The Reason Roundtable

For a quarter of a century, Gene Epstein was the economics editor and a columnist at the business magazine Barron's. Before that, he served as an economist for the New York Stock Exchange. Now, he runs The Soho Forum, a monthly Oxford-style debate series held in New York that covers topics of special interests to libertarians. (As a co-sponsor, Reason records and releases audio and video versions of each debate. Go here for a full archive).

Epstein has just published a major essay in City Journal, the magazine of the Manhattan Institute, about the long and error-prone career of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, whom he calls "continually mistaken" but "chronically admired." Stiglitz, writes Epstein, is the apotheosis of "elite myopia" when it comes to trusting government over free markets to improve the lives of the poor. Read the article here.

In the latest Reason Podcast, Nick Gillespie talks with Epstein about the continuing influence of Stiglitz, a former adviser to Bill Clinton and chief economist at the World Bank who is a favorite of progressive Democrats such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.). We also talk about Epstein's upcoming October 15 debate in New York with Bhaskar Sunkara, the editor and publisher of the left-wing Jacobin magazine, about whether socialism or capitalism is the better system for making people more free and prosperous. To buy tickets, which must be purchased in advance, go here now.

Audio production by Ian Keyser.

Journalist and Soho Forum co-founder Gene Epstein on economists' romance with strongmen and his upcoming debate with Jacobin's Bhaskar Sunkara.

Since the publication of his 1989 essay "The End of History?," no political scientist has been more influential in discussions of global democracy than Francis Fukuyama. In the years since then, the Stanford professor has authored a shelf full of prescient and commanding texts, including The End of History and the Last Man, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creaton of Prosperity, and Our Post-Human Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution.

Once a neoconservative who staunchly believed in military intervention and nation building, Fukuyama has been chastened by the failure of U.S. foreign policy since 9/11 and has renounced his early support for the invasion and occupation in Iraq. In his new book Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, he argues that the rise of populism, nationalism, and grievance cultures based on racial, ethnic, and gender identity both here and abroad are undermining the basis of liberal democracy and threaten economic prosperity and peace. "Every single one of these struggles is justified," Fukuyama told The Chronicle of Higher Education recently. "The problem is in the way we interpret injustice and how we try to solve it, which tends to fragment society."

Nick Gillespie spoke with Fukuyama about Identity, whether it's possible to create a national identity that is capable of bringing Americans of all sorts together without becoming oppressive and stultifying, and why he believes that a Democratic win in the midterm elections is essential to checking what he sees as the authoritarian tendencies of Donald Trump.

Since the publication of his 1989 essay "The End of History?," no political scientist has been more influential in discussions...

Criminologist Gary Kleck debated Paul Helmke, the former president and CEO of the Brady Center, at the Soho Forum.

Over the weekend, The New Yorker published explosive new allegations of sexual impropriety by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, this time involving an alleged incident from his freshman year at Yale in the early 1980s. Since then, Kavanaugh has flatly denied everything, President Trump has said he stands with the judge, and The New York Times has questioned the veracity of the new story. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear testimony from Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the judge's earlier accuser, on Thursday.

In today's Reason Podcast, Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and Nick Gillespie discuss the fallout of the Kavanaugh hearing not just as it relates to the future of the Supreme Court but to journalistic norms and public discourse. We also talk about the uncertain fate of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who may be out from his role of overseeing Robert Mueller and the federal probe into Russian influence in the 2016 election. And we talk about what we've been reading, watching, and listening to.

Audio production by Ian Keyser.

'CGI Snake' by Chris Zabriski is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Reason's editors discuss the latest Brett Kavanaugh revelations, Rod Rosentein's fate, and how to recover basic norms of political discourse.

Reason's editors discuss the latest Brett Kavanaugh revelations, Rod Rosentein's fate, and how to recover basic norms of political discourse.

The head of Ideas Beyond Borders is translating books by Steven Pinker, Sam Harris, and others into Arabic and distributing them for free.

Earlier this year, Rachel Goldsmith became executive director of the Free State Project, which describes itself as "a mass migration of more than 20,000 people who have pledged to move to New Hampshire." By concentrating themselves in one state, the Free Staters plan to become a bloc pushing New Hampshire toward more libertarian policies.

In the latest Reason Podcast, Goldsmith, an MBA originally from Albany, New York, tells Reason's Nick Gillespie that the number of year-over-year "movers" to New Hampshire has doubled, and that many of the people associated with the movement who have run in the state's primaries have won. While the Free State Project doesn't endorse specific candidates or pieces of legislation, more than a dozen current legislators are allied with the group. "It's been pretty inspiring," she says. "We're definitely in the 'family wave' of things. We have a lot of folks with kids and young professionals who are considering having kids coming to our events."

In a wide-ranging conversation, Goldsmith also previewed the group's annual winter event, Liberty Forum. To be held February 7–9 of next year in Manchester, the gathering will be keynoted by Cody Wilson, head of Defense Distributed, a nonprofit that develops and publishes open-source gun designs suitable for 3D printing and digital manufacture.

Audio production by Ian Keyser.