The Human Action Podcast

The midterm elections failed to produce an overwhelming Blue Wave, and political rancor in the US remains feverishly high. Now an astonishing new article in The Intelligencer (nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/maybe-its-time-for-america-to-split-up.html) considers the idea of a "federated" America, broken up into several political entities associated via compacts. It's not a dystopian view of a possible future, but rather a clear-eyed projection of what a political breakup of America might actually look like.

But is a breakup feasible? Does it have to involve outright secession by several states, or can some form of federalism allow Team Red and Team Blue to live together, even uneasily? Is Mises's conception of true self-determination, implemented by smaller administrative units rather than huge centralized states, lost to us today? Michael Boldin (mises.org/Boldin) of the Tenth Amendment Center joins Jeff Deist to discuss the realities behind breaking up the US politically.

The legacy media doesn't report news, it produces a show. "The Show" lies to us, divides us, inflames the culture wars, and creates political division. The old broadcast networks, cable channels, newspapers, and magazines all actively work against liberty and correct economics—so the importance of alternative sources for news, economics, history, and politics has never been greater.

Jeff Deist spoke on the topic of new and old media at our recent event in Texas.

Dr. Yoram Hazony's new book 'The Virtue of Nationalism' (Mises.org/HazonyBook) asks several provocative questions: are nation-states necessarily illiberal? Are globalism and universalism inevitable? If so, why do we blithely assume a post-national world will be liberal and benign? Are movements toward supranational governance, always ordered around western political conceptions, a new form of imperialism? And what does history teach us about ordering human affairs to best ensure prosperity, peace, and human flourishing?

Ludwig von Mises—quoted in the book—asked these questions almost a century ago in 'Liberalism' (Mises.org/Liberalism), and they're every bit as relevant today in the age of Trump. Dr. Hazony joins Jeff Deist for a compelling interview.

Related article: Dr. Joe Salerno on Mises and the nation state (Mises.org/wire/mises-nationalism-right-self-determination-and-problem-immigration).

This week, we feature a recent episode of Ryan McMaken's Radio Rothbard podcast (Mises.org/RothPod).

We continue to hear about how capitalism and industrialization distract us from the important things in life. In reality, the historical record shows that it was industrialization and capitalism that propagated the conditions under which we can afford to treat each other more humanely.

Radio Rothbard is a series of short podcasts based on columns and research from the Mises Institute's Mises Wire (Mises.org/Wire). Topics include economics, comparative politics, and history. Subscribe to Radio Rothbard (Mises.org/RothPod) today on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Soundcloud, or via RSS.

Ryan McMaken (Mises.org/McMaken) is the editor of Mises Wire and The Austrian.

Silicon Valley used to be a hotbed of libertarian thought, a place where innovation mattered more than government. Today, companies like Twitter and Facebook serve as de facto editors, banning users like Alex Jones for "wrong-think." Google dominates search, but may steer search results. And Amazon serves nefarious clients like the NSA with its cloud infrastructure. And all of them employ plenty of lobbyists to avoid the kind of government anti-trust suit Microsoft faced nearly 20 years ago.

Libertarians oppose regulation, but also oppose censorship and politically correct culling of opinion. Dr. Peter Klein recently addressed these topics and more, in a talk addressing how how the technology sector has drastically changed in recent years—and how tech firms evolved into media companies focused on influence instead of innovation. He argues that social-media companies put on a public facade of being private and free of government influence, but behind the really lobby for protection against competition.

Allen Mendenhall from Faulkner University Law School joins Jeff Deist to break down the hyper-politicized spectacle of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. How did the Supreme Court become so wildly powerful, even while rubber-stamping the excesses of the executive and legislative branches? How much longer can America survive having deeply contentious issues like abortion and gun control decided by a de facto super-legislature? Why is the Constitution a malleable "living document" but Supreme Court precedents are sacrosanct? And how will we ever overcome deep-seated public misconceptions about the role and powers of the Court?

We take a break from economics this week to welcome our old friend Jim Bovard (Mises.org/Bovard) for an unflinching look at the disastrous politicization of everything in America. The nasty fight over Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation is only the latest example of a trend Rothbard identified decades ago, one that intensifies in the Trump era. Can we ever make politics matter less again? Can we ever stop filtering everything that happens through a noxious lens of race, sex, class, oppression, and intersectionality? And can we ever stop seeking to vanquish people politically?

This weekend’s show features Jeff’s recent appearance on the radio show Turning Hard Times into Good Times hosted by Jay Taylor. They discuss the big picture aspects of the US economy—namely, what's going on civilizationally with debt and central banking, and the seemingly endless civil wars in the middle east. They also deconstruct the poisoned political landscape in Washington DC, despite the lack of any meaningful policy differences between the two dominant ideologies of today: neoliberalism and neoconservatism. This is an eye-opening discussion about the state of things in DC and beyond.

The intellectual landscape today is far more favorable to markets and Austrian economics than 30, 50, or 100 years ago. Our job is to take the digital means at our disposal and make economics the stuff of everyday life, something relevant to ordinary people. So let’s drop the scrappy underdog posture, the quietism, the retreatism, and the remnant mentality, and fully restore proper economics to its rightful place in academia, business, and civilization itself.

Mary Ruwart (Mises.org/Ruwart) is a PhD chemist who worked for 20 years in Big Pharma, and she's seen regulatory capture at the FDA up close. She joins Mises Weekends to discuss the sobering reality of our medical cartel, and what all of us must do in the fight for health freedom in the US. How does government thwart radical research that might eliminate cancer, HIV, and chronic diseases like diabetes? Who really funds the FDA? Why do doctors go along with it? Can we measure how many deaths the FDA causes each year, rather than prevents? And will health supplements or alternative health modalities remain legal and widely available in the US?