Richard Epstein | The Continuing Relevance of Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty

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The F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics hosted a consideration of “The Continuing Relevance of Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty” with remarks by eminent legal scholar Richard Epstein, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law and Director, Classical Liberal Institute, New York University School of Law.
Professor Epstein drew on his most recent book, The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government (Harvard, 2014), in which he employs close textual reading, historical analysis, and political and economic theory to urge a return to the classical liberal theory of governance that animated the framers' original text, and to the limited government this theory supports.

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@jeffreymethusala30 3 жыл бұрын

An 1.5 hour speech by Richard Epstein should be submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest run-on sentence

@christopherrobbins9985 4 жыл бұрын

Epstein is one of the few public intellectuals worth listening to...if you can keep up.

@briangardner7575 4 жыл бұрын

Which is not easy.... there are very few people who when they talk I have to listen multiple times to make sure I got everything

@tonesvette2598 6 жыл бұрын

It would be interesting to hear him discuss something he's not certain about. Is there anything that confuses him ? Guy is scary brilliant.

@trumanhw 8 жыл бұрын

No, it's not wonderful -- it's beyond wonderful. He just redefined my awareness of how brilliant a human can be. UNREAL. I will probably have to listen to this 10 times to soak it in. Thank you thank you thank you!!! :) I will put this and Richard in "my curriculum vitae".

@Dritanian 4 жыл бұрын

I can listen to Epstein talk about anything.

@Truthsayer1979 2 жыл бұрын

Every time Epstein says, "It turns out . . .", take a shot

@francisl.goodwins6724 4 жыл бұрын

“Hayek is surprisingly sympathetic to positive rights with respect to health care, employment benefits, uninsurance, old age protection and so forth. And generally speaking, if you want to have a regime of positive rights, you’re necessarily going to have to be committed to have a regime in which there’s a fairly large degree of government discretion. … The moment you move into the realm of positive rights, everything is going to be contingent: who is going to pay, how much are they going to pay, what’s going to happen if it reduces the level of output in the society, what are the trade-offs between efficiency on the one hand and equity on the other, and you can’t do that stuff unless you have a rather large government.” (about 42:00) Here is what I’ve found to be the biggest blunder in Epstein’s thinking. He continues by delving deeper into the weeds, citing specifics about large government programs for highway systems and making comparisons with ancient Rome, when in fact he should be moving in exactly the opposite direction, asking how can government best protect individual liberty without usurping the individual’s freedom to choose. For me, that was where Hayek was going, although admittedly he didn’t get very far.

@brian2090 3 жыл бұрын

The beginning of your quote directly contradicts your claim.

@francisl.goodwins6724 3 жыл бұрын

@Brian My claim was that Epstein blundered in the passage I quoted. You may want to defend Epstein's assertion, which I was challenging, that "The moment you move into the realm of positive rights, everything is going to be contingent." I was hoping (silly me) that Epstein might respond to my challenge, which would have been something of a continuation of an email exchange I'd had with him several years ago on the same topic. So I tossed out some bait: "How can government best protect individual liberty without usurping the individual’s freedom to choose?" But I got no bites, At least not for 8 months, until your rather absurd comment ... unless you want to explain how the very act of challenging a statement by the exalted Richard Epstein is self-contradictory.