Hello and welcome to another episode of the City Journal podcast.

I'm your host, Raphael Mangual, and I am joined by my brilliant colleague Alison Schrager.

Allison, thank you so much for being on the show.

Welcome.

I'm so excited to be here.

I'm a big fan and always wondered why you never asked me before. So now I hear I am. Oh, we've been dying to have you on. We've been dying to have you on. I'm sorry we're not doing this in the studio. Unfortunately, we had some technical difficulties. So this is one of the few episodes that we're going to be doing remotely. But I think we're going to have a fantastic conversation.

Before we get into that conversation, you all who are listening and watching,

please do be sure to like, comment, and subscribe to the show.

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But, you know, we really want your help with the algorithm.

So make sure you click all those

buttons right now before you listen to this episode. But with that said, I want to jump in

to our conversation. And the way that I kind of want to set it up is, you know, a lot of times

I'm asked to make comments on different policy questions in the media.

And I'm often described, not just with my official title, but with the Manhattan Institute being described as kind of a right of center think tank or a conservative think tank.

And we've been doing this series called Who We Are, where we're kind of talking about different policy areas that the Manhattan Institute and that City Journal has been covering over the years. And of course, this episode is going to be on economics. And so I just wanted to start with a question of like, what does it mean to be conservative on economics versus liberal? You often hear people say, you know, who are kind of middle of the rotors will say, you know, I'm conservative on the economy, but I'm liberal on social policy. Well, what does that mean to be conservative on the economy? That's actually a really good question. And like maybe 10 years ago, it wouldn't have been because it would have just been like free markets, small government, low debt. But, I mean, there's actually, I think, a debate amongst conservatives around what that means now.

I mean, you have generally not economists, people who call themselves conservatives saying that, you know, arguing for maybe a bigger role in government.

I think still they make some good points that I think traditional free market economists like

myself really need to internalize and consider.

But I still consider it, you know, what we want, what everyone wants, I guess, is more

...