I’m particularly pleased to have played a role in bringing so many terrific authors to speak at Cato this year, including Virginia Postrel and Lenore Skenazy (I helped a bit with Megan McArdle too). Next up, on Mar. 27: Peter Schuck of Yale Law School, “militant moderate” whose magnum opus on how government fails is forthcoming from Princeton. Commenting will be Arnold Kling. Register now! (or make plans to watch live online). Event description:

Featuring the author Peter Schuck, Professor of Law Emeritus, Yale Law School; with comments by Arnold Kling, Economist and Adjunct Scholar, Cato Institute; moderated by Walter Olson, Senior Fellow, Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute.

From the doctor’s office to the workplace, the federal government is taking on ever more responsibility for managing our lives. At the same time, Americans have never been more disaffected with Washington, seeing it as an intrusive, incompetent, wasteful giant. In this book, lawyer and political scientist Peter Schuck lays out a wide range of examples and an enormous body of evidence to explain why so many domestic policies go awry. Economist David Henderson, research fellow at the Hoover Institution and coeditor of EconLog, lauds the book as full of “gems” and “juicy” insights: “Schuck does a beautiful job of laying out all the problems with government intervention.” But can the state get better results by pursuing more thoughtfully conceived policies designed to compensate for its structural flaws? Schuck believes it can. Many libertarians will disagree — and that debate will enliven our discussion.

A sampling of the book’s argument is here.

Filed under: live in person, regulation and its reform