i think there's a human tendency to embrace the illusion that things are just going to keep getting better. I associate it with silican valley, where i spend summers, and just an unbounded confidence in the human ability to a fixed stuff. And by that, i don't mean, ah, not just better, but thinks we've kind of figured this out. We know, well, tweak things here at the margins, but it's actually there are upheavals. The election of donald trump breaks it, the rise of these populous parties in parts of europe to day.
Political Scientist and author Patrick Deneen of the University of Notre Dame talks about his book Why Liberalism Failed with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. By liberalism, Deneen means the modern enterprise--the push for self-actualization free of the constraints of tradition, family, and religion that typifies modern culture. He argues that both the left and the right have empowered the state and reduced liberty. He argues for a smaller, more local, more artisanal economy and a return to the virtues of self-control and self-mastery.