The Human Action Podcast

Our guest is Daniel McAdams, head of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. Daniel is a foreign policy expert, having worked for many years on Capitol Hill and as an election monitor in eastern Europe. Daniel and Jeff discuss the role Dr. Paul played in creating the noninterventionist populism visible in both the Trump and Sanders campaigns, and how the public now sees the Iraq war as a mistake. Daniel also discusses the depth and reach of the "war party" lobby, marked by well-funded think tanks, a revolving door of hawkish congressional staffers, and brazen manipulation of the federal budget by defense contractors. How do neoconservative interests get their hooks into members of Congress? How do people like Bill Kristol (who never seems to be right about anything), maintain their grip on the US foreign policy establishment? And, how do ordinary people reclaim the narrative from those who would recklessly expand US intervention in Syria and Iran?

At this year's AERC, Dr. Michel Accad, who practices cardiology and internal medicine in San Francisco, presented a fascinating paper fusing Misesian insights with medicine. Dr. Accad highlights how viewing "the body as a machine" has played a major role in the rise of medical paternalism and one-size-fits all treatment. Dr. Accad instead proposes a praxeological framework for medicine, with health being defined "as the state that is present when one's physical and mental conditions allow the pursuit of one's chosen ends." Dr. Accad's talk is a brilliant application of Austrian theory to real world practice.

Weaving Austrian insights together with firsthand knowledge of technological innovation, Hunter outlines how the technology of the “cognitive assistant” can help empower entrepreneurship and usher in a new age of individualism.

Dr. Guido Hülsmann joins us this weekend to discuss the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe. We consider what Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe have to say about borders, migration controls, organic nations, and culture. Dr. Hülsmann also explains the critical difference between nation and state, and why so-called "public property"should be controlled for the benefit of taxpayers. Are the arguments for the free movement of goods necessarily applicable to immigrants? Are libertarians overly dismissive of culture arguments, narrow-mindedly seeing individuals as bound to each other only by market exchange? And is the modern version of open borders just a big-government construct?

Central banks — and central bankers — are in uncharted waters. They don't know how to create economic growth, they don't know how to fight the great bogeyman of deflation, and they don't know how — or if — they'll ever be able to return to a time of "normal" monetary policy. Their pretense of knowledge, of being able to effectively control currencies used by billions of people, is coming to an end.

But it's not just an academic issue — all of us are affected by the possibility of negative interest rates, prohibitions on cash, and bank bail-ins. Will you be able to get cash out of your bank or money market account if the economy suffers another crash like 2008? Will governments force us into cashless, digital-only payment systems, tracking our every purchase and creating black markets in the process? Will you have to pay your bank, in the form of negative interest rates, for the privilege of holding your money? And will your deposits take a haircut if your bank suffers losses from its bad loans?

I recently joined my friend Jay Taylor on his radio show to discuss how both central banks and commercial banks are poised to change your life in some very unpleasant ways.

On this week's episode, we feature a past talk given by Hans-Hermann Hoppe highlighting some of the key points he makes in his book 'Democracy: The God That Failed'. The subject seems particularly topical as American elites have become increasingly comfortable dropping the façade of democracy, with the Washington establishment becoming increasingly transparent in their intentions to undercut the success of populist campaigns, such as Donald Trump’s.

Hoppe’s lecture not only shows how democratic elections often lead to bad results, but illustrates how political democracy is often incompatible with human liberty. True democracy is instead found in the marketplace, with voluntary actors free of the threat of government force.

Murray Rothbard would have celebrated his 90th birthday this past week, so the Mises Institute held a reception in his honor at the ISFLC conference in Washington DC. Joining us to explain why Rothbard remains so relevant today is University of Manchester professor Matt McCaffrey, a former Mises Institute Fellow and editor of our new Rothbard Reader (https://mises.org/RothbardReader). Matt discusses Rothbard's amazing range of interests and knowledge, his relationship with Mises, his great opus Man, Economy, and State — written in his early 30s — and his enduring legacy in a sea of forgotten mainstream economists.

To read Professor McCaffrey's and Professor Joe Salerno's introduction to the Rothbard Reader, see http://mises.org/blog/introducing-rothbard-reader. And order your copy here: http://store.mises.org/Rothbard-Reader-P11018.aspx

This weekend, Jeff recaps his recent talk in Houston entitled "Socialist Left vs. alt-Right: What it Means for Liberty" (https://youtu.be/NxkV-A5dBZc)—a talk which generated plenty of comments from libertarians, progressives, and the alt-Right. Jeff discusses why we should celebrate the death of supposed "democratic consensus," why the progressive left doesn't care about winning votes, how the alt-Right turns identity politics against social justice warriors, and what libertarians should learn from populism and even demagoguery.

The concept of negative interest rates, already adopted in Japan, is now under serious consideration in Europe and the US. Here to make sense of this bizarre environment is Paul-Martin Foss, head of the Carl Menger Center and a regular contributor to mises.org. Paul-Martin explains how Mises and Rothbard understood the function of interest rates, as opposed to how central bankers use interest rates as a tool to stimulate aggregate demand. Can our economic problems really be fixed by forcing banks to make more uneconomic loans to already-insolvent borrowers? And can individuals be forced to spend money by punishing them for leaving it in the bank?

The late Murray Rothbard is in many ways the godfather of the modern libertarian movement, starting with the publication of his great tract 'Man, Economy, and State,' back in 1962. And of course, Rothbard played an instrumental role in helping Lew Rockwell get the Mises Institute off the ground.

This weekend's show features a great panel discussion about Murray—not just the economist and the intellectual scholar, but also Murray the man. The panel features David Gordon, Walter Block, and Joe Salerno—all three of whom worked with Murray, and knew him personally for many, many years prior to his death in 1995.

So, if you're a fan of Rothbard, you will enjoy this free-wheeling discussion of what Murray was like not just as an intellectual and a scholar, but also as a person.