The Free To Choose Network Blog

Do Businesses Really Need to Be Socially Responsible?

May 15th, 2026FreeToChooseNetwork0 Comments

You’ve probably seen the headlines. Data center construction projects face protests and legal challenges from residents worried about noise, water usage, and property values. Social media platforms defend themselves in court against claims they’ve failed to protect teenagers from harmful content. Every major corporate expansion seems to trigger questions about environmental impact, community displacement, and social responsibility. And amid all this clamor, it’s a question that bears thinking about: What is the social responsibility of a business? And of course, there’s a bare legal minimum that needs to be met. Was the property acquired through legal means? Is the marketing …

Episode 265 – Will Federal Government Debt Destroy the Dollar? (Podcast)

Today’s podcast is titled “Will Federal Government Debt Destroy the Dollar?” First recorded in 2024, host Dennis McCuistion is joined by David Walker, former U.S. Comptroller General and head of the Government Accountability Office, for a discussion about America’s mounting fiscal crisis as federal debt reaches $34 trillion and threatens the nation’s economic future. Walker emphasizes that the real concern isn’t just the debt amount but the debt-to-GDP ratio, which stands at 120% and is projected to reach 192% within 30 years. Listen now, and don’t forget to subscribe to get updates for the Free To Choose Media Podcast.

Is It Greed to Keep What You’ve Earned?

April 29th, 2026FreeToChooseNetwork0 Comments

There’s a certain type of argument that surfaces whenever someone does well for themselves. You know the one. The successful business owner, the surgeon, the software engineer who took a risk on a startup that paid off. They’re making good money, maybe even great money, and someone inevitably steps forward to say: “Sure, but do they really need all that? Isn’t it a little greedy to keep so much when others have so little?” The framing is tidy. Almost intuitive. After all, if someone has more than they need and refuses to share, that sounds an awful lot like the …

Demis Hassabis on Solving the Whole Problem at Once

April 27th, 2026FreeToChooseNetwork0 Comments

Every entrepreneur faces decisions about scope. Should you start small and test the concept? Build infrastructure for gradual expansion? The conventional wisdom says yes—move incrementally, validate as you go, scale carefully over time. Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind and 2024 Nobel Prize winner, took a different approach when his team solved one of biology’s biggest challenges. “So proteins are what everything in your body relies on. They make biology possible and living possible. And what’s important about them is their 3D structure,” Hassabis explains in the interview below. “So in the body, they fold up into kind of 3D …

Episode 264 – Can We Fix Our Immigration Policies? (Podcast)

Today’s podcast is titled “Can We Fix Our Immigration Policies?” Joining host Jim Falk are three immigration policy experts—David Bier, Associate Director of Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute; Lora Ries, Director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border and Immigration Center; and Dany Bahar, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Associate Professor at Brown University—to examine America’s immigration system, unchanged since 1986. Recorded in 2024, they debate whether the U.S. should expand legal immigration pathways as birth rates decline, how to address unauthorized border crossings, and whether America is losing its competitive edge in attracting skilled workers. Listen now, …

Does Capitalism Run on Greed?

April 21st, 2026FreeToChooseNetwork0 Comments

Greed. The word carries a wealth (pun very much intended) of meaning with it. It’s considered to be one of the seven Deadly Sins. It’s the hungry, avaricious desire for more, particularly when you already have plenty. And it’s almost always used in a way that directs that impulse at material wealth. Money, most commonly. More than that, the word greed connotes a callous sort of selfishness that, at a minimum, disregards the wants and well-being of others or, more commonly, is outright hostile to them. It’s also a word we hear a lot these days. Aside from the Hollywood …

Episode 263 – Global Power in the Age of AI (Podcast)

Today’s podcast is titled “Global Power in the Age of AI.” Featuring Dr. Paul Scharre, Executive Vice President and Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security and author of Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence about the US-China race for AI dominance, this episode from 2023 explores whether democracies can counter China’s long-term strategic thinking and the growing export of techno-authoritarian surveillance systems to over 80 countries worldwide. Join host Jim Falk, president emeritus of the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth and Dr.Scharre as they discuss technological advancements and its effects on …

Taxes Always Change Behavior

April 2nd, 2026FreeToChooseNetwork0 Comments

What would you do if you had a bigger budget? Maybe you really would have taken that vacation, upgraded your running shoes, or bought steak instead of ground beef if you’d had room in your budget to do it. But if you don’t, well, those options are removed. Individuals are constrained by the limits of their resources, full stop. Taxation tightens those constraints even further. As we mentioned in our last post, every tax changes behavior. When you tax something, you get less of it. Tax income, and people work less or find ways to shield their earnings. Tax investments, …

Episode 262 – Do Authoritarians Rule the World? – Part Two (Podcast)

Today’s podcast is titled “Do Authoritarians Rule the World? – Part Two” Recorded in 2023, Dennis McCuistion, former Clinical Professor of Corporate Governance and Executive Director of the Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance at the University of Texas at Dallas, Barbara Kolm, Ph.D., Director, The Austrian Economics Center and President of the Friedrich August von Hayek Institute, and Robert Salinas Leon, Ph.D., Director, Center for Latin America at Atlas Network and President of the Mexico Business Forum continue their discussion about authoritarianism and autocracy and its real-world consequences and potential remedies, using case studies from Argentina, Russia, China, and …

Daniela Amodei on Self-Awareness: The Leadership Skill Nobody Teaches

March 20th, 2026FreeToChooseNetwork0 Comments

Every entrepreneur hits the same wall eventually: you realize you can’t be good at everything. You’re brilliant at product vision but terrible at operations. Or you’re a natural salesperson who freezes when looking at spreadsheets. The instinct is to fix your weaknesses, to become the complete founder who can do it all. Daniela Amodei, co-founder and president of Anthropic, spent 15 years learning the opposite lesson. In her conversation at Stanford’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series, which you can watch below, she makes a case that most business advice ignores: knowing what you’re bad at matters more than trying to fix …