The University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog

Audio: Milton Friedman on "Capitalism and the Jews"

If you're looking to something to do during that extra hour this weekend, you may want to check out an audio file that was just uploaded to the Law School's website: a talk by legendary University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman.

This recording was made on October 15, 1978 by James H. Fox, JD '78.

The speech was originally scheduled for the B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation, but was moved to the University of Chicago Law School Auditorium upon the announcement the week before of his Nobel Prize in Economics.

In the talk, Professor Friedman begins with two seemingly contradictory propositions (namely, "There are few peoples, if any in the world, who owe so great a debt to free enterprise and competitive capitalism as the Jews," and "There are few peoples, if any in the world, who have done so much to undermine the intellectual foundations of capitalism as the Jews") and then attempts to reconcile them.

Video: Epstein Debates Judy Feder on Health Care

NYU has posted a video of a recent debate between Richard Epstein and Georgetown's Judy Feder about health care reform. You can watch the video here, and below is a sneak peek of Epstein's position, courtesy of the NYU website:

While agreeing with Feder that the system needed drastic fixes, Epstein differed stridently on what was required. Arguing that “cartel-like restrictions,” mandates, and subsidies in government programs like Medicare had caused healthcare’s woes, Epstein said that the current model of a system like Medicare was not tenable when extended to the broader population: “If all you’re going to try to do is to give everybody the same level of protection that you give to current Medicare recipients, you’ll not be able to finance it with any of the devices that she’s talking about.”

One of the primary problems, Epstein said, was that potential competitors to existing insurance firms lack free entry into local markets, resulting in insurance monopolies. He argued that Obama should pass legislation to correct a “deeply anticompetitive system,” but predicted that the administration would instead “buy off all the interest groups with corrupt bargains” and introduce taxation and cross-subsidy programs that “will bankrupt the nation.” The public health plan option, Epstein continued, would be run by a “bunch of blithering incompetents.... What you’re watching here is a grotesque concatenation of every bad left-wing liberal policy in the last 40 years, and the time has come to stop it.” Epstein prescribed instead a series of “mid-level rationalizations” involving medical malpractice and price restriction issues, as well as the application of contract law.

Audio: Richard Epstein on Patent Rights in the Supreme Court

Continuing our recent (unintentional) theme of patent law and the Supreme Court, we'd like to draw your attention to a recent Federalist Society podcast that featured our own Richard Epstein, along with Scott Kieff (George Washington University Law School), Mark Lemley (Stanford University Law School), Fred von Lohmann (Electronic Frontier Foundation), and Adam Mossoff (UChicago Law '01 and now prof at George Mason University School of Law), discussing the Quanta case. Listen to the podcast and get some more background on the case here.

Audio: Jonathan Masur on Patent Law and the Future of Economic Regulation

This year's annual First Monday lectures -- given each year to give alumni in several cities a chance to discuss with current faculty the issues facing the Supreme Court in its upcoming term -- were presented by Assistant Professor of Law Jonathan Masur. His talk was entitled "The Assertive Supreme Court: Patent Law and the Future of Economic Regulation." The version presented at the lecture in Chicago last week is now online.

Audio: Epstein and Lessig on Campaign Finance Reform

Richard Epstein recently faced off with former Chicago prof Lawrence Lessig on campaign finance reform on the WRFU program The Logic Consortium. Professors Epstein and Lessig agreed heartily on the goals, somewhat less so on the means. You can listen to the program here.

Audio: Richard Epstein on Locke v. Karass

Yesterday, the Federalist Society posted a brief recording of Richard Epstein discussing Locke v. Karass. In this case, the Court considered whether union requirements that dictate that nonmembers pay a service fee for litigation that does not directly benefit the local union (i.e. “national litigation”) violate the First Amendment. You can listen to the recording here.

Video: Eric Posner and Steven Davidoff on "Economic Ants and Grasshoppers"

On Monday, BloggingHeads posted a discussion between Kirkland and Ellis Professor of Law Eric Posner and The University of Connecticut's Steven Davidoff about "Economic Ants and Grasshoppers," in which they discuss where blame for the current economic crisis lies, and what could and should be done about it. A portion of the discussion is embedded below, or you can watch the whole discussion here.

Audio: Randy Picker Discusses DRM

On the current edition of the Intellectual Property Colloquium podcast, hosted by UCLA (and former Chicago) professor Doug Lichtman, Paul H. and Theo Leffmann Professor of Commercial Law Randy Picker discusses digital rights management with Princeton's Ed Felten. According to Ben Sheffner's Copyrights & Campaigns blog,

Lichtman's interview with Picker focuses on a topic that gets much less attention than it deserves: how DRM enables pro-consumer business models. The discussion of how the Microsoft Xbox gaming console's business model -- artificially low console subsidized by Microsoft-only games -- is particularly interesting. And Picker takes the public's dislike of DRM head-on: "They hate it, but that doesn't mean anything." Picker explains that much of the "hatred" comes from looking only at the downsides of DRM, but ignoring the benefits: fostering business models that would be either more expensive or nonexistent if not for DRM.

You can listen to or download the podcast here.

Audio: Brian Leiter on Free Speech and the Internet

On Tuesday, John P. Wilson Professor of Law Brian Leiter was a guest on WNPR's show, "Where We Live." Together with Danielle Citron and Senator Gary LeBeau, he discussed the extent to which First Amendment protections should be extended into cyberspace.

On their website, WNPR sums up the conversation:

Our discussion this morning kept circling back to some central questions--questions we've been dealing with and will continue to deal with on Where We Live: How is the internet changing our social contract?  What rights are we willing to give up in order to maintain order in the digital world?  And as the internet continues to fundamentally change the course of global communications and transactions--what new rules should govern online life and what, if any, new rights must we protect?

You can listen to the show here.

Video: Crisis and the Law with Richard Epstein

Over the past week, the National Review Online has been posting portions of a video interview with Richard Epstein as part of "Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson," produced by the Hoover Institution. Links to the week's episodes are below. Update: The Hoover Institution has the full video, along with a transcript.

• MONDAY, MARCH 30, 2009 Crisis & the Law with Richard Epstein: Chapter 1 of 5 - Richard Epstein considers the soundness of contracts and the constitutionality of taxing bonuses at a rate of 90 percent. 
• TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 2009 Crisis & the Law with Richard Epstein: Chapter 2 of 5 - Richard Epstein discusses the financial crisis, determining that “government incentives were perverse, so the actions of the private parties were perverse.”
• WEDNESDAY, APRIL 01, 2009 Crisis & the Law with Richard Epstein: Chapter 3 of 5 - Richard Epstein rates the separate responses of the Bush and Obama administrations to the financial crisis.
• THURSDAY, APRIL 02, 2009 Crisis & the Law with Richard Epstein: Chapter 4 of 5 - Richard Epstein, who has dealt professionally with Barack Obama in the past, describes the talents and shortcomings of the 44th president.
• FRIDAY, APRIL 03, 2009 Crisis & the Law with Richard Epstein: Chapter 5 of 5 - Richard Epstein discusses the constitutionality of several hot items on the congressional agenda, including card check.