From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan,

where the good, the true, and the beautiful are taught, nurtured, and honored,

this is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.

And it's the rich who are really at the heart of the ecosystem of protecting AI, from Elon Musk to the people who start and fund anthropic.

And that's not surprising because this is very high-risk

efforts. This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. That was John O.

McGittes, his new book, Why Democracy Needs the Rich. We'll dive into that book today with John.

Also later on on today's program,

Maria Servold from Hillsdale's Journalism Talks about the State of Student Journalism.

It also, John Seifert from Hillsdale's Computer Science Department will talk about artificial intelligence. First, we're joined by John O. McGuinness, law professor at Northwestern University,

widely cited scholar of democracy and constitutional law. His new book is Why Democracy Needs the Rich.

John, thanks so much for joining us. Delighted to be here. Let's define the term as we start.

What do we mean, or at least what do you mean by the rich in the conversations inside the book?

The rich I mean are people who have substantial wealth, the kind of substantial wealth that gives them both the independence and resources to fund things as an avocation or as philanthropy to deliver messages

to their fellow citizens or help produce public goods like better education and other things

that help their fellow citizens. So we're talking about, I think, people who have, beginning around $50 million,

and of course going up to people with billions of dollars. We're talking about people who are not

you and who is not me, correct? That's right. The introduction of why democracy needs the rich

looks at this generally negative attitude toward the wealthiest

members of American society in politics and in culture. Where did this start? When did this

start? What's the origin of this negative attitude towards the rich in American society?

Well, first of all, there's always somewhat of a negative attitude towards the rich. and we can talk about the reasons for that. One of them, I think, is deep in human envy. People who have more are often envied. But I also think that it's become part of an effort to actually shift influence, because the rich are only one of many groups with

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