Hayek Program Podcast

On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Chandran Kukathas delivers a keynote lecture at the 2023 Markets & Society conference arguing that an open society is best understood as a regime of toleration—one that can never be perfectly realized because every regime ultimately relies on power. He explores why toleration cannot be neatly limited by moral theory, why appeals to justice often beg the question, and how societies move closer to or further from openness depending on how they handle issues such as immigration and social integration. Along the way, he reflects on liberalism, pluralism, empire, and the challenge of sustaining a society open enough to accommodate different ways of life.

Dr. Chandran Kukathas is Lee Kong Chian Chair Professor of Political Science at School of Social Sciences at Singapore Management University and a Distinguished Affiliated Fellow at the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center. He is the author of many books, including Dialogues on Immigration and the Open Society (Routledge, 2025), Immigration and Freedom (Princeton University Press, 2021), and The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom (Oxford University Press, 2007).

**This episode was recorded on October 22, 2023**

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On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Peter Boettke talks with former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm and Don Boudreaux about their new book, The Triumph of Economic Freedom, a sweeping challenge to seven persistent myths about American capitalism. The conversation ranges from the Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression to the financial crisis. Along the way, they reflect on why these myths endure, why economic freedom has done more than any other force to improve the lives of ordinary people, and why economists and educators must keep returning to history and basic economic reasoning in an age when old policy errors are constantly resurrected in new forms.

Dr. Gramm served six years in the U.S. House of Representatives and eighteen years in the U.S. Senate where he was Chairman of the Banking Committee. Gramm is a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He was Vice Chairman of UBS Investment Bank and is now Vice Chairman of Lone Star Funds. He taught Economics at Texas A&M University and has published numerous articles and books including The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024), coauthored with Robert Ekelund and John Early, a Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2022 and winner of the 2024 Hayek Book Prize.

Dr. Boudreaux is a Senior Fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University; a Professor of Economics and former economics-department chair at George Mason University; an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute; and holds the Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center. He is the author of numerous books, including The Essential Hayek (Fraser Institute, 2015) and Globalization (Greenwood Press, 2007).

Show Notes:

• Sven Beckert’s, Capitalism: A Global History (Penguin Press, 2025)

• Thomas Sowell’s, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles: Revised Edition (Basic Books, 2007)

• Adam Smith’s, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Liberty Fund, 1982)

• Milton and Rose Friedman’s, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (Harper Collins Publishers, 1990)

• Fraser Institute | Realities of Socialism

**This episode was recorded on February 25, 2026**

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**Content Warning** This episode includes discussions of sexual assault, which may be distressing for some listeners. Please listen with care.

On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, David Schmidtz delivers a keynote lecture at the 2024 Markets & Society conference on the idea of self-governance. Drawing on examples from economics, moral philosophy, and higher education, Schmidtz argues that rational choice is less about optimization and more about choosing the frameworks within which decisions become meaningful. He examines the parallels between individual and corporate self-governance, the role of mission statements as “compasses” rather than formulas, and the dangers of over-specialization in academia. Along the way, he reflects on truth-seeking, academic freedom, moral education, and the human need for purposiveness, ultimately challenging universities to cultivate enduring capacities rather than narrow skill sets.

Dr. David Schmidtz is Professor and Presidential Chair of Moral Science at West Virginia University’s Chambers College of Business & Economics, Distinguished Affiliated Fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and Editor-in-Chief of Social Philosophy & Policy. He has published numerous books, including Living Together: Inventing Moral Science (Oxford University Press, 2023), A Brief History of Liberty (Wiley Blackwell, 2011) coauthored with Jason Brennan, and his leading textbook Environmental Ethics What Really Matters, What Really Works (Oxford University Press, 2024) co-edited with Dan Shahar is now in its fourth edition.

**This episode was recorded October 13, 2024.

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On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Peter Boettke speaks with historian David T. Beito about his new biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt. They discuss FDR’s record on civil liberties, including government surveillance and efforts to police speech; the administration’s approach to refugees and antisemitism; and early-career episodes like the Newport Sex Scandal. The conversation also covers how progressive-era ideas shaped FDR’s political instincts, how New Deal programs like the NRA and AAA cartelized industries, and why key wartime choices, such as unconditional surrender and “rescue through victory,” may have prolonged World War II. They close with lessons for today: the dangers of malleable legal categories and the need for durable institutional guardrails against executive abuse.

Dr. David T. Beito is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama. He is the author of many books, including FDR: A New Political Life (Carus Books, 2025), The New Deal’s War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR’s Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance (Independent Institute, 2025), and T.R.M. Howard: Doctor, Entrepreneur, and Civil Rights Pioneer (Independent Institute, 2018), coauthored with Linda Royster Beito.

**This episode was recorded December 8, 2025.

Show Notes:

• Presidential Greatness Project

• Thomas C. Loenard’s book, Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era (Princeton University Press, 2016)

• Herbert Croly’s book, The Promise of American Life: Updated Edition (Princeton University Press, 2014)

• Murray Rothbard’s book, America’s Great Depression (Mises Institute, 2000)

• David Michaelis’ book, Eleanor (Simon & Schuster, 2021)

• Daniel T. Rodgers’ book, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Harvard University Press, 2000)

• David Hackett Fischer’s book, Liberty and Freedom (Oxford University Press, 2004)

• George Selgin’s book, False Dawn: The New Deal and the Promise of Recovery, 1933–1947 (University of Chicago Press, 2025)

If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!

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On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Chris Coyne talks with Abigail Hall and Jayme Lemke about Kenneth and Elise Boulding’s insights into what it means to build and sustain peace. Drawing on her paper “In Search of Stable Peace,” Hall explores Kenneth Boulding’s framework for understanding peace and war, focusing on the roles of strain and strength and the shifting taboo lines that shape movement between stable and unstable peace. Lemke then turns to Elise Boulding’s vision of peace as an active, everyday practice, emphasizing the often-overlooked forms of peacebuilding embedded in ordinary social relationships and institutions. Together, the conversations emphasize peace as a process shaped by ideas, institutions, and imagination.

Dr. Abigail R. Hall is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Tampa and a Senior Affiliated Scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She has published numerous books, including her most recent satirical book, How to Run Wars: A Confidential Playbook for the National Security Elite co-authored with Christopher J. Coyne (2024). She holds a PhD in Economics from George Mason University and is an alum of the Mercatus PhD Fellowship.

Dr. Jayme Lemke is a Senior Research Fellow and a Senior Fellow with the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She is co-editor of Economy, Polity, and Society, an Associate Editor for the Review of Behavioral Economics, and Secretary of the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics.

Show Notes:

• The Journal of Conflict Resolution

• Kenneth Boulding’s book, Stable Peace (University of Texas Press, 1978)

• Robert Higgs’s book, Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government (Independent Institute, 2025)

• Elise Boulding’s book, Cultures of Peace (Syracuse University Press, 2000)

• Kenneth Boulding’s book, The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society (University of Michigan Press, 1956).

• Elise Boulding’s book, The Underside of History: A View of Women Through Time (SAGE Publications, 1992)

• Julian Simon’s book, The Ultimate Resource 2 (Princeton University Press, 1998)

**This episode was recorded September 15, 2025 and December 29, 2025.

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On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Chris Coyne delivers a keynote lecture at the 2023 Markets & Society conference on the foundations of peace. He contrasts “top-down” peacemaking driven by elites with “bottom-up” peacemaking that emerges from the everyday practices of ordinary people.

Coyne argues that much of the social-scientific and policy conversation treats peace as a public good best supplied through state-intervention. He develops an alternative framework—pax hominem—that treats peace as an emergent, learned, and constantly renewed process. Drawing on mainline political economy and the work of Kenneth Boulding, Coyne shows how peaceful cooperation depends on local knowledge, social norms, and institutions that help people navigate conflict without violence across families, communities, and markets.

Together, these insights point toward a research and policy agenda focused less on imposing order and more on creating space for self-governance and the bottom-up cultivation of peace.

Dr. Christopher J. Coyne is Associate Director of the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center and Professor of Economics at George Mason University. He has published numerous books, including How to Run Wars: A Confidential Playbook for the National Security Elite (Independent Institute, 2024), In Search of Monsters to Destroy: The Folly of American Empire and the Paths to Peace (Independent Institute, 2022), and Doing Bad by Doing Good: Why Humanitarian Action Fails (Stanford University Press, 2013).

**This episode was recorded October 20, 2024.

Show Notes:

• Kenneth Boulding’s book, Stable Peace (University of Texas Press, 1978)

• Elise Boulding’s book, Cultures of Peace(Syracuse University Press, 2000)

• James C. Scott’s book, Seeing Like a State (Yale University Press, 1999)

• Caroline Elkin’s book, Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire (Penguin Random House, 2023)

• James M. Buchanan’s Nobel Prize Lecture

• Elinor Ostrom et. al’s paper, “Covenants with and without a Sword: Self-Governance Is Possible” (APSR, 2013)

• Virgil storr et. al’s book, Community Revival in the Wake of Disaster: Lessons in Local Entrepreneurship (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)

• Mikayla Novak’s book, Freedom in Contention: Social Movements and Liberal Political Economy (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021)

• Virgil Storr and Ginny Choi’s book, Do Markets Corrupt Our Morals? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)

If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!

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**This episode was recorded September 29, 2025.

On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Chris Coyne speaks with Amy Crockett and Erwin Dekker about how economics shapes our understanding of peace, conflict, and cooperation, drawing on the work of Kenneth Boulding and James Buchanan.

First, Coyne speaks with Amy Crockett about her upcoming paper, “Addressing Peace in Undergraduate Economics Textbooks.” Crockett examines how peace is often treated as a background assumption in economics education and presents evidence from introductory and upper-level textbooks on how war, conflict, and policy responses are typically framed, highlighting missed opportunities to emphasize bottom-up, cooperative solutions.

Coyne then speaks with Erwin Dekker about his paper, “Kenneth Boulding and James Buchanan on the Public Function of Economics.” Decker discusses how both thinkers understood economics as shaping the public “image” of social life, emphasizing exchange, moral foundations, and the importance of economists addressing citizens rather than policymakers.

Together, these conversations show how economic ideas—whether taught in classrooms or communicated to the public—can either reinforce conflict-centered narratives or help sustain cultures of peace and cooperation.

This is the fourth episode in a short series of episodes that will feature a collection of authors who contributed to the volume 1, issue 2 of the Markets & Society Journal or to a forthcoming special issue from The Review of Austrian Economics.

Dr. Erwin Dekker is Senior Fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics and a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He has published numerous books, including Realizing the Values of Art (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), Jan Tinbergen (1903-1994) and the Rise of Economic Expertise (Cambridge University Press, 2021), and The Viennese Students of Civilization: The Meaning and Context of Austrian Economics Reconsidered (Cambridge University Press, 2016).

Dr. Amy Crockett is a Senior Lecturer at Vanderbilt University. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from George Mason University, an M.A. in teaching from Relay Graduate School of Education, and a B.S. in systems engineering & economics from George Mason University. She is an Alum of the Mercatus PhD Fellowship.

Show Notes:

• Tensions in Political Economy Series

• Kenneth Boulding’s book, The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society (University of Michigan Press, 1956).

• Robert Higgs’ paper, “Wartime Prosperity? A Reassessment of the U.S. Economy in the 1940s” (The Journal of Economic History, 2009).

• James Buchanan’s paper, “Positive Economics, Welfare Economics, and Political Economy” (The Journal of Law & Economics, 1959).

• James M. Buchanan’s Nobel Prize Lecture

If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!

Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgram

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On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Mario Small delivers a keynote lecture at the 2024 Markets & Society conference on financial institutions and racial inequality—using payday lenders as a lens to understand how place and institutional context shape economic life.

Small begins with a deceptively simple question: how often is it easier to reach a payday lender than a traditional bank—and does that vary by neighborhood racial composition? He shows that racial gaps in access and attitudes persist even after accounting for socioeconomic differences, and argues that proximity, convenience, and institutional experience help shape preferences, even as most Americans hold negative views of payday lenders.

Together, these insights offer a nuanced account of how neighborhood context and institutional behavior interact to reproduce inequality, challenging simple explanations rooted in individual choice and highlighting the importance of lived experience in economic decision-making.

Dr. Mario L. Small is Quetelet Professor of Social Science at Columbia University. A University of Bremen Excellence Chair, and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and the Sociological Research Association, Small has published award-winning articles and books on urban inequality, personal networks, and the relationship between qualitative and quantitative methods. His books include Villa Victoria: The Transformation of Social Capital in a Boston Barrio, Unanticipated Gains: Origins of Network Inequality in Everyday Life -- both of which received the C. Wright Mills Award for Best Book -- and Someone To Talk To: How Networks Matter in Practice, which received the James Coleman Best Book Award among other honors.

**This episode was recorded October 12, 2024.

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On this episode, Chris Coyne speaks with Brigitta Jones, Nathan Goodman, and Karla Segovia about Kenneth Boulding’s insights on war, peace, and the political economy of conflict applied to contemporary questions about military organization and the dynamics of civil conflict.

First, Jones discusses her coauthored paper with Coyne, “The Political Economy of Milorg,” which uses Boulding’s concept of Milorg to examine the entanglement of public agencies and private firms in the military sector. She highlights how knowledge problems, incentives, and political processes shape what the military produces and how those decisions affect the broader economy.

Goodman and Segovia then join Coyne to discuss their paper, “Unstable Peace in El Salvador,” coauthored with Abby Hall. Drawing on Boulding’s framework, they examine how shifting expectations, beliefs, and “taboo lines” eroded the country’s fragile peace, highlighting how strains such as land concentration, poverty, repression, and escalating violence contributed to the outbreak of civil war.

Together, these conversations illustrate how Boulding’s insights illuminate both the functioning of the modern military-industrial landscape and the complex processes through which societies move between peace and war.

This is the third episode in a short series of episodes that will feature a collection of authors who contributed to the volume 1, issue 2 of the Markets & Society Journal or to a forthcoming special issue from The Review of Austrian Economics.

Brigitta Jones is a PhD student in Economics at George Mason University. Her research interests include the welfare state of the United States.

Dr. Nathan P. Goodman is a Senior Research Fellow and Senior Fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. His research broadly focuses on political economy, public choice, market process economics, New Institutional Economics, and defense economics.

Dr. Karla Segovia is a program manager for Research & Programs and a Research Fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where she works on the Markets & Society conference and journal. She is also an adjunct professor at Northern Virginia Community College.

Show Notes:

• Kenneth Boulding’s book, Stable Peace (University of Texas Press, 1978)

• Kenneth Boulding’s book, The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society (University of Michigan Press, 1956).

• U.S. Congressional Testimony by Kenneth Boulding (1969)

**This episode was recorded October 27, 2025.

If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!

Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgram

Follow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus

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On this episode, Peter Boettke chats with Angus Burgin, Simon Halliday, and Glory Liu to explore their innovative work at the Center for Economy and Society and the creation of a new undergraduate program in Moral and Political Economy. They dive into the revival of political economy as a cross-disciplinary field, the pedagogical innovations shaping the next generation of thinkers, the coming 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, and more.

Dr. Angus Burgin is Associate Professor of History and Founding Director of the Program in Moral and Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University. He serves as Co-Executive Editor of the book series, Intellectual History of the Modern Age, and he is the author of The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets since the Depression (Harvard University Press, 2015).

Dr. Simon Halliday is Associate Research Professor and Associate Director in the Center for Economy and Society at Johns Hopkins University. He is the co-author (with Sam Bowles) of an intermediate microeconomics textbook, Microeconomics: Competition, Conflict and Coordination (Oxford University Press, 2022).

Dr. Glory Liu is Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. She is the author of Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher became an Icon of American Capitalism (Princeton University Press, 2022).

Show Notes:

• John Hopkins University’s BA in Moral + Political Economy
• Core Econ
• Adam Smith’s book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Liberty Fund, 1982)
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s book, Women and Economics (Small, Maynard & Company, 1898)
• Tim Rogan’s book, The Moral Economists: R. H. Tawney, Karl Polanyi, E. P. Thompson, and the Critique of Capitalism (Princeton University Press, 2018)
• Warren Samuels’ paper, “Adam Smith and the Economy as a System of Power”

**This episode was recorded October 30, 2025.

If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!

Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgram

Follow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus

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