Cass Sunstein on Defending Liberalism

I think Hayek and you are right to see careers open to talents as something that should make our heart sing because it gives people in all their diversity an opportunity to do whatever it is that they, you know, would get something from. And it can be, you know, running something that has intellectual or artistic focus, or it can be just something people really like to do. And in illiberal societies, that's not present, or it's present much less. And both the left-wing and the right wing attack on liberalism devalue careers element to talents. And now the good fight with Yasha Monk.

My guest today is Kaz Sunstein. Kass is the Robert Wormsley University. professor at Harvard University. He has served in a variety of very senior roles in both the Obama and the Biden administrations. Is one of the most influential legal scholars working today and is the author most recently of a book called On Liberalism in Defense of Freedom.

So you can see why I wanted to have him on the podcast. In today's conversation, we start out by trying to understand what liberalism isn't. I challenge Cass with the left-wing criticism of liberalism, that it is just an excuse for the kind of rapacious neoliberal capitalism which ends up inducing inequality and injustice, and with the most prominent current right wing criticism of liberalism, the claim that it prizes a search for self-discovery and autonomy, which ultimately erodes the bonds which make societies work, that it is in some ways self-cannibalizing.

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