The Moral Case for Capitalism

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A lot of people when they read Atlas shrugged actually have, or at least willing to consider it. There is something that there's two levels. One is it appeals to my sense that real excellence is under appreciated. And so the reason that I'm under appreciated must be that I'm excellent. That's not actually its message. It's real message is and the original title that I ran to had wanted to use for Atlas shrugged was the strike. The book is about a capital strike where the people who own all of the resources that society needs, and just is parasitic on them.

Is the perfect really the enemy of the good? Or is it the other way around? In 2008, Duke University economist Michael Munger ran for governor and proposed increasing school choice through vouchers for the state's poorest counties. But some lovers of liberty argued that it's better to fight for eliminating public schools instead of trying to improve them. Munger realized his fellow free-marketers come in two flavors: directionalists--who take our political realities as given and try to move outcomes closer to the ideal--and destinationists--who want no compromises with what they see as the perfect outcome. Listen as Munger talks to EconTalk's Russ Roberts about two different strategies for achieving political goals. Along the way, they discuss rent control, the minimum wage, and why free-market policies are so rare.