
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
216 episodes
Jo Jenson on Anxiety, Audiences, and Action
Jo Jensen is the founder of MovieGoer and she’s currently the SVP of Digital and Entertainment Strategy at Touchdown Strategies, a PR firm. and is an Aspen Institute Civil Society Fellow. Si...
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1:04:03

Peter Van Doren on Universal Basic Income
What is Universal Basic Income (UBI) and why is it so popular among economists and freedom lovers relative to other types of poverty policy solutions? What does it even mean to “solve a problem” or to “learn” in the social sciences? <...
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45:44

Charlotte Thomas on Learning and the Liberal Arts
Welcome back. Continuing our ongoing exploration of what it means to be an individual living in a liberal society, today I am happy to host Charlotte Thomas to talk to us about what it means to learn and the importance of the liberal arts. ...
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51:43

Brad Wilcox on Get Married
The most common statistic cited regarding marriage and relationships in the United States is that the 50% of all marriages end in divorce. Another one that is gaining traction is that more Americans than ever before will end up unmarried and al...
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50:10

Cara Rogers Stevens on Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
Thomas Jefferson was a complicated figure. Essential to the start of our country and the university I attend, he is impossible to ignore. Yet, he held slaves, and at the same tim...
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50:34

Douglas Irwin on Talking about Trade and Commerce
Trade is all the rage these days. Or, at least, raging about trade is. Today, we unpack what trade and free trade are, and how to talk about it. We also address the abund...
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51:45

Anna Claire Flowers on F. A. Hayek and Social Structures
Today, I am excited to host Anna Claire Flowers to discuss F. A. Hayek and the mesocosmos. The m...
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50:17

Eric Leeper on Volcker, Friedman, and the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level
Welcome back! Happy New Year! Glad to be back! Come one, come all! Eric Leeper is the Paul Goodloe McIntire Professor in Economics at the University of Virginia. He also...
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55:26

David Beito on Rose Lane Says: Thoughts on Race, Liberty, and Equality
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 ...
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45:30

Sarah Skwire on Adam Smith and Grief
Adam Smith was a man who read the Stoics. He liked them, too, talking them up in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, particularl...
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55:42

David Henderson on the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics
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. ...
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46:20

Samuel Gregg on National Security and Industrial Policy
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 securit...
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54:58

Tawni Hunt Ferrarini on Teaching Hayek
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
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44:56

Bruce Caldwell on Hayek: A Life
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 peopl...
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55:08

Jacob Levy on Smith, Hayek, and Social Justice
The title of this episode might confuse you: what on earth do Adam Smith and F. A. Hayek have to say about social just...
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1:04:47

Don Boudreaux on The Essential Hayek
The month of October 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of F. A. Hayek winning the Nobel ...
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52:42

Nicholas Snow on Prohibition
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 kno...
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56:58

Robert Doar on Think Tanks and Scholarship
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 po...
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52:09

Yuval Levin on The American Covenant
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...
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50:10

Henry C. Clark on Growth
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?...
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1:19:33

Candace Smith on Etiquette
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 kno...
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57:55

Paul Mueller on ESG
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 s...
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57:37

Ryan Bourne on The War on Prices
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. ...
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48:39
