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Yuval Levin: Edmund Burke and Thomas Payne were at odds over liberal democratic political thought. Their debate offers us a way to think about the basic divisions in our kind of politics as they appeared in what was basically the first iteration of a left-right divide. The two men knew each other, met several times, exchanged letters most importantly for studying their debate as a debate.

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.