Event

Food for thought with Iain Murray

This event hosted by UK think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs discusses the state of the US constitution and the civil wars engulfing both parties.

A Republic, If You Can Keep It: The state of the US constitution and the civil wars engulfing both parties

When Ben Franklin was asked what kind of government the American constitutional convention of 1787 had produced he replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” He knew from history that republics had a tendency to collapse either into monarchy or mob rule. Yet for almost 250 years the American Republic has carried on, even surviving a brutal civil war.

Today, the Republic is in question once again. Some on the right want Caesarism, while others on the left want a socialist state. Post-liberal theorists suggest that America’s founding principles were immoral, while a new left considers America to have been founded on slavery and racism.

Can America’s vaunted checks and balances withstand these new pressures? How robust are the three branches of government, or the principle of federalism? And what do the civil wars over policy currently engulfing both political parties tell us about the future?

Iain Murray, a British citizen who has worked in the DC think tank world since 1998 and a leader in the “Freedom Conservative” movement, will give us his views on these questions and compare them to the forces straining British and European political institutions at the same time.

About the Speaker

Mr. Murray is Vice President for Strategy and senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Murray also directs the Center for Economic Freedom. He is the author of the best-selling books, “The Really Inconvenient Truths,” “Stealing You Blind: How Government Fat Cats Are Getting Rich Off of You,” and “The Socialist Temptation.” He has written extensively on free markets and the environment, labor policy, finance, the EU, and trade. He tweets at @ismurray and is a contributor to The Daily Economy blog.

Before coming to CEI, Iain was Director of Research at the Statistical Assessment Service. A former civil servant in the United Kingdom, Iain immigrated to the U.S. in 1997 and remains a British citizen. He holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of London and a Master of Arts from the University of Oxford. He is married with two children and lives in Northern Virginia.

About the Series

This will be the next instalment in our monthly Food for Thought series, hosted in partnership with the Vinson Centre at the University of Buckingham. The purpose of this series is to foster high-level academic discussion on themes within the classical liberal tradition, touching on economics, philosophy, history, law, and related disciplines. In turn, we hope to form a community of academics, policymakers, professionals, and students united by the exchange of ideas and life-long learning.