Liberty Law Talk

John Tamny comes to Liberty Law Talk to discuss his excellent new book Popular Economics. Many will recall the first time they read Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. That book’s clear prose and striking examples provided a foundational introduction to free markets. But, as is often true, our practices are better than our theories. We […]

Paul Nolette comes to Liberty Law Talk to discuss his book Federalism on Trial, which demonstrates how state attorneys general quietly became significant national policymakers. What was once a rather staid position in state government has become the source of entirely new regimes of conduct impressed on companies and industries. Incredible evidence of this legal […]

FDR observed that “The process of collective bargaining . . . cannot be transplanted into the public service.” What does it mean for taxpayers if government workers organize into unions and engage in collective bargaining arrangements? What actually checks and balances their desires for greater pay and benefits? Politicians? Engaged citizens? Will dutiful public servants […]

This edition of Liberty Law Talk discusses with the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens his recent book, America in Retreat. Stephens argues that an America which declines to engage globally with its military is accepting a false promise of peace at the expense of rising disorder. The introduction chapter is entitled “The World’s Policeman” where Stephens quotes President […]

Peter Schuck comes to Liberty Law Talk to discuss Why Government Fails So Often. Like James Buckley and John DiIulio, Schuck doesn’t have much good news for the large majority of Americans who are disgusted with the performance of the federal government and its ability to devise and execute policies. Schuck notes that in April […]

If there was any hope left that a Putin-led Russia might still transition to a democracy with a stable rule of law and truly independent civil society, Karen Dawisha’s Hayek Book Prize nominated Putin’s Kleptocracy would seem to have squashed it. Indeed, Dawisha argues that Putin basically rules through and with a criminal conspiracy whose […]

This episode of Liberty Law Talk welcomes a truly gregarious man of public administration, John DiIulio, on his new book, Bring Back the Bureaucrats. That title might well lead to a collective sigh filling the air; however, DiIulio argues that we’re dishonest about the federal government in two significant ways: (1) The federal government spends […]

Did you know that Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments  can change your life? In essays on self-knowledge, happiness, virtue, being loved and being lovely, making the world a better place, and most importantly, fame and self-deception, Russ Roberts’ new book on Smith explores why the 18th century Scottish philosopher has the cure for […]

Now comes the great James Buckley to Liberty Law Talk to discuss his new book Saving Congress from Itself that argues federal grants-in-aid exemplify the obstacles currently posed to constitutional government. The key to our constitutional health must involve, Buckley declares, the elimination of these programs. The issue is more than just the overwhelming spending, which has soared from […]

What does it mean to turn politics into an exercise of compassion? That’s the question William Voegeli invites us to consider in his latest book The Pity Party. He bids us to the same conclusion, but in policy and political terms, that our parents once gave us: pity parties are a guilt trip. Of course, […]

What if a profound economic downturn occurred and the federal government basically ignored it? Couldn’t happen, right? In his latest book, The Forgotten Depression, James Grant details for us the depression of 1921 and how it was permitted to cure itself. We discuss in this podcast how the Wilson* and Harding administrations let prices and […]

This next podcast is with the Danish journalist Flemming Rose, foreign news editor at Jyllands-Posten, on the controversy he ignited in 2005 when he published cartoons satirizing the prophet Mohammed. His new book, The Tyranny of Silence, offers his reflections on the conflagration that ensued, including a jihadist’s attempt to murder one of the cartoonists […]

Presidential power scholar Stephen Knott discusses in this latest edition of Liberty Law Talk his book Rush to Judgment: George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and His Critics, recently released in paperback form by University Press of Kansas. Knott has a point in this book. He argues convincingly that the vituperative critics of George […]

The market for consumer credit has been subjected to an ever increasing amount of federal regulation since the 2008 crisis. The Dodd-Frank Act created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to intervene in consumer credit markets and protect us from the rapacious lenders who devour household income and place consumers in unmanageable levels of debt through […]

The attempt by the media and the political elites of the three major political parties in the United Kingdom to heap contempt on Euroskepticism no longer possesses the same power. With the victory of the United Kingdom Independence Party in local and European Parliamentary elections, the prospect of the UK leaving the European Union is […]