The Curious Task

To celebrate reaching 100 episodes, host Alex Aragona, producer Sabine El-Chidiac, and executive producer Matt Bufton look back on the origins and growth of the podcast, some of their favourite episodes, and so much more in this very special bonus episode.  References from The Curious Task Special Episode 2 with Matt Bufton, Sabine El-Chidiac and Alex Aragona You can listen to Graeme Thompson discuss Canadian Liberalism here. Dennis Rasmussen discusses if America failed here. The very first episode of The Curious Task with Nigel Ashford can be listened to here. Alex Salter talks about central banking on The Curious Task here. Matt mentions that two of his favourite episodes on The Curious Task are Mustafa Akyol on freedom in the Muslim world here, and James Tooley on private education here. The Beautiful Tree by James Tooley can be purchased from Amazon here. Sabine mentions that two of her favourite episodes on The Curious Task are Tom Palmer on what is war good for here, and Jacob Levy on civil society here. Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom by Jacob Levy can be purchased from Amazon here. Alex mentions that two of his favourite episodes on The Curious Task are Aeon Skoble on anarchy here, and Eric Schliesser on neoliberalism here. You can learn more about our Patreon here.

In honour of Steve Horwitz (1964-2021), we are re-releasing his conversation with Alex Aragona on what drives progress — a topic near and dear to Steve's heart. References from The Curious Task Special Episode 1 with Steve Horwitz  Steve Horwitz is the author of Austrian Economics: An Introduction; Microfoundations and Macroeconomics: An Austrian Perspective; Monetary Evolution, Free Banking, and Economic Order; and Hayek’s Modern Family: Classical Liberalism and the Evolution of Social Institutions which are available for purchase on Amazon Canada (titles hyperlinked). This article entitled Persistent Fallacies by Vuk Vukovic recounts the misconceptions surrounding growth and is a response to the book, Why Nations Fail, featuring an anecdote on Paul Samuelson’s forecast of the USSR overtaking the US economy that was referenced by Steve in the episode.    In case you missed Virginia Postrel’s episode on The Curious Task and wish to catch up with her research, her book, The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, can be purchased on Amazon Canada at this link. The Cato Institute published an article by Adam D. Thierer on permissionless innovation, which also provides an overview of Deidre McCloskey’s contributions to the theory. It can be read here.   You can read Steve’s article, Privilege and the Liberal Tradition, on libertarianism.org. Here is an excerpt on Ludwig’s von Mises’ concept of peaceful transference from his book, Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition.  You can learn more about Robert Higgs’ concept of regime uncertainty through this downloadable PDF published by the Independent Institute.  This article by Gerald P. O’Driscoll, Jr. is an introduction to “sound money” that Steve also talks about during the podcast.  You can watch Hans Rosling’s TED video on The Magic Washing Machine at this link.  The joint research on inequality published by Steve and Vincent Geloso is available for reading here.  Here is the article written by Steve on Tyler Cowen’s joint article on The Great Stagnation, which is also available for reading online at this link. Here is some more background on precision medicine that Steve mentions briefly on the podcast. Here is the link to the 2007 panel discussion with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates that Alex mentions in the podcast.   The Back to the Future trilogy and Demolition Man can be purchased and/or streamed from Amazon Canada.  You can read more about John Stuart Mill’s “experiments of living” at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s website (Chapter 4.6).

Tyler Cowen chats with Alex Aragona about all things food — great things to eat, where to find them, and how an economist gets lunch. References from The Curious Task Episode 100 with Tyler Cowen You can purchase An Economist Gets Lunch by Tyler Cowen from Amazon here. You can read more from Tyler Cowen at the blog Marginal Revolution here. Find their course materials at Marginal Revolution University here. Tyler Cowen also has a food blog here. Read more about locavorism in The Locavore's Dilemma by Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu, available through Amazon here.

Alex Aragona peaks with Aeon Skoble as he outlines his ideas on what anarchism is, how we should think on it, and how it overlaps with classical liberal ideas. References from The Curious Task Episode 99 with Aeon Skoble Aeon Skoble is author of Deleting the State and editor of a collection of essays called The Simpsons and Philosophy. He has a chapter titled “What Is the Point of Anarchism” in The Routledge Handbook of Anarchy and Anarchist Thought. Read more from Aeon Skoble on the blog Radical Classical Liberal here. Aeon Skoble mentions Robert Nozick, who argues for a minimal state in Anarchy, State, and Utopia available for purchase here. Aeon Skoble further discusses Robert Nozick in this video produced by the Fraser Institute here. Learn more about the prisoner’s dilemma here. The relationship between anarchism and law is explored by Bruce Benson in his book The Enterprise of Law, available for purchase here.

Alex Aragona speaks with SmithTweeters Janet Bufton and Sarah Skwire as they describe what drew them to the idea of reading through all of The Wealth of Nations and providing an ongoing commentary on Twitter, and how Adam Smith's ideas remain relevant.  References from The Curious Task Episode 98 with Janet Bufton and Sarah Skwire Janet Bufton previously spoke on The Curious Task, which you can listen to here. Sarah Skwire has also appeared on The Curious Task here. You can read the #WealthofTweets here. The digression on silver in the Wealth of Nations can be read online here. Previous Smith Questionnaires can be watched on YouTube here. Learn more about the works of Adam Smith from Adam Smith Works here. Sarah and Janet reflect on their experience with the #WealthofTweets here.

Alex Aragona speaks with Anton Howes about when the sparks of innovation started in Britain, and what fanned the flames moving forward. References from The Curious Task Episode 97 with Anton Howes You can read more about the Age of Invention at the substack where Anton Howes writes about his ideas here. You can also find his working paper titled The Spread of Improvement here. Deirdre McCloskey details her arguments about ethics and commerce in her series which begins with Bourgeois Virtues, available for purchase from Amazon here. The European Guilds by Sheilagh Ogilvie is available for purchase through Princeton Press here.

Bill Easterly tours some of the concepts from his book The Tyranny of Experts, and explores why technocrats imposing their own form of economic development on cultures and peoples can produce more harm than good. References from The Curious Task Episode 96 with Bill Easterly You can purchase a copy of The Tyranny of the Experts by Bill Easterly here.  The End of Poverty by Jeff Sachs can be found on Amazon here. The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek can be purchased here.

Alex Aragona speaks with Dennis Rasmussen about his findings on how the American Founding Fathers truly felt about the experiment they designed and built as time went on. References from The Curious Task Episode 95 with Dennis Rasmussen Dennis Rasmussen previously joined The Curious Task to speak about his book The Infidel and the Professor, and you can listen to that episode here. The book discussed on this episode of The Curious Task is Fears of the Setting Sun by Dennis Rasmussen, which can be purchased from Amazon here. The rising sun armchair can be seen digitally here. More information on the Federalists can be found here, and the Anti-Federalists here. The soundtrack to Hamilton can be listened to here.

Alex Aragona speaks with Graeme Thompson about the classical liberal tradition in Canada, and what the evolution of that tradition has looked like. References from The Curious Task Episode 94 with Graeme Thompson A collection of the speeches of Wilfred Laurier can be found in an edited edition by Arthur Milnes, available from Amazon here. Macdonald Laurier and the Election of 1891 by Christopher Pennington can be found from Penguin House here. Graeme Thompson’s piece “Whatever Happened to Laurier” can be found in the National Post here. Graeme mentions positive and negative liberty by Isaiah Berlin, which is discussed on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy here. The works of Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, and J.S. Mill can be read for free through the Online Library of Liberty.  

Jacob Levy gives a tour of his thoughts on the conversations surrounding social justice, and how liberals might consider the topic from the perspective of social "injustice". References from The Curious Task Episode 93 with Jacob Levy You can listen to Jacob Levy’s other appearances on The Curious Task here and here. Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom by Jacob T. Levy can be purchased from Amazon here. You can purchase Free Market Fairness by John Tomasi from Amazon here. You can read more concepts of spontaneous and emergent order found in Hayek here. Judith Shklar lays out her argument about injustice in her book The Faces of Injustice (which can be purchased here).