Cato Event Podcast

The Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies Presents a Symposium through the Generosity of George M. Yeager Cato's annual Constitution Day symposium marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day-long symposium featuring n...

The Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies Presents a Symposium through the Generosity of George M. Yeager Cato's annual Constitution Day symposium marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day-long symposium featuring n...

The Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies Presents a Symposium through the Generosity of George M. Yeager Cato's annual Constitution Day symposium marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day-long symposium featuring n...

The Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies Presents a Symposium through the Generosity of George M. Yeager Cato's annual Constitution Day symposium marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day-long symposium featuring n...

What is the state of human freedom and progress around the world? If human well-being is getting better, why do so many people remain pessimistic? Evidence from academic institutions and international organizations shows dramatic improvements in human well-being. These improvements are especially striking in the developing world. Unfortunately, there is often a wide gap between the reality and pub...

During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, political dictators were not only popular in their own countries, but were also admired by numerous highly educated and idealistic Western intellectuals. The objects of this political hero-worship included Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro and more recently Hugo Chavez, among others. Hollander will discuss the s...

The legal sale of recreational marijuana remains limited to a handful of states, but 29 states plus the District of Columbia allow the prescription and distribution of medical marijuana. Ten of those states—which represent 115 electoral votes—went for President Trump in the 2016 election. National polling shows that just over half of Americans favor marijuana legalization, but a much l...

A key question in debates over whether states should implement Obamacare's Medicaid expansion, and whether Congress should repeal Obamacare entirely, is whether government expansions of health insurance coverage improve health, and if so, how much. A new study by Bernard Black and colleagues finds that the uninsured "consume fewer healthcare services, but their health (while alive) does not deteri...

Why is Westeros mired in 8,000 years of economic stagnation? Should Daenerys firebomb King's Landing to prevent a longer war? The world of Game of Thrones is teeming with fascinating interactions between institutions, incentives, and power that creates a sweeping geopolitical mega-saga just begging to be theorized. An examination of these issues through the lens of economics, law, international re...

What are the biggest challenges facing U.S. foreign policy? While much of the current foreign policy debate in Washington and around the world is focused on the Trump administration, policymakers must also look further ahead in order to address potential conflicts and issues that will shape the world in the first half of the 21st century. From the Middle East to Russia to the rise of China, world...

North Korea remains a vexing, high-stakes puzzle. With so little known about the “hermit kingdom” leadership, how should the United States respond to North Korea’s growing nuclear capabilities? Doug Bandow provides his insights after a rare visit to the isolated nation. Join us for a live discussion about the North Korea problem. Send your questions and join the conversation with #CatoConnects . H...

From  Cato University 2017: Summer Seminar on Political Economy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From  Cato University 2017: Summer Seminar on Political Economy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Public choice has emerged to explain behavior in both markets and politics. To what extent do voters and consumers behave rationally, and how can a science largely germinated in the study of market exchange help to explain politics? From  Cato University 2017: Summer Seminar on Political Economy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most of the order in human life wasn't consciously foreseen, designed, or imposed; it just grew. Free societies include many islands of conscious planning, but the overall order of a free society isn't planned. Organizations have purposes, but society has no one purpose. From  Cato University 2017: Summer Seminar on Political Economy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Modern widespread prosperity is made possible by respect for individual freedom — to think, to plan, to challenge old ways of doing things, to introduce new products and services, to be enterprising. How are liberty and shared prosperity closely connected? From  Cato University 2017: Summer Seminar on Political Economy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of the most potent and controversial tools in the American intelligence community’s arsenal is set to lapse at the end of this year. Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 allows the government to intercept the communications of foreign targets as they cross U.S. soil—including conversations with American citizens. Spy agencies claim it’s a vital weapon against terrorists and should no...

One of the fundamental historical arguments for traditional public schooling is that compulsory common schools are necessary for a stable democratic society. Horace Mann, the father of American public schooling, argued that common schools would force children from diverse backgrounds, religions, and races to interact with one another and receive instruction on proper virtues. Other people, however...

Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that the earth belongs to the living. His letter to James Madison is often quoted for the proposition that we should not be bound to the “dead hand of the past,” suggesting that the Constitution should instead be interpreted as a living, breathing document. Less well known is Madison’s response, in which he said that the Constitution forms a debt against the living,...

One basis of modern medicine is that low doses of many chemicals are beneficial, while higher ones are toxic. And yet a great disparity has evolved with the regulation of many entities — including carcinogens, ionizing radiation, and toxics. Their regulation is based on the notion that that a single molecule or photon is as capable of inducing cancer as the billionth one. How has this disparity ha...

Political communication can be described as the use of three separate “languages”: progressive, conservative and libertarian. Each serves to reinforce the validity of the positions of its constituent members while at the same time maligning the views of their opponents. By identifying and understanding the language that each group employs, we can discuss politics while minimizing miscommunication,...

Ayn Rand’s first novel,  We the Living,  is a captivating story set in 1920s Russia about students trapped in a communist state. As Rand said, “ We the Living  is not a story about Soviet Russia in 1925. It is a story about Dictatorship, any dictatorship, anywhere, at any time.” With new authoritarian challenges to liberal democracy arising throughout the Western world, its ideas ar...

“Discrimination” has a terrible connotation — excluding or treating people differently for ultimately superficial reasons — and fear that choice programs would allow schools to discriminate in admissions has been widespread. But is “discrimination” always and inescapably wrong? Could it reflect a school’s capabilities or sense of mission? Join us for a very open discussion — including opinions fro...

According to a recent  New York Times  analysis, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among Americans under age 50. Driving this trend, which shows no sign of abatement, is a surge in opioid-related overdoses. These types of deaths have occurred with such frequency that Maryland, Florida, and now Arizona, have declared medical states of emergencyWhat to do? Solutions range f...

The Democracy Fund Voter Study Group , a new research collaboration of nearly two dozen analysts and scholars from across the political spectrum, recently released new data and analysis exploring voter perceptions before and after the 2016 election. During the intense political division of the 2016 presidential campaign, the Voter Study Group began collaborating across ideological lines to examine...