Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

Guest speaker video interviews — new location

Yahoo! Video has shut down, so all CEE videos are now hosted at YouTube.

Here are the speakers, topics, and new URLs. (Thanks to Chris Vaughan for performing the gargantuan task of transferring the material.)

Anil Singh-Molares on Microsoft and entrepreneurship.
Terry Noel on The Virtuous Entrepreneur.
Emily Chamlee-Wright on non-profits and the recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina.
Steven Horwitz on Wal-Mart to the rescue after Hurricane Katrina.
David Mayer on Thomas Jefferson, Part I and Part II.
C. Bradley Thompson on John Adams, Part I and Part II.
Timothy Sandefur on market entrepreneurs, political entrepreneurs, and the Constitution, Part I and Part II.
David Mayer on Constitutional Interpretation, Part I and Part II.
C. Bradley Thompson on Neoconservatism, Part I and Part II.
Jerry Kirkpatrick on Philosophy’s Importance to Business, Part I and Part II.
Jerry Kirkpatrick on Montessori, Dewey, and Capitalism.
Jerry Kirkpatrick in defense of advertising, Part I and Part II.
Joshua Hall on educational reform.

Here is the full list of my video interviews with guest speakers.

Do conservatives value economic liberty?

The question matters because many smart libertarians and conservatives, Bryan Caplan included, are wondering whether the two groups can overcome their differences, either for short-term coalitions on particular issues and elections or to create a longer-term movement.

My view is that the philosophical differences between the two militate against long-term compatibility, though there are prospects for targeted short-term alliances. Here are two relevant pieces of data: quotations from two major conservatives, each representative of a different sub-species of conservatism.

First the traditional conservatives, taking Robert Bork as representative, this from his Slouching Towards Gomorrah:

“Because both libertarians and modern liberals are oblivious to social reality, both demand radical personal autonomy in expression. That is one reason libertarians are not to be confused, as they often are, with conservatives” (p. 150). Bork goes on to argue that “Free market economists are particularly vulnerable to the libertarian virus” and to cite philosophical errors about ethics and human nature as the root problem: too often the free market economist “ignores the question of which wants it is moral to satisfy” (p. 151) and fails to recognize that “[u]nconstrained human nature will seek degeneracy often enough to create a disorderly, hedonistic, and dangerous society” (p. 153).

Second, the neo-conservatives, taking Irving Kristol, “godfather” of the neo-cons, as representative, this from his contribution to his co-edited Capitalism Today:

“The inner spiritual chaos of the times, so powerfully created by the dynamics of capitalism itself, is such as to make nihilism an easy temptation. A ‘free society’ in Hayek’s sense gives birth in massive numbers to ‘free spirits’ – emptied of moral substance” (p. 13).

Bork and Kristol are hostile to free-market capitalism, and both are major representatives of conservatism. Both recognize that free-market capitalism is generally economically fruitful, but they have major philosophical objections to it. So some follow up questions:

1. In contemporary conservatism, what proportions of its members are traditional, neo-con, or other?
2. Are Robert Bork’s and Irving Kristol’s views still representative of current traditional and neo-con thinking?
3. While economic liberty is extremely important to libertarians, how strong is the mainstream conservative commitment to economic liberty?
4. While libertarians advocate for liberty consistently in all human affairs, do conservatives see economic liberty as compatible with liberty in other areas of human life: religion, sex, family, art, foreign affairs, and so on?
5. To the extent that conservatives believe economic liberty to be in conflict with other important human values, how likely are they to sacrifice economic liberty?

We need good survey data on those questions to be able to answer this follow-up question:

6. To the extent that there are philosophical differences between libertarians and conservatives, can or should those differences be set aside to pursue short-term coalitions?

[For more on neo-conservatism, I recommend Brad Thompson's study.]

[Thanks to Dan for the Kristol image correction.]

CEE video interviews

In my capacity as Executive Director of CEE, I have been fortunate to interview several of our expert guest speakers. We began the video interview series at the beginning of the 2008-2009 academic year, and so far we have published interviews with six of our speakers:

Entrepreneur Anil Singh-Molares on entrepreneurship, the liberal arts, and the global marketplace.

Dr. Terry Noel on the virtuous entrepreneur.

Dr. Emily Chamlee-Wright on New Orleans’ non-profit sector’s response to Hurricane Katrina.

Dr. Steven Horwitz on Wal-Mart’s response to Hurricane Katrina.

Dr. C. Bradley Thompson on founding father John Adams.

Dr. David N. Mayer on Thomas Jefferson.

Dr. C. Bradley Thompson on his forthcoming book on Leo Strauss and the neo-conservatives.

Dr. David Mayer on Freedom’s Constitution, his forthcoming book on U.S. Constitutional interpretation.

Forthcoming: Attorney Timothy Sandefur on market entrepreneurs, political entrepreneurs, and the American legal and political landscape.

The videos are also available at the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship’s site. Credit also goes to CEE’s Christopher Vaughan, who shoots and edits the interviews. Nice work, Chris.

Kaizen Issue 8 published

The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship has published its eighth issue of Kaizen [pdf], focusing on the theme of Education and Entrepreneurship. It features my interview with Steve Mariotti, founder of the excellent Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), an organization dedicated to providing entrepreneurship education to low-income youths.

Also featured are guest speakers David Mayer, who spoke at Rockford College on Thomas Jefferson, and C. Bradley Thompson, who spoke on John Adams, along with a mini interview with Professor Steve Kadamian on his new entrepreneurship course and a report on our 2009 High School Entrepreneur Day.

This and previous issues of Kaizen are also available at CEE’s Kaizen page.

Interview: C. Bradley Thompson on Leo Strauss and the neo-conservatives

My two-part interview at CEE with Dr. C. Bradley Thompson about his forthcoming book Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, focusing on the early 20th-century political philosopher Leo Strauss’s influence on the founders of Neoconservativism.

Part I

Part II

More interviews with CEE’s guest speakers are available here.

Interview: C. Bradley Thompson on John Adams

My interview at CEE with C. Bradley Thompson, Ph.D., on founding father John Adams’s moral character and his importance to the American Revolution.

Part I

Part II

More interviews with CEE’s guest speakers are available here.