The Great Antidote

Send us Fan Mail Michael Cannon , director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, talks to us today about Medicare. He provides statistics on the size of Medicare spending and the history of how Medicare came into being. We also discuss the distortions that Medicare creates, and Cannon addresses calls for “Medicare for All”.  Do you know how much fraud there is in the Medicare system? Lis...

Send us Fan Mail Rachel Ferguson is an economic philosopher at Concordia University Chicago and the director of the Free Enterprise Center, as well as an affiliate scholar with the Acton Institute. She is the co-author of Black Liberation Through the Marketplace: Hope, Heartbreak, and the Promise of America . Today, we talk about her book, which focuses on civil society and the classical liberal a...

Send us Fan Mail Timothy Sandefur , vice president of legal affairs at the Goldwater Institute, talks to us today about his book, Frederick Douglass: Self-Made Man .  He talks to us about the philosophy behind and the development of American slavery, highlighting Douglass’s escape from it. Listen to learn about Douglass’s journey from slave to abolitionist- as well as to explore the debate about s...

Send us Fan Mail Matthew Continetti, is a senior fellow and the Patrick and Charlene Neal Chair in American Prosperity at the American Enterprise Institute. Today, we talk about his new book The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism .    Continetti talks to us about the different terminology used to describe right-leaning ideologies, and how they’ve evolved over time. He also gives...

Send us Fan Mail Darren Staloff is a history professor at the City College of New York and the author of two books: Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment   and the American Founding   and The Making of the American Thinking Class: Intellectuals and Intelligentsia in Puritan Massachusetts . He talks to us today about the ideas at the core of our Constitution, the people who foug...

Send us Fan Mail David Epstein is the author of New York Times #1 bestsellers, Range and The Sports Gene , and an investigative reporter at ProPublica. Today, he talks to us about Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World . Listen for generalist success stories! He explains when best to use a generalist approach, in sports, versus a specialist approach, in chess. We talk about how to i...

Send us Fan Mail Michael Cannon, Cato Institute’s director of health policy studies, talks to us today about health and health policy, reminding us of their definitions, goals, and importance. Learn about the origin of our current health care system, the different methods of obtaining health care (direct, government provided, employer-sponsored), and specifically employer-sponsored health care, wh...

Send us Fan Mail William B. Allen, resident scholar and former chief operating officer of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, talks to us today about the book he recently edited,  The State of Black America.  He tells us about his upbringing and the current narrative about racism and policy in the United States. Is it a problem? What should we do about it?  Support the show Never miss anot...

Send us Fan Mail Your criminal sentence doesn’t necessarily end when you get out of jail. Criminal records prevent many Americans from entering jobs requiring occupational licensing. 66 million Americans have criminal records; 30% of jobs require occupational licensing. Licensed jobs range from electrician to medical professional to hair braider. Matthew Mitchell is a Senior Research Fellow and th...

Send us Fan Mail Jon Murphy, recent PhD graduate from George Mason University and incoming instructor at Western Carolina University, talks to us today about Adam Smith’s theoretical and practical exceptions to free trade. We explore whether Smith would have endorsed The Jones Act through his endorsement of Britain’s Navigation Acts.  Support the show Never miss another AdamSmithWorks update. Foll...

Send us Fan Mail Weifeng Zhong, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, talks to us today about the distinction between misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. He leads us through his story of discovering the Tiananmen Square Massacre and how it led to the Policy Change Index project. We talk about hopes and fears for the future, along with some difference...

Send us Fan Mail Jason Fichtner, vice president and chief economist at the Bipartisan Policy Center, talks to us about retirement and saving strategies. He takes us through different types of savings accounts, why you should start saving today, and why you should start saving today. We also talk about starting to save later in life, how to save for and pay off big expenses, and social security con...

Send us Fan Mail Clark Neily, senior vice president of legal studies at the Cato Institute, talks to us about upcoming Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. We explore her unique qualifications and the hopes that this brings, amicus briefs and how they are filed, and her judicial philosophy.  Support the show Never miss another AdamSmithWorks update. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter , and In...

Send us Fan Mail Peter Van Doren is the editor of the quarterly journal Regulation and is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, where he specializes in housing, land, energy, and more. Today, he talks to us about what energy independence is, whether America is energy independent, and if that is a good thing. He also talks to us about energy more generally, including nuclear and green energy.  Sup...

Send us Fan Mail Daniel Klein, professor of economics at George Mason University and expert on Adam Smith, talks to us about Smith’s definition of justice. There are three types of justice: commutative, distributive, and estimative. Today we break down the differences between each and their applications in government and private life.  Support the show Never miss another AdamSmithWorks update. Fol...

Send us Fan Mail Walter Olson is the author of several books and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies. Today, we talk about the 2020 election and the increasing fears of election fraud. He talks to us about the different types of election fraud, the actual reality of election fraud, and voter suppression.  Support the show Never miss another AdamSmithWorks...

Send us Fan Mail Inflation is always around, but it has been particularly worrisome recently. A startling departure from the United States' usual average of about 2% inflation, we faced 8.5% in the month of April. Where does inflation come from? What regulatory bodies aim to deal with inflation? How do they do it? Does it work? Today, Thomas Hoenig talks to us and answers all these questions...

Send us Fan Mail Arnold Kling is an economist and the author of the book The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across Political Divides. His substack, In My Tribe, explores many areas of economics and policy. Today, he talks to us about the divide in politics, explaining the need for his book and giving current examples. We explore affective polarization and the rise of polarization generally. ...

Send us Fan Mail Randy Simmons is the author of Beyond Politics and the director of the Institute of Political Economy at Utah State University. Today, we talk about the field of public choice economics or, as economist James Buchanan calls it, "politics without romance". What exactly is Beyond Politics? What is a market failure? What is a government failure? Tune in for the answers to t...

Send us Fan Mail Brian Knight, director of Innovation and Governance and a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, talks to us today about woke capitalism. What is woke capitalism? Is this debate new? Will it benefit companies or backfire? Listen for all that and more.  Support the show Never miss another AdamSmithWorks update. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter , an...

Send us Fan Mail Jay Bhattacharya is a professor of medicine at Stanford University, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration. Today we talk about the United States's response to COVID-19 and the silencing of dissenting voices in the scientific community in the time of this national emergency.  Support the show Never m...

Send us Fan Mail Philip Klein, author of two books and editor of National Review Online, talks to us today about the unprecedented move by Florida governor Ron DeSantis and the legislature to revoke Disney's special district status. We explore what special district status is, why this happened, what this means for conservatives (and the birth of fight club conservatives), and whether this is...

Send us Fan Mail Henry Clark, professor and program director of the Political Economy Project at Dartmouth College, talks to us today about the French and Scottish enlightenments. We talk about intellectuals who influenced Adam Smith and their influence on him, and discuss Smith's originality.  Support the show Never miss another AdamSmithWorks update. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter , and In...

Send us Fan Mail Kenneth Elzinga, Robert C Taylor Professor of Economics at UVA , author, and antitrust  expert,  talks to us today about teaching economics, the importance of Christianity to his life and profession, and his work with antitrust.  Support the show Never miss another AdamSmithWorks update. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram .

Send us Fan Mail Chris Coyne is an economics professor at George Mason University and the author of several books, including Manufacturing Militarism: US Government Propaganda in the War on Terror, coauthored with Abigail Hall. Today we talk about the US war on terror, propaganda, and its implications for free society.  Support the show Never miss another AdamSmithWorks update. Follow us on Facebo...