Are We Moving Away From the Rule of Law?

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

I'm such a fan of truth that I'm often willing to say let's do it anyway, even though the consequences are not good. Another issue that comes up in there were to surf them that I spend a lot of time on is the rule of law. How would you describe therule of law and again, how would you say we're doing in America in terms of the trend? Are we moving away from it or toward it?

Bryan Caplan of George Mason University and blogger at EconLog talks to EconTalk host Russ Roberts about two books: Eugene Richter's Pictures of the Socialistic Future and F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. Both books warn against the dangers of socialism. Pictures of a Socialistic Future, published in 1891 is a dystopian novel imagining what life would be like after a socialist revolution. The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944, explores the links between economic freedom and political freedom and the inherent similarities between communism and fascism. Both books look at the German roots of centralized planning and the nature of the people who rise to power when the State is powerful. The conversation includes discussion of the these topics as well as the rule of law and the amount of state control of the economy in Nazi Germany.