What is this book about and how is it kind of a continuation of what you wrote in your last book and kind of the message you're trying to get out there about the nature of markets and society and economics?

So, I'll start with the second part first, if that's okay.

So, basically...

One of the things that the Next American Economy tried to do was to sort of re-explain, again, for the umpteenth time, the case for markets.

And it was particularly aimed at those people who are embracing economic nationalist ideas or now democratic socialist ideas on the left, right? And it was really about talking through some of their particular objections to markets and then dealing with those objections and then explaining why markets are better on pretty much every level.

So that was the purpose of that book.

But one of the things I discovered when I'd go out and talk about the book was that it didn't, it wasn't, people would basically say, yes, I think you're right about the economics, but, and then there would be this long argument about how markets were disruptive to culture, how there was, there was, it was a useful thing, but in itself, it was not particularly valuable as a means to an end, et cetera, et cetera.

But maybe you can just talk in broad swaths about like, well, what is civilization and why do we care about it?

So what is your argument for that? Why does free trade matter, especially for agriculture?

Well, free trade matters for a lot of reasons.

I think for one thing, it's good for American consumers, and the purpose of the economy is to meet consumer wants and needs.

That's what, uh, Adam Smith said that 250 years ago in his book, The Wealth of Nations.

And trade with other countries means that we can engage and discover what is our comparative advantage.

We can open new markets for American goods, and I think that's actually particularly important for American agriculture because American agriculture is a net exporter of its products to the rest of the world, and there's a lot of people out there who are anxious for American agricultural products.

And free trade is what enables us to get into them.

So over the course of history, what have been the drivers of US trade policy and how has that changed over time from one administration to the next?

So what is your argument for that? Why does free trade matter, especially for agriculture?

Well, free trade matters for a lot of reasons.

I think for one thing, it's good for American consumers, and the purpose of the economy is to meet consumer wants and needs.

That's what, uh, Adam Smith said that 250 years ago in his book The Wealth of Nations.

And trade with other countries means that we can engage and discover what is our comparative advantage.

We can open new markets for American goods, and I think that's actually particularly important for American agriculture because American agriculture is a net exporter of its products to the rest of the world, and there's a lot of people out there who are anxious for American agricultural products, and free trade is what enables us to get into them.

Whereas if you play the protectionist game, you don't only try and inhibit people from selling their goods in the United States, [chuckles] you also make it harder to penetrate into foreign markets so that you can get your goods, American goods, American agricultural goods, into foreign markets.

So over the course of history, what have been the drivers of US trade policy and how has that changed over time from one administration to the next?

How do you, how do AIER today think we need to reimagine fusionism?

Well, that's a very big topic, and we have myself, but also plenty of other scholars at AIER who are actively engaging this question because it's very important for not just the center-right, but I would argue for the country as well.

So in terms of the breakdown of fusionism, I think there's many, many different causes of it.

I think that those people who are primarily focused on the liberty side of things and And those people who are primarily focused on the virtue side of things went in different directions, had different priorities.

And maybe above all, from 1990 onwards, they lost the common enemy, the common enemy being the Soviet Union and communism.

And so when that glue of a common enemy went away, some of the frictions and the longstanding tensions that had always existed on the right about many of these questions, including economic policy, Many of these frictions became more tense and to the point whereby they started fraying and breaking up.

So that's part of the explanation.

You're doing a lot of great stuff there, but actually fulfilling Dr. Harwood's mission of getting that information out there.