Richard Epstein Enriches Us with His Ideas on Inequality, Taxes, Politics, and Health Care

Recorded on January 30, 2015 On Uncommon Knowledge, Richard A. Epstein, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, discusses inequality, taxes, globalization, free markets, politics, health care, and gay marriage. Epstein states that the central theme of his book The Classical Liberal Constitution is to develop sufficiently stable government structures and individual rights to raise everybody simultaneously when the government has to regulate or tax. The prevailing politics is “I win, you lose,” and the Supreme Court has done nothing to slow this trend. Epstein notes that a shrinking economic pie is always a losing proposition. He refers to the famous quote concerning his philosophy, “May justice reign even if the heavens fall.” Epstein also discusses other Supreme Court decisions, including the constitutionality of gay marriage.