The Conscience of a Conservative

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The rise of libertarianism, william f. Buckley's god at yale and his creation of the national review. Bur gold waters even is bery goldwater's book, the conscience of a of a conservative. A friedric hick, ludigvon mesus in rand, billy graham, ronald regan. The religious conservatives came to understand i think correctly that communism was the antithesis of western religion. And although we to day have trouble putting ourselves in their shoes, if you go back to the 19 forties, after world war two, and then on into the 19 fifties, i don't know how old you are, michael,.

In episode 162 of The Michael Shermer Show, Michael speaks with one of the nation’s preeminent experts on economic policy, Benjamin Friedman, about his new book Religion and the Rise of Capitalism — a major reassessment of the foundations of modern economic thinking that explores the profound influence of an until-now unrecognized force — religion.

Critics of contemporary economics complain that belief in free markets — among economists as well as many ordinary citizens — is a form of religion. And, it turns out, that in a deeper, more historically grounded sense there is something to that idea. Contrary to the conventional historical view of economics as an entirely secular product of the Enlightenment, Benjamin Friedman demonstrates that religion exerted a powerful influence from the outset.