Episode Details

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.org

• Technology 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