Free Thoughts

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Jason Brennan joins Aaron and Trevor for a discussion about political obligation. Conventional wisdom holds that governments make laws and their citizens have a duty to obey them. Most people think that’s so obvious that we don’t even really need to discuss it. But is it? Governments certainly want us to obey them, but what sort of arguments are there for why we should?

Brennan is Assistant Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at Georgetown University. Jason’s the author of three books: Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know, The Ethics of Voting, and, with David Schmidtz, A Brief History of Liberty. He is also a regular contributor to the blog Bleeding Heart Libertarians.

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James Stacey Taylor joins Aaron and Trevor to discuss what society thinks is okay to buy and sell. Buying and selling some things—like books, cars, or houses—strikes us as fine. But even the thought of trading money for things like love or organs makes many people uncomfortable or even angry.

Taylor is an Associate Professor at the College of New Jersey and the author of Stakes and Kidneys: Why markets in human body parts are morally imperative and the forthcoming book Toxic Trade? An Unapologetic Defense of Universal Commodification.

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Matt Zwolinski joins Aaron and Trevor for a look at the plight of poor people and how concern for the least well-off relates to libertarian thinking. Libertarians are often branded as being anti-poor and are frequently criticized for espousing a philosophy that only benefits the rich and privileged. But is that true?

Zwolinski teaches philosophy at the University of San Diego, founded the Bleeding Heart Libertarians blog, and writes for Libertarianism.org.

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John Samples joins Aaron and Trevor in looking at the relationship between money and political speech. Campaign finance is a perennial issue, but much of the argument about it rests on often unexamined assumptions. Is money speech? If it is, can we still restrict its role in politics? If it isn’t, what’s its relation to political speech? What does it mean to say elections can be corrupted by too much speech?

Samples is director of Cato’s Center for Representative Government, and author of “The Fallacy of Campaign Finance Reform.”

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For this first episode of Free Thoughts, we want to look at politics and community and the relationship between them. Libertarians often get called “anti-community.” That’s an unfair charge, of course. But it’s a plausible one if you assume no difference between community and politics, between community and the state. This mistake is in fact a rather common one—and thus results in many bad arguments against libertarianism.

So what is community? And what is politics? And can we have one without the other?

Show Notes

“What’s the Matter with Libertarianism?” by Peter Corning

“Libertarians Are the New Communists” by Nick Hanauer and Eric Liu

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