This is a Cato special podcast. I'm Caleb Brown. George Wills

column is syndicated in more than 450 newspapers and he holds down Newsweek's

backpage column. He also holds down a chair on the ABC News

program this week. Will visited the Cato Institute to discuss his new book,

One Man's America, The Pleasures and Provocations of our singular nation.

The full event audio is available for download at Cato.org.

It is fair to say that the welfare state today exists to subsidize two things that did not exist in 1935. One is

protracted retirement and the other is competent medicine. In 1935

retirement as we think of it, a prolonged period of subsidized leisure after work

simply was a luxury of a tiny economically and biologically, physiologically blessed people in the country.

The span of retirement in the 20th century increased from two years to almost 20 years.

We simply didn't anticipate any of this happening.

And with regard to competent medicine, there was virtually no medicine in 1935.

In 1924, Calvin Coolidge, the sainted Coolidge,

the last president with whom I fully agreed,

was living in the White House with access to the best medicine the country

had to offer.

His 16 year old son played tennis without socks.

He got a blister.

It got infected, and he died.

There was very little medicine could do at that point.

It is estimated roughly again, but plausibly that at least a quarter of the medical treatments now in use, diagnostic, therapeutic,

...