When two giants in their respective fields get together for a casual conversation, what topics are on the agenda? Listen in as the late George P. Shultz, former Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan, and the late Nobel economist Gary Becker discuss the International Monetary Fund, America’s dependence on oil, micro-lending, demography, immigration, and drugs. The subjects are as relevant today as they were in this 2006 recording, “A Conversation with George P. Shultz and Gary Becker.”

The late George P. Shultz, former Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan, and the late Robert Conquest, former Stanford Research Fellow and noted Soviet researcher, shared anecdotes about their contacts and experiences with the Soviet Union. Both men were impressed with former Soviet President Gorbachev’s candor and intelligence. During a visit to Stanford to see Shultz, Gorbachev talked about an earthquake in Armenia that was of similar severity to one experienced by San Francisco and how all the buildings in Armenia had fallen down – not so in San Francisco. Gorbachev said, “… we can’t get people to build things …

In 1987, David Horowitz, a political activist, author, and founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, sat down with Bob Chitester to talk about his transformation from far left to far right. Born into a family that were members of the Communist Party USA, he spent his youth attending marches and communist summer camps. In the mid-’80s, Horowitz had a final reckoning with his years of doubts about his affiliation with the left and became a conservative. “The best intentions can lead to the worst results,” he wrote in “The Village Voice” in 1986. “I had believed in the left …

This is the third and final hour of a three-part exchange between the late Friedrich von Hayek, economist and Nobel laureate, and the late Leo Rosten, author and social scientist. In this segment, von Hayek evaluates economic trends and comments on the direction in which he believed we were heading at the time. Additionally, von Hayek talks about his very brief foray into psychology, writing a book called “The Sensory Order.” Though not well received, it taught him a great deal on the methodology of science. He later wrote that the theory of complex phenomena is equally the product of …