Free Thoughts

Walter Olson joins Aaron and Trevor for a discussion on the evolution of discrimination law in the American legal system. They talk about common carrier obligations, preferential treatment and employee discrimination suits, the disparate impact of anti-discrimination laws—especially in hiring decisions—and the role of law schools and academia in perpetuating this cycle.

What happens when laws create more injustice than they fix? Is America “overlawyered”?

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Mark A. Calabria joins Aaron and Trevor for a discussion on banking regulations in the United States. Calabria gives a short history of banking regulation and explains the incentives built into the regulatory system that governs banking and investments here in America.

Why are people so angry at “Wall Street” all the time? What exactly is Wall Street, anyway?

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This week Jason Brennan joins Aaron and Trevor to discuss his newest book, Why Not Capitalism?, which is a response to G. A. Cohen’s 2009 book Why Not Socialism? Brennan says that Cohen commits the fallacy of comparing idealized socialism with perfect actors to real markets with imperfect actors, and offers an illustrative example as proof that when comparing idealized capitalism to idealized socialism and real capitalism to real socialism, it is capitalism—not socialism—that claims the moral high ground.

Is there anything to the argument that “socialism would work if we were just better people” and had perfect information?

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Aaron and Trevor join Randy Barnett to discuss his book The Structure of Liberty, which was recently re-released in an updated edition. Barnett describes five rights—informed by natural law—that are crucial for properly structuring a society. He also shows how libertarian theories successfully counter the structural societal problems of knowledge, interests, and power.

Show Notes and Further Reading

Randy E. Barnett, The Structure of Liberty (book)

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Aaron and Trevor talk with Peter Van Doren about regulatory failure in markets, specifically phone service, banking, electricity, internet, and health care. Van Doren shows how regulation in these markets works as a hidden tax by cross-subsidizing competing services and distorting real prices.

Who loses when regulations have unexpected consequences: the companies or the consumers the regulations are meant to protect?

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Besides the horrendous affront to human rights that was American slavery, black people in America have been and continue to be singled out for “special treatment” by the government in other ways, too: the federal drug war, minimum wage laws, the failure of public schooling, licensing restrictions on opening businesses, gun control laws, the indignity of welfare, and many more. So why aren’t there more black libertarians?

Show Notes and Further Reading

Radley Balko, Rise of the Warrior Cop (book)

David Weigel, “Ruth Marcus, David Brooks, and Reefer Madness” (article)

Tim Lynch, Police Misconduct: The Assault on Civil Liberties (video)

Associated Press, “SWAT team raids Md. mayor’s home, kills 2 dogs” (article)

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Tom W. Bell joins Aaron and Trevor for a discussion on intellectual property, specifically copyright law in the United States. Is there one libertarian stance on intellectual property?

What’s wrong with copyright law in America today? Should we even have copyright at all? And if we should, how can we make it better than it is now?

Show Notes and Further Reading

Tom W. Bell, Intellectual Privilege (book)

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Why is Piketty’s book getting so much attention in America? What does Piketty get right and wrong in his book? Piketty seems to be predicting the inevitable collapse of capitalism…but is inequality really getting worse?

Show Notes and Further Reading

Scott Winship, “Whither the Bottom 90 Percent, Thomas Piketty?” (article)

Lawrence H. Summers, “The Inequality Puzzle” (article)

Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (book)

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What does Article 2 of the Constitution say about the powers of the Executive Branch? How did we get to where we are now, with the executive wielding so much discretionary power? And is there anything we can do about it? Gene Healy, vice president of the Cato Institute and author of The Cult of the Presidency and False Idol joins us to answer these questions and more about America’s most popular branch of government.

Show Notes and Further Reading

F. H. Buckley, The Once and Future King (book)

Juan Linz, The Perils of Presidentialism (article)

Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (book)

Gawker Video at 2012 Democratic National Conference, “Ask the DNC: Is Romney Ready for the Kill List?” (video)

Theodore Lowi, The Personal President: Power Invested, Promise Unfulfilled (book)

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Rating the Presidents: Washington to Clinton (article)

Siena College Research Institute Presidential Ranking Survey

U.S. News and World Report, The 10 Worst Presidents (article)

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In this episode Aaron Powell and Trevor Burrus talk about egalitarianism with Professor Elizabeth Anderson. Should we be concerned about an equal distribution of resources in a society? An equal distribution of outcomes? Is it a bad thing for some people to be worse off than others through no fault of their own? And whose job is it to enforce such distributions—government or markets?

Anderson is the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan.

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