the way down to the bottom of the cliff.

And you think, "Yeah, it's good until it's not."

[car horn honks]

[Arthur] We're on a windy road in the Himalayan foothills in India.

We're going to Dharamsala,

which is the home of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama.

He's a... a warrior for human welfare.

He's a believer in the potential and dignity of every single person.

Free enterprise is about compassion and justice at its best.

So, therefore,

this is our stuff, too.

I had this theory when I was a kid.

That...

you get to invent your whole life.

You choose your vocation. You choose your faith.

You choose it once. I thought about it, and...

I read a lot.

And, uh, I had a mystical experience at the shrine of Guadalupe in Mexico

when I was 15, revealed to me that I was Catholic.

[Arthur] For the longest time, I wondered,

"What if I never feel it?"

Then I realized, it doesn't matter.

It's a question of your commitment to a constant search for truth

notwithstanding what you feel.

If you're not willing to practice what you believe,

well, you're never gonna do anything.

And you're never actually going to find any truth.

[engine revving]

[tranquil music]

[Arthur] I think that the suspicion that people have about capitalism

comes, because they think people like me

don't believe in morals,

and they don't believe in any regulation at all.

That's not true.

We want to treat people right.

We want to lift people up, and that's what matters the most.

Once we get that straight, then the markets can make that better.

But if we forget that first step,

everything will be ruined.

[calm music]

[Geshe] The biggest problem is, uh...

having no sensitivity to the needs of others.

Abundance is a good thing, so long as you...

uh, use it for others, not only just for yourself.

[Arthur] That's what greed really is.

It's putting yourself always ahead of other people.

I often reflect on the verse in the New Testament

that's most often misquoted.

"Money is the root of all evil."

It's a misquote of Saint Paul.

Here's the real scripture.

"For the love of money is the root of all evil."

And, and this really illuminates the problem of materialism.

It's not the existence of material things.

It's not the abundance around us.

That's great.

The problem is...

not the money, it's the love of money.

It's not the stuff.

The stuff isn't the problem.

It's the attachment to the stuff.

[Hindol] Even the Buddha was a prince.

They don't remember,

or often, they choose not to remember

that he began as a prince.

That the Buddha rose from abundance,

to detachment.

[light music]

Originally I, I have this sort of an impression of business people.

They are only concerned about profit, profit, profit.

And including exploitation.

Also, you see, it brought a lot of sorrow, education, new thinking.

It's a new way of life. Useful.

Uh, no matter what, what, what name the capitalism was,

we have to make friendship with capitalists.

[all laughing]

[Arthur] The Dalai Lama wants to collaborate with people

who think in all different ways.

We have to start by asking...

Uh, "What actually does lead each of us to lead the best life?"

[Arthur] When I first started studying the teachings of the Dalai Lama,

I learned that Tibetan Buddhists say

that there are four secrets to a happy life.

The first two are really intuitive.

Enlightenment and spirituality.

That's what we should expect.

The last two secrets to a happy life, are worldly satisfaction and wealth.

We're surprised by worldly satisfaction and wealth.

First, worldly satisfaction.

His Holiness tells us that we have to enjoy our lives.

And that comes from serving others.

The last is probably the most surprising

when his Holiness said that one of the pillars of a happy life is...

is wealth.

And I thought, "How can this be possible?"

Is this materialism?

Is this, uh, a sense that money is just a good thing?

I didn't believe it.

But then, a year or so later,

I realized that I needed to understand

what you meant by "What it is to be wealthy?"

What is a wealthy person?

Well, recently, I was spending time with a friend of mine

who is an entrepreneur in Dharavi.

And his name is Krishna Pujari.

[Arthur] Krishna and I were walking around Dharavi

for, for several hours.

And he told me something very interesting.

Krishna told me that he was wealthy.

And I looked at him by my American standards

and I said, "How can he say he's wealthy?

He's poor by American standards.

I said, "What do you mean that you're wealthy?"

And he said, "I'm wealthy because I've been able to do three things.

Build something,

earn my living,

-and serve other people." -[chuckles]

"And that's what it means to be wealthy."

And that's when I understood, finally, is what His Holiness meant

for the pillar of a happiest life, which is wealth.

You should make yourself

something useful among the seven billion human beings.

That's the real source of self-dignity and self-respect, yeah?

You remain isolated from society and jobless.

Then, actually, you're wasting.

Waste of... waste of life.

[calm music]

[Dalai Lama] Everyone wants a happy life.

They do not want suffering.

Yet, a lot of suffering.

Our own peace.

This place is filled with people who are looking for truth.

They were looking for happiness.

[Arthur] And that's what I'm looking for, too.

That's what everybody's looking for.

Money cannot provide...

uh, love.

We need love.

You are showing genuine interest,

not only in money matter,

but more wider perspective

I really, very much appreciate.

-[Dalai Lama] Thank you. -Thank you, Your Holiness.

[Dalai Lama] Each of us have the ability.

Dream something.

Change the world.

Not from profit...

from individual.

[calm music]

[Arthur] I remember looking at it when I worked here.

I remember looking up and thinking,

"Man, this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen."

Every tile, every bit of mosaic.

Look at the stained glass, modernist thing.

It's unbelievable.

All I remember thinking was,

"I hope I don't screw up this concert."

[Arthur] I'm a really lucky person.

I'm the luckiest guy I know, actually.

I've had the opportunity to live in different places,

to know all different kinds of people.

All throughout my life,

I've met people in different circumstances,

who want to come to America,

because the idea of America touches their hearts.

I was born in Spokane, Washington.

But in truth,

I'm an immigrant to America, too.

[Arthur] What you got there? There's no mouthpiece in that either.

I do, I have a mouthpiece.

Don't worry about it.

Where did you get this?

This is actually a decent instrument.

[Ester] It is.

[chuckles] I haven't played a note in 20 years.

-[Arthur] What are you doing? -Here we go.

[laughs]

[rattling]

[playing French horn]

[Arthur] I could have lived in Barcelona forever.

But she said, "No, I wanna live in the States.

I wanna see what it's like."

When we got there, she said,

"This is a country for dreamers,

for people who want to build their lives."

That had such a huge impact on me.

I mean, I was an immigrant to my own country.

And I... I felt like I'd never seen my own country before.

I'd come into my own country, um...

not knowing what to expect.

And that's what we found, opportunity.

[French horn playing]

[playing stops]

[Ester clapping]

[Arthur] Here's the thing.

I'm actually a progressive.

I have these traditionally conservative means to get universal ends.

[calm music]

[Arthur] Everybody remembers the words

to the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.

About holding certain truths.

That these truths include life,

liberty,

and the pursuit of happiness.

Why did they talk about happiness? It's interesting.

You go back and you, you read the words of Thomas Jefferson.

He was asked later,

"Why did you write about the pursuit of happiness?"

And he said that he was simply taking dictation from the American mind.

Really what he was doing

is taking dictation from the American heart.

Because this is the ethos on which the United States was built.

[Arthur] George Washington was a rich guy.

Ben Franklin had a lot of dough.

Those guys were writing these documents,

not for them and their landed gentry friends.

They were writing it for the riffraff all around them.

If you're gonna understand the American experience

as Thomas Jefferson was talking about it,

the experience written on the American Heart,

the experience my great-grandparents were seeking,

that my own wife was seeking.

Like people all over the world today,

who are Americans in their hearts whether they're here or not,

you really have to understand the pursuit of happiness.

That's not, "How do we make sure everybody's happy?"

It's, "How can we pursue our happiness as active."

Well, you know, happiness is a funny thing.

Happiness is, uh, is not something you obtain.

Happiness for me, is to...

provide happiness to other people.

Being able to do what I need to do for my son.

[in Hindi] If my kids get educated and do well,

that will make me happy.

[Arthur] I'm convinced that we can lift up the world together.

We can pull the next two billion people out of poverty.

We can give people around the world the freedom to pursue their happiness.

And in the process, come together as a country.

That's what I plan to do for the rest of my life.

To be a warrior for human dignity

and potential for all people.

I want America to live up to its true promise,

as a country of ambitious riffraff.

Pursuing happiness...

building something good and meaningful.

Earning our success...

and serving each other.

[tranquil music]