A weekly show about politics and liberty, featuring conversations with top scholars, philosophers, historians, economists, and public policy experts. Hosted by Trevor Burrus. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
https://www.libertarianism.org/podcasts/free-thoughts
Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 17 days 4 hours 46 minutes
Harambe to Trump: 2016 Was the Worst
David Boaz joins us to recap 2016. Did we just have the worst year ever in American politics?
Show Notes and Further Reading
Here’s our Free Thoughts episode on Donald Trump with Ben Domenech, recorded after Trump won the Republican primary but before he won the general election...
The Gold Standard Won't Be Coming Back
George Selgin joins us for a discussion about the gold standard...
The Permission Society: How the Ruling Class Turns Our Freedoms into Privileges and What We Can Do About It
Timothy Sandefur joins us this week to talk about his new book, The Permission Society: How the Ruling Class Turns Our Freedoms into Privileges and What We Can Do About It...
Why Schools Haven't Changed in Hundreds of Years
Kevin Currie-Knight joins us this week to discuss why we can’t seem to change the way we educate schoolchildren. Is there one best way to educate kids?
Where did our current system—splitting kids up by age, dividing knowledge up into subjects, having teachers stand at the front of the room and give lectures, testing knowledge with exams, summer holidays, etc...
Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future
Johan Norberg joins Trevor this week to talk about the notion of progress and gives us all a few reasons to look forward to the future.
Why is there a systemic bias towards pessimism when hard data shows the world is getting better and better every day?
Show Notes and Further Reading
Norberg’s newest book is Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future (2016)...
College: Too Costly, Too Little Learning, Too Much Underemployment
Richard Vedder joins us this week to discuss what he’s identified as three major problems with the way today’s American higher education system works.
Why is higher education so expensive, and how did it become so expensive so quickly? If student aid and loans only aggravate the problem, can anything be done to remedy this? Is going to college more of a status symbol than a necessity these days?
Hosted on Acast. See acast...
Why Can't You Email Your Doctor?
Dr. Ryan Neuhofel joins us this week to talk about his practice, NeuCare, which is a very different way to approach primary care medicine in the United States...
The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians
American Indians currently have the highest rates of poverty of any racial group; some reservations have unemployment rates upward of 80 percent. Suicide is the leading cause of death among Indian men, Native American women are two and a half times more likely to be raped than the national average, and gang violence affects Indian youth more than any other group...
Bonus Election Day Episode: Should Libertarians Vote?
The bleak prospect of living in a country governed by one of the major-party presidential candidates seems to bolster arguments against voting. Declining to participate in this year’s deeply unsatisfactory election may signal a preference for “none of the above” while denying personal sanction to the many wrongs and injustices governments mete out in our names. Not voting is a time-saver, too.
But non-participation in the vote may be an unwise option...
Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective
What are some of the geographical factors throughout history that lead to unequal outcomes? Can we tease out a causal direction for something like cultural dishonesty? Is isolation—cultural, geographic, and otherwise—always bad for a society? How does all of this relate to the ongoing income inequality debate in America?
Show Notes and Further Reading
Thomas Sowell’s newest book is Wealth, Poverty, and Politics: Revised and Enlarged Edition (2016)...