Free Thoughts

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 Reading

Walker’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:

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How did SpeechNow and Citizens United change how elections are financed? Where does the distrust of money we so often see in politics come from? What’s wrong with making people disclose their donations?

What’s the problem with occupational licensing? Doesn’t it seem sensible in some cases for the government to license certain things to make sure people aren’t hurting others with their advice?

How are these two issues related? 

This week Paul Sherman from the Institute for Justice joins us to discuss free speech as it applies to politics and elections (political speech), occupational licensing (occupational speech), and the future of the First Amendment.

Show Notes and Further Reading

Sherman’s article in the Harvard Law Review, “Occupational Speech and the First Amendment.”

Amanda Shanor and Robert Post’s response to Sherman’s article, “Adam Smith’s First Amendment.”

Institute for Justice cases dealing with free speech issues that we mentioned in this episode:

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Who were the academics, reformers, and social scientists that made up the early American progressive movement at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century? The positions held by today’s progressives only bear a passing resemblance to those of the Progressive Era; how have the original progressives’ ideas changed over time?

Thomas C. Leonard joins us this week for a discussion on the founding of the Progressive Era and the creation of the American regulatory and welfare state.

Is there anything inherently wrong or dangerous about the idea of turning over certain aspects of government to experts? How did Darwin’s theories play into the beliefs of these new progressives? Why did the progressives of this era embrace eugenics, racial science, and other ideas that today we would consider abhorrent?

Show Notes and Further Reading

Thomas C. Leonard’s new book, Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era (2016).

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This week, Richard A. Epstein joins us to talk about the history, economics, and legal theory behind unions, which remain some of the most powerful forces in the modern American political landscape.

Is our collective narrative about unions saving workers from evil capitalist robber barons and horrible working conditions in the Industrial era accurate? How were unions initially treated by the Supreme Court?

Are unions essentially cartels? Don’t workers need unions to equalize their bargaining power with employers?

What does the future of unions look like? Are they going extinct? What about public sector unions, and the budget obligations they put on local and state governments? What would Epstein’s ideal unionization law look like?

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Henry Ford’s mass production of the automobile ushered in a new era of human mobility, one that public planners always seem to be attempting to steer the American public away from. 

How is transportation important to human freedom and flourishing?

How much are we spending on public transit? When, if ever, does public transportation make sense?

What will driverless cars do for traffic congestion? Are driverless cars going to cause people to drive more? Less? Are there any potential roadblocks to driverless cars?

Show Notes and Further Reading

O’Toole’s books on various topics: The Vanishing Automobile and Other Urban Myths: How Smart Growth Will Harm American Cities (2001), The Best-Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future (2007), and American Nightmare: How Government Undermines the Dream of Homeownership (2012).

Randal O’Toole blogs at The Antiplanner.

Trevor mentions this article from The Onion (satire): “Report: 98 Percent Of U.S. Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others.”

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How important are private property rights? What does a society look like that has no property rights, if that’s even possible? How did the Founding Fathers think about property rights?

This week Timothy and Christina Sandefur join us for a conversation about  an essential aspect of what it means to be free. Timothy notes that, “If you can’t own something, you can’t have other kinds of rights.” 

Show Notes and Further Reading
 
Timothy and Christina Sandefur’s book, Cornerstone of Liberty: Property Rights in 21st-Century America has a new edition.

When talking about the effect property rights have on the world around them, Timothy mentions the Wallace Stevens poem “Anecdote of the Jar,” and Trevor talks about the 1980 movie from Jamie Uys, The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Christina tells the story of Glenn Odegard and the house he built to turn into a rental property in Jerome, Arizona. Here is a local news story about what happened.

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Is the Constitution a document that originally meant to limit government? Did the Articles of Confederation do a better job? Sheldon Richman joins us this week to talk about the origins of the American government.

Is it possible to write a constitution that’ll keep government in check forever?

Show Notes and Further Reading

Richman’s original blog posts on the subject, “The Constitution Revisited” and “The Bill of Rights Revisited.”

Jeffrey Rogers Hummel’s work is referenced often in this episode. Here’s an article he wrote with William Marina in the April 1987 issue of Reason entitled “Did the Constitution Betray the Revolution?”

Gordon Wood’s book on the American Revolution, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, is also mentioned, as is Merrill Jensen’s book The Articles of Confederation: An Interpretation of the Social-Constitutional History of the American Revolution, 1774-1781.

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What does it mean to live a virtuous life? Why was Socrates’ self-defense at his trial so seemingly lackluster? Where does his “death before dishonor” attitude originate? Was he actually a heretic?

Brian Wilson from Combat and Classics joins us this week for a discussion on the trial that ended in Socrates ultimately being sentenced to death by drinking hemlock. Why would Athenian jurors vote to execute the man Plato called “the best of all men of the time, the wisest and most just of all men”?

Show Notes and Further Reading

Combat and Classics is a series of free online seminars for active duty, reserve, and veteran U.S. military, sponsored by St. John’s College.

Plato’s Apology is Plato’s version of the speech given by Socrates as he defended himself against the charges of “corrupting the young, and by not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other daimonia that are novel.” Free versions (with the same line numbers Wilson references in this episode) can be found here and here.

This discussion is continued in Part 2 of this series, on Crito, Plato’s account of Socrates’ last days in prison.

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Scientific studies and data get invoked all the time in debates about policy, especially when it comes to matters of environmental policy. But why should those who prefer a cleaner environment (or on the flip side, those who prefer more industry and the benefits it brings) have to justify their preferences with scientific evidence?

What makes environmental policy conflicts so intractable? Why is “science” invoked by both sides of the political spectrum in policy conflicts?

Peter Van Doren returns to the podcast to talk about the thesis of his 2003 Regulation article “Letting Environmentalists’ Preferences Count.” We also discuss property rights and Coase’s theorem as it would apply to these types of disputes.

Show Notes and Further Reading

Peter Van Doren’s article “Letting Environmentalists’ Preferences Count.”

Peter Van Doren’s other Free Thoughts episodes are a great primer on how to think like an economist when approaching policy questions: “Regulations Gone Wrong,” “When Markets Fail,” “An Introduction to Public Choice,” and “The Internet Doesn’t Need to Be Saved.”

Van Doren mentions W. Kip Viscusi’s work on the economics of risk and the value of a human life. Here’s a short paper he wrote on the topic in 2005 called “The Value of Life.”

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What qualifies as a sweatshop? Is there one standard definition? Why would someone choose to work in a sweatshop? What are their other alternatives? What happens when companies are made to pay their sweatshop workers more?

Benjamin Powell discusses the economics of sweatshop labor. He argues that the anti-sweatshop movement’s policies actually tend to harm the very workers they intend to help.

Show Notes and Further Reading

Powell’s book Out of Poverty: Sweatshops in the Global Economy (2014).

Powell’s Learn Liberty videos on sweatshops and immigration are well worth watching:

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