The Political Orphanage

Why did America close its psychiatric hospitals, and what happened to the people who needed them? Writer and cultural critic Freddie deBoer, author of All in Your Head: Illness as Identity, Trauma as Fashion, and the Desire to Be Disordered, explores the ideas, political decisions, and good intentions behind deinstitutionalization. From the influence of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to the promi...

Corporate personhood is one of the most misunderstood concepts in American law. From ancient Rome and medieval universities to William Blackstone and the modern Supreme Court, this episode explores why corporations have legal identities, how limited liability works, why companies can be prosecuted for crimes, and whether they can receive the corporate equivalent of the death penalty. Then, a look...

Why is Germany's anti-immigration AfD surging in popularity? And why does immigration seem to work better in America than in Europe? Harris, a Bosnian refugee turned American citizen who now lives and works in Germany, joins us to explore the economic, cultural, and political tensions fueling Europe's immigration backlash. We discuss Germany's sprawling welfare state, bureaucratic obstacles to int...

Americans pay vastly more for medicine than citizens of other wealthy countries, but are those countries getting a bargain at our expense? David Goldhill, author of Catastrophic Care and founder and CEO of the healthcare marketplace Sesame, joins the show to explain why he considers American healthcare a kind of "second NATO"—one in which the United States shoulders a disproportionate share of the...

When does a successful company become a dangerous monopoly? Heaton traces the strange history of American antitrust law, from railroad barons and Standard Oil to Hollywood studios and Big Tech, before diving into the intellectual cage match between Louis Brandeis and Robert Bork. Should regulators worry about corporations getting too big and powerful, or only step in when consumers actually get hu...

Alex Mayyasi of NPR's Planet Money joins me to explore some of the stranger forces shaping the economy. Why did the federal government create a legally mandated raisin cartel? Why are so many American corporations technically from Delaware? Should companies exist solely to make money? And are there times when price controls actually work? We also dig into Baumol's cost disease—the counterintuitive...

Are we racing toward an AI-powered golden age—or building something we won't be able to control? Justin Robert Young joins to explore the emerging philosophical divide over artificial intelligence: accelerate innovation and reap potentially enormous benefits, or slow down before we unleash risks we don't understand. We discuss OpenAI and Anthropic, the politics of AI regulation, competition with C...

Dr. Steve Fuller of Warwick University says the meaningful split in society is not Leftwing vs. Rightwing, but rather Upwing vs. Downwing. Both have radically different attitudes to both risk and human nature, which informs their policy decisions and the direction they want to steer society.  SUPPORT THE SHOW!  www.patreon.com/andrewheaton Dr. Fuller's book at:  www.mightyheaton.com/featured Refer...

Healthcare in America is more expensive than anywhere else in the world—but what are other countries actually doing differently? Physician and Slice of Life MD author Sally Primus joins me to tour healthcare systems from Germany and Britain to Japan, Australia, and Estonia. We look at single payer, private insurance, wait times, doctor shortages, drug prices, bureaucracy, and the strange economics...

Donald Trump has renamed Lake Ontario "Lake America" for federal purposes—but can a president actually rename a place, or only change what the government calls it? Andrew Heaton traces the strange history of who gets to control language, from ancient river names that survived Romans and Normans, to Cardinal Richelieu's Académie française, to Noah Webster, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and America'...

The DSA recently released a policy platform establishing the goals of their political movement. In this episode we got through the main planks of that document, namely the bits about "socialism" and "democratic." We likewise go through a few articles and interviews of prominent DSA members to get an idea of what, in their own words, they're actually up to. (Spoiler: it's socialism.) 

The Save Our Bacon Act, now repackaged into the Farm Bill, would upturn state rights in favor of federal prohibitions on animal cruelty laws. It's being pushed, in large part, by Chinese-owned conglomerates irritated by federalism. Lewis Bollard is the Farm Animal Welfare Managing Director at Coefficient Giving on Substack. He joins to discuss the Save Our Bacon Act, and the economic tradeoffs of...

What is The Odyssey actually about beyond a clever guy trying to get home? Classicist Isabella Reinhardt joins to dig into the poem's deeper themes of civilization, hospitality, identity, belonging, and what it means for a warrior to return from war. Then we turn to adaptation itself, and the choices involved in translating an ancient epic for a modern audience. Using Christopher Nolan's The Odyss...

It's not that America won't spend money on mass transit, it's that we piss it away when we do. Our transit system is a mess, with a lot of problems in spending, procurement, NIMBYism and good 'ol fashioned idiocy. Will Poff-Webster is the Director of Infrastructure Policy at the Institute for Progress, where he works on energy, transportation and housing policy.

Should you trust experts—or trust yourself? Richard Hanania, author of Kakistocracy: Why Populism Ends in Disaster joins to discuss why populism has become one of the defining forces in modern politics. We discuss whether elites really deserve their bad reputation, why expertise and institutions matter, where academia and the media have genuinely failed, and whether movements built around "the wis...

Why has trust in the news collapsed—and is it really all the media's fault? Tangle founder Isaac Saul joins for a candid conversation about the incentives driving modern journalism, from clickbait and audience capture to ideological groupthink and the collapse of local news. We explore whether readers are rewarding the very coverage they claim to hate, why viewpoint diversity matters inside newsro...

Is Rumpsringa real? Are Amish people happier than you? Let's visit Amish country! Heaton visits Muhlenberg County, Ohio, to investigate America's unique subculture of pacifistic, techno-phobic Anabaptists.  We meet Marcus Yoder, the Executive Director of the Amish and Mennonite Heritage Center, and talk to him about all things Amish. Why do they have weird beards? Why eschew buttons, automobiles,...

Brian Dunning of the Skeptoid podcast returns to The Political Orphanage for a spirited pushback episode on the modern non-profit industry. In a previous conversation, we argued that sprawling tax-exempt organizations can become bloated, unaccountable, and more interested in perpetuating themselves than solving problems. Brian arrives armed with skepticism, data, and counterarguments. Do non-profi...

Why did the United States become a stable republic while so many revolutions ended in dictatorship? The answer lies in two men pivitol to the Revolution: George Washington... and Oliver Cromwell. A century before George Washington, Cromwell fought a king in the name of liberty, overthrew the monarchy, and then—step by step—became everything he opposed. Washington would later face many of the same...

What if history isn't a string of great man biopics or a struggle between conservatives and progressives? What if it's a battle of disciplinarians against drunks and harlots? Thaddeus Russell comes on to talk about his book, "A Renegade History of the United States."

The Founding Fathers were all children of the Enlightenment, and they agreed on kicking King George out, but they never agreed on how to run the country. Seth Radwell, author of  American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing Our Nation joins on to discuss these two halves of our Founding, and how they are ultimately complimentary.

Jeffrey Rosen is a legal scholar and the President of the National Constitution Center. He's the author "the Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America."

Zuby is a British rapper who spent his childhood on a Saudi Aramco compound—a sprawling corporate community complete with schools, recreation, housing, and services. We discuss what it was like growing up in a place where one company effectively functioned as the local government, and whether company towns deserve their bad reputation. Then the conversation takes an unexpected turn. Having also li...

Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing, built the modern automobile industry, and amassed one of the greatest fortunes in American history. Then he decided to conquer the Amazon. In this installment of our series on company towns, we explore Fordlandia—the bizarre Midwestern utopia Ford attempted to build in the Brazilian jungle. It had golf courses, square dancing, vegetarian cafeterias, anti-so...

George Pullman built his employees a sparkling company town with clean homes, parks, libraries, luxury trains, and some of the best living conditions in the country—but demanded obedience in return. When recession hit and workers rebelled against wage cuts and paternalistic control, the conflict exploded into one of the most violent labor crises in American history. Featuring Eugene V. Debs, feder...