Cato Event Podcast

What does it take for liberty to emerge and to flourish? Daron Acemoglu will explain how, from antiquity to the modern age, the strong have tended to dominate the weak because states are too strong and despotic or because violence and lawlessness arise in their absence. Achieving liberty requires a constant struggle between the state and society that strikes a balance between the elite and citizens, and between institutions and norms. Acemoglu will draw from history to discuss how and under what conditions societies have gained freedoms, maintained them, or lost them. John Nye will critique Acemoglu’s views on the emergence and continuance of liberty. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Competitive grant funds, including BUILD (formerly known as TIGER) and New Starts (also known as transit capital grants), are supposed to ensure that federal dollars are spent where they are most needed. In fact, most of them are wasted as state and local governments propose expensive and obsolete projects in order to get the most "free" federal dollars. Since these programs are up for renewal in 2020, Feigenbaum and O’Toole will show how Congress can make them work more effectively. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Robert Zubrin tells the amazing true story of how hard-driving entrepreneurial ventures such as SpaceX and Blue Origin have accomplished what was previously thought of only as a capability of major-power governments: space exploration. He contends that private-sector competition will bring down the cost of space launches and in-space technology and shows how those trends are already underway. Zubrin’s book lays out a compelling vision for the future of humanity in space. As space exploration increasingly becomes the domain of private companies and private citizens, humanity may be on the verge of a revolution in spaceflight that could open up a future of limitless possibility. Please join us to hear Zubrin’s presentation and comments by Berin Szóka. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As a candidate for the presidency, Donald Trump declared the prevailing American foreign policy consensus “a complete and total disaster.” He vowed to “shake the rust off of American foreign policy” and promised that his administration would be guided by putting American security and American interests above all other considerations.In Fuel to the Fire: How Trump Made America’s Broken Foreign Policy Even Worse (and How We Can Recover), John Glaser, Christopher Preble, and Trevor Thrall argue that, instead of breaking from his party and the bipartisan consensus that has guided foreign policy for decades, Trump’s administration shows remarkable continuity with the more misguided policies of the last three decades. Simultaneously, the administration has undermined and stifled our two most valuable foreign policy tools: trade and diplomacy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Donald Trump’s presidency has triggered a growing debate on both sides of the Atlantic about the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and U.S. policy regarding the alliance. In NATO: The Dangerous Dinosaur, Ted Galen Carpenter outlines how NATO in its current form has outlived its purpose, and burden sharing is only part of the problem. Continuing to expand NATO eastward, encroaching on Russia, will only endanger the alliance. Join us as the author offers his insights on the problems with the trans-Atlantic alliance and how to approach it going forward. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, “left” and “right” have been used routinely to describe conflicting political ideologies, notwithstanding their notorious ambiguity and—a fact too often forgotten—a shared utopian root. The dream of a perfect world has inspired each generation; that hope is universal. The vision of a demigod-superman who destroys all evil, thereby inaugurating a utopia of perfection and bliss, is at least as old as the book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible. But behind that apocalyptic vision lies a fatal conceit, to borrow a phrase from Hayek, which the Greeks called hubris. It reemerged in some sects of early Christianity and again in medieval millenarianism, Jacobinism, Marxism, Fascism, antisemitism, modern-day Salafi Islamism, and even “liberal” collectivism. In an age of rampant skepticism, religious and quasi-religious ideologies bent on the vilification and destruction of entire communities confront and undermine a confused, guilt-ridden, materialistic, often nihilistic Western society. In this book, political philosopher Juliana Geran Pilon argues that a strong defense of freedom and pluralism, which form the basis of constitutional democracy, is necessary for survival. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Public discussions about vaping nicotine products have changed dramatically in the last few months. Vaping, an activity generally regarded as safer than smoking, is now viewed by many lawmakers and health officials as a serious threat. People who vape have begun to face restrictions similar to those placed on cigarettes. While there’s no question that cigarette smoking is one of the biggest causes of mortality in the world, the failure to differentiate among many possible sources of nicotine is detrimental to public policy. Jacob Grier’s new book, The Rediscovery of Tobacco, provides a nuanced take on the history, policy, and health consequences of tobacco and the new world of vaping and makes the case for treating vapers and smokers with dignity and respect. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We live in an age of unprecedented prosperity. Yet a recent psychological study found that anxiety “is significantly more prevalent and impairing in high-income countries than in low- or middle-income countries.” Clay Routledge argues that these and related research findings are a warning that prosperous societies such as the United States are facing a crisis of meaning that may ultimately undermine liberty and prosperity. Affluence and liberalism, he claims, benefit humanity by reducing material concerns and liberating individuals to pursue their goals. At the same time, however, Routledge argues, affluence and liberalism uproot individuals from traditional sources of meaning like religion and interdependent communities. He says that people who are uprooted from traditional sources of existential security can become psychologically vulnerable and anxious, demotivated and pessimistic, and attracted to extreme and dangerous secular ideologies, which all threaten the sustainability of a free and flourishing society. Is he right? Please join us for a topical conversation about the search for meaning in affluent and free societies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) operate in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. These statewide electronic databases of prescriptions dispensed for controlled substances were established in response to the opioid overdose crisis. Their purpose is to facilitate drug diversion investigations by law enforcement, change prescribing behavior, and reduce “doctor shopping” by patients who seek drugs for nonmedical use. In 28 states it is mandatory for providers to access the database and screen each time before prescribing any controlled substance to any patient. There is evidence that PDMPs have contributed to the dramatic 42 percent decline in prescription opioid volume since 2011. Many healthcare practitioners cite the inconvenience and workflow disruptions of mandatory-access PDMPs as deterrents to prescribing, while others fear scrutiny from law enforcement and licensing authorities — even for appropriate medical prescribing. This is unintentionally causing the undertreatment of patients with acute and chronic pain and, in some cases, the abrupt withdrawal of treatment from chronic pain patients. There is also evidence that PDMPs increase crime by driving nonmedical users from diverted prescription opioids to more harmful heroin and fentanyl, thus fueling overdoses. Finally, PDMPs pose a serious risk to medical privacy by allowing law enforcement to access confidential medical records without a warrant based on probable cause, which may be in violation of the Fourth Amendment.An expert panel will examine the positive and negative effects of PDMPs on patient care, patient privacy, the overdose rate, and crime, hoping to learn whether they do more harm than good. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Daniel Ellsberg. Edward Snowden. Elin Baklid-Kunz. Lynn Stout. Diane Roark. Franz Gayl. They and others like them come from all across the country. Some worked for the federal government; others worked in the private sector. All have one thing in common: in the organizations for which they worked, they saw things they knew were morally and legally wrong. Each made a life-altering decision to do something about it.In his new book, Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud, journalist Tom Mueller takes us into the world of the whistleblower. What makes them different? Why did they elect to act when others would not? Do the pathologies in large organizations — whether in government or the private sector — inevitably produce whistleblowers? Is Congress serious about protecting whistleblowers? How do protections for federal whistleblowers differ from agency to agency and from the private sector? Are new federal “insider threat” programs just a bureaucrat smokescreen for cracking down on internal dissent?Join us as an expert panel talks with Mueller about his book and the state of government and corporate whistleblowing in the Trump era. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.