"Is there a nexus between economic prosperity and moral behavior?" WFB begins by asking. "The broadest view on the subject tells us that societies that are fat and happy tend to let down the moral muscle.... The position is vigorously disputed ... by Lawrence Kudlow," whose latest book was American Abundance: The New Economic and Moral Prosperity. Mr. Buckley presses his guest, a comrade in arms, on some of his historical comparisons. LK: "We have created 36 million jobs since 1982 in this long wave of prosperity that I attribute to Ronald Reagan's launching.... And I think that's why this work ethic and what it teaches, the discipline and restraint, has helped to reduce crime, to reduce welfare, to at least ameliorate some of the pathologies that are so troublesome. It all comes from the workplace." WFB: "The difficulty that I had when I ran into that enthusiasm in your book is that if you look back at American history--where you learn that in the year 1900, 90 per cent of the American people were poor by current standards--if you take that long march towards relative plenty since 1900, you run into pretty odious data: an increase since 1962 of 400 per cent in the crime rate, 320 per cent in illegitimate births, drug consumption, alcoholism ..."