The Great Antidote
Adam Smith said, "Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition." So join us for interviews with the leading experts on today's biggest issues to learn more about economics, policy, and much more.
Episodes
Not often do we find people who make the case for how race, liberty, and equality belong together. Even less often do we find them making arguments in the height of racially and economically troubled times. And EVEN LESS do we find audio clips of them doing so.
These people are inspiring. They stand up against the currents of the time to speak their minds, for the benefit of everyone. In doing so, they garner respect ...
Adam Smith was a man who read the Stoics. He liked them, too, talking them up in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, particularly in the section on grief.
Then he lost two of his closest relations (old timey, right?), David Hume and his mother. These world-shaking events caused him to reevaluate what he said about grief in TMS and change our interpretation of his commentary on grief.
So what did he say about grie...
This year’s Nobel Prize winners in economics are Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson, who wrote on the importance of inclusive institutions to economic growth. But what on earth are ‘inclusive institutions’ and how do they differ from exclusive ones?
Inclusive institutions are norms, either written or unwritten, about things like property rights, democracy, and the rule of law. But what other institutions...
Picture a policy conversation, perhaps in Washington, about national security. Who’s sitting around the table? It might be the President, national security advisors, military personnel, or generals, but not economists. And yet, national security is often used as a reason to intervene into the economy.
At the mention of national security, it seems economists often shut their mouths and run away (or hide under a rock, o...
How do you teach about a man who does not fit neatly into a box? Hayek is one such man, and today, we tackle the difficult task of putting him in a box. We conclude that we cannot put someone like F. A. Hayek into boxes such as “economist” or “philosopher” or “political theorist”, because he did it all. How and when do you teach the ideas of a man who did it all?
I’m excited to welcome Tawni Hunt Ferrarini to the podc...
It’s often said that if you want to get to know someone, you should look through their garbage. Now, I don’t recommend this method of getting to know someone (it’s kind of gross). But biographers often have the luck of getting to know the people they study by looking through their stuff- that stuff not being actual garbage.
For example, Bruce Caldwell spent time with Hayek’s skis and botanical photographs. You might b...
The title of this episode might confuse you: what on earth do Adam Smith and F. A. Hayek have to say about social justice? A surprising amount, given how much we talk about it!
Smith makes a big point of critiquing men of pride and vanity. What happens when those ultimately negative aspects of humanity go too far, into the territory of what he calls “domineering”? What happens when small acts of domination are agg...
The month of October 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of F. A. Hayek winning the Nobel Prize. Winning such a prize is obviously a big deal, but someone wins one every year, so what’s the big deal about this guy?
Well. Hayek’s contributions to the field of economics are significant because they spoke to more than simply economics. Spontaneous order, price signals as information, and the pretense of knowledge all might c...
Do you ever take a moment to think about the fact that Americans, the people of the land of the free, spent 13 years under Prohibition? Did you know that Americans used to seriously “drink like a fish”? And no, I’m not talking about fraternity men in college. I’m talking about everyone, everywhere, from George Washington’s parties to lunchtimes in the manufacturing factories (until Henry Ford put a stop to it, you kn...
What does it actually mean to run a think tank, to create harmony within an office building full of idea-confident folk? Some have called the think tank a monastery, some have called it an academic social club, and some have even called it a policy incubator. What truly is it and how on earth do you lead one?
Leading a think tank is a multifaceted job, because you have your own scholarship to do too. Today, I’m excite...
Even though I hope you’ve been avoiding the election news like I have (as you would the plague), admittedly, it’s hard to do. It’s like someone is blasting it outside your window at 5 AM. Or like a billboard outside your front door that you can’t help but see every time you step outside. Bummer.
Fortunately, AEI’s wonderful Yuval Levin joins us today to talk about the remedy to the plight of election season and Ameri...
Growth is essential to human life. Always has been, always will be. From the moment we are born, we grow, and we continue to throughout our lives, whether that is physically, mentally, or otherwise. Societies grow too.
But what is growth? Real growth is replicable, durable, and sustainable (and not in the sense that immediately comes to mind). Your seven-year-old doesn’t shrink back down after she grows an inch. It mig...
Some questions are hard to ask. Some questions you don’t want to ask. Some questions are hard for you to hear the answers to. Like, how do you tell someone, politely, that they eat with their mouth open? Between a rock and a hard place, you know you gotta do it. You really don’t want to, but you know you can’t stand to watch it anymore either.
Candace Smith is a wonderful teacher of etiquette and the creator of the Eti...
What does it mean for something to be ESG when two of those words are adjectives and one is a noun? I mean think about it. “Environmental, social, and governance” doesn’t really describe anything. It’s also a good example of cacophony. So can someone please explain what it means?
Today, luckily, Paul Mueller, senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, comes to my rescue. He explains what E...
What’s in a price? Good question. How can you be “enslaved” to something like a price, to something that doesn’t eat, sleep, or breathe? Good question. What does it mean to wage a war against this inanimate enslaver? Good question.
Join me today with Ryan Bourne, the R. Evan Scharf Chair for the Public Understanding of Economics at the Cato institute. Bourne paints a picture of a bloodless yet economically catastrophi...
Michael Cannon is the Cato Institute’s director of health policy studies and it is his third time on the podcast. He has been on The Washingtonian’s list of most influential people for four years in a row.
Today, we talk about why people think the American healthcare system is “free market” and the role of prices in determining health outcomes--- and how unfettered markets improve the lives of everyone in need of heal...
Charles Noussair is the Eller Professor of Economics at the University of Arizona and the Director of the Economic Science Laboratory. He also serves as the President of the Economic Science Association. Today, we talk about experimental economics, how it complements other types of economic research, and how economic experiments are conducted. He tells us about a recent macro experiment that tests institutions for gro...
Sandra Peart is a Distinguished Professor of Leadership Studies and the President of the Jepson Scholars Foundation at the University of Richmond, as well as a coauthor of Towards an Economics of Natural Equals: A Documentary History of the Early Virginia School, with David Levy. She is also a distinguished fellow of the history of economics society.
Today we talk about the importance of humility in discussi...
Daniel Di Martino is a PhD candidate in Economics at Columbia University and a graduate fellow at the Manhattan Institute—where he focuses on high-skill immigration policy. He also founded the Dissident Project to teach high school students about the evils of socialist regimes.
Today we talk about his life in Venezuela and the economic realities he faced growing up, particularly inflation and shortages. He e...
Anne Bradley is an economics professor at the Institute of World Politics and the Vice President of Academic Affairs at The Fund for American Studies. Today, we talk about the political economy of terrorism: what terrorism is, what makes a terrorist, and what the war on terror does to attempt to prevent terrorism. We talk about how economics is uniquely positioned to pose questions and find answers about this area usu...
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