Bryan Caplan on Evil Politicians

Mike talks with Bryan Caplan, Professor of Economics at George Mason University and blogger at Bet on It. He's the author of multiple books, including four that we’ve previously discussed on the show: The Myth of the Rational Voter, The Case Against Education, Open Borders, and Labor Econ vs The World: Essays on the World's Greatest Market. On this episode, Mike and Bryan talk about his most recent book, How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery. Topics Mike & Brian Discuss Include: The meaning of evil – is it more than just self-interest? Bryan’s contention that the vast majority of politicians are, in fact, evil Why we should hold politicians to a higher standard The almost utter lack of “moral due diligence” on the part of politicians If people don’t know or just don’t care about evil politicians Demagoguery as the politics of social desirability Liberal vs Conservative forms of evil The extent to which evil politicians are a result of a bad system The pragmatic case for pacifism If any US hostilities since WWII were justified What, if anything, we can do about evil politicians Bryan Caplan on Twitter  The Politics Guys on Facebook | Twitter Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo, we’re @PoliticsGuys. Interested in starting your own podcast? Check out RedCircle, home of The Politics Guys. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-politics-guys/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesThe Politics Guys on Facebook | XListener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo, we’re @PoliticsGuys.The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.