All Episodes
Free Thoughts — 476 episodes
Coming Soon: The Liberty Exchange
Fighting Government Secrecy (with Patrick Eddington)
When Is Democracy Undemocratic? (with Emily B. Finley)
Floods, Nuclear Power, and Wages (with Peter Van Doren)
How the 14th Amendment Changed America (with Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick)
Free Market: The History of an Idea (with Jacob Soll)
Can Public Schools Work? (with Neal McCluskey)
Why More People Means More Wealth (with Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley)
Racial Classification in America (with David Bernstein)
The Statrix: How Government Warps Our Perception of the World (Rerun)
Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the Drug War (with Johann Hari)
The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge (with Matt Ridley) (Rerun)
Black Liberation Through the Marketplace (with Rachel Ferguson and Marcus Witcher)
How Evil are Politicians? (with Bryan Caplan)
Inflation! (with Norbert Michel)
What’s Wrong with Zoning (with M. Nolan Gray)
Forensic Frauds and Criminal Justice (with M. Chris Fabricant)
Conservatism Vs. The Right (with Matthew Continetti)
The Socialist Temptation (with Iain Murray)
A Conversation About Guns (with Clark Neily)
Why Did America Invade Iraq? (with Michael Mazarr)
Seven Deadly Economic Sins
What Broke American Health Care?
Big Tech & Free Speech
Real Economics (with Peter Boettke)
Justice Before the Law (with Michael Huemer)
Why Privacy Matters (with Neil Richards)
Free Speech, A History (with Jacob Mchangama)
The ABCs of Inflation
Growing up in the USSR
The DNA of War (with Andrew Heaton)
Poverty in the Golden State (with Michael Tanner)
Labor Econ Versus the World (with Bryan Caplan)
American Terror After 9/11 (with Spencer Ackerman)
Aaron's Farewell to Free Thoughts
Is Nuclear Power Worth It? (with Peter Van Doren)
The Philosophy of Honesty (with Christian Miller)
The Allure of the “Natural” (with Alan Levinovitz)
How to Protect Our Elections (with Walter Olson and Andy Craig)
How Prisons are Governed (with David Skarbek)
How The Force Can Fix The World (with Stephen Kent)
Punishment Without Trial (with Carissa Byrne Hessick)
Rerun: Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future
Rerun: Why Can't You Email Your Doctor?
Rerun: Lessons from a Bank-Robbing Law Professor
Tech Panic (with Robby Soave)
Do Markets Make Us Worse? (with Ginny Choi)
A Libertarian in Government (with Mark Calabria)
Rerun: Remaining Grateful with Steven Horwitz
Nationalism in America
Regulation Games (with Peter Van Doren)
The Drug War in Mexico (with Benjamin T. Smith)
Blind Injustice (with Mark Godsey)
How to Fix African Poverty (with Magatte Wade)
Undoing Drugs (with Maia Szalavitz)
America’s War Propaganda (with Chris Coyne and Abby Hall)
Is Section 230 a Problem? (with Jeff Kosseff)
What Happened in Afghanistan (with Sahar Khan)
America's Political Instability
Don't Do Your Own Research (with Julian Sanchez)
How Covid Changed the School Choice Debate (with Corey DeAngelis)
What's Next for Criminal Justice Reform (with John Pfaff)
Thinking Philosophically (with Michael Huemer)
What is Corporate Social Responsibility? (with Don Boudreaux)
How to Govern Internet Platforms (with Neil Chilson)
Libertarianism & Egalitarianism (with Daniel Shapiro)
Where College Students Stand (With Clay Routledge and John Bitzan)
What is Neoliberalism? (with Kevin Vallier)
The Ideas of Thomas Sowell (with Jason Riley)
Rise of the Warrior Cop (with Radley Balko)
Why Government Fails (with Chris Edwards)
Dissenters, Deserters, and Objectors to America’s Wars (with Chris Lombardi)
Seeking Truth in the Misinformation Age (with Jonathan Rauch)
Getting Environmentalism Right (with Michael Shellenberger)
Stoic Wisdom (with Nancy Sherman)
Reopening Muslim Minds (with Mustafa Aykol)
More Immigration, More Freedom (with Chandran Kukathas)
Does the FDA Save Lives? (with Peter Van Doren)
War is Stupid (with John Mueller)
Economics in One Virus (with Ryan Bourne)
How Textiles Made the Modern World (with Virginia Postrel)
Fighting the Foreign Policy Establishment (with Justin Logan)
Who Messed with Texas's Electricity (with Peter Van Doren)
Why It's OK to Want to Be Rich (with Jason Brennan)
Making Fun of Dictators (with Bassem Youseff)
GameStop & the Mysteries of the Stock Market
Does Trade Harm National Security? (with Scott Lincicome)
Immigration's Economic Impact (with Alex Nowrasteh)
Drug Use for Grown Ups (with Carl Hart)
Did the New Deal End the Great Depression? (with George Selgin)
Trust in a Polarized Age (with Kevin Vallier)
The 2020 Election and the Capitol Insurrection (with Walter Olson)
How Technology is Changing Education (with Andy Matuschak)
Are Monopolies a Problem? (with Peter Van Doren)
Open Societies & Human Progress (with Johan Norberg)
(Re-Release): The Story of Money in the United States
(Re-Release): Equality of Capabilities, or Equality of Outcomes?
Fixing Supreme Court Nominations (with Ilya Shapiro)
America's Revolutionary Mind (with C. Bradley Thompson)
The Comedy of Politics (with Andrew Heaton)
The Property Species (with Bart Wilson)
The Conservative Liberalism of Burke, Smith, and Hume (with Dan Klein)
The Art of Gender (with Jason Kuznicki)
The Ethics of Capitalism (with John Thrasher)
The Politics of Genetic Enhancement (with Jonathan Anomaly)
The Free Spirits of Liberalism (with Steven Pittz)
How America Could Fall (with David French)
Can We Evolve Beyond Government? (with Max Borders)
It’s Okay to Ignore Politics (with Chris Freiman)
The Philosophy of Gerald Gaus (with Kevin Vallier and Chad Van Schoelandt)
Zoning Ruins Everything (with Emily Hamilton)
The Experience of Policing (with Renée Mitchell)
Capitalism and its Critics (with Michael Munger)
Rothbardian Anarchism (with Cory Massimino)
What is Free Speech? (with Adam Gurri)
Explaining Postmodernism (with Akiva Malamet)
Climate Change Panic (with Bjorn Lomborg)
Unpacking Constitutional Law (with Randy Barnett & Josh Blackman)
What Divides Us (with Emily Ekins)
You Are (Probably) Not a Good Person (with Christian Miller)
The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk (with Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke)
Black Lives and Guns (with Nicholas Johnson)
Bleeding Heart Libertarianism: A Retrospective (with Matt Zwolinski)
The Power of Voting with Your Feet (with Ilya Somin)
Who Broke Congress? (With Rep. Justin Amash)
Our Criminal Injustice System (with Jason Brennan and Chris Surprenant)
Are Social Networks Censoring Conservatives? (with John Samples & Matthew Feeney)
The Radio Right (with Paul Matzko)
When Innovation Breaks the Rules (with Adam Thierer)
Forgotten Libertarians (with Paul Meany)
The Covid-19 Economy
Is Homeschooling Dangerous? (with Kevin Currie-Knight)
Libertarianism and Copyright (with Radu Uszkai)
How Innovation Works (with Matt Ridley)
Must Politics Be War? (with Kevin Vallier)
The Nationalism Problem (with Stephanie Slade)
Politics Makes Us Worse
Do We Have a Duty to Vote? (with Julia Maskivker)
Overdoing Democracy (with Robert Talisse)
Innovation and Creative Destruction (With Arthur Diamond)
Medicalization of Birth & Death (with Lauren K. Hall)
The Evolution of Cooperation (with Nicholas A. Christakis)
Bitcoin: Boom or Bust?
Why We are Wrong About Nearly Everything (with Bobby Duffy)
Rebuilding America (with Yuval Levin)
Can Science Save Us? (with Peter Van Doren)
The Politics of Science (with Terence Kealey)
Exploring Wealth Inequality
Tyranny of Public Health (with Jacob Sullum)
Foreign Policy and the Trump Doctrine
Government-Created Segregation (with Richard Rothstein)
Becoming a Whistleblower (with Patrick Eddington)
The Case for Open Borders (with Bryan Caplan & Zach Weinersmith)
How to be Epicurean (with Catherine Wilson)
The War on Tobacco (with Jacob Grier)
Why Liberalism Works (with Deirdre McCloskey)
Finding Meaning in an Age of Individualism (with Clay Routledge)
From the Magna Carta to Brexit (with David Starkey)
How Mao Broke China (with Frank Dikötter)
What is Liberalism? (with Helena Rosenblatt & Daniel Klein)
Being Nice and Self-Reliant: A New England Libertarianism (with Dan Moller)
The Ascent of Jacob Bronowski (with Timothy Sandefur)
Talking Across Political Divides (with Arnold Kling)
Why is Populism So Popular? (with Tom Palmer)
How the World's Poorest are Educating Themselves (with James Tooley)
What's Wrong with National Conservatism?
Young Radicals in the Age of Trump (with Robby Soave)
Social Media's Moral Panic (with Milton Mueller)
Remaining Grateful with Steve Horwitz
Education in the Marketplace (with Kevin Currie-Knight)
Tyranny Comes Home (with Chris Coyne and Abigail Hall)
Celebrating 300
Eugenics and the Immigration Act of 1924 (with Daniel Okrent)
Cracks in the Ivory Tower (with Jason Brennan & Phil Magness)
Stranger Thoughts
Idealizing the Government: Political Philosophy for the Real World (with Chris Freiman)
How Did the Western World Get Rich? (with Stephen Davies)
How America Gullibly Supported Bogus Foreign Democratic Movements (with Ted Galen Carpenter)
How Petty Misdemeanors Get Seriously Punished (with Alexandra Natapoff)
For the Throne: Our Watch Has Ended (with Ilya Somin)
New Conspiracism and Modern Politics (with Russell Muirhead)
In Defense of Big Business (with Tyler Cowen)
Objections to Libertarianism (with Eric Mack)
The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
Understanding U.S. Foreign Policy
Unbundling the State (with Jason Kuznicki)
The Birth of American Imperialism (with Stephen Kinzer)
Quitting the Border Patrol (with Josh Childress)
How Taxation Affects Income Inequality (with Phil Magness)
Happy (Belated) Birthday James Madison!
Liberty and the African American Experience (with Jonathan Blanks)
The Collapse of the Local Community (with Tim Carney)
The Intellectual Tradition of Libertarianism (with Eric Mack)
Overparenting & Bad Public Policy (with Lenore Skenazy)
Is There Any Justification for Paternalistic Policies? (with Christopher Snowdon)
A Duty to Resist (with Candice Delmas)
The FDA Ruins Everything You Eat (with Baylen Linnekin)
The Unintended Consequences of Drug Prohibition (with Jeff Miron)
Is Trump Deregulating? (With Peter Van Doren)
Can We Reduce the Footprint of the Fed? (with George Selgin)
Resisting State Injustice (with Jason Brennan)
The World is Getting Better (with Marian Tupy)
Is Wall Street Overregulated? (with Todd Zywicki)
Why Being Poor is Expensive (with Ryan Bourne)
Bringing Wealth to the Poor (with Michael Tanner)
Teaching Economics (with Steve Horwitz)
Free Thoughts/Power Problem Crossover: Are Libertarians Isolationists? (with Trevor Thrall and Emma Ashford)
What are State Constitutions Good for? (with Hon. Jeffrey Sutton)
The Public Creation of the Corporate Health Care System (with Christy Ford Chapin)
Derailed: The False Promises of Trains, Subways, and Light Rail (with Randal O'Toole)
Understanding Impeachment (with Gene Healy)
Emerging Tech (with Matthew Feeney)
Regulation Magazine Fall 2018 (with Peter Van Doren)
Understanding Pakistan (with Sahar Khan)
The Coddling of the American Mind (with Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff)
The Many Myths About Adam Smith (with Jesse Norman)
Laughing about Politics (with P.J. O'Rourke)
How Superpowers See the World (with Christopher Fettweis)
Is Public Transportation Worth It? (with Peter Van Doren)
Was the Buddha a Libertarian? (with Matthew J. Moore)
Can we ever downsize government? (with Chris Edwards)
The Moral Collapse of Evangelical America (with Rob Schenck)
Should We Fear 3D Printed Guns? (with Matthew Larosiere)
Helping Refugees in an Era of Nationalism (with Adam Bates)
Cato, Congress, and the Realities of Governing (with Jeff Vanderslice and Matt Weibel)
The Sad History of the FCC (with Thomas Hazlett)
When FDR Took Americans’ Gold (with Sebastian Edwards)
Regulation Magazine, Summer 2018 (with Peter Van Doren)
Trump’s Immigration Crackdown (with Alex Nowrasteh)
Introducing Building Tomorrow!
An Ecological Theory of Free Expression (with Gary Chartier)
Beyond the Sea: The Possibilities of Seasteading
Our Fragile National Ego: Foreign Policy and the Struggle for Prestige
Pharmaceutical Freedom (with Jessica Flanigan)
Hamilton v. Madison (with Jay Cost)
Tomorrow 3.0: Uberizing The Economy (with Mike Munger)
The Future of Money (with Diego Zuluaga)
Trade War! (with Dan Ikenson)
What’s Facebook Done With My Data? (with Will Duffield)
Peter Van Doren Vs. MS-13
Ayn Rand: An Introduction (with Eamonn Butler)
Speak Freely (with Keith E. Whittington)
WTF?! Economics (with Peter T. Leeson)
Understanding Common Law (with John Hasnas)
Forensics, Pseudoscience and Criminal Injustice (with Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington)
Frederick Douglass: Self-Made Man (with Timothy Sandefur)
Why Are Cops Unaccountable? (with Jay Schweikert and Clark Neily)
Is the DEA Trippin'? (with Rick Doblin)
The Pope’s Politics
The Case Against Education
Contracts and Cryptography
How the Media Really Works
Choose Your Own Government
Trump’s Assault on America’s Institutions
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Guns and Mass Shootings
How the Federal Reserve Works
Free Speech Online
How Conscious Capitalism Can Solve Global Poverty
How the Powerful Captured the Economy
Punk Rock Politics
How the Right Lost Its Mind
Do Employers Rule Our Lives?
Your World on the Blockchain
The Implications of Behavioral Economics
How Drug Prohibition Caused the Opioid Crisis
Washington's Five Tricks
Is the Iran Deal a Good Deal?
The Real James Buchanan
North Korea 101
Ten Things Political Scientists Know that You Don’t
Lessons from the Anti-Federalists
What's the Right Number of Koala Bears?
Rights and Radicalism
Arguments for Liberty: Utilitarianism
Free Thoughts on Free Thoughts: 200 Episodes and Counting
Close America's Overseas Bases
The Fate of the West
Neoliberalism in the U.K.
We Broke the First Rule of Fight Club
Who Elected Donald Trump?
Arguments for Liberty: Rawlsianism
Liberalism 1.0
Markets in Everything?
Lessons from a Bank-Robbing Law Professor
Private Schooling for Everyone
Is Liberalism in Danger?
Stories from Putin's Economist
Nothing Is Secure
The True Causes of Mass Incarceration
Why We're Too Complacent
The War on Sex Work
Guantanamo Bay Is Still Open
How Much Should We Worry About ISIS?
Stuck in Political Nostalgia
Can Anarchy Work?
The CIA Listens to Free Thoughts
Must You Obey Government?
The Cato Institute at 40
How Economists Think About Health Care
A Muslim Case for Liberty
The Libertarian Student Movement
Taking Government Un-Seriously
The Truth About Immigration
Liberaltarianism and Trump
King Obama, King Trump: The Dangers of an Imperial Presidency
Wages and Workers
Arguments for Liberty: Kantianism
Harambe to Trump: 2016 Was the Worst
The Gold Standard Won't Be Coming Back
The Permission Society: How the Ruling Class Turns Our Freedoms into Privileges and What We Can Do About It
Why Schools Haven't Changed in Hundreds of Years
Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future
College: Too Costly, Too Little Learning, Too Much Underemployment
Why Can't You Email Your Doctor?
The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians
Bonus Election Day Episode: Should Libertarians Vote?
Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective
People, Not Ratios: Why the Debate Over Income Inequality Asks the Wrong Questions
Communicating Liberty Through Film and the Making Of "Freedom on Trial"
Explaining the Rise of Donald Trump
Rituals of Freedom: Libertarian Themes in Early Confucianism
Politics As a Peculiar Business: Insights from a Theory of Entangled Political Economy
Thin Blue Lies: How Pretextual Stops Undermine Police Legitimacy
Against Democracy
Confounding Father: Thomas Jefferson’s Image in His Own Time
The World According to Star Wars
Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People
Liberty and Coercion: The Paradox of American Government from the Founding to the Present
The Free Market Existentialist: Capitalism without Consumerism
Hayek’s Modern Family: Classical Liberalism and the Evolution of Social Institutions
John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, Part 1
How American Politics Went Insane
Campus Freedom
Specialization and Trade: A Re-introduction to Economics
How New Technology Is Changing Law Enforcement
The Constitution in Practice: From Liberty to Leviathan
The Philosophical Foundations of the Constitution
The Statrix: How Government Warps Our Perception of the World
Teaching School Choice to the American Education System
The Bourgeois Era
Socrates on Trial, Part 2: Crito
The Skeptical Libertarian
Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs
The Ideas of Adam Smith
Why Liberty Takes Character
Rothbard's Ethics of Liberty, Part 2
Hume and the Politics of Enlightenment
The Once and Future King: The Rise of Crown Government in America
The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory
The Fight for Free Speech in the Courts
Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era
What's Wrong With Labor Unions?
Transportation, Land Use, and Freedom
Why Property Rights Matter
How Well Does the Constitution Protect Liberty?
Socrates on Trial, Part 1: Apology
What Role Should Science Play in Public Policy?
Out of Poverty: Sweatshops in the Global Economy
Judicial Review in an Objective Legal System
The Tyranny of Silence
Intellectual Influences on Our 2015 Guests
Politics and Principle in New Zealand
The Politics of Star Wars
What Are the Risks of Terrorism?
Building a Better Government
The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge
Taking a Stand
The Politics of Star Trek
The Legacy of Roy A. Childs, Jr.
The Distinction Between Governance and Government
America's Authoritarian Alliances
Rothbard's Ethics of Liberty, Part 1
"Ideological Dorks"
The End of Doom
"Net Neutrality" vs. Internet Freedom
Why Young People Aren't Interested in Running for Office
Toleration
The Libertarian Moment?
War Is the Health of the State
Lysander Spooner's Letter to Grover Cleveland
Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?
A Better Choice: Healthcare Solutions for America
Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis
When Is Voluntary Choice Really Voluntary?
What Does It Mean to Think Philosophically?
How Much Should Philosophy Influence Public Policy?
Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom
The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State
The Education Apocalypse: How It Happened and How to Survive It
Taxation: How the Government Funds Itself
The Ideas of Friedrich Hayek
The Austrian Tradition in Economics
From Jailer to Jailed: Bernard Kerik's Story
End the IRS Before It Ends Us
How Free Trade Creates Wealth
The Cato Institute and the Libertarian Movement
The Radical Notion of Individualism
Big Business Loves Big Government: Cronyism in American Politics
The End of Socialism
Why Transparency Matters in Local Politics
How Does Libertarianism Deal with the Problem of Pollution?
Did Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal Really Save America?
The Problem of Police Misconduct
Big Government and the Rise of American Political Corruption
How Obamacare Really Works...and How It Doesn't
What Makes a Fair Election?
The Second Amendment at the Supreme Court
When the Government Takes Things
The Moral Arc of Science and Reason
How Government Housing Policy Distorts the American Dream
What Does Libertarian Feminism Look Like?
An Introduction to Public Choice
The Right to Earn a Living
The Inhumanity of Torture
Science Doesn't Need Public Funding
The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
Welcome to the Sharing Economy
The Limits of Utilitarianism
Liberty and the American Experience
What Influences Elections?
The Cost of Earning More Money
The Internet Doesn't Need to Be Saved
When Is It Appropriate to Go to War?
"Libertarian" Paternalism?
How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life
The Changing Role of Criminal Law
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms
Deconstructing the Surveillance State
The Problem of Political Authority
Listener Q&A: Where Are All the Libertarian Countries?
The Story of Money in the United States
The Libertarian Supreme Court
Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate
The Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium
The Problem of Judicial Abdication
The State of State Education in America
Libertarianism and Christianity
The Up Side of Down
Discrimination Law in an Overlawyered America
The Specter of Wall Street
Why Not Capitalism?
The Structure of Liberty
Regulations Gone Wrong
Why Aren't There More Black Libertarians?
Intellectual Privilege
Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century
America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power
Equality of Capabilities, or Equality of Outcomes?
Capitalism Can Save the Environment
Is Income Inequality a Problem?
The Three Languages of Politics
Is Bitcoin the Future of Money?
Millennials and Immigration (at the 2014 International Students for Liberty Conference)
The Virtue of Justice
The Death Penalty
How to Fix Health Care
Democracy and Political Ignorance
The Conscience of the Constitution
The Rise of the Independents
The Synthesis of Rights and Consequences
The Ethics of Dynamite
Benjamin Tucker and the Individualist Anarchists
The Primitivism of Politics
Bias in Scientific Research
Is There a Purpose to History?
What Is Libertarianism?
When Markets Fail
You Are Now Free to Move About the Planet
Listener Q&A: But Who Will Build the Roads?
Do We Have a Duty to Obey the Government?
What's Okay to Buy and Sell?
Libertarians and the Poor
Robert Nozick's "Anarchy, State, and Utopia"
Can Money Buy Elections?
Politics and Community