Socialism Sucks ― Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World

The bastard step-child of Milton Friedman and Anthony Bourdain, Socialism Sucks is a bar-crawl through former, current, and wannabe socialist countries around the world. Free market economists Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell travel to countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, and Sweden to investigate the dangers and idiocies of socialism—while drinking a lot of beer.

Robert Lawson holds the Jerome M. Fullinwider Endowed Centennial Chair in Economic Freedom and is the director of the William J. O'Neil Center for Global Markets and Freedom at the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Cox School of Business. Dr. Lawson is a founding co-author of the Economic Freedom of the World (Fraser Institute) series of annual reports, which presents an economic freedom index for over 160 countries. The report is cited frequently in the international press including in The Economist. Lawson has also written or edited two books and over 90 journal articles, book chapters, and policy studies. His popular writing has appeared in the Dallas Morning News, Investors Business Daily, The Columbus Dispatch, and numerous other outlets.

Benjamin Powell is the director of the Free Market Institute and a professor of economics in the Rawls College of Business Administration at Texas Tech University. He is the author or editor of five books and the author of more than 75 scholarly articles and policy studies. His research findings have been reported in more than 100 popular press outlets, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. His popular writing has appeared in Investor's Business Daily, The Financial Times (London), the Christian Science Monitor, and many large city newspapers. He has appeared on numerous radio and television outlets, including CNN, MSNBC, Showtime, CNBC, and he was a regular guest commentator on FOX Business Network's Stossel and Freedom Watch.