According to a 1998 study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, over the last half century nations that have been more open to trade have experienced double the annual growth rate of those that have been closed. So why would any nation be opposed to free trade? But, in fact, many developing countries are skeptical of free trade—believing that the rules of global trade benefit the rich, developed North at the expense of the poor, developing South. Are the critics right? With even President Bush's commitment appearing to falter, is the drive to greater free trade in crisis?

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In this wide-ranging conversation, Thiel discusses his politics, his campaign, and the scourge of totalitarian conformism in the United States and abroad; the problem with “following the science”; where President Biden deserves the blame and where he doesn’t; and why cryptocurrency may just save the world.

Peter Boettke, of George Mason University, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the Austrian perspective on business cycles, monetary policy and the current state of the economy...

Peter Boettke of George Mason University and author of Challenging Institutional Analysis and Development: The Bloomington School (co-authored with Paul Dragos Aligica), talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the Bloomington School--the political economy of Elinor Ostrom (2009 Nobel Laureate in Economics), Vincent Ostrom, and their students and colleagues at Indiana University. . . .

This week on Uncommon Knowledge columnist James Delingpole discusses, with Hoover research fellow Peter Robinson, the European Union, the Green movement, and socialized medicine. (47:41)

Charles Kesler discusses the emergence of economic liberalism, and the “doctrine of social and economic rights.”...

Milton Friedman was an unlikely candidate to become a great man...

Peter Berkowitz on The Moral Consequences of Growth by Benjamin M. Friedman and The Pro-Growth Progressive: An Economic Strategy for Shared Prosperity by Gene Sperling

In this Uncommon Knowledge classic from February 10, 1999, Milton Friedman, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1976 and a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution from 1977 to 2006, discusses, with Hoover research fellow Peter Robinson, what defines a libertarian and how Friedman balances the libertarians' desire for a small, less intrusive government with environmental, public safety, food and drug administration, and other issues.