The Reason Roundtable

When President Donald Trump bragged in his first State of the Union address about cutting red tape, the Democratic response was no surprise. "Deregulation," warned Center for American Progress Senior Advisor Sam Berger in Fortune, "is simply a code word for letting big businesses cut corners at everyone else's expense."

But many leading Democrats had the opposite view in the 1970s. Then, at the dawn of the deregulation era, left-leaning politicians and economists understood that excessive government management of industry let the big-business incumbents get away with lousy performance at the expense of competitors, taxpayers, and consumers. The leading figure in that fight to cut red tape and shut down entire federal agencies was none other than Jimmy Carter.

Written by Matt Welch. Produced and edited by Alexis Garcia. Camera by Meredith Bragg and Todd Krainin.

Photo credits: Jimmy Carter Library, Arthur Grace/ZUMA Press/Newscom, Dennis Brack/Newscom, Everett Collection/Newscom, Ron Sachs/CNP/MEGA/Newscom, Brian F. Alpert/ZUMA Press/Newscom, Paul Harris/Pacific Coast Nes/Newscom, Bee Staff Photo/ZUMA Press/Newscom, Dennis Brack/bb51/Newscom, Jonathan Bachman/REUTERS/Newscom, Rick Friedman/Polaris/Newscom

Tao Lin's Trip details how the author's experience with LSD, DMT, psilocybin, and more blew his mind while making him more human.

Holiday season is here. To help your friends or family learn about liberty, why not give them a book?

John Stossel has some ideas.

First, there's The Road to Serfdom. In it, Friedrich Hayek explains why government intervention in the economy leads to serfdom. He explains why no central planner can allocate resources as well as individuals can.

Stossel says this is a great book for your socialist friends—if they are willing to read it.

They might not be, Stossel says, because the language is old. Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics is more current. Sowell explains that trade is not a zero-sum game—it's not as if one country wins and another loses. Both sides benefit. Stossel suggests that someone should give Sowell's book to our President.

Another myth-busting book is The Myth of the Robber Barons. Historian Burton Folsom explains that Cornelius Vanderbilt and John D. Rockefeller didn't get rich by robbing people. They got rich by creating better things.

Another good book that covers basic economics is Free to Choose, by Milton and Rose Friedman.

Stossel also briefly mentions a bonus book by a former clueless, lefty, big-government loving reporter who finally woke up to the benefits of markets. That book is Give Me a Break.

Prefer fiction? Stossel recommends two classics, Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, and Animal Farm, by George Orwell.

Any of these books, Stossel says, would make a great Christmas gift.

Also: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez owns the cons while spouting policy B.S.

Also: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez owns the cons while spouting policy B.S.

Jacob Sullum, Dana Rohrabacher, and Adrian Moore talk about the next steps in ending the war on drugs at Reason's 50th anniversary celebration.

Jacob Sullum, Dana Rohrabacher, and Adrian Moore talk about the next steps in ending the war on drugs at Reason's 50th anniversary celebration.

Drinks Reform editor Jarrett Dieterle talks about how Prohibition came about, and his new report on America's dumbest booze restrictions.

Companies like Google and Facebook collect information about us and sell it to advertisers.

The information they collect and the way they collect it cross the "creepy line" according to a new documentary called "The Creepy Line."

John Stossel asks the writer of the documentary, Peter Schweizer: "What's the big deal? They're giving me information."

Schweizer responds "to the extent that somebody can do something for you, they can do something to you." He goes on to make a powerful case that Google and Facebook abuse their power.

The documentary says that Google tracks you even when you are not online. As soon as you connect to the internet, Android uploads to Google a complete history of where you've been that day.

Schweizer wants Google and Facebook to be regulated like media companies.

Stossel is skeptical "You want regulation? That's going to make it better?" he asks.

Schweizer answers: "one of the ways you deal with Google's market concentration, and its massive control of search is, put it under the same shackles [as] other media companies."

Stossel doesn't presume to know what, if anything, ought to be done about Google and Facebook. But he says that the documentary makes a compelling case that these giant companies do creepy things.

Also: How much should we care that Trump & co. lied in 2016 about a Putin-proximate real estate deal in Russia?