Avsnitt
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What kept Black thinkers faithful to American democracy through slavery, Jim Crow, and worse? On this episode of the Liberalism.org Show, political theorist Jason Canon talks with Melvin Rogers — the Edna and Richard Salomon Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brown University and author of The Darkened Light of Faith — about the tradition running from David Walker and Frederick Douglass to W. E. B. Du Bois and James Baldwin. They explore why these figures insisted on freedom and equal regard even without evidence it could be won, the difference between democratic "faith" and ordinary hope or optimism, and why Baldwin asks us to measure progress not by redemption but by how honestly we confront a history that never fully leaves us.
Further ReadingThe Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought — Melvin L. Rogers, Princeton University PressAfrican American Political Thought: A Collected History — Melvin L. Rogers & Jack Turner, eds., University of Chicago PressMore from Liberalism.orgLiberalism's Uneasy Relationship with Democracy — Ilya SominCivic Education for Liberal Freedom — Paul Carrese -
Recorded at Flourishing House, the Institute for Humane Studies' gathering at SXSW exploring what people and societies need to thrive, this episode finds host Aaron Ross Powell in conversation with Virginia Postrel — journalist, former Reason editor, and author of The Future and Its Enemies and The Fabric of Civilization. The 1990s now look like a golden age of optimism about the future — but at the time, critics were smashing computers on stage and running "Smash the Internet" cover stories. Powell and Postrel revisit her enduring distinction between dynamism and stasis nearly three decades on: why today's backlash against openness is less about pocketbook economics than discomfort with a diverse, experimental society; why every solution breeds fresh discontents, and why that's a feature rather than a bug; and how liberals can keep making the case for abundance through concrete, everyday stories — from YIMBY housing reform to the surprisingly contentious history of the toothbrush.
Further Reading
The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress — Virginia Postrel, Free PressThe Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World — Virginia Postrel, Basic BooksAbundance — Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson, Avid Reader PressVirginia Postrel's website — home for her columns and books; her new Everyday Abundance podcast with Charles C. Mann is forthcoming (June 2026)More from Liberalism.org
"The Enemy Is Power, Wherever You Find It" — Matt Zwolinski -
Saknas det avsnitt?
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Cities are humanity's greatest invention—not in spite of their density, but because of it. In this bonus episode of the Liberalism.org Show, Jason Canon sits down with Harvard urban economist Edward Glaeser, author of Triumph of the City and Survival of the City, to make the case for urban life and to ask why America has stopped building. They discuss how the New York of the 1970s shaped Glaeser's lifelong fascination with cities, why urban poverty is a sign of opportunity rather than failure, how prosperous suburban homeowners turned the Sun Belt's growth machines into engines of stasis, and what the YIMBY movement and comparisons to housing policy in Japan and the UK reveal about the tension between local control and the freedom to build.
Further Reading
Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier — Edward Glaeser, Penguin PressSurvival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation — Edward Glaeser and David Cutler, Penguin Press"Why Is There More Crime in Cities?" — Edward Glaeser and Bruce Sacerdote, Journal of Political Economy (1999)Augustine of Hippo: A Biography — Peter Brown, University of California Press (1967)More from Liberalism.org
Liberalism: A Future Worth Wanting — Emily Chamlee-Wright -
Liberals have ceded the family to social conservatives for decades — and Lauren K. Hall thinks it's a mistake liberalism can't afford. In this episode, host Aaron Ross Powell talks with Hall, professor of political science and associate dean of academic affairs at the Rochester Institute of Technology, about her Liberalism.org essay "Why Liberalism Needs the Family." They discuss why classical liberals have under-theorized this pre-political institution, how siblings, trust, and the wider "village" cultivate the citizens that markets and self-government require, the false binary between total family autonomy and state intervention, and why over-scheduled, over-supervised childhoods may be quietly producing adults more comfortable with authoritarianism.
Further Reading:
Why Liberalism Needs the Family — Lauren K. Hall, Liberalism.orgFamily and the Politics of Moderation: Private Life, Public Goods, and the Rebirth of Social Individualism — Lauren K. Hall, Baylor University PressThe Radical Moderate's Guide to Life — Lauren K. Hall's SubstackLet Grow — Lenore Skenazy's nonprofit, with the tiered intervention guide Hall recommendsMore from Liberalism.org:
Yours, Mine, or Ours? Liberals Need a Theory of the State — Michael C. Munger -
Markets can fail — but can government actually fix them? In his Liberalism.org essay "Yours, Mine, or Ours? Liberals Need a Theory of the State," political scientist Michael Munger argues that liberals have been losing the policy debate by defending the perfection of markets rather than challenging the imperfection of the state. Host Aaron Ross Powell talks with Munger — a Liberalism.org fellow and the Pfizer, Inc./Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. University Distinguished Professor at Duke University — about what he calls the "pretty pig problem" in policy arguments, why roads are actually a poor example of public goods, how the concept of government as a technology reframes what belongs in the state's toolkit, and whether intellectual honesty about market failures can coexist with a strong presumption in favor of liberty.
Further Reading
"Yours, Mine, or Ours? Liberals Need a Theory of the State" — Michael C. Munger, Liberalism.orgTechnology and the End of Authority: What Is Government For? — Jason Kuznicki, Palgrave Macmillan"Seeing with Two I's: States, Markets, and Some Advice for Us Liberals" — Michael C. Munger, Liberalism.org -
Can a half-hour of sitcom reruns make you a better liberal? Shal Marriott thinks so — and in this episode of the Liberalism.org Show, host Aaron Ross Powell talks with Marriott, a PhD student in political science at McGill University, about her article "Sitcoms: A Defense." They discuss how popular television can cultivate liberal habits of character beyond mere tolerance, why appreciating pluralism requires something closer to delight than grudging acceptance, what Adam Smith and Judith Shklar have in common with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and whether the low stakes of fictional worlds offer a space to practice the discernment that liberalism demands.
"Sitcoms: A Defense" — Shal Marriott, Liberalism.orgLiberalism as a Way of Life — Alexandre Lefebvre, Princeton University PressOrdinary Vices — Judith Shklar, Harvard University Press
Further ReadingMore from Liberalism.org
"Mini Tacos, Murder, and the Problem of Getting Exactly What We Want" — Sarah Skwire"What Early Liberals Knew, We'll Remember" — Jason Kuznicki -
What does a thriller about a murderous house-hunter have to do with liberalism? Quite a lot, it turns out. In this episode, host Aaron Ross Powell talks with Sarah Skwire, Senior Program Officer at Liberty Fund and a Liberalism.org Fellow, about her article "Mini Tacos, Murder, and the Problem of Getting Exactly What We Want." They explore how narrative can persuade where data can't, how literature trains empathy by putting us inside other minds, and how the very abundance that liberalism celebrates can paradoxically generate its own kind of scarcity — one we engineer through our own over-optimized desires.
Further Reading
Mini Tacos, Murder, and the Problem of Getting Exactly What You Want — Sarah Skwire, Liberalism.orgBest Offer Wins — Marisa Kashino, MacmillanSarah Skwire at AdamSmithWorks — Liberty FundMore from Liberalism.org
The Enemy Is Power, Wherever You Find It — Matt Zwolinski -
In this episode, host Aaron Ross Powell talks with Matt Zwolinski, Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Diego and a Liberalism.org Fellow, about his article "The Enemy Is Power, Wherever You Find It." They discuss why liberals have traditionally focused on state power while neglecting its private forms, how institutional design can disperse and counterbalance power through mechanisms like competitive markets and federalism, and what both the left and classical liberals should learn from the current illiberal moment about the dangers of concentration.
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In the very first episode of the Liberalism.org Show, Aaron Ross Powell sits down with IHS President Emily Chamlee-Wright to introduce Liberalism.org—why it exists, why it’s launching now, and what listeners and readers can expect from the online magazine and its companion podcasts.
