What Would Karl Marx Do?

This episode explores how Ronald Reagan's Cold War worldview would justify modern U.S. interdiction operations in the Caribbean, arguing that decisive action — including destroying drug-running vessels — fits his belief in peace through strength, moral clarity, and deterrence.

It also examines Reagan's emphasis on narrative and optics, the need for proportional, targeted strikes, and the accompanying long-term strategy of building ...

Imagine Theodore Roosevelt assessing current U.S. naval and Coast Guard operations in the Caribbean: he would endorse decisive action against drug-running vessels, but only if it served clear national interests and produced measurable results.

Roosevelt would insist such force be paired with diplomacy, regional assistance, and domestic reform to reduce demand; he would reject endless or performative policing and demand that strengt...

In this episode we imagine how Victorian philosopher Herbert Spencer would react to the Affordable Care Act. Drawing on his belief that freedom, competition, and voluntary charity drive moral and social progress, Spencer would view mandates, subsidies, and redistributive policies as coercive intrusions that undermine individual responsibility and erode civic virtue.

While sympathetic to the goal of reducing suffering, Spencer would...

This episode explores how Chief Justice John Marshalls constitutional philosophy would have reacted to Roe v. Wade and Dobbs v. Jackson, contrasting early 19th-century views of federal power with modern debates over substantive rights.

It explains Marshalls emphasis on institutional legitimacy, flexible interpretation, and state authority over moral issues, and argues he would reject both Roes creative privacy doctrine and Dobbss r...

Three Enlightenment thinkers—Voltaire, Diderot, and Condorcet—are imagined confronting modern vaccine skepticism, where abundant information is often misused to spread fear and falsehoods.

Voltaire would mock superstition and vanity; Diderot would demand better education and public knowledge infrastructure; Condorcet would stress that vaccination is an issue of justice and civic duty, supporting transparent, reasoned public policy....

This episode imagines how Alexander Hamilton would judge Donald Trump’s tariff agenda, tracing the founding father’s principles on tariffs, industrial policy, and national finance to the challenges of the 21st-century global economy.

Hamilton would sympathize with the goal of protecting strategic industries but would criticize the execution—arguing tariffs must be predictable, targeted, and embedded in a broader plan of credit, inv...

This episode traces the constitutional shift between the Lochner era and the New Deal Court and explains why judges after 1937 would defer to Congress and the executive on tariffs imposed under broad statutory authority like Section 232.

Through landmark cases from West Coast Hotel and Jones & Laughlin to Curtis Wright and Yakis, it shows how deference to legislative purpose, delegation, and executive foreign‑policy power made ...

This episode examines how the Lochner-era Supreme Court, committed to strict separation of powers and a narrow view of congressional delegation, would likely rule on President Trump’s tariffs imposed under Section 232. It explains the era’s focus on non-delegation, key precedents like Panama Refining and Schechter Poultry, and why broad national-security justifications for tariffs would be seen as unconstitutional lawmaking by the ...

This episode examines how the Taney Court, shaped by Jacksonian distrust of privilege and a preference for political branch decision-making, treated federal power over foreign commerce and tariffs. It argues that Taney would likely uphold modern, Congress-authorized tariffs—like those under Section 232—because he favored letting Congress and the president implement economic policy unless the Constitution clearly forbade it.

The epi...

This episode examines whether the early 19th‑century Marshall Court would strike down Donald Trump’s tariffs. Drawing on McCulloch, Gibbons, and cases about conditional legislation, it argues the Court would likely uphold congressional tariff power and the president’s delegated authority.

Ultimately, the Marshall Court’s emphasis on national unity, broad federal commerce power, and deference in political and foreign‑affairs questio...

Adam Smith would likely view Trump’s tariff strategy as a revival of mercantilist thinking: protectionist, politically driven, and ultimately harmful to consumers and long-term growth. He would argue that tariffs privilege narrow producer interests, raise prices, invite retaliation, and undermine the predictable rules that allow markets and international commerce to flourish.

At the same time, Smith might accept narrowly defined na...

This episode imagines how the architects of England's 17th‑century Navigation Acts—Cromwellian and Restoration officials and theorists like Thomas Moon—would interpret Donald Trump’s 21st‑century tariff policies.

They would recognize the mercantilist instincts in Trump’s rhetoric—trade as power, suspicion of deficits, and protection of national interest—but note crucial differences: the Navigation Acts were systemic, enforced by na...

On What Would Karl Marx Do? we imagine historical thinkers weighing in on today’s politics — this episode examines the Affordable Care Act through the eyes of Edmund Burke. It asks whether expanding access to health care is a noble civic duty or an overconfident attempt to remake society by administrative fiat.

Burke’s response, explored here, praises the impulse to relieve suffering but warns that sweeping, centralized reforms can...

This episode imagines Hegel reacting to the Russia‑Ukraine war by reading it as a historical struggle over freedom and recognition: Ukraine’s national self‑consciousness asserting sovereignty, and Russia clinging to an older, non‑constitutional form of power.

Hegel would see the West’s response as rooted in shared constitutional principles but urge prudence against both complacency and overreach, noting that wars accelerate histori...

Imagine Montesquieu transported to the present to watch the Russia-Ukraine war: he would see a clash between a fear-driven despotism and a people defending liberty by choice, not coercion.

The episode explores how different political spirits shape behavior in war, the role of civic virtue exemplified by Ukrainian resistance, and the dangers republics face when fear and unity erode democratic checks.

Montesquieu’s advice is a call f...

This episode applies Niccolò Machiavelli’s lessons on power, virtu, and fortuna to the Russia–Ukraine war, arguing he would view it as a familiar struggle between survival, overreach, and political image-making.

It contrasts Putin’s miscalculations with Zelensky’s skillful use of appearance, courage, and narrative, and offers concise Machiavellian advice for Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and Europe about strategy, alliances, ...