The Importance of Choice

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Julian Zelizer: Libertarians spend too much time defending the market. He says they don't put enough emphasis on those voluntarily chosen communities of which we join many. "Radical individualism is the way to think about human flourishing," he says. But choice isn't as much at the center of it as we sometimes like to believe, writes Zelizer.

Yuval Levin, author of The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left, talks to EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the ideas of Burke and Paine and their influence on the evolution of political philosophy. Levin outlines the differing approaches of the two thinkers to liberty, authority, and how reform and change should take place. Other topics discussed include Hayek's view of tradition, Cartesian rationalism, the moral high ground in politics, and how the "right and left" division of American politics finds its roots in the debates of these thinkers from the 1700s.