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December 13, 2019|Israeli Defense Forces, securities and exchange commission, Silicon Valley, Tom Nicholas, VC: An American History, venture capital

What Is the Venture Capital Secret Sauce?

by Reuven Brenner|

Aerial view of Sandhill Road, home of many Silicon Valley venture capital firms, in Menlo Park, California, April 19, 2018 (Zenstrata/Shutterstock.com).
A new book by a Harvard Business School professor does not, alas, illuminate what it might be.

October 22, 2018|10 Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, Jaron Lanier, Silicon Valley

Social Media—What a Bummer

by Michael Matheson Miller|

(image: Nils Ackerman / Alamy Stock Vector)
The capitalists who embarked on a lefty, socialist mission and got entangled in mammoth contradictions.

May 23, 2018|Conservatives, Liberals, Peter Lawler, Pierre Manent, Silicon Valley, Trump

Peter Lawler, A Year Gone By

by Paul Seaton|

Peter Augustine Lawler (courtesy Berry College)
Peter Lawler laid out how the middle class was the class that best represented our middling status as human beings, neither gods nor beasts.

April 2, 2018|American Citizenship, biotechnology, Facebook, Leading a Worthy Life, Leon Kass, Liberal Arts, marriage, Millennials, Silicon Valley

Leading a Worthy Life in a Scattered Time: A Conversation with Leon Kass

by Leon Kass|

Leon Kass discusses Leading a Worthy Life.

January 9, 2018|Amazon, Apple, Big Data, Facebook, Franklin Foer, GAFA, Google, Mark Zuckerberg, Netflix, New Republic, progress, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, YouTube

Big Tech Is Coming To Eat You, But Don’t Worry Too Much

by James Bruce|

Franklin Foer's perceptive and dystopian book misunderstands the real threats posed by Big Tech.

March 15, 2017|American Affairs, Conservative Movement, Donald Trump, free trade, James Burnham, Julius Krein, Ruling Elite, Silicon Valley

James Burnham and Our ‘Soul-Sick’ Elite: A Conversation with Julius Krein

by Julius Krein|

Comes now to Liberty Law Talk, Julius Krein, founding editor of the explosive new journal, American Affairs. We discuss the crack-up in our politics and in the conservative movement through the lens of James Burnham's classic work, The Managerial Revolution.

June 15, 2016|Apple, Google, inequality, Progressivism, San Francisco, Silicon Valley

The San Francisco Compromise: A Conversation with Michael Anton

by Michael Anton|

This conversation with Michael Anton explores how the gargantuan wealth of Silicon Valley allied with San Francisco Progressivism and is now redefining American culture and politics. But how durable is the alliance?

September 30, 2014|Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley, Singularity, Zero to One

Is Peter Thiel a Prophet We Can Believe In?

by Peter Augustine Lawler|

It seems like everyone–but especially conservatives–is talking about Peter Thiel these days. One sees his name all over. The traditionalist conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute has made the venture capitalist and PayPal cofounder this year’s speaker defending Western civilization (link no longer available). I met Peter (and sat cozily beside him for two days) at a theology conference sponsored by First Things, where he shared his quite singular interpretation of Genesis. Last December, I went to a Straussian conference on Burke and Strauss, funded, of course, by Peter Thiel.

I (and 60,00 or so others) recently got an email from Jonathan Last of the Weekly Standard, who began by saying that he often disagrees with Thiel; he thinks his praise of the innovative benefits of monopolies, for instance, applies “only in the narrowest cases.” Still, “right or wrong, or somewhere in between,” Peter’s writing is always “interesting,” and he is “one of our more important public intellectuals.” Thiel’s big claim, that “the collapse of technological progress over the last 40 years is the root of our cultural, political, and economic malaise,” is worth arguing about.

You know, it really is.

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September 2, 2014|Facebook, Joel Kotkin, Silicon Valley, social media, The New Class Conflict

Rescuing American Prosperity: A Conversation with Joel Kotkin

by Joel Kotkin|

This latest podcast is with Joel Kotkin, America’s Demographer-in-Chief, on his recently released book, The New Class Conflict. Kotkin and I discuss his grave warning of an American future that no longer contains the promises of democratic capitalism. Two groups, in Kotkin’s telling, have converged and share a vision of America that is unconcerned with economic growth, shared prosperity, and the need to rein in state power. The book’s opening argues that this class of tech entrepreneurs and the "Clerisy" pose a fundamental challenge to America's self-understanding as a nation of economic mobility: In the coming decades, the greatest existential threat…

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January 30, 2014|Average is Over, Coming Apart, Entitlements, Free Markets, Google, marijuana, Obamacare, Peter Thiel, Randy Barnett, Same Sex Marriage, Silicon Valley, Tyler Cowen

The State of Our Liberty is Confusing

by Peter Augustine Lawler|

I appreciate John McGinnis’s account of the state of our liberty. He’s right that by some objective measures liberty is on the decline. But, a consistent individualist might say, liberty is on the march when it comes to same-sex marriage, legalized marijuana, and the general front of “lifestyle liberty.”

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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About

Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
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