What does a thriller about a murderous house-hunter have to do with liberalism? Quite a lot, it turns out. In this episode, host Aaron Ross Powell talks with Sarah Skwire, Senior Program Officer at Liberty Fund and a Liberalism.org Fellow, about her article "Mini Tacos, Murder, and the Problem of Getting Exactly What We Want." They explore how narrative can persuade where data can't, how literature trains empathy by putting us inside other minds, and how the very abundance that liberalism celebrates can paradoxically generate its own kind of scarcity — one we engineer through our own over-optimized desires.

Further Reading

• Mini Tacos, Murder, and the Problem of Getting Exactly What You Want — Sarah Skwire, Liberalism.org

• Best Offer Wins — Marisa Kashino, Macmillan

• Sarah Skwire at AdamSmithWorks — Liberty Fund

More from Liberalism.org

• The Enemy Is Power, Wherever You Find It — Matt Zwolinski