Ep. 47 Economist Ben Powell Reports on His Worldwide Tour of Socialist Countries
Ben Powell, head of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech, discusses his newly released book Socialism Sucks (co-authored with Robert Lawson). Powell and Lawson toured countries around the world to observe firsthand life under ACTUAL socialism–in places like North Korea and Venezuela–versus places that merely have large welfare states (like Sweden). They concluded that, well, socialism…
Ep. 46 Bob Murphy Lectures on Private Military Defense
On July 19, 2019, Bob gave a talk on private military defense at Mises University. It was an elaboration of his standard talk from previous years on “The Market for Security.” Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest: Bob’s frequent Mises U lecture that includes private law, “The Market for Security.” Bob’s pamphlet,…
Ep. 40 Tucker Carlson Wants Affirmative Action for American Workers
Tucker Carlson gives unambiguous approval for Elizabeth Warren’s call for “economic nationalism,” saying her proposal sounds like “Trump at his best.” Carlson pillories American companies for outsourcing their operations to other countries, and blames Republican leadership for its dedication to doctrinaire libertarianism and Austrian economics. (Not a joke.) Bob disagrees with this take. Mentioned in…
Ep. 31 Capital & Interest in the Austrian Tradition, Part 3 of 3
Bob finishes his 3-part series by first reviewing the contributions of Bohm-Bawerk, Fetter, and Mises to the modern Austrian explanation of interest, namely the “pure time preference theory” (PTPT). Then Bob explains some of the problems for the PTPT, especially for Austrian economists. Instead Murphy offers a much more straightforward–and Austrian!–approach, which explains interest as…
Ep. 28 Capital & Interest in the Austrian Tradition, Part 2 of 3
Bob goes solo in his continuation of his series on Capital & Interest Theory. In this episode he explains Bohm-Bawerk’s solution to the problem of interest, namely that present goods are more valuable than future goods. Bob also explains Bohm-Bawerk’s three separate causes for the higher valuation of present over future goods, including the notorious…