This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, September 21st, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The right to earn an honest living isn't one that we should really have to assert as a constitutional right, but then again, Americans

must regularly assert their right to speak freely without government interference.

So goes economic liberty as well.

Tim Sandifer is principal attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation and an adjunct scholar

at the Cato Institute.

He is author of the new Cato book The Right to Earn a Living, economic freedom, and the law.

Unfortunately, because since at least the 1930s, American courts at the federal and state level have turned their back on this fundamental aspect of liberty

and have allowed legislatures to intrude on it in a variety of ways.

And the result of that has been that most lawyers and judges and law professors today regard the very idea

that you have economic liberty as ridiculous.

The idea is prevailing in law schools today is that the right to

engage in a lawful occupation or the right to earn money for your for your work

at whatever rate you demand or the right to set your own

make your own decisions as what hours you'll work or what vacation you want that

those are all privileges that government gives you and government can redistribute

wealth and opportunities to serve whatever the elected officials think would be a good idea.

Where do we see this most in terms of occupations at the state level?

There's basically, historically there's been a division division there's been certain kinds of professions learned professions like lawyers

Doctors and so forth and then there's been what we're called calming occupations and common occupations are

Trades that you can learn fairly quickly.

...