Free Thoughts

Mustafa Akyol joins us this week to talk about Islam. Is there a Muslim case for liberty? How has Islam traditionally treated the principles of political liberalism?Show Notes and Further ReadingAkyol’s book is Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty (2013).He also mentions this op-ed he wrote in the Feb. 13th, 2017 edition of the New York Times, “What Jesus Can Teach Today’s Muslims.”Listeners may also be interested in this episode of Free Thoughts on libertarianism and Christianity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wolf von Laer joins us this week to talk about the movement for liberty on college campuses around the world.What are the biggest challenges to liberty for today’s university students? How difficult is it to communicate ideas on college campuses?Show Notes and Further ReadingListeners may be interested in our Free Thoughts episodes with Robby Soave and Greg Lukianoff on First Amendment rights on college campuses.The 10th International Students for Liberty Conference is February 17th-19th, 2017. More details here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy McLellan joins us this week to talk about his brand of politics and comedy. Does humor have a place in changing people’s political beliefs?You can find McLellan’s comedy on Twitter and Facebook. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alex Nowrasteh joins us this week to talk about immigration in the wake of Donald Trump’s contentious executive order on the subject. Is immigration always good for a country?In this episode, we discuss economic arguments for and against immigration, the rate at which immigrants culturally and politically assimilate in the United States, and the real odds of a successful terrorist attack carried out by immigrants or refugees.Show Notes and Further ReadingFor a deeper understanding of Trump’s executive order restricting permanent immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries, we recommend this Vox article by Dara Lind and this New York Times op-ed by David Bier.Trevor mentions this Free Thoughts episode with John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart on the real risks of terrorism, and listeners may also be interested in the first episode we did on immigration with Alex Nowrasteh; it’s about the history of immigration in the US and the various laws governing it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brink Lindsey joins us this week to talk about his idea for an alliance between liberals and libertarians in the age of Trump-style conservative populism.Where did the idea for liberaltarianism come from? How will Donald Trump’s presidency affect libertarians’ relationship with liberals and progressives?Show Notes and Further ReadingHere’s Brink Lindsey’s Vox article, “Liberals and libertarians should unite to block Trump’s extremism.”See also this article by Lindsey that appeared in the New Republic in 2006 that first coined the term “liberaltarian.”Here’s our previous Free Thoughts episode with Lindsey on income inequality.Lindsey mentions this book, The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth (2006), by Benjamin M. Friedman.Here is Lindsey’s 2015 study, “Low-Hanging Fruit Guarded by Dragons: Reforming Regressive Regulation to Boost U.S. Economic Growth.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gene Healy joins us for a special Inauguration Day episode of Free Thoughts. We assess Barack Obama’s legacy as President of the United States and think about what we might expect in the coming years from President Trump.What will Obama’s presidential legacy be? How will recent expansions of executive power under Obama affect the actions of a Donald Trump administration?How hawkish has Obama’s foreign policy been? What happened to the anti-war movement during Obama’s presidency? Can we expect them to come back during a Trump administration?Show Notes and Further ReadingGene Healy’s article in the February 2017 issue of Reason is “Goodbye, Obama”.Other episodes of Free Thoughts that are mentioned in this episode:America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power with Gene HealyWhat Are the Risks of Terrorism? with John MuellerHealy mentions Jack Goldsmith and Matthew Waxman’s “The Legal Legacy of Light-Footprint Warfare” (2016).He also mentions Party in the Street (2015) by Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas, National Security and Double Government (2014) by Michael Glennon, and “The Two Presidencies” (1966) by Aaron Wildavsky. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Van Doren joins us this week for a discussion on how wages are determined in a market economy.Is there a correlation between a worker’s productivity and the value they provide for society? Why has CEO pay increased so much lately? Should the government have a role in fixing unequal or unfair wages?Show Notes and Further ReadingVan Doren mentions this blog post by Robert Lawrence on the gap between real wages and labor productivity. See also this link for the same discussion (only with Canadian data) on the terms of trade between what workers make and what they consume.Here are papers by Kevin Murphy and Steven Kaplan on CEO pay.Van Doren also mentions The Homevoter Hypothesis: How Home Values Influence Local Government Taxation, School Finance, and Land-Use Policies by William Fischel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason Kuznicki joins us to discuss his chapter on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant in our newest book, Arguments for Liberty.What’s Kant’s conception of the good, and what kind of government follows from that?Who was Immanuel Kant and what were his moral and political theories? What does Kant’s categorical imperative tell us about how to live a good life? How do we get from the categorical imperative to a form of government? And why are some libertarians seemingly anti-Kant?Show Notes and Further ReadingArguments for Liberty is available here as a free .pdf and in Kindle and e-Book formats. It’s also available in paperback on Amazon.For those interested in reading more of Kant’s work, Kuznicki recommends starting with Kant’s Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmopolitical Point of View, or Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason; both are in the public domain and are available for free download from Liberty Fund. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Boaz joins us to recap 2016. Did we just have the worst year ever in American politics?Show Notes and Further ReadingHere’s our Free Thoughts episode on Donald Trump with Ben Domenech, recorded after Trump won the Republican primary but before he won the general election.Boaz mentions the current issue of Cato Policy Report, which features an article by Tom Palmer on the new resurgence of three threats: identity politics, populist authoritarianism, and radical political Islam.Boaz also mentions this article by Conor Friedersdorf, “Tyrant-Proof the White House—Before It’s Too Late.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

George Selgin joins us for a discussion about the gold standard. How did America get off the gold standard, and is there any chance of the country returning to it? Would it be a good idea to revive the standard?Why gold in particular and not any other commodity? Is gold less valuable as money than in other applications, like electronics manufacturing?Show Notes and Further ReadingTrevor asks whether people in Venezuela have started switching to Bitcoin, since Venezuela’s own currency is falling apart. According to this article from Jim Epstein in next month’s issue of Reason, that’s exactly what they’re doing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Timothy Sandefur joins us this week to talk about his new book, The Permission Society: How the Ruling Class Turns Our Freedoms into Privileges and What We Can Do About It.What’s the difference between a society where people are free to do whatever they please and one where they must first get permission from the government to do things like owning land, building a house, or starting a business? What’s wrong with these systems of permitting?Show Notes and Further ReadingSandefur’s book is The Permission Society: How the Ruling Class Turns Our Freedoms into Privileges and What We Can Do About It (2016). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kevin Currie-Knight joins us this week to discuss why we can’t seem to change the way we educate schoolchildren. Is there one best way to educate kids?Where did our current system—splitting kids up by age, dividing knowledge up into subjects, having teachers stand at the front of the room and give lectures, testing knowledge with exams, summer holidays, etc.—come from? Why does education still look pretty much like it did hundreds of years ago when everything else in our modern world has changed?Show Notes and Further ReadingCurrie-Knight spoke on a Kansas Policy Institute panel on this topic.Here’s Currie-Knight’s video series about education, Schooled.He also mentions The Independent Project (here’s a Huffington Post article about it), High Tech High, and an upcoming documentary about High Tech High called Most Likely To Succeed.Trevor mentions a lecture (and Free Thoughts episode) he gives called The Statrix. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Johan Norberg joins Trevor this week to talk about the notion of progress and gives us all a few reasons to look forward to the future.Why is there a systemic bias towards pessimism when hard data shows the world is getting better and better every day?Show Notes and Further ReadingNorberg’s newest book is Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future (2016).Listeners may also enjoy Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (2011).To find more statistics that show how the world is always getting better, we recommend checking out another one of Cato’s projects, HumanProgress.org. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Richard Vedder joins us this week to discuss what he’s identified as three major problems with the way today’s American higher education system works.Why is higher education so expensive, and how did it become so expensive so quickly? If student aid and loans only aggravate the problem, can anything be done to remedy this? Is going to college more of a status symbol than a necessity these days? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Ryan Neuhofel joins us this week to talk about his practice, NeuCare, which is a very different way to approach primary care medicine in the United States.What is direct primary care? How should health insurance work, and how is it broken in our health care system today? How do primary care doctors currently get paid? Why is managed health care so expensive? Is direct primary care part of what a free market in medicine might look like?Show Notes and Further ReadingYou can find more information about Dr. Neuhofel’s practice at neucare.net.Our episode on “The Statrix” is what originally prompted Dr. Neuhofel to send us an email. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

American Indians currently have the highest rates of poverty of any racial group; some reservations have unemployment rates upward of 80 percent. Suicide is the leading cause of death among Indian men, Native American women are two and a half times more likely to be raped than the national average, and gang violence affects Indian youth more than any other group.Why? Naomi Schaefer Riley says the American government’s current Indian policies are at fault as much as any historic injustice done to them.What is the federal government’s current relationship with American Indian tribes? What does the day-to-day economic life for people on a reservation look like? How do tribal courts work?Show Notes and Further ReadingRiley’s book is The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians (2016). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The bleak prospect of living in a country governed by one of the major-party presidential candidates seems to bolster arguments against voting. Declining to participate in this year’s deeply unsatisfactory election may signal a preference for “none of the above” while denying personal sanction to the many wrongs and injustices governments mete out in our names. Not voting is a time-saver, too.But non-participation in the vote may be an unwise option. Voting doesn’t just elect a candidate: it may signal to a variety of important audiences what direction the electorate would like the country to take. Perhaps voting is the best option available, even if other candidates and other systems of government would provide more liberty and prosperity. Failing to vote may waste personal power.Is the best choice to vote one’s conscience, vote strategically, or not vote at all? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What are some of the geographical factors throughout history that lead to unequal outcomes? Can we tease out a causal direction for something like cultural dishonesty? Is isolation—cultural, geographic, and otherwise—always bad for a society? How does all of this relate to the ongoing income inequality debate in America?Show Notes and Further ReadingThomas Sowell’s newest book is Wealth, Poverty, and Politics: Revised and Enlarged Edition (2016).Sowell mentions J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (2016).Freedom on Trial is our new courtroom drama that takes viewers into the heart of the everyday issues that arise when an employer’s desire to hire more employees runs into the barrier of minimum wage laws, and when the government’s plans to “solve” income inequality only makes things worse. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why have people been so fixated on income inequality lately? Is it really a matter of “the 1%” versus “the 99%”? How do things like occupational licensing, energy use, and regulation tie in to this? How do these things stack the deck against poor people?Show Notes and Further ReadingHere are Ryan Young’s two most recent papers on the inequality, which he coauthored along with Iain Murray. “People, Not Ratios: Why the Debate over Income Inequality Asks the Wrong Questions” and “The Rising Tide: Answering the Right Questions in the Inequality Debate.”Freedom on Trial is our new courtroom drama that takes viewers into the heart of the everyday issues that arise when an employer’s desire to hire more employees runs into the barrier of minimum wage laws, and when the government’s plans to “solve” income inequality only makes things worse.The quote Trevor paraphrases near the beginning of the show was a bit of wisdom from Anatole France: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”For a closer look at Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, here’s an older episode of Free Thoughts with Scott Winship. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why does the left seem better at making non-cringeworthy political videos? Does that necessarily have to be the case?John Papola joins us this week to share his background at MTV, Nickelodeon, and Spike TV; his thoughts on the filmmaking process; and why it’s essential to tell character-driven stories. We also discuss Libertarianism.org’s new series, Freedom on Trial, which was produced by Emergent Order and directed by Papola.Show Notes and Further ReadingHere’s our Freedom on Trial landing page. There, you can find the videos themselves, supplemental videos, and more info about the cast and crew for the production.Emergent Order’s website is here.Here’s Papola’s trailer for the Rocket Power movie, his first opportunity to direct and edit a trailer.”Fear the Boom and Bust” and “Fight of the Century” are the two rap battles between John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek that Papola and Emergent Order are most well known for.Trevor mentions our Free Thoughts episode with Russ Roberts on his book How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How much of a role did media coverage play in Donald Trump winning the Republican primary? Is Trump’s brand of conservative populism and identity politics here to stay? Would a Trump loss in November be an opportunity for libertarians to reshape the philosophy of the American right?Ben Domenech shares his personal theory that explains Donald Trump’s rise to prominence on the political stage.Show Notes and Further ReadingHere’s Domenech in 2015, predicting the path of Donald Trump’s candidacy and on the emergence of Trump’s brand of identity politics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How much do we know about Confucius? What type of world were the Taoists and early Confucians living in? Were early Confucians pro free-market and pro individualism as we understand the terms today?Roderick T. Long joins us this week for a discussion on the thought of the early Confucians, who were precursors of modern libertarians.Show Notes and Further ReadingLong’s new book is Rituals of Freedom: Libertarian Themes in Early Confucianism (2016). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is an economy like a machine or a tropical rainforest? Is it more like a mechanical device that can be maintained by an exogenous force (government), or is it more like a diverse ecology, one that includes government actors?Richard Wagner joins us this week to discuss his new book, Politics As a Peculiar Business: Insights from a Theory of Entangled Political Economy (2016).Wagner concludes that modern governments function much the way a business enterprise does, albeit a strange one. He also theorizes about what happens when government becomes entangled in the same incentive structures it claims regulatory power over. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What’s a pretextual police stop? When do police need your consent to a search, and are these searches unconstitutional? Jonathan Blanks joins us this week to share his findings on how police searches disproportionately affect minorities.Show Notes and Further ReadingJonathan Blanks’s “Thin Blue Lies: How Pretextual Stops Undermine Police Legitimacy” appears in Volume 66, Issue 4 of the Case Western Reserve Law Review.Here’s a previous Free Thoughts episode with Blanks on police misconduct. Listeners may also be interested in this Free Thoughts episode with Adam Bates and Matthew Feeney on how new technologies are changing law enforcement.Blanks mentions this article by George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson in the March 1982 issue of The Atlantic, which originated the “broken windows” theory of policing.Aaron mentions watching the 1971 Don Siegel film Dirty Harry, starring Clint Eastwood. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most Americans believe that democracy is the most just, fair, and equal form of government we’ve come up with thus far. Is that overselling it? Does democracy produce the results we need? Can anything be done about voter ignorance?What is the symbolic value of the right to vote? Is political participation good for us as individuals and as a society? What would a better system look like?Show Notes and Further ReadingJason Brennan’s newest book is Against Democracy (2016).Brennan is also the lecturer for one of our Libertarianism.org Guides, An Introduction to Political Philosophy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why are Americans so fascinated with our third President? What did Jefferson’s contemporaries think of him?Robert McDonald joins us this week to talk about the life and ideas of Thomas Jefferson.Show Notes and Further ReadingMcDonald’s book is Confounding Father: Thomas Jefferson’s Image in His Own Time (2016).There is a conception that politics was more civil at the turn of the 19th century; this Reason.tv video proves otherwise. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Was the success of the Star Wars franchise inevitable? What does Star Wars have to teach us about politics, revolution, and constitutional interpretation?Cass R. Sunstein explores the critical and financial success of the Star Wars movies.Show Notes and Further ReadingCass R. Sunstein, The World According to Star Wars (2016)This is a previous Free Thoughts podcast with Ilya Somin on the politics of Star Wars.Cato scholar Michael F. Cannon has written a column for Libertarianism.org on Star Wars and the nature of evil.Trevor mentions a previous episode of Free Thoughts on originalism featuring Randy E. Barnett. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If the Constitution were interpreted according to its original meaning, how libertarian would that Constitution be? How do we decide what the original meaning of the Constitution is?Randy E. Barnett explains why popular sovereignty resides in individuals rather than in any notion of “the will of the people.”What would America look like if judges interpreted the Constitution according to the original intent of the Founders?Show Notes and Further ReadingHere is Barnett’s latest book, Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People (2016).He also mentions his book Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty (2013).Here’s an earlier episode of Free Thoughts featuring Randy Barnett, “The Structure of Liberty.”Trevor mentions the previous Free Thoughts episode with Gary Gerstle on his book Liberty and Coercion: The Paradox of American Government from the Founding to the Present (2015). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What are historians to make of the paradox of American government? On one hand, Americans claim to value freedom from government interference in their lives, but on the other, Americans have also clamored for government interventions that have done everything from redistributing wealth to imposing a particular set of views on marriage, abortion, and religion.Gary Gerstle gives a chronological history of American governance from the founding of the country to today. How has governance changed in America over the years? What role has the Constitution played in this?Was the Constitution meant to protect liberty, or establish federal power? How did an early reliance on agriculture affect governance in early America?Show Notes and Further ReadingGerstle’s book is Liberty and Coercion: The Paradox of American Government from the Founding to the Present (2015). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is free market existentialism? Why have adherents of existentialism so often chosen Marxism as their political philosophy?William Irwin joins us this week to discuss his book, The Free Market Existentialist: Capitalism without Consumerism (2015).What purpose or meaning can we give life, if we start from a place where we take as a given that there is no inherent or divine purpose to life? Why should libertarians also be existentialists?Show Notes and Further ReadingWilliam Irwin’s book, The Free Market Existentialist: Capitalism without Consumerism (2015) challenges assumptions about morality, natural rights and the role of government using insights from thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Robert Nozick, and F. A. Hayek. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Families seem structured almost entirely opposite to how we think about market economies. Do theories about human behavior in markets hold up when looking at family interactions?Steven Horwitz joins us to talk about his new book, Hayek’s Modern Family: Classical Liberalism and the Evolution of Social Institutions.What did F. A. Hayek have to say about evolving social institutions? What is the definition of a family? How has it changed over time?Show Notes and Further ReadingHere is Horwitz’s new book, Hayek’s Modern Family: Classical Liberalism and the Evolution of Social Institutions (2015).Horwitz mentions this humorous scene depicting a feudal marriage in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was a foundational utilitarian philosopher, as well as one of the foremost thinkers in the classical liberal tradition.John Samples and Matthew Feeney join us for a discussion on the theory of liberty Mill articulates in his book On Liberty. We focus on how Mill thinks of liberty in relation to others and to the state, how utilitarianism influenced his thinking, and Mill’s defense of freedom of thought and free speech, which was quite radical for his time.This episode is part one of a series that will be continued at a later date.Show Notes and Further ReadingThe Liberty Fund’s Library of Economics and Liberty has the full text of On Liberty available for free.When discussing Mill’s views about tolerating divergent opinion, Aaron mentions this previous Free Thoughts podcast with Andrew Jason Cohen on toleration. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How did everything get so crazy in American politics? Are political renegades like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Bernie Sanders the new norm?Are political machines, pork-barrel spending, logrolling, and professional politicians necessary for our democracy to work? Are they necessary for political coordination and cooperation? What does Rauch mean by “political realism”?Show Notes and Further ReadingRauch’s study on this topic, Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy is available as a .pdf or a free ebook.Rauch also wrote the cover article of the July/August 2016 issue of The Atlantic, “How American Politics Went Insane.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There seems to be a movement towards more student censorship on college campuses these days, but the source might be surprising: other students. Trigger warnings? Safe spaces? Microaggressions? Are college students more offended these days than they used to be?Robby Soave joins us for a discussion about the state of free speech in American higher education.Show Notes and Further ReadingYou can read Soave’s articles on this and other topics at Reason.com.For more on campus censorship, listen to this Free Thoughts episode with Greg Lukianoff, “Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What’s the “MIT” approach to economics, and what’s wrong with it? Is economics a hard science? What is an economic model? What are some of the problems with thinking of the world this way?Arnold Kling claims that the economy isn’t like one big machine with a single purpose that can be fine tuned and regulated by experts. In this week’s episode, he presents an alternate way of thinking about economics, one you won’t find being taught in most college classrooms.Show Notes and Further ReadingKling’s new book, Specialization and Trade: A Re-introduction to Economics is available in paperback and as a free .pdf, Kindle, or .epub file.Kling and Burrus mention one of our recent Free Thoughts episodes with Thomas Leonard on his book, Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is a Stingray? How does it work? Is it a good idea to make police wear body cameras? Should officers be able to turn these cameras off? What about the privacy of the civilians being recorded? Should law enforcement agencies have access to drone technology? Where do we have a reasonable expectation of privacy?Matthew Feeney and Adam Bates join us this week to discuss new technologies available to law enforcement agencies in America, and the legal implications of these technologies.Where does a right to privacy apply in these new eras of government data collection? How should we balance police effectiveness and respect for Fourth Amendment privacy rights?Show Notes and Further ReadingFeeney recently authored a policy analysis on police body cameras, “Watching the Watchmen: Best Practices for Police Body Cameras.”Feeney also mentions a project our Cato colleague Patrick Eddington is working on: a timeline chronicling the American government’s surveillance activities over the past century. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After giving a broad overview of the philosophical underpinnings of governments last week, Roger Pilon joins us again to discuss the U.S. Constitution in particular and how the Constitution has been interpreted over the years.Pilon recounts the original signing of the Constitution and the adoption of the Bill of Rights, how post-Civil War constitutional amendments fundamentally altered the structure of American federalism, the Slaughter-House Cases of the late-19th century, Lochner v. New York, the New Deal Era, and how judicial interpretations of the General Welfare and Commerce clauses changed over time.Why was there no Bill of Rights when the Constitution was drafted? Is an originalist view of the constitution a necessarily antiquated one? Shouldn’t government be given enough power to realistically address any new concerns affect the nation as a whole, possibly issues that the Founders couldn’t have thought of? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How are constitutions adopted? Did the Founders get it right? What is originalism and why do constitutional interpretations matter when studying founding texts? By what standards do we judge a theory of constitutional interpretation to be correct?Roger Pilon joins us this week for a discussion about originalism and the U.S. Constitution. This episode is continued in a followup episode about how the Constitution has been interpreted over the years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is the “Statrix”? How does government warp our perception of the world around us? How does it disproportionately affect the poor?Trevor Burrus talks about the “Statrix,” a portmanteau of the state and the concept of an artificial world made popular in the 1999 action/sci-fi movie The Matrix. Show Notes and Further ReadingTrevor mentions the recent spate of track problems and fires that have been plaguing Washington D.C.’s metro system, which led to the creation of this website, ismetroonfire.com. He also explains this song by the Kingston Trio, which was meant to a protest fare increases on Boston’s public subway system.Here’s a series of articles by Megan McArdle on Washington D.C.’s streetcar project, written in 2009, 2014, and 2015 (the project was originally slated to be completed in 2006 and is still not fully rolled out today, in 2016).Trevor also mentions our podcast episode with Randal O’Toole, “Transportation, Land Use, and Freedom,” James Tooley’s book “The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey Into How the World’s Poorest People are Educating Themselves,” and NeuCare, a new way to think about medical care. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can parents have more say in how their children are educated? What’s the difference between different approaches to school choice, like vouchers, education savings accounts, and tax credits? Do we know these work?Jason Bedrick joins us this week to make the case for school choice.Show Notes and Further ReadingHere’s an earlier episode of Free Thoughts with Neal McCluskey on the history of public schooling in America.Bedrick mentions Dale Russakoff’s recent book, The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools? (2016) and his review of the book at the Library of Law and Liberty. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For most of human history, most people lived in abject poverty and cultural and technological stagnation. Only in the past 200 years or so has humankind seen a flourishing of new ideas that has led to our current state of relative health, wealth, safety, and happiness.Deirdre McCloskey says the difference lies in the power of market institutions and a burgeoning respect for those that participate in them. Celebrating innovation—not protecting people from it—is the key to explaining this exponential growth.Show Notes and Further ReadingThe Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce (2007)Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World (2011)Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World (2016) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Socrates could have had his friend Crito pay a bribe to get him out of prison and escape his death sentence, but he didn’t. Why? Do we always have a duty to obey the law?Brian Wilson from Combat and Classics joins us this week to continue our discussion on the last days of the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates’ life, as told by his student Plato.Show Notes and Further ReadingCombat and Classics is a series of free online seminars for active duty, reserve, and veteran U.S. military, sponsored by St. John’s College.Our first podcast in this series was on Socrates’ trial, as recorded by Plato in the Apology.The Crito is a dialogue by Plato that depicts a conversation between Socrates (who is sitting in prison, having been sentenced to death by an Athenian jury during the events in Apology) and his wealthy friend Crito, who offers to finance Socrates’ escape from prison. Socrates refuses Crito’s offer on the grounds that injustice may not be answered with injustice. A free, Creative Commons-licensed version of this text can be found here.Aaron mentions “The Humble Case for Liberty,” an essay he wrote in a collection published by the Atlas Network and Students for Liberty entitled Why Liberty: Your Life, Your Choices, Your Future (2013). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What counts as a conspiracy theory? Why do people have a natural tendency to see intent and design, even when there is none? Are there any conspiracy theories particularly prevalent among libertarians?Daniel Bier of The Skeptical Libertarian joins us this week to talk about belief in conspiracy theories as a social phenomenon and the damage they can do to the perception of libertarianism and the credibility of libertarian arguments.Show Notes and Further ReadingListeners may also be interested in the podcast episode we recorded with Jesse Walker on his book, The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What was the U.S. government’s original motivation behind drug prohibition? How has the way we view addiction changed over time? What happens when a country—or a state—decriminalizes drugs? What about hard drugs?Show Notes and Further ReadingChasing the Scream is available here, along with all of Hari’s interviews and notes used in writing the book.Hari mentions Jeffrey Miron’s work on the economics of drug prohibition; you can read Miron’s recent work here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What kind of person was Adam Smith? How does Smith’s theory of morality compare to other philosophers’ theories? What did economics look like before Smith?Paul Mueller discusses Adam Smith’s life and ideas, explains Smith’s “invisible hand” and “impartial spectator” analogies, and talks about the marginal revolution that occured in economics 100 years after Smith’s death.Show Notes and Further ReadingAdam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments are great places to start reading Smith in his own words.Listeners may also want to check out our Free Thoughts episode with Russ Roberts on his book, How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What’s the best way to teach the principles of economics and individual liberty to people? Is having ‘good character’ a timeless virtue?Lawrence W. Reed joins us this week to discuss his work at the Foundation for Economic Education and FEE’s history in the worldwide free market movement. He also shares a few stories about ‘Real Heroes’ of liberty.Show Notes and Further ReadingThe Foundation for Economic Education has made the full text of Henry Hazlitt’s classic book Economics in One Lesson available online for free here.Aaron mentions reading Reed’s essays on character and liberty. They are available here, organized into a short book The Great Hope: Essays on Character and Liberty.Reed’s ongoing Real Heroes series can be found here. New features are released every Friday; here is Reed’s account of the life of Witold Pilecki. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Murray Rothbard wrote The Ethics of Liberty in 1982 as a full moral theory of the ethical considerations libertarianism requires and what these considerations would prevent the state from doing.This week we begin a discussion on the second part of The Ethics of Liberty. What is Rothbard’s universal ethic? According to Rothbard, how can property originally be justly acquired? What would ownership in a Rothbardian free market system look like?Here is our discussion on part one of The Ethics of Liberty. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is it about British philosopher David Hume that makes him so popular? What was Hume’s attitude towards politics?Thomas W. Merrill joins us this week to talk about Hume’s thought and his skeptical, empirical attitude.Show Notes and Further ReadingMerrill’s book, David Hume and the Politics of Enlightenment (2015) is available from Cambridge University Press.The Philosophy Bites podcast asked philosophers who their favorite philosopher was. Many of their guests chose David Hume.The Amazon Kindle edition of Hume’s Essays is available for free.Many of David Hume’s other works are available for free at davidhume.org. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The contemporary British, Canadian, and American political systems come from the same democratic root, but have very different ways of separating and balancing power. How does the American presidential system compare to the parliamentary system? Does the government we have today function anything like the government the Founding Fathers envisioned?Frank H. Buckley joins Trevor Burrus this week for a discussion on his book, The Once and Future King: The Rise of Crown Government in America.Is it accurate to say we have a “crown government?” What’s the danger in giving the president legislative power? Do presidential and parliamentary regimes tend to attract different types of leaders?Show Notes and Further ReadingBuckley’s newest book, The Once and Future King: The Rise of Crown Government in America (2014).Gene Healy’s book The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power (2009) also explores these themes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we discuss the history of conspiracy theories in America with Jesse Walker. What counts as a conspiracy theory? What are the different kinds of conspiracy theories? Are there any theories that have turned out to be true?How do these theories fade in and out of our national consciousness? Are there any uniquely libertarian conspiracy theories? Is there a way to recognize a conspiracy theory when we come across it?Show Notes and Further ReadingWalker’s books are The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory (2013) and Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America (2001).Walker mentions reading Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus! Trilogy when he was young. Here’s a video of Robert Anton Wilson speaking at the Libertarian Party’s nominating convention in 1987.Richard Hofstadter’s 1964 article “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.”Frederic Wertham’s 1954 book warning of the supposed dangers of children reading comic books, Seduction of the Innocent.Arthur Miller’s classic play “The Crucible,” which is a dramatized version of the Salem witch trials (and which was written as an allegory of McCarthyism).Joseph Uscinski and Joseph Parent’s American Conspiracy Theories uses empirical data to analyze trends in conspiracy theories between 1890 and 2010.Movies mentioned in this episode:Invasion of the Body-SnatchersThe Manchurian CandidateThey Live Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.