The Great Antidote

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In this special episode of The Great Antidote, Amy Willis of Liberty Fund takes the mic to interview Juliette Sellgren, the voice behind the show. Together, they reflect on the evolution of the podcast—from its early days to the hundreds of guests it has featured—and how Juliette herself has grown in the process.

They talk about what it means to foster curiosity, how Juliette approaches reading (and recommends you do, too), and what makes for a great question. They also discuss the future of the podcast, the future of Juli...

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What happens when people stop trusting rules—and start rewriting them?

In this episode, we are joined by economist Edward Lopez about the life and legacy of James M. Buchanan, the Nobel Prize-winning founder of public choice economics. We begin by unpacking Buchanan’s biography and intellectual roots: what shaped his worldview, who influenced his thinking, and why his work remains foundational to understanding government, rules, and freedom.

From there, we dive into the rich ideas in The Limits of Liberty—a dense but powerful book in which Buchanan asks...

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What makes some states thrive while others trap people in place? And what does it really mean to be free to move, grow, and flourish?

In this episode, I talk with economist Justin Callais about the deep connections between personal fulfillment, economic mobility, and institutional quality. We begin with the personal: why real change starts internally, and how self-mastery and agency are prerequisites for meaningful, external progress. Then, we zoom out to ask: what kinds of systems make it easier for people to rise?

We explore questions like:

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Remember the Amazon HQ2 frenzy? When nearly every U.S. state competed to become Amazon’s next home, offering billions in tax breaks and incentives? I do — I grew up right next door to Crystal City, Virginia, the site Amazon ultimately chose.

In this episode, I talk with economist Peter Calcagno about targeted economic incentives—the controversial policy tool that fueled the Amazon HQ2 bidding war and countless other corporate deals.

We explore questions like:

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What if modern economics has overlooked what truly makes us human?

In this episode, Bart Wilson joins us to explore humanomics—an approach to economics that reintroduces meaning, culture, and moral judgment into how we understand economic behavior.

We talk about how economists miss the mark by assuming too much about how rational we really are—and too little about what it means to be human.

Wilson shares insights from his experimental work with non-human primates, showing how comparing monkey behavior to human decision-making can reveal deep trut...

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What is it like to grow up under a dictatorship? The speakers of The Dissident Project don’t have to wonder — they’ve lived it. And they’ve escaped.

In this episode, Grace Bydalek joins us this week to discuss her work with The Dissident Project, which brings survivors of authoritarian regimes into American high schools to share their powerful, firsthand stories. From Cuba and Venezuela to Russia and beyond, these voices bring the reality of life without freedom into the classroom.

We talk about why these stories matter — especially...

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Ryan Streeter is the executive director of the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. Today, he tells us about his time in the intersection of think tanks, government, and academic communities. We talk about cities, the importance of mobility and growth, how to foster those characteristics, skepticism of government, and living in and creating a community that fosters social cohesion and critical thinking. 

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We’ve talked about objectivism before on the podcast, but that was fairly introductory. Today, for the first time ever, I host two guests on the podcast to discuss the limitations of objectivism and where it fails to depict the good life. We talk about how they got interested in Rand’s thought, how they philosophically dealt with works that were mostly fiction, and where their philosophy, individualistic perfectionism, diverges from Rand’s and fills in some important blanks. 

Den Uyl is a resident scholar at Liberty Fund, and Rasmussen is a profe...

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Join us today for a fun conversation about all things government, UK and US, with Lord Daniel Hannan of Kingsclere! 

Lord Hannan is a member of the House of Lords. Today, we talk about how the U.K.’s legislative is structured, what is up with executive power, the importance of the West and cohesion on the freedom front, and the idiocy of tariffs. 

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Bob Ewing is the founder of the Ewing School and hosts a Substack called Talking Big Ideas (go check it out). He has also gifted me most of the great books that I’ve read. 

Today, we talk about how he got started and how many of the great lessons in life are learned. We talk about counter-intuitive ideas, how to find the answers to them, and how to effectively communicate them. He talks to us about kettle bells and quotes (almost) every great author under the sun. 

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We talk a lot about civil society and the importance of local, communal networks which hold us up when we’re down and inspire us to be good, striving members of society. But what does that actually look like? How do civil institutions get built, and what does it take? 

Today, I’m excited to welcome Rachel Ferguson to the podcast. She is the director of the Free Enterprise Center at Concordia University in Chicago and an affiliate scholar at the Acton Institute. She is the president of the board at Love...

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Jo Jensen is the founder of MovieGoer and she’s currently the SVP of Digital and Entertainment Strategy at Touchdown Strategies, a PR firm. and is an Aspen Institute Civil Society Fellow. Since all fellows have ventures over there, she’s currently writing a book called “America Has a Girlfriend Problem.”

Today, we talk about the anxiety of my generation and how to unplug, attempting to grow comfortable with discomfort. We talk about how things have changed and how we can become more active, willing to take leaps that will eith...

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What is Universal Basic Income (UBI) and why is it so popular among economists and freedom lovers relative to other types of poverty policy solutions? What does it even mean to “solve a problem” or to “learn” in the social sciences?
 
Join us today to explore the answers to these two questions and many more. Today, I am excited to welcome on Peter Van Doren to talk about the history of poverty policy and policy debates and the reality about universal basic income. We talk about some pretty conclusive economic studies which hig...

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Welcome back. Continuing our ongoing exploration of what it means to be an individual living in a liberal society, today I am happy to host Charlotte Thomas to talk to us about what it means to learn and the importance of the liberal arts. 

Join us to find out what it truly means to be “educated” and how to do it. A mix of personal, inspirational, and relatable, Professor Thomas brings her knowledge of teaching in the classroom into our conversation. Of course, rather than simply lecturing, teaching and learni...

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The most common statistic cited regarding marriage and relationships in the United States is that the 50% of all marriages end in divorce. Another one that is gaining traction is that more Americans than ever before will end up unmarried and alone. 

Nobody likes these statistics. 

How did we get from the 60s, hairdos and stay at home moms, to a 50% divorce rate and a high probability of dying alone? Should we care? How do we balance the benefits of modernity – women in the workplace, higher incomes, more interesting jobs – with t...

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Thomas Jefferson was a complicated figure. Essential to the start of our country and the university I attend, he is impossible to ignore. Yet, he held slaves, and at the same time said “all men are created equal.” What’s up with that?!

Yet, we need to be able to talk about him. We also need to be able to acknowledge the contributions he has made to the world, while also acknowledging the flaws in his character and behavior. His legacy is complicated, and he was a complicated person. We all are. S...

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Trade is all the rage these days. Or, at least, raging about trade is. Today, we unpack what trade and free trade are, and how to talk about it. We also address the abundance of lawyers in trade policy. 

Douglas Irwin is a professor of economics at Dartmouth College and the author of several books including Clashing Over Commerce and Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade.


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 Today, I am excited to host Anna Claire Flowers to discuss F. A. Hayek and the mesocosmos. The mesocosmos is a fancy way to describe all the social groupings on the spectrum between the extremes of individualism and society. Think families, neighborhoods, farmers markets, firms, and universities. 

We talk about the importance of characterizing this missing middle piece of social organization and how it can resolve issues than a single individual or government can. She characterizes some of the important aspects of these associations for us. We talk about the family's ro...

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Welcome back! Happy New Year! Glad to be back! Come one, come all!

Eric Leeper is the Paul Goodloe McIntire Professor in Economics at the University of Virginia. He also is a visiting scholar at the Mercatus Center at GMU. Today, we talk about inflation. He explains to us how inflation theory has evolved and how we forgot about the relationship between the fiscal and monetary sides of the economy.

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Not often do we find people who make the case for how race, liberty, and equality belong together. Even less often do we find them making arguments in the height of racially and economically troubled times. And EVEN LESS do we find audio clips of them doing so. 

These people are inspiring. They stand up against the currents of the time to speak their minds, for the benefit of everyone. In doing so, they garner respect and build coalitions across ideological lines, because they have to. We can learn from them a...

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Adam Smith was a man who read the Stoics. He liked them, too, talking them up in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, particularly in the section on grief. 

Then he lost two of his closest relations (old timey, right?), David Hume and his mother. These world-shaking events caused him to reevaluate what he said about grief in TMS and change our interpretation of his commentary on grief.

So what did he say about grief before, and how did the actual experience of grief change his mind? How does grief w...

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This year’s Nobel Prize winners in economics are Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson, who wrote on the importance of inclusive institutions to economic growth. But what on earth are ‘inclusive institutions’ and how do they differ from exclusive ones?

Inclusive institutions are norms, either written or unwritten, about things like property rights, democracy, and the rule of law. But what other institutions are important to economic growth, if there are others?

Some of this year’s winners endorse a strong antitrust regime. How do you reconcile the impo...

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Picture a policy conversation, perhaps in Washington, about national security. Who’s sitting around the table? It might be the President, national security advisors, military personnel, or generals, but not economists. And yet, national security is often used as a reason to intervene into the economy. 

At the mention of national security, it seems economists often shut their mouths and run away (or hide under a rock, or something). But why? How should economists think about and engage with concerns about national security? 

Today, the wonderful Sam Gregg joins us t...

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How do you teach about a man who does not fit neatly into a box? Hayek is one such man, and today, we tackle the difficult task of putting him in a box. We conclude that we cannot put someone like F. A. Hayek into boxes such as “economist” or “philosopher” or “political theorist”, because he did it all. How and when do you teach the ideas of a man who did it all? 

I’m excited to welcome Tawni Hunt Ferrarini to the podcast today to talk to us about teaching Hayek...

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It’s often said that if you want to get to know someone, you should look through their garbage. Now, I don’t recommend this method of getting to know someone (it’s kind of gross). But biographers often have the luck of getting to know the people they study by looking through their stuff- that stuff not being actual garbage. 

For example, Bruce Caldwell spent time with Hayek’s skis and botanical photographs. You might be thinking, why do I care? Why does anyone care? Hayek didn’t even write about skiin...

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The title of this episode might confuse you: what on earth do Adam Smith and F. A. Hayek have to say about social justice? A surprising amount, given how much we talk about it!

Smith makes a big point of critiquing men of pride and vanity. What happens when those ultimately negative aspects of humanity go too far, into the territory of what he calls “domineering”? What happens when small acts of domination are aggregated throughout a society? 

So here we are, talking about slavery, Jim Crow, and the c...

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The month of October 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of F. A. Hayek winning the Nobel Prize. Winning such a prize is obviously a big deal, but someone wins one every year, so what’s the big deal about this guy? 

Well. Hayek’s contributions to the field of economics are significant because they spoke to more than simply economics. Spontaneous order, price signals as information, and the pretense of knowledge all might come to mind, but they might not. (Maybe you’re new to this! If so, helloooo there!) These concepts branch...

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 Do you ever take a moment to think about the fact that Americans, the people of the land of the free, spent 13 years under Prohibition? Did you know that Americans used to seriously “drink like a fish”? And no, I’m not talking about fraternity men in college. I’m talking about everyone, everywhere, from George Washington’s parties to lunchtimes in the manufacturing factories (until Henry Ford put a stop to it, you know, for efficiency purposes). Then Prohibition happened. 

What were the forces that drove Prohibition into existence? Our first and on...

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What does it actually mean to run a think tank, to create harmony within an office building full of idea-confident folk? Some have called the think tank a monastery, some have called it an academic social club, and some have even called it a policy incubator. What truly is it and how on earth do you lead one? 

Leading a think tank is a multifaceted job, because you have your own scholarship to do too. Today, I’m excited to welcome the president of AEI, Robert Doar, to the podcast for a s...

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Even though I hope you’ve been avoiding the election news like I have (as you would the plague), admittedly, it’s hard to do. It’s like someone is blasting it outside your window at 5 AM. Or like a billboard outside your front door that you can’t help but see every time you step outside. Bummer.  

Fortunately, AEI’s wonderful Yuval Levin joins us today to talk about the remedy to the plight of election season and America’s recent malaise (not to echo Jimmy Carter…): the American constitution. Now, I know, yo...

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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? Real growth is replicable, durable, and sustainable (and not in the sense that immediately comes to mind). Your seven-year-old doesn’t shrink back down after she grows an inch. It might happen when she’s ninety, but that’s gravity (and don’t you think she’s had a good run at thi...

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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.

Candace Smith is a wonderful teacher of etiquette and the creator of the Etiquette: For the Business of Life blog. Her philos...

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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? 

Today, luckily, Paul Mueller, senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, comes to my rescue. He explains what ESG means and how it relates to CSR (corporate social responsibility, ESG’s more comprehensible predecessor). He answers a question th...

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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. 

Join me today with Ryan Bourne, the R. Evan Scharf Chair for the Public Understanding of Economics at the Cato institute. Bourne paints a picture of a bloodless yet economically catastrophic war. It's one which leaves us vulnerable as the weapons of the market (dollars) diminish in our pockets (inflation...

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Michael Cannon is the Cato Institute’s director of health policy studies and it is his third time on the podcast. He has been on The Washingtonian’s list of most influential people for four years in a row. 

Today, we talk about why people think the American healthcare system is “free market” and the role of prices in determining health outcomes--- and how unfettered markets improve the lives of everyone in need of healthcare. He tells us about the ways government intervention, like patchwork, distorts and attempts to undistort prices, and how i...

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Charles Noussair is the Eller Professor of Economics at the University of Arizona and the Director of the Economic Science Laboratory. He also serves as the President of the Economic Science Association. Today, we talk about experimental economics, how it complements other types of economic research, and how economic experiments are conducted. He tells us about a recent macro experiment that tests institutions for growth and welfare, such as electoral systems, political speech, and corruption. He explains the difference between extractive and inclusive economic institutions. Finally, he explains how experimental economics applies to...

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Sandra Peart is a Distinguished Professor of Leadership Studies and the President of the Jepson Scholars Foundation at the University of Richmond, as well as a coauthor of Towards an Economics of Natural Equals: A Documentary History of the Early Virginia School, with David Levy. She is also a distinguished fellow of the history of economics society.

Today we talk about the importance of humility in discussing important ideas in addition to the importance of asking the right questions, ethical questions. She leads us through the intellectual landscape of the 60s...

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Daniel Di Martino is a PhD candidate in Economics at Columbia University and a graduate fellow at the Manhattan Institute—where he focuses on high-skill immigration policy. He also founded the Dissident Project to teach high school students about the evils of socialist regimes.

Today we talk about his life in Venezuela and the economic realities he faced growing up, particularly inflation and shortages. He explains how poor institutions, even democratically elected ones, can turn a trusting and prosperous society into a mistrusting and thieving one. (Watch out ladies, they’ll even...

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Anne Bradley is an economics professor at the Institute of World Politics and the Vice President of Academic Affairs at The Fund for American Studies. Today, we talk about the political economy of terrorism: what terrorism is, what makes a terrorist, and what the war on terror does to attempt to prevent terrorism. We talk about how economics is uniquely positioned to pose questions and find answers about this area usually dominated by those studying defense and international relations, and how the human element of economics informs her framing of the issue.
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Craig Richardson is a professor of economics at Winston-Salem State University, and the director of the Center for the Study of Economic Mobility there. Today, we talk about a ton of things, from a breakdown of compelling narratives to magic. He tells us why Elizabeth Warren is more interesting to listen to than economists, although she doesn’t understand economics as well as economists do. We talk about the importance of relationships and trust in society, from multinational corporations and small towns to the communication of big ideas. We talk about the lack of...