Transcript for Interview with Thomas Pangle on the American Founding

An Interview with Thomas Pangle on the American Founding

Chapter 1. Commerce and the Republic

Johnathan Bi: One of the most radical ideas of the American founders is that greed is good.

Thomas Pangle: The pursuit of happiness. It expresses the idea that you never catch it. For the ancients, work is the curse. But in America, that became, no, the more money you have, the more successful you are.

Johnathan Bi: People think the rich man is a playboy, hedonist. Yeah. That couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s a monk. And the God which he devotes himself to is money. Jefferson and Franklin, they’re just outright heretics.

Thomas Pangle: The American founders, I think, have a pretty drastically lowered view of human nature.