Podcasts Archives

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?

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 know you gotta do it. You really don’t want to, but you know you can’t stand to watch it anymore either.

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 someone please explain what it means? 

What does it mean to "sit in the seat of Adam Smith"? Are economists describing the world or explaining the world? Read more from Lavery to learn about Pete Boettke's answers to these and more questions. 

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. 

If the price system is such a marvel, as F.A. Hayek once said, why does it seem so conspicuously absent from US healthcare? And how might it actually help us along the road to universal healthcare?



Cato Institute health policy expert Michael Cannon joins host Juliette Sellgren to explore. 

What if Adam Smith could have tested his economic intuitions in a modern day laboratory? How does the culture one is embedded in change the way they make economic decisions? Can we design a better political system in a lab? These questions and more are posed by host Juliette Sellgren in this podcast.

One way to think about economics is to start with scarcity and devise a system around it. And then there's the Virginia School. Not only can this school provide a more interesting avenue for exploring the human condition, it's a model of human learning and debate that could serve college campuses well today.

When you realize the only way to succeed in your home country is to leave it, what happens next? The founder of the Dissident Project recounts his growing up in Chavez's Venezuela any why he is such a passionate advocate for freedom today.

How can the economic way of thinking inform public policy aimed of combatting terrorism? For starters, we should bring more humanity into the conversation. 

Why do progressives tell better stories than proponents of the free market? Do big corporations really care about the people who work for them? Has economics lost its magic? Are economists born or made? Professor, magician, and storyteller Craig Richardson joins Juliette Sellgren for a whirlwind conversation.

What does Adam Smith mean by self-control? When is self-control bad? Why did Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments fade from popularity for so long and why has it made such a comeback? Daniel B. Klein returns to the Great Antidote with host Juliette Sellgren to talk about these questions and more.