The Debate on the Minimum Wage

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There's a way in which the left takes for granted a thriving economy that just hums in the background. Conservatives are nowhere near good enough at making that kind of case, he says. Pain came back to America after the revolution had turned ugly. The ultimate disposition of his remains is not known but no one knows quite where they're buried.

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.