IEA Podcast

Teen Vogue are the latest publication to jump on the trendy “Millennial Socialism” bandwagon, with a longer series about what they call “democratic socialism”.  

How exactly Teen Vogue’s “democratic socialism” would work remains a bit of a mystery, but every article on the subject assures us that it will be nothing like the dictatorial socialism of the old Eastern Bloc, or North Korea, or Venezuela.  

So would democracy help lead socialism to better outcomes or is economic collapse inevitable?

Dr Kristian Niemietz, author of 'Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies', speaks to IEA Head of Communications Emma Revell to discuss.

Ben Bradley MP and Christopher Snowdon join Professor Syed Kamall for a fascinating discussion on the seemingly “forgotten demographic”: white working class boys. In a recent Spectator cover article, Christopher describes how only 13% of white boys from poor backgrounds go on to higher education, less than any black or Asian group.

He references the time when Ben Bradley, the Conservative MP for Mansfield, tried to ask an ‘Equalities’ question about working-class white boys in parliament earlier this year, and was turned down by the Table Office because they do not have any ‘protected characteristics’. 

You can read "The Lost Boys: the white working class is being left behind" here - https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-lost-boys-the-white-working-class-is-being-left-behind

Professor Syed Kamall is Academic and Research Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs. Christopher Snowdon is our Head of Lifestyle Economics. Ben Bradley is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Mansfield.

Is the UK's education system in need of dire reform?

The IEA's Academic and Research Director Professor Syed Kamall is joined by IEA Head of Education Dr Stephen Davies and Professor James Tooley, the newly appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham.

Together they discuss recent attempts at education reform, low cost private schooling - both in the UK and abroad - and ask what more can be done to improve standards.

In 1998 the IEA published James Tooley's book 'Education Without the State' which is available here.

Classical liberals have been arguing for reform of the National Health Service for years, but - for a variety of reasons - haven’t got very far. The IEA published a report entitled ‘Universal Healthcare Without the NHS’ which looks at international examples of social insurance models which deliver must better outcomes and put patients at the centre of the system yet criticism persists that anyone wanting to reform the NHS wants to privatise it by the back door or introduce a US-style system.

Originally recorded as a video, Emma Revell, IEA Head of Communications, speaks to Dr Kristian Niemietz, Head of Political Economy and author of 'Universal Healthcare Without the NHS’, and Sam Bowman, Director of Competition Policy at the International Center for Law and Economics and Senior Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute to talk about the future of NHS reform.

'Universal Healthcare without the NHS' is available here - https://iea.org.uk/publications/universal-healthcare-without-the-nhs/

Kristian's blog asking whether classical liberals should abandon reform is available here - https://iea.org.uk/should-classical-liberals-give-up-on-health-system-reform/

In this week’s episode of School of Thought, IEA Research and Academic Director Professor Syed Kamall sits down with Dr Cento Veljanovski, IEA Law and Economics Fellow, to discuss economist Ronald Coase.

‘School of Thought’ is the IEA discussion series based on ‘101 Great Liberal Thinkers’ by Dr Eamonn Butler.

Each week, Syed discusses classical liberalism’s role in bringing the modern world into existence, profiling the lives and ideas of some of the leading thinkers on individual liberty and examining their relevance today.

'101 Great Liberal Thinkers' is available to download for free on the IEA website - https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads...

A couple of years ago, the IEA produced a podcast series with Dr Stephen Davies called ‘What You Didn’t Learn in History Class’. In this series, Steve argued that the way history is taught is flawed; for one, we put too much emphasis on politics and power, rather than trade, innovation and entrepreneurship.

While it may be too early to draw conclusions on how the current pandemic will be remembered, portrayed and indeed judged in years to come, Steve has identified four key narratives in which the pandemic is being understood that may well shape the way this moment is remembered in the future.

In this podcast, Media Manager Emily Carver speaks to Dr Stephen Davies, Head of Education at the IEA about how the pandemic might be understood in years to come.

Complaints about left-wing bias in the movie industry are not new. You can find articles from as far back as the 1930s, in which right-wing commentators lambast Hollywood as, essentially, an outpost of the Soviet Union.

Today, the woke, virtue-signalling actor, ready to jump on every fashionable left-wing bandwagon, has become a popular cliché. Clichés, of course, often contain a very large grain of truth.

Since the beginning of the lockdown, the average Briton's TV consumption has gone up by almost an hour per day. For better or worse, movies and TV series are now a bigger part of our lives than ever before.

Dr Kristian Niemietz, IEA Head of Political Economy, turns film reviewer and speaks to Emma Revell, IEA Head of Communication, about two recent examples of dystopian science fiction-thrillers The Platform and Snowpiercer, asking are Marxists taking over cinema?

International trade may faces an uncertain future. After huge growth in the three decades to 2008, trade has stagnated or slightly decreased as a proportion of global GDP. This downward trend, coupled with threats from coronavirus, raises questions over the future of trade.

Is protectionism the new normal? Given the fragility of supply chains, should we try and curb our dependency on other nations? Are we condemning ourselves to live poorer and less prosperous lives if we do?

To discuss this, the IEA's Policy Adviser to the Director General, Alexander Hammond, is joined by IEA Academic and Research Director Syed Kamall and Sam Bowman, Director of Competition Policy at the International Centre of Law and Economics.

A government target of net zero by 2050...is it realistic and achievable? Is it the best way to address concerns over the environment?

Joining Syed Kamall, IEA Academic and Research Director, is Professor Christian Bjørnskov. Christian is Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics at Aarhus University in Aarhus, Denmark, and an affiliated researcher at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) in Stockholm. Christian has been a visiting professor at the University of Göttingen and the University of Heidelberg, and is associated with the Centre for Political Studies in Copenhagen.

All of Christian's latest research and publications can be found on his website. http://www.christianbjoernskov.com/

This episode is part nine of the IEA's 'Zeroing In: Free market approaches to the 2050 target' series, looking at how free marketeers should approach the Government's target for net zero carbon emissions by 2050.