Hayek Program Podcast

On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Chris Coyne delivers a keynote lecture at the 2023 Markets & Society conference on the foundations of peace. He contrasts “top-down” peacemaking driven by elites with “bottom-up” peacemaking that emerges from the everyday practices of ordinary people.
Coyne argues that much of the social-scientific and policy conversation treats peace as a public good best supplied through state-intervention. He develops an alternative framework—pax hominem—that treats peace as an emergent, learned, and constantly renewed process. Drawing on mainline political economy and the work of Kenneth Boulding, Coyne shows how peaceful cooperation depends on local knowledge, social norms, and institutions that help people navigate conflict without violence across families, communities, and markets.
Together, these insights point toward a research and policy agenda focused less on imposing order and more on creating space for self-governance and the bottom-up cultivation of peace.
Dr. Christopher J. Coyne is Associate Director of the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center and Professor of Economics at George Mason University. He has published numerous books, including How to Run Wars: A Confidential Playbook for the National Security Elite (Independent Institute, 2024), In Search of Monsters to Destroy: The Folly of American Empire and the Paths to Peace (Independent Institute, 2022), and Doing Bad by Doing Good: Why Humanitarian Action Fails (Stanford University Press, 2013).
**This episode was recorded October 20, 2024.
Show Notes:
Kenneth Boulding’s book, Stable Peace (University of Texas Press, 1978)
Elise Boulding’s book, Cultures of Peace(Syracuse University Press, 2000)
James C. Scott’s book, Seeing Like a State (Yale University Press, 1999)
Caroline Elkin’s book, Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire (Penguin Random House, 2023)
James M. Buchanan’s Nobel Prize Lecture
Elinor Ostrom et. al’s paper, “Covenants with and without a Sword: Self-Governance Is Possible” (APSR, 2013)
Virgil storr et. al’s book, Community Revival in the Wake of Disaster: Lessons in Local Entrepreneurship (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)
Mikayla Novak’s book, Freedom in Contention: Social Movements and Liberal Political Economy (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021)
Virgil Storr and Ginny Choi’s book, Do Markets Corrupt Our Morals? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
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CC Music: Twisterium

**This episode was recorded September 29, 2025.
On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Chris Coyne speaks with Amy Crockett and Erwin Dekker about how economics shapes our understanding of peace, conflict, and cooperation, drawing on the work of Kenneth Boulding and James Buchanan.
First, Coyne speaks with Amy Crockett about her upcoming paper, “Addressing Peace in Undergraduate Economics Textbooks.” Crockett examines how peace is often treated as a background assumption in economics education and presents evidence from introductory and upper-level textbooks on how war, conflict, and policy responses are typically framed, highlighting missed opportunities to emphasize bottom-up, cooperative solutions.
Coyne then speaks with Erwin Dekker about his paper, “Kenneth Boulding and James Buchanan on the Public Function of Economics.” Decker discusses how both thinkers understood economics as shaping the public “image” of social life, emphasizing exchange, moral foundations, and the importance of economists addressing citizens rather than policymakers.
Together, these conversations show how economic ideas—whether taught in classrooms or communicated to the public—can either reinforce conflict-centered narratives or help sustain cultures of peace and cooperation.
This is the fourth episode in a short series of episodes that will feature a collection of authors who contributed to the volume 1, issue 2 of the Markets & Society Journal or to a forthcoming special issue from The Review of Austrian Economics.
Dr. Erwin Dekker is Senior Fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics and a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He has published numerous books, including Realizing the Values of Art (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), Jan Tinbergen (1903-1994) and the Rise of Economic Expertise (Cambridge University Press, 2021), and The Viennese Students of Civilization: The Meaning and Context of Austrian Economics Reconsidered (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
Dr. Amy Crockett is a Senior Lecturer at Vanderbilt University. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from George Mason University, an M.A. in teaching from Relay Graduate School of Education, and a B.S. in systems engineering & economics from George Mason University. She is an Alum of the Mercatus PhD Fellowship.
Show Notes:
Tensions in Political Economy Series
Kenneth Boulding’s book, The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society (University of Michigan Press, 1956).
Robert Higgs’ paper, “Wartime Prosperity? A Reassessment of the U.S. Economy in the 1940s” (The Journal of Economic History, 2009).
James Buchanan’s paper, “Positive Economics, Welfare Economics, and Political Economy” (The Journal of Law & Economics, 1959).
James M. Buchanan’s Nobel Prize Lecture
If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!
Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgram
Follow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus
CC Music: Twisterium

On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Mario Small delivers a keynote lecture at the 2024 Markets & Society conference on financial institutions and racial inequality—using payday lenders as a lens to understand how place and institutional context shape economic life.
Small begins with a deceptively simple question: how often is it easier to reach a payday lender than a traditional bank—and does that vary by neighborhood racial composition? He shows that racial gaps in access and attitudes persist even after accounting for socioeconomic differences, and argues that proximity, convenience, and institutional experience help shape preferences, even as most Americans hold negative views of payday lenders.
Together, these insights offer a nuanced account of how neighborhood context and institutional behavior interact to reproduce inequality, challenging simple explanations rooted in individual choice and highlighting the importance of lived experience in economic decision-making.
Dr. Mario L. Small is Quetelet Professor of Social Science at Columbia University. A University of Bremen Excellence Chair, and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and the Sociological Research Association, Small has published award-winning articles and books on urban inequality, personal networks, and the relationship between qualitative and quantitative methods. His books include Villa Victoria: The Transformation of Social Capital in a Boston Barrio, Unanticipated Gains: Origins of Network Inequality in Everyday Life -- both of which received the C. Wright Mills Award for Best Book -- and Someone To Talk To: How Networks Matter in Practice, which received the James Coleman Best Book Award among other honors.
**This episode was recorded October 12, 2024.
If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!
Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgram

On this episode, Chris Coyne speaks with Brigitta Jones, Nathan Goodman, and Karla Segovia about Kenneth Boulding’s insights on war, peace, and the political economy of conflict applied to contemporary questions about military organization and the dynamics of civil conflict.
First, Jones discusses her coauthored paper with Coyne, “The Political Economy of Milorg,” which uses Boulding’s concept of Milorg to examine the entanglement of public agencies and private firms in the military sector. She highlights how knowledge problems, incentives, and political processes shape what the military produces and how those decisions affect the broader economy.
Goodman and Segovia then join Coyne to discuss their paper, “Unstable Peace in El Salvador,” coauthored with Abby Hall. Drawing on Boulding’s framework, they examine how shifting expectations, beliefs, and “taboo lines” eroded the country’s fragile peace, highlighting how strains such as land concentration, poverty, repression, and escalating violence contributed to the outbreak of civil war.
Together, these conversations illustrate how Boulding’s insights illuminate both the functioning of the modern military-industrial landscape and the complex processes through which societies move between peace and war.
This is the third episode in a short series of episodes that will feature a collection of authors who contributed to the volume 1, issue 2 of the Markets & Society Journal or to a forthcoming special issue from The Review of Austrian Economics.
Brigitta Jones is a PhD student in Economics at George Mason University. Her research interests include the welfare state of the United States.
Dr. Nathan P. Goodman is a Senior Research Fellow and Senior Fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. His research broadly focuses on political economy, public choice, market process economics, New Institutional Economics, and defense economics.
Dr. Karla Segovia is a program manager for Research & Programs and a Research Fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where she works on the Markets & Society conference and journal. She is also an adjunct professor at Northern Virginia Community College.
Show Notes:
Kenneth Boulding’s book, Stable Peace (University of Texas Press, 1978)
Kenneth Boulding’s book, The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society (University of Michigan Press, 1956).
U.S. Congressional Testimony by Kenneth Boulding (1969)
**This episode was recorded October 27, 2025.
If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!
Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgram
Follow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus
CC Music: Twisterium

On this episode, Peter Boettke chats with Angus Burgin, Simon Halliday, and Glory Liu to explore their innovative work at the Center for Economy and Society and the creation of a new undergraduate program in Moral and Political Economy. They dive into the revival of political economy as a cross-disciplinary field, the pedagogical innovations shaping the next generation of thinkers, the coming 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, and more.
Dr. Angus Burgin is Associate Professor of History and Founding Director of the Program in Moral and Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University. He serves as Co-Executive Editor of the book series, Intellectual History of the Modern Age, and he is the author of The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets since the Depression (Harvard University Press, 2015).
Dr. Simon Halliday is Associate Research Professor and Associate Director in the Center for Economy and Society at Johns Hopkins University. He is the co-author (with Sam Bowles) of an intermediate microeconomics textbook, Microeconomics: Competition, Conflict and Coordination (Oxford University Press, 2022).
Dr. Glory Liu is Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. She is the author of Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher became an Icon of American Capitalism (Princeton University Press, 2022).
Show Notes:
John Hopkins University’s BA in Moral + Political Economy
Core Econ
Adam Smith’s book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Liberty Fund, 1982)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s book, Women and Economics (Small, Maynard & Company, 1898)
Tim Rogan’s book, The Moral Economists: R. H. Tawney, Karl Polanyi, E. P. Thompson, and the Critique of Capitalism (Princeton University Press, 2018)
Warren Samuels’ paper, “Adam Smith and the Economy as a System of Power”
**This episode was recorded October 30, 2025.
If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!
Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgram
Follow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus
CC Music: Twisterium