Policy@McCombs

Lecture 1: Theology and Epistemology

George Walsh (c.1923-2001) was one of those old-school professors who wrote little but read everything. These two lectures on Protestant Fundamentalism, delivered in the late-80s, distill decades of study of Protestant Fundamentalism with great insight and humor, handling the ideas with the same seriousness that intellectual historians normally reserve for the Great Thinkers of Western Philosophy.  Lecture 1 covers fundamentalist theology and epistemology; lecture 2 delves into fundamentalist ethics and politics.  The Salem Center’s Bryan Caplan, who heard Walsh live in 1989, has plans to make all of Walsh’s “lost” lectures on the history of ideas once again available to the curious public.  Warning: The first few minutes of Lecture 1 are sadly missing.

George Smith (1949-2022) was a learned and extraordinarily charismatic autodidact. A wunderkind, or close to it, Smith published his most famous book, *Atheism: The Case Against God* when he was only 25.  He once bragged that he dropped out of high school to start college, dropped out of college to start a Ph.D., and then dropped out his Ph.D. program to become one of the most beloved Liberty and Society speakers for the Institute for Humane Studies.  This lecture, delivered around 1990, promotes *Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies*, a book of essays. The intro is R-rated, but the body of the talk is a deep – and deeply-entertaining - intellectual history of the ethics and psychology of puritanism.

Bryan Caplan and Robin Hanson interview – and challenge - Alex Epstein about his controversial new book, *Fossil Future*.  How many “climate denialists” really exist – and what should they take away from Epstein’s book?  How widespread is the view that “nature is sacred” – and what’s the best way to deal with it?  Why should we trust Epstein instead of most of the leading experts?  Why did he write *Fossil Future* instead of *Nuclear Future*? And much more.

George Walsh (c.1923-2001) was one of those old-school professors who wrote little but read everything. These four lectures on Marxism, delivered in the mid-80s a few years before the collapse of the Soviet bloc, distill decades of study of Marxist ideas with great insight and humor. Lecture 1 covers the Marxism’s intellectual precursors; lecture 2 delves into Marxist philosophy; lecture 3 goes into Marxist economics; and lecture 4 finishes with Marxist politics. The Salem Center’s Bryan Caplan, who heard Walsh live in 1989, has plans to make all of Walsh’s “lost” lectures on the history of ideas once again available to the curious public.

George Walsh (c.1923-2001) was one of those old-school professors who wrote little but read everything. These four lectures on Marxism, delivered in the mid-80s a few years before the collapse of the Soviet bloc, distill decades of study of Marxist ideas with great insight and humor. Lecture 1 covers the Marxism’s intellectual precursors; lecture 2 delves into Marxist philosophy; lecture 3 goes into Marxist economics; and lecture 4 finishes with Marxist politics. The Salem Center’s Bryan Caplan, who heard Walsh live in 1989, has plans to make all of Walsh’s “lost” lectures on the history of ideas once again available to the curious public.

George Walsh (c.1923-2001) was one of those old-school professors who wrote little but read everything. These four lectures on Marxism, delivered in the mid-80s a few years before the collapse of the Soviet bloc, distill decades of study of Marxist ideas with great insight and humor. Lecture 1 covers the Marxism’s intellectual precursors; lecture 2 delves into Marxist philosophy; lecture 3 goes into Marxist economics; and lecture 4 finishes with Marxist politics. The Salem Center’s Bryan Caplan, who heard Walsh live in 1989, has plans to make all of Walsh’s “lost” lectures on the history of ideas once again available to the curious public.

George Walsh (c.1923-2001) was one of those old-school professors who wrote little but read everything. These four lectures on Marxism, delivered in the mid-80s a few years before the collapse of the Soviet bloc, distill decades of study of Marxist ideas with great insight and humor. Lecture 1 covers the Marxism’s intellectual precursors; lecture 2 delves into Marxist philosophy; lecture 3 goes into Marxist economics; and lecture 4 finishes with Marxist politics. The Salem Center’s Bryan Caplan, who heard Walsh live in 1989, has plans to make all of Walsh’s “lost” lectures on the history of ideas once again available to the curious public.

Sergiu Klainerman is Princeton University’s most vocal and articulate dissident professor.  Find out what this famed mathematician, a refugee from Communist Romania, thinks about (a) how the Marxist-Leninism education of his youth compares to the woke education of today, (b) the decline of academic freedom and intellectual meritocracy at Princeton and higher ed generally, and (c) the best way to reverse this decline.

Alex Tabarrok is a professor of economics at George Mason University. He joins the podcast to talk to Richard Hanania about his involvement in Operation Warp Speed, a uniquely successful federal government project. Richard asks how broadly applicable its lessons are, whether or not we could do something similar for cancer, and why economists and public health officials had such divergent opinions on the need to speed up the process of approving and distributing a vaccine. 

Alex also discusses the Baumol effect, which he argues can explain much about rising costs in healthcare and education. Richard pushes back on the theory as a sufficient explanation, and asks whether a simple libertarian story better fits the facts, arguing that government support for these industries also plays a role.

The conversation then goes on to talk about the rise of crypto, why America is severely under-policed, and how recent years have seen the collapse of challenges to liberal democracy. 

Part one of the conversation with Luigi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKwZqNOeGg4

Luigi Achilli's CV: https://me.eui.eu/luigi-achilli/publications-other/