Will you be in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday July 15? I will be interviewing Francis Fukuyama about how liberalism should respond to the postliberal threat. Find out more and get your free ticket here! —Yascha

Yascha Mounk and Deirdre McCloskey discuss why ideas, not capital accumulation, made the modern world rich.

Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, sometimes described as “the conscience of economics,” holds the Isaiah Berlin Chair in Liberal Thought at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.

In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Deirdre McCloskey discuss why liberalism drives economic growth, how the gradual erosion of inherited hierarchy unleashed centuries of innovation, and what liberals should think about the trans debate.

We’re delighted to feature this conversation as part of our series on Liberal Virtues and Values.

That liberalism is under threat is now a cliché—yet this has done nothing to stem the global resurgence of illiberalism. Part of the problem is that liberalism is often considered too “thin” to win over the allegiance of citizens, and that liberals are too afraid of speaking in moral terms. Liberalism’s opponents, by contrast, speak to people’s passions and deepest moral sentiments.

This series, made possible with the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation, aims to change that narrative. In podcast conversations and long-form pieces, we feature content making the case that liberalism has its own distinctive set of virtues and values that are capable not only of responding to the dissatisfaction that drives authoritarianism, but also of restoring faith in liberalism as an ideology worth believing in—and defending—on its own terms.

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Email: [email protected]

Podcast production by Jack Shields and Leonora Barclay.

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