Longtime North Texas libertarian activist Ed Kless is more than the current Chair of the Collin County Libertarian Party; since July he has been a radio talk show host on the VoiceAmerica Talk Radio Network’s Business Channel.
His show, co-hosted with Ron Baker, is called “The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy” and is broadcast live every Friday at 1 PM Pacific Time. On December 19, 2014 the pair pulled off a major coup with their Interview of Hoover Institution economist Dr. Thomas Sowell.
“While not explicitly libertarian,” Kless told Dallas Libertarian Examiner, “we deal with entrepreneurismand Austrian economics quite a bit.” Here’s more from Ed Kless in this exclusive interview.
How and when did you get involved in this?
Ron Baker, an author and top 100 influencer in the CPA community was approached last July to develop a show for VoiceAmerica. As Ron and I have work extensively together delivering professional education programs for businesspeople, he asked me to co-host with him as he felt the show would be more interesting as a dialogue than a monologue.
What topics do you cover?
Our show is dedicated to the possibility that business, specifically, entrepreneurial businesses continue the work of creation and they, in a sense have a soul. This soul is often times lost as businesses lose their focus on creating value for their customers and instead focus on soul-less management techniques and processes rather than on the humans that make up both the businesses and are customers of the businesses. For example, efficiency gurus, bean counters, tend to look exclusively at the numbers and forget about the people, the souls if you will, of the business. Management practices like timesheets and annual performance reviews rob both managers and their teams of their humanity. We fight to restore this.
How did you land the Thomas Sowell interview?
The short answer is we just asked. The longer answer is that Ron was very persistent in trying to get Dr. Sowell on the show. He emailed and called his assistant many times and when Dr. Sowellâs updated treatise, Basic Economics, was released in its fifth edition the timing was just right.
Who were other big guests besides Sowell?
In addition to Dr. Sowell we have had Prof. Deirdre McCloskey, author of many books on economics including her three, soon to be four, volume Bourgeois series. We have also had Father Robert Sirico, president and co-founder of the Acton Institute (and brother of Tony Sirico of Sopranos fame); Rabbi Daniel Lapin, author and radio host himself; Rory Sutherland, vice chair of Ogilvy Group in the UK and top TEDtalk speaker.
Do you do other non-interview shows?
Yes, actually most of our shows are just Ron and myself.
What has been your favorite show so far?
This is a very hard question as the shows are almost like children to us. I would say that if I could only listen to one show it would be the interview with Professor McCloskey. Her thesis that the great enrichment (period from 1800 until today) came about due to a change in the language used to speak about the Bourgeoisie with dignity is absolutely fascinating. It can be found on iTunes
See the official article at The Examiner by Gary Reed Here.
